The Arkynorean Chronicles
Chapter Twenty-Two: The Beginning of the End
The village on the outskirts of Mantle had the specific quality of a place that has organized itself around being unremarkable — small, quiet, deliberately uninteresting to anyone who might be looking for something else. This was not an accident. The Albanar family had chosen it precisely because a kingdom does not look closely at what it has already decided is ordinary.
Sarai Albanar was seventeen years old and had been knocked onto the grass for what felt, to her, like the hundredth time.
"Ow," she said, with feeling.
Odyn reached down to help her up.
"Are you alright? I didn't hit too hard, did I?"
"Onii-chan," she said, with the specific exasperation of a younger sister addressing an older brother who has, in fact, hit too hard, "I'm not Roy. You can't swing like that at me."
He laughed, and tousled her hair in the manner of someone apologizing through gesture rather than words.
"Right. Sorry."
She pouted. She could never stay properly upset with him — this was a fact about her that everyone in the family had long since accepted as simply true, the way water is wet — and the pout dissolved into a grin within a few seconds.
"I need to go," she said. "Dinner won't start itself."
He waved as she crested the hill toward the house.
"Don't be too late getting home," she called back. "You and Roy, both."
"We'll be back before dark," he said. "I might even bring Baron along. I think you'd like that."
The heat that rose to her face was immediate and total, and she covered it badly, fidgeting with the hem of her sleeve.
"O-oh. I see. Well — hurry, then."
She skipped the rest of the way toward home.
The market — early evening
The Odarinaths and the Albanars had known each other for generations — the kind of family friendship that predates memory and simply exists as a fact of the world, like weather. Baron had been Sarai's closest friend since they were small enough that friendship and everything else were the same undifferentiated thing. He had introduced her to his sister and to the wider circle of his friends, had drawn her, gently and patiently, out of the considerable shyness that had defined her childhood.
Somewhere in the last two years, what had been friendship had become something with a different shape, at least on her side. She had not told him. She had been waiting for the right moment — for marrying age to feel less like a distant abstraction and more like a real door she might walk through.
She bought what she needed for dinner. She thanked the shopkeeper. She walked home with the specific lightness of someone who is anticipating a good evening — family, friends, the boy she loved, all of it gathered under one roof for a meal she had made herself.
She smelled smoke before she saw the flames.
What she found
The house was burning.
This registered first as a fact without context — a sensory observation that had not yet attached itself to meaning. Then she saw her cousins on the ground, and the meaning arrived all at once, with the force of something that cannot be taken back once it has been understood.
Alek. Zephyr. Borhdak.
She dropped the basket. She ran to them. She shook them, said their names, kept saying them in the specific repetitive desperation of someone who believes that enough repetition might undo what has already happened.
None of them answered.
She found three of her brothers in the same condition.
She found Banryu still breathing, and ran to him, and held him, and listened to him tell her, in the broken voice of someone whose body has already decided what is going to happen, that it was too late for him, that she needed to run, that a witch was coming.
"What witch?" she asked.
He did not answer. He could not answer anymore.
She let herself cry for the length of one breath.
Then she heard footsteps.
The woman who stood behind her had black hair and amber eyes and the specific composed quality of someone for whom this — all of this, the burning house, the dead children, the grieving sister — was simply the result of a job competently performed.
"Oh," the woman said. "There was another one."
Sarai rose.
She did not ask the question she had already answered for herself. She asked it anyway, because some part of her needed to hear it confirmed.
"Was it you?"
The woman said nothing.
That was answer enough.
"HOW COULD YOU?"
What followed was not a fight in the sense that fights between trained combatants are usually fights. It was the specific, overwhelming, grief-fueled violence of someone who has nothing left to protect and therefore nothing left to hold back. Sarai's blade connected before the woman had fully registered the attack. The force of the blow sent her skidding — this girl was not what she had expected, not remotely.
