“Make peace with the Lawgiver, submit to him if you have to, and get your associates to do the same. Allow him to remake the Southern Kingdoms as he sees fit and in a few centuries we can forget this entire ordeal. Prophecies can be thwarted, even those spoken by Morrigan the Lesser; one simply needs power.”
“You advise me to surrender to him completely.”
“Yes.”
“He and his minions have shown no interest in peace.”
“They might if you are willing to die for it.”
“Is that what you ask of me?”
“Yes.” Ethinu nodded. “If you are the hero you claim, then you would be willing to take whatever terms he offers.”
I contemplated it for all of a second. “I’m afraid I must decline.”
Serah, however, looked less troubled. “There is no future for you or Regina in this prophecy, Jacob. Let us leave together.”
“Peace is not made with friends,” Ethinu said, her voice now sounding desperate. “It is not done so you can feel good about the dead being unavenged; it is so future generations need not be. The Lawgiver will bring about Morrigan’s prophecy because he believes a new world can be built from the ashes.”
I stared at her, knowing what she said was true. “Madness.”
“For once, we agree,” Ethinu said.
“You will stand against this evil?” Serah said, looking at me. “No matter what?”
I realized now why Serah had been asking me to flee. Why she’d urged me to attack and retreat in equal measure. She had to have known the basics of the prophecy and was struggling against its puppet strings the same way the other Oghma were. Gods, I wish she’d just come to me and talked about it. I could have reassured her my actions were not going to be affected by it. It was a mistake coming here. “I will do what I must.”
Ethinu seemed to calm down, her voice icy cold. “Is that your final decision?”
“Yes.”
Ethinu nodded. “Thank you, Jacob.”
“For?”
“Letting me know what my next course of action must be.”
That was when I felt suddenly dizzy and she conjured a staff of living light I had not seen. Serah was blasted backwards by a blast of light from it before I could react. Ethinu began speaking a series of magic words in rapid succession.
My own included.
“To save creation, I will claim the Black Sun’s power for my own!” Ethinu shouted. I felt unimaginable pain, like my soul was being torn in half. Ethinu was trying to rip the godhood from my body.
And was succeeding.
Chapter Twelve
It was a horrific sensation, being torn apart, piece by piece, in the astral plane. Here, it wasn’t the case of being stabbed or burned, things that would kill your body. That would have been merciful. No, this was far worse. To get at the divine power the Trickster had bestowed upon me, Ethinu was opening the book that was my essence and tearing out pages one by one.
I found myself helpless against her sorcery and couldn’t help but realize she’d prepared for this event well ahead of time. The entire castle was a focus for her magic and I’d stupidly missed how perfectly she’d laid her trap. Even the attack of the Seraph had been designed to exhaust my power before her initial attack. In the distance, I could hear Serah scream and strike out, but there were sounds of monsters wailing and I knew Ethinu was striking at her as well.
Never trust a sorceress, the Trickster said. They’ll always get you in the end.
I struggled to grasp at the parts of my memory flying around me. I remembered my father’s beatings, the drunken strikes against my face, and the constant resentment. Foul bastard, unwanted bastard, leech, parasite, and a hundred other words. If he had been purely hateful, I might have been able to let him go but there were long periods of good and joy too. Places where we bonded and learned to trust each other, right until he’d sold me to Warmaster Kalian.
I remembered beautiful periods of my courtship with Jassamine as we built messengers out of snow and made love in the days when we could find time away from each other’s vocations. I remembered pledging my love for her and asking her to be my wife, only for her to reply soon or deflect my requests until after the war.
I remembered murdering her enemies for her in back alleys, torturing political opponents for confessions, and the bloody room where children had been massacred to provide her with power. The sight of the last had driven me to seek death on the battlefield because I hadn’t the courage to drive a sword through her chest. Because my convictions hadn’t been strong enough to kill the woman I loved.
I tried to find other memories that I could latch on to, hold on to, but they became like water flowing through my fingertips. I’d gone from one cause to another throughout my life. I’d been a Temple Knight, a Shadowguardsman, a Wraith Knight, and now the King Below but was I anything more than an empty vessel trying on one suit of clothes after another?
Did I have any loyalties? Any cause? Or was I just a man who stumbled through the motions of life? I wasn’t even alive. I was a ghost. A ghost of a man who had been nothing but a pawn for others his entire life. Unworthy of the title of a god, king, or hero. It was better that it end here. Then I saw Regina’s face and knew I could not let myself fade away.
“No!” I cried out into the darkness. “I am not a pawn, a knight, or even a king! I am the one who moves the pieces!”
With that I found myself once more living a moment from my past. This moment was not centuries ago but weeks. It was strange because almost all my defining choices and memories had been before I’d become a Wraith Knight.
Yet this moment was enough for me to hold on to.
It was a moment of who I was.
I found myself riding on the back of a Nuckelavee across the snow-covered ground leading up to a Formor village several hundred leagues away from Everfrost. The burned-out buildings were still smoldering despite the cold. The invaders had spared no one. The sight of men, women, and children scattered across the ground made me sick to my stomach despite how many similar massacres I’d seen. The bodies had wounds from crude Formor spears, pitchforks, and makeshift farm equipment. This was a war between villagers rather than professional warriors.
