Both beasts beside me reared up and raised their forearms in preparation for a set of powerful falling stabs. I waited patiently until my closest foe was committed to the attack, then pulled my blade back over my shoulder and hurled it forward. It caught the beast squarely between its sunken eye sockets and sent it spinning backwards across the clearing. I twirled to my right and held up my empty hands in a blocking position, ready to catch the attack of the final beast when my sword reappeared at the last possible moment. The familiar leather grip returned to my hand with a flash, and I dipped down onto one knee and braced the blade with both hands, waiting for the final attack before I rolled in and finished the fight.
It was an attack that never came. I realized my error too late; from my stationary position on the ground, I watched as the monster leapt over my head, training its blades on a target somewhere behind me. “MARIN!” I screamed, sending a surge of mana through my body in a desperate attempt to correct my mistake. The terror echoed within me twice as Lia watched from her perch atop her dead foe, wrenching at the greatsword that still pinned its body to the earth. I turned just in time to catch a fine spray of purple blood on my face as the monster exploded behind me, its chitin shattered like porcelain.
When I wiped the blood from my eyes, I found Marin standing with her fist extended only a few feet away from my head, her face as hard and cold as steel. The massive dose of adrenaline pumping through my blood was at odds with the waves of shock and relief crashing over me and Lia, and it left me frozen in place, trembling uncontrollably. Forcing myself to move, I took a single step forward and pulled Marin tightly against my chest. “Thank you,” I choked out, on the verge of tears. “I’m sorry.”
She stood stiff against the embrace, her head slowly turning side to side to look out over my shoulder. “Is it...over?”
Lia finally removed her greatsword from the carcass beneath her feet with a sucking squelch as she jumped down to the ground. I felt a powerful sense of finality as she brought the blade down through the last living beast as it writhed in pain in the bloody dirt. With a ragged sigh, she split her blade into the usual matched pair, sheathed them at her hip, and sprinted towards us. “It’s over,” she affirmed, tilting her head against both of ours as she joined the group hug.
I closed my eyes and focused on the emotions that threatened to overwhelm me in an attempt to crystallize a perfect memory of the moment; the relief, love, and utter triumph of holding Lia and Marin in my arms after our harrowing encounter was a moment I longed never to forget no matter how many lives I lived. The feeling extended through our bond and resonated deeply within Lia’s core, and we basked in the sensation together quietly.
“That’s all of them, right?” Marin asked, sagging forward in our arms as her adrenaline began to fade. “We’re safe now?”
“I think so,” I answered, nodding. Our battle had demonstrated that our bestial foes were heavily pack-focused, and while I was confident they would never split up beyond their obfuscating spheres of influence, I did my due diligence and sent out a pulse of Detection for the first time since the air cleared. In the instant the mana left my body, a burst of pain erupted in my chest, and I staggered back as I clawed against the all-too-familiar burning sensation.
Hello, Elden, Amaya’s voice cooed in my head. It’s been too long.
Lia crumpled to the ground and began to convulse, shrieking as the deconstructing pain of the void ripped through her body for the first time. Marin gaped at us in shock, her head turning back and forth between the two of us wildly. “What’s wrong? Primes, Lia, what’s wrong?” she asked, falling to her knees and reaching out a trembling hand.
Please, stop, I begged as the void tore at my lungs and stole my breath. Leave her out of this.
I warned you this would happen, the echoing voice said, ignoring my pleas. I warned you, and you didn’t listen. You shouldn’t have lied to her. I pulled on my consciousness as hard as I could in an effort to disentangle myself with Lia and spare her from the pain, but our bond was too deep for me to break. My ears filled with a deafening explosion of shattering glass, drowning out Lia’s desperate screams. You knew this was your lot in life, and you dragged her into it anyway. It’s time for you to face the consequences.
My right arm tingled as the void energy continued to build in my chest, and black smoke trickled out of the rim of my leather glove. “Lia,” I croaked, deaf to my own words, “I’ll...fix this. I promise.”
No more lies, Elden, Amaya’s voice thundered, shifting from the usual cold detachment to focused anger. You’ve forced my hand here. Remember that. The shattering noise came again, so loud that it vibrated my brain inside my skull. A bright flash forced me to close my eyes, and when they opened again, the world was broken in two. A thin line ran through the air around the clearing, refracting the forest around us as if I were looking through a pane of broken glass. Smoke poured out from the ethereal wound, blocking the sunlight and plunging our clearing back into the ominous crimson glow of the emberwoods.
Another earsplitting crash echoed out from the crack, and it spread further through the air, its sparkling tendrils reaching out towards Marin and Lia. “Marin, watch out!” I shouted, taking a staggering step towards her. “Run!”
She looked up from Lia’s writhing body and scanned the clearing with a panicked expression. “What? From what?” she cried, her eyes blind to the cracks in the air only a few inches from her head as she scrambled backwards.