Sarai's armor came up around her, magic and physical defense combining into something that turned the woman's fire arrows into nothing more than warmth absorbed and redirected. The martial arts Sarai brought to the exchange — kicks layered between sword strikes, a fighting style built for someone who had been trained by an older brother who fought with his whole body — caught the woman off guard more than once.
The explosion that resulted from their combined power shook the ground for half a mile in every direction.
The approach
Khanna felt it before she heard it.
"Don't just stand there," she said, to Odyn and Roy, already moving. "Come on, we need to get to your sister."
They ran.
By the time they arrived, the fight had reached its conclusion — the woman had driven her blade into Sarai's back, and Sarai, even wounded, even dying, had managed to leave a gash across the woman's torso deep enough to require real attention, and had severed her arm at the shoulder.
The woman's eyes met Khanna's for one full second.
Then she fled.
Odyn went to each of his brothers in turn, checking for a pulse he already knew he would not find. The fire crackled behind him. The specific, terrible quiet of a place where everyone who should be making noise is not making any.
"Why," he said, to no one, to the ground, to whatever was listening. "What did we do to deserve this?"
His fist came down. The earth cracked beneath it.
"Unfortunately, Odyn," Khanna said, quietly, "this is simply how they see us. No better than monsters that deserve to be killed. Or used."
They found Sarai.
She was still breathing — barely, the kind of breathing that arrives in fragments rather than a continuous thing.
"Big... brother?" she said, reaching upward.
Odyn took her hand. Roy took the other. Both of them had tears running freely, neither bothering to hide it.
"It's getting dark," she said. "I'm scared."
"It's going to be alright," Odyn said. "Myself, Roy, Khanna, Hailfire, even Baron — we're all here."
Khanna's voice, internally, reached for Berethon.
"My liege," she said. "Everyone—" She paused, gathering herself. "I'm the only one of the Andross siblings left. Three of your sons are gone."
There was a silence on the other end that contained everything a father feels in that silence.
"And Odyn, Roy, and Sarai?"
"Odyn and Roy are unharmed. Sarai—" Khanna looked at the girl in Odyn's arms. "She was attacked. The one responsible fled. It isn't looking good, my liege."
Berethon's voice, when it came, was steady in the specific way that fathers make themselves steady when their children need them to be.
"Sarai."
"Papa?"
"I'm here, sweetheart."
"I'm scared. Everything's going dark."
"You don't need to be scared. We'll bring you back. I promise."
She smiled — weakly, but it was real — and turned her head toward Baron, who had arrived with the others and was kneeling beside her with an expression that had not yet decided whether to break.
"I'm sorry, Baron," she said. "I never told you how much you meant to me."
He took her hand.
"It's okay, Sari. I knew." His voice broke on the last word and he let it. "I'm sorry I couldn't protect you."
"It's okay," she said. "You're wonderful. Promise me you'll find someone else to love. That would make me happy. I'm asking you as your friend."
"I'll try," he said. "You'll always be my best friend. The first girl I ever felt this way about."
"You'll see each other again," Berethon's voice said, gently, to all of them. "Best friends find their way back to each other. It may simply be a while."
"I understand, my liege," Baron said.
"Khanna," Berethon said. "The rune. If you would."
Khanna nodded, and began the spell, the golden circle of light spreading beneath Sarai's body as the gathered Elves joined their voices to the king's in a chant that was less an incantation than a prayer.
Oh, weary soul, we deliver you from this suffering body and to a better place. May you find your life restored anew, with purpose, within a new vessel.
The light rose into the sky.
Sarai's body began to fade.
They knew, even through the grief, that she would be alright eventually. The one who had done this would pay for it. They would make certain the world understood that Dark Elves were not something to be destroyed lightly.
That was when my world changed completely. I was killed by my people's greatest enemy, and in the aftermath, my people were treated worse than before — the cycle of hatred renewed, deepened, given new and bitter fuel. There were two names responsible for what happened that day: Cinder Fall. And the one who commands her — Salem.
