Chapter 110

Solenna’s fire crashed against Yveth’s ice again and again, steam hissing into the air as heat and cold warred for dominance.

“This is not the way,” Yveth called, her voice carrying even through the chaos. “Listen to reason. Elyndra has led you astray.”

“We both saw Seth take Dromaia’s Faith,” Solenna snapped back, flames curling tighter around her arms. “Do not take me for a fool.”

“Seth did not destroy her. Elyndra was there. Elyndra has been lying.”

“Impossible,” Solenna said, her tone sharp and unyielding. “She can lie no more than you can boil water. I have heard her words. I found no falsehood.”

Yveth felt the truth settle in her chest like ice. This was hopeless.

The High Witan was blind - blinded by pride, by certainty, by the belief that they could not be wrong. It was one of the reasons she had never joined them.

After Arthyr died, everything fractured. The balance he’d held together shattered, and the world followed. Gods turned on gods. Mortals were dragged into conflicts they didn’t understand, used as tools in struggles for power. Wars simmered constantly, sometimes flaring into open bloodshed when tension snapped.

Brand had been born of that escalation - a weapon shaped by the High Witan. A man pulled from another world, infused with Faith, molded into something capable of killing gods.

And now there was Seth. Not the same. Not a weapon. A god.

One with untapped potential that set him high above the others. Not bound to a single aspect like the others. Not fractured into two like she was. He carried pieces of all of them - shared their aspects - threads of their Faith woven into something new. Something they didn’t understand. Something that frightened them.

Maybe they didn’t even realize it yet.

But she did. And now they were trying to destroy him.

The one person who had shown her she was more than sorrow. The only one who had reached her in all the long, empty years since Arthyr’s ****. The only one she had come to care for.

The only one she loved.

War was rising again. She could feel it - same as before. The same edge, the same tension just before everything broke. She had lived through the Silent War. She knew what came next.

If Seth fell, the world would follow.

“Now we will see who is the greater god!” Nyssira’s voice cut through it all.

Yveth almost missed it.

Solenna didn’t.

The Burning Crown’s attention snapped to the parchment-skinned goddess, to the tear ripping open above them, to the impossible space bleeding through. The Interstitium howled into the world, that terrible, all-consuming vibration swallowing every other sound.

And the Myrddin came with it.

For the first time, Solenna faltered. Real fear crossed her face - sharp and unmistakable. She had survived the Silent War too. She knew what those things were.

Her focus shifted. And Yveth let her.

Solenna was not the enemy. Neither was Aurelion. Nor the High Witan. Nor the God-Kings.

The enemy was the black tide spilling into the world.

Yveth gathered ice around her, drawing it tight before sending it outward in jagged waves. The freezing surge slammed into the Myrddin as they poured over the walls, locking them in place, slowing their spread - but not stopping it.

She stepped forward anyway.

Blades of ice formed in her hands as she moved beside Solenna without a word. Fire and frost cut in tandem, carving through the horrors as they came. One fell. Then another. Then a third.

Still they kept coming.

Seth moved through the chaos like something unleashed - fire and steel tearing the Myrddin apart wherever he went. He didn’t slow, didn’t hesitate.

Then he leapt straight at the tear.

Yveth’s heart lurched. It was too large. Too unstable. There was no way brute **** would hold it closed. But he tried anyway.

Of course he did.

He slammed into the edge, pouring fire into the void, dragging the wound in reality shut inch by inch.

It wasn’t enough.

Silver light flared and he was thrown back, crashing to the ground and sliding to a stop.

Adhaneth stood where he had been. Her wings unfurled, silver and radiant against the tearing dark. She met Seth’s eyes, and in that moment Yveth felt it - recognition, grief, something old and aching.

Then Adhaneth screamed and dove into the tear.

It collapsed in on itself, folding shut in a violent implosion. The hum vanished. Sound rushed back all at once - the clash of battle, the screams, the thunder of thousands of feet.

“Adhaneth!”

Yveth reached for her, as if she could still pull her back, as if it hadn’t already happened.

But she was gone. Her one time friend. Her one time lover. Gone.

Yveth’s vision blurred as tears filled her eyes. She looked to Seth and saw the same motion, the same reaching, the same hollow loss.

