Chapter 62
Audience With the King
I barely had time to take a single shuffling step towards Basil, still holding onto my guts to keep them inside, before the world went white and suddenly we were back in the real world. A wash of tingles went through me like I’d walked through a cold mist. All my pain disappeared, and I stood up straight, gasping at the sudden change. Even...
2025-11-30 03:26:03 +0000 UTC View Post
Chapter 61
The Greatest Good
I was impressed by Hull. He wore shock on his face sure enough, clear as day even with his skin covered in starlight, but he readied himself to charge when I beckoned him forward. Not before I did an Order Source Explosion, though. Having fought against Felstrife, I knew both the considerable strength and weakness of being able to access a second...
2025-11-26 06:53:12 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 60
The Consequences of Winning
“You best watch yourself,” Penkmun said, leaning back in his chair and shaking his head. “You’re likely to get whacked on the head in an alley by some studious Tender desperate to study your soul card, and they won’t find you locked in his basement until decades later.”
“I hope this imaginary brother of yours doesn...
2025-11-23 04:38:49 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 59
Old Acquaintances
Watching Hull destroy his mother’s card was like watching our enemies scatter to the wind, the spray of shards their fleeing backsides. I could feel the city of Treledyne become free as the fractured pieces vanished, no longer burdened by its invaders, and for the first time I thought I could hear shouts from the stands: raucous cries ...
2025-11-19 05:29:50 +0000 UTC View Post
Chapter 58
The Love of a Mother
She appeared out of nowhere on the arena floor in front of me, looking startled. Seems the Twins hadn’t trusted her to take the tunnel route the rest of us used; they’d unceremoniously plucked her out of her comfy spectator’s spot and dropped her onto the field. I couldn’t suppress a grim smile. It wasn’t often I got to see surprise ...
2025-11-16 07:56:45 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 57
Persuasion, to the Death
I jumped up and down in place and shook my hands loose, wishing the stones of this weird place in the Twins’ city would give under my feet just a little like the boards of the dueling boxes in the Coliseum. The unyielding, ethereal cobbles might as well have been bedrock instead. That little bit of spring from the wood in the arenas we...
2025-11-12 05:07:24 +0000 UTC View Post
Chapter 56
When Words Fail
I won’t get to kill him. That was my first thought when the semifinal pairings were revealed. While an arm for an arm had contented me where the leonid was concerned, the Primarch had murdered Warrick, and I had planned to return the favor in kind if given the opportunity. My fists tightened at my sides. I could still see Warrick’s fac...
2025-11-09 06:50:22 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 55
Know Thine Enemy
“We approach the semifinal round,” Rakkoden said to us. “The moment of decision approaches. The Twins of Glory are pleased with the valor and pathos displayed so far.”
I couldn’t stop a snort. My mother had shown a lot of things on the field, but valor hadn’t been one of them. It was all to the good; she’d lost to the ...
2025-11-05 02:58:13 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 54
Revenge
The leonid’s breath was hot on my face as he growled through his teeth. “I had hoped you would be more of a challenge than this, little human.”
Our duel was already well under way, and I had grown used to Dodging the first of his attacks with Fluid Grace, my body slipping expertly aside when I willed it.
Chapter 53
Trickster
I sat and stared at the card I held. Ever since I’d earned the elevation at the end of my match against Xemris I’d kept it in hand. I just needed to keep touching it, running my fingers across its brilliant edges and its slick surface. Did it feel different than it had before? Heavier? More charged? I could have sworn it did. It might not have been t...
2025-10-29 03:03:41 +0000 UTC View Post
Chapter 52
Unwanted Future
At any time now they would call her name, and Esmi felt the anticipation of that moment in her bones. She stood by Basil while she waited, a place that had been her sanctuary since she had returned to Treledyne. It still was in many ways: the feel of his body next to hers, the familiar shape of his profile, how his eyes fixed on hers so completely....
2025-10-26 08:36:13 +0000 UTC View Post
Chapter 51
The Only True Honesty
Xemris breathed deep to cycle the anger through her veins as she waited motionless on the dueling grounds. The Nether was so weak here in the mortal realm; she could barely feel the heat unless she used her own Source. For a moment she missed the swirling magic mists of home, so rich with Nether that one could start a fire just by thinking ab...
2025-10-22 06:23:52 +0000 UTC View Post
Chapter 50
The Time Between
There was a flow of air in the room, but it was a hesitant thing, so light it would have escaped me if I hadn’t been sitting perfectly still, my senses questing after such a sensation. The gentle current tickled my arm hairs – the feeling soft as a baby’s breath – as it drifted on its way. The confines of the tournament were antithetical t...
2025-10-19 01:17:23 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 49
Sins of the Mother
The centaurs were making a fuss over Gale as they kept him from bleeding to death, but I kept my distance. He’d just make some stupid joke about being disarmed by the female centaur’s beauty, and I wasn’t anywhere near ready to fake a laugh for him. The leonid strode around the place like he was expecting to be praised, and everyone else w...
2025-10-15 05:09:37 +0000 UTC View Post
Chapter 48
Far From Home
The humans yapped at each other like cubs barely past their mother’s milk, which in truth most who still lived were. They celebrated the return of the long-haired female and the fat stack of cards she brought back with her – unearned spoils if Titus had ever seen them. When their cheer subsided, her mate pulled her aside to whisper his displeasur...
