The mountain still screamed. Distant detonations rolled through the stone like the heartbeat of a dying god, each one sending tremors that cracked walls and shook dust from ceilings in relentless waves. Spells cracked overhead, lighting the tunnels in strobing red and violet that painted everything in the colors of blood and storm. Somewhere far above, entire caverns collapsed with roars that echoed like thunder trapped underground, and the air tasted of smoke, copper, and the acrid bite of spent magic.
But in the shattered chamber, only two people remained.
Seraphine sat propped against the broken wall, one arm hanging limp at an unnatural angle, blood painting her chin in dark streaks that gleamed wet in the flickering light. The crimson mist around her had thinned to a trembling haze, no longer a shield but a fading echo of her former power. Tobias stood over her, black void-fire licking at his shoulders like hungry shadows, his eyes empty of anything that had once been mercy, replaced by a cold, unyielding resolve forged in betrayal.
"Talk," he said, voice flat as a blade's edge.
She tried to smile through the pain. It came out crooked, more grimace than seduction. "I never stopped loving you. Everything I did was for us. You have to believe that."
"You rewrote my mind," he replied, each word measured and heavy. "You made me believe I murdered the only person who ever tried to save me. That was love?"
"I had to make you need me," she whispered, voice cracking on the edges, eyes pleading. "You kept looking for a way out. Kept searching for something I couldn't give. I took the doors away so you'd stay. So we could be together."
Tobias crouched so they were eye-level, the void-fire casting his face in stark, unforgiving shadows. "Vaelor. What did he do to you?"
Her gaze flickered, darting away for the first time. Real fear, primal and raw, crossed her face, widening her crimson eyes. She clutched her chest with her good hand, fingers trembling as if the memory alone burned.
"He… promised me forever," she said, voice small and breaking, like a child confessing a nightmare. "He said if I helped him, he would give me the power to keep you. No more cages. No more running. Just us, eternal." She paused, breath hitching, tears welling red in her eyes. "He poured something into me. Old blood. Older magic, from before the Accord, before the races sealed their pacts. My strength tripled overnight. I could tear steel with my bare hands. I thought it was a gift. A way to protect what was mine."
"It was a leash," Tobias said flatly, watching her flinch as the truth landed like a blow.
She nodded, tears spilling now, cutting clean tracks through the blood on her cheeks. "I can't… I can't say more. He wove something into the blood. The words burn if I try. Like fire in my throat, in my mind."
Tobias leaned closer, voice soft and venomous, laced with the pain of every lie she had fed him. "That feeling of being controlled… doesn't feel good, does it? Like someone else pulling your strings, making you dance even when your bones scream to stop."
She sobbed then, shoulders shaking, the sound raw and broken, echoing off the cracked stone. "I only wanted you safe," she choked out. "I only wanted you mine."
"You wanted me broken," he corrected, standing slowly, the void-fire flaring brighter around him. "We're done. You will never see me again."
Seraphine reached for him weakly, fingers curling in empty air. "Please… Tobias…"
He turned away, the heat inside him twisting darker, colder.
The tunnel ahead was a ruin: walls buckled, wards shattered, bodies strewn like discarded puppets. Truthbound rebels and Accord soldiers lay tangled in death, faces frozen in final screams.
He ran until the tunnels became a blur of stone and fire and screaming wind.
The train junction opened ahead: wide, cavernous, lit by dying emergency lamps and the strobing flashes of distant explosions. The moment he crossed the threshold his legs nearly buckled.
Bodies.
Rebel fighters.
Nurses.
Elders.
Sprawled across the platform like broken dolls, throats torn, chests caved in, blood still steaming on the cold stone. No children. Not one small body among them.
The absence was worse than any corpse.
"Kael!" His voice cracked against the vaulted ceiling, raw and desperate. "Amira! Lina!"
Nothing answered except the low groan of settling rock and the distant rumble of collapse.
He spun, scanning every shadow, every overturned crate, every dark corner where hope might still hide. Then he saw it: the Accord transport parked sideways across the tracks, doors yawning open like a hungry mouth.
And her.
Amira.
Pinned to the vehicle's flank by a long, black-runed blade driven clean through her sternum. Her arms hung limp at her sides. Green fire flickered weakly around her fingers, a final, defiant spark, then died.
Tobias was there in a heartbeat, hands sliding under her, golden light pouring from his palms into the wound in desperate waves. The blade hissed and smoked under the heat, runes flaring in protest, but it would not yield. It held her there like a trophy.