Beside me, Regina was riding on the back of a black unicorn, one of those corrupted nature spirits that had chosen to ally with the old King Below. Despite the fact that it was opposed to everything she stood for, the creature had an unnatural submissiveness around Regina and obeyed her every command with an eerie poise.
Regina was wearing a plain shirt and leather vest with linen pants, a star-metal pendant of a unicorn amulet around her neck. Starlight was sheathed at her side but she wasn’t wearing her usual armor, because she could summon it at will and because this hadn’t meant to be an investigation. Just the two of us finding some alone time in the middle of nowhere, away from the responsibilities of being whoever we were. Unfortunately, that wasn’t going to happen today.
“Monstrous,” Regina said, riding us through the carnage. “They killed everyone.”
“Yes. We should be cautious. This kind of slaughter tends to draw Corpse-Eaters.”
Corpse-Eaters were just one of the many unfortunate remnants of the old King Below. When I had ascended to the Black Throne, I had proclaimed an end to the mental slavery he had used to hold all his subjects in check. This had applied to his endless armies of the dead as well. Most had left for whatever awaited beyond the afterlife but a handful had stayed behind. Corpse-Eaters, properly called wights, wandered around feasting on the living or dead to try to regain some semblance of their previous selves.
Most didn’t.
“I’ll keep a look out for them,” Regina said, sliding off her saddle. “We need to find out who was responsible for this and punish them.”
“Aren’t you cold?”
“Your spell still keeps me warm,” Regina said. “Or maybe goddesses don’t get cold.”
“You actually believe you’re
one?” I asked, still surprised she was so strong in her faith we were divine.
“I believe a power higher than the Lawgiver has chosen us both to correct his misbehavior and provide the world’s peoples with moral guidance. You don’t believe you’re a god?”
“Sometimes.”
“I do. I was born for greatness. I just never knew how great it would be.”
“I was born a peasant. The only thing I was born to do was swing a hammer or cast nets.”
“The gods have a plan for us all.”
“Death is the only plan I’m certain the gods had in store for us all.” I also wanted nothing of the Lawgiver’s plans for me.
Regina rolled her eyes and leaned down to pick up a tattered war banner attached to a broken spear. “I don’t recognize this heraldry. It’s very crudely done, but it doesn’t remind me of any of the rebel’s banners.”
She picked it up and showed me an image of a crudely drawn stallion with a spear protruding from its forehead.
I looked at her, wondering if she were serious.
Regina’s look to me told me she just wanted me to tell her she was wrong. I didn’t. “This is the Blood Unicorn. Those who have abandoned their old clan allegiance to worship you and the Iron Order you promise to bring all Shadowkind.”
Regina stared swearing like one of my sisters.
“You kiss your mother with a mouth so foul?” I asked. “However sweetly shaped.”
“This is not the time for flirting!” She put her hands to her face. “This is vile. How could they have done this? In my name!?”
I surveyed the village square around us and saw an ebonwood statue had been knocked down. It was made in the image of a hideous crone with its arms outstretched and a wooden bowl built in at her feet to receive offerings. The statue had been pissed and shit upon, set on fire, and hacked with axes. It was the image of the Night Mother, the nonexistent goddess that supposedly had been the consort of the Trickster. In truth, she’d been nothing more than a creation of the Trickster to increase his devotion amongst the faithful.
“It seems these people clung to the old ways,” I said, not at all surprised. “Those who follow the new are less than tolerant of such.”
Many Formor considered the old King Below a monster for the ages of slavery they’d endured. Others believed it was their duty to follow him no matter what abuses he’d inflicted. They awaited his return.
Something that would never happen.
“We need to find them and punish them,” Regina said. “Make an example of them as a lesson to the next thousand years of Shadowkind we will not tolerate this sort of evil.”
“You would execute a bunch of people for their devotion to us?”
“I would execute murderers!” Regina shouted. “Don’t you feel anything about this?!”
I took a deep breath. “Of course, I feel for these people and so many others. You are a magnificent soldier Regina and a far greater leader than I ever was. But I have walked the roads of war far longer than you. You see the people who have done this and see monsters. Yet they saw monsters too when they came here and in the Southern Kingdoms, and both victim and killer would have been exterminated by plain-speaking peasants who help each other when short of food for the winter. You can kill the people involved in this horror but if you do, you will just leave their children bereft of mothers and fathers come the next long snowstorm, which will do nothing but compound the tragedy.”
Regina stared at me then turned her head. “I hate you sometimes.”
“I hate me sometimes too.”
“Then what should we do?”
“I don’t know. The last time I was in charge of an army, my solution would have been worse than anything you could have suggested.”
“I’d like to hear about those days sometime.”
I blinked. “I’d rather forget they ever happened.”
Regina closed the eyes of the child and folded its hands before rising. “That’s not going to happen, though, and I think you may need a confessor…or a friend.”
“Maybe someday,” I whispered. “Just…not now.”