A Myrddin rose behind him. It struck. A black tendril slammed into his back and burst out through his chest.

Yveth’s scream tore free-

-and something hit her from behind.

Her body locked, her face frozen in a silent cry as her Faith wrenched violently inside her.

“Poor Yveth,” a voice whispered at her ear. “Always losing what you desire most.”

Nyssira.

Her voice was wrong - too sweet, too smooth, like something meant to imitate comfort but failing in every possible way.

“And now you lose again,” she murmured. “Give me what is mine.”

Black veins crept up Yveth’s neck, spreading fast, digging in. She felt it - her Faith being torn from her, ripped free piece by piece.

Her body cracked. Fissures spiderwebbed through her form as the light inside her dimmed.

Then she broke and crumbled to dust.

* * *

Carnage.

The joy of the hunt.

It thrummed through me, bright and sharp and perfect. This was what I was. What I’d always been.

I hit the orcs at a dead sprint and tore straight through them, barely slowing, carving a path toward the humans beyond. It didn’t matter which was which. Out here, everything that moved was prey.

Claws flashed. Teeth sank. Armor split like bark under an axe. Blood sprayed hot across my skin, soaked into my hair, painted my tongue.

Good. Now I smelled like them.

I burst out the far side of the battlefield, spun on my heel, and dove right back in.

I ran, leapt, climbed over bodies and shields, twisted through gaps that shouldn’t have been there, slipped past blades a heartbeat before they struck. No one touched me. No one could. I was motion—fluid, effortless, inevitable.

I was untouchable.

The moat came into view again. I grabbed two orcs mid-charge and hurled them across it. They hit the wall hard enough to bounce, then dropped into the blood-dark water below without a sound.

Then the world changed.

A deep, bone-rattling hum rolled out from the keep, swallowing everything else. It crawled under my skin, buzzed in my teeth, made my eyes vibrate in their sockets. I snarled, shaking my head, trying to clear it-

-then the sky went dark.

Blackness poured over the walls like a breaking wave and crashed into the battlefield.

Into me.

It hit like a swarm. Like a thousand living things all at once. Slick, writhing tendrils coiled around my limbs, my throat, my face. One **** its way up my nose. Another punched through my ear with a wet, splitting pop and burrowed deeper. Something thin and cold slid beneath my eye.

I gagged.

I could taste it.

Worse than pancakes.

I snarled and jammed my fingers into my own skull, grabbing for the thing worming through my head. It was like trying to grab water - if the water was made of nettles and bees. It stung, burned, fought me, clung to my thoughts like hooks.

Something whispered.

I ignored it. I didn’t want whispers. I wanted blood.

I tore at it, ripping my own ear free in the process. Pain flared - sharp, distant, irrelevant. I slammed my head into the nearest body, then another, then another, trying to shake it loose.

It held on.

I dug deeper. Pulled harder.

The whispering grew louder. Insistent. Crawling over my thoughts like insects.

Shut. Up.

Inch by inch, I dragged the thing free until it came loose with a wet, crawling pop I felt more than heard - like squeezing scrapple through your teeth.

It lashed wildly, splitting into thinner strands as it tried to escape-

-and for just a moment, it showed itself.

A core. Darker than the rest. Threads knotted tight, running through it like a spine.

I grinned.

Got you.

I seized it, twisted, and snapped it in half.

The rest of it collapsed instantly, turning to tar that sloughed off my fingers.

The thing in my stomach stabbed again, sharp and deep.

So I stabbed back.

My claws ripped through my own belly. Heat spilled out with my blood as I reached in, found it, gripped it, and tore it open down the center. I flung the twitching halves away and they melted before they hit the ground.

The whispers faltered.

Not gone. But weaker.

Better.

Something still writhed beneath my eye. I slid a claw in, careful this time. Precise. I found that same dark thread - the core - and drove my talon straight through it.

It shuddered, fought, tried to burrow deeper, but it was too late. I flicked it free and it dissolved into nothing.

Silence crept back in, slow and incomplete.

I licked blood from my lips and smiled.

I could kill them.

Not just fight them. Not just survive them.

Hunt them.

And I would.

I was Clo - the Joy of the Hunt.

This - this was what I was made for.

I threw my head back and howled.

