Mother of Midnight

Chapter 190 – Radiant

Vailora groaned as she sat up, rubbing the back of her neck. The ground beneath her was a mess of shattered trees and upturned earth, a crater marking where she’d landed. She winced, rolling her shoulders. That had actually hurt.

Nythara hit harder than she expected.

She could probably take on all of her siblings in a fight—save for Epitheon and maybe Voryn—but she’d gotten cocky. A mistake. Not one she was likely to repeat.

With a long sigh, she stretched, arching her back until her spine popped. She wanted to go back to sleep. That sounded infinitely more appealing than dealing with this mess. But unfortunately, she had a deal to uphold.

Grumbling under her breath, she planted her hands in the dirt and pushed herself up. Her hammer lay a few feet away, half-buried in the debris, surrounded by the splintered remains of trees she’d flattened on impact. She stomped over, gripping the handle and wrenching it free, shaking loose the clumps of dirt and wood.

Her wounds had all but disappeared, though she felt sore all over. That was a novel feeling. The last time anything had actually left her hurting, she couldn’t even remember.

Still not as fun as sleeping, though.

When she crested a hill, she saw something on the battlefield that made her pause.

Nythara was fighting. 

Nythara was fighting her.

Or rather, someone that looked like her. And fought like her. And wielded power like her.

“What in mothers name…?”

She let out a reverberating sigh. She could go uphold her part of the bargain, or…

Well someone was doing her job for her so maybe she could just go back to sleep.

Yeah, that sounded like a good idea.

Even with the garrison from the eastern wall arriving, they were still horribly outnumbered. The Drakthar fought with vicious efficiency, each lekine warrior worth ten of Aegis’ humans, but their true strength lay in cavalry, not siege warfare. This was not their battlefield, and it showed.

Vivienne had shifted into her amalgam form, her massive quadrupedal bulk wedging into the breach to block the advancing tide. But this form came with its own drawbacks—she lacked the dexterity and reach of her other shapes, her movements powerful but slow. Soldiers swarmed her from all sides, pushing through gaps she couldn’t cover, their single-minded desperation overriding their fear. No matter how many she crushed, ripped apart, or cast aside, more flooded in.

A brief glance at the walls showed the battle turning against them. Aegis forces swarmed the parapets, cutting down defenders and forcing them back. Arrows rained down in deadly volleys. Exomantic spells carved through stone, sending chunks of wall crashing down into the melee below.

Her confidence wavered. They should have run. But she couldn’t—wouldn’t. She had no choice now.

She slammed her bulk down, flattening a squad of soldiers beneath her, then rolled, sweeping her claws through the next wave. The sickening crunch of bodies beneath her was drowned out by the endless clash of war. Blood soaked her shadowy form, steaming where it met her unnatural flesh. She surged up, gnashing her many jaws, scattering those too slow to retreat.

“Vivienne!”

The familiar voice cut through the chaos.

Rava.

She surged into the fray like a storm given form, her body crackling with lightning. She moved like judgment incarnate, striking with blistering speed and superhuman force. Every punch sent bodies flying, every kick shattered bone.

Each movement a flash.

Each strike a death sentence.

Vivienne let out a ragged breath, her massive form beginning to shrink, shadowy mass twisting and reshaping as she condensed into her hydra form. She was smaller now—half the size of her amalgamous bulk—but what she lost in sheer mass, she gained in adaptability. Six heads snapped forward, eyes gleaming, fangs bared, and she wasted no time putting them to use.

Two of her heads reared back and began to sing.

The haunting, layered harmony spilled into the battlefield, vibrating through the air with an otherworldly resonance. The effect was immediate. The ground trembled beneath her feet as glimmering crystalline creatures began to emerge, clawing their way up from beneath the shattered stone and churned soil.

They took form in an instant—spined beasts of jagged crystal, multi-limbed constructs that glowed with raw aether. They moved, summoned by the melody itself, their jagged frames catching the light as they lunged forward to join the battle.

They surged into the fray, leaping onto Aegis soldiers, shattering armor, rending flesh. A soldier screamed as one of the crystalline beasts drove a spiked limb straight through his chest. Another tried to cut one down, only for his blade to rebound off its hardened body, moments before it tore his throat out.

Vivienne’s heads snapped out in every direction, biting, tearing, crushing. With so many eyes, so many mouths, she could see and act on multiple fronts at once. Her jaws closed around a spellcaster before he could loose another incantation, crunching through his ribs and spine before tossing his ruined body aside. Another head intercepted a soldier trying to slip past her, throwing him into the dirt where her crystalline hounds finished him off.

