All Chapters of THE LAST BLOODLINE AWAKENS: Chapter 111
- Chapter 120
157 chapters
CHAPTER 111
Rune POV"Do you see yourself?" I asked. "Or do you see Grimfall?"Another pause. Longer this time."I don't--I don't know.""Yes, you do." I took a breath. "You've been battling the whispers for weeks." Fighting to stay yourself.Fighting to keep the corruption from gaining full control. You know what Grimfall sounds like. You know what it feels like when it is trying to control you.""It doesn't have to be a fight," Tiago interjected. And that's what I'm trying to explain. Stop resisting, and it stops hurting.""Stop resisting, and you stop existing," I countered. I still didn't look at Wilder. Kept talking to him while watching Tiago, "You think you'll be partners? You think Grimfall is offering you equality? It's a parasitic force, Wilder. It consumes. That's all it knows how to do.""Aeris is dying of corruption," Tiago said. "I'm thriving with it. Which of us sounds like Grimfall's victim?""Both of you," I said. "Here, Aeris is dying because he's been fighting it for twenty year
CHAPTER 112
Rune POVI took Wilder's hand.And the world exploded.Tiago's corrupt shadows hit us before we'd taken a single step. A wave of darkness that wasn't like Wilder's shadows at all - This one was wrong, tainted, it was raging, hungry, and it was something so ancient that it made my skin crawl.I pulled Wilder behind me, instinctively putting up a light barrier.It cracked on impact. This corrupted power was more powerful than anything we'd faced during training. Stronger than the thralls. Maybe even stronger than Tiago had used during the attack on the Sanctum.He was done playing games."You made the wrong choice," Tiago snarled. His calm facade had been shattered completely. Now he just looked angry. Betrayed, even, which was ridiculous considering that he was trying to corrupt Wilder into serving Grimfall."Maybe," I said, strengthening my barrier despite my dangerously depleted Light element. "But it was his choice to make.""And yours will be living with the consequences!"Another
CHAPTER 113
Author's POVThe van was silent except for the hum of the engine and the occasional shift of tactical gear.Eleven days had passed since Charis had revealed the prophecy. Eleven days of brutal training, sleepless nights, and constant awareness that time was running out.And now it was here.Convergence night.The astronomical alignment was perfect. The barriers between worlds were thinnest. And somewhere, fifteen miles out of New Haven at an abandoned Estate built on a convergence of ley lines, Grimfall was breaking through.Rune sat in the back of the Van with his hands clasped loosely in his lap. Beside him, close enough so that their shoulders touched, was Wilder. They weren't even talking to each other in the last twenty minutes. Hadn't needed to. Just sat there together in comfortable silence while all around them there was chaos swirling around them.Zayan noticed. Had been noticing for days.Ever since Rune and Wilder had come back to the Sanctum battered and exhausted with the
CHAPTER 114
Author's POV Astoria turned to the assembled group. Four teenagers and six trained soldiers against an ancient evil and an army of thralls.The odds were not good."You all know what's at stake," Astoria said. "You all know what we are here to do. Some of you aren't going to want to fight against the people you're going to face tonight. Some of you will be tempted to hold back."Her eyes passed over Zayan, then Kaladin."Don't," she said firmly. "Holding back gets you killed. Gets your team killed. These thralls are victims, but they're also weapons. Grimfall is using them. If you have a second thought, if you're pulling your punches, you're not saving them. You're only giving Grimfall more time to completely break through."Zayan's jaw clenched. But he nodded.Kaladin's hands were clenched into fists. "Understood.""Rune. Wilder." Astoria looked at them. Your only job is to get to the convergence point. Everything else is secondary. The rest of us will make a path and hold the line.
