NOVEL WEB Chapter 180: [180] The Kintsugi Martyr
Margaret's hands trembled as she watched the ballroom fracture into chaos like glass under a hammer blow. The revelation about Selene—about Calypso—had shattered whatever fragile unity existed among Hearthome's nobility. Lords and ladies who had shared wine and gossip moments before now eyed each other like wolves circling wounded prey, their elegant facades crumbling to reveal the predators beneath.
Duke Haverford's amber-glowed grip on Calypso's arm served as the fulcrum around which everything pivoted. His fingers dug into her divine flesh with unnatural strength, the pulsing light beneath his skin casting sinister shadows across his aristocratic features. His loyalists moved first—six guards in ceremonial crimson who had been stationed near the musicians' alcove stepped forward in perfect synchronization, their hands already reaching for sword hilts. Margaret recognized the telltale shimmer of enhancement magic around their forms, the way their muscles seemed to swell and ripple beneath their uniforms like living things desperate to break free, the golden gleam that danced across their eyes like flames consuming their humanity.
"Secure the High Burner," barked Captain Aldric, his bronze mask abandoned on the floor as he gestured toward the still-weeping Torval. Blood trickled from the corner of the captain's mouth where someone had struck him in the initial confusion. "Lord Haverford requires—"
"Like hell he does!" Lord Blackwater's voice boomed across the ballroom as he drew his own blade, the steel singing against its sheath with a note that made Margaret's heart skip. His weathered face had gone red with fury, the scars from old sea battles standing out like white lightning against his flushed skin. Veins bulged at his temples as he pointed his weapon directly at Haverford's throat. "I've lost too many good sailors to your raids, Haverford. Too many sons to your staged beast attacks!"
The crystalline floor beneath their feet began to crack with spider-web patterns as noble houses chose sides, the sound like ice breaking on a frozen lake. Lady Morwyn's fans snapped open to reveal hidden blades that gleamed with poisonous enchantments, while Lord Ironhold's massive frame blocked the path to the main entrance, his shoulders nearly spanning the entire doorway. The city guard—those loyal to Hearthome rather than any particular lord—found themselves caught between competing loyalties, their captain's orders warring with their oath to protect the innocent, their hands hovering uncertainly over their weapons.
Margaret pressed herself against a marble pillar, her healer's instincts screaming at the violence about to erupt, her pulse hammering in her temples with such force she could barely hear the shouting around her. Through the chaos, she spotted Xavier near the champagne fountain, his silver mask discarded and his dark hair wild from running his hands through it. A cut above his eyebrow leaked blood down his temple, but his expression remained focused, calculating. Naomi had materialized beside him like a shadow given form, her emerald gown hiked up to reveal the practical boots she'd worn beneath, her hands already filled with what looked suspiciously like stolen silverware, ready to be transmuted into something far deadlier.
"Xavier, the door!" Margaret's voice cracked as she pointed toward the dais where Haverford stood. Behind him, carved into the volcanic stone, an archway led deeper into the mountain's heart. Ancient runes pulsed along its frame, and Margaret could taste the metallic tang of active magic in the air. Whatever ritual Haverford had planned, it waited beyond that threshold.
Xavier's blue eyes—so different from the purple she remembered, yet still unmistakably his—met hers across the chaos. Understanding passed between them like a current of electricity. He nodded once, then began moving toward the dais with Naomi.
But Haverford's elite guard had other plans.
They materialized from the shadows near the ritual door like nightmares given flesh. Margaret had seen enhanced soldiers before during her time at the academy, but these men transcended normal human limits. Their skin held a metallic sheen, their movements carried the inhuman smoothness of clockwork, and their eyes burned with inner fire that spoke of permanent magical alteration. These weren't temporary enhancements—these were men who had sold their humanity for power.
The first guard's blade swept toward Xavier in an arc that should have been impossible for human reflexes to track. Xavier twisted aside, but the enhanced warrior's follow-up strike came so quickly it seemed to bend the air itself. Naomi's shadows writhed around her fingers as she tried to interfere, but the guard's armor shed her darkness like water off stone.
"We're not getting through," Naomi panted, her usual composure cracking as a third guard's blade whistled past her ear. "They're too strong, too fast—"
That's when Margaret saw her.
