Page 31 of The Scars of War (Of Ruin and Fire #1)

Her Last Breath

It’s as if the house knows what comes next as it creaks differently. Breathes differently. The walls seem to lean closer, as if they want to watch.

The hallway outside my door is colder than it should be.

The sconces flicker with low amber light, too weak to chase the shadows gathering at the edges.

I don’t bother wrapping myself in armor.

There’s nothing left to protect, because something inside me already surrendered. And something else…opened.

I should go to Riven; he’d stop me. Maybe. Or maybe he’d follow, blade in hand, heart bleeding. That’s not how this ends, not for me. Not for him.

The corridor stretches longer than it should, twisting in on itself, walls shifting like bones beneath bruised skin. This mansion has always been a living thing, but tonight, it feels like it’s either dying or mourning, and every step I take feels like a eulogy written in advance .

The door is already ajar when I reach it. The war gallery. I push the door wide and step inside.

Riven’s trophies glint in the low light, swords dulled by blood, guns retired by time, a tattered war banner that still smells like ash.

Helmets lined with claw marks. Medals never accepted.

Armor scorched black where bodies once burned inside.

Every piece of violence he’s carried, every conquest he’s made, it’s all here.

I cross to the far end. Past the glass case with the broken blade. Past the spiked collar he once wore into battle, back when death was still something he fought toward instead of away from.

And there, in the center, a new space has been cleared. Nothing behind glass. No plaque or pedestal, just a single obsidian dagger resting on dark velvet.

The Blade of Ending.

I reach for it, and the moment my fingers grasp the hilt, the air shifts to create pressure. Like a promise being made in blood.

The blade is light. Too light. The weight of it lives somewhere else, in the part of me that still remembers my scream. My bloodline. The vault .

The banshee inside me doesn’t flinch. She knows this is how it ends. Not with war, not with rot, not even with plague, but with silence.

The blade hums in my grip, alive and waiting. And I know, without being told, that it was made for this, made for me. Not forged in fire but in the pause between screams, the moment right before the soul is claimed.

I turn, and Vale is already there. Death has been waiting in the room this whole time, and I’ve only just noticed.

He doesn’t look angry or cold. He looks ready. His eyes find the blade in my hand, and for the first time since I’ve known him…something flickers in his gaze. No hesitation or regret, but resignation. Like he’s seen this ending before. And this time…he means to make sure it sticks.

The air is wrong, tasting like ash and iron, like the kind of storm that doesn’t arrive with thunder but with silence. The halls stretch ahead, blurred at the edges, reality bending with every step I take toward the door I shouldn’t know exists. But I do .

The veil is humming, I can feel it calling me. In my hand, the knife waits. The one from the vault. Bone-handled. Blackened with age. The edge gleams with a strange kind of light. It knows what’s coming.

My feet are bare, I don’t remember losing my shoes. I feel everything. The stone beneath my soles, the static clinging to my skin, the pulse in my palm where the mark glows faintly. The knife is warm now. It feels...alive.

This is where it ends. This is where I step through and make the choice. To become the thing they feared or destroy it before it becomes me. I don’t know if that’s even possible. I don’t know if I’m still me anymore. I know what I must do.

The hallway narrows. The shadows thicken. The war relics blur to nothing. I reach the door at the end, no handle, no hinges, just a flat surface carved with sigils that don’t belong to any of the horsemen.

Oblivion.

I press my hand to it, it opens, and inside… the veil, or what’s left of it. A room with no ceiling. No sky, just smoke above and stone below, carved with lines that bl eed silver light. The veil itself is visible now, a living shimmer of air, rippling and unstable like heat waves off a dying sun.

One more step, each pace echoing like a countdown, and the space between worlds thins to a thread. The mark on my palm flares, blinding white as it burns hotter. The veil parts, like thought, and the darkness beyond smiles back, pulsing with every breath that I take.

I raise the knife, I don’t know what the ritual is. I don’t know how this ends. Something in me—old, aching, certain—tells me this is the way. This is how I hold it back. Or let it in.

My foot crosses the first sigil on the ground, and I freeze. A presence behind me. Just a shift in the air. A vacuum pulling tight. I turn…Vale.

He stands in the smoke, not far, not close. His eyes are shadows. His expression unreadable. “Vale,” I say, breathless. “It’s okay. I know what I’m doing.”

He says nothing. I step toward the veil. “Lux,” he murmurs. His voice is soft. Too soft, like a lullaby made of endings. “Don’t. ”

I look over my shoulder. “You said it yourself. I’m the gate. This is where it ends.”

He takes one step. Then another, still silent. His eyes never leave mine. The air thins, the world narrows, and I swear I can hear it. Something ancient, something wrong, whispering beneath his breath. I don’t move. Not until he’s within reach.

He touches my arm, and I freeze. He looks at me with that same stillness he always wears, like the moment doesn’t belong to him, only passes through him.

His other hand rises. Fingers ghost across my cheek.

It isn’t possessive, and it isn’t cruel, just tender, reverent, almost like worship. Like he’s saying goodbye.

“Vale?”

His lips brush my forehead. I don’t see it coming.

There is no pain, just a silence so total it deafens.

The world vanishes without a scream, but a sigh.

Colors drain, and the air folds in on itself.

Even time has stopped to watch. My body stays standing, but something slips loose, like a thread pulled from the center of me.

He leans back, eyes still soft, “Forgive me, little wraith… I’d ra ther kill you myself than let the veil have you,” he murmurs, voice echoing inside the void.

My heart…I can’t feel it. My knees give out. I collapsed into him, and behind me, somewhere distant and broken, I hear a scream, Riven. “NO…”

It’s too late, everything is already still. The veil glows, the knife falls from my fingers. The last thing I feel is Vale’s arms catching me, holding me like something precious and lost. And then…nothing.

There was no light or dark. Just the echo of Riven's voice, distant and broken, calling my name like it still belongs to me. A sound that stretches across whatever lies beyond the veil. And maybe, just maybe, it’s enough to pull me back.

But if it isn’t, then let this be the way I go. In his arms, as the world burns behind us.