Beside her, Rava moved like a whirlwind, electricity crackling around her as she drove her fists into the enemy ranks. She fought with ruthless efficiency, every blow precise, every movement lethal. A spear-wielding knight lunged for her flank, and she ducked low, grabbing him by the throat and slamming him into the ground so hard the earth cracked.

But there were just too many.

For every soldier she tore apart, for every knight Rava struck down, three more took their place.

The air rang with the clash of steel, the cries of the wounded, the thunder of boots against churned earth. Vivienne could feel the tide turning, the sheer numbers of Aegis pressing forward like an unstoppable flood. It didn't matter how many she crushed, how many she devoured, how many her crystalline hounds tore apart—there were always more.

Then the horn sounded.

A deep, bellowing note, rolling over the battlefield like a funeral dirge.

Calls for retreat rang out from the Drakthar lines, voices strained and urgent. Their forces were pulling back, giving ground, their once-stalwart defense breaking beneath the unrelenting press of Aegis steel.

Vivienne’s heads snapped toward the walls, where once-imposing stone battlements now teemed with enemy soldiers. The defenders had fought well, but their advantage had been swallowed whole by the sheer, crushing numbers of the invading force.

How many had died?

The question dug its claws into her mind, unwanted, but impossible to ignore.

Her fight with Nythara alone—so brief, yet so utterly cataclysmic—must have killed dozens, if not hundreds. She hadn’t spared even a thought to keep track of the losses on the Drakthar’s side. Had she done enough? Had she made a difference?

She didn't have the luxury of dwelling on it.

“Rava!” she called, her many voices layering atop each other in a discordant chorus.

The lekine was mid-motion, her claws buried in the chest of a heavily armored knight, electricity arcing through his body as she wrenched him aside. At Vivienne’s call, she flicked an ear and turned, eyes locking onto her.

Vivienne jerked a few of her heads back toward the crumbling defenses, wordlessly signaling their next move.

Rava gave a sharp nod.

They began their retreat.

It was slow, methodical. Neither of them turned tail—they didn’t have that luxury. Instead, they carved their way backward, making Aegis pay for every inch of ground they took. Rava struck with brutal precision, every punch cracking bones, sending soldiers crumpling. Vivienne’s many jaws snapped, tore, and crushed, her coiling, shifting form sweeping through the enemy like a living storm.

But it wasn’t enough.

The tide of soldiers pressed in, unrelenting, forcing them to move faster.

Vivienne’s crystalline beasts surged into the gaps they left behind, holding the line where they could. Some shattered under exomantic spells, others were cut down beneath augmented weapons, but they kept coming, throwing themselves into the fight with mindless, unyielding aggression.

The Drakthar soldiers poured into the city, their movements disciplined, purposeful. They flowed like a living barricade, filling the gaps in the fractured defenses, reinforcing weak points, plugging breaches with their own bodies if they had to. Shields locked together in tight formations, spears leveled in an unyielding wall of steel and resolve.

Vivienne and Rava moved past them, the warriors parting just enough to let them through before sealing the line once more. The sound of their heavy boots, the clatter of armor, the sharp barked orders of their commanders filled the air as they braced for the coming storm.

Vivienne could feel the weight pressing down on them all—the inevitability of the Aegis war machine bearing down upon the city like a tidal wave. They were fighting to buy time, to hold the line as long as they could. But how long would that be?

Her eyes darkened. It wasn’t enough.

She wrenched more aether from her battered body, her very essence bleeding into the air as she forced each of her heads to sing.

A discordant, wailing chorus, haunting and layered, echoed through the streets. The air shimmered, heavy with power.

Beneath the feet of the advancing Aegis forces, the cobblestone roads cracked and split open. From the ruptured ground, crystal-forged creatures clawed their way into existence, jagged and gleaming, their bodies shifting in unnatural patterns, pulsing with the cadence of her song. They wasted no time, launching themselves into the fray, tearing into Aegis ranks with reckless abandon.

Screams rang out as soldiers were dragged down, their armor punctured by razor-edged talons, their formations shattered by the sudden ambush. Some managed to fight back, their augmented weapons cutting through crystal flesh, exomantic spells blasting her songbeasts apart, but for every one destroyed, another surged forth, birthed from the unyielding rhythm of her voice.