"No," he whispered, voice breaking on the single word. "No, no, no…"
She coughed, blood flecking her lips, and somehow found the strength to lift her hand to his cheek. Her touch was ice, already slipping away.
"They came…" Cough. Wet, ragged, tearing at his heart. "Waited for us… killed everyone… but took the children…"
"Who?" His voice shattered. "Who took them?"
Tears carved clean paths down her blood-streaked face, mixing with the dust and grime of battle. "Tobias… please… save Lina…"
"I will," he said fiercely, pressing her hand harder against his cheek as if he could hold her here by sheer will. "I swear on everything I am. I'll protect your daughter. I'll bring her back. I'll keep her safe."
She smiled then, small and heartbreakingly gentle, the same smile she had worn in golden fields twenty years ago when the world still felt kind. And she shook her head, just slightly.
"She isn't just my daughter," she whispered, voice fading to a thread. "She's yours too."
The world stopped.
Every explosion, every scream, every heartbeat in the mountain fell silent.
"What… what do you mean?"
"She's like you…" Another cough, blood spilling over her chin, staining the hand he held so tightly. "She is different. Growing… maturing… so fast… the convergence in her blood…"
The truth crashed into him like a physical force, stealing his breath, buckling his knees. Lina's violet eyes, his eyes, Amira's eyes, but the shape, the depth, the way they had always looked at him with impossible recognition. The way she had known him from stories, from dreams. The way she had called him back.
Their child.
Born in secret, hidden from the Accord, from him, because the world would have torn her apart the same way it had torn him.
"Why didn't you…" His voice failed him, throat closing around the question.
She touched trembling fingers to his lips, shushing him with the last of her strength.
"Please… save our child. Love her. Tell her I love her… and I'll be with her… always…"
Her hand slipped from his cheek and fell, limp against the cold metal.
The green light in her eyes went out.
Tobias stayed there on his knees, cradling her body, the black blade still pinning her to cold metal like a cruel mockery of protection. For one endless second nothing existed except the weight of the truth she had carried to her grave, the secret she had guarded with her life.
Our child.
Lina.
His daughter.
The realization tore through him like a second birth; painful, violent, irreversible. Every moment with Lina flashed behind his eyes: her fierce grin, her crooked flower crown, her small hand in his as they ran. The way she had whispered "You came back for us" like she had always known, on some level deeper than words, that he was more than the stories.
He had promised to protect her.
He had not known she was his to protect in the most primal, unbreakable way.
Grief rose first, vast and drowning, choking the air from his lungs. Then came the fury—not the clean golden heat of convergence, not even the cold black void of rage, but something older, deeper, carved into the marrow of every father who had ever lost what was his.
A father's grief.
A father's wrath.
He gently closed Amira's eyes with trembling fingers, pressed his forehead to hers one last time, breathing in the fading scent of wildflowers and blood.
"I will burn the world down until she's safe," he promised against her cooling skin, voice low and steady, a vow etched into the stone itself.
When he stood, the air around him ignited; not gold, not black, but something raw and primal, a explosion of light and shadow that bent the emergency lamps and cracked the platform beneath his feet.
And the mountain itself seemed to draw breath in fear.
Tobias exploded from the junction like a storm given flesh, boots pounding stones as he followed the chaotic mess of boot prints scaring the platform. Fresh, heavy, Accord-issue treads mingled with smaller scuffs, rebel fighters dragged or cut down. The trail led straight to the launch pads at the cavern's edge, where massive bay doors yawned open to the night sky.
He burst through just in time to see the last Accord transport lift off, engines roaring blue fire, its belly swollen with stolen cargo. Children. His child.
"No!"
He bolted toward the edge, power surging through his limbs, ready to leap, to tear it from the sky if he had to.
But a massive figure stepped into his path, blocking the platform's lip like a living wall.
Garron.
Tobias slid to a stop, dust kicking up around him, every muscle coiled for violence.
"Garron," he snarled. "Call those transports back now. If you don't want to die here."
Garron turned slowly, broad shoulders rolling under his uniform. For the first time Tobias saw him smile, truly smile. A mouth full of jagged teeth, too sharp, too many, built to rip flesh from bone and savor the marrow.
"Hmm," Garron rumbled, voice like grinding gravel. "I don't think I will. You see, they wanted you back, Hale. The Accord leaders, Vaelor especially. But they'll settle for more subjects to test on. Fresh meat for the labs. And if I bring your corpse home? They'll just remake you. Better this time. Obedient."
Rage ignited the air between them, thick and electric. Tobias's vision tunneled, black fire licking at the edges. He let out a yell, raw, primal battle cry that shook loose stones from the ceiling and drove forward like a spear.
