Stonewake is dying,she thought.Not even the gods can save hernow.
Behind her, the surviving Reskala slumped against the walls, some clutching tourniquets, some clutching prayer beads, some simply staring at nothing. Their chants had long faded. There was no air left for chanting. No soul, either. Just resignation. The knowledge that this was the end of the line.
Thessia swallowed hard and turned.
Kailorien knelt near the center of the chamber, a pillar of blood and runes and restraint. He held Auryn tight against his chest, arms locked around her struggling frame. She looked dead. Pale, limp except for the moments when she found strength to fight the Resh'Agar's grip. Silver veins pulsed beneath her skin. The freckles on her face and shoulders glowed like her body was turning into starlight and raw mana all at once.
“Auryn,” he murmured, voice ragged. “Stay with me.”
She pressed her shaking hands against his forearms, pushing, pleading, trying to break free. "I have to close it,” she gasped. “I can reach it—I can still reach it, Kail, please—”
“You’ll die,” he snapped, harsher than she’d ever heard him. “You’ll die, Auryn. Not today. Not like this.”
Another blow against the barricade rattled the pillar beside them. Zarrek stepped away from the door, armor cracked, blood streaming down one cheek. He joined Thessia in the thin band of flickering torchlight, voice low.
“We’re Repurposed, Thess,” he said. Not to the room—to her.
Only her.
“We’re not getting out of this. All of us…you know what we are. But you…you weren’t made for this grave. You should have had more time. ”
Thessia's stomach churned.
Repurposed. She hardly knew a thing about the Crystal City, but that word had gotten around.
The unwanted.
The broken.
The returned-to-service because they had nothing worth reclaiming.
Zarrek had told her about the Mandate. She still couldn't believe it. And maybe these fools, the Reskala, believed in their damned Destroyer enough to let Resh slit their throats.
But Auryn—
Auryn was different.
Thessia’s gaze fell on her again. Frail-looking. Hair like spun moonfire. And yet, Thessia had seen her descend from the heavens on a war-steed blazing with starlight. She had seen her reshape a battlefield in one breath. She had seen the way Resh looked at her—as if she were the last truth in a world built on lies.
She had seen something else, too.
Something she didn’t dare speak aloud.
Violet eyes see farther,her mother used to whisper at her bedside.We remember what others forget.
No one remembered what that saying meant anymore. But Thessia did. Deep in her marrow, she knew. The lineage she came from—the daughters born to her line—had always been watched. Protected. Not by kings or gods, but by something older. A shadow in the sky with wings like duskfire and eyes like storms. The Riven, her grandmother called him. The half-myth. The guardian of their line.
Thessia wasn’t sure she believed all of it. But she believed the girl before her mattered.
To the world.
To the fate of their bloodline.
To a future Thessia would never see.
But most of all—gods damn it—she mattered toher.
Another impact slammed the barricade. The beam cracked. A few Reskala flinched; one began to sob until Zarrek laid a heavy hand on his shoulder to steady him.
