Chapter 109

Zelmyra had been born after the Silent War. She’d never seen anything like this. But she knew what they were.

Myrddin.

And she knew how dangerous they were.

“Oh shit,” she breathed.

The tear in the world pulsed - and the black oil poured through. It didn’t linger. It moved. Flowing over the wall, leaping into the mass of soldiers beyond.

And then she felt it.

Pain.

It slammed into her all at once - raw, unfiltered, unbearable. It flooded her senses, choked her breath, twisted her stomach.

This wasn’t truth through pain. There was no lesson here. No meaning. Just suffering. Endless. Pointless. Wrong.

Her brand flared as she swung. Flame bit into the oily mass, searing it. The thing recoiled, writhing as it burned.

It struck back. The mass split apart, erupting into a storm of black tendrils that lashed at her from every direction at once.

Too fast. Too many.

She opened a portal beneath her feet and dropped. Fell. And reappeared across the yard, along with a severed tentacle that still twitched. She snarled and drove her heel down, grinding it into the stone.

It wrapped around her ankle. Stabbed her. Then slipped under her flesh.

Pain exploded in her leg as the thing burrowed beneath her skin, writhing, twisting, forcing its way deeper. Her flesh shifted unnaturally around it, muscles spasming as it crawled.

Her breath hitched. Her Faith ignited.

And then the whispers came. Soft. Close. Comforting.

She shouldn’t have come. She shouldn’t have sought him out. The others warned her.

Her jaw clenched. Her hands shook.

He was dangerous. She knew that. And now she was paying for it.

Anger flared.

Her body trembled as the thing moved inside her, spreading, probing, claiming.

It wasn’t fair. None of this was fair. She hadn’t asked for this. Hadn’t chosen this. And now she was going to die for it? Because of him?

Her lips curled back in a snarl.

If she was going to fall, she wouldn’t fall alone.

Her grip tightened on the brand as fire roared back to life in her veins.

“I’ll take you with me,” she hissed.

The whispers deepened. Welcoming. Certain.

The slayer will suffer.

* * *

Carnage.

I was the bulwark against it.

I planted my feet on the bridge as the Others thundered past on Vel’s wargs, a storm of fur and teeth and claws. They crashed into the orcs and shattered the charge, bodies breaking, lines collapsing under the impact.

It didn’t matter. More came.

They poured forward like water, filling the gaps, climbing over the fallen, charging straight at the bridge.

At me.

I met them head-on.

My claws tore through flesh and sinew, opened throats, split chests. Orcs stumbled, slipped, and fell into the moat below, the water already running red with blood. Others I grabbed and hurled back into their own ranks, tossing them high enough to clear the press behind them before they crashed down.

Still they came.

They were nearly my size. Tall. Broad.

Not enough.

I was broader. Stronger. Faster. Unyielding.

Blades bit into me - shoulder, ribs, legs - but the pain barely registered. Blood ran freely down my skin, hot and thick, but it didn’t slow me. It didn’t matter.

Nothing mattered except holding the line.

Then I felt it.

A low, pulsing hum from behind me. It rattled through my bones, set my teeth on edge. It wasn’t sound so much as pressure. Wrong. Deeply, instinctively wrong.

I didn’t turn. I didn’t have to.

Blackness arced over the walls.

It fell like a hundred buckets of ink thrown into the sky, splashing across the battlefield. It moved the moment it landed - crawling, slithering, jumping from one body to the next.

It **** its way into mouths and noses, burrowed into flesh, into bone. And where it did, the fighting stopped.

Bodies seized, shaking violently. Mouths opened in screams I couldn’t hear over the pounding hum. Blood vessels burst in their eyes, staining the whites red as crimson tears ran down their faces.

Then they went still.

For a heartbeat, they just… stood there. Looking. Like they were seeing the world for the first time.

Then they turned.

Most ignored the ones still fighting - the clean ones.

They charged the bridge. They came for me.

I roared.

Power surged through me - my hair thickening, my muscles swelling, my skin hardening like iron beneath flesh.

They hit me all at once. The impact drove me back, my feet grinding against the wood as I slid inch by inch.

Claws flashed. I tore into them, ripping open chests, shredding throats, knocking bodies aside and into the moat.

It didn’t stop them. Their weapons shattered against me, splintering uselessly.

Still they pressed. Still they pushed.

I dug in. I was Nim. The Bulwark Against Carnage.

My heels stopped sliding.

Wood cracked beneath my feet as I drove forward, throwing my full weight into the tide, holding it, breaking it, forcing it back.

This - this was what I was made for.

I threw my head back and howled.

* * *

Seth was already back in that silvery armor - Adhaneth wrapped around him - when the Myrddin started pouring through the tear like a flood of black filth.

He burned one of them down to nothing, then grabbed me and launched us up to the top of the watchtower like it was nothing. His lips moved, but I couldn’t hear a word over that deep, bone-rattling thrum that swallowed everything. Still, I saw him point at the rift.

I nodded. Yeah. I understood.

Close it.

It was bigger than the last one. Way bigger. Not a crack - more like the world had been torn open and something was forcing its way through.

He fired two blazing orbs into the sky, then dove straight back into the fight without hesitation.

Of course he did.

