Mother of Midnight

Chapter 258 – Sweet Treat

Vivienne didn’t move from her perch atop the eastern wall until the sun flirted with the horizon, its first rays threatening to spill gold and crimson over the waiting land. Below, in the misty pre-dawn, the forces of Aegis had begun to stir—shadows rippling through their camps like a beast drawing breath.

She rested a clawed hand on her belly, gently stroking the taut curve of it. Her skin was starting to shimmer faintly with internal aether, responding to her nerves, her readiness, her power. Still, she remained still. She didn’t want to risk a stray arrow catching her too early. And she didn’t need to fight blind. Her summons would see for her.

“It’s a strange thought,” she said aloud, almost to herself.

“What is?” Rava asked from behind her, still alert, still watchful.

“Going to war pregnant.” Vivienne’s lips curled into something between amusement and defiance. “Feels like it should be poetic or symbolic. Or foolish. Maybe all three.”

Rava let out a rumble that could’ve meant anything.

“I know,” Vivienne said with a shrug, “you aren’t thrilled about this. But it will be fine.”

“Mhm.”

Vivienne’s tail tapped gently against the stonework behind her. She glanced over her shoulder, smiling faintly. “I’ve got you here. Why would I need to worry?”

Rava said nothing at first. Just crossed her arms and stared out at the distant movement in the fields below. Then:

“Mhm.”

Vivienne chuckled softly. “Careful. At this rate, people might start thinking you’ve gone quiet.”

“I’ve said my piece more than once.” Rava’s voice was low, steady. “Any more is a waste of words. You’ll do what you want regardless.”

Vivienne’s smile faded, the warmth cooling from her expression. Her claws gently tapped her belly, more out of habit than thought. “I have to do this.”

“No, you don’t,” Rava said, flatly. “My family is powerful. Our soldiers are elite. We don’t need you here. You could’ve retreated back to the manor, locked the doors, and waited this out in safety.” She crossed her arms with a quiet snarl in her breath. “You weren’t needed.”

Vivienne looked away, lips tightening. She didn’t answer right away.

Rava grunted. “Pointless. You do what you want.”

It hit too close to home. Too familiar. Vivienne bit her lower lip, remembering the cold, bitter edge of their argument before Drakthar. The setting was different, but the script was the same.

And just like then, Rava was right.

She wasn’t needed here. Not truly. Not yet. She wasn’t the only one with monstrous power anymore. Serkoth had other weapons. Other champions. Her involvement was voluntary.

She was far from full strength. Her belly was heavy, aching at times. Her song still resonated, but it didn’t ring with the same clarity it once had. Her instincts were slower, her movements more careful. She couldn’t risk losing control with something so fragile growing inside her.

The child could come at any moment.

And yet…

“I know I’m not needed,” Vivienne murmured. “But what kind of future am I offering if I sit by and let others bleed for it?”

“That child inside you is part of that future too,” Rava said, jaw tight. “And you’re risking it.”

Vivienne turned to face her, eyes soft but unwavering. “You don’t get it. I’m not just doing this for Serkoth. I’m doing this so our child knows what I am. Who I am. I want them to be born into something I helped protect. I need them to know I fought for it.”

Rava’s gaze flicked to Vivienne’s belly, then back to her eyes.

“I’ll protect you,” she said. “But don’t make me watch you fall apart for pride.”

Vivienne didn’t answer. The sun had risen now, and the enemy was beginning to march.

“I will stay behind the wall the whole time,” Vivienne said softly, her clawed fingers resting lightly on her belly. “My summons will bring me food. You’ll be right here to protect me. I promise I won’t go further than that.”

“Mhm,” Rava muttered, not looking at her.

Vivienne's eyes narrowed faintly. “Rava…”

“What?”

“You know I love you, right?”

Rava paused. The massive woman turned fully to face her, the lines in her brow softened just slightly. “I know. You’re my mate. I would do anything for you.”

Vivienne’s lips curled into a gentle smile. “You just worry.”

“Yes.” It wasn’t even a hesitation. Just a fact.

Vivienne extended a hand, beckoning. “Come here. Lower yourself.”

Rava’s form shifted downward, fluid and easy despite her size. She knelt beside the stone bench, eyes fixed on Vivienne with that unreadable intensity she always wore when the emotions underneath were too heavy to show properly.

“Thank you for caring,” Vivienne whispered, and leaned forward, wrapping her arms gently around Rava’s thick neck. Her belly pressed awkwardly between them, but she didn’t care.

Rava returned the embrace, holding her with protective strength, not too tight, but just enough to make Vivienne feel secure. Grounded.

Vivienne pressed a soft kiss to her cheek before pulling back, her voice light. “I better get started. We’ll win this.”

“I’ll see to it,” Rava said. Her voice was steel.

Vivienne eased herself down onto the stone bench, taking a moment to shift and find a position that didn’t strain her spine. She exhaled slowly, the tension in her shoulders falling away as her eyes drifted closed.

Then she began to sing.

It started low, soft and crystalline, like a note struck on fine glass. The melody didn’t rise like traditional song, but resonated, layered with strange harmonics. The sound echoed oddly through the stone beneath her feet, through the mortar of the wall, into the earth below.