Ashley stood at the edge of the chaos like a ghost observing the living. Her white mask had fallen away to reveal a face marked by suffering—the golden fractures that traced her jawline had spread during their weeks in hiding, creeping down her throat like veins of molten metal. She wore the simple brown dress of a healer's assistant, but the way she held herself spoke of someone who had already made peace with the impossible.
"Get ready to run," Ashley whispered, though somehow Margaret heard her voice clearly despite the cacophony of steel on steel, despite Lord Blackwater's battle cries and the crash of overturning tables.
Ashley's eyes—still the warm brown Margaret remembered from their academy days—found each of them in turn. Xavier, bleeding from a cut across his cheek as he ducked another superhuman strike. Naomi, her shadows failing against enchanted steel. Margaret herself, pressed against her pillar like a frightened child.
"Ashley, no—" Margaret started to move toward her friend, but Ashley raised one hand. The gesture was gentle, almost maternal, but it stopped Margaret in her tracks.
"I've been broken for so long," Ashley said, her voice carrying the strange calm of someone who had found purpose in surrender. "But broken things can still be useful. Broken things can still protect what matters."
She closed her eyes.
Margaret watched in horror and fascination as Ashley's internal struggle played out across her features. The golden fractures beneath her skin began to pulse like a heartbeat, each throb sending new cracks racing along her arms, down her spine, across her collarbone. But instead of the random destruction Margaret had feared, the fractures formed patterns—intricate, beautiful designs that reminded her of the ancient art of kintsugi, where broken pottery was repaired with veins of gold that made it more beautiful than before.
Ashley's Guardian Covenant had been shattered during their escape from the Bonemarch Knight, its protective nature turned inside out by trauma and overuse. But watching her now, Margaret realized Ashley had found a way to transform that brokenness into something else entirely. Not healing—that was beyond her now—but sacrifice. The ultimate protection that required giving everything.
"Let me be the shield one last time," Ashley whispered.
The change began at her feet.
A circle of absolute silence expanded outward from where Ashley stood, not explosive but creeping, inexorable as winter's advance. The enhanced guards' enchanted blades flickered and died as the dead zone touched them. Their superhuman strength drained away like water through a sieve, leaving them staggering on suddenly mortal legs. The golden fire in their eyes guttered out, replaced by very human confusion and fear.
The silence spread further. Lady Morwyn's blade-fans snapped shut, their hidden enchantments failing. Lord Ironhold's enhancement magic unraveled, leaving him standing on shaking knees as his artificially sustained strength abandoned him. Even the volcanic lighting that illuminated the ballroom began to dim as Ashley's field consumed every trace of magical energy it touched.
But the most beautiful and terrible sight was Ashley herself.
The golden fractures now covered her entire body, blazing with the light of a dying star. They formed spirals across her arms, geometric patterns along her spine, delicate filigree work around her throat and face. She looked like a porcelain doll that had been shattered and rebuilt with liquid sunlight, each crack a masterpiece of divine artistry. The brown dress she wore seemed to glow from within, transformed into something that belonged in a cathedral rather than a battlefield.
Xavier stared at her with something approaching reverence. "Ashley..."
Xavier stared at her with something approaching reverence. "Ashley..."
She turned to Xavier, her eyes now pure gold, twin suns burning in a face carved from light and loss. "My power is yours," she whispered, though her lips remained still as marble. The words came from everywhere and nowhere, vibrating through the crystalline floor beneath their feet. "Take it. End this."
The transfer began without warning.
Ashley's entire existence—every moment of pain she'd absorbed, every wound she'd taken for others, every ounce of love twisted into sacrifice—erupted from her golden form and slammed into Xavier like a tidal wave of molten starlight. His Input Buffer display exploded into chaos, numbers climbing beyond any scale he'd ever seen: 250, 500, 1000, 2500, the pink glow around his hands blazing so bright it cast shadows on the volcanic stone walls.
Holy shit holy shit this is too much—
Xavier's knees buckled as power beyond mortal comprehension coursed through his veins. His borrowed body convulsed, black hair whipping around his face as raw Essentia rewrote his cellular structure in real time. Blood vessels burst and healed instantly, bones cracked and reformed stronger, his nervous system screamed protests that his enhanced healing immediately silenced. The King's Gaze recoiled in shock, its alien voice reduced to static as even it struggled to process the magnitude of what Ashley had given him.
"Xavier!" Naomi's scream cut through the maelstrom of power, but her voice sounded like it came from miles away.