Down below, the runt-maker bitch who had torn open the world was laughing. I couldn’t hear it, but I could see it in the way her body twisted, in the frantic words crawling over her skin - mine, power, doom, **** - like she was writing her own prophecy.

“We’ll deal with you after,” I muttered.

I reached for the spirits.

They weren’t just unsettled - they were screaming. The tear was ripping through them, through everything. Stone, wind, flesh, soul - it didn’t matter. This thing didn’t belong here. It wasn’t just wrong. It was unmaking.

The spirits pushed back when I touched them, panicked, fraying at the edges.

My will crushed that resistance instantly. “Help me,” I snarled.

They obeyed.

Seth was already moving again, a streak of silver and fire cutting across the battlefield toward the rift.

And then he did it - he jumped straight at the damn thing - just like last time.

I stared for half a second, incredulous. “Are fuckin’ you serious?” I hissed. “What are you, stupid?”

Was this really the man I wanted as the father of my children? Did he just think brute **** solved everything?

I shoved the anger down into the spirits and **** them harder. “Close it!”

They surged against the tear, trying to stitch reality back together, but it was too big. Too unstable.

Seth hit the edge of the rift and started dragging it closed anyway, blasting fire into that impossible void over and over, forcing it to recoil just enough for the spirits to grab hold.

It started to work.

Then the Myrddin fought back.

The tear widened, stretching open like a wound being torn apart again. Black tendrils lashed out, slamming into him, wrapping around the edges and forcing it wider.

“No-” I pushed harder, pouring everything I had into the spirits. My head throbbed, my chest burned, tears streaming down my face as I hammered my will into them again and again. “Close it!”

They strained, buckling under the pressure, but I didn’t let up. I couldn’t.

Seth flared with light - and then he was thrown back, ripped away from the rift.

Adhaneth wasn’t armor anymore. She hovered there instead - wings spread wide, silver and radiant against that churning nightmare. For a brief second, she looked at him.

Then she screamed - a sound that somehow cut through that awful, suffocating thrum.

And she dove straight into the tear.

It collapsed in on itself, folding shut in a violent snap. Gone. Like it had never been there.

Seth screamed. I saw it in the way his body moved, the way he reached for her like he could still pull her back.

And then a black tendril punched through his back and burst out of his chest in a spray of dark blood.

My scream joined his.

* * *

Carnage.

From above, it wasn’t chaos. It was a pattern - shifting, violent, but knowable. A puzzle unfolding in real time as I fell through the air.

The storm-woman had thrown me - cold wind slamming into me hard enough to rip me off my feet and hurl me up and over the wall. For a moment I spun, sky and ground blurring together.

Then I corrected. My wings snapped open. My body twisted. The spin died.

Below me, the battlefield resolved into something I could understand.

Wargs and Others tearing through clusters of soldiers. Orcs crashing into shield lines. Humans bracing, breaking, reforming. It all fit together. Every motion had purpose. A shield rising just in time to catch a blade. An axe turning slightly to glance off armor and bite into bone. Teeth dragging a man down so claws could finish the work. Individuals fought well. Groups fought better.

It made sense.

The ground rushed up to meet me.

I hit hard - my feet slamming into a soldier’s shield, the impact knocking him and the line behind him flat. Before they could recover, I was already moving, carving my way forward. Every strike deliberate. Every motion efficient.

Kill fast. Kill clean.

That’s what He taught us. That’s what I did.

The Others tore through the battlefield nearby, their wargs mauling anything in reach. They were messy - unrefined - but effective. They broke lines. Created openings. Turned order into chaos.

But there were too many enemies. Even they would fall eventually.

Then the hum started.

Low. Deep. Wrong. It swallowed everything. Steel, voices, the sounds of killing - all of it drowned beneath a bone-shaking vibration that made my gums itch and my scales shudder.

And then the black came.

It poured over the wall like a wave, spilling across the battlefield and coating everything it touched. It clung like sap, moved like snakes. It **** its way into mouths and noses, slid beneath eyelids, tore open flesh just to burrow deeper.

The soldiers seized. Their bodies locked, faces twisted into silent screams. Veins bulged. Eyes bled red. Blood ran down their cheeks in slow, steady trails.

Then they stopped.

For a moment, they just stood there, looking around like they’d forgotten where they were.

Then they moved again.

Different. Their motions were off - jerky, uncertain, like they were learning how to use their bodies for the first time. But they adapted quickly. And when they struck, it was precise. Blades no longer bounced off shields. They slipped around defenses, found gaps in armor, cut deep. Soldiers who should have held their ground fell in moments.

Many of them ignored the living. They surged forward instead. Toward the gate. Toward Nim. Toward Him. Toward our home.

I moved.

Up, over, through - claws finding purchase wherever they could. I climbed over bodies, leapt from shield to helmet to back, wings driving me forward. Each beat carried me farther, faster, closer to the tide that threatened everything.

I roared. Silver fire poured from my mouth, washing over them in burning waves. It slowed them. Charred flesh. Blackened limbs. But it wasn’t enough.

Not yet.

That didn’t matter. I was Thaeramyris - Calculated Destruction - the Architect of the Perfect Kill.

I would not stop until they did.

This - this was what I was made for.

I threw my head back and howled.