Mother of Midnight

Chapter 261 – I’m doing my part!

The eastern forces couldn’t even approach the wall now. Not after Rava had torn through the tempest priest and the hidden exomancer archers with such terrifying precision. The lightning had died with the priest’s body, and the cursed arrows no longer fell like silent judgment. The pressure eased. Not for Vivienne, but for her children, her glassborn horde.

Vivienne remained seated, swaying gently on her bench as her song flowed out in a steady cadence. Her claws moved almost like a conductor’s, subtly shifting tone and rhythm, commanding with each pulse of her breath. It was no longer a battle. It was a harvest.

She glanced through the eyes of a mid-sized hound-beast as it bounded toward a collapsing flank of infantry. The humans were panicking now. Those who remained at the eastern front were not prepared for a war of attrition, certainly not one against something like her. Her beasts broke their lines and scattered them, driving them into one another with glassy limbs and shrieking crystal.

And the wall?

The wall hadn't even been touched.

No siege weapons left on this side. No attempts to scale. No spells of disruption. Just broken bodies, empty armor, and blood soaking into the roots of the plain.

Vivienne’s lips curled into a smile, even as she hummed the next progression of her song.

It was baffling. Aegis had placed so little value in the eastern front that she almost felt insulted. This wasn’t just neglect. It was arrogance. She had been assigned to defend a side they thought irrelevant, as if she were some placeholder.

She tilted her head slightly, catching her breath between phrases.

They had lost nearly a fifth of their force here. Her children had counted them, corpse by shattered corpse. A fifth. All because they underestimated her. Because they misread Serkoth’s lines. Because they thought the eastern wall was too quiet, too obvious, too small to matter.

Vivienne’s eyes flicked toward the horizon. The rest of the army would be crashing against Serkoth’s north wall now. That was where the city’s finest soldiers stood. Where Korriva’s children bled and roared and turned back the tide.

They thought the east was nothing.

How delightful.

Vivienne munched absentmindedly through the next lot of corpses Rava had dropped beside her, blood smearing her lips, claws sticky as she shoved a chunk of meat into her mouth between verses. She didn’t even glance down at the pile, didn’t need to. She was focused entirely on the ebb and surge of the battlefield.

Until she wasn’t.

Something shifted. Not in the battle. Not in her song.

In her.

A wrongness rippled through her belly. Not a cramp, not the usual bloating that had plagued her since the start of the fight. This was sharp. Deep. An internal pressure that seemed to wrench something open within her.

Her voice faltered mid-note. It caught in her throat like glass.

Her claws gripped the bench she was sitting on, fingers curling around stone hard enough to leave shallow cracks. Her breath hitched.

“Rava,” she hissed, low and urgent.

Rava’s ears twitched. She was already half-turned.

“Rava, I think it’s coming.”

“What?”

“I think the baby is coming!” Vivienne’s voice rose, trembling on the edge of panic and pain.

She hadn’t been hurt by much since her arrival in Nymoria. Her body was too strange, too resilient, too removed from what passed as biology for most others. The few times pain had touched her, it had always been something to do with dawn aether, light and radiant, foreign to everything she was. But this?

This pain made that look merciful.

Her tail jerked involuntarily, her entire core pulsing with raw tension. She doubled forward, breath heaving, claws digging deeper into the stone bench until dust and chips fell to the ground.

Why?

Why had her body refused to let her shapeshift during pregnancy? Why insist on her feeling every discomfort, every pang, every soft mortal ache, when she was not mortal? She wasn’t even close. No species she knew of had her anatomy. Her organs shifted like fluid on a whim. Her bones weren’t meant to crack under strain.

And yet here she was. Straining. Failing. Bleeding from the mouth as she bit down on her tongue to steady herself.

The pain raked up her spine, a deep, ancient pain that bypassed every defense her mind had.

It was worse than when she had asked Tarric to destroy half her body to stop the burning poison that had been eating her from the inside out.

This was worse.

Vivienne’s scream pierced the rising dawn, sharp and guttural, echoing across the stones of the eastern wall.

Rava was at her side in an instant, claws digging into the stone as she skidded to a halt. “Vivienne!”

The nightmare’s body trembled. Her claws crushed the bench beneath her grip as another wave of agony tore through her. Her song had long since ceased, replaced by a low, choked growl building in her throat. Her belly was grotesquely swollen now, pulsing with internal light, veins of aether crawling along her skin like lightning trapped under glass.

“I can’t— it’s not stopping,” she hissed, her voice layered and shivering with power. “It’s coming, I can’t stop it, I can’t stop it!”

