Chapter 85: Seris Ravenveil [4]
Punish.
The battlefield disappeared.
The snow, the sounds, the army — all of it pulled back and there was nothing but the specific dark weight of that word. Her body remembered it before her mind could get in front of it. Cold floors. A familiar voice from years before this one. A hand that didn’t hesitate.
Know your place.
Don’t force me to do this again.
Her pupils dilated. She felt it happening and couldn’t stop it — the freeze, the old helplessness returning through every nerve at once.
For years she had built the armor against this. Learned the smile. Learned the stillness. Learned to carry the weight without letting it show on her face. She had become someone who couldn’t be reached by this.
And hearing that word from his mouth, here, in the snow with her hand broken and her strength at its lowest—
Her free hand pressed into the ground.
’Go away.’ The words came out before she decided to say them. Barely above a breath. "G-Go away."
Augustus tilted his head. "What was that?"
Something hot pressed against the back of her eyes. She yanked her face out of his grip with whatever she had left and forced herself to look at him directly.
"Let go of me."
He let her go.
She shoved herself backward through the snow and used her good hand to catch her weight and made her legs work and stood up. Everything hurt. Her chest was moving too fast and she couldn’t fully stop it.
Don’t shake.
She straightened her spine.
She pulled every piece of herself to the front and held them there through sheer will, and she stood, and she did not look away from him.
Augustus watched her get to her feet with the expression of someone mildly impressed by how long a small thing can last.
"Still holding onto that pride." He shook his head, something that might have been pity if pity had teeth. "I suppose I’ll have to punish you properly."
She froze.
That word again.
Her heels found the ground beneath the snow.
’I am not that girl anymore.’ The thought came out fierce and clean. ’I am not in the dark. I am not small. And I refuse to break in front of him.’
Augustus vanished. The ground exploded under his boots and he crossed the distance in an instant, sword raised high, everything focused on ending it.
The blade came down.
CLANG.
A golden broadsword slammed into his path with enough force to push him backward before he caught himself and looked up.
Nicholas stood between him and Seris.
The Eternal Dragon’s aura roared around his blade, golden energy wrapped around the steel like a living thing, burning brighter than the morning sky.
Augustus stared at him. "Nicholas." His voice dropped to something cold and disgusted. "What the hell do you think you’re doing."
Nicholas didn’t move. His sword stayed raised. His eyes were cold in a way Seris had never seen from him before.
"I’m telling you," he said, "to stay away from her."
Augustus took a step forward. "Move aside unless you want to end up in the snow next to—"
"No." Nicholas let gap before continuing, "I won’t budge an inch."
The aura around his blade intensified, the golden dragon coiling tighter around the steel. Nicholas stepped backward once, deliberately, until his shoulder was between Augustus and Seris.
"You’ve gone too far." His voice carried across the pass without raising.
"Whatever, but isn’t she a fully vampire? She should be your natural enemy, Nicholas."
"I don’t care what she is. Vampire. Human. It doesn’t matter to me."
His eyes locked onto Augustus and held there.
"She is my senior."
The golden light burned.
"And I will not let you touch her again."
Behind him, Seris stared at Nicholas’s back.
She had been protected before. Her father’s guards when she was small. She had never been the reason someone stepped into a fight they didn’t have to step into.
Nicholas looked at Augustus and said no. His voice made it clear that his mind was already made up and the decision was final.
Her crimson eyes trembled.
"Nicholas..."
He didn’t turn around.
"Then I’ll put you down first," Augustus said, the twisted smile returning like something comfortable.
Nicholas lowered his weight and the Eternal Dragon’s aura erupted around his blade — golden energy coiling around the steel, furious and alive. He detonated forward before Augustus finished the sentence.
BOOM.
The frozen earth cracked under his boots as he crossed the distance in an instant.
Augustus met him midway. Crimson-coated blade swinging in a brutal counter-arc.
CLANG.
The shockwave blew the surrounding snowbanks flat. Nicholas absorbed the recoil and immediately twisted his wrists into a vicious follow-up — a sweeping slash aimed at the neck.
Augustus parried and the sparks were blinding in the morning light.
Nicholas stepped deeper inside his guard.
CLANG.
CLANG.
He pushed forward without stopping, swinging from the right, sweeping upward, then bringing both hands down for a sudden strike. The golden dragon roared with every attack.
BOOM.
Augustus caught the overhead blow on his crossguard. The bedrock beneath his boots cracked from the weight of it, his knees yielding one small fraction of an inch.
Nicholas pushed down with everything. "You’ve hurt enough people!"
Augustus looked up at him past their locked blades. "Is that supposed to scare me?"
He torqued his torso violently, angled his blade sideways, and redirected Nicholas’s sword downward. Stepped inside the open guard. His shoulder drove into Nicholas’s chest like a battering ram.
Nicholas took it, immediately driving a knee toward the exposed ribs. Augustus twisted just enough to let the knee graze across his side, and his free hand shot down and back in one smooth motion — a horizontal backhand slash aimed for the throat.
Nicholas ducked under the whistling steel. Rolled forward through the snow. Came up behind the crown prince with his blade driving straight for the spine.
Augustus spun on his heel at the absolute last instant.
CLANG.
Both of them hurled backward. Nicholas slid several meters, boots smoking from friction. Augustus barely yielded ground at all.