Still, Vivienne could feel it—the drain.

Every beast she called forth took something from her. Every note, every harmony, pulled at the dwindling reserves of her aether, siphoning away her own life to keep them standing.

And yet, she couldn’t stop.

The ground trembled beneath her, but not from her doing.

In the distance, the battle between titans raged on.

Thunder cracked through the sky, not just in sound but in force, shaking the air itself. Each strike of Vailora’s hammer sent shockwaves rippling across the battlefield, rattling stone, shattering glass. And Nythara—she could still feel her, her light burning through the haze, her divine fury clashing against the raw, unbridled power of the Tempest Titan.

Vivienne didn't have time to worry about their fight.

Vivienne's many mouths wove a symphony of war, her voice an eerie, layered discord that sent wave after wave of crystalline beasts into the enemy’s ranks. Each verse birthed more of them, their jagged limbs cutting through the mass of Aegis soldiers like living razors.

She barely paused, only breaking from her song to lash out—snapping her jaws around any soldier who came too close to the shield wall, crushing them before retreating behind the ranks of the Drakthar. Their line was the only thing keeping her from being overwhelmed, a steadfast barrier between her dwindling strength and the thousands still bearing down upon them. Even as the sky darkened.

But Vivienne had no time to look. She felt it before she saw it—the burn of dawn aether slicing through her creatures, through the battlefield, through her. The Aegis forces had adapted.

Gone were the varied spells of exomancy and enchanted weapons once hurled her way in desperate attempts to slow her down. Now, they had a singular focus, a singular weapon. Beams of golden light streaked toward her from every angle, burning through her songbeasts like fire through dry grass, piercing her amalgam form with searing agony.

It was eating her alive.

Vivienne snarled, her song faltering as another ray of light seared through her side, cutting deep, siphoning away more of her already dwindling aether. They had learned her weakness. They were pressing it with ruthless efficiency.

She let out a growl of frustration, her many heads twisting in agony before, finally, she was forced to retreat, her form collapsing inward, melting down into something smaller, weaker. Her prime form.

Panting, she staggered back behind the Drakthar shield wall, molten blood dripping from fresh wounds, sizzling against the broken stone beneath her. The warriors closed ranks around her without hesitation, their formation tightening as they braced against the Aegis assault.

Rava wasn’t idle either.

Vivienne turned just in time to see her companion pick up a discarded spear and shield, her movements swift and practiced despite her brawler's nature.

Without hesitation, Rava stepped forward, planting herself firmly in the shield wall alongside the Drakthar warriors. Her lightning-charged body crackled with raw energy as she braced her shield, spear poised to strike.

Vivienne knew she shouldn’t be surprised.

Even in the face of impossible odds, Rava stood her ground.

And so would she.

Blast it!

Kivvy grit her teeth, fingers tightening around the grip of her boomstick as she squinted down the iron sights. Snow bit at her exposed skin, the wind howling like some starving beast. She could feel it through the layers of cloth and leather, the kind of cold that sank into your bones and made a home there.

She didn’t want to be here. She didn’t want to fight.

But it was Vivienne’s fault they were in this mess. It was her fault they stayed.

And yet, even as frustration churned in her gut, Kivvy knew why she hadn’t run.

Because as long as she stayed by Vivienne’s side, she was safe.

So long as that insatiable hunger wasn’t turned toward her, at least.

She exhaled sharply, pressing her cheek against the stock of her weapon, adjusting her aim. She was still alive, wasn’t she? That had to count for something. At some point, she’d stopped being “darling” and had been upgraded to “sweetheart.” She knew what that meant.

One for prey. One for the people close to her.

It was a small thing, but in Vivienne’s strange, monstrous way, it mattered.

The Sovereignty had taken everything from her once before—her home, her freedom, her people. If they thought they’d take it again, they had another thing coming.

She shifted her weight, steadying herself atop the wall that surrounded the clan hall, her finger hovering near the trigger.

She didn’t want to fight.

But she’d be damned if she lived under their boots again.

Kivvy sucked in a sharp breath, her sharp eyes tracking the battlefield below. The Drakthar were losing ground. Even with their brute strength, even with their unyielding resolve, they were being pushed back. Step by step, the Aegis forces advanced, armored bodies swarming like a tide, relentless and crushing.

Her grip tightened on the boomstick.

