Chapter One Hundred Thirty-Five: The White Raven Awakens

  The gargoyles recoiled.

  The White Raven descended.

  It didn’t fight. It ended.

  It swept through them like a reaper’s blade. Each beat of its wings scattered stone to dust. Talons ripped constructs from the ground, tore them apart mid-air, and drained them. Not just magic—essence. Aether. Their very purpose.

  And it gave that back.

  Power surged into Jace, pure and electric. Not like the chains, not stolen—shared. His veins lit with starlight. Muscles realigned. Bones knit. Breath returned with the weight of thunder.

  He rose, slow and certain.

  Chains erupted again—but now they gleamed silver-white, radiant and cold. They lashed out in perfect synchrony with the Raven, ensnaring gargoyles mid-motion and breaking them like dry twigs.

  Jace smiled through blood and rebirth.

  He called Veilsteel once more—no hesitation. The blade responded instantly, shifting into a sword of impossible sharpness, humming with that same pale fire. Its glow matched the Raven’s. His. One current, one will.

  The remaining gargoyles hesitated.

  They saw him now—not just as a target, but as a threat.

  And then it came.

  The guardian.

  The massive figure that had watched from above finally stepped down. Twice the size of the others. Runes etched in blood-iron. Eyes burning with deep, churning crimson.

  “Destroy that,” the White Raven spoke in Jace’s mind, “and the rest go with it.”

  And then Jace saw it. The anchor. The lynchpin. The silent will holding the entire enchantment in place.

  The White Raven lifted into the air, circled, and let out a cry that bent the light itself. The guardian responded in kind—a roar that cracked the walls and made Dex flinch.

  The smaller gargoyles flanked around their master.

  “Fine,” Jace said, silver chains wrapping his arms like gauntlets. “Let’s dance.”

  He charged.

  The Raven dived.

  They struck in unison. Jace Shifted through the first line—appearing mid-lunge, sword already swinging. His blade cleaved through stone like silk. The Raven ripped through the air above, talons glowing, raining devastation.

  Gargoyles shattered left and right, their cores exposed and unravelling.

  Jace fought like a storm given form. Sword, chain, Shift, strike. Raven above, light below. Magic flared and fell away.

  Dex shouted from the archway. “Got it… I think.”

  A swirl of light erupted beneath the arch. The portal ignited fully, revealing a spinning vortex of blinding white.

  “You think?”

  “Yeah, I’m pretty sure.”

  “Pretty sure?” Jace repeated.

  “Well, not entirely sure where it will take us. I had to… jimmy some bits. But yeah, I think it’s working.”

  The guardian charged.

  It barreled forward, red eyes locked on Dex.

  Jace Shifted between them.

  Chains exploded upward, forming a lattice of silver-white light that slammed into the guardian like a wall of divine force. The impact hurled Jace backward—he hit hard, boots carving grooves through stone.

  But the chains held.

  “Raven!” Jace bellowed.

  It dove, talons burying into the guardian’s shoulders, ripping chunks away. The guardian twisted, slammed it into the floor. It rose again, unfazed. Eternal.

  Jace lifted his hand, bleeding and shaking.

  “Chains of Oblivion!”

  The words didn’t just echo—they rang like a bell struck in the bones of the world.

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  Chains erupted from every surface—walls, ceiling, stone beneath his boots—silver-white and seething, laced with runes that pulsed like heartbeats. They didn’t just bind. They claimed. Every hostile enchantment, every remaining gargoyle, every ember of twisted magic was laced into the lattice, connected like nerves to a single, dying beast.

  And all of it fed into the guardian.

  The anchor howled—not with sound, but with pressure, enough to fracture stone and space. Its form cracked, light bleeding from its runes like molten blood. Its magic swelled, unstable, spiraling toward detonation.

  Power poured into Jace—too much. Too fast. He could feel it tearing him apart from the inside.

  “Dex,” he ground out, voice nearly gone. “Go.” Jace knew Dex’s fighting style and that his daggers would do little against these creatures. And he needed him out of the fray.

  “But you—“

  “I’m right behind you. NOW GO!”

  Reluctantly, Dex vanished through the portal. The arch flared and pulsed behind him.

  As the massive guardian lunged, Jace roared and redirected every last flicker of his forming power—raw, unstable, unfiltered—through the chains and into the beast. The silver lattice ignited, each link flashing like lightning caught in a storm.

  The guardian jerked mid-charge, its momentum faltering. Light burst from its chest, veins of glowing energy cracking across its body like fault lines. It staggered—burning, breaking.

  Jace pushed harder.

  The chains tightened with impossible force, feeding the spell’s fury into the creature’s core. Its runes flared, then stuttered. Stone warped, fragments lifting from its body. Its mouth opened in a silent scream as the magic overloaded.

  The anchor shattered from the inside out—runes imploding, magic hemorrhaging in waves of violet and silver fire. Jace’s vision tunneled. The chains were beginning to snap, screaming as they strained to hold something that no longer had shape.

  He raised his arm. Blood dripped from his fingers.

  “Raven.”

  The word was a prayer.

