“No,” he agreed, and this time he smiled true. “But I’m glad I am.”
We reached the edge of the border path, the gray sky stretching above into where the world beyond waited in its stillness.
I reached out with my other hand, fingers finding his shoulder, grounding us both for one fragile moment. “I see you, Wells. Everything you’re becoming. And I’m so damn proud of you. We all are.” My throat tightened. “Your parents would be proud too.”
He nodded. “Then maybe it’s time I finally stop hiding.”
Callum straightened from his crouch, dragging a hand down his face. “Alright—” His stare tracked from Ronan, to Killian, to me, waiting until every attention caught his. “Eyes up, ears open.”
“Oh!” Ford sprang up from the stone. “Here comes the pep talk, everyone. Try to look inspired.”
Callum didn’t dignify him with another glance.
The horizon of Ryuu extended beyond him, obsidian peaks and thick clouds. Though my stare was fixed on the border ahead. The wall of Nyctom.
It loomed before us, a barricade of dark magic where the ward shimmered like smoke trapped behind glass. No sound. No life. Just that curtain of shadow. But something had fractured it, leaving a single, jagged rip through its skin. Nothing bled from it, no force leaked through; whatever power had once lived there was long drained by the Bale.
“The second we cross that barrier, our magic is gone. Every drop of it.” Callum’s boots ground into gravel as he paced. I’ve felt that vulnerability before. “Ronan will still be able to shift, and Verena,” I jerked my head toward him, “you may or may not be able to summon the Viper.”
Yay, me.
“But beyond that,” he continued, “we’re blind. Mortal. Any injury that would’ve healed in seconds will kill you in moments.” He let the silence hang, just long enough for the gravity to sink in.
Then Ronan spoke, a growl softened by purpose. “Our priority is still the heir. They could be in the mountains, caves, even underground. But we start with the fallen palace.”
“Why the palace?” Nezra stepped forward, raven nestled on her shoulder.
Ronan kept his eyes on the rip, waiting for something, anything, to rush from it. “Because power remembers where it was born. And if the heir’s still breathing, that’s where their blood will have called them home.”
Callum nodded once, drawing his sword, the steel flashing dimly under the fading sun. “Be smart,” he ordered. “Be silent. Be swift. We are stronger, but they are many.” He turned, eyes narrowing at the rift’s edge. “And they already know we’re coming.” The wind howled, dragging the last of his words into the void, and from deep within it, something whispered back.
I cut in before the dread in his speech could sink its teeth and hold. “Remember, magic doesn’t define our strength.” I turned, meeting every set of eyes that waited for what came next. “We lived eighteen years as mortals before any of us ever felt that rush, and we survived it. We’ve fought our way through worse than what’s waiting across that border.”
My dagger spun between my fingers, a streak of glinting silver. “So, swallow the fear trying to slither out of your throat. It’s not welcome here. You are in control. Obrann thinks we’ll falter. He thinks we’ll break—” I smiled. “Maybe, once, we would have. But not anymore. Not today.”
The blade caught the glow of a dying sun as I lifted it, aimed at each one of them. “We are warriors. We are theOnrathen. And today, we are all Selvarra’s saviors. And that,” my palm pressed against my heart, “is something no curse, no king, no God can smother.”
The bond flared, Ronan’s pride flooding me in a rush before it reached his face. The way he beheld me then was as if I’d just set the world ablaze. I looked back, my gaze sweeping the line of them. My family, blood or not. Faces carved by loss, lit by a promise stronger than what it left.
What bound us now wasn’t just pain or survival. It was choice. The relentless, quiet decision to keep standing.
Beneath the flash of dread in my chest, another feeling rose. Hope. Because no matter what came next, no matter what we lost, I knew then we would keep moving forward.
Even if it burned us.
For a pause when everything stilled, I was proud. Of them. Of us. Of myself. I let myselffeel. Because for the first time, the world we wanted, the one worth dying for, felt possible.
But then the air shifted.
That delicate hum down the bond, Ronan’s warmth, his faith, it fractured. The mask slipped, oil spilling back across the tether where silk once wove between us when that darkness made of venom heard them before I did. Before my own eyes could witness.
That death had finally come. And it blew out the flame in my soul before it could even finish igniting.
Wells staggered first.
A single, trembling step. His eyes, soft brown, shattered to black. A strangled sound crawled from his throat as his hand shook around the shaft buried in his heart.
Then silence.
