The ground beneath Vharon split open like a wound.
A violent tremor ripped through the city, tossing soldiers off their feet and shaking entire towers. Smoke burst from the widening fissure, thick and corpse-grey, twisting into the air like mourning veils.
Ariaxa staggered back, Kaedan’s arm locking around her waist as the stone beneath them crumbled.
Then—
the screams began.
Not the screams of the living.
The screams of the dead.
Hands clawed out from the earth—skeletal fingers scraping stone.
Bodies rose in jerking, unnatural motions, revived by necromantic power.
Skulls snapped upward, eyes glowing sickly purple.
Armor clinked.
Bones rattled.
A wave of undead soldiers dragged themselves free from the depths.
Not Triarch dead.
Not Vharon’s fallen.
Not even Elyndor’s.
All of them.
Every soul from every battlefield Vaelen ever touched.
Ariaxa’s stomach turned.
“Sun gods,” she whispered.
Riven swore. “He raised the dead from every war we’ve ever fought.”
Kaedan’s voice cut through the panic like a blade.
“ALL UNITS—DEFEND THE PALACE! HOLD THE INNER WALLS!”
The Night Guard surged like black lightning, shields up, spears braced. Undead warriors crashed into them with horrifying force, their bodies refusing to fall even as limbs snapped and armor shattered.
Kaedan lunged forward, ripping apart a bone soldier with his bare hands, shadows consuming the fragments.
But the pieces regenerated, stitching themselves together.
He hissed, “Vaelen’s curse never ends.”
Ariaxa thrust her hands out, Sun-fire roaring from her palms in twin arcs. She sliced through entire ranks, turning bone to ash, burning corrupted vampires to smoke.
But a moment later—
The ash swirled.
Swirled.
Formed bones again.
The dead reassembled.
Vaelen’s spell was feeding on the battlefield.
The dead would not stay dead.
“Ariaxa—” Kaedan shouted.
“I see it!” she called back, blasting two more rising corpses with blinding light.
Their skulls exploded—
But their bodies stood back up.
Her heart hammered.
“They’re innocent,” she whispered. “Some of them… some of them are children.”
Kaedan met her gaze, shadow swirling around him. “We don’t have the luxury of mercy.”
Ariaxa’s throat closed.
That was exactly Vaelen’s plan—
to force her to kill not monsters, but the dead who once protected, served, or loved.
And each one tore at her heart with a different blade.
Riven crashed through a crowd of skeletons, slicing through ribs and skulls with desperate precision.
“They’re flanking the north side!” he shouted. “We’re losing the courtyard!”
Kaedan cursed under his breath, charging forward and slamming his fist into the ground. Shadows erupted in spikes, skewering a cluster of undead—but even pierced bones began crawling up the spikes, reassembling mid-air.
Ariaxa felt the pressure of the bond tightening, Kaedan’s fear and fury and desperation pulsing into her veins.
“Ariaxa,” he shouted over the chaos, “keep north secure! I’ll handle the breach!”
“No!” she yelled back. “You’ll get overwhelmed—”
“MOVE!”
He wasn’t ordering her out of cruelty—
but to save her from the wave of undead that flung itself toward her.
Ariaxa turned, fire spiraling around her, incinerating corpses that kept crawling back.
She tried not to look at their faces.
Tried.
Failed.
Soldiers from Vharon’s first rebellion.
Children from Elyndor dragged away in the raids.
A woman she recognized from the Blood Court kitchens.
A man who had once shielded her from a guard’s whip.
Each one a memory.
Each one a ghost made flesh.
Her heart cracked.
“This isn’t a battle,” she whispered. “It’s torment.”
Riven skidded beside her, panting, blood splattered across his cheek.
“What do you need?” he asked sharply.
“I need them to stay dead,” she said, voice tight. “And I don’t know how.”
As if answering her—
The ground cracked at her feet.
A hand emerged.
Small.
Gloved.
Shaking.
Ariaxa felt something snap inside her.
“No—”
The corpse pulled itself from the earth.
An armored figure.
Smaller than the rest.
Gold-tinted pauldrons.
A sword broken across the back.
A chestplate inscribed with—
No.
No.
No.
THE SUN GUARD.
Elyndor’s personal royal guards.
Her protectors.
Her family’s sworn defenders.
And this one—
Ariaxa staggered backward, breath gone, world tilting.
Because she knew this armor.
Knew that broken sword.
Knew the white sunburst painted on the helm—
the very symbol her childhood hands had once traced.
“Solyn…” she whispered.
Her childhood bodyguard.
He had carried her on his shoulders through the gardens.
He had hidden pastries in his cloak for her to steal.
He had stood between her and every threat.
He had died screaming her name when Elyndor fell.
And now—
His undead body scraped forward.
One step.
Another.
Skull turning toward her.
Eyes glowing violet.
“P…Princess…” the corpse croaked, Vaelen’s magic twisting the voice into a broken echo of a man she’d adored.
Ariaxa’s vision blurred.
Her knees weakened.
Riven’s voice was distant.
“Ariaxa—don’t look at it—don’t—”
But she couldn’t look away.
Kaedan’s roar was somewhere behind her, shadow tearing through bone—
But she couldn’t hear him.
Not over the sound of her childhood rising from the grave…
To kill her.