And in response, they rose.

On the far side of the eastern wall, a shape broke through the soil. Then another. Shards of glimmering crystal, refracted with unnatural colors, shifting and snapping into limbs and torsos. The beasts of her making, faceted, unnatural, beautiful in a way that spoke of danger and precision, unfolded from the ground as though they'd been sleeping in wait for her call.

Dozens. Then scores. Silent. Still. Awaiting orders.

Rava stood behind her like a sentinel, eyes locked forward.

The battle hadn’t started yet.

But Vivienne was already singing war into the world.

She closed her eyes and did not relent.

Her voice wove through the air like thread drawn across crystal, delicate and sharp all at once. Every note resonated outward, folding into itself in strange harmonies, unnatural and haunting. Her songbeasts, fragile in body, but overwhelming in number, continued to rise from the soil like blooming thorns of glass. Some were bipedal, others crawled like spiders, some even slithered, their forms half-formed, half-felt. The tide built. She would not stop until the eastern wall was lined with shimmering death.

And then, she shifted the song.

It twisted, the melody slipping from crystalline to something deeper, something that resonated more in the bones than in the ears. The change was subtle, but the light responded. The shadows beneath the battlements thickened. Within the cracks of the wall and between the stones, the darkness grew too deep, too rich, like ink poured over velvet. Shapes began to flicker in the dim, a silent promise of what else could come if she wished.

Vivienne’s eyes fluttered open.

But not her own eyes.

She opened the sight of a lone songbeast, one stationed far along the outer edge of the formation, small and jagged, inconspicuous among the others. Through its faceted vision, she stared across the field at the small force that had broken from the main army and stopped well outside the range of arrowfire.

A handful of cavalry. A scattering of light infantry. Just a few siege engines, small and basic. A token force.

A distraction.

Even without a tactical mind, she could see it clearly. This wasn’t meant to crack the eastern wall. It was meant to divide attention, to keep just enough pressure here that the real thrust, likely at the northern gate, could go unchallenged. Clever, but not clever enough.

Vivienne exhaled through her nose, voice never faltering.

They had sent several hundred. She could handle that many herself.

Her beasts remained still, unnaturally still. The wind didn’t touch them. The sunlight didn’t glint off their bodies the way it should have. Like statues awaiting purpose.

They would not move.

Not yet.

Not until she gave the order.

Then she heard it.

A horn rang out across the plains. Then another. And another. And another. Each one layered atop the last, forming a discordant fanfare that rattled across the open land like thunder on the edge of a storm.

Vivienne didn’t flinch. She kept her eyes closed, kept singing, even as her awareness through the watching beast sharpened.

The force she’d been observing began to move. At first, just a slow march—light infantry setting into motion, cavalry fanning out to either side, siege engines rolling forward with slow, methodical pace. Their banners rippled in the morning breeze, Aegis heraldry flapping like proud declarations of intent.

But she could feel it now. This wasn’t just the token force anymore.

This was part of the main push.

She could sense it in the ground through her beasts, feel the tremors spreading outward in waves of synchronized motion. Other horns blared further away, from the northern side of the city. That would be where the bulk of the pressure was placed. But this? This was no feint anymore. They were testing the wall.

Good.

Vivienne’s lips parted slightly, her song taking on a sharper cadence, an edge like the rim of a blade dragging across glass.

Still no fear. Never fear.

Not even now, heavy with child, outnumbered and stationed at the city's flank.

No. When it came to conflict, there was only one emotion left to her. That same crawling, electric anticipation that spread through her limbs and made her blood thrum like music. That pull in her gut that had nothing to do with pregnancy.

She was ready.

She would devour this force, piece by piece.

And when their ranks broke, when they scrambled or fled or died beneath her tide, she would sweep wide across the field, flank the heart of the Aegis army with her crystalline legion, and bring them low too.

She would not be the last resort.

She would be the turning point.

She would devour Aegis whole.

Vivienne opened her eyes—her own eyes this time. Their depthless black shimmered faintly in the light of dawn. Her song shifted again, the pitch lifting just slightly, a subtle modulation that only her creatures would recognize.

It was enough.

The stillness shattered.

A ripple moved through the ranks of her songbeasts like wind over glass. Heads lifted. Limbs flexed. Hundreds of creatures, each cut from the same crystalline melody, turned in perfect unison to face the oncoming force.

She did not shout. She did not bark orders.

She sang.

Her voice slipped into something richer, layered and commanding. Beneath the words, there was meaning—more than language, deeper than understanding. Her beasts heard her, felt her, and they moved.

They surged over the ruined stone of the old ward-paths outside the wall, silent at first, then rising in volume as claws scraped and glass feet shattered debris beneath them. They moved with alien grace and perfect coordination, as if choreographed by some invisible conductor. A living storm of glittering death.

Vivienne stayed seated on her bench, spine straight, hands resting gently on her distended stomach. Her voice never faltered. Every syllable wove into the aether, spun through the air like thread being pulled taut. Her eyes remained locked on the battlefield as her children, the ones of song and shard, threw themselves forward to meet the enemy.

