All Chapters of FATASS FATED VENGEANCE: Chapter 41 - Chapter 50

The wind off the eastern crags tasted of wet ash and old iron. It whistled through the high arrow slits of Thorneheart’s lower council hall, rattling the heavy brass lamps hanging from the vaulted rafters. Snow dusted the wide oak floorboards near the threshold, melting into slick, dark pools that reflected the flickering firelight. Malachi Voss stood alone near the center of the hall. He didn't wear war plate. He wore his formal High Lord tunic of dark charcoal wool, trimmed with silver thread that gleamed in the dim light. His hands were clasped loosely behind his back, his posture as rigid and unyielding as the granite pillars supporting the high stone ceiling. Across the room, Kian stood between me and the council table, his broad shoulders squared, his right hand resting flat against the pommel of his broadsword. He hadn't taken off his riding boots. Black slush clung to his leather greaves, melting onto the stone floor, but his golden eyes were fixed on his father with a l

The stone under my knees didn't feel cold anymore. It felt like standing on a live wire.My hands hovered four inches above the wet slate floor, my palms open, my knuckles locked. Liquid silver rolled beneath the skin of my forearms like mercury, glowing so bright in the gloom of the lower cavern that it cast long, dancing shadows across the granite walls."Don't let it spike," Isolde rasped from the dark edge of the circle.She didn't use the iron rod this time. She sat on a low wooden stool, her thin hands folded over her knees, her pale blue eyes fixed entirely on the rhythm of my breathing."The moment your pulse jumps, the heat takes the marrow," she warned, her dry voice cutting through the heavy hum of the magic. "Keep it in the wrists. Feed it the frost from the floor."I dragged air into my lungs. Cold, damp cavern air.One. Two. Three.I counted the beats of my own heart, forcing the frantic thudding in my chest to slow down, anchoring every breath to the icy slate beneath m

  The air didn't smell like pine smoke anymore. It smelled like lightning tearing through wet metal. The silver light was blinding. It didn't just fill the cavern, it erased it. The slate floor under my bare feet had dissolved into a sea of white heat, and the voices in my head were so loud they beat against my temples like iron hammers. Hold the line, a woman’s voice screamed inside my mind. Don't let the core burn out! "Who are you?" I whispered into the void, my hands locked out, my skin humming with enough raw kinetic energy to tear the stone archway off its foundations. "Ivy!" A figure broke through the silver wall. He was burning. The heavy fur trim of his dark mantle was catching white sparks, the leather of his shoulder guards smoking in the heat, but he didn't stop. He slammed his body straight throug

 The heavy double doors of the lower hall had swung shut behind Malachi, but the silence he left in the room felt like a physical weight pressing down on my chest.No one moved.The brass lamps flickered in the draft sneaking through the stone gaps, casting long, wavering shadows across the oak floorboards. Captain Vane stood near the entrance with his hand still resting on the pommel of his longsword, his eyes fixed on the flagstones at his feet, refusing to look at any of us.I couldn't take my eyes off Cassian.He hadn't turned around. He stood exactly where his father had left him, his shoulders rigid, his hands clenched so tightly into fists at his sides that I could see the tendons straining beneath his pale skin."Cassian?" I whispered, the sound barely carrying across the empty space between us.He didn't answer right away. He took a single, shuddering breath, his chest rising and falling slowly before he finally turned

The skin on my inner wrist was bubbling.It didn't look like a fire burn. It looked like someone was holding a hot iron nail beneath my flesh, driving it upward through the tendons toward my elbow."Get her to the table!" Kian’s voice shattered the stillness in the hall, sharp and commanding as a war drum.He didn't wait for Cassian or Captain Vane to move. Kian scooped me off my feet, his broad arm sliding beneath my knees, his bandaged chest heaving as he carried me toward the long oak board in the center of the room."Clear it!" Cassian shouted, his hands violently shoving iron platters, salt cellars, and wooden trenchers onto the floorboard with a deafening clatter.The wood hit the stone with a series of heavy, echoing bangs, but the sound barely registered. The agony in my arm was a thick, blinding wire stretching straight from my wrist into my collarbone.Kian laid me flat on the heavy oak table. His large, rough hands immediately clamped down over my left bicep, squeezing so