[Talia's POV]
The last Angel fled, his footsteps fading into the distance, his back hunched in retreat. Coward.
I exhaled, the rush of battle still thrumming in my veins. Blood slicked the ground, bodies strewn like discarded puppets, limbs twisted at unnatural angles. The air was thick—the scent of iron, sweat, death.
Then, I saw them.
My breath hitched.
Two bodies, tangled together, motionless.
A pit formed in my stomach. No. No, that can't be.
Mana surged through my legs before I even realized I was moving, my feet pounding against the blood-soaked ground. The spiders turned to watch me, their gazes questioning. But I didn't care.
I skidded to a halt above them, heart hammering, eyes locked onto the first body.
Finn.
His face was frozen in something almost peaceful, but there was no mistaking it—he was gone.
A lump formed in my throat. Finn had always been distant, but Cade's death made it even more so. And now, he'd never move again.
"You idiot," I muttered under my breath, fists clenching.
Then, my gaze drifted lower. The second body. The bastard who killed Cade.
The one who had stolen one of ours.
The one who had been taken in return.
I wasn't close to either of them. Not really. But the loss still settled in my chest, heavy and cold.
I swallowed hard, but the taste of blood and regret lingered on my tongue.
A presence stirred beside me. My muscles tensed, but I turned and met a familiar face—Handy. His lip was split, a thin trickle of blood smeared across his chin, but beyond that, he looked whole.
His expression, though—dark, unreadable.
I knew there was history between him and Finn, some unspoken weight pressing on his shoulders, but I had never pried for details. Maybe I should have. Maybe it would've made a difference.
A heavy silence hung over us, broken only by the distant crackling of fire and the low hum of wind through the wreckage.
How many more times would we stand like this, staring down at the dead? How long before it's my turn?
Then—laughter.
It rang out from the church's remains, jagged and raw, crawling under my skin. Not just laughter—hysterics. Unhinged. Wild. A sound that didn't belong here.
My head snapped toward the ruins. I wasn't the only one who heard it—Handy stiffened beside me, and Tobias shifted, eyes narrowing.
I stepped forward, cautious. They followed.
As we crept through the crumbling remains, my stomach churned at the sight before us.
Rowan.
Standing in the carnage, laughing.
He loomed over a massive body—Joey's. Or, what was left of him. Half of his head was gone, a pulpy mess of gore staining the floor. My gut twisted at the sight, the sheer brutality of it.
Then Rowan spoke, his voice bright, almost reverent.
"Mother, do you see this?"
What the hell? A sick feeling spread through my chest.
I forced myself to refocus, my eyes raking over Rowan's form—shirtless, drenched in blood, muscles twitching as if still caught in the aftershocks of battle.
The serpent tattoo on his chest, slick with crimson, coiled like something alive.
Whose blood was it? His? Joey's? Did it even matter?
Our eyes met.
Rowan's gaze was alight with something twisted—joy, but with an undercurrent of something else. Something colder. Darker.
Then he smiled. A small, casual thing, as if we'd just run into each other on the street. His bloodied hand lifted in a lazy wave. Like we weren't standing in a graveyard of our own making.
I didn't wave back.
Without hesitation, he crouched beside Joey's corpse, fingers moving with eerie precision as he slid a ring from the dead man's swollen hand. A keepsake? A trophy?
He studied it for a moment, turning the metal between his fingers. Then, without a word, he stood and began walking toward us.
The wild joy drained from his face as he moved, his expression shifting back to its usual unreadable mask. Like a switch had been flipped.
He stopped in front of us, scanning each of our faces, his gaze lingering—assessing. Then, finally, he settled on Handy.
"How many losses?"
His voice was calm. Steady. Too steady.
I stared at him, searching for a crack—some sign of the man who had just crushed another's skull with his bare hands.
Nothing.
Handy blinked, as if only now realizing Rowan had spoken. He let out a slow breath before answering.
"Ten of ours. Twenty of theirs." A pause. His throat bobbed. "Also… Finn didn't make it. But at least he took down the bastard that got Cade."
Rowan nodded, the motion slow, deliberate.
For a brief second, something flickered behind his eyes—a shadow of something real.
Then, just as quickly, it was gone.
Rowan stepped out of the ruined church, his Boots crunching against blood-soaked gravel. The air was thick with the scent of iron, sweat, and something deeper—something final.
