by Oxford, Rain
“I’m okay,” the king said in English. He had a pike through his stomach.
“Of course you are,” I answered. “This is just a scratch. I’ve given people vaccinations with bigger needles than this.”
He laughed and then groaned. “Where is Kseve?” Zeda squeezed his hand. The crowd made way for Nano to come through, but he was alone. Nano pulled the pike gently from Nila’s body and I used my magic to prevent bleeding out. I let my magic heal him, unimpeded by his void blood thanks to Zeda. The king was quiet as he mourned the loss of his friend.
There were many losses to our side. Although the hard earth was covered in black sand, the remains of our enemies, there was also blood. When the Guardians surrounded us, I stood. “Notify the families of those we lost and find out their burial ceremonies.”
We won the war, and our allies had a right to celebrate, but I didn’t think war was something to be cheerful about.
“We won the demon war!” someone in the crowd shouted.
“No…” Mordon said. The crowd fell silent. “This war was one by us; wizards, dragons, fae, and yes, even a few friendly demons. This was a war we won for our freedom.”
The same person cheered again, undeterred. “We won the Wizard War!”
* * *
It took all day to take care of our people who were killed. It was somber for everyone who did so. We ended up with a hundred and fifteen dead. Compared to the demons we killed, it was miniscule, but even one person wasn’t worth the death of a thousand demons to his loved ones.
The only bright spot aside from our victory was that there was one less death than we had thought. Nila was being a dutiful king and delegating jobs, even as misery made his voice shake and his eyes water, when Kseve clapped his hand hard at the boy king’s shoulder. “What did I tell you about leaving my sight?” the goblin asked, as if Nila was his son instead of his king.
Nila didn’t have a response, he just hugged the goblin. Hell, he didn’t even let go when the guard started making creaking sounds from being squished too hard.
Right before my family could head home, Xul stopped me. “Well, it’s been miserable. I mean, running your errands, dodging all hell to get messages around, protecting your dumb ass… Being your servant sucks, it really does. If you need anything, call someone else.”
Mordon growled, but it was Ron the demon turned to. He patted my son’s head like a dog while Ron just glared. “Unless it’s a babysitter,” he finally said, smirking. “So long and thanks for all the---” The demon vanished midsentence.
“Fish, you stupid-head!” Ron screamed after him. Hail laughed and hugged his brother.
I shook my head, about to flash us all home, when Janus appeared. He started to collapse, but Mordon caught him. Divina appeared right behind him, somehow having gotten the bracelet off. I ignored my wife and drew my power to heal Janus.
“No, save your energy. Even if you heal my body, I will still die. I must die.”
“No,” I argued. “I saw a way to stop this. I must have. I just have to remember.”
“It’s okay. This is what is supposed to happen. I have existed too long without life. Now I can be free.”
“What are you talking about?! Dying isn’t being free!” I was shocked that my voice broke and even more so when my eyes watered. I wiped the tears angrily from my eyes. “What the hell?” My body was shaking. I hardly even know him! Why am I crying?!
“You have protected me by hiding the truth from yourself; that you know who I am.”
“I don’t know you!” I denied.
“Of course you do. You know what you are and you know who I am. I told you to follow your instincts, trust your heart, and listen to your head. You did, and now everything will be okay.”
“Alice?”
He closed his eyes and I could feel his life leave him. All I could do was stand there in shock. Janus’s soul was coming back as my daughter. Alice was going to exist. I had done everything right and my baby girl was going to be born.
And then Sen appeared, right in front of me with the mage staff pressed against my chest. My mind was open to all the possible futures, all of the forgotten pasts… and I felt myself die a thousand times. It was fast and painless and I never felt myself fall.
Chapter 14
Ron
It was so unexpected, so unreal, that nobody reacted. Sen held out his staff, from which a burst of light shot into my dad, and everything just stopped. From the moment that Sen struck to the moment Dad fell to his knees, nobody could do anything, not even breathe.
He never even had a chance to say goodbye.
My dad was dead before he hit the ground hard enough to stir up dust. Mordon went to his knees and Edward grabbed Mom as she screamed, trying to get to Dad. Sen dropped the staff, but he was turned away so I didn’t see his face.
Edward lost his hold on Mom and she dived to Dad’s side. She was very cautious as she prodded his face and chest, as if she could identify his injury and wake him. But I could feel it. The darkness could feel it.
My dad was dead.
“No,” Mom whispered gently. “You said you would never leave me. You can’t leave me. Wake up. You always survive.” She leaned her face against his chest, her body shaking with the force of her pain.
“How could you do this?!” Mordon demanded of Sen.
“I had to avenge my mother,” he said. Mordon growled. “He was the reason my mother was raped.”
“You idiot! I convinced Dylan to take Miko with us!”
“You’re lying,” Sen said, his voice wavering. “Mom said that he had a chance to stop the mage king and he didn’t.”
“Dylan had the chance to take revenge or get us out of there, and he chose to get us out before anything else could go wrong.”
Sen turned to me, tears welling in his eyes. “Tell them, Ron. You had to have seen something.”