2025-10-12 01:54:00 +0000 UTC View Post
Chapter 47
Breaking Bread
Esmi felt as if some huge golem Relic had its hand wrapped around her chest as she watched Stafford plunge his meaty fist into the prince’s guts. Someone nearby moaned in dismay, but she wasn’t sure who. She couldn’t breathe. She’d felt that cold hand inside her own body, and watching the gory scene play out below, she swore she could feel i...
2025-10-08 00:19:59 +0000 UTC View Post
Chapter 46
What the Heart Wants
The damnable cell they were in for viewing the duels was not nearly long enough for Gerard to outpace the anger the conversation with his bastard brother had drawn up. Instead, he was forced to stew against the opposite wall, waiting for the centaurs to call his name.
“Best make your peace, human. Stafford will delight in r...
2025-10-05 05:15:05 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 43
Things That Matter
I’d only left Afi’s side for a bare moment to see the tail end of Basil’s match, but now I hurried back to her, pride at my friend’s win warring with the lurching unease of watching him coldly break the necro-bastard’s neck. I’d known his time being tortured by Felstrife had changed him, but this brought it home in a way I hadn’t f...
2025-10-01 04:43:36 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 44
Vows & Victories
Afi came back to us in a weeping, bleeding heap, which Hull took in his arms the moment she arrived, the two of them sagging down to the floor together. I had never seen him treat anything – or anyone – with such softness, and despite the circumstances, I was glad he had found someone to care for. To think that the boy who had once spit at...
2025-09-28 03:19:53 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 43
What Is Mine
Afi was gripping my hand like she meant to break it as she stared at Edaine’s card with silent tears coursing down her face. Come to think of it, I was holding every bit as tight. Twins save us, was all I could think. Twins save us.
But they wouldn’t, would they? We’d set up this shitshow according to their rules, and the...
2025-09-24 02:44:49 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 42
Round 1
The centaurs moved aside with an elegant sideways trot, their hooves clip-clopping on the stone-like substance we stood on. They were making a clear path for Edaine to exit the room through, so she could participate in the first of the matches, but instead of leaving, our commander turned to us.
“This Primarch is an enemy I am not familiar wi...
2025-09-21 02:59:02 +0000 UTC View Post
Chapter 41
Union
I never thought I’d experience anything that could distract me from having an enemy’s hand clamped around my throat, especially when that enemy was a big-ass demon strong enough to tear through a full deck with a single blow to kill a fellow… but here we were. The sound was honey on a stick and a warm hug and a dip in a cool lake all at the same time ...
2025-09-17 02:27:42 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 40
A Different Kind of Royalty
The demon with the tail greeted Hull with a great deal more familiarity than I would have expected. I hadn’t seen her since Hull’s mother had tried escaping out of the Nether rift with the King’s card, and she looked considerably more sure of herself today. Before, she had been like a taut bow string, full of purpose but rigid to ...
2025-09-14 00:29:41 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 39
Into the Fray
We thundered down the main avenue watching cobbles shake loose and windows crack at every step. I laughed at the feeling of the wind whistling through my Iron Maiden Plate. I’d never been up so high before. I clutched the spike that was supporting me tightly. I had little Hull summoned, and he clung to my leg. I kept him out all the time just to ha...
2025-09-10 02:28:22 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 38
Friendship
The Precinct cleared quickly, in a flurry of pounding boots and jostling bodies. Afi cast one last forlorn look at Hull before vanishing into her Mind Home with the Queen.
“To me!” Edaine bellowed as she strode to the front of the building, sounding every inch the army general she had become. The watchmen hopped to obey, funneling ...
2025-09-06 20:56:05 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 37
Unacceptable
I wiped my sweat-slick brow and stepped away from the mobile forge to catch my breath. The Queen’s smith – a man named Flockson – dismissed the Lesser Fire Elemental he’d had heating the coals and began stowing his tools. I only had eyes for the card I – we – had just elevated.
“Power,” little Hull grunted approvin...
2025-09-03 02:38:00 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 36
Off Center
There was a tang in the back of my throat. Not the metallic strangeness of blood I had experienced once as a child, but a stale heaviness that my body didn’t want to swallow. I don’t belong here anymore. It was an uncomfortable realization to make as I stood guard, my eyes tracing over the lines of my past life. The Central Precinct had bee...
2025-08-31 01:38:50 +0000 UTC View Post
Chapter 35
Something Useful
“Really do hate that son of a bitch,” I said, slumping in the chair.
“He’s your father?” Afi whispered, sounding scandalized.
“Oh,” I said, feeling stupid. “Yeah. Sorry. I don’...
2025-08-27 02:06:09 +0000 UTC View Post
Chapter 34
The Home Within
I had spent a lifetime watching the Sun King streak across blue skies and float regally in his throne room, so I found it surreal to see the man do something as menial as put one foot in front of the other. And yet t...
2025-08-24 01:27:41 +0000 UTC View Post
Chapter 33
No End of Visitors
I fell out of my chair trying to get up. Waking up had been terrifying, because I hadn’t even realized I’d fallen asleep, and for a second I wasn’t sure I was still alive. The cold, hard floor cured m...
2025-08-20 01:54:42 +0000 UTC View Post