Home / Fantasy / MAD END'S DECEPTION / 36 - Raised Like Soldiers

Share

36 - Raised Like Soldiers

Author: Sakiah Zee
last update publish date: 2024-07-07 11:28:04

ARAH

She woke to the dim glow of lights. The steady beep of machines and the distant sounds of footsteps and hushed conversations filled the thick silence. The room smelled of antiseptic and clean linen, and the air was cool against her skin. She was lying on a bed, not too soft but still comfortable, with a tube connected to her hand.

Where was she? A hospital? She tried to move, but a familiar ache shot through her ribs as if she’d been kicked there. Her muscles were sore, her throat raw, and
Continue to read this book for free
Scan code to download App
Locked Chapter

Latest chapter

  • MAD END'S DECEPTION   391 - The Trust Became Regret

    ARAHEENThe tea hit her tongue with honey, smoke, flowers, and something sharper beneath it, something bright enough to feel dangerous. It went down hot. For a moment, it felt like she had swallowed a strip of sunlight.Then the weight left her body.The room vanished. She drifted in the cosmic sprawl around her, light and sound spread wide in every direction. She couldn’t feel Gildeon beside her anymore, but she knew he was there. She knew he was being dragged through the same thing.Ahead of her hung a sphere of white light. Not a star, but a gateway. It stirred the same memory as the Dark Plane portal she had seen through her mother’s eyes, but this one carried no threat. There was no cold nor dread. It pulled instead.Araheen moved toward it, and as soon as she passed through, knowledge crashed over her all at once.Color. Light. Shape. Sound. Taste. Scent. Touch. Everything slammed into her in one brutal rus

  • MAD END'S DECEPTION   390 - One Who Slipped Those Shackles

    ARAHEENSilence settled over them like a weight. She found herself reaching for Gildeon’s arm, her fingers resting against the heat of his hide. It was a small thing, but it said what words couldn’t: he wasn’t alone in this. She felt the fury in him, hard and banked hot beneath the skin, and she understood it. After what had been done to his people—after everything the Divine Command had taken from them—how could he face the being who had started it all and feel anything but rage?The Shining Keeper said nothing as she moved toward the gazebo. She was slight, elegant, but there was nothing soft about her. She carried herself like something that knew it could kill without effort—a viper-like being stripped down to a woman’s shape. A golden vase filled with flowers appeared in her clawed hands as if the world itself had placed it there for her. She set it on the table with a muted thud.Then she sat across

  • MAD END'S DECEPTION   389 - Wanted Us Destroyed

    GILDEONSomething hit him in the chest the moment he stood face to face with the Shining Keeper. It was sharp and deep, like a buried hook dragged through old flesh. Not fear. Not awe. Something older than that. Something that knew her before his mind could name why.The seers had never given a proper description of her. They always said she rarely showed them her true form. But now he was looking at her as she was—flesh, scale, presence—and the sight of her settled into him in a strangely familiar way.He didn’t know what kind of fool had made him think he could walk into her domain and kill her cleanly. He had narrowed himself down to one purpose and called it certainty. Every step of his plan had felt inevitable.Now he was trapped in her snare, unable to move.And worse, he had dragged Araheen into it with him.“You bear many questions,” the Shining Keeper said, her lips still unmoving. &ldq

  • MAD END'S DECEPTION   388 - The Shining Keeper

    ARAHEENShock hit her hard, sharp enough to make her hope she had heard Gildeon wrong.“I don’t understand,” she said.His face didn’t move. There was no trace of a joke in him.“You can’t be serious, Gildeon.” She scowled. “Why would you even think about killing the Creator?”His jaw tightened. “Because it’s the only way to end this fucking senseless war between our people.”She stared at him, thrown by how steady he sounded. For one stupid moment, she had believed he had come here to simply speak with the Shining Keeper. To ask her to stop the war.How could she have been so naive to believe that?But then, the idea of killing the being who had created every living thing in the corporeal world was beyond comprehension.“You…” She swallowed. “You can’t do that. She’s the Shining Keeper. The highe

  • MAD END'S DECEPTION   387 - I'm Here To Kill Her

    ARAHEENThere was no warning at all.One breath, she and Gildeon were standing on solid ground. The next, the folds of space and energy snapped around them and dragged them in. Her body felt flattened and stretched at once, every part of her pulled thin through some impossible passage, but through it all she never let go of Gildeon’s hand.Time fractured inside the crossing. Everything happened too quickly and far too slowly. A violent ringing filled her ears while a dull, splitting ache cut through her skull. She could see the beat of his pulse. She could taste her own thoughts. She could smell every trembling particle of herself coming apart and forcing itself back together.Then it ended.Silence rushed in so hard it felt deafening, thick enough to smother even the shape of a thought. Araheen opened her eyes with effort, as though her lids had been sealed shut for hours. Tears blurred her vision. Colors bled into one anoth

  • MAD END'S DECEPTION   386 - Never Gave Up On You

    GILDEONHis father stepped toward them. “I met Ghulik here in the Dark Plane.”Gildeon’s questioning gaze snapped to the goblin.“Ghulik came from another dimension,” he said, ducking his head slightly. “As Master already knows.”“Yes,” Gildeon replied. “You told me you fell through a portal by accident and ended up in Earthland in ancient times.”He remembered their first meeting well enough. A cave in Shamibar. The war between salamanders and sylphs was still in its infancy. At first, he’d thought Ghulik was one of the last beastlings left alive. Later, he discovered that no one else could see or hear the goblin. He then realized he was a supernatural creature from another world.Back then, Ghulik had said he couldn’t remember how he’d ended up in Shamibar after escaping a life of servitude to witches in Earthland. Gildeon had guessed some

  • MAD END'S DECEPTION   271 - Another Memory

    ARAHBy this time, Father had been promoted to general. And it meant Araheen was now the daughter of the most powerful figure in sylph society. This didn’t surprise Arah, for Father had always carried a commanding presence. Authority clung to him like armor.What sh

    last updateLast Updated : 2026-04-01
  • MAD END'S DECEPTION   263 - Just Like Araheen

    Many Years Ago (Part 1)YOUNG ARAHEENShe pressed her eye to the hole in the wall, peeking into the assembly room. Her father was there, seated at the head of the crystal table. Beside him sat his right hand, Raimar. And across from Father

    last updateLast Updated : 2026-04-01
  • MAD END'S DECEPTION   259 - Better Than Nothing

    GILDEON“I can’t believe you’ve had a hidden torture chamber all this time,” he said as he glanced around the cavern. “Why didn’t you tell me?”They were deep inside the cave, half a mile from Roselia’s farmstead. Jagged stalactites hung from the ceiling like teeth,

    last updateLast Updated : 2026-04-01
  • MAD END'S DECEPTION   258 - He Made His Choice

    ARAHThe pain was immediate and total. Acid seared through her armored flanks, every breath like inhaling boiling seawater. But now the panic wasn’t just hers—it belonged to the creature too, a fusion of instincts and desperation.She flexed her raptorial claws, fee

    last updateLast Updated : 2026-04-01
More Chapters
Explore and read good novels for free
Free access to a vast number of good novels on GoodNovel app. Download the books you like and read anywhere & anytime.
Read books for free on the app
SCAN CODE TO READ ON APP
DMCA.com Protection Status