Killing aetherbeasts was one thing. That had never troubled her. They weren’t real, not in the way people were. They didn’t think, didn’t feel, didn’t hesitate. They were mindless, driven by raw hunger and instinct. Slaying them was no different from smashing a machine that had gone rogue, a broken piece of artifice too dangerous to be left running.

But these weren’t aetherbeasts.

These were people.

Her finger hovered over the trigger as she aimed at a soldier’s chest. She could see them clearly even at this distance—the rise and fall of their breath, the slight tremor in their stance, the way they hesitated before striking down a wounded Drakthar warrior.

She could see herself in them.

Could she do it? Could she kill a person?

Her gut twisted, her breath coming faster, the familiar weight of panic pressing against her ribs.

She didn’t want to.

But she had to.

She gritted her teeth, forcing herself to stay still, forcing herself to breathe. The cold gnawed at her skin, but the fire in her chest burned hotter.

She couldn’t just sit here and let them take her.

She had spent too long under the Sovereignty’s thumb, too long being told her place, too long watching her sisters be forced into servitude. Goblins were nothing to them—just hands to craft their weapons, just minds to bend toward artifice, just bodies to toil in workshops with no end.

Her sisters had suffered long enough.

She would not go back.

She would not be taken.

Not quietly.

Her finger pressed the trigger.

Protect the young mistress.

That was her purpose. Given by Mistress. Seared into her thoughts, into the wooden grain of her body, into the canvas of her skin.

Protect the young mistress at all costs.

The walls of the fancy-people’s home trembled with thunder. Not the sky’s thunder, no. A different kind. Something more. Something worse. Cracks in the stone. Screams threading through them like needles through flesh. The scent of fire. The taste of blood. The air was thick with it, thick like paint spilled from a shattered pot, spreading, staining.

Liora. The young mistress. Huddled close, small and fragile, made of soft things. Cold things. Real things. She clung to Renzia, little hands fisting in her dress, her breath cold and fast against wood that had no nerves to feel it.

Renzia did not move. Could not move. Not far.

She wanted to.

The mistress was out there. The Mistress.

Mistress needed her.

But her orders were clear.

Protect the young mistress.

She must obey. She must stay.

Even if her fingers twitched with longing. Even if her limbs ached with the desire to run.

Her body was wrong. Not whole. It should be more. More arms, more legs, more teeth. She could make more. She had before. She could twist and shift and unravel herself into something perfect, something monstrous, something that could kill, kill, kill—

No.

Protect.

Not kill. Not here. Not unless the young mistress was in danger.

Not yet.

She reached down, mechanical in the motion, her wooden fingers moving jerkily, clicking together like poorly made clockwork. She ran her hand over Liora’s hair.

“Safe,” she rasped, voice like splintered wood. “Safe. Young miss-tress is safe.”

Liora shivered against her, not speaking. She could hear her heart, fast and fluttering like a bird trapped in a box. Renzia had never had a heart. But if she did, she thought it might sound like that.

Another tremor rocked the building. A scream, cut short. Then silence.

Renzia’s head snapped toward the door.

She could hear something.

Footsteps. Wrong ones. Not mistress. Not fancy-people. Sound was wrong. Wrong. WRONG.

Enemy.

She rose to her feet, too fast, too sharp, joints bending at impossible angles before snapping back into place.

Liora made a soft sound, fear or protest, but Renzia did not look at her. Could not.

The door. The door. The door.

The thing beyond it.

It thought it could enter.

It thought it could reach the young mistress.

It thought wrong.

Renzia’s body creaked and stretched, pulling her head off and pilling out her needles., Her skin crawled, canvas writhing like something alive. The mockery of a face where her face should be stretched wide in something that was not a smile.

The handle turned.

She surged forward.

Protect.

They had been pushed back halfway through the city. The streets were slick with blood, shattered weapons and bodies strewn in heaps where the fighting had been fiercest. The air stank of iron, sweat, and burned flesh.

Vivienne’s throat burned from endless song, her reserves running dangerously low. She had been summoning her crystalline beasts for hours, weaving them into the Drakthar’s defenses, but even they could not fight forever.

The lekines impressed her. Even now, backs against the walls in their city, their home, they fought like demons, tireless in their assault. The Drakthar did not bend.

But they were exhausted.

And Aegis’s numbers—finally, finally—were beginning to wane.

Vivienne heard it before she saw it. The shift in the battle. The hesitation in the enemy’s step. The uncertainty. For the first time since the battle began, the tides seemed to turn.

Then she noticed something else.

