Kailorien tightened his grip on Auryn, who still thrashed against his grip, mumbling nonsense about closing the rift, begging him to let her get to it. Silvery veins flickered under her skin. Astenos screamed and reared as another wave of hounds burst from the rift.
“We can’t hold this!” Thessia shouted over the din. “Inside!NOW!”
Wounded Reskala retreated in a ragged column—stumbling, blood-soaked, gasping—while Zarrek carved down anything that tried to flank them. Talia strapped her massive shield to her back and grabbed two wounded menders around the waist, carrying them as they clung to her in terror.
Behind them, the courtyard collapsed into chaos: Gliders torn apart mid-air, Reskala swallowed under the packmother’s spawn, ward-light flickering out like dying stars.
The inner archway groaned as they passed under it, stone raining from its fractured seams. Thessia shoved the last survivors through and spun, bracing her shoulder under a heavy beam that could still serve as a makeshift barricade.
“Zarrek!” she called.
He barreled in behind her, and together they heaved the stone slab into place. The impact shook the hall. On the other side, claws scraped and pounded. First one pair, then dozens. The sound curdled the blood.
Inside, the world shrank to a single, choking chamber: low ceilings, smoke clinging to every surface, wounded soldiers crumpling against the walls. The air tasted of iron and ash. A single torch guttered beside a cracked pillar, its flame trembling as though even the elements feared the coming darkness.
Kailorien held Auryn against him as she trembled, breaths thin, blood still trailing from her nose. She was barely conscious.
Zarrek pressed an ear to the barricade, his golden eyes narrowing. Black blood coated him in violent spatters, sinking into his scars. The runes along his arms and neck burned orange. “Minutes,” he said.
"Generous assessment, Bloodletter," Thessia said. She scanned the chamber, and Kailorien did the same.
Nothing about it promised survival. The doorframe sagged. The stones bled dust with every strike from the other side. This was no stronghold. This was a pause before the end. Thessia's eyes met his then moved to Auryn—small, fevered, clutching at his arms as if fighting both him and herself.
The rift howled beyond the walls.
The barricade shuddered.
And for the first time, the truth settled into his bones.
There was no saving Stonewake.
Only saving her.
Only reaching the Oath Gate before the rift’s spawn did.
Zarrek stepped back from the door, meeting Thessia’s gaze over the heads of the wounded.
It was the moment everything broke.
38
Violet Vow
The barricade shuddered again. Hard enough that the torchlight flickered sideways, shadows flailing across the cracked walls like dying things. Dust rained from the ceiling in pale cascades, coating Thessia’s tongue with the taste of old stone and battlefield smoke. Every breath burned. Every heartbeat felt borrowed.
'Riven…I have never prayed to you…not once. Mother said you would come when I needed you. Said you'd never let our violet eyes burn alone. Always knew it was a bunch of horse shit, yet here I am…praying…'
Gods damned waste of time, but so was this barricade.
Minutes.
That was Zarrek’s estimate.
Generous, and she wasn't afraid to say so.
Thessia braced her palm against the trembling doorframe as another varkhound slammed into the other side. The thick beam they had dragged across the entrance was already warping, nails screaming in protest. The creatures were learning—driving bone spines into the hinges, using their weight, their numbers, their endless hunger. They threw bodies at the walls, shrieked with the dying voices of their victims.
So smart in their cruelty. So eager to tear through. If another packmother came now, they wouldn't last seconds.
