The Gembound: The Price of Keeping Chapter 105: Volume 4: Chapter 97 – The Crown Mage

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Volume 4: Chapter 97 – The Crown Mage The climb up from the cistern felt wrong. Not long. Not short. Just wrong. Like the world was holding its breath after watching a god-corpse die. Yara reached the last rung of carved stone and hauled herself into the ruined lower hall beneath the palace. Sam emerged behind her, plates scraping stone. Harry came next, claws sparking against marble, the shard under his scales pulsing with exhausted fury. And hunger. “Pull,” Harry whispered, the voice not entirely his own. “ Close. So close.” The bears followed: Graveclaw methodical, Stonehide scanning, Shadowfang already mapping angles. Scythe came last, blades drawn, eyes adjusting to the firelight ahead. The sound hit them a heartbeat later. Steel on steel. Commands shouted. A wolf's howl finding blood. Bruno's voice bellowing orders. War. They moved toward it. The corridor opened into the upper courtyard. Half the paving stones had buckled where the slug tore through. A fountain lay cracked open, water spreading in steaming ribbons. A statue of some Conclave king lay facedown, half-dissolved. Rosa stood behind a collapsed pillar, Ember-Palm raised, heat shimmering from both hands. Not cooking heat. Defensive heat. Gayle had been the one to see it first, back in the field hospital after Theodric's first assault. "Gifts serve need," he'd said when she'd accidentally seared shadow-corruption off a soldier's arm. "Yours has been feeding. Now it's shielding. Same care. Different shape." She was still a cook. She'd always be a cook. But when arrows fell toward her wounded—toward Jonas and Marin working with steady hands, toward the regulars who'd fought for her city— Rosa's heat didn't just warm; it burned. It defended. Behind her, wounded soldiers in rows. In front of her, a barrier nothing would cross. Bruno's voice thundered from somewhere beyond: "WOLVES, CROSS-LEFT! HOLD THAT ARCHWAY!" Petra's howl answered, followed by the metallic rip of chainmail teeth. Yara took it in with one breath. The garrison was fragmenting. Some squads held. Others fled toward the inner palace. A few stood staring at the crater, too shocked to move. "Sam," Yara said. "Guard the healers. Nothing gets past." Sam's plates rattled once. The bears followed him, closing around Rosa like armored sentinels. Harry stood beside Yara, chest heaving. "He's here. The fragment. I feel it calling." "Not yet," Yara said. They climbed the broken steps. At the top, Theodric Ashenwill waited. He should have been an old scholar in robes. Instead, his spine had grown long under skin stretched too thin. Vertebrae pushed in irregular ridges. His arms had picked up a second joint, elbows bending too far back. Fingers elongated, knuckles swollen with tiny metallic flakes that twitched. Runes crawled beneath his skin like restless worms of light. But his eyes were still human. Fever-bright. Wild. Certain. Behind him, twelve figures stood in a loose semicircle. His Enhanced. Each one warped: limbs wrong, armor fused to skin, shadows lagging behind bodies, eyes flickering. They breathed out of sync, twitching. Theodric spread his arms. Joints popped wetly. "Ah," he said, voice carrying unnaturally. "The one who believes she can tame a god's heart." Yara lifted the Riftblade without a word. Theodric smiled wide enough that his cheek split. Violet leaked down his face. "Let's begin." Theodric descended three steps. His movement looked smooth until you watched closely. Then wrong. Joints disagreeing about walking. "You bind your power," he said, gesturing at Sam, the bears, and Harry. "You waste time. Anchors. Sacrifices. Meaning. Pretending hunger needs permission to exist." "Hunger without direction is the Slug," Yara said. Theodric stopped. Something almost sane flickered behind his eyes. "You stopped it." "I killed it." He laughed, brittle as breaking glass. "You killed what you'll become. Unless you stop apologizing for your appetite." He stepped through his Enhanced without looking at t