Page 163 of Veinblood
His breathing is shallow, every move he makes more unsteady than the one before.
“The power is killing you.”
“It’s a price worth paying to see you destroyed once and for all.” He laughs, blood flecking his lips. “But you won’t kill me, little brother. You’re too weak for that. You never could make the choices that strength requires.”
“Like the choice you made to murder our mother?”
“That was necessary. She didn’t understand what I needed to do.” The indifference in his voice turns my stomach.
“Shelovedyou.”
“Love is weakness.” He spits the words like they taste foul. “She loved me, loved you, loved our father. And that love made her blind to what was coming. She made excuses, convinced herself she could change my mind.”
“What was coming?” I talk in the hopes of keeping him distracted as I inch closer.
“Change. Evolution. The strong replacing the weak. The Authority offered order. Structure. A world where power served purpose instead of ruling it.”
Shadows that aren’t mine snake across the floor. They’re twisted and wrong, nothing like the darkness I know. They whip out to tangle around my ankles, trying to pull me down. Mine respond, fighting against them, pulling them off me.
“And father? Was killing him part of your evolution?”
“He was executed when the Authority took Ashenvale.” Genuine regret seems to cross his face, before the mask reasserts itself. “That was … unfortunate. I’d hoped to convince him to join us.”
Every admission is a knife between my ribs. This is mybrother. The person who taught me to hold a sword, who used to sneak honey cakes from the bakery for us to share. Now he talks about our parents’ deaths like they were necessary sacrifices for some greater good that exists only in his twisted mind.
“You led them inside our walls and let them massacre the people we were supposed to protect.”
“I opened the way for necessary change. Every death served a purpose.”
“Purpose?” The word comes out strangled, as shadows lashat his wrist, trying to stop another ball of fire before he can aim it at me. “What purpose did mother’s death serve?”
“It proved I was ready.” He doesn’t even hesitate.
“Ready for what?”
“To put order above emotion. I was ready to choose a future with the Authority.”
Order above emotion. He killed our mother to prove to himself, and them, that he could. That he was worthy of the power they were offering him, that he’d shed every last trace of the weakness they taught him to despise.
The horror of it threatens to overwhelm me. He killed everyone who loved him for the promise of power.
My head turns, seeking out Ellie. She’s standing behind me to my left, silver light crackling around her fingers. Her eyes meet mine, tired and worried, but ready to fight with me. And that’s when I understand.
I have something he doesn’t.
“Ellie, I need you.” I don’t take my eyes off Sereven, but I let every barrier between us crumble. I open myself to her completely. I share my grief, my rage, my love, and my desperate need to end this horror. I let her feel what it means to face the brother who destroyed everything, and the knowledge that one of us won’t leave this cavern alive.
She gasps, and through the bond, I feel her immediate understanding of what I’m asking. She doesn’t hesitate. Her power floods into me like liquid lightning, but it’s not just that.It’s connection, trust, and the absolute certainty that we are stronger together than we could ever be apart.
Her power doesn’t fight mine. It dances with it. We become something new in that moment. No longer Shadowvein and Stormvein, but a single force that encompasses both fury and protection, destruction and creation.
This is what he can never understand, what the Authority could never teach him. True strength doesn’t come from domination but from union. From sharing power, instead of stealing it.
Shadow and storm merge inside me and become one. When I call shadows this time, they come filled with lightning, and silver fire that runs through darkness like veins of starlight. The combined power slams into Sereven’s defenses with a force he can’t avoid.
For the first time since he showed himself, real fear crosses his face.
“No.” He raises both hands to counter our attack. Fire and ice and earth rise around him. “You cannot beat me.”