The giants had gone silent.

The colossal echoes of their battle had stopped ringing through the city. The ground no longer trembled beneath their footfalls. Vivienne’s stomach twisted. Where was the Dawn Titan? Had Vailora—?

No. She couldn’t dwell on that now.

The enemy lines staggered. Their formations broke. Vivienne felt the moment where they nearly relented, where the thought of retreat slithered into their minds.

And then—

A flash.

Blinding. Consuming.

The world turned to light.

Vivienne screamed as white-hot agony lanced through her, dawn aether scorching her flesh, ripping through the shadows that clung to her like a second skin. She recoiled, her body twisting in protest, her vision swallowed by the overwhelming brightness. It poured into her, unnatural, invasive, and it burned worse than any blade, worse than any wound she had taken that day.

No. No, no, no.

She barely heard the gasps of the Drakthar as they stumbled, shielding their eyes. Barely registered the way the Aegis soldiers stood straighter, their exhaustion washing away.

Because something was coming.

Something worse.

The light finally dimmed enough for her to see him.

A figure descended from the sky, wreathed in golden radiance. Wings of pure, searing energy unfurled behind him—not wings of flesh, but of aether, but something that made Vivienne’s stomach churn.

His body was perfectly proportioned, sleek, but not thin, strong, but not bulging. She could see his elbows were spherical and mechanical, his body one of perfected artifice and flesh.

He drifted downward, untouched by the filth and carnage of the battlefield. He did not belong here. Something so pristine, so perfect, had no place in the muck and the blood.

Vivienne hated him instantly.

"Hold the line!" His voice boomed across the city, ringing through the streets, reverberating in her bones. It was not a request. It was a command. "The Praxus’ will is absolute!"

Aegis forces rallied.

Wounded men stood.

Those too weak to lift their weapons gripped them once more.

A second wind, undeserved, but given nonetheless.

Vivienne snarled, her tail lashing against the stone, sending cracks spiderwebbing beneath her. Her vision was still swimming from the aetherburn, her body still trembling, but she forced herself upright, her claws digging into the ground.

The ascendant landed, his feet touching the ruined street as if he had never known the weight of earth before. He was tall, too tall, his armor gleaming even amidst the blood and filth.

His eyes locked onto her.

And then, he smiled.

It was not a sneer. Not a smirk.

It was a smile of recognition.

Like he already knew how this would end.

He was a champion, she could feel the touch of the divine, but he was unlike any other. Was this Entheris? She’d not seen them since before the battle. They certainly seemed weaker than Alisaria or Darius. Or perhaps, was this a new person entirely?l

Vivienne bared her teeth, black lips curling back. She felt her hunger gnash against her ribs, twisting and churning, demanding.

She was going to rip him apart.

Vivienne wasted no time. She dropped low, shadows curling around her, and shifted.

Heat blossomed from within, veins of molten crystal searing through her flesh as her form changed. Her body thickened, obsidian scales bubbling with molten light, her horns extending like jagged, glassy spires. The air around her warped from the sheer heat rolling off her in waves.

This was her most resistant form. The one that could endure. The one that could last.

And she needed to last.

She stepped over the Drakthar lines, her massive form blotting out the golden glow of the ascendant. Soldiers scrambled beneath her, Aegis warriors barely registering what was happening before she brought a foot down, crushing them into the blood-soaked stone. She did not stop.

Each step was agony, as if she waded through a sea of sap, her body sluggish, dragged down by the sheer oppressive weight of the light. Dawn aether clung to her, gnawed at her edges, but she pressed forward, steam hissing where its wretched purity met her molten flesh.

She reached the ascendant.

He had not moved.

He stood with that same infuriating poise, that untouched grace, as though none of this concerned him.

And then he flicked his wrist.

A blade of radiant energy erupted from his forearm, long and blinding, a weapon that crackled with raw, unfiltered dawn aether. The very sight of it made her guts twist.

Vivienne snarled, the molten ridges along her back flaring.

She did not care what he was.

She did not care what he thought he was.

She was going to break him.

Vivienne’s foot came down like a falling mountain, her molten weight crashing into the earth with enough force to send jagged cracks racing through the cobblestone beneath her. The air roiled with heat, turning the night into a shimmering mirage of molten fury. The scent of scorched stone and burning flesh filled her senses, but she paid it no mind. She lifted her foot, expecting to see the angel’s crumpled form embedded in the ruin of the street.

But there was nothing.

