Court of Aether and Shadows (Crowned Monster Trilogy #1)

18. Ancient Threads Of Fury

Ancient Threads Of Fury

~ A ETHEREON~

Sparrow's consciousness flickered like a candle in the wind, her brief moment of awareness fading as quickly as it had come.

As she sank back into deeper sleep, her power surged once more before settling into a steady pulse beneath the shadowsilk garments.

"Vash'nor thy'lar shield'en," Kaelon intoned, his hands weaving complex patterns in the air.

The protective dome around Sparrow contracted and solidified, becoming a cocoon of midnight blue energy shot through with silver threads. "The barrier will hold and move with her now, my Lord."

I nodded, my attention already shifting to the more immediate threat I could feel approaching through the rift.

Beside me, the massive form of Fenris growled low yet fierce, his golden eyes transfixed on the shimmering tear in reality.

The rift that was inviting whatever terror wished to claim what was ours.

"Something ancient stirs," I say in a special way, and I know his wolf specifically can grasp it. I’m not sure what Fenris’ consciousness is like with his wolf in this form, but if I had them both on board with understanding the warning signs brewing, we could get ahead of this battle. My shadows gathered around my hands. "You feel it too, don't you, Wolf?"

Fenris's response was a rumble that made the cottage foundations tremble. His form seemed to expand slightly, the silver streaks in his fur glowing brighter as he gathered his power.

His aura was fascinating to witness, which could be a threat to whatever creature was descending into my lands, but if Fenris’ essence was enough to make this creature tremble, it wouldn’t be worth all this effort to eliminate its attemp to enter my court.

A decoy perhaps, but again, what true purpose will that accomplish unless another plan to claim what’s mine is taking place at the same moment?

I paused my deep thinking, for the enemy had arrived.

Through the rift emerged a horror from the earliest days of creation.

Void Weavers…

The Void Weaver was massive, its body larger than Fenris's wolf form. Eight eyes like pools of liquid darkness studded its head, each one containing galaxies of malevolent intent. Its carapace was the color of dried blood, marked with runes so ancient they predated the separation of the courts.

His black furry flesh decorated with various incantations of red, proved that its magic caliber and capabilities weren’t your average void creature level. This creature, despite its ancient history, had to be a new breed from the higher levels in the void realms, for it was indeed strong, but weak when laid within the hierarchy of power in the void weaver’s category.

"Val'nor sith'eth," I snarled, recognizing the markings. "One of the First Weavers offspring. It seems we've drawn the attention of powers even older than ourselves."

The creature's mandibles clicked together, creating a sound like shattering bones.

When it spoke, its voice was a chorus of discordant whispers.

The lost queen stirs. The old bargains must be honored.

Fenris moved with surprising speed for his size, positioning himself between the Weaver and Sparrow's protected form. His growl resonated with power, making the shadows themselves vibrate in response.

"You have no claim here, creature of the Void," I declared, my power rising to match the ancient horror before us. "This is my court, MY domain."

“All domains were ours before time had meaning.”

Listening to its deep and eerie voice would send goosebumps across anyone’s flesh. Mundane or Fae. I was trying not to be affected by its efforts to embed fear into me.

A weakness they enjoy preying upon.

Its legs began to move, weaving patterns in the air that made reality itself start to unravel.

The girl's power belongs to the old contracts. She must be returned.

Kaelon's voice cut through the tension, urgent but controlled.

"My Lord, we need to move. The cottage cannot withstand this level of power much longer."

He was right.

The building's structure was already beginning to warp, wood twisting and stone crumbling as ancient magics pressed against mortal construction.

More importantly, every moment we remained here put Sparrow at greater risk.

"The girl goes nowhere," Fenris growled, his voice carrying the weight of mountains despite its bestial form. He had to be using magic to project his thoughts into speech, forcing the Weaver to acknowledge his presence.

The Weaver's reaction was immediate and violent.

Strands of void-black webbing shot from its spinnerets, each thread capable of cutting through reality itself. My shadows rose to meet them, while Fenris lunged forward, his massive jaws snapping at the creature's legs.

The Void Weaver's threads sliced through the air like blades of pure darkness.

My shadows met them mid-strike; the collision sending shockwaves of power upon impact that shattered every remaining window in the cottage. The building's frame groaned in protest, timbers splitting and stone cracking under the pressure of our clashing magics.

