Page 25 of Broken Fates (Severed Flames #3)

Chapter 25

Vale

T he Dreaming spat us out.

Not gently—not like before. This time, it hurled us forward, slamming us into the battlefield like it wanted us broken before the fight even began.

I hit the ground hard, my knees skidding against rough stone, my breath stolen by the sudden impact. My fingers curled, digging into the dirt?—

No. Not dirt. Not stone.

Bones.

The brittle snap of fractured remains crunched beneath my boots, the weight of my landing splintering through a field of skeletal debris. My stomach turned as I forced myself upright, my breath coming too fast, too shallow?—

No. No, no, no.

I knew this place. I had bled here. I had fought here. I had nearly died here.

But it wasn’t the same.

It was worse.

The air wasn’t air. It was dense, suffocating, laced with magic so thick it felt like drowning. The wind howled like a living thing, curling against my skin, whispering, begging, warning.

The jagged cliffs that had once loomed over the battlefield were gone, as if something had crushed them from the inside out. The wind shrieked through the emptiness, sharp with the scent of blood and decay, a constant, hungry wail.

And the falls?

They ran red. Not water. Not mist.

Blood.

A slow, steady river of crimson poured from the broken cliffs, spilling into an abyss that had no bottom. The wind caught the spray, turning it into a fine mist that clung to my skin like a warning.

This was a graveyard. A killing field. And at the center of it was my baby sister.

Nyrah.

I stopped breathing.

She was kneeling. Too still. Too quiet.

Her arms were bound in coils of silver energy, her golden skin pale, drained, hollow. Her head lolled forward, her pale hair matted with blood, her body a fragile thing?—

No.

I took a step forward, my legs numb, shaking. Another step. And another before I was caught in Idris’ hold, his arm hooked around my middle, keeping me from my sister.

She wasn’t moving. She wasn’t breathing.

A jagged sob tore free from my throat. My vision blurred, the world narrowing, collapsing around the single, shattering fact that my sister?—

No.

A shuddering inhale ripped through my lungs. Not again. Not her. I had fought too hard, had bled too much, had burned myself to nothing to get her back.

I wasn’t losing her.

I wasn’t fucking losing her.

“Nyrah.” My voice broke. “Nyrah, look at me.”

She didn’t. She didn’t fucking move. And beside her was a barely conscious Briar.

Zamarra had them both.

She stood atop the altar of bones, golden veins pulsing beneath her skin, her body wreathed in twisting, shifting light.

Her once-fractured form had almost completely solidified, the hollowness in her face gone, the cracks in her body sealed.

She had been feeding.

And I was going to rip her apart.

Zamarra turned slowly, smiling. Her voice slithered through the heavy air, smooth as silk, sharp as shattered glass. “You’re late.”

Rage burned through my veins. I started to move, but the ground trembled beneath my feet.

The Dreaming was writhing. The sky was splitting. Fractures ripped reality apart as something vast, something hungry, twisted through the air.

And then the nightmares came.

They crawled from the fissures themselves, dragging free from the slashes in reality. Shadows with bodies, fangs that gleamed like shattered glass, claws dripping with the memory of every life they had ever taken.

These weren’t like the others.

These were hers.

Zamarra lazily lifted a single hand, and with a flourish of her wrist, the creatures attacked.

We met them head-on.

Magic exploded outward as Kian, Xavier, and Idris shifted at once, their power colliding in a storm of fire, ice, and raw golden fury.

The impact shattered the ground, sending fissures racing toward the falls. The blood-red mist thickened, the air vibrating with so much raw power I could taste it.

Kian was the first to strike.

His onyx-scaled body twisted through the sky, illusions flickering in the air behind him—so many that the monsters didn’t know what to attack. He was everywhere and nowhere, a storm of claws and deception.

Xavier cut through them like a blade. His iridescent-scaled form dove, talons flashing, fire streaming from his jaws as he ripped through the creatures with surgical precision.

And Idris. Gods. Idris.

He was power incarnate. His scarlet body lit the battlefield, magic roaring off him in waves so intense the very air warped. This—this was what Arden had tried to take from him. This was what Zamarra had feared. This was why she had cursed him.

A breath shuddered through me—a heartbeat before the sky shattered.

Lightning split the heavens.

Talek unleashed his own storm, the wind bending to his will. Electricity surged through the battlefield, the wind slamming into the creatures, hurling them off the edge of the falls.

But it wasn’t enough.

The Dreaming itself fought against us.

Zamarra rose from her throne of the dead.

She barely lifted her hand before the world changed. The battlefield vanished—ripped away in a convergence of power.

I wasn’t standing in the middle of a fight anymore. I was somewhere else.

The battlefield was gone—swallowed by something vast, something twisting, something wrong. And in its place, Nyrah.

Her body turned to dust in my hands.

No.

A strangled, wordless scream tore from my throat as she disintegrated, her face frozen in pain, her fingers stretching toward me, reaching, needing, and then she was gone.

Nothing but dust.

The wind carried her away, scattering her across the broken land.

I couldn’t breathe. My hands were empty. My heart cracked open.

No— no —this isn’t real.

