Chapter 177 Luna Rising pt 1
Seren
The power inside me swelled as it fed off my anger and grief. The wall of hybrids blocked me from my father, but I could still feel him. Our connection was faint, but he still lived. I turned, my face a mask of rage, and advanced on Mikhail. My uncle.
“You will not get away with that!” I yelled. Kara was pacing, snarling in my head, her emotions feeding my own. I could feel the ground trembling under my feet, little waves of power escaping my control like steam venting from a pressure cooker.
‘Seren, no! You can’t face him alone!’ Gideon’s shout rang through my head.
I could feel Duncan’s concern for me, his fear that I was moving into a fight that I wasn’t ready for, then his determination to see it through with me.
‘We’re coming, Luna. Hang tight!’ Lucian’s voice was tight, focused.
None of it mattered. I knew, Kara knew, this fracture in our bloodline was mine to end. This rot in our kingdom that had influenced my entire life needed to be yanked out by the root, and the root was standing in front of me.
My uncle towered over me, his red eyes full of glee as he watched me stalk towards him. His lips lifted slightly at the corners as he held his ground. “And what are you going to do, niece? Heal me to death?”
My heart stuttered, only for a moment. So he knew I was a healer. It didn’t change anything. I had mastered all four elements. I was so much more than just one power. “You are no uncle of mine. You are a blight on our kingdom,” I hissed out.
Clouds were building in the distance. I could feel Duncan’s power reaching for them, calling them to us. Gideon was at my side, siphoning some of the overflow of my power through our bond, preventing me from exploding while shoring up his own. I could feel them both—my mate, my brother—reaching for me, and a barrier in my head tumbled down. The three of us were there together now, as one, feeding each other our strength.
‘That was unexpected.’ Gideon’s voice was colored with shock.
‘You’re telling me. What’s going on?’ Duncan asked.
‘Our power expanded.’ My statement was short, simple. Truth.
I was vaguely aware of our leadership team joining us, forming a semi-circle at our backs. Cora was there, too, standing with Elaine. The future of our kingdom.
At the thought, heat pulsed in my belly. A reminder of the future that awaited me, if we could get out of this alive. No—when we got out of this alive. Because we would not fail.
Mikhail looked at us, amusement on his face. “You think numbers will help you? Look around. You’re beyond help.”
“I’m done with this,” I spat, then threw a fireball at his feet.
His eyes narrowed. “Fine. I was going to turn you, but if you insist.” He lunged at me, a blur of motion, even as his hybrids jumped back into action. Duncan stepped in front of me, taking Mikhail’s blow on his back, as everyone around me engaged Mikhail’s soldiers.
The storm fell. The sky split. Clouds churned overhead, thick and violent, wind tearing across the field. Rain began to pour even as Duncan called down strike after strike of lightning. Hybrids sizzled and fell, yet more kept coming.
“You brought a storm,” Mikhail called, voice carrying easily through the wind. “How predictable.”
Duncan stepped forward, lightning crawling over his arms. I stood at his right. Gideon at his left. The bond between us hummed, filled with our shared power. Aligned.
“You built this on stolen blood,” I said, voice steady despite the chaos. “It ends tonight.”
Mikhail smiled faintly. “You mistake evolution for theft.”
Duncan lifted his hand. The sky answered. Lightning split downward in blinding forks, striking the earth around Mikhail. The ground exploded upward as Julian’s power surged through the battlefield, trapping hybrid ranks in jagged stone. Cora’s water ripped from the air, forming a sweeping wall that drove the enemy back. Gideon stepped forward, and the air ignited.
Fire roared downward, fed by Duncan’s wind. I reached upward, pulling cold from the high atmosphere, ice crystallizing midair before crashing down in shards the size of spears. For a moment, it was overwhelming—the storm, the fire, ice and stone—nature’s fury unleashed. But the hybrids fell. The ground cracked. The sky went white.
Still, Mikhail did not move. When the light faded, he stood untouched at the epicenter, black veins now glowing brightly beneath his skin, Meredith at his side. “You still don’t understand,” he said softly.
He lifted one hand, and the battlefield froze. Every hybrid went rigid at once. Black light surged outward in veins across the ground, threading between bodies, connecting them. Then the veins turned—toward me.
My mind didn’t go silent. It exploded, rippling through my bonds with my team.
Duncan staggered as agony that wasn’t his tore through him—fear, confusion, screaming voices layered on top of each other until he couldn’t find me inside it. He was drowning in the noise, and I couldn’t reach him past my own agony.
I gasped, black tendrils crawling up from the ground and wrapping around my wrists, my throat, my waist. The air around me darkened as if absorbing light, like I was standing in the center of deep shadows.
I felt, more than saw, Gideon lunge, the surge in power cracking the earth beneath him—but the blood surged upward like chains, binding him mid-stride. For the first time since we started training together, he strained and could not break free.
“Seren!” Duncan roared, lightning striking wildly now, uncontrolled.
Mikhail’s eyes gleamed. “She is the key,” he said, looking at my mate. “She always was. A healer who binds what is broken. A princess who bridges bloodlines. I do not need to defeat you. I only need to use her.”
The black veins pulsed brighter. Hundreds of fractured minds poured into me, an intrusion into my mind that I stood no chance of stopping.
A boy screaming for his mother while his own hands strangled her. A warrior begging his body to stop as it drove a blade through his brother’s ribs. A woman watching her feet carry her forward, step after step, toward people she once called family.