Page 51

Dahlia

Calliope snarled.

The air seemed to hiss with her fury. Her glamour cracked at the edges, revealing something feral beneath the perfect skin and silver-tongued arrogance.

Twin knives flashed into view, curved and gleaming, inscribed with runes that shimmered like veins of poison. And between them, in the space her fingers danced through the air, magic coiled—red and jagged, pulsing like a second heartbeat.

She lunged.

There was no announcement. No grace. No warning.

She surged forward like a serpent, one knife arcing toward my throat, the other held low as red magic coiled between her fingers, ready to strike from both steel and spell.

I met her head-on.

My boots slammed into the stone as I ducked the first blow, twisting my body and letting the heat rise under my skin. Fire danced in my veins. My blade— Mercy —flared with a rush of magic the moment I gripped the hilt, the runes along the edge igniting like they remembered why they’d been forged.

Calliope’s strike skimmed past me, narrowly missing my shoulder. I pivoted and slammed the flat of my sword into her ribs. She hissed and stumbled back, but only for a breath.

She was fast.

She spun, low and vicious, and sent a shockwave of magic barreling across the circle. I raised my braced arm, the newly gifted leather catching most of it, though the force still knocked me off my feet.

I hit the ground hard and rolled, dragging in a breath that seared my lungs. Already, my ribs ached and my right arm throbbed.

Calliope stalked toward me, her eyes blazing. "You think you can fight me with fire and sentiment?"

I scrambled to my feet, face burning. "No," I growled. "I’m going to kill you with it."

And then I unleashed hell.

Flame erupted from my palms, wild and white-hot, lashing out in a wide arc.

The heat warped the air, drew gasps from the Order outside the circle.

Calliope shouted something in an old tongue, shielding herself with a burst of her own corrupted magic.

The fire struck her wall and shattered—but not before pushing her back several steps.

She wasn’t invincible.

I could win this.

She snarled and thrust both hands forward. Dark tendrils surged at me—not fire, not shadow. Something older. Something wrong. They twisted in the air like fingers eager to choke.

I called on Kieran’s shadows.

They answered.

Slick and fast, they coiled from the edge of my reach like loyal hounds and slammed into the tendrils midair, scattering them in a burst of black light. My skin tingled. My bond with Kieran pulsed like a second heartbeat.

I gritted my teeth and charged, sword raised.

Our blades clashed—once, twice, three times in a blur—before Calliope snarled and shoved me back with a burst of concussive force that cracked the stone under my feet. I staggered, ears ringing, teeth rattling in my skull.

“You’re persistent,” she said with a mocking tilt of her head, circling me like a vulture. “I’ll give you that.”

I spit blood onto the floor. “You talk too much.”

She smiled like she enjoyed the taste of my defiance.

And then she vanished.

My instincts screamed. I ducked just in time—her blade sang through the air where my neck had been, her body reappearing behind me in a flash of shadow.

Dirty.

I spun and slashed, but she caught my wrist mid-swing and twisted. Pain bloomed down my arm, white-hot. I screamed as my fingers went slack and Mercy clattered to the floor.

“Oops,” she purred, twirling both blades with a flourish before using one to hook my arm and the other to launch a burst of force-magic straight into my chest.

I hit the ground hard, scraping across stone. My shoulder screamed in protest.

“You should’ve stayed soft,” she said, stalking toward me. “With your garden and your teacups. You were never built for war.”

“I was built for surviving it,” I snapped, flames licking up my arms again.

She laughed—and then kicked me, hard, in the ribs. The sound cracked through the silence.

I wheezed. Pain stole the breath from my lungs.

“You’re not a savior,” she said. “You’re just a girl who got in the way.”

I rolled to my back, barely able to lift my head, but my fire surged again. Not because I wasn’t hurt, but because I was. Because this pain, this rage, this loss —it meant something.

“And you’re just a girl who couldn’t handle not being the chosen one,” I coughed.

Calliope’s smile vanished.

“Careful,” she said coldly. “I’d hate to kill you too fast.”

She raised both hands—magic gathering fast and wicked, crimson arcs snapping between her fingers. The temperature in the circle dropped.

This was going to hurt.

I pushed up to my knees, trembling, blood dripping from my temple, my lip, my arm. I reached for Mercy with shaking fingers.

Calliope's power slammed into me like a wave. My bracer absorbed most of it, but the sheer force still hurled me across the circle again. I hit the wall hard enough to rattle my bones.

Darkness tried to take me.

But I forced my eyes open.

Not yet.

Not yet.

Kieran’s shadow stirred under my skin. Our bond flared—alive, angry, watching . I felt him, barely restrained outside the circle, fury thick in the air.

Not yet, Flower.

