“Take me to them,” Seren demands, with no room for argument in her tone.
“I’m bringing them back,” she says. “All of them.”
CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE
The patient heart still claims its due
For quiet tides reshape the blue
Marin does not stepinto the heart of the battle.
She holds to the outskirts, where the destruction can still be seen clearly, where the shape of the war reveals itself without the distortion of being inside it. From here, she watches the Caelorian forces drive forward through Virellin, not in chaos, but in ruthless, deliberate progression, their formations tightening as they advance toward the only passage that matters now—The Black Stream bridge.
It is the choke point.
The path to the castle.
The final claim.
Everything funnels toward it.
Teddy Ashborne was Dravara’s last defense. But even he, in all his strategic brilliance, could not stop them. He only stemmed the flow. And only for a moment.
Kael is somewhere out there—she can feel him even before seeing his magic through the sky. The distortion of his power cutting through the city in violent pulses, shadows threaded with something colder, something that does not belong to the man she once knew. Wherever he moves, the earth and sky answer, and whatever stands in his path does not stand for long.
Elyssara and the Queen of Caeloria no longer collide at the center of the battlefield. Something fractured their clash apart moments earlier, sending both forces scattering violently through the city. Now Elyssara moves with terrifying singular purpose through the chaos: hunting for Kael the same way he hunts for her.
And above them: the dragons.
They sweep low over the advancing lines, fire spilling from their jaws in great, devastating arcs that should break the army apart. But they don’t—they only disrupt them momentarily. The witches wield power, forming weapons, Gateways, and threads that should be fatal but are nothing more than an annoyance.
Because Caeloria’s weaponry is built to withstand it all.Skyfire. Aether. Kael.
Fire sweeps through the lower streets as the last of Dravara’s defenses attempt to hold the line Teddy fought so desperately to hold, magic flaring and collapsing in bursts that leave nothing but fractured stone and bodies in their wake. The air is thick with ash and heat, the ground trembling beneath the force of it all, and still the Caelorian army moves as one, pressing forward under a single will.
Her mother’s will.
Shields rise in answer, walls of Aether snapping into place with practiced precision, catching the fire before it can take hold, turning it aside in shimmering bursts that leave the soldiers behind them untouched.
Nyrielle rises, slower now, but more determined. Healing with Lhira’s magic, and regrouping with the patience of a goddess destined to a life of immortality and unrivaled power. To Nyrielle, there is no rush, only precision. Only victory.
She walks through the carnage. Through flame, through ruin, through the failing resistance of a kingdom that cannot hold against her, her power lashing outward with casual, devastating force. A flick of her hand sends a dragon veering from its path, its flight broken as it spirals away from the formation.
She does not look at it again. Does not care that she rips mythology from the skies they were born to.
Maireth cuts through the battlefield at the front of it, her power shaping the advance with terrifying precision, shadows lashing outward in controlled strikes that dismantle anything that dares stand against her. There is no frenzy to it, no loss of control. It is methodical. Intentional. The work of someone who does not believe she can be stopped.
Marin watches her.
Not as a daughter.
Not as a subordinate.
But as something separate at last.
She has learned not to move too soon. Not to reveal herself before the moment demands it. Power shown early is power taken, and she has spent a lifetime understanding exactly how quickly that happens.
So she waits.