Around him, the Spiders moved like ghosts, tending to their wounded, salvaging weapons, dragging the dead into neat little piles. Some of them limped. Others bled. But every single one of them looked up when he stopped in their midst.
He stood there, silent for a moment. Letting them see him. Letting them feel it. The weight of what had just happened.
Then, his voice cut through the quiet.
"Listen!"
It wasn't a plea—it was a command. A booming declaration that shattered the hush of the battlefield. Heads snapped toward him, eyes wide, bodies stiffening as if jolted by an unseen current.
"Today, we take our first step toward the future!" His voice burned with something undeniable, something that made spines straighten and breaths still. "For the first time, the Angels have been shoved from their thrones. For the first time, they've bled at our hands. And they will bleed again."
A murmur rippled through the crowd. Low, hungry.
He lifted his arms, his chest rising with each breath, blood still smeared across his skin. A testament. A warning.
"This is the beginning of the shift. Do you hear me?!"
The murmur turned into something louder—a stirring. A pulse.
"The Giant is dead! I took him down—not for myself, not for revenge, but for us! For this alliance! For a world where we do more than just survive—we take what's ours!"
The crowd surged, voices breaking into cheers, fists punching the air. It wasn't just excitement—it was belief.
And Rowan stood at the center of it, breathing it in.
The first cheer rang out—a single voice cutting through the night like the crack of a whip.
"Giant Slayer!"
A short man near the front, face streaked with grime and blood, threw his fist into the air. For a heartbeat, silence followed, as if the battlefield itself was inhaling.
Then the dam broke.
"Giant Slayer!" someone echoed.
"Giant Slayer!" Another.
And then it was everyone. A wave of voices, a frenzied chant, rising like a storm. The air trembled with the force of it, pounding against my skull, rattling through my chest. A name. A title. A legend born in the blood and wreckage.
I turned, catching a glimpse of Tobias beside me. His head was bowed, his lips moving soundlessly, whispering something to himself. A prayer? A name? I didn't know, and I was too drained to care.
Because despite the mana still thrumming in my veins, exhaustion clung to me like a second skin. My body remembered what my mind refused to accept—I had almost died today. More than once.
The high of victory dulled as the grim reality settled in. Blood still pooled in the dirt, bodies lay twisted where they fell. Thirty corpses littered the battlefield and the night stank of rot and smoke. Was this really a victory? Or just another massacre?
Rowan moved with purpose, wading through the carnage like a specter, until he reached Finn. He bent down, hauling the body from the tangle of the dead, Finn's lifeless form slumped over his shoulder. Blood smeared across Rowan's bare skin, mingling with what was already there.
He turned toward Handy, their gazes meeting. A nod. Nothing more.
Then we left.
No words. No ceremony.
Just the dead behind us, and the weight of what we had done pressing into our backs.
We walked away like the harbingers of something terrible. Like we had torn through this place and left nothing but ruin in our wake.
And maybe that's exactly what we were.
The walk back to the hideout was steeped in silence, the kind that settled deep in the bones. Each of us carried something unsaid, thoughts too heavy to voice.
The city murmured around us—distant voices, the occasional bark of a stray dog, the shuffle of feet on damp pavement. But we were separate from it, moving like ghosts through the slums, the moon casting long, tired shadows at our backs.
When we finally reached it—the rundown building we called home, for now—relief barely registered. The constant moving was wearing on me, the uncertainty gnawing at my nerves. A hideout was supposed to be safe, but this place barely felt real.
We stepped inside, after burying Finn's body.
The quiet was suffocating.
In the dim light, I spotted Elias and Alicia curled up on the couch, fast asleep, their bodies drawn close as if bracing against something unseen. They must have been waiting. I wasn't sure for how long, but long enough for exhaustion to claim them. For a moment, I envied them.
Sleep. That's what I needed. To collapse onto something that didn't smell like blood and sweat, to close my eyes and pretend, just for a little while, that today hadn't happened.
But then—
"Talia."
Rowan's voice cut through the haze, measured and steady, yet laced with something just beneath the surface. Excitement? Anticipation?
I turned, finding his gaze already on me.
"Come to my room for a bit. I've got something to show you."
His words weren't a request.
