Khaelor goes entirely rigid, and with a deafening roar, he swings his empty hand. He does not strike me. He slams his massive, corrupted fist directly into the ironwood paneling of the wall.
The timber explodes. A shockwave of pure, black-gold decay instantly vaporizes the wood, tearing a jagged, smoking crater into the masonry.
"No!" he snarls, spinning back to me, his amber eyes completely swallowed by the blackened pupil. He grabs the heavy leather of my tunic, hauling me flush against his chest, the broadsword dropping to the stone floor with a heavy clang. "You do not just get to dictate the terms of your penance! You do not buy your absolution with a cheap, sacrificial death!"
"It is the only way to save you!" I shout, my hands grabbing his wrists, desperately trying to anchor myself against the devastating gravity of his wrath. "If they breach the central hall, they will use me to detonate the estate! Let me fix what I broke!"
"I said no!" The heat from his chest is blistering, a furious, agonizing contradiction. He holds me like a sworn enemy, but his grip is a desperate, inescapable cage. "I will not trade my freedom for your suicide. You will stay alive, Purna. You will stay alive and you will suffer this rotting tomb with me until I decide your debt is paid!"
"The court is the enemy outside these walls, Khaelor! Let me end the war!"
"You are the war!" he roars, his face inches from mine, the scent of dark spice and weaponized magic suffocating me.
Before I can scream the argument back into his face, the surroundings violently heaves.
A cataclysmic, concussive boom detonates directly beneath our boots. The impact is so severe it throws us both off balance, Khaelor’s arms instinctively tightening around me to keep me from striking the floor. The vaulted ceiling in the bedchamber groans in absolute agony.
A secondary explosion rings out, followed by the undeniable, terrifying screech of tearing metal and collapsing stone.
The Vanguard has breached the first floor.
Khaelor releases my tunic, snatching the broadsword from the floor in a single, fluid motion. The argument is over. The luxury of our bitter, desperate conflict dissolves into the immediate, brutal fight for survival.
"Move," he commands, his voice a dead, metallic rasp. "Or we die in this room."
24
KHAELOR
The very bones of Venn Manor shriek.
It is a literal, agonizing howl tearing through the masonry as Vanguard siege engines pulverize the ward-stones in the grand vestibule. The heavy, anchoring gold light threaded through the walls, chokes and dies, drowning the corridors in the sickening, necrotic violet of my own starving curse.
"They have breached the threshold." The words drag from my throat, a rusted rasp against the ringing quiet of the bedchamber. I don’t look at the woman standing a few paces away. I cannot look at her without the monster chained in my marrow thrashing against my ribs, screaming for her blood. "To unleash the manor's wrath and slaughter this invasion, we must reach the heart-stone deep in the catacombs. We must feed the wards ourselves."
I turn, my broadsword gripped so tightly my knuckles bleach white against the dark leather wrapping. I step over the splintered remains of the oak door and into the upper corridor.
The atmosphere is a suffocating shroud. Thick, acrid smoke rolls across the ceiling, carrying the distinct, sour stench ofcopper—the scent of null-iron magic. The Vanguard is inside the house.
The Purna follows me. Her boots are silent on the salt-rimed marble, but her presence drags against me. Meriya. She is still her despite her being Purna.
I force the connection away, burying the agonizing devotion I feel for her beneath a suffocating layer of ice. She is the architect of this ruin. She is the enemy. I must repeat it until I believe it. I ignore her.
We reach the top of the spiraling servant’s stairwell. The descent is pitched in absolute darkness, the lumen-orbs shattered by the concussive blasts.
I smell them before I see them.
Three Vanguard enforcers are ascending the narrow stone steps, their heavy dark-steel armor scraping against the walls. They carry null-iron halberds, the anti-magic metal humming with a suppressive frequency that instantly makes the black-gold ichor beneath my skin burn.
I do not hesitate. I cannot unleash a full, untethered shockwave of my necrotic rot in this confined space without collapsing the entire stairwell and crushing us both. It requires absolute, agonizing precision.
I step past the curve of the wall, dropping directly into their path.
The lead enforcer thrusts his halberd upward. I parry the heavy strike with my broadsword, the steel ringing a deafening clash. As the weapons bind, I slide my empty, left hand forward, bypassing the shaft of his weapon, and press my bare palm directly against the center of his breastplate.
I unleash a concentrated surge of absolute decay.
The dark-steel armor does not bend; it instantly liquefies into a glowing, hissing slag. The enforcer’s scream is cut short as the corrosive magic burns straight through his chest cavity. I ripmy hand back, kicking his collapsing form down the stairs into his comrades.