Present day — a warehouse, somewhere in Vale
The television flickered through channels with the specific restlessness of someone using the remote as a coping mechanism: the Vale News Network's grim caption, an angry tourist's outrage, footage of Grimm moving through the ruins of Mountain Glenn toward the city.
The screen went dark.
Mercury sat at the table with his prosthetic leg disassembled in front of him, screwdriver in hand, working through the calibration with the patient focus of someone for whom this kind of repetitive precision is genuinely restful.
"I was watching that," he said, mildly, when Khanna shut off the projector.
She sighed — the specific sigh of someone who has decided that mild irritation is an acceptable cover for genuine affection — and crossed to him.
"What am I going to do with you," she said, and put her hand briefly against his face, checking for fever or pain or simply checking, because it was a reflex she had developed without entirely noticing.
He went a particular shade of red, which she also noticed and also chose not to comment on.
"Seriously, though," she said. "Are you alright?"
"I'll live," he said. "Not the worst hit I've taken."
"You did good work," Odyn said, from across the room, with the satisfaction of someone reviewing a successful operation. "Everyone bought it."
Khanna turned to her cousin. "What's next?"
"It's time to start closing the curtain," Odyn said. "But first — I need to check on Ruby and her team."
"Ah," Khanna said, with the specific grin she reserved for exactly this kind of opportunity. "Wouldn't want her thinking you'd abandoned her."
"I never said—"
"We know, we know." She waved him off. "Go on, lover boy. Your girl's waiting."
He left with the dignity of someone who has decided that responding further would only encourage her.
Mercury, watching him go, said: "What about me?"
"You lie low," Odyn called back, from the doorway. "We'll let you know when it's time."
The door closed.
Khanna sat back down beside Mercury, smiling. "He's right, hero. We can't have people seeing you on your feet and unbroken. Sort of ruins the whole effect."
Mercury sighed, settling. "Fine. If you say so."
She leaned forward and put her hand against his forehead — not a romantic gesture, exactly, though it carried weight that neither of them named. "How's the memory?"
"Still fuzzy. Coming back, though. Should be clear by the time we spring the trap properly."
She nodded. There was something in her expression — a small disappointment, carefully managed.
"You sound disappointed," he said.
"It's nothing." She smiled, and the smile had a blush attached to it that she didn't bother hiding from him entirely. "I just want a proper reunion, with all of you. The whole memory, not the fragments." She paused. "It doesn't change how I feel either way. I just want it for you. Not for me."
He felt his face do something complicated.
"O-oh. Yeah."
She leaned forward, eyes closed, and kissed his forehead before she could think better of it.
"Get some rest," she said. "Keep your head down for a while, alright, Merc?"
He nodded, wordless, his hand finding the spot on his forehead where her lips had been.
She left.
He sat there for a while, turning the screwdriver over in his hands without using it, thinking about the specific quality of someone he could not quite remember in full but who he was, undeniably, already in love with the fragments of. He thought: I need my memory back. Fast. Before I lose my mind waiting for the rest of it.
He went back to his leg, smiling despite himself, the blue diagnostic light flickering steady beneath the knee joint.
Team RWBY's dormitory
The two Elven guards posted at the door had the specific quality of soldiers performing a role they found uncomfortable but necessary. Inside, the elf commander addressing the team had a voice that carried the formal regret of someone delivering bad news within the bounds of protocol.
"I'm sorry, Miss Xiao Long. Given the public reaction, your team will need to withdraw from the tournament."
"He attacked me," Yang said, for the third time.
"The footage and several million viewers suggest otherwise."
Weiss was on her feet. "That's absurd. Yang would never—"
"Yeah!" Ruby added.
The commander, unexpectedly, laughed.
"Why are you laughing?" Weiss demanded.
"My apologies. I only meant that the staff — and my own people — already know you would never act as the footage suggests."
