Page 55 of Realms of Swords and Storms (Empire of Vengeance #3)

The fourth explosion answered her, this one from the east side of the square.

The justice building collapsed in on itself, stone and timber surrendering to fire and force.

More screams. More dust. More blood on the cobblestones of a square that had seen centuries of imperial rule and would now witness its greatest atrocity.

"We need to get out of here," Octavia cried, her face pale beneath the dust coating it. "Please, Livia. There's nothing we can do!"

But Livia's eyes remained fixed on mine, something hardening in her expression as understanding dawned. "You knew," she said, her voice barely audible over the cacophony surrounding us. "You knew this was going to happen."

I couldn't lie to her. Not now. Not ever again. "Yes," I admitted, the single syllable carrying the weight of all my guilt, all my shame. "I helped plant the devices."

She recoiled as if I'd struck her, disbelief warring with horror in her eyes. "You... what?"

"I was told they'd evacuate the square first," I rushed on, desperate to explain, though I knew no explanation could ever be sufficient.

"That the targets were imperial buildings, symbols of oppression, not.

.. not people. Not innocents." I gestured helplessly at the devastation around us.

"I was stupid. So stupid. Kalen was working for the Emperor all along.

This was a trap, designed to turn public opinion against the Talfen, against anyone who opposes Imperial rule. "

Livia stared at me, her expression shifting from horror to a grief so profound it seemed to age her before my eyes. "All these people," she whispered. "All these lives..."

"I know," I said, my voice breaking. "That's why you have to get out. Now. There are still more devices. The commander's residence will be next, then the reviewing stand. You need to go, before—"

"Come with us," she interrupted, gripping my arm again. "Tarshi, please. Come with us."

The plea in her voice nearly undid me. For a moment—just a moment—I considered it. Fleeing with her, leaving this nightmare behind, finding some quiet corner of the world where we might pretend I hadn't helped create this hell.

But the weight of my guilt was too heavy to outrun.

"I can't," I said, gently removing her hand from my arm. "I'm the only one who knows where all the devices are. I have to try to stop the ones that haven't detonated yet. I have to try to save who I can."

"But—"

"I let hate take over," I cut her off, needing her to understand. "I let anger blind me. I'm no better than the Emperor, using people as pawns in some grand game of power. But now... now I have to try to make it right. Whatever small part I can."

Tears cut clean tracks through the dust on her cheeks. "You'll die."

"Maybe," I agreed, knowing it was likely true. "But better me than more innocents." I turned to Octavia, who stood pale and trembling beside Livia. "Get her out of here. Please. Head south, toward the academy. It's the only direction without a planted device."

Octavia nodded, understanding in her eyes despite her fear. She took Livia's arm, beginning to pull her away. "Come on," she urged. "We have to go."

"Tarshi, no!" Livia struggled against Octavia's grip, her eyes never leaving mine. "Please!"

"I'm sorry," I said, the words wholly inadequate for the magnitude of my crimes. "I'm so sorry, Livia. For everything."

And then I was running, away from her, toward the commander's residence where the fifth device waited.

Her cry followed me, a sound of such raw anguish it felt like a physical wound.

But I didn't look back. I couldn't bear to see the moment when grief turned to hatred in her eyes, when she finally understood the full measure of my betrayal.

The square had transformed into a landscape of nightmares.

Smoke billowed from four separate craters where imperial buildings had stood for centuries.

The cobblestones were slick with blood, littered with debris and abandoned possessions—a child's toy, a woman's shawl, a merchant's scattered wares.

Most of the survivors had fled, but some still wandered in shock or lay wounded, calling for help that might never come.

I ran past them all, my focus narrowed to a single purpose: reach the next device before it could detonate. Save what lives remained to be saved.

The commander's residence loomed ahead, a stolid stone building on the west side of the square.

Unlike the other targets, it still stood intact, its facade unmarked by the destruction surrounding it.

The device I had placed there was in a service entrance at the rear, hidden behind a stack of empty crates.