I hesitated, searching his face, but he gave nothing away. What could he possibly want right now?
Still, I nodded wordlessly, following as he led the way.
Behind me, two sets of eyes lingered on my back, tracking my every step.
The door clicked shut behind us, sealing us in. The air in the room felt heavier, charged with something unseen.
Rowan inhaled sharply, then exhaled, his shoulders rising and falling with the motion. There was a weight to his stance, something restrained yet humming beneath the surface.
"I awakened."
I froze.
For a second, my mind stalled, unable to process the words. It was too sudden, too simple. Just like that?
"What?" My voice came out quieter than I intended, tangled in disbelief.
His eyes met mine, steady, unreadable. But there was something else there—an intensity, a flicker of something raw and unfiltered.
"Exactly what I said." His fingers twitched at his sides, as if recalling the feeling. "Joey was stronger than I ever thought possible.
Every hit—it was like getting trampled by a damn carriage. He had me. I was done. And then..." He paused, glancing down at his hands before curling them into fists. "Something snapped."
His gaze darkened.
"It was like… hundreds of chains breaking all at once. I could feel them shattering inside me. And after that? Power. Pure, unrelenting power, flooding into me like a rush of fire. It was intoxicating." He let out a breath, almost amused. "I won't lie, I lost myself in it for a bit."
I studied him carefully.
Since when was Rowan so open? He was talking like a child who had just got a new toy. Before I could even open my mouth, Rowan pressed on, his voice firm, unwavering.
"And since you're the only one who actually knows about this stuff, I was hoping you could teach me." He met my gaze, eyes steady, intent. "I need to master this power. If Victor is as strong as Link says, then right now, I don't stand a chance."
His words settled between us, heavy with urgency.
"Like… right now?" I asked, hoping—praying—this could wait until tomorrow. I was exhausted, drained in ways that went beyond the physical.
Rowan didn't say a word. He just looked at me, deadpan.
I sighed. Of course.
"Alright. Sit."
He nodded once, then moved, lowering himself onto the floor with the same quiet confidence he always carried.
I took a slow breath, rolling the tension from my shoulders as I stepped behind him. And then, it hit me again—he was still shirtless. Most of the blood had been wiped away, but remnants clung stubbornly to his skin, dark streaks against the inked serpent curling across his back. The sight sent an unexpected ripple of unease through me.
I swallowed, pushing past it. This wasn't the time.
Slowly, I placed my hands against his back. His skin was ice-cold, like the serpent he bore—smooth, unyielding, coiled with restrained energy.
"As you are now, your mana is basically useless," I said, my voice even, measured. "You need to learn how to control it."
I exhaled and willed my mana to move. It responded instantly, surging to my palms, humming like a living thing beneath my skin. Then, with careful intent, I guided it forward, letting it seep into him.
Rowan flinched. A small reaction, but I caught it.
"Do you feel it?" I asked.
He nodded, his expression unreadable, his body still.
"Good. Focus on it. Get used to the sensation. Then, try to reach for your own."
For the first time since we stepped into this room, the space between us shifted. The air pulsed with something unseen.
A thread of understanding. Of power. Of something neither of us could quite name.
We stayed like that for what felt like an eternity—ten minutes, maybe more. My hands on his back, his body tense beneath my fingertips, the air between us thick with something unspoken. He was learning, adjusting, reaching for something just out of his grasp. Or at least, I hoped he was.
Then, he turned. Just slightly, just enough for his crimson eyes to meet mine.
"Thank you," he murmured, his voice quieter than I had ever heard it. Almost... gentle.
I hadn't realized how close we were until that moment. His face mere inches from mine, the warmth of his breath mingling with my own, the sharp lines of his features softened by the dim light.
Something shifted.
The space between us dissolved, our faces moving toward each other with the kind of inevitability that neither of us questioned.
Then, our lips met.
The kiss was not soft. It was not careful. It was raw—hungry, desperate, steeped in exhaustion, in the lingering scent of blood and sweat and something far more dangerous.
It wasn't about love. It wasn't even about comfort.
It was an escape.
A way to silence the horrors of the night, to drown out the echoes of the battlefield, the ghosts of the fallen.
And in that moment, nothing else mattered.
No war. No fear. No death.
Just this.
Just us.
And the dark, spiraling haze that swallowed us whole.