"Then why is she being punished?" Ruby asked.
A knock.
"Come in," the commander said.
Odyn entered.
"Sorry I'm late," he said.
"Odyn?" Ruby said, and then, registering the room, "Wait—"
He looked at the commander. "You can drop the act now. I imagine you're roasting in that armor. Right, Roy?"
The commander smirked and snapped his fingers. The armor dissolved into magic, and Roy stood there in his ordinary attire with the relieved expression of someone who has just been allowed to stop holding a difficult pose.
"Oh, thank the stars," Roy said. "I don't know how Valvedern wears that all day."
Weiss's mouth opened. "You mean — this whole time—"
"It was a ruse," Odyn confirmed.
Roy crossed to Yang and hugged her, which surprised her enough that she froze entirely.
"I'm sorry, Yang," he said. "Truly."
"Uh — Roy? What—"
He released her, and the brothers explained — the trap, the staged confrontation, the necessity of having Yang appear to have crossed a line she had never actually crossed, all of it built to draw out the people they believed were planning to steal something that was not theirs to take.
"Mercury and Khanna helped us," Odyn said.
"So Yang can still—" Ruby started.
"No," Odyn said, gently. "She has to withdraw. Too many people believe what they saw. I'm sorry, Yang."
Roy looked at the floor. "It was to protect you," he admitted.
Yang's face went a familiar color.
"I believe her," Odyn said. "I believe her completely."
"Me too," Roy said.
"She's hotheaded," Weiss said, "but never ruthless."
Yang looked at Blake, who hadn't spoken yet.
Blake looked away.
"Blake?" Yang said, and something in her voice cracked slightly.
"I want to believe you," Blake said, quietly.
"What's that supposed to mean?" Weiss said, sharp with concern for her teammate.
Blake took a breath. "Someone I cared about changed. Not all at once. Little choices, piling up. He always had a reason — an accident, self-defense — and eventually even I believed him." Her voice was steady, but the steadiness cost her something. "This feels familiar. But you're not him, Yang. You've never done anything like this. I want to trust you. I will. I just need you to look at me and tell me he attacked you. Tell me you regret what you did."
Yang's eyes were wet.
"I saw him attack me," she said. "So I attacked back."
Blake exhaled, and something in her shoulders released.
"Okay," she said. "Thank you."
She looked at the elves.
"Even if it was a plan," she said, "what you put Yang through was a horrible thing to do to her."
"We know," Odyn said, bowing his head. "To all of you — I'm sorry."
Roy bowed to Yang specifically. "I'm sorry. This is on us. We'll make it up to you."
Yang pulled him into a hug before he had finished straightening.
"You'd better," she said, and then, quiet enough only for him: "Because I'm not letting you go until you do, handsome."
Odyn cleared his throat with the specific energy of someone trying not to have heard what he had clearly heard.
"I think I need to rest," Yang said, releasing Roy.
The others began filing out. Roy, halfway to the door, felt a tug on his shirt.
He turned back.
"Everything alright?"
Yang's hair fell across her face, hiding the color in her cheeks.
"This might be selfish," she said. "But — could you stay? For a while?"
"If that's what you need," he said. "It's my fault anyway."
Outside, Odyn heard this and smiled, and gestured for Ruby to close the door the rest of the way.
The hallway
"This is a mess," Weiss said.
"Don't remind me," Odyn said, pressing his palm to his face. "I feel like an idiot."
Ruby rubbed his back. "You did it to protect Yang. You couldn't have known it would land like this."
"You made an honest mistake," Blake said.
Jaune's door opened. "Is she okay?"
"Doing the best she can," Blake said.
"Roy's with her," Odyn added. "She'll come back from this."
"I heard Mercury's team flew back to Haven," Ruby said. "Nobody can question him until they land."
Odyn glanced at her and winked, and she winked back — the small shared secret between them, kept carefully from the others.
