Chapter 87 Chapter Eighty-Seven
Gold detonated from the spearheads in a unified blast — streams of concentrated power tearing through the air and slamming directly into Draevyn.
The impact should have crushed him.
For a heartbeat… it seemed to.
His body jerked.
Light engulfed him.
He staggered back a step as energy tore across his form in violent waves.
Hope sparked.
Then—
He began to laugh.
Low at first.
Then louder.
The gold did not consume him.
It fed him.
The energy bent — warped — drawn inward like water vanishing down a drain. It streamed across his skin in luminous veins, sinking into him until the courtyard dimmed with the sudden absence of light.
One by one, the spearheads went dark.
The glow vanished.
Power drained.
The guards stared down at their weapons in stunned disbelief — lifeless shafts of metal now dull and useless in their hands.
Then they looked back at Draevyn.
He stood taller.
Brighter.
Something inside him now burning hotter… stronger.
The commander reacted instantly.
His hand lifted, shadow already gathering at his palm —
But Draevyn was faster.
His eyes turned black.
Not dark.
Black.
Total. Depthless. Devouring.
He raised one finger slowly to his lips.
“Shhh.”
The word was barely sound.
It was command.
Black mist erupted around the guards.
Not drifting.
Clinging.
It wrapped around throats, crawled into mouths, filled lungs with suffocating hunger.
Armor scraped.
Spears clattered.
They began to choke.
Gasping.
Fighting for breath that would not come.
Kaelani strained violently against the roots, fury exploding through her veins.
“Stop!”
The bark tore deeper into her wrists.
She barely felt it.
Across the courtyard, Julian and Jace exchanged a single look.
No words needed.
No hesitation.
Julian’s mouth curved with lethal certainty.
“Guess we’re doing this the hard way.”
Jace exhaled once.
“Wouldn’t be us if we didn’t.”
Bone snapped.
Muscle tore.
Fur exploded across skin.
Two massive wolves burst forward in a blur of lethal motion — striking from opposite sides with such violent speed the ground itself seemed to recoil.
Draevyn’s head snapped toward them.
His focus broke.
The black mist faltered.
His hold on the guards collapsed.
Then they hit him.
Not like beasts.
Like a force of nature given fangs.
The impact drove him backward, cracks splintering outward beneath his feet.
Julian’s jaws found flesh first.
He sank his fangs deep into Draevyn’s shoulder, tearing through glamoured skin and into the corrupted power beneath. Blood — thick, dark, wrong — burst across his muzzle as he ripped his head sideways with savage intent.
Jace went for the throat.
His teeth locked around Draevyn’s neck in a crushing grip, muscles bunching as he tried to wrench it open — to end this before another heartbeat could pass.
Draevyn roared.
Not in pain.
In fury.
The guards collapsed to their knees, choking in ragged gasps as the suffocating mist loosened its hold. Around them, the court watched in horror — frozen witnesses to a battle too vicious to comprehend.
At the heart of the courtyard, the Seers pressed their palms against the living roots bound around Kaelani’s wrists.
Ancient words spilled from their lips in low, urgent cadence.
Sigils flared.
Strained.
Fought back.
Draevyn felt it.
His gaze cut to her — calculation settling over his features like frost.
Shadow detonated outward from him in a surge that flattened the air — and with a brutal sweep of will, he seized Jace.
Invisible force ripped the wolf from his throat as though he weighed nothing. Jace’s jaws tore free in a spray of dark blood just as Draevyn hurled him skyward.
The massive body vanished into the night — flung so far the sound of his impact never reached the courtyard.
Julian did not retreat.
He launched again, claws raking deep furrows across Draevyn’s chest, jaws snapping inches from his throat. The two crashed together in a violent struggle — muscle against monstrous strength.
Draevyn caught him mid-lunge.
Hands closing around Julian’s neck.
Holding him back.
His attention flicked again toward the recovering guards.
The Seers.
Kaelani.
His lip curled.
The earth answered.
Stone ruptured.
Ground split open beneath the guards and Seers like a living maw — swallowing them in an instant. Bodies sank violently downward until only heads and shoulders remained visible above the cracked surface, pinned in place by crushing pressure.
Incantations broke into strained gasps.
Still the Seers fought.
Still they chanted.
Draevyn’s patience snapped.
Shadow-fed roots burst upward at Draevyn’s command — thorned and savage. They snared Julian’s torso in a single violent coil and constricted with bone-grinding force, ripping a feral snarl from him.
With a savage jerk, Draevyn ripped him backward.
Dragging him across the shattered terrain like prey.
Draevyn rose slowly from the ground.