Fenris moved like living mercury, his massive form displaying an impossible grace as he wove between the deadly strands.

His jaws snapped at the Weaver's legs, teeth wreathed in silver fire that could tear through even the ancient creature's armored carapace —but the Weaver was faster than its size suggested, skittering across the walls and ceiling with horrifying speed.

"Val'nor sith'eth ka'sul!" I commanded, sending tendrils of pure shadow to ensnare the creature's legs.

The old tongue gave the magic extra potency, but the Weaver's ancient power was able to grasp my intentions. It shed my shadows like water, its eight eyes pulsing with malevolent amusement.

“Your court magics are young.”

It chittered, mandibles clicking in what might have been laughter.

“We wove the very fabric of reality before your kind learned to crawl from the darkness.”

As if to demonstrate its point, the Weaver began an intricate pattern of movement, its legs weaving complex sigils in the air.

The space around us began to distort, the laws of physics bending under the weight of ancient magic. Gravity shifted erratically — one moment crushing us down, the next threatening to tear us from the ground entirely.

My shadows reacted protectively, fighting against the pressure that dared to destroy us before we had a fighting chance of countering. Kaelon struggled to maintain the protective barrier around Sparrow, his face tight with concentration.

"My Lord, the spatial distortions...”

I understood his concern.

If the Weaver continued to warp reality around us, even his most powerful shields might not be enough to protect Sparrow.

We needed to end this quickly.

Fenris seemed to reach the same conclusion.

The massive wolf gathered himself and launched into a full attack, his form becoming almost liquid shadow as he moved — fluid yet precise. His claws left trails of silver fire in the air, his teeth glowing with power as he tore into the Weaver's defenses.

For a moment, it seemed to work.

The ancient creature reeled back, dark ichor spraying from wounds that smoked with wolf-fire. But then those eight terrifying eyes focused on Fenris, and the air itself seemed to freeze.

“Ah.”

The Weaver's voice took on a new note — something almost like satisfaction.

“The Guardian Twilight Wolf. The Between-Walker. Your presence here is... interesting.”

Before either Fenris or I could react, the Weaver unleashed a new attack.

Hundreds of void-black threads erupted from its body, not just from its spinnerets but seeming to tear their way out of reality itself. They moved with terrible purpose, weaving a complex net that began to close around Fenris like the walls of a collapsing universe.

The wolf fought magnificently, his power flaring bright enough to illuminate the darkened cottage like daylight. But each thread he broke was replaced by ten more, each snap of his glowing jaws met with a dozen new attacks.

It wouldn’t be long before any form of attack was relentless with how our enemy multiplied in countered grace. I could see Fenris’ movements beginning to slow, the silver streaks in his fur dimming as the endless assault drained his strength.

I sent my own power to aid him, shadows sharp as razors slicing through the Weaver's threads. But the creature's attention was now focused entirely on Fenris, and its attacks were becoming more precise and devastating. It was as if it had identified him as the greater threat — or perhaps, I realized with growing dread, as if he was its true target all along.

“Your kind was meant to guard the boundaries, wolf.”

The Weaver taunted as its web grew ever tighter.

“Not cross them. Not love what was never meant for you.”

Fenris snarled in defiance, but I could see the toll the battle was taking. The edges of his form were beginning to blur, his massive body flickering like a candle in the wind.

He was fighting not just the Weaver now, but his own nature — struggling to maintain his wolf form against forces that sought to tear him back to human shape.

In a vulnerable state that would be slayed with one single thread of the Weaver’s assault.

The cottage door burst open with a surge of power that momentarily distracted all of us — even the Weaver.

Moira stood on the threshold, her frail appearance belied by the ancient magic that crackled around her form. Elenore and Finn flanked around her, their own powers flaring to life in response to the chaos before them.

"Vash'nor thy'leth!" Moira's voice carried the weight of ages as she cast her power into the fray. But even as her magic joined mine, I could see the miscalculation in their arrival.

The Weaver's web of void threads began to spread, now attempting to encompass all of us.

"No!" Finn shouted, his untrained power flaring wildly as he instinctively tried to create a portal to safety. The surge of his raw talent collided with the Weaver's reality-warping magic, creating dangerous ripples in the fabric of space.

A dangerous mistake.

“Foolish children.”

The Weaver's discordant voice echoed with cruel amusement.

“More threads for our web.”

Fenris used the moment of distraction to launch another attack, but his movements were growing sluggish.

