His Bride, Her Revenge
Chapter 107: The Promise of Vengeance

Chapter 107: The Promise of Vengeance

She inhaled, but the air stank of ash and death. It filled her lungs, bitter and unyielding.

Her gaze swept across the remains of her kingdom. What had she fought so hard to protect? What had it all been for?

Beside her, Knox stood silent, his once-proud posture sagging beneath invisible chains of guilt. The embers that threaded his veins flickered weakly, casting ghostly light upon his weary face. His eyes, one gold, one black, reflected both divinity and damnation. He had become what he thought would save them. Instead, he had helped bring this ruin.

Behind them, Maddox staggered over the rubble, blood staining his torn tunic. His sword was nick-edged and heavy with the memory of too many battles dragged behind him, a grim reminder of what they had lost.

"We failed," Knox said at last, voice hollow. His words vanished into the smoke.

Cambria’s eyes narrowed. Her fingers flexed at her sides, itching for a weapon, for something to strike, to fight, to destroy. Anything but stand here amid the ashes.

"No," she said quietly, her voice sharp as steel. "We survived. And that means the war isn’t over."

Maddox gave a broken laugh, bitter and raw. "War? Against what? Against whom? There’s nothing left to fight for, Cambria. The world is already in pieces."

Cambria turned to him, her face shadowed, but her eyes burning with a fire that even ruin could not quench. "We fight for what remains. For what we can still save. We fight for vengeance."

Gathering the Broken

Hours later, as the black sun hung low in the ashen sky, Cambria, Knox, and Maddox roamed the outskirts of the destroyed city. They found survivors few, broken, afraid. Some were soldiers, faces smeared with soot and blood, eyes hollow. Others were townsfolk mothers clutching children, old men leaning on broken staffs, and young girls with hardened stares beyond their years.

They gathered them all.

In the remnants of an old stone hall, once a place of feasts and song, they set up camp. The hall was cold, and the wind howled through shattered windows. But it was shelter. For now.

Cambria stood atop a dais where kings had once spoken, her voice carrying over the frightened crowd.

"Listen well," she called. "You may think all is lost. That hope has fled this land. But look around you. We are still here. Breath in our lungs. Fire in our blood. Let our enemies think us broken they will see soon enough what rises from ruin!"

A murmur swept through the crowd. Hesitant at first. Then stronger.

Knox watched her, unable to look away. This was no longer the girl he once loved. This was a queen forged by fire and betrayal.

A Pact Sealed in Shadow

That night, as the survivors slept uneasily beneath tattered banners, Cambria sat alone beside the last standing pillar of the hall. She stared at the vial in her hand the God Engine’s heart. Power, raw and undiluted. A gift. A curse.

Knox approached, silent as the night.

"You’re thinking of using it," he said.

Cambria didn’t look at him. "If I must."

"You know what it cost me."

"I do."

"And you would risk it anyway?"

She finally met his gaze. "I would risk anything. Everything. For vengeance. For them."

Knox hesitated. His hand hovered over hers, then fell away. "Then let me stand with you. One last time."

Maddox emerged from the shadows, bruised but unbowed. "And me. I don’t care what devil we fight, Cambria. I will die before I let you face it alone."

A pact, unspoken but sealed. In ruin, their bond grew stronger.

The Enemy Moves

Far across the scorched fields, beyond the rivers of steam and bone, Sophia Drake stood upon a blackened hill. Before her, the perfected army gathered, rows upon rows of silvered monsters. Eyes like voids, bodies honed for slaughter, blades where hands should have been.

Sophia surveyed them with cold satisfaction. Beside her, the air rippled, and Seraphine’s whisper coiled through the wind.

"You promised me a kingdom, Sophia. But this... this is but a graveyard."

Sophia’s lip curled. "A graveyard is all Cambria deserves."

"And when she is gone?" Seraphine murmured. "What will you do with me?"

Sophia’s eyes hardened. "Whatever I must."

Laughter, dark and cruel, echoed from nowhere and everywhere. The perfected army began its march.

Cambria’s Vow

At dawn, word reached Cambria. The city of Veylan had fallen. The screams of its people echoed across the plains. The last stronghold of the loyalists was next.

Cambria stood upon the walls, wind whipping her hair, ash stinging her eyes.

"No more," she whispered. "No more death. No more loss."

Knox and Maddox joined her, flanking her as they had in the old days. But the past was gone.

She held up the vial. The God Engine’s heart shimmered like liquid night.

"This is my choice," she said. "If I fall to it, remember me as I was. But if I rise remember me as I must be."

And she drank.

The world exploded in light.

The Queen Unleashed

The power coursed through her, ripping and tearing, remaking. Flames danced along her skin, but they did not burn her. The earth trembled beneath her feet. She rose above the walls, eyes ablaze, hair streaming like a banner of fire.

The perfected army paused at the sight of her a force of nature given form.

"I am Cambria Vale," she roared. "Queen of fire. Daughter of ruin. And I have come for vengeance!"

As she descended upon the army, a figure stepped forward from their ranks. Cloaked in silver and shadow.

Seraphine.

And from her lips came a single word:

"Finally."

The battlefield became a storm of flame and fury.

The true war had begun.

The flames that roared around Cambria seemed to dim in that instant snuffed out by the chilling presence of the figure who stepped forward. Seraphine.

She was not as Cambria remembered from the faded murals or whispered stories. No longer the tragic queen, no longer the lost heir of a doomed line. She was something else now something terrible and beautiful. Her silver cloak billowed like storm clouds, her eyes twin voids rimmed with pale fire. And beneath that cloak, her skin shimmered with the unnatural glow of the God Engine’s perfection a prototype no more, but the final weapon Lucien had dreamed of.

Seraphine lifted a hand, and the perfected soldiers halted as if frozen in time. The battlefield, once filled with the deafening sound of steel and marching feet, fell silent except for the crackle of dying embers.

"Cambria Vale," Seraphine said, her voice both thunder and whisper, echoing through the hearts of all who heard it. "The daughter who rose from ash. The queen who dares to defy fate."

Cambria’s breath hitched but she kept her head high. "You are no queen. You are a shadow. A lie wrapped in stolen flesh."

Seraphine smiled coldly, knowing. "Then come, little flame. Let me show you the truth of your blood."

And with a single gesture, the heavens themselves seemed to split open, a storm of silver light pouring down, as the perfected army surged forward once more, this time not as weapons of war but as the instruments of a queen’s reckoning.