I’m going to kill you, I seethed at the presence in my head. I don’t care what you are, or where you are, I’m going to find you, and I swear on every—
NO. MORE. LIES. The crack in reality above Lia shattered open with a gout of smoke and black flame. Marin stumbled away, holding her hands up against the sudden heat. A hissing black void hung in the air where the world had broken away, revealing the horrific expanse I had entered three times before. My body flooded with its deathly energy, and dark flames sprouted uncontrollably from my fingertips and licked across the sky-blue metal of my sword. I tried to take a step forward to help Lia, but the flames immediately advanced up to my chest as I moved; I instantly froze in place and redoubled my efforts on fighting off the dark presence that threatened to take control of my body.
A shadow flickered in the void, revealing itself a moment later as it clambered through the crack with impossibly sharp bladed arms. The beast paused as its central carapace appeared from the shadows, examining the new world around it, then immediately reared up and brought its scythes down towards its closest target. “NO!” I bellowed, fully embracing the darkness as I lunged forward to stop the monster’s attack. A swirl of black flame surrounded me as my blade shot out and impaled the beast through the side, immediately engulfing it in my conflagration. Its form shimmered beneath the black flame for a brief moment, then disappeared in a wafting cloud of black ash. The maw of the void beside me receded and snapped closed, and the refracting crack in the air vanished in a final plume of smoke.
I hardly noticed the stabbing in my chest through the rage clouding my mind and the flames rippling across my skin. I looked down to find the source of the new pain too late: blood gushed from a gaping wound in Lia’s chest, drilled down through her armor to puncture her heart and lung. My knees buckled and brought me to the ground beside her. “No. No, no, no,” I murmured, running a hand over her bloody leather armor and sending a rush of healing magic through my flaming fingers. “No, I’ll fix this. I promise.”
Her eyes stared up into the smoke-blotted sky, dancing back and forth in search of something she couldn’t see. Our connection was too saturated with pain for me to find her consciousness: everything was static, and noise, and death. The sparkling green energy returned to me as it finished its job, but I could tell immediately that it wasn’t enough. The blankness in her eyes remained, and she struggled to breathe as she coughed up the blood pooled in her once-punctured lung.
I pulled her up into my arms and cradled her body, turning her f
ace up to look at mine. “No, Lia,” I shouted at her, confused and broken, “I fixed it. You can’t die now. You can’t! YOU CAN’T!” As the fury overwhelmed me, I felt my link to her mind fading, replaced with nothing but blinding pain and outrage. “NO! NO! I WON’T LET YOU DIE!” My voice echoed in a tortured chorus.
Lia didn’t seem to hear my protests, and her labored breathing slowly faded until she fell still in my arms and died.
***
17. THE END OF THINGS
I warned you.
I stared into her unfocused eyes, unwilling to accept the reality before me.
You brought her here. You filled her with death.
Deep within my core, I felt my last bastion of resistance break, and the darkness filled me to the brim.
It’s time for you to fulfill your purpose in this world.
A repeated sound echoed out at me from somewhere ahead, but I didn’t care enough to figure out what it was. I looked up momentarily from Lia’s eyes to find Marin standing a few feet away, red-faced and screaming. My brow furrowed as I tried to remember why she was here, but my mind repeated a single word among the darkness: DEATH.
“LUX!” Marin screamed again. “What do I do?! Lux? LUX!”
A sudden, massive rush of energy consumed my body, and my form disappeared behind a curtain of wicked black flames. “Run,” I answered her with a growl.
“Lux, we have to help Lia! We have to—”
“RUN!” I roared in a bestial voice that was not my own, flaring the intensity of the flames that surrounded me. Her face turned to one of pure terror, and she retreated into the red forest ahead of me without argument.
Drink deeply from the cup you filled. It overflows for you.
I don’t understand. Another potent surge of energy spread the flames along the mossy ground around us, consuming everything in its path and obscuring the entire clearing from view with smoke and black fire. What...what’s happening?
Look, Elden. Look inside. It’s Lia’s final gift to you. A primal force entered my head and directed my attention to the energy in Lia’s core. I looked on in awe as I found her vast ocean of amber energy still intact, though its lustrous glow was gone and the edges were tinged with the familiar black energy of the void.
No, that’s not right, I thought weakly. She isn’t like me. There isn’t any darkness in her.
Elden, you’re not looking closely enough, Amaya explained patiently. Look. Watch. Understand. My focus was pulled closer to the boundary where the light and darkness met. The border between the energies roiled and shifted as the void consumed her golden light and advanced inwards towards her core.
Stop, I pleaded. Stop, please. Don’t do that. Don’t taint her like that. I watched helplessly as the darkness advanced, uncaring. “Stop,” I cried out, “please. No more. I can’t...just leave her to me…I can’t.”
I’m not doing anything, Elden. This is what death truly means. As she spoke, the word “death” thundered through my mind, echoing in the empty expanse Lia’s consciousness had left behind. Death holds power, just like life; they’re two sides of the same coin. What you call “mana” is the power inherent to life. You should know that by now. Every living thing has it and has the aptitude to control it. But death…
The void energy continued to ravage the amber ocean of Lia’s mana, increasing in speed as it devoured its way in towards her deeper reserves. What did you think happened to the mana of the men you killed? A new kind of pain split my head as my memories were scoured, and I was forced to remember every man I had killed since arriving in Kaldan in vivid detail. You’ve known it all along, regardless of whether you’ve accepted it. Just as life turns to death, life energy turns to death energy. And you, Elden, have the power to control it. In a hundred trillion lifetimes, there’s never been anybody else like you.