The ground was shattered, gouged deep as if struck by a meteor, but of the angel—no trace. No broken gears. No shattered wings. No twisted metal frame crushed beneath her might.

Then came the pain.

A sharp, scalding slice tore across her back, too clean, too effortless. It bit through her hardened, molten shell as though it was nothing at all, like a knife passing through the soft flesh of a fruit. The sensation was unnatural, wrong—her molten body was not so easily pierced, yet now, heat leaked from her like an open wound.

She turned sharply, molten blood sloughing from the gash in thick, slow rivulets that sizzled upon contact with the stone, leaving glowing trails where they dripped. Her five black eyes flicked from side to side, narrowed, hunting. The ridges of her mouth split further, her true teeth glinting like a mouthful of needles.

Nothing.

No figure standing triumphant behind her. No gleaming blade still dripping with molten ichor. No sound, save for the distant din of battle, the heavy footfalls of retreating soldiers, the pained groans of the wounded. The angel was gone.

No—he was here. She could feel it. The searing brand of dawn aether still burned where he had cut her, gnawed into her flesh with a sickening persistence.

Her breath came heavy, steam hissing from between her clenched teeth.

He was fast. Unnaturally fast. Either that, or she was slow.

No. Not slow.

He was cheating.

Vivienne’s molten claws flexed, dripping liquid fire that cooled into brittle stone as it struck the ruined street. The shadows danced and flickered around her, twisted by the unnatural radiance still hanging in the air.

Vivienne barely had time to register the absence before the next strike came. A searing line of agony tore through the back of her leg, slicing deep into the molten rock of her form. Her knee buckled, crumbling beneath her, and she hit the ground with a force that sent cracks splintering through the street.

The exomancers circling beyond her reach seized the opportunity. Blades of compressed air, streaks of golden radiance, and bursts of concentrated force struck her in bursts, chipping away at her burning hide. Alone, each was little more than an annoyance, but together, they gnawed at her defenses, eating away at what little remained of her strength.

Something was wrong. Her body felt heavy, her movements sluggish. Her vision blurred at the edges, and her senses felt dulled, thick, like she was wading through a syrup of slow time. Every motion took a second longer than it should, every reaction a breath too late.

Another slash. This time to her forearm. She twisted, her five eyes darting toward the source, and for the first time, she caught a glimpse of her attacker. A flash of silver, of radiant steel carving through the dark.

He was fast. Too fast.

And she was too slow.

Dawn aether burned through her dwindling reserves, eating away at the fire that had once surged so freely through her body. The enchantments wrapped around her like shackles, weighing her down, draining her of what little power remained.

Another cut. Her side.

Another. Her ribs.

The molten flesh sloughed from the wounds, each cut precise, surgical, stripping her down piece by piece.

She let out a low, guttural growl, deep and raw, vibrating through the stones beneath her. Her molten body was too slow, too heavy, too easy to carve apart. If she couldn’t burn through this, she would dissolve into something else.

The shadows writhed around her, twisting, coiling, creeping up her limbs as her form began to shift. The glowing magma of her flesh collapsed inward, dissolving into thick, rolling wisps of darkness and ichor.

Her frame shrank, compacted, limbs twisting into long, sinewy shapes, claws sharpening into hooked talons. The boiling heat of her body gave way to chilling mist, her presence a smothering void rather than a burning inferno.

She shed her molten shell, sinking into the form of the greater wolf, her body now nothing but living shadow, her wounds still bleeding dark ichor that dripped and vanished into the gloom.

But the wounds remained. They always remained.

She let out a low snarl, the sound less a growl and more a whisper of hunger scraping against the back of the mind.

With the force of a storm, Rava barreled into the fray, her body wreathed in crackling arcs of lightning. She was a streak of silver and blue, a blur of motion so fast the eye struggled to track her, and where she passed, bodies collapsed in a ruin of flesh and bone. The soldiers of Aegis barely had time to react—some turned, weapons half-raised, others opened their mouths in shouts that never fully formed before she was on them, tearing through their ranks like a blade through silk.

She didn’t stop.

A line of armored men and women shattered as she plowed through them, their bodies exploding into mist and gore, reduced to nothing but remnants of meat and metal. The force of her charge sent splashes of blood spraying in all directions, but she moved so fast that not a single drop touched her, her speed outrunning even the carnage she wrought.

