Chapter 245 Silver Fire

Chapter 245 Silver Fire
"If you run, they shoot you in the back!" Klaus roared, his blue eyes wild and feral with the chaos of the battlefield.

I looked past Klaus’s broad shoulders. I stared at the massive steel gates of the outer wall. They were still two hundred yards away. A massive killing zone of bloody mud, buried elemental fire, and raining silver stood between us and the entrance.

Draven was a ruthless, brilliant tactician. He knew exactly how to break an army that lacked formal training and heavy armor. He was drowning us in resources. He was going to turn this field into a mass grave before we ever touched the stone walls.

A massive explosion rocked the earth to our left.

Another magical mine detonated beneath a cluster of vampire guards. The shockwave threw a dozen pale bodies into the air. They landed in the mud, broken, burning, and screaming. The smell of roasted flesh was overwhelming, thick enough to make my stomach heave.

Klaus shifted his stance again, his heavy boots sinking deep into the red mud. He raised the iron shield higher, bracing his legs for the next volley of silver bolts. He was bleeding from a dozen small cuts on his arms where the silver shrapnel had grazed him. The white smoke curled from his skin, his immortal healing fighting a frantic war against the poison.

He was ready to throw himself onto a hidden magical mine to clear a path for me. He was going to let Draven tear him apart in this mud just to get me to the gates.

I looked at the bodies of the Outcasts who had followed me out of the dead lands. I saw the vampires who had bowed to my rot in the pine forest. They were dying right in front of me because they believed I was strong enough to break the Empire.

I was not going to let them die in the mud. I was not going to let the Emperor’s Captain win this game of attrition.

I reached up. I grabbed the cold, wet edge of the heavy iron shield Klaus held over my head.

"Drop it," I said.

Klaus looked down at me. His bright sapphire eyes darted rapidly over my face, tracking the sudden, terrifying calm settling over my features.

"Nerissa, the sky is full of silver," Klaus warned, his voice a harsh, desperate scrape. Another bolt slammed into the mud two feet away, showering us in dark dirt.

"Drop the shield, Klaus," I ordered. My voice cut clear and cold through the screaming, the explosions, and the heavy mechanical thuds of the artillery. I met his gaze, the dark, ruthless fire burning steadily in my turquoise eyes. "You told me I was a weapon. It is time to use it."

Klaus stared at me for a fraction of a second. He saw the cold certainty in my posture. He saw the queen he had forged in the dark.

He did not argue. He opened his hand, letting the heavy iron shield fall away. It hit the bloody mud with a dull, heavy splash.

The pale morning light hit my face. The cold wind whipped my tangled dark hair around my shoulders. I was completely exposed to the raining silver and the hidden fire, but I did not feel a single drop of fear. The hollow, crushing depression that had haunted me was completely gone.

I was the Blight, and I was entirely done hiding from my own nature.

"Riven! Cassian!" I screamed, my voice tearing through the chaos with total, unyielding authority. "Halt the line! Fall back behind me!"

The Outcast leader and the Vampire Lord did not hesitate. They bellowed orders to their dying ranks. The battered, bleeding survivors of our vanguard scrambled backward in the mud, forming a tight, terrified cluster ten feet behind my back.

Klaus remained exactly at my side. He held his rusted broadsword ready, his massive body tense and coiled, prepared to deflect any stray bolt that came near my head.

I turned my attention to the two hundred yards of flat, bloody mud separating me from the towering steel gates of the capital.

I dropped to my knees in the dirt.

The mud soaked instantly through my heavy leather trousers. I placed both of my bare, calloused palms flat against the wet, blood-stained earth.

I closed my eyes. I reached deep into the center of my chest, grabbing hold of the freezing, toxic pressure coiled inside my ribs. I did not just open the gates this time. I tore the dam entirely down.

I pushed the cold, heavy fire of the rot down my arms and forced it directly into the soil.

The earth shrieked.

A deafening, massive hiss ripped through the killing field, so loud it drowned out the mechanical thuds of the ballistas. The dark mud directly beneath my hands turned pitch black.

The black sludge did not pool. It surged forward like a tidal wave of dark acid, racing across the flat expanse of the field at terrifying speed. The toxic decay ate into the dirt, diving deep beneath the surface to hunt the Emperor’s elemental magic.

A chain reaction of muffled, underground detonations shook the earth. The magical mines Draven had buried in the mud exploded beneath the surface, completely smothered and consumed by the spreading black rot. The ground heaved and cracked, vomiting thick plumes of foul-smelling black smoke into the cold air.

I pushed harder, screaming as the sheer, tearing strain of the magic burned through my veins.

The black wave of decay hit the base of the towering grey stone walls.

The solid rock hissed violently, bubbling into dark, weeping craters. The rot raced upward, eating into the mortar and the ancient stone.

But I did not care about the walls. I aimed the full, concentrated force of the Blight directly at the massive, reinforced steel gates holding the city shut.

The toxic magic slammed into the heavy metal.

The iron bands snapped with a noise like cannon fire. The thick steel plates turned completely black, bubbling rapidly in the cold air. The towering gates began to dissolve, weeping thick streams of melted, hissing metal onto the stone courtyard beyond.

The archers on the battlements stopped firing. The heavy mechanical thuds of the ballistas ceased entirely.

The Imperial soldiers stared down in pure, unfiltered horror as their impenetrable steel gates melted into a puddle of dark, smoking slag right in front of their eyes. The impenetrable fortress was broken.

I pulled my hands from the rotting earth. My chest heaved violently, my entire body shaking with exhaustion, but I forced myself to stand up.

I looked at the open, hissing archway leading directly into the Ivory Spire.

"Klaus," I breathed, my voice a harsh, ragged scrape.

The Grand Admiral stepped forward, his boots crunching on the blackened, dead earth. He looked at the melted gates, the feral, beautiful madness returning entirely to his glowing blue eyes. He raised his rusted broadsword high into the air.

"Take the courtyard!" Klaus roared.