The Viper rose, a shiver up my spine, a hiss in my skull, slick and venomous.Finally.
My vision stuttered, color draining until all that remained was red. Blood on the grass. Blood on my hands.
I felt Ronan through the bond, a distant roar of panic and power, trying to reach me, to anchor me. But it was too late.
Misery had already found its weapon.
Magic cracked like a whip through the air, tearing through Ford’s barrier as the ground quaked and two silhouettes emerged from the fume-drenched horizon.
At first, it felt like a fever dream.
Then it became a nightmare as Obrann stepped into view, his skin leached of life, oil-slick hair plastered to his skull and that same foul grin clinging to his hollow face.
Beside him, Reve.
They approached slowly, casually, as if time bowed to them alone. Reve lifted a hand and waved, actuallywaved, through the trembling shield. That smirk said it all.I see you. I’m coming.
Ronan was barely contained against me, smoke waiting at his feet, his jaw set in a lethal resolve as his eyes went dragon dark. I could taste the axis of his fury in my lungs.
Then Obrann lifted his hand where the three black rings still sat, pulsing with a violet haze. It struck the air, and the world convulsed, magic recoiling, a live wire snapping as light and power collided. The sour sting of nix metal choked the air before it settled. Before all magic shattered and soldiers poured in from behind them.
Ronan was already moving, command cutting through the chaos. “Kanoa. Inessa—” A sift cracked open behind them as he placed his heirloom intoInessa’s hands, and hesitated, just long enough for me to see it. “Warn Aero,” he said.
Inessa nodded, and they vanished, gone in a blur.
The instant they disappeared, Ford’s shield collapsed. And hel came undone.
Ronan’s roar broke across the peaks, blades tearing through the first wave of soldiers. Elysian flickered between forms beside him, ivory fur flashing back to Fae as he carved a path through armored throats.
Callum’s fire sputtered, strangled by the nix, but the rage in his eyes was bright. Killian was a streak of motion as he laughed, cutting through the madness. And through it all, Reve weaved into the fray, his smile wide, unbothered,amused. Every strike they dealt only seemed to entertain him.
And me? I didn’t move.
Because Obrann wasn’t fighting. He stood perfectly still as shadows formed behind him. Darkness. Not the kind born of absence, but of intent. It rose, the air bending around its shape.
The bond went cold. Then Ronan stopped. Just…stopped. His blade dipped toward the ground, his chest heaving once as his stare locked beyond Obrann’s shoulder. I followed it, looking back to Obrann—
I saw her…and knew. The sickly, sunken skin. The black, hollow eyes. The scent of blood on her nails—fresh layered over old. There was no mistaking who she was.
Isolde moved through the carnage untouched, like the chaos had learned to fear her.
Ronan’s inhale broke the space between us. It moved down the bond. A pulse of disbelief. A flare of rage, what felt like regret, and something awfully close to terror.
Through that, a name drifted from a voice behind us. Nezra’s. “…Audra?”
She was still on the ground, her hand slick with blood as she clutched the arrow still lodged in her. The wound glowed, but her magic faltered, snapping in weak sparks that died against her skin. Her stare was fixed beyond the fighting, beyond Obrann and Isolde, on a figure standing at the field’s edge, where smoke and ash curled like incense.
A woman stood there, still as a thought not yet spoken. Her hair fell in ink-dark sheets, her skin holding the undertone of dusk. The curve of her mouth could’ve been fixed from sorrow, or delight.
Nezra whispered, “What the fuck—"
Isolde glided toward where I stood and a part of me shifted inside. Not fear, a knowing that wanted to bow or burn. A buried truth had heard its own name for the first time.
Obrann’s soldiers screamed and clashed, Reve’s laughter breaking through the noise, getting closer. But I couldn’t look away. Isolde keptmoving, unhurried, a muted call coming off her lips. And that thing living inside me followed the sound of her.
Behind me, Ronan’s exhale was pure devastation as he said only one word. “Verena...”
I didn’t answer. Icouldn’t. The world had only constricted to her and the distance between us. Obrann faded to nothing; Reve’s laughter became distant.