Garron met him head-on.
Tobias struck first, golden-black energy exploding from his fist in a hammer blow that cracked Garron's guard and sent him staggering back a step. Tobias pressed, a whirlwind of strikes: elbow to the jaw, knee to the gut, palm thrust to the chest. Each hit landed with concussive force, Garron's massive frame absorbing but yielding, blood trickling from his lip as he retreated toward the platform's edge. Tobias felt the tide turning, his power surging, every blow chipping away at the werewolf's unbreakable facade. Garron grunted, defenses cracking, one arm hanging lower as if fractured.
Then, mid-swing, Garron's hand snapped up and caught Tobias's fist like a vice. The impact jarred Tobias's arm to the shoulder, bones creaking.
Garron laughed deeply, a sound that vibrated through the stone like an earthquake's prelude.
"You think this is power?"
His body shifted. Muscles swelled, bones popped and elongated with wet snaps. Fur erupted across his skin, thick and black as midnight. He grew, towering over seven feet, a hulking werewolf monstrosity, red eyes beaming like coals in a forge. Claws like scythes, fangs gleaming, every inch radiating raw, primal dominance.
"I am the next to lead my kind for the Accord," Garron growled, voice a thunderous rasp. "My father is already too old and weak to even compare to me. I will take the next step and show this world what true power looks like. Rule it with iron law."
He brought down his claws in a savage arc. Tobias twisted, but the tips raked across his chest, carving deep furrows that burned like acid. Blood sprayed, and the pain ignited something feral in him.
Garron pressed the advantage relentlessly. A backhand sent Tobias sprawling across the platform, ribs cracking. He rolled to his feet, but Garron was there, claws slashing again, tearing into his shoulder. Tobias countered with a blast of dark energy, but Garron shrugged it off like rain, grabbing him by the throat and slamming him into a support pillar. Stone crumbled. Another punch to the gut folded Tobias over, air exploding from his lungs. Garron's blows were one-sided now, methodical, a predator toying with prey, claw rakes, crushing grips, each one draining Tobias's strength, painting the platform red.
Tobias hit the ground hard, vision blurring, body screaming. Garron loomed over him, red eyes triumphant.
Then a flash: Lina's small face, fierce and trusting. Amira's smile, her last words echoing. Our child.
Rage transmuted into something deeper, hotter. As Garron's massive fist came down to finish it, Tobias was hurled backward through the cavern wall in a cascade of rock and dust.
He crashed into the adjacent chamber, sliding to a stop amid debris.
And then he started to transform.
Pain tore through Tobias like a thousand blades forged in hellfire. His bones cracked first, sharp, audible snaps that echoed through his skull as they elongated and thickened, ribs expanding with wet pops that forced a guttural scream from his throat. It felt like his skeleton was being hammered on an anvil, each fracture rebuilding stronger, longer, twisting his frame into something monstrous and unstoppable. His spine arched involuntarily, vertebrae grinding as they realigned, pushing him taller, broader, until he loomed over eight feet, a colossus of fury.
His skin stretched taut, then split like overripe fruit, black as midnight oil seeping through the rifts before knitting back together into a sleek, impenetrable hide. Veins bulged beneath, glowing with molten gold light that pulsed like rivers of starfire, illuminating the cavern in erratic flashes. Dark plumes of magic fumed off his body, thick and acrid, swirling like smoke from a funeral pyre, carrying the scent of ozone and charred earth. The air around him warped, heavy with raw power that made stones crack and pebbles levitate before crumbling to dust.
His hands, once human, then clawed, shifted further, fingers fusing and lengthening into razor-edged weapons akin to a werewolf's talons but deadlier, infused with the lethal precision of vampire fangs and the crushing strength of rune-knight gauntlets. Each digit ended in obsidian hooks that gleamed with void-black energy, capable of rending armor or soul alike. His body became a tapestry of horrors contributed by every race the Accord had twisted: the feral bulk of werewolves in his musculature, the agile grace of vampires in his fluid movements, the unyielding resilience of the shifters in his regenerative flesh, and the raw arcane fury of fae in the golden-veined storm surging through him. Even hints of human tenacity lingered, grounding the monster in unyielding will.
Tobias rose from the debris, no longer man or experiment, but a hybrid apex predator born of betrayal and blood. His muzzle parted in a snarl that vibrated the air, fangs dripping with golden ichor. Garron's red eyes widened for a fraction, fear? Respect? Before the werewolf lord charged again.
