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CHAPTER FORTY EIGHT

M y pulse elevated as I watched the ground crack apart a few hundred feet away and the battalion of Stonebreakers continued to burst from the ground, rising like the undead.

They came in waves, riding upon beastly contraptions with a hundred metal legs a-piece, each of them carrying several hundred Avanis warriors who were emerging onto the battlefield thirsty for blood.

Kaiser laid a hand on my arm - the gesture could have been misinterpreted for comfort had I not known his true intentions.

His possession burrowed deeper into me and true fear took root as his eyes lit red with his demonic Order form.

He worked to draw upon the Void, trying to lure it to do as he bid, but it was as fickle as ever and Kaiser Brimtheon was not its master. I wasn’t even sure I was.

To the west, the battalion of Flamebringers who were fighting to hold back the Raincarvers and Skyforgers split apart so that a third of them turned to meet the army of Avanis.

They were vastly outnumbered and they’d barely had time to assemble themselves for this fight, but their eyes were bright with determination, their spirits not close to broken yet.

At a cry from a Flamebringer commander, the volcanic ground split apart beneath the charging Stonebreakers and molten lava spewed into the sky.

It splashed down onto the Avanis warriors and some of the strange contraptions they’d been riding, forcing them to break ranks to avoid the lethal cracks in the earth.

My gaze fixed on a fierce Stonebreaker as he led the charge from the head of the first metallic beast to have erupted from the ground, a golden hammer raised in the air above him and bloodlust gleaming in his eyes.

He called out for his warriors to follow him and they swiftly raced along in his stead.

“Earl Tarlord is one of the few Earls who leads his army into battle from the front,” Kaiser commented as if he was watching something as calming as the shifting tide. “His bravery will earn him his death soon enough.”

“I heard he’s launched more attacks on Pyros than any other ruler across The Waning Lands in the last decade. It seems he hates your people as fervently as I do,” I replied coldly, my eyes locked on the legendary Avanis warrior as he led the charge towards death and glory.

Kaiser nodded and Calcifiend chirruped on his shoulder, his own gaze honed in on the enemy army.

“Our people butchered his family in an attempt to assassinate him. They managed to destroy most of his bloodline aside from the most important one. Him. Since then, Earl Tarlord only launches his troops against Pyros – his engagements with Stormfell and Cascada are only ever defensive, his sole focus on destroying the Flamebringers in payment for the deaths of his wife and children,” he said without emotion but my blood curdled at that snippet of truth, a stirring of empathy finding its way into me as I watched the ferocious Avanis warrior tearing into battle like a harbinger of death.

“I hope he gets the vengeance he’s seeking,” I hissed.

“He butchered the entire legion who were responsible for his family’s demise and decorated his throne room with their bones.

He has had his vengeance but his hatred pushes him to seek more and more of it.

He will not be satisfied until he has taken the heads of every Fae of power in Pyros.

It makes him predictable and will be his downfall in the end,” Kaiser said, his attention on Earl Tarlord too, though his focus wasn’t in awe or understanding of the man’s pain, it was purely analytical, one predator assessing another.

I wasn’t certain what to make of the idea of the warlord’s morbid throne room but it was hardly my most pressing concern right now.

As more lava spewed, the Avanis warriors wielded the great, jagged lumps of black rock to their advantage, creating bridges over the pools of spurting magma and swinging their heavy swords in skilful arcs.

Blood spilled as the front lines collided.

Flamebringers versus Stonebreakers. And their fight was drawing ever closer to us.

I was unarmed. Entirely at Kaiser’s mercy as the threat headed our way. We were going to be caught up in the battle if we didn’t move soon. But Kaiser continued to tug on the threads of my soul, trying to seek out the power of the Void, acting as if we had all the time in the world.

“I’m going to die here if you don’t let me fight,” I growled. “Uncuff me. Give me a blade.”

“You will do as you’re bid,” Kaiser said darkly and ice crept into my blood, a hatred so potent it burned.

He tugged on my power, drawing on my magic, but the cuffs blocked any use of it.

“Free me,” I demanded. “You’re mad if you think this plan will work. That battle will be upon us any moment. Are you so stubborn that you’ll kill us both?”

“Quiet,” he sniped, wielding the power within me, making it stir and dance.

“ Stop ,” I snarled, hating the sensation, my body no longer mine, but his. Always his.

My gut lurched as Kaiser’s possession latched onto something deeper, more terrible than water magic even in its most ruthless form.

I inhaled sharply as the Void awoke, offering itself to me, but in doing so, it offered itself to the Fury too.

“There, now let’s see what you are truly capable of, silka la vin.”

“Wait,” I gasped as he turned me to face the oncoming Avanis army, the rows of bellowing Stonebreakers clashing with the dwindling Flamebringers and drawing terrifyingly close.

Kaiser drew his sword, his gaze fixed on the enemy. Death spread out before me, bodies strewn aside, stepped over or trampled on. The Stonebreakers never stopped coming, pouring from the ground in those strange contraptions and overwhelming the Flamebringers with sheer numbers.