  The White Raven screamed—a soul-rending cry that split through the binding web like lightning through storm clouds. It dove—not like a bird, but like a blade thrown by the hand of a god.

  It struck the guardian in the heart.

  For a second, everything froze.

  Then the chains ignited.

  The entire web blazed white, brighter than lightning, hotter than forge fire. The guardian convulsed, its body unraveling as the Raven’s talons drove deeper, channeling the energy through its form. Aether ripped free in gouts of violet and silver, each burst reducing another piece of it to dust.

  Jace lifted both hands, pouring the last of himself into the final command.

  “End it.”

  The Raven spread its wings wide, absorbing the full brunt of the explosion as the guardian finally—truly—broke.

  The wave of released magic surged outward, racing toward Jace like a tidal wall of fire and ruin.

  But the Raven turned in flight, wings curling around him like a shield of starlight. Its cry harmonized with the chains one last time, and the portal pulled them both through in a rush of wind and falling light.

  The last thing Jace saw before the arch sealed behind them was the corridor imploding—runestones flickering, magic dissolving, the dungeon’s heart collapsing inward in a final exhale.

  Then silence.

  ***

  Light consumed him. It was a brightness so fierce, so impossibly deep, it felt like blindness—like drowning in a sunburst ocean. A wind ripped through Jace’s bones, blowing sideways from impossible directions, twisting and pulling until he lost track of where his body ended and the universe began.

  Then it spat him out into emptiness, and he fell.

  The ground came as a rude awakening. Moss and earth exploded around Jace as he struck, a plume of golden dust trailing in his wake. Pain sang through his limbs, a chorus of broken bones and bruised muscles. His ribs felt cracked, his lungs raw and tight, but even through agony, he noticed the softness beneath him—the sweet, wild scent of clover and something richer, older, honeyed with magic.

  He rolled onto his back and gasped at a sky impossibly purple, laced with ribbons of lavender cloud and clusters of drifting, tiny lights—stars dancing through the last hours of night. The moon was so bright it might as well have been day. Trees spiraled skyward as though some ancient hand had twisted marble and spun gold into branches, their leaves chiming faintly, humming in quiet harmony.

  This was not Roandia. This wasn’t any place he’d ever known, dreamed, or feared.

  Dex groaned softly nearby, staggering up onto one elbow. “That… hurt. We’re alive, right? This is what alive feels like?”

  “Painfully,” Jace croaked, tasting blood. He opened his inventory and with trembling fingers pulled free an ornate map. The parchment shimmered, flickering to life beneath his fingertips.

  “Where are we?” Dex asked.

  Jace checked his Star Map, which was working now that he was under the open sky. He stared. Blinked. Swore softly.

  “Avalon,” he said.

  Dex sat upright sharply, wincing. “Avalon—as in dragons, knights, kings, and strange women lying in ponds distributing swords?”

  “That’s the one,” Jace confirmed grimly. “So, you got the portal working, eh?”

  Dex shrugged. “Better than where we were.”

  Jace couldn’t help but agree.

  The air stirred, a whispering hush. Then, gently as moonrise, the White Raven descended through a canopy of silver-gold leaves, wings luminous and vast, feathers flickering softly like candlelight.

  She settled gracefully beside Jace, folding massive wings. Nudging him gently, warmth bloomed from her touch. A trickle of healing flowed through him, soothing cracked bones and torn muscles. Yet as the Raven’s energy brushed against his own, Jace felt her weariness—a profound exhaustion from the battle they’d barely survived.

  I can get you back to Roandia, the Raven spoke softly into his mind, her voice gentle as distant rain. But we must hurry. Avalon is restless. Its guardians wake, and it is not safe for mortals to linger.

  Jace swallowed. “She says we have to leave. Quickly.”

  Dex looked up sharply. “Right. Good plan.”

  Jace hesitated, then reached out to stroke a pale feather. Gratitude flowed between them, deeper than words.

  A low rumble shook the ground, quiet yet immense. Jace turned toward the horizon, breath catching.

  In the far distance, curled around mountains shimmering faintly with magic, a dragon lifted its head, scales like burnished bronze catching the strange sunlight. Its eyes—two molten suns—fixed in their direction. It released a plume of flame, violet-tinged and bright enough to pierce the twilight sky.

  The White Raven surged taller by several feet, then lowered herself gracefully, inviting them to climb aboard. Jace slipped onto her back, still wondering how large she could grow. Size-shifting was clearly one of her tricks—but how far could it go? As they settled into place, her wings unfurled—broad as sails—and with a single, thunderous beat, she launched them into the sky.

  Avalon fell away beneath them: marble-and-gold forests, crystalline lakes glowing softly, and tall, ancient guardians watching their departure. They ascended swiftly, passing through mist layers shimmering with quiet enchantment, and broke into skies crowded with unfamiliar constellations. Jace breathed a silent prayer of gratitude when he saw the dragon had chosen not to pursue.

  Stars seemed close enough to touch, clouds luminous and textured like cotton soaked in moonlight. The air grew colder, thinner, but around the Raven, they traveled within a pocket of warmth and calm, protected from the harshness of flight.