"If there's anything we can do," Ren offered.
"There might be." Ruby looked at Pyrrha, who had taken a seat on her bunk. "Pyrrha?"
"Yes?"
Ruby clenched her fists in front of her, attempting an encouraging grin. "Win one for Beacon, okay?" She glanced at Odyn. "A-and you too, obviously."
"I will," Odyn said.
Pyrrha's smile, watching this small exchange, had real warmth in it, even through whatever else she was carrying.
"It's what Yang would want," Weiss said.
"I'll do my best," Pyrrha said, and the smile she gave them did not entirely reach her eyes.
Odyn noticed. He said nothing — not yet — but he filed it.
"I'll watch tonight in case you're picked," Ruby said, brightly.
Something in Pyrrha's expression dimmed before she could catch it.
"I've had enough fighting for one year," Blake said, to no one in particular, and Weiss agreed, and the group dispersed into the small, ordinary business of an evening — coffee, tea, the gentle bickering between Odyn and Weiss about Daikon that neither of them would admit was its own kind of fondness.
Jaune closed the door behind Ruby as she disappeared around the corner.
JNPR's dormitory
Nora's intervention arrived with the subtlety of an avalanche.
She appeared in pink workout clothes that had not been visible thirty seconds earlier, sweatbands in place, pointing at Pyrrha with the absolute conviction of someone who has identified a problem and intends to solve it through sheer enthusiasm.
"No more moping!" she announced, already mid-jumping-jack. "We've got to get you ready! Could be today, could be tomorrow, could be the biggest fight of your life!"
She demonstrated a sequence of exercises that had only a loose relationship to athletic training and concluded by lifting an enormous barbell over her head before collapsing backward with evident satisfaction.
Pyrrha, despite everything, smiled — the small, genuine one.
"Nora's right," Ren said, from the kitchenette, wearing an apron that read PLEASE DO NOTHING TO THE COOK. "You can't let your worry for Yang hold you back. You're representing Beacon."
"Of course," Pyrrha said. "I—"
He held out a glass of something green and faintly threatening.
"This blend contains everything your body needs."
"That's—"
"No need to thank me."
Nora sampled it against her better judgment and immediately regretted the decision with her whole body.
What followed was an argument about juice that Pyrrha watched with the specific gratitude of someone whose friends are trying, in their own chaotic ways, to carry some of what she's carrying.
Her smile faded when she thought no one was watching.
Jaune was watching.
"Why don't we get some air?" he said, hand finding her shoulder and Nora's at once.
Outside the dormitories
He returned with cotton candy.
"Not green sludge," he said, "but it might still help."
She accepted it, slowly returning from somewhere else.
"Thank you, Jaune."
He sat beside her.
"You were the first person who ever believed in me," he said. "You know that? My own parents told me not to worry if Beacon didn't work out — like failing was the expected outcome." He laughed, a little sadly. "Kind of depressing, when you think about it."
Your parents likely didn't mean it unkindly, Sarai said, briefly surfacing through Pyrrha's voice. Good parents worry. That's all that was.
Pyrrha returned, blinking.
"I'm sure they didn't mean—" She dropped the cotton candy.
His hand was on hers.
"I'm trying to say," he said, "that you've always been there for me, even when I didn't deserve it. And something's clearly bothering you. So — how can I help?"
She let herself lean into his shoulder.
"You're already helping," she said.
They sat like that for a while, until another leaf joined the first on the cobblestones, and something in her expression closed again.
She straightened.
"Jaune."
"Yeah?"
"There's something I need to tell you. Something I've kept secret for a long time."
"Okay."
"Someone's been helping me. For a while now. I'd like you to meet her."
Pyrrha closed her eyes.
When they opened again, they were flame-colored.
"Greetings, Jaune Arc," Sarai said. "My name is Sarai Albanar. I am the other soul who resides within Pyrrha."
Jaune's eyes went very wide.
