The roof caved with a thunderous crack, beams splitting, timbers snapping like brittle bones. Smoke and dust swallowed everything as the structure collapsed inward. Crates shattered. Hay ignited. A second blast of splinters and debris roared through the air.
And then—
Silence.
Chapter 20
Violette
The barn groaned like a wounded animal, beams bending and splintering under the weight of the explosion. Smoke belched into the sky in thick, black ribbons, and then, with a gut-deep shudder, the entire structure collapsed inward.
Wood snapped. Flames flickered. Dust swallowed everything in its path.
The barn was gone.
Violette didn’t move. Didn’t blink. Her crossbow remained raised, gripped in hands so tight her knuckles had gone pale. She kept her stance firm, her face unreadable, but her chest was tight, her lungs burning as if the smoke had reached her out here in the open air.
Rell.
The name sliced through her armor of control.Not him. Not now. Not like this.Her jaw clenched, but she didn’t let the fear show. She never did. Fear was leverage. It made your hands shake, made you hesitate. She had trained too long to let it surface now.
Beside her, Symond wasn’t holding together nearly as well.
“Do you think they…?” His voice was rough. Hesitant. The bitterness he usually wore like armor had fallen away, leaving something quieter. Something almost vulnerable. “Do you think they’re all dead?”
Violette didn’t answer.
He kept going. “Rell, Elora, Fane—”
A sharp crack cut him off as the rubble shifted.
Violette’s heart lurched.
Through the haze of smoke and falling ash, something massive rose from the wreckage. Slabs of broken timber and warped iron slid off thick, armored shoulders. Fane. Alive. Bloodied, dust-covered, but unmistakably still standing.
Symond stumbled back a step, his voice low with disbelief. “How the hell is he still—?”
“Aloyt steel,” Violette said. “It’s been reinforced. Alchemically, probably custom. That’s why my bolts didn’t pierce. That armor’s built to survive the impossible.”
Symond swore under his breath, reaching for another weapon, but there was doubt in his movements now. She could see it, he was scared. And if he was scared, that meant she had to be calm enough for both of them.
She reloaded her crossbow, sliding a bolt into place. Her hands trembled, just slightly, but her aim was steady when she raised the weapon again and leveled it at Fane’s head.
“He’s not invincible,” she said. “So, we keep trying.”
Fane spotted them then. His gaze locked with hers, and a slow smirk crawled across his face. He held out his arms as if daring her to fire.
Violette’s finger tensed on the trigger until the light changed.
The moon dimmed.
Not from clouds.
A massive shadow passed overhead, cutting across the field. The hairs on her arms rose, and for the first time tonight, Violette felt a flicker of awe.
Above them, silent and sudden, a creature unfurled from the night sky—sleek and dark, speckled with flecks of star-like shimmer. Its wings stretched impossibly wide, catching the moonlight with an iridescent glow that shimmered like the aurora. It glided in low and let out a deep, unearthly growl that rolled across the field like thunder.
“What the—” Symond started, but his voice trailed into silence as he stared.