Hail had, but it wasn’t this. Hail saw Emiko saving Mordon and getting pregnant with the mage’s son, not that the child would grow up seeking revenge. “I was wrong,” I said, looking at my brother. “Dad was wrong. He said that I couldn’t shape the universe the way I wanted to. Obviously, the universe doesn’t know right from wrong. From now on, everything is done my way, and I’ll do whatever I want even if it hurts people.”
Hail nodded and pulled me into his arms. “Dad also said that not all mages are evil.”
“He was wrong about that, too. We should kill all mages.”
“Okay,” he said.
Mordon’s dragon roar burst from him and Mom’s scream joined his. Life would never be the same for anyone. Earth would be left to its own devises and eventually fall apart. Edward would be unwilling to continue protecting Duran. The gods would turn on each other.
“Vretial! Fix this!”
The god appeared without a flash or glamorous entrance, right next to my father’s body. He combed his fingers through my mother’s hair. “It’s too late. His soul is gone.”
“NO! Bring him back!”
“I can’t. I don’t have power over the void.”
“The Land of the Dead is not part of the void.”
“No, but Dylan was not mortal. His soul was not sent to the spirit world, it was lost in the void. That is what happens to fallen gods.”
“Do something. Do anything.”
“Are you sure? I can promise you it isn’t worth it.”
Mom shook her head, tears streaming down her face. “Do something.”
I felt Vretial’s magic swell, pulling nominal energy from the worlds as it did. The darkness growled, burning to be released on this imbalance, but Vretial was once a servant of the dark and for that, he was spared this once. After all, the greatest enemy of the balance was just killed… by my brother and me.
We caused Sen to be born, and since he killed Dad, it was our fault. No. It had been my choice; Hail had tried to stop me. It was just my fault. I killed my own father without the help of the darkness.
Vretial’
s power flooded Dad, who suddenly gasped, his body convulsing like he had been shocked. Instantly he settled down, breathing, but not gaining consciousness. And I knew why.
“I have brought his body back, healed the damage, restarted his heart, and his lungs, but he is not alive. His body is empty of his soul. The magic of each world will sustain his body indefinably, but he will never wake, never think, because he is still dead. I have given you the living corpse of your mate, who you must feed and take care of forever if you want it to remain in this condition. And I hope you are happy because I have never done something so disgusting or disrespectful in my life. I feel like I have betrayed Dylan and I would rather have destroyed Raktusha and every planet in this universe than do what I have just done for you.”
She looked at him, still hugging Dad tight. “Thank you. I will take care of him and find a way to bring him back.”
My mother was as lost to us as Dad.
“I feel like I can’t breathe,” Mordon said.
“It feels like half your soul is gone,” Vretial explained. “I assure you, it is. You and Dylan were too connected; your souls relied on each other. I am sorry, but you might live for a month if you are very unlucky. I hope you only suffer for a week or so. I can kill you now, if you wish. It is not what Dylan would have wanted, but he wouldn’t have wanted you to suffer as much as you will.”
“What about Rojan?”
“His soul is not whole. He is dying as well.”
“There is no hope that Dylan can come back? Ronez came back.”
“None. His soul was destroyed. Ronez was never destroyed, only his soul was released from his body.”
“Then do it.”
“You can’t kill Mordon!” Sen cried.
“Kill him first!” Divina demanded, pointing to Sen. “He killed Dylan!”
Vretial sighed and shook his head. “Dylan could have easily defended himself against a mage. He didn’t defend himself because it would have killed the mage to do so. It would make Dylan’s sacrifice a waste, and I have already done enough mutilation of Dylan’s name today.” He raised his hand and a black fire engulfed Sen. When it died, the half-dragon was unharmed. “I have taken his power and made it so that nobody can injure him, not even himself. He will relive this event every night in his sleep for the rest of his long life.”
Then he disappeared. I understood; I wished I could disappear as well, but what was left of my family needed me. Dad was the heart of our family, our life, and now what were we?
* * *
Three months later…
I regretted returning home. It was more and more difficult each time to see my mother, but it was what my dad would have wanted me to do. Living on Raktusha was easier because it was just Hail and me, not the rest of them. Mordon was still alive, but he was pretty much comatose. He had stopped eating and drinking weeks ago, but his dragon blood was too powerful.
My mother was sitting in the living room, which was unusual. She looked up at me from her book and smiled. There was nothing left of my mother.
“Hi, sweetie. How is your job going?”
“Good, Mom.” I leaned down to kiss her on the cheek. “How are you?”
“I’m great. I’ll be better when your father is better. He’s still sleeping, but he asked about you earlier. Sammy, too.”
I tried to hold in the tears. If she saw me crying, it would just upset her. At least she was far gone enough to be happy. “I’m going to go check on him, see if he’s awake,” I said.
She smiled and nodded. I went to their room, where she still slept in the same bed as him, and shut the door behind me. I pressed my back against the door and had to catch my breath, because seeing my father’s still-breathing corpse was too much to bear. And that was all he was.
I approached the bed, but couldn’t touch him. I wanted to take his hand, to feel the warmth of life, and knew that I could. It really was the worst thing Vretial could have done. The darkness was quiet, and that just pissed me off.
