Vengeance

Chapter 17

Zion’s hand is trembling in mine, his breath ragged as though he stands on the edge of a precipice he has both feared and longed for. Ewen shifts beside me, his hand never leaving my skin, his presence a grounding force. Together, they surround me—not in competition, not in rivalry, but in a unity that feels older than the stars.

The forest holds its breath.

When Zion finally leans forward, his lips brush mine with a reverence that steals the air from my lungs. It is different from Ewen’s fire, different from the fierce devotion that already burned me alive. Zion’s kiss is sorrow and salvation, longing and release, a tether snapping taut between us.

And then, something inside me answers.

The bond tightens, flares—no, erupts. Our bodies entwine, and in that instant of union, flesh and soul collapsing into one another, the world shatters around us. The air explodes with a pulse of raw power, as though the very earth beneath us cannot contain what has been unleashed.

The ground quakes, trees bending as a gale of light and shadow bursts outward in a shockwave. My skin glows with ribbons of molten gold; Ewen’s burns with silver fire; Zion’s ignites with storm-dark threads of power that crackle like lightning.

And then—Hela screams.

Not aloud, but in my mind, her cry piercing the veil between realms. I see her, chained in shadows, wings bound, her magic shackled by runes older than memory. The shockwave shatters them. One by one, the bindings fracture, dissolve, until her wings unfurl in a blaze of midnight fire and violet light.

Zion’s body arches against mine, his eyes wide, his power spiraling out of control. Ewen grips him, steadies him, his voice a low chant that pulls Zion back from the abyss. The three of us move as one, breath to breath, heartbeat to heartbeat, and I feel it—Hela’s chains falling away, Zion’s soul roaring free, and my own essence blazing brighter than it ever has before.

Light and shadow collide, weaving together in a spiral that climbs toward the heavens. The stars themselves seem to tremble as the bond cements, unbreakable, undeniable.

When the shockwave finally fades, the world is no longer the same. The forest stills, bathed in a glow that lingers in the air like the aftermath of a storm. Zion collapses against us, chest heaving, eyes burning with something feral yet free.

And in that silence, I know the truth.

The other fractured pieces of Luka’s soul will find me—inevitably, unerringly, as though drawn by a force older than time itself. Each fragment will seek the whole, answering the call of what was broken, until the missing pieces align and lock into place. Only then will the bond be complete, and only then will the world feel the full weight of what we are.

When that harmony is restored, when every shard of his essence beats in rhythm with mine, I will finally possess the strength I have long been denied. The strength to finish what was stolen from me. The strength to kill the king.

Not just any king—the man who once called himself my father. The man who shaped my childhood with false love, only to betray me with a blade and burn me from history. His blood no longer runs in my veins, but his cruelty carved me into something unrecognizable to him now. He forged me into the very weapon that will undo him.

I was not reborn as a daughter to mourn what I lost. I was not remade to kneel beneath his rule. I was given new life as something greater, something he could never control. Something he will fear when he looks into my eyes and sees the truth of what I have become.

The fractured pieces of Luka’s soul will return to me, and together, we will stand whole. When that day comes, the king will fall.

And the last sound he hears will not be his crown hitting the stone. It will be my voice—no longer his child’s, but the voice of the reckoning he thought he had buried.