Fien, Queen of Dalab — once the flame of Setrum glory, now just a naked mess in a cold-ass cave — was curled up on stone, shivering and pissed. Her small, perfect breasts, usually hidden beneath gold robes and ego, were now catching the breeze like they had a personal vendetta against her nipples. It was not cute.
And next to her? The body of Jim Slevann. The Night Rider. Her rider. Her headache. Her last goddamn chance at fixing any of this. He was dead. Like, dead-dead.
And Fien? She was done pretending she was okay.
All the power, all the noise, the chaos, the wars — it had led to this one awful, heartbreaking silence. And a cave that smelled like old smoke and regret.
She clutched the Scepter of the End, the most sacred, most overpowered object in all of Senedro. Like, if Excalibur had a baby with a nuclear warhead, and that baby had a God-complex? Yeah, that was this thing. With it, balance could be restored. Or blown the fuck up. Either one. And honestly, both sounded kinda tempting right now.
She knew what had to be done. The ritual wasn't a soft bedtime prayer. This was old magic. Feral magic. The kind of magic that made gods uncomfortable and caused minor earthquakes on Earth if you pronounced one vowel wrong.
She laid herself gently over Jim's body. His chest was cold but somehow still comforting. Her breasts rested against him — not out of lust, but out of mourning. A connection. A bridge between what was and what had to come next.
With her lips trembling and her heart heavy, she slid her hand down between her legs. Her fingers moved with purpose, not pleasure. This wasn't some horny queen moment — this was ancient technology. Sex-coded spellwork from the Setrums themselves. Sensory activation of dormant divine pathways. Basically, magic foreplay, but with the fate of two worlds on the line.
As her body tensed and her breathing stuttered, she whispered the forgotten tongue of Setrums. The words didn't just leave her lips — they ripped through the cave, cracking the air like thunder in slow motion. She reached her climax — not in ecstasy, but in pure power discharge — and immediately pressed her wet fingers to Jim's forehead. Light. No, not light... Power. Pure, spine-snapping, eye-melting power.
It surged through her like a damn solar flare. Her skin lit up. Her hair rose like static from another realm. Her body hovered inches off the ground as her connection to the Setrums roared back like a pissed-off beast. Her pupils disappeared. Her bones sang. Fien felt alive again. And she was done apologizing.
She stood up — still very naked, still very dangerous — gripping the scepter like it owed her rent money. The cave walls glowed around her, whispering her name like they were scared and in love at the same time. She was divine again. Fully Setrum. And fully herself. She remembered the last words Jim had spoken to her before the battle. Voice weak, eyes glassy, but still annoyingly hot.
"Don't trust the Setrums," he had said.
"They play gods... but they ain't clean. Keep the scepter. You hold it now. You hold everything."
And damn it, he was right.
The Setrums had sat their shiny asses in the clouds for centuries, sipping wine made from dead stars, letting Senedro fall to shit because they didn't want to "intervene." Meanwhile, people like Fien and Jim were getting sliced open for peace that never came. Well... not anymore.
Let's back up for a sec, in case your brain's spinning from all this— because you didn't read "Night's Chosen: Bound to the Dark" (seriously?):
There was a war. Not just a loud yelling-match kind of war. Like, capital-W War. Hennekas — that Ozelean beefcake with daddy issues and a god complex — decided he wanted to take over Earth. Said something about cleansing it or whatever. Dude was basically a hot dictator with no wings.
Half of Senedro said, "Yeah, cool, let's burn it all," and jumped on his side. The other half hesitated. Only Geza, the city of rebels, said, "Nah, we're good," and tried to hold him off. Spoiler: they got their butts kicked.
So Geza's top minds — and like three weird-ass witches in the desert — all came to one conclusion: they needed the Scepter of the End.
Enter: Fien. Messy, complicated, scandal-ridden Fien. She had sided with Hennekas once. Big mistake. Big betrayal. She did it for power, for survival, maybe even for love — who the hell knows. But it cost her everything. Her kingdom. Her seat at the Setrum table. Her damn soul.
And yet, when shit hit the celestial fan, she's the one who stepped up.
She's the one who went looking for the scepter with Jim, Gulutel, and Shæz — the holy trio of chaos and conviction. Everyone else said she couldn't be trusted. Called her a traitor, a whore, a joke. But Jim?Jim saw her. Really saw her.
And now he was dead.
And she was dragging her sore ass out of the damn cave, one hand on the dirt, the other clutching the Scepter of the End like it was her last vape hit. Her whole body ached, her knees were scraped, her hair was doing its own chaos, and honestly? She was just tired of everyone's shit. That's when she heard it.
Flap-flap—SCREEEEECH. Wings.
Not angel wings. Not cute sparrow flutters. Nah. Oxeds. Big-ass nightmare birds with bat heads, talons like razors, and the attitude of a pissed-off stepdad. Ozelean rides. And yeah, that meant one thing. She was hella surrounded.
"Wow," she muttered, deadpan, rolling her eyes so hard they could've summoned a demon. "Because this day wasn't already a shitshow."
She knew what she had to do. No time. She grabbed Jim's body — lifeless, heavy, full of prophecy and trauma — and yanked him into a side chamber like she was dragging a trash bag full of destiny.
"Sorry, Shean," she whispered. "You're going in the broom closet for now."
She threw some dirty Setrum spells around — half-whispered, half-remembered. The magic wasn't clean, but it was enough to mask his presence. And she tucked the Scepter in there too, right against his chest.
That's how much she trusted him. Even dead, he had more game than half the bastards running Senedro.
Then — footsteps. Too late.
They were in the cave. Loud. Cocky. Boots on stone. Weapons drawn. And wings casting huge-ass shadows on the walls.
Fien launched herself out like a cracked-out raccoon. Tried to swing at the first warrior. He ducked. Of course. And he cracked her across the face like she owed him money.
She hit the ground, hard. Naked, bleeding, and 100% done with this Ozelean nonsense.
"Well, look what we caught," one of the bastards said.
"Queen of Dalab," another sneered, like the title was dirt in his mouth.
"That whore," one spat.
Fien just blinked up at them. "You kiss your oxed with that mouth?"
They didn't laugh. (Rude.)
They dragged her out — still naked, mind you — into the blazing hot sands of Das, where the sun hits different and the ground feels like Satan's kitchen counter. They tied her to a pole like some rejected thirst trap: arms behind her, legs spread, sand burning the absolute hell outta everything.
She winced. "Y'all know I'm sun-sensitive, right?"
No one answered. Just the commander stepping forward, looking like a crusty grandpa with murder vibes.
"What are we gonna do with her?" one asked.
"Maybe kill her," the commander shrugged. "Just a useless bitch."
And yeah, that stung. A little. But then — BOOM — something changed.
A blur ripped through the sky. Faster than any oxed. Faster than a pissed-off teen getting called by their full name. Heads started flying. Like — actual heads. Ozeleans screaming. Oxeds screeching. Wings snapping. Blood in the air. In three seconds flat, half the troop looked like a deleted Mortal Kombat scene.
And there he was. Standing in the carnage like he'd just stepped out of a music video.
"Dias???" Fien gasped, blinking like she was glitching.
The man didn't even flinch. Just stared at her, the sandstorm behind him whipping up like some divine flex.
Yup. Dias. A god. A Setrum. The one name whispered in old temples and yelled during weird rituals. He was actually here. Which meant — holy shit — the Setrums were finally getting off their cosmic thrones and getting involved in Senedro.
Fien blinked again. "Okay… hot."