"Albanar," he said slowly. "As in—"
"Odyn and Roy are my brothers," Sarai confirmed. "Khanna is my cousin. You know them, I take it?"
"They're our friends." A pause as the implications assembled themselves. "Wait. If you're their sister, does that make you the—"
"The princess. Yes." A note of warmth entered her voice. "I can see why Pyrrha likes you. You're quicker than you let on."
She closed her eyes again, and returned Pyrrha to herself.
"What did you think of her?" Pyrrha asked.
"She's — kind. I had no idea she was royalty."
"I suppose I forgot to mention that." Pyrrha's smile faded as quickly as it had come. "I don't know what to do, Jaune."
"What do you mean?"
She looked at the sky, gathering the words.
"Do you believe in destiny?"
"I — guess that depends how you mean it."
"I don't mean a fixed fate you can't escape," she said. "I mean something you work your whole life toward. A purpose you grow into."
"Okay. I can see that."
"What would you do," she said, carefully, "if something arrived that you never expected — something that stood directly between you and that purpose?"
"Like what?"
She tried again. "Or — what if you could fulfill it instantly, but it would cost you who you are?"
Jaune reached for her shoulder. "Pyrrha, I'm not following."
She stepped back from his hand, holding herself.
"None of it makes sense! This isn't how it was supposed to happen!"
"I'm sorry — I'm just trying to understand—"
"I've always believed I was meant to protect the world," she said, the words spilling now. "And I think I was right about that. But I don't know if I can do what's actually being asked of me."
"Of course you can," Jaune said, moving toward her, certain his answer would help. "The Pyrrha Nikos I know never backs down from anything. If you really believe it's your destiny to save the world, you can't let anything stand in the way."
It was the wrong thing to say.
Her face came apart.
"Pyrrha?"
"Stop," she said, turning away, hands over her face.
"Did I say something—"
"Stop!"
She didn't see it happen. The black energy gathered around her hand before she'd decided to use it, and her semblance — the one she'd spent a year hiding the full extent of — caught his armor and threw him into the dining hall column with a force that made the stone crack.
She lowered her hand, already running toward him.
"Jaune! I'm so sorry—"
He slid to the ground, weak but conscious, watching her.
She was crying freely now.
She turned and ran.
"Pyrrha, wait!"
His outstretched hand found nothing.
He sat against the broken column, the dropped cotton candy beside him, and asked the only question that made sense.
"What did I say?"
The docks
Ruby found Velvet Scarlatina mid-photograph, capturing a heavily cropped image of Sun Wukong that excluded both his head and his feet.
"That's — better," Ruby said, with the specific generosity of someone supporting a friend's hobby regardless of the results.
Odyn examined the photo and arrived at a similar conclusion through a similar process. "Certainly... creative."
Velvet's concern shifted toward Yang. "I'm sorry about what happened. Is she okay?"
"Roy's with her," Odyn said. "She'll be fine."
"People are saying terrible things, and Yang's one of the kindest people I know," Velvet said, frustrated on her friend's behalf.
"She'd appreciate hearing that," Odyn said.
Velvet mentioned, almost in passing, that Coco had reported seeing Yatsuhashi in the forest during her match against Emerald and Mercury — despite Yatsuhashi never having left the geyser section. Stress, presumably. Hallucination.
Ruby and Odyn exchanged a brief look that contained considerably more information than either let show.
Velvet leaned in, lowering her voice.
"Are you and Odyn — an item?"
Ruby went red, and confirmed it in a whisper, and Velvet's wide-eyed reaction contained genuine happiness underneath the surprise.
"You'll find someone too," Odyn said, gently. "Sooner than you might think."
The Colosseum — later
Ruby noticed Emerald across the stands and felt her stomach drop.
"She's here? I thought Baron—"
"He did," Odyn said. "I had him remove her memory of yesterday. We need her relaxed. Unsuspecting. The bait has to look natural."
