Chapter 206 SURGE

Chapter 206 SURGE
A violent crack split the air, followed by a blinding surge that blasted from my chest, down my arms, and outward in a wave of invisible force. It ripped through the threads like glass shattering, the witches' spell screamed as it snapped apart. Their voices cut off mid-chant, strangled by the backlash.
Silence came, followed by the sudden gasp of relief all around me.
Dozens of them, a chorus of lungs refilled.
I felt them through my still-open eyes, Lycans staggering upright, shaking their heads, and flexing their claws as their senses returned. The tremors of despair in the air were replaced by rage and strength. Their howls rose, filling the great hall with a sound that rattled my bones.
The vampires faltered. I saw it through those glowing eyes. Their retreat began almost immediately, steps slipping backward, and snarls turning into something edged with fear.
The surge inside me guttered out all at once, leaving only emptiness in its place. My body went heavy, so heavy I thought I might crash to the floor, but I forced myself to stay upright, hovering for one last heartbeat before the magic released me. My bare feet struck marble again, and my knees buckled.
I swayed numbly, unable to feel my fingers and legs.
Through the haze, Hasmik was there, on her knees, head tilted up to me with eyes so wide they caught every flicker of light. Her mouth was parted, and her claws were still blood-slick, but for once she was utterly still.
I managed the smallest nod.
"I'll find Sargis," I rasped. Hasmik started to protest, but I didn't let her. I couldn't. I was already moving, legs carrying me forward with a speed that felt unreal, every nerve in me blazing like a live wire.
The world was different now.
The pounding of my feet on marble echoed in my bones like drumbeats. Each breath scraped but carried a hundred scents at once, blood both fresh and stale, the copper tang clinging to steel, and the scorched air left behind by witches' spells. And beneath it all, like a tether pulling me forward, was him. Sargis. His scent was iron and pine, and I clung to it as if it were the only thing keeping me from drowning in the chaos.
My vision had shifted too. I didn't just see the world, I saw through it. Threads of aura clung to everything, shimmering outlines that pulsed faintly in my sight, as if the veil between realms had thinned and I was peering past it. Rhalia and Mirenya's conversations rushed back to me, about how they could see an aura.
I understood now. God, I understood.
Every aura hummed with its own frequency, blue-white for the Lycans, jagged red for the vampires, shadow-drenched coils for the witches. I could read them like maps, each flicker telling me what they were about to do before their bodies moved. I swerved instinctively to my left just as the air rippled. Two demons lunged from the smoke, their blackened forms hissing with sulfur.
But I'd felt them before they were even there. Their intent burned like coals in my sight.
I braced, the knife Hasmik had given me slick in my palm.
And then...
A scent cut through it all. Familiar in a way that froze the marrow in my bones.
Cerys.
The world seemed to hold its breath with me. My feet stilled mid-step, my senses roaring so violently it was deafening.
She was here. In the middle of this bloodbath.
I clutched the blade so tightly in my hand that my knuckles ached. The demons were nothing. All I could think, and feel, was her.
The rival who should not be here.
I branched left, following the pull of her scent, but instead stumbled into a scene that made my gut lurch.
Some of the council members were scattered across the corridor like broken statues, their robes torn and smeared with blood. They were fighting, but not like they should have been. Not like Lycans, who were meant to heal and recover mid-battle. No, they were slower, weaker, and their wounds refused to close.
Blood dripped steadily from Avaline's shoulder, staining her gown a deep crimson that would have mended in minutes any other day. Tavrek, towering even hunched over, pressed a hand to his ribs where dark gashes bled without pause. Elra's hands shook as she tried to tie the wound running along her arm.
I froze in the doorway, staring.
And then our eyes connected.
The shift in the air was instant. Every gaze snapped up, wide-eyed. The council members who had faced down wars, rebellions, and entire armies gasped. Their eyes weren't on the blood smeared across my dress or the blade still clenched in my hand. They were on my face.
On my forehead.
On the eye that pulsed open there, glowing with something otherworldly.
The third eye.
Elra's lips parted, her voice breaking on a whisper. " What in the world..."
Avaline staggered a step forward, her sharp, commanding face paling, the hand clutching her wound trembling. "No..."
Tavrek's chest rose and fell heavily, his war-hardened face slack.
I could feel their fear and awe, as tangible as the blood pooling on the marble between us. I could see down to the marrow, and the way their muscles strained, where their energy frayed. I could lift them, every single one, like they were feathers in my grasp. I knew it. The power coiled inside me whispered it. It should have mattered. It should have broken me, seeing them like this, because these were the people who ruled alongside Sargis, who carried centuries of strength and wisdom, now staring at me as though I wasn't Narine anymore, but something to be feared.
And yet none of it mattered.
Cerys drifted out from the ragged mouth of the corridor as if the darkness had been holding her all this time. Stray wisps of her hair caught the torchlight, wild and damp, clinging to the sheen of sweat on her temples. Her leather pant was torn, clotted at the hem with someone else's blood. And yet she smiled.
Her gaze traveled over me, lingering on the dull shimmer of gore across my collarbone, sliding inexorably up to the slow, alien glow pulsing at my brow. The third eye beat once, twice, spilling light down my cheek like a tear.
"Well, well," she breathed. "So the whispers weren't lies after all. The fabled blood of Aeryna walks and breathes, and glows." Her laughter slithered out, low and delighted.
My fingers tightened on the knife hilt until my knuckles cracked. "What are you doing here, Cerys?" I asked, forcing my voice past the rasp in my throat. "Speak."
Her smirk widened. "Isn't it obvious, darling?" She paced a lazy half-circle, her shadow slipping over the walls like spilled ink. "The tide's turning. I intend to be on the winning side."
My breath hitched, the third eye throbbing hotter with each of her steps. "So you're with the vampires," I said, fighting to keep my words even. "Why?"
"Why?" she echoed, as though the question amused her. "Because I grew tired of waiting for scraps at the lycan's table. I wanted power, real, untethered power, and they offered it." She tilted her head. "But mostly?" She paused.. "I wanted the pleasure of carving you apart myself."