The silver in his fur had dimmed to a bare glimmer, and I could see human features beginning to blur through his wolf form — a flash of golden-blue eyes, the suggestion of more familiar lines.

The Weaver struck with terrible precision.

Void threads wrapped around Fenris's legs, his throat, his very essence. Each thread pulled in a different direction, not just physically but metaphysically, trying to tear him apart across multiple planes of reality.

“Submit, Guardian.”

The ancient horror commanded.

“Return to your true form, your proper place. Watch as we claim what was promised to the Void.”

I could see the moment Fenris's strength began to fail. His massive form flickered violently, the wolf shape beginning to dissolve.

In his weakened state, he would be desperately vulnerable during the transformation back to human form. The Weaver would tear him apart before he could complete the change.

Power gathered in my hands as I prepared to intervene.

To save Fenris would mean leaving Sparrow's barrier less protected, but to lose him would cost us one of our strongest allies — and perhaps break something in my queen that could never be repaired.

But before I could act — before the Weaver could land its killing blow — the air in the cottage grew heavy with new power.

The shadowsilk garments around Sparrow's sleeping form began to glow with an inner light that shouldn't have been possible.

"Shal'ven mor'eth," Moira breathed, her eyes wide. "The Princess awakens."

The air itself seemed to stop, reality holding its breath as Sparrow rose from the bed. The shadowsilk garments no longer contained her power but rather seemed to drink it in, transforming from mere fabric into a living extension of her awakening might.

Her hair floated around her like a corona of darkness and light, each strand a perfect balance of deepest shadow and pure starlight.

When she opened her eyes, they blazed with ancient power — not just red, but the color of blood spilled in sacred ritual, of fires that burned at the beginning of time. The very shadows in the room bent toward her, drawn to her presence like moths to flame.

It was sensational to witness after centuries…

"Val'nor sith'eth kas'ul," she spoke, her voice carrying harmonics that made reality itself tremble.

It was Sparrow's voice, and yet not — layered with something older, something that remembered the time before time.

"You dare to threaten what is mine?"

The Weaver's threads paused in their assault on Fenris, all eight of its void-dark eyes fixing on this new threat. Even its ancient malevolence seemed to falter for a moment before her presence.

Princess Liarel.

The creature's discordant whispers held a note of recognition and perhaps even fear.

“The old contracts must be honored. Submit to the Void's claim, and your wolf and these others may yet receive our mercy.”

A smile curved Liarel's lips — beautiful and terrible, like the last light of a dying star. Power gathered around her, not in the crude displays of combat magic but in subtle ways that made the laws of physics whimper and bend.

Graceful. Alluring. Divine in execution.

"You speak of contracts?" she asked, taking a single step forward. The floor beneath her bare feet crystallized, reality itself transforming at her touch. "Let me teach you about power, ancient one."

She raised one hand in an almost lazy gesture.

Power — pure, unrestrained, and more natural than breathing — flowed through her. The air between her and the Weaver ignited with possibility, every potential outcome of reality condensing into a single, perfect moment of destruction.

The Weaver tried to react, its legs weaving disparate patterns of protection.

“Wait! The old laws ? —”

"Are mine to remake," Liarel interrupted and brought her hand down.

The strike wasn't physical.

It was a rewriting of what was possible, a denial of the Weaver's very right to exist in this realm.

The ancient creature had time for one terrible screech that echoed across dimensions before it simply... ceased to be.

Not destroyed, but rather edited out of reality itself, leaving nothing behind but rapidly fading threads of void-black webbing.

In the ringing silence that followed, Liarel turned her blood-fire gaze to where Fenris lay partially entangled in the remaining threads. With another small gesture, the webbing dissolved into motes of light that drifted away like dark snow.

The wolf struggled to his feet, his form stabilizing as the Weaver's destructive influence faded. His golden eyes met hers with a mixture of awe and something deeper — more primal.

And I...

I could only stare at her, my heart thundering in my chest.

This was my queen as I remembered her — terrifying and beautiful, powerful beyond measure yet still somehow achingly human.

Every fiber of my being yearned to go to her, to kneel before her, to reclaim what had been lost for so many centuries, yet was this the time to focus on such sentiments?

Or was I afraid this was a dream that would all twinkle away as I woke to reality…her presence but a memory, like all these centuries?

I dared to hold my breath with a speck of hope.