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Chapter One hundred and eighty-three
By the second dawn, the council had turned from mourning to murmurs.The great hall of Veyne had been patched with black banners to hide the sky’s wounds, but nothing could hide the scent of division brewing beneath it. The air was thick with candle smoke and quiet accusations.Selene sat upon the broken throne — not out of pride, but because the lords insisted she must appear as queen. The weight of that word hung heavier than the crown. She could feel the serpent’s pulse beneath her skin, faint and slow, like a second heart. Every hour it slept, the scar burned a little colder.Adrian stood at her right, Kael at her left. Beyond them, voices rose and fell like surf against rock.“The realm is shattered!” cried Lord Renn. “Trade routes gone, temples burned. Without the Queen’s power, how do we rebuild?”“The same way we destroyed ourselves,” spat another lord. “By grasping at things we cannot hold?”The old mage, bent with age but eyes still bright, struck his staff upon the
Chapter One hundred and eighty-two
Morning crept in like a stranger unsure it was welcome.The clouds that had raged all night hung low and colorless, their bellies streaked with the faint rose of a sun that didn’t quite dare to rise.The battlefield lay quiet except for the caw of carrion birds and the soft hiss of rain dripping from shattered banners. The citadel of Veyne had survived — but only just. Its spires were cracked, its gates twisted, and the stones still smoked from where the serpent’s light had burned through reality.Kael moved among the fallen with the stiffness of a man walking through his own dream. Around him, soldiers who had once sworn to kill each other now worked side by side, dragging the wounded to makeshift shelters, whispering prayers to whatever gods still listened.He paused beside a dark smear in the mud and touched it — ash, warm to the skin. Not just fire’s leavings. Power’s.He glanced toward the center of the ruined square where two figures sat at the heart of silence.Selene and
Chapter One hundred and eighty-one
Inside the storm, Selene could no longer tell where her thoughts ended and the serpent’s began.It wasn’t a voice anymore — it was a thousand whispers, slithering through the corridors of her mind, speaking in the rhythm of her own heartbeat.Each pulse echoed with something ancient and cruel.We gave you power. You gave us pain.The words crawled through her like venom.Around her, the storm’s roar had dimmed to a muffled hum. The battlefield, the ruins, even Adrian’s voice — all of it had faded to shadow.Now she stood in a boundless space of obsidian light, weightless and alone — or rather, not alone.Before her coiled the serpent — vast, luminous, and terrifyingly beautiful.Its scales shimmered with galaxies. Its eyes were twin suns — and yet, when it spoke, the sound came from her own mouth.“You were never meant to be human,” it said, its tone tender, almost pitiful. “Do you remember what it was to be whole?”Selene’s fists clenched. “I remember the choice.”The serpent’s laugh
Chapter One hundred and eighty
Kael had seen war in all its cruelty.He had watched cities burn, heard the screams of men swallowed by magic they couldn’t understand, and buried comrades beneath soil that still trembled with old curses.But nothing — not even the bloodiest nights of the Crimson Siege — prepared him for this.The storm that loomed over the citadel wasn’t just weather.It was a living thing — pulsing, breathing, watching.Lightning arced across the heavens in unnatural patterns, forming symbols that glowed and vanished before his eyes.The rain had turned thick, black like ink, staining armor and skin. The air reeked of something ancient — copper and fire and decay all at once.And at the heart of it stood them.Adrian and Selene.Lovers. Warriors. Enemies.Now, something greater — something terrifying — was unraveling between them.The Moment of BecomingKael crouched behind the shattered archway, one hand gripping the hilt of his blade, though he knew it would be useless.Even from here, he could f
Chapter One hundred and seventy-nine
For a moment, the world seemed to still.Rain fell in heavy curtains, whispering against armor and ash, running down the cracked marble beneath their feet. Lightning flashed somewhere beyond the towers, turning the ruins silver for an instant, then swallowing them back into shadow.Adrian stood with his sword lowered, chest heaving, blood running from a shallow wound across his ribs. The pain barely registered. What burned sharper than any cut was the look in Selene’s eyes — the flicker of the woman he knew, the one who had begged him to run even as the serpent screamed through her veins.He couldn’t move. He couldn’t breathe.Because he finally understood something cruel and simple — he was losing her, not to death, but to erasure.The woman before him was becoming someone else.He blinked, and for an instant, through the storm, he saw another night — another rain.Her laughter had been soft then, silver like the moonlight that danced on her skin. She had been barefoot in the gard
Chapter One hundred and seventy-eight
The rain fell hard.Each drop hissed as it struck his armor, turning the soot and blood to streaks of gray. Adrian did not move at first. He stood still, sword in hand, watching the woman before him as the storm gathered its breath.Selene.Even drenched in darkness, she glowed. Not with light, but with defiance — with the shimmer of power that made the very air around her hum. Shadows twisted around her form like living serpents, wrapping her in a crown of smoke. Her eyes were molten red, and yet, beneath that infernal glow, he still saw the glimmer of the woman who had once whispered his name like a vow.He wanted to speak. To say her name. To break whatever spell she was under with the sound of his voice.But words had long since become useless things between them.So instead, he moved.The ChargeHis first step was silent. The second tore through the mud like thunder.The world erupted.The ash-fire in his blade burst to life — pale, colorless flame that gave no heat but burned
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