They met in a cataclysmic clash. Tobias dodged Garron's sweeping claw with unnatural speed, vampire lithe, and countered with a slash that carved deep into Garron's flank, black talons parting fur and muscle like paper. Blood sprayed, but Garron spun, his massive jaws snapping for Tobias's throat. Tobias caught the bite mid-air, werewolf strength locking his grip around Garron's muzzle, and hurled him sideways into the cavern wall. Rock exploded on impact, burying Garron in a landslide of boulders.
Garron erupted from the pile with a bellow, claws flashing in a frenzy. He raked Tobias's chest, drawing blood that sizzled on the stone, but Tobias barely flinched, shifter resilience knitting the wounds almost instantly. He retaliated with a fae-infused blast from his palm, dark-gold energy detonating against Garron's chest and blasting him backward, fur singed and smoking. Garron hit the platform's edge, teetering, then lunged back with renewed savagery, tackling Tobias to the ground in a rolling maelstrom of snaps and slashes.
They grappled, fangs clashing, claws locking. Garron's superior weight pinned Tobias momentarily, his jaws inches from Tobias's jugular, hot breath reeking of bloodlust. But Tobias twisted, human cunning guiding him, and drove a knee into Garron's underbelly with crushing force. Garron wheezed, grip faltering, and Tobias flipped them, mounting the werewolf and unleashing a barrage of talon strikes—left to the face, right to the throat, left again carving into the shoulder. Each hit drew howls, Garron's red eyes dimming with pain as black plumes from Tobias's body choked the air, sapping the werewolf's strength.
Garron bucked wildly, throwing Tobias off and scrambling to his ruined legs, one arm dangling useless, chest heaving. "What... are you?" he rasped, voice laced with awe and dread.
Cold bit into his lungs like broken glass.
Tobias Hale stood alone in the ruined train junction, heart hammering against his ribs so hard he felt it in his teeth. Dust drifted through the fractured floodlights, slow and silver, turning the night into something underwater and wrong.
Across the cracked concrete, Garron dragged himself forward on ruined legs, arm dangling.
He had done that.
The trail Garron left behind was black in the half-light, thick ropes of blood that steamed faintly in the freezing air. One arm hung useless, bone jutting white through torn muscle. Every breath came as a wet, rattling snarl. Each movement reopened the wounds Tobias had carved along his ribs, his throat, his face.
Tobias stared at his own hands. They were steady now, but slick with Garron's gore. The knuckles were split, the skin across his forearms shredded where claws had raked him and somehow failed to reach bone.
He should have been dead.
None of this made any sense.
Instead, the thing inside him had moved faster than thought, faster than training, faster than mercy.
A low growl rolled across the platform. Garron lifted his head. One red eye fixed on him, bright with hatred and something worse: recognition.
He knew what Tobias was becoming.
Tobias took one deliberate step forward. The heat beneath his skin answered instantly, rising like liquid fire, coiling behind his sternum, hungry.
"You know what I want, tell me now," he said, voice stripped raw.
Garron tried to rise. Failed. Collapsed again with a sound that was half roar, half sob, filled with rage and defeat.
Tobias closed the distance. His boots crunched over broken glass and frozen leaves. The air tasted of iron, ozone, and something older, something that had waited centuries for tonight.
He crouched beside the dying werewolf.
"I know you helped take her," he whispered. "Tell me where they are taking her."
Garron's remaining eye sharpened, a flicker of animal cunning beneath the pain.
Tobias leaned closer, until he could feel the furnace-heat of Garron's breath. "You were part of this from the start. You reap what you sow."
His voice cracked on the last word.
Memory slammed into him without warning: tiny bodies in the snow, the dormitory in flames, his own screams echoing inside his head as the Accord feeds cut to static. He had been too late that night. Too weak.
Tonight, he was neither.
The heat surged, sudden and blinding. Gold bled into his vision. Veins of molten light crawled beneath his black hide, tracing runes no serum had ever given him.
Garron growled in defiance, blood bubbling at his lips.
Tobias wrapped one clawed hand around Garron's throat. Not to choke. Just to feel the pulse slowing beneath fur and muscle and terror.
"Tell me," He said, and the words came out layered, wrong, as if something ancient spoke with his tongue. "Tell me what you think of all you have done, all the death and hatred."
Garron tried to snarl. Only blood came out.
Tobias tightened his grip. "Tell me," he repeated, softer, "so I know what I'm allowed to feel when I end you."
Silence.
Then a voice, not from the dying creature but from inside his own skull, intimate as a lover's breath against bone.
Let me finish it.