A squad of exomancers barely had time to raise their staves before she was among them. A sweeping arc of her claws cut the nearest in half at the waist, their body parting like paper, lightning arcing off her fingertips to the next in line. The exomancer spasmed violently before his body erupted, electricity boiling him from the inside out. A third attempted to raise a barrier, the runes forming midair, but Rava crashed through it as if it weren’t even there, the magic collapsing under the sheer force of her momentum.

Behind her, the battlefield was a storm of dying screams and scattered remnants.

Vivienne watched, her breath heaving, her body aching. The sluggishness she had felt before—the unnatural lethargy that had dragged at her limbs, slowed her thoughts—was gone. The enchantments had worn off, dispelled either by time or by the sheer toll of battle. What remained was exhaustion. Not magical, but physical. Her aether was nearly spent, her reserves scraped raw. Her molten form had cost her, and her body was reminding her of it with every aching movement.

She had fought through worse.

She had to keep going.

Vivienne’s five black eyes darted across the battlefield, searching. The angel. Where was the angel?

She found him.

Above the ruined block, hovering like a specter of judgment.

The thing was poised midair, his mechanical body coiled, one arm raised. From that arm, the blade extended—a radiant weapon of light and steel, humming with untold energy. His expression remained unreadable, alien, devoid of anything resembling emotion. He was an executioner, and this battlefield was his gallows.

Vivienne barely had time to react before he moved.

The air split apart with a thunderous crack.

Then he was gone.

And past her.

For a moment, nothing happened. The battlefield remained as it was—chaotic, drenched in blood and flame. Vivienne braced herself, expecting the impact, the strike, the pain—

But it never came.

Instead, the sounds of Rava’s strikes quieted.

Vivienne’s faux heart dropped.

She spun, a sense of dread curling tight in her gut, and what she saw sent ice through her veins.

Rava lay on the ground.

Barely breathing.

Her body—gods—her body.

She had been nearly cut in two.

The wound stretched from one side of her waist to the other, deep, gaping, as though she had been bisected and then hastily left unfinished. Her armor had been sheared through with ease, as if it were made of paper, and her flesh fared no better. Blood pooled beneath her, dark and thick, seeping into the cracked stone, spreading like a tide.

Her chest rose and fell in uneven, trembling breaths.

But she was still alive.

Vivienne felt a sound build in her throat, something raw and animal, something she couldn’t name. Her vision sharpened, darkened, narrowed, the battlefield fading away until there was only Rava’s broken form and the thing that had done this to her.

The angel hung in the air once more, weightless, effortless. He had already turned away, his posture one of quiet finality, as if the battle had already been decided. As if Rava no longer mattered.

As if Vivienne no longer mattered.

The angel vanished into the smoke-choked sky, streaking toward another part of the ruined city, leaving behind only a gust of wind and the distant thunder of his departure. The remaining Aegis soldiers hesitated for only a moment before surging forward, emboldened by his absence rather than deterred. They resumed their advance, blades raised, voices lifted in hoarse battle cries as they pressed their attack.

Vivienne had no more time to waste.

She shifted down into her prime form, molten flesh hardening into dark grey skin, her frame compacting, but her presence no less terrible. Her tail lashed out, the obsidian blade at its tip singing through the air, severing an arm here, opening a throat there—anyone foolish enough to come within reach was met with its wicked edge.

A few still dared to strike at her, but she ignored them, her focus singular as she scooped Rava into her arms. Her weight—gods, she felt so light. Rava, who was always solid, always strong, felt like nothing at all in Vivienne’s grasp, and that terrified her more than any blade, any spear, any spell that had ever been cast at her.

She ran.

Leaping, bounding, her claws gouging deep into the shattered stone as she pushed off the ground, soaring over the battered Drakthar line. The soldiers below barely noticed her; they were too exhausted, too embroiled in their own desperate struggle to pay mind to the streak of shadow and motion above them.

She landed hard, skidding across a crumbling rooftop, her breath heaving.

Carefully, so carefully, she placed Rava down.

Vivienne’s body shook, not from exertion but from something far worse, something pressing, crushing—an emotion she refused to name. She knelt beside Rava, ichor leaking from her wounds, from her eyes, her very being unraveling at the edges.

No.

Not like this.

"You aren’t allowed to die, sweetheart," Vivienne whispered, her voice trembling despite herself. She cupped Rava’s face, her claws streaked with the other woman’s blood, cradling her as if she could hold her together with sheer will alone. "It isn’t allowed."