From the battlements above, the defenders of Serkoth watched in awe and unease as the eastern wall turned into a theatre of something both beautiful and terrible.

Vivienne smiled faintly.

"Begin," she whispered, though the command had already been given.

The tide answered.

With a shriek like breaking glass and the low hum of living resonance, her creations surged forward. Gnashing teeth of crystal and aether snapped at the morning air, legs moving in elegant synchrony, claws flashing like blades as they bounded toward the enemy lines. Some slithered. Others crawled. A few walked upright like malformed, gleaming statues brought to unnatural life.

The enemy froze.

The cavalry reared, hooves pawing the ground, riders shouting to redirect and reposition. The siege engineers fumbled at their stations. The infantry, bless their terrified hearts, remembered their training, snapping into formation as shields locked together, forming a bristling wall of iron and wood and barely-contained fear.

How quaint.

Vivienne sat poised, voice flowing like silk thread through the air. Her lips barely parted as she directed the advance, her melody shifting in time with the rhythm of the assault. She watched with detached precision as her songbeasts slammed into the wall of steel and flesh, scattering sparks and shards in the initial collision.

The soldiers held fast, bracing against the tide.

But the tide spread.

Her creatures split and slid around the flanks, pressing inward like flowing liquid, constantly probing for weakness. For every one that fell, shattered beneath a halberd or skewered on a pike, two more came scuttling up from the wall, called from shadow and stone by the continued rise of her song.

The cavalry countered.

They struck in swift arcs, dashing through her forces in brutal sweeps. Songbeasts exploded in radiant bursts of shards and aether, their corpses crunching under hooves. A dozen fell. Then another dozen. A temporary edge.

Vivienne didn’t flinch.

She shifted her voice again. Lower, more guttural, layered with a second and third harmony that made the air shimmer faintly. A command only her creations could hear took root in their bodies.

Some turned and began dragging corpses, enemy and songbeast alike, back toward the base of the wall.

Fuel.

She would make more.

No, not just more—she would make them bigger.

Even from here, she could feel the resonance start to build. Her beasts weren’t just killing. They were harvesting. Collecting. Preparing. Her power would steep in blood and death until it ripened.

They were tenacious, though. Human discipline impressed her in rare moments, and this was one of them. Every time a soldier fell from the wall, another stepped up. The line never truly broke. Her creatures swarmed and clawed and snapped, but the humans did not scatter.

Not yet.

Vivienne narrowed her eyes and adjusted the song again. Her tongue flicked out, tasting the aether.

They were delaying. She could feel it.

But that was fine. She had time.

And soon, she'd have monsters that made these initial waves look like glass knives in a bonfire.

“Love, could you fetch my breakfast for me? There’s a pile of it on the other side of the wall,” Vivienne asked sweetly, her voice syrupy as her eyes stayed closed, her focus still knotted in the rhythm of her song.

Rava gave a grunt of acknowledgement. She didn’t ask which pile.

She bent her knees and launched herself over the wall in a single, earth-cracking leap. The stone beneath her shattered slightly with the force, and then she was gone, nothing but a blur against the sky.

Vivienne didn’t falter in her melody. Her claws danced subtly in the air, conducting the tides of shimmering glass and crystal beasts below. She didn’t open her eyes. She didn’t need to. She could feel them—each one of her precious creatures, her swarm of elegant killers.

By the time Rava returned, the ground beneath Vivienne’s bench had begun to vibrate with the resonance of her growing chorus. Rava landed in a crouch, blood spattered up her legs, and dropped four bodies unceremoniously at Vivienne’s feet.

Two infantry. One cavalry. One officer, judging by the broken silver plating on the last.

“All human,” Rava said simply. “Still fresh.”

Vivienne opened one eye and purred with delight. “Mmm, how thoughtful.”

She wasted no time. Her claws sank into the first body with surgical ease, tearing aside cloth and armor alike. Her teeth followed shortly after, goring through muscle and cartilage with that horrifying elegance she wore like a second skin. Her tongue—long, jet black, and prehensile—wrapped around a rib and tugged it free with a wet crack.

The sounds were horrible. Vivienne made them musical.

By the time she was done, there was little more than bloodied husks and scattered bones. She nudged the discarded equipment aside with a lazy sweep of her foot, licking stray crimson from her lips and letting it drip slowly from the corners of her now-gaping maw, the ridges along her cheeks peeled back to reveal the full tapestry of her true mouth.

She looked up at Rava and smiled sweetly, in that charmingly terrible way of hers.

“I’m still a bit peckish,” she said, tone light and dainty despite the gore coating her chin. “Would you mind fetching me the next serving? It’s waiting in the same place.”

Rava didn’t hesitate. She gave a simple nod, turned, and leapt skyward again, vanishing from the wall in a single bound that left cracks spidering out beneath where she’d stood.

Vivienne watched her go, resting her hands across her swollen belly. The child stirred, perhaps reacting to the power coursing through her now, fed by blood and aether alike.

She sighed, content. “I do so love how dependable you are, sweetheart,” she murmured to herself, as her song subtly shifted again.

More songbeasts were rising. Stronger. Hungrier.

And there was still plenty of battle left to feed them.