Chapter 131 Hundred and thirty six
“Get him away from her!” Zane shouted, the words ripping from his throat like a man already losing the war he swore he’d win.
He didn’t realize he was moving until Renna grabbed his arm, nails digging into his skin. “Stop. You can’t take him head-on. Not like this. He isn’t the man you fought before.”
“He’s never been a man,” Zane growled, wrenching his arm free. “He’s a curse wearing skin.”
Renna hissed, “A curse you can’t defeat.”
Zane ignored her, forcing his way through the chaos as if brute strength alone could bend the night to his will. But the battlefield obeyed no one. Not tonight. Bodies slammed against him, some friend, some foe, all swallowed by the roar of war. Steel screeched. Wolves snarled. The snow turned black with blood. And through it all, a single figure refused to slow.
Ryder.
Every step he took left a trail of devastation. Not loud devastation. Not flamboyant or explosive. Quiet, efficient, merciless devastation. A throat cut in silence. A blade redirected so smoothly it looked like the enemy had killed himself. A soldier collapsing without realizing his heart had already stopped.
He didn’t look back. He didn’t hesitate.
He didn’t even seem to breathe.
He was shadow.
He was the rumor soldiers whispered about with trembling lips.
He was the reason Zane’s men hesitated every time they turned a corner.
And right now he was moving with one purpose.
Sienna.
Zane pushed forward, rage pounding behind his ribs. “Ryder!” he bellowed. “Face me, coward!”
Ryder didn’t turn. Didn’t flinch. Didn’t acknowledge him at all.
That was worse. That was humiliation sharpened to a blade.
Renna stormed behind him. “Zane, stop chasing pride, this isn’t the time, ”
“What do you suggest?” he snapped, rounding on her. “Let him reach her? Let him help her? Let him ruin everything we’ve built?”
“What you’ve built,” she corrected coldly. “I’m only here because your vision matched my hatred. Don’t confuse loyalty with usefulness.”
He stiffened. “Is that supposed to intimidate me?”
“No,” she said, stepping closer. “It’s supposed to wake you up. If Ryder gets to her, the realm will turn back to them. You know this. You cannot fight him hand-to-hand, Zane. You need strategy. You need deception.”
Zane scoffed. “He’s not a god.”
“No,” she said softly. “But he loves like one. And men who love like that don’t die the way you want them to.”
He paused, breathing hard. “Then how?”
Renna’s eyes glinted with something cold, something ancient. “Separate them. Break their focus. Break their bond. Break her faith.”
Zane stared at her for several seconds, chest heaving. Finally he pulled away. “Fine. Then distract him.”
“How?”
“Use the battalion,” he said. “Send them all at him.”
Renna shook her head. “They won’t win.”
“They don’t have to win,” he said. “They only have to slow him.”
She hesitated only a heartbeat before signaling to the masked leader. “Focus on the shadow wolf. Make him bleed.”
The masked leader bowed once, the motion eerie in its precision, then turned and signaled his warriors. The battalion shifted direction instantly, closing in on Ryder like a tightening ring. Their movements were fluid, unnatural, almost ceremonial. A silent storm of blades descended toward him, their masks gleaming in the firelight.
And still he didn’t stop.
One attacker lunged. Ryder sidestepped, blade flashing once, and the masked warrior fell without a sound. Another came from behind. Ryder dropped low, swept his legs, and slit his throat in one motion. A third dropped from above. Ryder caught him mid-fall, twisted his arm until bone snapped, and hurled him into two others.
Men around him watched in stunned horror. Even enemies paused just to understand what they were seeing.
Renna whispered, “He isn’t fighting like a wolf.”
Zane said nothing.
“He’s fighting like something that survived the goddess’s curse.”
Still nothing.
“He is becoming exactly what Lunaris warned, ”
Zane spun on her. “Don’t say her name.”
She closed her mouth but her eyes never left the battlefield, widening as Ryder cut through another wave, quick, brutal, lethal. “Zane… he will reach her.”
Zane ground his teeth until his jaw ached. “Then we weaken her before he does.”
Renna blinked. “How?”
“Chaos,” he said. “Give her chaos.”
He raised his sword high, shouting loud enough to shake the mountain. “Archers! Focus on the Citadel gate! Bring it down!”
Renna gasped. “That will kill your own men, ”
“I don’t care!”
“You’ll kill her people!”
“Good!”
“You can’t hit Sienna, ”
“Who said I want to hit her?” he snarled. “I want to break everything she’s trying to protect.”
Renna inhaled sharply. “Then do it.”
The archers moved into formation, lifting their bows. Zane lowered his arm in a sweeping arc, and a torrent of flaming arrows shot into the air, an orange swarm hurling toward the gate of the Citadel.
Sienna, fighting alongside the Moon Guard, froze for a fraction of a heartbeat as the sky lit on fire above her.
“Down!” one of her guards shouted.
Sienna threw up her arm, magic blazing around her in an arc of silver. The first volley hit her shield with thunderous force, the fire exploding upward, scattering sparks across the stone.
Zane smirked. “Again!”
A second wave launched.
Sienna braced, pouring her strength into another shield. The impact ripped the ground beneath her feet, sending her staggering.
Ryder saw it.
His control snapped like a bone.
He tore through the remaining masked warriors with a violence that made even Renna step back. He didn’t move like a fighter. He moved like a man watching the world try to take something from him again.
“No,” Ryder growled under his breath, the word almost animal. “Not her.”
Zane pointed at him, furious. “There! Shoot him!”
The archers shifted aim.
Sienna saw their movement and felt the sickening twist of destiny. She screamed Ryder’s name, voice breaking.
He didn’t hear her.
He only saw the arrows.
The moment stretched.
Frozen.
Sharp.
Inevitable.
Ryder stopped moving and lifted his blade.
A sound sliced across the battlefield.
Not steel.
Not fire.
A howl.
Sienna’s.
It ripped through the night, shaking the air, shaking the ground, shaking every soul still standing. For the first time since the battle began, even Ryder paused. Even Zane’s archers hesitated. Even the masked battalion stilled.
Renna’s face paled. “She’s accessing the ancient line.”
“That’s impossible,” Zane said.
Another howl followed, so powerful it sent snow cascading off the mountain cliffs. It wasn’t a cry of rage. It wasn’t a cry of pain.
It was a warning.
A vow.
A claim.
The Citadel trembled. The torches extinguished. The fires wavered. The air itself tightened around them, as if the world waited for what came next.
Sienna stepped forward through the smoke, silver light coiling around her like veins of moonfire. Her eyes burned bright enough to shame the sky.
“Enough,” she said.
The single word cracked across the battlefield.
Ryder froze where he stood, chest rising and falling, the sword still dripping with the blood of men who never understood what they were facing.
Zane’s fury melted into confusion, then fear.
Renna whispered, “She’s choosing him.”
Sienna lifted her hand, not in attack, but in something far more dangerous, recognition.
“Ryder,” she said softly.
It was all he needed.
He moved toward her, slowly at first, then faster, ignoring the arrows aimed his way, ignoring the soldiers too afraid to stop him.
Zane shouted, voice shaking, “Stop him! Don’t let him reach her!”
But no one moved.
The battlefield held its breath.
Two figures walked toward each other through fire and war and blood, every step rewriting the night, every heartbeat reshaping the realm.
Ryder reached her first.
She reached back.
Their fingers brushed.
And the mountain broke.