I had almost reached it when I spotted movement in the shadows beside the building—a figure slipping away, moving with purpose rather than panic. A figure I recognized despite the distance and the smoke clouding my vision.

Kalen.

Everything else fell away—the mission to disarm the device, the desperate need to save lives, even the guilt crushing me beneath its weight.

All of it receded, replaced by a single, burning focus: the man who had used me, who had orchestrated this slaughter, who had betrayed everything the resistance stood for.

"Kalen!" I screamed, changing direction, abandoning the commander's residence to pursue the architect of this nightmare.

He turned at the sound of my voice, shock flashing across his face before his features settled into that same calm mask I had trusted for so long. He wore Imperial colours now, I noticed—a dark uniform with crimson trim, the wolf's head insignia of the Emperor's personal guard on his collar.

"Tarshi," he said as I reached him, his voice steady despite the chaos surrounding us. "You survived. I'm impressed."

Rage rose in me, hot and consuming. I lunged for him, hands outstretched to tear, to rend, to destroy as he had destroyed so many lives today. But he was faster than I expected, sidestepping my attack with the practiced ease of a trained soldier.

"I'll kill you," I snarled, circling him, searching for an opening. "I'll tear you apart for what you've done."

"What we've done," he corrected, his calm unruffled by my fury. "Don't forget your part in today's events, Tarshi. Your hands are as bloody as mine."

The truth of his words only fuelled my rage. I felt the change begin again, scales rippling beneath my skin, claws extending from my fingertips. "You lied to me," I growled, my voice deepening as my throat transformed. "You used me. Used all of us."

"Yes," he agreed simply. "And you let me use you, because deep down, you wanted to hurt them. To make them suffer as you have suffered." He gestured toward the devastation of the square. "This is what hatred looks like, Tarshi. This is its natural conclusion."

A roar tore from my throat—inhuman, primal, the sound of a beast rather than a man. I launched myself at him again, faster this time, strengthened by the partial transformation rippling through my body.

But even as my claws slashed toward his throat, a new explosion rocked the square—the fifth device, detonating right on schedule. The force of it threw us both to the ground, stone and timber raining down around us as the commander's residence collapsed.

I lay stunned for a moment, ears ringing, vision blurred by dust and debris. When I could focus again, Kalen was gone—vanished into the smoke and chaos, leaving me alone with the devastation we had created together.

I scrambled to my feet, my clawed hands digging into the rubble for purchase.

The smoke swirled, a phantom in the ruins, and he was gone.

The rage that had propelled me, that had given me a singular, clean purpose, drained away, leaving only the hollow ache of failure and the suffocating weight of my guilt.

The screams of the wounded rose again, a chorus from hell.

My fault. All my fault. Then, through the haze of smoke and self-loathing, I remembered.

The reviewing stand. The fifth device. A

desperate chance to do something other than destroy.

Every step was an act of will, a fight against the pain and the crushing weight of what I had done.

I moved through a gallery of horrors—a mother weeping over a small, still form; a lone shoe lying in a pool of blood; the vacant eyes of a young man staring up at the smoke-choked sky.

This was my legacy. This was the justice I had sought.

I finally reached the reviewing stand, using the platform to steady myself as I moved around to the wooden supports at the rear.

I reached under the platform, tearing the device free.

My fingers, clumsy and slick with my own blood, fumbled with the intricate mechanism.

The ticking was a frantic heartbeat against the palm of my hand, a counterpoint to the distant screams. The memory of the bomb in the cellar was a faint echo through the ringing in my ears.

Kalen’s smug explanations twisted in my mind.

He had designed them to be simple, but was this another layer to his trap?

A final, cruel joke for the Talfen monster who’d figured it out too late?

I held my breath, channelling my transformation into a single finger, watching as my fingernail lengthened and sharpened.

A shadow fell across the small space, blocking the dim, dust-filtered light. I froze, my claw hovering between the two wires, my heart seizing in my chest.

“What in the gods’ names are you doing?” The voice was rough, choked with dust, but I knew it as well as I knew my own shame.

