A black spiral tore into the sky and began expanding.
Knights disappeared inside it.
Armor crushed inward.
Bodies lifted.
More than twenty died before anyone understood the attack had begun.
A crossbow bolt entered Kyren’s shoulder.
He barely noticed.
“Don’t kill him!” the priest shouted.
“He’s valuable!” Apostles retreated.
“Back!
Let the power exhaust itself!” They ran into a small temple and sealed the doors.
The spiral widened.
Humans screamed.
Some were dragged from their feet.
Limbs struck stone after bodies vanished into darkness.
Kyren saw pieces fall.
“HOW COULD YOU?” He no longer knew whether he meant Neida, Darcelle, the children, the crowd, the priests, Riss, Tyron, vampires, Jorogumo, or the entire structure of existence that seemed built around someone wanting something badly enough to make another being suffer for it.
His body finally failed.
Darkness.
When Kyren opened his eyes, he lay on the stones.
Everything was blurred.
Figures slowly became shapes.
Apostles.
The priest.
Two kneeling elves.
His parents.
Riss and Roselle—whether truly them or versions belonging to this reality, Kyren could not know.
They begged.
Axes hovered beside their necks.
Golden flowers were growing from corpses across the square.
Each flower opened from a wound.
Then the elves arrived.
Not Virhain as Kyren knew them.
Their eyes were wrong.
One black.
One gold.
Their bodies moved with unnerving precision, guided by something stronger than individual will.
They attacked both soldiers and civilians.
Screams returned.
Two half-golden arrows crossed the square.
Eria jerked.
One entered near her neck.
Another tore through a major vessel beneath her arm.
Blood sprayed.
“ERIA!” The sight ripped another memory into Kyren’s mind.
A sixteen-year-old king.
Devin.
Teenage rebels knelt in a courtyard before him.
Their executions had already begun.
Devin’s brother approached carrying a red sword.
Unlike the soldiers around them, he did not appear afraid.
“You have to stop this slaughter.” Devin wiped his blade.
“They’ll pay.” “For what?” “What they did.” “What will ruling give you when no one remains to rule?” “They should have considered that before betraying me.” His brother raised the red sword.
“Your arrogance is blinding you.” Devin smiled.
“You beat me before because you had more experience.” “And I’ll give you the lesson again if I have to.” Devin’s face changed.
“Experience isn’t everything.” Dark energy gathered along his sword.
“Real hatred gives motivation nothing else can.” His brother looked at the bodies around them.
“Hatred makes every corpse look like justice if you stare long enough.” Devin attacked.
The duel was fast.
The older brother still possessed superior technique.
He redirected three strikes.
Cut Devin’s shoulder.
Forced him backward.
Then Devin opened whatever reservoir he had built inside himself.
Years of resentment condensed into one strike.
The red sword rose to block.
Too late.
Devin cut his brother in half.
A hundred soldiers charged.
He turned.
Hatred flooded the blade.
One horizontal movement.
A line of force crossed the courtyard.
One hundred heads separated almost simultaneously.
Kyren understood the memory immediately.
Another version of the same disease.
Revenge treated as morality because rage made certainty feel righteous.
The vision shattered.
CRACK.
Wood exploded near the human city.
Hundreds of Jorogumo poured through broken structures, flooding streets, consuming corpses before attacking anyone still moving.
The priest emerged from the temple carrying the golden chalice.
Apostles surrounded him.
“Circle!” They obeyed instantly.
Each opened an artery under the pressure of the priest’s will.
Blood flowed toward the chalice.
Divine Mandate.
Authority imposed through guilt, devotion and conditioned obedience.
A magical circle formed.
Kyren picked up a dead knight’s sword.
His body was barely functioning.
He ran anyway.
The priest saw him enter the circle.
“Stop him!” Too late.
Kyren swung horizontally.
The blade passed through the priest’s abdomen.
The upper half of the Human’s body slid from the lower.
The chalice fell.
The circle collapsed.
Space inverted.
Kitsune teleportation activated without conscious command.
Kyren vanished.
He hit stone somewhere else.
When his eyes opened, purple-skinned elven women were kneeling around him.
Their eyes were entirely black.
One whispered something he could not understand.
Kyren backed away.
“Where am I?” No answer.
“What is real?” One elf smiled.
Then the entire world peeled away.
Kyren opened his eyes again.
Wood beneath his back.
Restraints across his wrists, ankles, chest and neck.
Glass walls surrounded him.
Underground.
Blue blood covered the floor.
Not only his.
Ten robed figures stood beyond the glass.
One removed a hood.
Blue fluid pulsed beneath almost translucent skin.
Kyren stared.
The figure smiled.
“You survived the transition.”