Regina walked over to me and took my hands. “All right.” That was when she paused. “Taxes.”
“Hmm?”
“We cannot slaughter every single monster in the North without emptying it. These lands have known nothing but war for millennia and that’s the old King Below’s fault. Forgiveness will be a long and hard process but perhaps we can usher it along by making it expensive. Any unauthorized military activity shall be fined, heavily.”
“Fined.”
“People will rush to avenge the fallen but no one likes paying the taxman. They will think twice is it means their killings come out of their purse.”
I smirked. “That may actually work. At least, it’ll give far more pause than executions.”
“Thank you.” Regina reached up and kissed me on the lips.
I looked down, guilty. “When you see me, Regina, I worry you see a great warrior. Jacob the legend rather than Jacob the man. I would rather swing a hammer than a blade.”
“Your love of peace is what makes you a great warrior,” Regina said, missing my point. “I believe there are some causes worth fighting for, though. There is true evil in this world that must be stamped out. The struggles against these are the righteous wars.”
Lovely, how she justifies everything she does, the Trickster whispered. Almost poetic.
“I do not know if I agree.” I placed my hand on her cheek and stared into her beautiful steel-gray eyes. “Not I would go to war with the entire world for you. Break any oath and cross any boundary. You are worth it.”
“I don’t want you to do any of that. I want you to be the great hero I know Jacob the man is. Together we will make this world a better place.” Regina stared up into my eyes and placed her arms around my neck.
“Perhaps.”
Regina sighed, aware she wasn’t going to convince me tonight. “Someday we will have a large family and raise them up in the light of a new dawn. One where Formor, sidhe, human, Jotun, boggan, and every other race can live together in harmony.”
“Thank you,” I whispered.
The area around us filled with the sounds of inhuman guttural growls. All about us, coming from the houses and cellars, poured forth blood-strewn Corpse-Eaters. They were hairless warty things with sallow skin. Their mouths were four times the size of a normal human’s with teeth three times as long and sharpened. Their hands were tipped with steel-like claws that glowed with witchfire drawn from the World Below.
A clan had taken residence here, leaving the bodies to rot for flavor, and were already moving out to deal with us. I counted two dozen emerging and wondered if there weren’t twice as many around us.
Regina pulled out her sword, smiling. “This should be fun.”
“Overconfidence appears to be a downside of godhood,” I said, not nearly so confident we could defeat them all.
“Our destiny was not to die here.”
And she was right.
We killed them all.
Filled with a righteous anger at the realization that Ethinu was trying to take away my relationship with Regina and Serah, I realized one indisputable fact: I wanted to live. I would not abandon my lovers, the kingdom I’d conquered, or the life I’d built. I would not abandon future generations to the tyranny of the Lawgiver or the deranged dreams of Jassamine.
No, I would survive.
With that, I drew back all my memories. I could feel Ethinu’s shock as she felt her spell easily cast aside. I had no access to the higher levels of magic but I did not need to: I was a god and she was not. I obliterated her ever defense and grabbed her throat.
Ethinu screamed, more from shock than terror, as I forced her to the ground with my fingers squeezed tightly around her neck. Behind me, I could see Serah barely managing to hold off two more Seraphs with a third on the ground behind her.
My next words were simple. “Call off you
r attack on my wife or die.”
Chapter Thirteen
From the expression of Ethinu’s face, defeat was not a possibility she had prepared for. I had my hands wrapped around her throat and had managed to smash through all her magical defenses. Hearing the sounds of battle behind me, I had to make a decision. Did I kill her or now or seek her submission? I decided on the former. I released one hand and drew Chill’s Fury forth to cut her throat.
“Stop!” Ethinu shouted, raising her hands in surrender.
Behind me, I felt the Seraphs vanish except for the one on the ground. It was the same one that we’d been fighting earlier, which Serah had managed to kill. I couldn’t help but feel a mixed sense of guilt as well as triumph at the destruction of such a powerful creature. Guilt for the fact I’d destroyed a being that had traditionally been one of the secret protectors of humanity from supernatural evils and triumph because it was a blow against the Lawgiver.
“Are you all right, Serah?” I said, keeping my blade at the neck of the elf. If she so much as summoned a cantrip, I was ready to put an end to the monster.
Ethinu had earned it and more.
Serah leaned on her staff, taking several breaths. “I am…alive. I wouldn’t have been if I’d had to do that much longer. Thank you.”
“We’ll work out an installment plan like boggans.”
Serah gave a short chuckle. “Perhaps I’ll pay in kind.”
I smirked then turned back to Ethinu, all mirth leaving my body. “It now remains to be seen what is to be done with you.”
“Spare her,” Serah said.
I blinked, since I’d intended to kill her. Contrary to Regina’s sometimes-rosier views of my nobility, I wasn’t the kind of person to leave loose ends. “Excuse me?”
“Thank you, child,” Ethinu said, closing her eyes.
“Shut up,” Serah said. “Do not speak until you’re spoken to. Believe me, I am not asking Jacob to do this out of mercy. This is a request born of practicality.”
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