A faint tendril of void energy ran from the edge of Lia’s mana reserves to my fingertips and fueled the dark flames that continued to spread outward from my body into the forest. Do you understand now? Do you see what you have to do?
I stared into Lia’s lifeless eyes, unable to turn away from the scene as it etched itself into my mind forever. Her face had drained to a sickly gray pallor, which only further accentuated the streaks of blood that dripped out from her nose and mouth. No.
Look at the source of energy you’ve created. All of your training, all of your meditation, all of the time you spent to ensure she would be ready for anything: it all led to this. Her mana is changing into the most potent source of power the world has ever seen, and when her death is complete, you’ll be here to take it from her. It’s Lia’s last gift to you.
When her death is...complete?
Yes, Amaya encouraged me, when her death is complete, you’ll have more energy than you could ever use. You just have to take it. Virram’s face suddenly appeared unbidden behind my eyes. Take it and use it to punish the people who have wronged you. Take it and fulfill your purpose in this world.
I consciously tugged at the deathly energy swirling ever thicker around the edges of Lia’s mana, and the flames that engulfed my body exploded upward into a pillar of scorching light. When her death is complete. I focused on the advancing edge of darkness that continued to push its way down into the deepest reaches of her dull amber energy. The black power twined up my arms and fueled my burning emptiness with an intoxicating sweetness that drew me further into its depths.
Yes, just like that, Elden. Drink deep. Take as much as you can bear to hold, and make the people who did this to you suffer.
In a forgotten corner of my mind, I felt my body screaming in pain as my skin blistered and cracked, barely held together by a steady stream of unconscious healing magic. Despite the raging flames that crackled around my body and blotted out the sky above, Lia’s body remained unaffected by the conflagration, perfectly parting the fire that should have leapt from my arms and engulfed her; the blinding light of the inferno drained the color from her flameless sanctuary, turning her skin to porcelain and her blood to black streaks across her armor and face. My eyes remained unflinchingly locked with hers as I took a final breath to steel my resolve. I’ll fix this, Lia. I promise.
An overwhelming rush of power crashed over me as I fully embraced the death energy corrupting Lia’s core. A thunderous roar reverberated in my chest as the dark presence within me reveled in the influx of power, but a tinge of concern colored Amaya’s voice as she spoke inside my mind again. Not so quickly, Elden. Your body can’t handle so much energy at once; it isn’t accustomed to the—
I retreated away from the voices to the last safe haven I held hidden deep inside my mind: the long-abandoned refuge I had created during my multiple trips through the void to hide in when the pain had threatened to erase my consciousness entirely. A sense of comforting warmth and silence washed over me as I escaped; the hungering darkness inside my chest, Amaya’s harsh voice, and the searing pain as my flesh burned and my blood boiled all faded into static. The only thing that remained were Lia’s eyes and the battle of energies within her.
I’m sorry I dragged you into all of this, I thought to her, stroking her cheek with a burning finger, but I think there’s a way I can fix it. The voice said your death wasn’t “complete” yet. Maybe that means you’re still in there somewhere, until all of your mana...changes. I fought against the rapidly encroaching tide of darkness within her as I spoke, absorbing the energy into myself where it continued to fuel my self-destructive fire. I can at least try to do that much, right?
I felt a brief moment of peace as I watched the battle rage, completely detached from my own body and mind. I’m not sure that I’ll be able to win this one, though. Maybe I’ll just burn up before it’s finished. I’ll disappear into a cloud of ash and blow away, just like all of those people I killed. The thought entertained me for a moment, and a small smile crossed my face. That would be nice. I’m so tired. I don’t want to keep going anymore. Not without you, and Amaya, and Alda. I can’t keep losing like t
hat.
Amaya’s voice had changed to a choir composed of every voice I had ever heard, shrieking with a fury that matched the raging dark presence that hungered for death in every cell of my body. Their screams were whispers against my singular focus on Lia’s mana. I raced ahead of the wave of death to the center of her reserves and held my final bastion, prepared for the end. The world began to disappear into blinding light, and I held Lia’s body tighter against my chest.
I love you, Lia. I should have said it more while I had the chance. I should have said it every second of every day. I should have kept you safe. But here we are...at the end of things, I guess. It seemed as though the air around me had begun to vibrate, and I could feel my bones shaking inside my body. Death crashed against me from all sides, and I accepted it without reservations, doing everything in my power to keep it away from the final uncorrupted pool of amber mana I defended. I offered up every aspect of my being in defense of her light, and the darkness obliged me with insatiable cruelty. My body seemed to dissolve around me, and Lia’s eyes disappeared from view behind a blinding light. I’m sorry, Lia. I tried.
***
A gentle pattering in my ears woke me to a world of darkness. My eyes were open but unseeing, and I couldn’t feel my body, which induced a terrible sense of vertigo. As my head tumbled end over end through the void, a smell joined the noise around me and filled me with a sudden burst of nostalgia. Petrichor.
Restart Again: Volume 3 Page 37