Rava dropped to her knees beside her, holding her close. “Breathe. Just breathe. You’re strong. You are stronger than this.”

Vivienne’s mouth split wider than any human could manage, her true maw opening for a ragged gasp. Her body arched, her tail slamming the wall behind her with a sound like thunder. The pain was unlike anything she had known. Worse than being torn apart. Worse than having her essence frayed by dawnlight. This was deep, primal, ancient.

She could feel it shifting inside her, pushing downward. Her muscles locked. Her claws tore grooves in the stone. Black blood mixed with slick, glistening ichor poured down her thighs.

“I need to move, I can’t— I can’t do this sitting down,” she snarled.

Rava helped her down from the bench, supporting her weight as Vivienne staggered onto all fours, panting heavily. Her belly dragged low, glowing faintly now with the light of the child within. Her hips cracked, widening, her bones flexing beyond what should have been possible.

Then came the pressure. Crushing. Unstoppable. She screamed again.

Kivvy fastened the backpack to her body with practiced care, her fingers moving swiftly as she double-checked every strap, every clasp. The chest harness clicked into place with a satisfying snap, and she gave it one more tug just to be sure. Nothing could be loose. Not today.

She still had modifications she wanted to make. Better output regulators, more responsive channeling through the core, a tighter sync ratio between her commands and the frame’s reactions. But they were at war. And after everything that happened in Drakthar, after the horror show that unfolded while she had stayed in the damn lab waiting for good news, she wasn't going to sit back again. Not until it was over. Not until they won.

Kivvy pressed the activation node on the left strap. It gave a faint pulse of warmth, followed by a hum of energy crackling through the backpack's frame. In a half-circle around her, eight different weapons rose from their resting places on the workbench, each tethered to the rig with pulsing aethercords. The cords tightened with a hiss of motion, alive with flowing power.

The barrels glowed faintly as they powered up, each weapon syncing with the aetherstream running through the cords. The smaller repeaters adjusted their angle automatically, hovering into position behind her shoulders, while the larger cannons settled with a low hum on either side of her. Each mechanism clicked into standby, eager and waiting for a target. Every piece of her design was primed and ready.

She exhaled, heart pounding.

"All right, babies. Let's get to work."

She left the workshop and closed the door behind her with a soft click, then stepped out of the manor without ceremony. No fanfare, no farewell. No one had asked her to fight, so she wasn’t officially assigned to the battle. But that didn’t matter. She wasn’t going to sit back and wait to be needed.

If she had to guess, Vivienne was already on the eastern wall, and likely didn’t need her help anyway. That woman could handle herself, ever gravid and terrifying. So Kivvy turned toward the northern wall instead.

Her pace wasn’t exactly brisk. The backpack was heavy, ridiculously so,and her legs were short, straining with each step. She grunted under her breath, not complaining exactly, but not silent either. The cords trailing behind her buzzed with contained power, each connected to a weapon that hovered close behind like a tiny metallic procession. The soft hum of aether powered each step. She adjusted the clasps across her chest again and kept walking, steady and deliberate.

Even if she arrived late, she was going to make it count.

The city wasn’t silent, not quite, but it felt hollow. She could already hear the distant rhythm of battle, a low thrum of noise like an angry heartbeat on the horizon. But here, in the streets she knew so well, it was quiet in the wrong ways. The shops were closed, their signs swaying slightly in the morning breeze. Shutters were drawn tight. Not a soul lingered without purpose. The only movement came from supply runners and couriers, dragging crates and crates of arrows and aether batteries toward the north wall.

Still, Kivvy kept moving, her shoulders aching under the weight of the backpack. Her heart thudded harder with each step, not from fear exactly, but from the grim weight of certainty.

“Fuck… I am crazy,” she muttered, breath coming out as a shallow puff of steam. Spending so much time around Vivienne and Rava had definitely done something to her. They weren’t exactly paragons of restraint.

She trudged forward, each footfall heavier than the last. Her legs screamed, her back ached, and the weapons orbiting her buzzed faintly, impatient like a swarm of hungry insects. It took her almost half a bell to reach the outer line of the defenses.

The northern wall loomed above her, crowded with motion. There were tents at the base, arranged hastily but orderly. Medical banners fluttered, though only a few wounded were being carried down the steps. Most of the injured were walking under their own strength. It wasn’t many. Serkoth’s defenders had the upper hand, at least for now.

She scanned the scene. Crates of spare parts. Barrels of water. Tightly organized caches of ammunition and spell charges. It was a war machine at rest between bites.

Then a voice cut through the din.

“Hey, you shouldn’t be here.”