"Even Mercury's helping," he added. "If it would ease your mind, I'll come with you."
She smiled at him, grateful, and they made their way toward the maintenance corridor.
That was when Mercury stepped out of the shadows, very visibly uninjured.
"Mercury?" Ruby said.
He rubbed the back of his neck. "Yeah, about that. It's complicated. But don't worry — I'm not here to fight you guys. I'm here to help."
The announcement arrived before any of them could process further.
"Our first contender: Penny Polendina, of Atlas."
Mercury's face went pale.
"And her opponent — Pyrrha Nikos, of Beacon!"
"Polarity versus metal," Mercury said, quietly, with dawning horror. "That's — oh no."
"This wasn't part of the plan," he said.
"No," Odyn agreed. "It wasn't."
Ruby was already running.
Above the arena — simultaneously
Sybyrh's signal to her brothers was a small, precise gesture — the silent vocabulary of a family that had been operating together long enough to need no words.
Tarro noticed.
"What was that?"
"A direction," Sybyrh said. "We communicate this way when speaking aloud would compromise the mission."
"Must be useful," Tarro said. "Knowing what each other's thinking without a word."
"It helps that we're siblings. We know each other completely."
"Makes me wish I had something like that," he said, and then, hearing himself: "Sorry. Not the moment. Slip of the tongue."
She looked at him with an expression that was not annoyed.
"No," she said. "I was simply surprised you felt that way. I value what we have, Tarro. We'll discuss matters of the heart when this is finished."
He nodded, and refocused, and they followed Cinder at a distance that left her no reason to suspect she was being followed at all.
The confrontation
Cinder stopped at the edge of the docks.
"Curious," she said, to the empty air, and felt the blade at her throat a half-second later.
"End of the line," Sybyrh said, stepping out of the illusion that had concealed her.
Cinder's surprise was genuine — the Elves' capacity for concealment was apparently more thorough than she had accounted for.
"And what makes you say that, forsak—"
The backhand came before she finished the word.
"Say that name again," Sybyrh said, voice low and entirely without performance, "and I will end you exactly as quickly as you arrived."
Cinder rose, healing the cut with the specific composure of someone managing pain through long practice.
"My apologies," she said. "I understand why your people dislike the term."
"No thanks to you. Or your master."
"What makes you assume I serve anyone?"
"Don't insult us by pretending," Sybyrh said. "You're not entirely human, are you? Part Grimm." She watched the flicker cross Cinder's face. "We know what you are. A pawn of Salem, who believes she owns this world. But trust me — you have not yet seen the true face of horror. Not remotely."
"And what would that be?"
"Don't play games with me. You know exactly what I mean. Things wrapped in shadow with eyes like coals, whose presence turns your stomach before you've even seen them clearly. Devils. The denizens of the underworld."
Valvedern stepped forward and drove his blade into the ground, the magic field rising around them, sealing the space.
"You're not going anywhere," he said. "We have questions. You're going to answer them."
Cinder felt the barrier close.
She had walked, with her eyes fully open and her guard fully up, directly into the one trap she had not anticipated.
She clicked her tongue, and began, very quickly, to think.
End of Chapter Twenty-Two
To be continued in Chapter Twenty-Three: PvP — Cinder's Trap, Finale
There is a particular kind of grief that does not end. It transforms. It becomes something carried rather than something suffered, and the carrying becomes, eventually, a kind of purpose.
Sarai Albanar had died once, in a burning house, with her family's blood on the ground around her and a name she had not gotten to say to the boy who loved her.
She had been given a second chance, in a vessel that was not originally hers, beside a soul that had welcomed her without hesitation.
Now, somewhere above an arena floor, a fight was beginning that neither soul currently sharing that body had chosen, and below the arena, in a sealed circle of magic at the edge of a dock, the woman responsible for everything Sarai had lost stood cornered by the family that had never stopped looking for her.
Some debts take years to come due.
This one was about to.