All my life, the darkness tried to kill my father, but now that I needed it to give me the courage to destroy this body, it was calm. I would leave and cry for days, then be back again the next week. Every week for the rest of eternity, my father’s body will be waiting here for me. It was grotesque, because he looked like he was asleep. My mother took very good care of him.
Things had to change. There was always poison somewhere in this house, but could I get it passed Mom?
“Ron? We have work to do.”
So much work. It was almost as if Vretial was trying to distract us, yet things were never that simple. I turned towards the door just as my mother entered. “I have to go,” I said.
“Go, on then. I’m fine here with him. As long as I have him, everything is okay.”
I turned to look at my father once more before I flashed home… but just before the bright white light filled the room, I gasped… because I was sure his hand had moved, just an inch or so.
Impossible. I was imagining things; going crazy like my mother. My dad was dead.
* * *
Two weeks later…
Vretial thought it was perfectly reasonable to import people from every planet. Obviously, some people were going to fight. That is reasonable, of course; they were all aliens to each other, but Vretial didn’t have many people skills. When the people of Kahún and Dios tried to go to war with each other, Vretial separated them to different parts of the world. Then when both sides became ill, he sent Hail and me to figure out why.
Now, this should have been easy to fix, but somehow both sides realized the other people were sick, and decided it was by their hand. Then they collectively decided to be uncooperative, so that the other side would die. Something in their culture made them hate each other enough that they were each willing to die in order to take the other race with them.
Hail became so frustrated with both groups that he wanted to kill them all himself. In fact, I was so distracted by Hail’s frustration, that the people were nearly completely wiped out before we discovered the truth. In an attempt to prevent a world war, the Vaigdan people had created a virus effective only upon the two groups at war. The cure was, of course, each other’s blood. Hail and I had to take blood samples from both groups, mix it together, and administer it like a vaccine.
We convinced both sides to come together in peace in order to live, for the only way their children would live would be to have the vaccine or be a child of both Kahún and Dios. Then, as soon as we thought we had solved this problem, other people all over the world were becoming afflicted with the same illness. The Vaigdan people didn’t realize how many people had been imported that shared genes from other worlds. For instance, many Mulo people had descendants from Dios, and many Dayo people had descendants from Kahún.
Overall, it was Hell, but this was my life. This was all our lives.
* * *
I sat heavily on my bed beside Hail. It was a rough night of counseling people on developing a government. Fortunately, Shiloh showed up and did my job for me. I hated being a Guardian.
“We’re done with everything for the night,” Hail said. “Do you want to do something? We could go see a movie on Earth. Or we could go to swim in the Atrony river on Dayo. We could use the watch and go see a Shakespeare play.”
“What’s the point?”
“We can’t spend our entire immortal lives mourning Dad,” he said, stroking my hair.
I no longer colored my hair and wore it in spikes. Instead, the natural color of both my hair and eyes reminded me too much of Dad to cover it up.
“I can and I will! He died because we failed to save him.”
Hail sighed and left the room. I wanted to scream, hit something, and cry all at the same time. I was fifteen now, only a few days passed my birthday, but I had to start acting responsible. I was the son of Dylan; I needed to act like it. Only, Hail would never have left me before. He would hug me if I cried or threaten to beat up whoever upset me. Now he just lef
t the room.
I knew at this point what had really happened. Just as Hail and I thought we could save Dad by keeping a secret from him, Vretial had tried to get the staff. Somehow, Sen was able to get into Ronez’s magic room and get the weapon. Had we trusted Vretial, our father would have been alive, so that was why we chose to be his Guardians in the end.
What took me a while to figure out was that Dad knew everything. He had seen the paths offered to him and chose to end it in that field. I knew it wasn’t suicide; I knew he had seen a fate that he believed was worse for his family. He was wrong. Nothing was worse for us.
When I got restless, I walked the halls. Vretial had given us a castle to live in with a pool, a town, and servants. We also had the absolute authority to make our own decision in how we managed the people, government, religion, and such.
We basically started by giving each group of people their own land. This didn’t work well. The fae needed so much individual land that everyone else was jealous. The water tribe of Malta was attacking the fishers of Duran because the aquatic tribe believed killing for more territory was absolutely acceptable.
Hail and I told Vretial that all these different people would never work, but he told us to kick out whoever we didn’t want. We told him we needed help to make it work, but he told us to let the people fight it out until they came to a hostile détente. Although Hail and I were not nearly as old as him, we agreed that that wasn’t what Dad would have done. Instead, we were killing ourselves trying to fix everyone’s problems. We didn’t want to run this world in the first place.
I stopped in the hall and stepped out onto the balcony that looked over the courtyard and pool. Hail wasn’t there, which meant he was at home. More and more, my brother would run back home to sit in the chair beside Dad and talk to him.
I couldn’t do it when every time I saw my father, I wanted to kill Sen. There was one person in the universe that I couldn’t kill and it was the person I wanted to more than anything. Part of me wanted to use this injustice to push me over the last hurdle. I was so close to becoming unstoppable that this should have helped me.