Kivvy turned toward the sound and found a Lekine soldier approaching. He was tall, broad-shouldered, and had the distinct tired eyes of someone who had seen more fighting than he cared to. His claws flexed once as he stepped closer.

“I’m gonna fight,” she said, as matter-of-fact as she could manage.

The soldier stopped short, giving her a once-over. His ears flicked with faint disbelief. “We’ve got it under control. Go back home and wait it out, little one.”

“This is my home too,” she snapped, her voice rising louder than she intended. “And I’m fighting. That’s that. I didn’t spend months building this for it to just sit around collecting dust.”

She jabbed a thumb at the floating ring of weapons around her, which sparked softly in response. The soldier’s eyes narrowed, his gaze trailing over each hovering piece of polished metal and aether-coiled tubing.

Something in her face must have struck him. Maybe it was the fire burning in her eyes, defiant and unblinking. Maybe it was the slight tremble in her arms—not fear, not quite—just the exhaustion of someone carrying more weight than they were built for, driven forward by raw willpower and nothing else.

“What is it?” he asked at last.

“I call it the boomstick array,” Kivvy said, puffing her chest with pride. “Can outrange any arrow by five—no, ten times! Hits harder too.”

The man blinked, clearly caught between skepticism and amusement. “Really?”

“Yup! Built it myself. Fires different calibers, all aether charged. High velocity. Basically the future. So I’m gonna do my part, and not even the High Fang can stop me.”

He stared for a few seconds longer, then let out a tired chuckle. Not mocking—just weary. The kind of sound that said he’d stopped expecting sense from the world a long time ago.

“Okay. We need more bodies. If that thing really does what you say, it’ll help. We’re heavily outnumbered and the archers could use the cover.” He gestured toward the stairs. “Head up that way, take a right when you reach the top. Stick near the archers and help lay down fire. If anyone gives you trouble, tell them the Tenth Claw vouches for you.”

Kivvy nodded eagerly, already stepping back into motion. “Gotcha! Okay, I gotta go. Got a home to defend.”

The man offered a smile that wasn’t quite happy. It sat wrong on his face, like it hadn’t been used properly in years. A tired, aching thing. The smile of someone who’d lived through more death than they cared to count.

“May Serranos’ fervor be with you,” he said.

“Yeah,” Kivvy muttered, glancing toward the wall with her jaw set. “Sure. That too.”

She moved past him and took the stairs two at a time, her boots thudding against the stone. The soft buzz of her weapons kept pace beside her, orbiting slowly, patiently.

Kivvy climbed the steps as fast as her short legs would allow, careful to sidestep the wounded being carried down on stretchers and the runners ferrying orders back and forth. She made her way to the right, where the archers were positioned. About forty of them lined the battlements, each loosing arrows in coordinated bursts at the calls of their commander.

She scuttled past them, hugging the wall until she found a small gap. Then she stepped up to the battlements, her boots scraping lightly against the stone. With a flick of her fingers, one of the rifles drifted down from its orbit around her. It was the one with the scope—long barrel, precision channeling. She caught it smoothly and rested the butt against her shoulder, its weight familiar and comforting.

The rifle’s barrel settled atop the edge of the wall. Kivvy squinted down the scope.

That was when she really saw it.

The battlefield below was pure chaos. Enemy soldiers covered the ground like insects, a tide of armor and flesh and fury. Siege engines rolled forward on great wooden wheels. Bright aether flared where enemy exomancers cast from the rear. Arrows, spells, screams. Her heart thudded against her ribs.

She swallowed, hard.

There were far more of them than she’d expected. Far more than any sane number. A black ocean of war.

And suddenly, aiming felt... pointless.

She adjusted the dial on the side of the rifle, flicking through settings. A flicker of blue light shimmered across her scope. This time, her vision was overlaid with targeting glyphs—seven floating rings that hovered and snapped into place when the array’s enchantments locked onto heat and motion signatures.

She gave a little nod, then sent the rifle back into the air to rejoin the others.

Each weapon aligned itself above her like a crown of silent predators.

Kivvy braced her stance, reached up with both hands, and wrapped her fingers around the trigger grip of her primary. One breath in. One breath out.

She squeezed.

The rifle in her hands fired with a sharp, clean crack.

At the same time, seven more shots rang out above her head, perfectly synchronized.

Eight flashes of light.

Eight bodies dropped in the distance.

She shifted targets, dialed in again. The spell matrix in her goggles refreshed.

Another breath.

Another squeeze.

Eight more shots. Eight more bodies.

She did not smile.

This wasn’t fun.

But she would make them regret ever setting foot on Serkoth soil.