Rava’s breath hitched, each one shallower than the last. Her eyes, dulling, flickered up to meet Vivienne’s. She tried to smile, but it came out as a grimace.

"Sorry," she rasped.

A growl built in Vivienne’s throat. "Don’t apologize," she snapped, her voice raw. "I can fix you. I can fix you." Her hands trembled as she pressed them over Rava’s wounds, as if by covering them, she could stop the life from spilling out. "You will live."

The words were frantic now, her voice climbing higher, barely controlled.

She reached for the aether, her five black eyes squeezing shut as she pulled from the very air itself, drawing it into herself, into Rava. She had never been a healer, never needed to be. She was a creature of destruction, not restoration—but aether was life, wasn’t it? It was the essence of all things. It made people stronger, made them endure longer, made them—

Live.

She pushed it into Rava, her hands pressing against the deep, gaping wound. Aether surged from her, thick, volatile, raw—she poured it in, as much as she could, more than she should, more than she had ever given anyone before.

Nothing happened.

Rava’s body convulsed at the touch of it, a choked gasp leaving her lips. Pain. She was in pain.

"Stop," Rava wheezed, her entire frame shuddering violently. "You… you can’t save me."

Vivienne bared her teeth, snarling. "Shut up!"

She didn’t stop.

She couldn’t.

More aether. More power.

She could feel it thrumming beneath Rava’s skin, but it wasn’t working. It wasn’t healing. It wasn’t doing what it was supposed to.

It has to.

Vivienne’s breath came in ragged, panicked bursts as she forced more into her, desperate, wild. Aether made people live longer. It had to.

Rava always used it so easily, always bent it to her will—so why wasn’t it working?

She pushed harder.

Rava cried out in agony.

Vivienne’s claws curled against her skin, shaking. "Please," she whispered. It wasn’t clear whether she was begging Rava or the universe itself. "Please."

Rava’s fingers weakly grasped at Vivienne’s wrist. "It’s… okay," she murmured.

No.

No, it wasn’t.

It would never be.

Vivienne’s eyes widened, panic and fury warring in her chest. She could feel it—the aether was there, raw, unyielding, just waiting for her to channel it. She could save Rava, she had to. She could save her.

“I CAN SAVE YOU!” Vivienne roared, her voice crackling with power, desperation curling through every syllable. Her claws dug deep into Rava’s fragile form, her molten blood leaking and mingling with the ichor, the only proof of her own suffering as she strained to hold her together. But it wasn’t enough. She needed more. More!

The world around them seemed to hold its breath. The city, the battlefield, even the storm raging in the distance seemed to halt in reverence, as though time itself was waiting for her to pull them back from the edge. The air around them was thick, stifling, as though every drop of aether in the world had been sucked into the vacuum of her determination. The shadows surrounding them wavered and twisted, and a single bead of sweat ran down Vivienne’s brow, its path interrupted by the tremors in her hands.

The sheer weight of the power she was channeling nearly made her heart falter. Her lungs burned, her head spun, but she couldn’t stop. She wouldn’t stop.

“I can fix you, sweetheart. I can make you whole,” Vivienne whispered, though her words were hardly more than a broken mantra now. She poured everything she had into Rava—every scrap of her energy, every shred of her power, the only thing she could offer. But Rava wasn’t healing. Her body wasn’t responding.

Then, with a sudden, explosive crack that shattered the stillness like glass, Rava screamed—screamed with a sound that shook the very earth beneath them. The intensity of it pierced through Vivienne’s chest like a blade, her vision blurring as the anguished cry tore through her soul.

And in that instant, everything exploded.

Rava’s body convulsed violently as the air around them became saturated with the charge of raw, uncontrollable power. Her form began to crack and shift, lightning coursing through her, sizzling in jagged arcs of blinding light. Her very body was unraveling, exploding into violent, electric fury that lit up the dark sky, painting everything in a dazzling, destructive glow.

Vivienne’s tail whipped wildly as she was thrown back, her body skidding along the cracked stone streets. She slammed into a nearby wall, feeling the impact shake her bones as the shockwave from Rava’s eruption tore through her, sending her senses reeling.

For a brief, horrifying moment, she couldn’t see. She couldn’t hear. The world around her was consumed by a violent storm of aether, the raw crackle of lightning, the thunderous roar of energy colliding with itself. She shook her head to clear the ringing in her ears, her mind a blur.

When she opened her eyes again, the world was changed.

Rava was gone.