CHAPTER 115
Zayan POVI'd been in a lot of fights.Street brawls over territory. Dealers that didn't want to pay up. Cops who believed that a dropout kid deserved a beating just for existing.But I'd never fought my way through an army to get to my baby sister.The thralls kept coming. Wave after wave. Corrupted Etherwind people with grey patches growing across their skin, their eyes too black, their actions dictated by something that wasn't human anymore.I crushed them.Not killed. Astoria's rules were clear. But I didn't hold back either. Earth spikes from below to knock them off balance. Stone walls to trap them. The ground itself rises and swallows their feet, pinning them.Every thrall I put down was one step closer to Zenna.She was still at the bottom of the mansion steps. Fighting along with the other corrupted users. Her entropy manipulation, lashing out at anyone who got close to it, made our people scream when it connected.Making them age. Making them decay. Making them feel decades
CHAPTER 116
Zayan's POVZenna gasped. "What--what are you doing?""Grounding you." I tightened my grip. "Earth magic. Real earth magic. Not the destructive kind. The healing kind. The kind that sucks out the poison and returns it to the ground to be cleansed."The gray patches on her arm began to disappear. Slowly. Painfully slowly. But visibly.The entropy that had been crackling about her fingers dissipated. Pulled down into the earth through our connection. Drained off like water through the soil."It hurts," Zenna whimpered."I know. I'm sorry. But you have to hold on." My migraines were getting worse and worse. This kind of power use -- sustained, focused, pulling corruption out of another person -- was beyond anything I'd done before.But I didn't stop.Couldn't stop.This was my sister. And I was getting her back.The corruption fought me. Tried to hold on. Grimfall was unwilling to lose its weapon. Didn't want to let go of someone whom it had invested so much power in.But Earth was older
CHAPTER 117
Eilish POVThe convergence point looked worse from a distance.I stood with Babushka's tactical team, on the north perimeter of the perimeter, watching shadows bleed from Blackthorn Estate like blood from a wound. The darkness crept on the grounds, eating things that it was able to touch. Grass withered. Trees died. The air itself felt sick.And somewhere in the thick of that corruption was my family fighting.Rune. Wilder. Zayan. Kaladin.They'd gone in without me."Perimeter holding steady," one of the tactical team members reported into his comm. His name was Viktor. Russian accent. One of the oldest of Babushka's soldiers. "No thralls breaching the north side yet."Yet.The word hung heavy. Because they would breach. Eventually. There were too many of them. Far too much Corruption spreading. Too much darkness.We couldn't hold forever.I clutched my hands together and tried to hold the fire in check. My element had been flashing all night - responding to my fear, my anxiety, my de
CHAPTER 118
Zenna POVI could still feel the power.That was the strangest part. After what Zayan had done for me -- pulling that corruption out of me, grounding me in that impossible earth magic -- I should have been left empty. Should have felt normal again;But I didn't.There was still something there. Deep in my chest. In my hands. Not corruption. Not the wrong, tainted energy that Tiago had given me. But--power. Raw. Uncontrolled. Just sitting there like it was waiting for me to figure out what was to be done with it.I didn't understand it.Zayan had scraped the patches of gray skin from my skin. Had drained the entropy manipulation that had been killing me from the inside out. I'd felt it leave - I'd felt the poison sink into the ground and disappear.But not all of it.Some of the power had stayed. Transferred somehow in the process of healing. As Zayan's earth magic had removed the corruption and left the Etherwind energy behind.Or maybe--I looked at my brother.He was fighting on the
CHAPTER 119
Zenna POVFor just a second, the convergence drove forward. The tear widened. Shadows spilled out.Then Aeris gathered himself. The fire surged brighter. The tear was forced back."Do it," Aeris said. His voice was firm again. Final. "Do what's necessary. Save them. Save everyone."I heard movement. Footsteps on stone.Wilder was walking toward the convergence point.Toward the tear in reality.Toward death.He was really going to do it. Going to become a vessel. Going to let Grimfall fill him and corrupt him and consume him just to seal the ancient evil away.He was going to give himself up.Seventeen years old, and he was walking like it was inevitable, walking toward death.Like he'd accepted it.Like he didn't have a choice.And maybe he didn't. Maybe this was the only way. Maybe the prophecy was right, and someone needed to become a vessel, and someone did need to become Wilder.But god, it wasn't fair.None of this was fair.I'd joined Grimfall because I wanted power. Because I
CHAPTER 120
Author's POVCharis's car tore down the abandoned highway at speeds that would have been reckless under normal circumstances.But these weren't normal circumstances.Her hands gripped the steering wheel so tightly her knuckles had gone white. The ancient text was on the passenger seat next to her, pages covered with hastily scribbled notes in 3 different languages.She'd found it.After eleven days of searching through every archive, every forbidden text, every fragment of the original convergence records - she'd finally found it.And she was probably too late.The thought had her pressing harder on the accelerator. The engine protested but obeyed. Trees blurred by in the darkness. The road lay long and endless aheadShe'd been so careful. So meticulous. Going over every piece of information with the kind of heavy-heartedness that comes from knowing lives depend on her getting this right. To hope--to pray--to find something, anything that might save them.Anything that would save Wild