It wasn’t real. I forced myself to move, to turn, but then I saw my mates.

Dead. All dead.

Their bodies lay broken across the battlefield, blood slicking the stone, their scales cracked, their chests still.

Kian. His head lay at an unnatural angle, amber eyes staring sightless.

Xavier. His throat was torn open, his pale flesh marred with the ruin of a fatal blow.

Idris. His scarlet dragon scales had dulled to gray, his massive form sprawled in the wreckage, his wings crushed beneath his own weight.

I couldn’t move. I couldn’t breathe.

“No,” I whispered. “ No .” My voice barely carried over the silence.

I fell to my knees, the sharp bite of broken stone cutting into my skin, but I didn’t feel it.

All I could see was them.

All I could hear was the howling roar of grief, the one clawing through my skin, through my throat, through my very soul.

This isn’t real. This isn’t real. This isn’t ? —

Magic shivered in the air. A flicker of movement—too fast, too sharp—like a whisper against the edges of my senses.

Then there was a crack in the illusion. A ripple. A shift. Kian’s magic—not gone. Not broken.

Fighting.

Illusion against illusion.

And suddenly, everything shuddered.

The battlefield blurred, twisted, fragmented. The stone beneath me trembled, and through the haze of my own breaking mind, I felt it.

This wasn’t real. This was her .

Zamarra.

Her nightmare. Her trap.

And I was about to rip it apart.

Xavier saw the threads of it—saw the lie. And then he started severing them. The illusion rippled, twisted, fractured.

Idris—his rage burned hotter than the nightmare itself. His scarlet dragon form tore through the false world, wings beating against the illusion, power blazing, shaking the dream apart.

But it wasn’t enough. The nightmare held. Zamarra was too deeply rooted in it.

It was up to me.

I turned toward her, toward the woman who had done this. She stood at the heart of it all, her silver veins glowing with power, her face serene, her fingers woven into the fabric of the Dreaming itself.

She didn’t look worried. She should have been.

“You can’t fight me here,” she murmured, her voice smooth as silk, cold as a blade.

And that was her first mistake. Because I wasn’t going to fight her. I was going to tear her apart.

Light detonated from my palms. Not magic. Not a spell. The Dreaming itself answered me. The ground quaked beneath us. A pulse—deep and ancient—throbbed through the fabric of reality.

I didn’t summon it. Didn’t conjure it. It was given.

A blade of pure, white-hot energy formed in my grasp—light shaped into a weapon that had never existed before. A blade that wasn't forged—but born. I’d conjured many swords in my short time, but nothing like this.

Zamarra’s eyes widened for the first time. “Impossible,” she whispered.

I tightened my grip. “You should’ve never come back.”

The Dreaming shuddered, and then it showed me.

The vision slammed into me like a tidal wave.

I saw her—as she had been in the temple. The golden stone cracked under the weight of the curse. The Luxa screamed, their light ripping from their bodies, veins of power siphoning into the spell, into her.

Zamarra stood at the center of it all, her hands outstretched, magic weaving like silk.

She was so sure. So precise. She had prepared for every possibility. Every possibility—except one.

She had stolen power that wasn’t meant to be taken—magic not freely given.

I saw the moment it began to turn.

Her breath hitched. Her fingers trembled, just slightly. The power she had stolen wasn’t settling. It was coiling. Shifting. Waiting.

But she didn’t realize. Not yet.

Her eyes glittered with triumph as the final threads of the spell settled.

As Idris collapsed, broken and severed.

As Rune was ripped from him, roaring in agony.

As the Luxa fell, drained husks of what they had been.

The magic locked into place.

And for centuries, it slept.

Waiting.

Waiting for the moment she would dare to use it.

The temple fractured around me, and suddenly, I was somewhere else.

Direveil, but it was different than I’d ever seen it.

Zamarra stood on the cliffs, bathed in silver moonlight, magic thrumming beneath her skin.

She had waited. She had been patient. And now—she was ready.

Her hands lifted, silver veins glowing beneath her skin as she whispered the incantation. And for a moment, the magic obeyed. For a moment, she held all that power in her hands, bending it to her will.

Then it snapped. The stolen power fought back. She gasped—staggering—eyes wide in horror.

The Luxas’ power was still alive inside her, but it wasn't hers. And it never would be.

I saw the exact moment she lost control. The night itself split apart, silver light slashing through the sky like claws. The power detonated inside her veins, magic writhing, turning, twisting against her.

Her scream tore through the cliffs.

And then the ground reached up to meet her. But it wasn’t earth or stone. As the pale iridescent rocks wrapped around her, I knew exactly what they were.

Lumentium.

The unforgiving retaliation of the very magic she had tried to own. It buried her. Encased her in something harder than steel, something that had never existed before.

Magic forged into prison.

She clawed at it. She screamed. But the mountain did not move.

She had been sentenced.

Not by a king.

Not by a god.

But by the Dreaming itself.

The vision snapped. The battlefield roared back into focus. Zamarra’s gaze locked onto mine—and for the first time, there was fear.

I knew her secret.

She had never been strong enough to control this magic, and now, the Dreaming knew it, too.

And I was about to show her exactly how much it hated her.