Many of the warriors had begun to shift, a clash of Werewolves among them, and a pack of vicious Nemean Lion shifters tearing through the masses. It was pure carnage and it was closing in on us second by second.

“Go, Calcifiend. Assist our people,” Kaiser encouraged.

The Sayer Dragon took off from his shoulder and flew away over the battle. A tremendous explosion sounded as the tiny creature used its own deadly magic to take out a group of Stonebreakers, knocking them down into a pit of magma and my lips parted at the lizard’s strength.

An Avanis Medusa spotted us on the ridge, her hair replaced with strands of snakes that hissed and spat at us. She ran to meet us, bloody sword raised and murder written into her eyes.

“Arm me,” I commanded the Fury, but I knew it was futile.

Kaiser tugged on the power within me and somehow he wielded the Void. I cried out in shock as it spilled from me and Kaiser stepped behind me to avoid its strike, the rush of magic slamming into the Medusa all at once.

Her Order form melted away, her hair returning to golden strands and though confusion crossed her features, she didn’t slow.

She raised her sword while lifting her hand too, angling it at the earth beneath our feet and releasing a battle cry.

She glanced down at her fingers, clearly confused that no magic was cast and Kaiser sent a barrage of fire over my head, consuming her in the flames and killing her fast.

I gasped at the savagery of the attack, how easily he had managed to wield the Void through me when I had struggled so much to use it.

“Onward,” Kaiser commanded in a word I felt down to my bones.

I moved in front of him, tethered by his monstrous Fearsire magic and the sense of his possession running blood deep. He walked me toward the battle, placing his hand on my spine to deepen our connection and hatred blazed within me.

Avanis were my enemies but being used like this made me sick. I was just his tool, forced to plant the seed of death wherever he aimed me.

He cast the Void power from me once again, angling me toward a group of Avanis warriors who were cutting down three Flamebringers between them, hacking at their bodies with blades while holding them down with magical vines.

Kaiser made the Void answer his call and its power slammed into them, five Stonebreakers at once this time, all of them staggering in confusion as they felt the strange attack. Shock rushed through me at the amount of power I had somehow cast, wielding the Void against so many enemies at once.

Their magic stuttered out and they looked around, raising their swords. Kaiser blasted fire at them and their screams coloured the air as they were consumed in the blaze, running to try and escape but only finding a pit of lava waiting behind them.

I cursed at the use of such magic, the fire heating me through and making me feel like the deepest kind of traitor as I was forced to assist my enemy.

A whoosh of air and clash of battle above made me look up. Skyforgers were descending from the edge of Ironwraith, using the gift of air to stay aloft and pick off enemies. They brutally killed a Flamebringer Manticore then set their eyes on us, speeding our way like hawks focused on their prey.

“Kaiser, look up!” I snapped, having no way to defend myself and not wanting to die here at their hands.

He forced the Void to tear from me again and as the invisible power impacted with the Skyforgers, their air magic was torn from them, guttering out. They yelled in fright as they fell thirty feet from the sky and slammed into the scorched rocks with sickening cracks.

A yell of fury made my head turn and a flash of black and white wings caught my eye.

The Matriarch flew into battle in her Harpy form, throwing small blades at the Stonebreakers with incredible aim, slicing into their necks and killing them quick.

She released fire from her hands, burning the backs of a line of Avanis warriors, sending them running into the jaws of a Flamebringer Werewolf pack that was following in her wake.

I recognised North’s grey and white Wolf form among them, ripping into his adversaries with tooth and claw.

A line of magpies burst from the tunnel we had taken to leave the city, leading another legion of Flamebringers to intercept the Stonebreakers, but it still wasn’t enough.

The Pyros warriors were eclipsed by the number of their enemies and there was only so long this could last. Cinder Vale would fall.

When the Flamebringer reinforcements clashed with the Stonebreakers, it was bloody chaos.

Kaiser kept me on the verges of the fight, his fingers snaring my arm as he pulled me close and spoke low in my ear. “You can do more than this.” His possession bit into me so deeply that it hurt, every part of my body becoming his.

I despised him to the root of my being and I ached for his death beyond anything else in this world.

“I will wield every drop of your power,” he growled, the Nightfire coming to life inside me, burning me and demanding I give everything he asked for. “It is caged somehow, not fully unleashed. You must free it. I command you to.”

I cried out as the Nightfire begged me to answer that demand, blazing through my body and hurting me for defying him. But I didn’t know how to do what he asked and I desperately didn’t want to either.

He was burning me alive from the inside and I fought him with every ounce of strength I possessed, but I buckled to my knees as the fire clawed its way through my soul.

“Release it,” Kaiser ordered.

“I can’t,” I growled. “I won’t.”

“Well which is it?” he asked, crouching down and pulling my hair to make me look up at him. “Because I think it’s neither.”

His possession raked against my soul and made a strangled scream escape me, the pain it caused like an inferno searing the inside of my skin.

“There’s nothing more,” I spat at him, breathless and agonised.

“You’re a fool if you believe that. Do you really think a prophecy would have been written about a power so meagre? You are unstoppable, silka la vin. And you will prove it this very hour.”