Blood streaked his mouth. Torn flesh hung in ragged strips along his shoulder where teeth had ripped deep. One of his sleeves had been shredded completely away. For a moment he simply stood there — breathing hard, chest rising and falling like something dragged back from the edge of ruin.
Then the gold answered him.
It seeped from the cracks in the air itself… drawn toward him like filings to a magnet. Thin rivers of stolen radiance poured into his wounds. Flesh knit. Bone realigned with faint, nauseating pops. Bruising faded beneath his skin as if time itself had reversed.
By the time he stood upright… there was almost no sign he had been injured at all.
Only the blood remained.
He turned around, his eyes scanning the large crowd of Unseelie.
“Does anyone else,” he drawled, looking from face to face, “dare oppose me?”
No one moved forward.
They moved back.
A ripple of unease moved through the court. Several faces drained of color entirely. One of the younger fae let out a small, broken sound — halfway between a gasp and a whimper — before clapping a hand over their mouth.
Fear spread like rot.
Draevyn watched it happen.
And smiled.
Then his attention returned to Julian.
Still bound. Still fighting.
Then to Kaelani.
Pinned. Bleeding. Wild-eyed.
“I’m afraid,” Draevyn said almost pleasantly, “I’ll have to cut this little reunion short.”
His hand curled.
The thorned vine responded instantly.
It constricted around Julian’s torso with brutal force.
A sickening crack split the quiet.
Then another.
Julian snarled — a raw, animal sound — muscles straining, claws tearing at the living coils as he tried to rip himself free. Fury radiated from him in violent waves, every ounce of his will fixed on one target.
Draevyn.
“Stop!” Kaelani screamed. “Don’t kill him!”
Draevyn didn’t even look at her at first.
He simply watched Julian fight.
Watched the defiance.
Watched the pain.
Then he turned his head.
Their eyes met.
“Oh,” he said softly, almost thoughtfully.
“I am going to kill him.”
The vine tightened again.
“And you’re going to watch.”
Draevyn tightened the vine again.
Another snap.
Then another.
Bone cracked in sickening succession — sharp reports that echoed through the courtyard like breaking branches in a dead forest.
Julian’s body jerked with each crushing constriction. His snarl tore raw from his throat, still fighting — still trying to reach Draevyn even as his strength began to falter.
“Let him go!”
Her voice fractured with fury.
With terror.
Her wolf boiled beneath her skin — a violent, clawing presence that wanted blood. That wanted to tear the world apart for what it was witnessing.
The vine tightened again.
Julian’s head dropped for a split second.
His breath hitched.
Fight slowing.
Life dimming.
Something inside Kaelani broke.
Her eyes ignited.
Violet.
Blazing with something deeper than rage. Older than fear. Something vast and awakening.
Her lips parted.
And she began to chant.
The same words the Seers had been whispering — the same ancient chant meant to break bindings carved in power and arrogance.
At first her voice was rough.
Unsteady.
Then it strengthened.
Elevated.
Joined theirs.
A single current of sound threading through the chaos.
The ground trembled.
Subtle at first.
Then undeniable.
Draevyn’s focus tore away from Julian and landed on her.
The chanting continued.
Violet fire burned in Kaelani’s eyes as raw power surged through her veins, answering something buried deep in her blood.
The courtyard began to shake in earnest now.
The foundation groaned.
Dust rained from leaning pillars.
Unseelie stumbled, grasping for balance as the earth rolled beneath their feet like a waking beast.
Even Draevyn faltered — boots skidding as the ground lurched violently.
Then it split.
A jagged fissure tore open at Kaelani’s knees with explosive force, ripping across the courtyard in a violent line straight toward Draevyn. The crack raced across the stone so fast he had to leap aside to avoid being swallowed by it.
The vine slackened.
Only for a heartbeat.
But it was enough.
The roots around Kaelani’s wrists began to convulse.
The sigils carved into their bark flared violently — symbols warping, collapsing inward like light being crushed out of existence.
A sound tore from the bindings.
Not cracking.
Not splitting.
Something closer to a scream.
Then they ruptured.
The shattered roots recoiled violently, twisting back across the broken stone like creatures that had finally understood they had ensnared something far more dangerous than themselves.
Kaelani rose.
Unfolding to her full height with slow, deliberate control — like someone who had already decided she would never kneel again.
Dust spiraled outward from her in widening currents. Violet light bled from her skin in visible pulses, answering the violent tremor still rolling through the earth.
Her breath came hard.
Measured.
Her wrists were streaked with blood.
But her gaze—
It burned with a lethal, unblinking fury.
Locked onto Draevyn.
Beyond mercy.
Colder than rage.
And for the first time…
the Dark Lord had met his equal.