Septimus.

There was no time to explain, no time to think.

I squeezed my eyes shut, chose a wire, and severed it with a decisive snip of my claw.

The ticking stopped. The silence that followed was more profound than any explosion, a deafening void where my death should have been.

I stared at the disarmed bomb in my trembling hands, then up at Septimus.

In his eyes, I saw a truth I could no longer deny—I had become the very thing I had spent my life fighting against.

His face was a pale, rigid mask of horror and vindication, his eyes burning with a righteous fury that was more terrifying than any explosion.

He saw me, covered in blood and soot, a bomb in my hands, and in his mind, every prejudice, every warning, every nightmare he’d ever had about me was confirmed.

“Monster,” he breathed, the word a curse. His gladius slid from its sheath with a whisper of steel. “I knew it. I knew what you were.”

"You were right," I whispered, my voice raw from smoke and screaming. "All along, you were right."

His expression didn't change, but something in his stance shifted—wariness mingled with confusion. "What?"

"About me." I set the bomb aside carefully, then raised empty hands in surrender. "Not about the Talfen. We're not monsters by birth. But I... I became one by choice."

The sword in his hand wavered slightly. Around us, the square continued to burn, smoke billowing toward a sky that seemed impossibly blue above the devastation. Distant screams and cries for help punctuated the crackle of flames consuming what remained of imperial buildings.

"I helped do this," I continued, needing him to understand, needing someone to hear my confession even if absolution was impossible.

"I planted bombs, believing I was striking a blow for freedom, for justice.

I told myself it was about buildings, symbols, not people.

That warnings would be given. That innocents would be spared. "

A bitter laugh escaped me, edged with hysteria.

"But I knew. Deep down, I knew there would be casualties.

And I accepted it. Because I was angry. Because I was hurting.

Because hating was easier than feeling the pain of everything I'd lost—my home, my freedom, my.

.." I hesitated, then forced myself to finish. "My heart."

Septimus's eyes narrowed, but he remained silent, letting me speak the words that burned like acid in my throat.

"I wanted to build a world where we could be different," I said softly. "Where you could touch me without shame. Where I could love you without the pain that goes with it—the knowledge that you never could, never would let yourself love me back. Not ever."

Pain flashed across his face, quickly masked. But I had seen it, and in that moment, I knew I had struck closer to his truth than he had ever allowed.

"I thought if I fought hard enough, sacrificed enough, somehow I could create that world.

" I gestured at the devastation surrounding us, at the bodies half-buried in rubble, at the blood staining ancient cobblestones.

"Instead, I helped create this. I let myself be tricked, manipulated by a man who knew exactly how to use my hatred against me. "

I slumped back against the platform struts, suddenly exhausted beyond measure. "Nothing was worth this," I whispered. "No cause, no ideology, no dream of freedom or justice or... or love. Nothing justifies what happened here today."

Septimus lowered his sword slowly, his expression softening into something I couldn't read—not forgiveness, certainly, but perhaps a shadow of understanding.

"What now?" he asked, the question hanging between us like smoke.

I looked past him at the square, at the city beyond, at all the lives that would be forever marked by this day. By my choices. By my failure.

"Now I try to make amends," I said, knowing it was impossible, knowing no amount of good could ever balance the scales weighted with so much innocent blood. "Not for forgiveness. I don't deserve that. But because it's the only thing left I can do."

I rose to my feet, swaying slightly, aware of every cut, every bruise, every ache in a body that felt suddenly, profoundly human in its frailty. "You should go," I told him. "Find the others. Help who you can. There's nothing for you here."

He studied my face for a long moment, as if memorizing it, or perhaps searching for something he had once seen there and now feared was gone forever.

"And you?" he asked finally, his voice softer than I had ever heard it.

I looked toward the burning heart of the city, where more devices might wait, where more lives hung in the balance. Where, perhaps, Kalen still moved like a shadow through the chaos he had created.

"I have work to do," I said simply.

And for the second time that day, I walked away from someone I loved, into a fire of my own making.