* * *

The Iilvarion army met the Morenti in the rolling hills, banners snapping in a restless wind, lines drawn but not yet crossed. For a long while, neither side moved. Thousands stood watching thousands, hands near weapons, waiting for the smallest mistake to turn tension into bloodshed.

It might have, too - if not for Jackob.

He talked. Of course he did. Smiled, gestured, laughed like they weren’t standing on the edge of a battlefield. He spun it into something simple, something reasonable. They weren’t enemies. They weren’t even allies. Just observers. Waiting. Watching. Holding position until Seth gave the signal.

Or until three days passed, Bold corrected, because of course he did.

Bold stood like a spear driven into the earth - straight, rigid, immovable. He had the look of a man who ironed his thoughts before speaking them. No wonder he commanded the Iilvarion. Discipline clung to him like armor. Jackob was fairly certain the man slept standing up just to avoid wrinkling anything important.

He and Master Crowhurst got along beautifully.

Crowhurst, draped in dark robes and darker moods, seemed to dislike everything in equal measure - weather, terrain, allies, enemies, probably the concept of existence itself. He spoke in sighs and complaints, each word sounding like it inconvenienced him personally.

He and Bolt could stand in silence together for hours and call it pleasant company.

The armies pushed into the hills and stopped there, just as Seth had asked. Close enough to act. Far enough not to provoke. Arvellia and the Iron Nation remained ahead, somewhere beyond the rise, marching toward something none of them fully understood.

So they waited.

Jackob hated it.

He paced. Sat. Stood again. Adjusted his cloak. Un-adjusted it. Tried to listen to the strategy discussions and failed. Tried not to listen and failed worse.

Seth would need them. He knew it. The man practically radiated destiny. You didn’t ignore that kind of thing.

Just like Arthyr.

The thought steadied him for a moment.

Arthyr had done it once - pulled the world together, every nation, every people, under one banner. Humans, elves, dwarves, orcs. Gods and mortals, all standing side by side against the Myrddin. The stories said the war had lasted years. Entire cities gone. Libraries burned. Homes shattered. Orphanages destroyed.

So many dead. Mothers, daughters, fathers, sons… puppies. The thought of all those puppies dying always brought a tear to his eye.

He didn’t know the numbers. No one ever agreed on those. But if everyone else was dying, surely puppies did as well. And that was just sad.

But Arthyr had won. Sacrificed himself to end it. And the world had healed. New cities, new books, new orphanages, new lives. More puppies. Always more puppies.

And now - now the world needed him again.

Seth.

Jackob was certain of it. Arthyr reborn. How could he not be? The timing, the power, Adhaneth choosing him, the way everything seemed to bend around him.

And Jackob was going to be there when it happened again.

If anyone would stop telling him to wait.

“No, Jackob, hold position.”

“No, Jackob, we follow the plan.”

“No, Jackob, don’t go wandering off into an active war zone.”

Wait. Wait. Wait.

He was going to die of boredom before anything important happened.

In the Morenti commanders tent, Bold, Nomin, Crowhurst, and Graveholt were deep in discussion - supply lines, positioning, contingencies. Important things. Necessary things.

Mind-numbingly dull things.

Jackob’s eyes drooped. Just for a second. Then snapped open again.

Something streaked into the sky.

He blinked, leaned forward, squinting.

Two points of fire climbed high above the hills, burning bright even through the gray.

Jackob’s heart jumped.

He reached out and tapped Nomin on the shoulder. She didn’t react.

He tapped again. She shifted, trying to shrug him off without even looking.

Jackob grabbed her shoulder and shook.

“What?” she snapped, turning on him.

“We need to go. Now,” he hissed, barely containing himself.

Her glare sharpened. “I’ve told you a dozen times - we wait for a signal or two more days.”

“That’s what I’m telling you!” His voice cracked upward as he pointed, arm shaking with excitement. “That is the signal!”

Heads turned. Conversations died mid-sentence. Eyes followed his gesture to the sky.

The fire still burned there.

For a heartbeat, everything held. Then the camp erupted.

Orders rang out. Messengers ran. Banners snapped as they were lifted high. Lines began to form, soldiers scrambling into motion as the stillness shattered into purpose.

Jackob grinned, breath coming fast, pulse pounding in his ears.

Finally. Now he would become a legend.