I clenched my jaw and rose again, teeth bloody, face battered, one eye nearly swollen shut.

“Still standing?” Calliope asked, annoyed now. “Why? What are you fighting for?”

I straightened. My voice came out raw and low.

“For everyone you’ve hurt.”

My shadows surged behind me. My fire rekindled.

And Mercy found my hand again.

My knees threatened to buckle with every step. My blood sang with fire and pain, muscles trembling, vision blurred. I couldn’t tell what hurt more—the bruises or the burn in my lungs.

But I kept moving.

Calliope’s movements had lost their precision. Her magic sputtered, growing erratic, veering between too much and too little. Her twin blades shook in her grip. She panted like a rabid animal, and her once-perfect glamour was splintering, cracking like glass beneath a hammer.

The illusion peeled back.

What remained was not the goddess she pretended to be.

It was a woman—worn and jagged. Her skin mottled with burn scars and old wounds, her lips curled into something feral. Her eyes, no longer glowing with power, flickered with desperation and hate.

Someone in the crowd gasped.

Another stepped back.

They were seeing it. All of it. What she really was.

“I made this,” she snarled, voice hoarse. “All of this. I bled for it!”

She surged forward with a scream, but her magic snapped midair, fizzling as if the room itself rejected it. She stumbled, caught herself, and let out a cry of fury. Her hair clung to her face, damp with sweat and magic and something deeper—decay.

I raised Mercy, my whole body shaking. One more swing. One more spell. But she was already lunging again, wild, no longer calculating.

“I gave everything!” she shrieked. “And you—you stupid, useless little girl—you think you can take it from me?!”

Her eyes locked on the locket around my neck. And before I could stop her, her hand snapped forward and grabbed it .

The second her fingers closed around it, something changed .

Calliope gasped.

A sound ripped from her throat—wet, shocked.

Then she screamed .

Veins of black-blue magic crackled up her wrist like lightning. The skin along her arm began to bubble and blacken, as if the locket had set fire to her from the inside out. Her arm convulsed, and the blades dropped from her grip with twin clangs.

“What—what did you—?” she choked out, eyes wide in disbelief.

The corrupted veins slithered up her shoulder and neck. Her jaw seized. Her fingers twisted into a claw.

I stepped back, clutching the locket instinctively.

It had reacted —to her. To her touch.

To her intent .

And it had punished her.

She stumbled back, clutching her shoulder, her arm now limp and smoking at the edges.

The Order whispered now, louder than before. Voices sharp with confusion. With fear.

“She’s cursed—”

“No, look at her—she’s breaking —”

“What is that magic—?”

Calliope turned in a slow circle, her glamour flickering in and out like a dying flame. She looked at the crowd, and for a flicker of a second, there was panic in her eyes. The predator realizing her teeth had broken.

I didn’t wait.

I raised Mercy again, my voice a rasp.

“This ends now .”

Calliope staggered, clutching her useless arm. Smoke curled from her fingertips. Her eyes, once cold and cunning, were wide and wild now, panicked, unseeing. Her beauty had burned away, revealing the ruin beneath. The cracks in her facade split wide.

And for the first time… she looked human.

Terrified. Small.

But I didn’t stop.

The pain in my body blurred. The sounds around me—gasps, the shuffle of boots, the low rumble of the Elder’s voice—faded beneath the roar in my ears. All I could hear was Kieran’s heartbeat through our bond.

All I could see was her.

The woman who destroyed his life. Who stole everything from us.

Who would never stop if I didn’t end it here.

“I told you,” I said, my voice raw, fire crackling around Mercy’s blade. “You don’t get to win.”

She screamed and lifted her hand for one last spell—but her magic sparked and failed. The locket's poison had robbed her of it.

I surged forward with the last of my strength.

And drove Mercy straight through her heart.

Her body went stiff, a final gasp bursting from her lips. Her hands clawed weakly at the blade, but I held it steady, eyes locked on hers as the fire took hold.

She didn’t get a final curse. No grand last words.

Only silence.

The runes on the blade lit bright gold, and then—

Flames consumed her.

They erupted from within, swallowing her in a column of white fire. Her scream was brief, sharp, and then gone. Her body blackened, cracked, and crumbled into ash, scattering to the circle’s edge like dust in the wind.

Nothing remained. Not even the knives.

Not even her name.

I swayed, the world tilting.

My knees buckled.

I dropped to the stone floor beside the ashes, every ounce of strength gone. My sword clattered from my fingers. The blood pounding in my ears dulled and then disappeared altogether.

I barely heard the rush of footsteps.

I barely felt the arms that caught me before I could collapse completely.

But I knew it was him.

Kieran.

I let the darkness take me in his arms, knowing—for the first time—it was finally over.