by Devon Vesper
Then Kaphir caught him looking and launched a volley of black magic missiles at Valis’s head. They hit his shield and dispersed. And as Valis absorbed the magic from the attack, he purified it and sent it back as a gold mist that only Valis could see.
Kaphir snarled at them and advanced. His shield grew more transparent, but Valis felt the energy behind it like he felt the sun on his face in the heat of a summer afternoon. It roiled with Kaphir’s seething hate, making every small hair on Valis’s body stand on end. His hindbrain helpfully supplied “Predator!” as if Valis couldn’t see for himself that someone with unimaginable power was hunting them.
“Get back,” Valis whispered so only Tavros could hear. “Back behind a bookcase.”
Tavros stiffened but gave a sharp nod and backed off. It had taken them ages, but to have that level of faith from his husband was humbling.
Kaphir stepped over the body of one of his priests and smoothed down his robes. “You will pay for your insolence.”
“You’ll pay for much more,” Valis said. “You’ll pay for the lives of all those who opposed you for the last two thousand years or so. But I won’t be the one to punish you. I’m not a sadist.”
The corners of Kaphir’s mouth quirked up at the word “sadist.” He advanced, stepping over the sword of another fallen priest whose black robes glistened with fresh blood that hadn’t yet soaked into the already drenched red carpet.
Valis kept backing up, keeping a healthy distance between them. Once Kaphir entered the reliquary, Valis levitated the reliquary doors. He sailed them over Kaphir’s head and slammed them into place in the doorway. With another pulse of magic, he created a shield with the permanence parameter.
Kaphir raised an eyebrow. “If you wanted to get me alone, all you had to do was ask. No need to break those beautiful doors.”
Where was the man who had seethed with such hate that it curdled Valis’s stomach? The Sovereign Priest of Qos seemed to have multiple personalities, or he finally regained his senses after having lost control earlier.
Valis kept pulsing out invisible mists of holy gold, wrapping it around everything, but keeping it from touching Kaphir or his shield. If he couldn’t do this right, everything would fall apart.
The Sovereign Priest of Qos advanced a few more steps. “It does not have to be this way, child.” He turned a gentle smile on Valis and spread his hands as if in welcome. “All can be forgiven. You and your husband would be welcome here.”
Valis snorted, unable to help himself. He steadily backed up every time Kaphir advanced. “Just like you forgave Thyran?” Valis tilted his head, still backing up. “You forgave him so well that you left your lover to think you had died, left your station because—”
“You know nothing!” Kaphir growled. “Not a damned thing.”
“You mean, I don’t know this isn’t a thousand-year lover’s spat?”
Kaphir’s face flushed a deep crimson, whether from embarrassment, fury, or both, he didn’t let on. “You will learn to watch your tongue and tone.”
Valis backed up a few more steps until he saw Tavros in his peripheral vision. Tavros… I’m going to lead him past you. Be ready to attack him from behind.
Tavros’s eyes widened, but he replied in their mental link, Ready, love.
And if you have to pull magic from me, do it, Valis said. I want you to do whatever you have to break his shield. I’ll be doing the same from the front.
Why is he not attacking? Tavros asked. He sounded worried, and Valis didn’t blame him. Was this a trap? He’s just following you…
Valis thickened his shield, keeping it invisible. He added another just inside it of black magic, just an extra barrier to give him time to shield himself again with the holy gold.
His stomach pitted, and Valis swallowed against the nausea. Kaphir grinned, a bright, almost friendly show of perfect teeth and sweet dimples. Then he threw his hands out before him. Power unlike anything Valis had felt before slammed into his shields, shattering them both before hitting his chest and sending him flying into the vault’s door. It felt like the magic had crushed every bone in his body. Valis tried to suck in air, but his lungs refused to work. Tears stung his eyes as he tried and tried to draw in even a sip of breath. And all the while, Kaphir smiled kindly down at him as he advanced.
Valis tried to shrink back, but he couldn’t feel his arms or legs. Everything tingled as if his entire body had fallen asleep and was just now waking up to pins and needles. It grew so intense that Valis clenched his teeth against a scream.
Kaphir stood over Valis’s body and folded his hands before him. “You are being rather reckless for one of your power. And your husband thinks to take me on alone while you are incapacitated. This should prove to be amusing.”
“Shyvus!” Tavros barked.
Valis used what power he could to make their shields soundproofed before the spots in his vision could take over.
“What is it, Grand Master?” Shyvus asked, sounding harried.
“Phase in here and get Valis out. He can’t breathe.”
The darkness encroached, but between one heartbeat and the next, Shyvus phased into the room, gathered his bearings, then phased to Valis’s side, grabbed his arm, and phased away. When Valis blinked back the darkness, he saw Shyvus had taken him to just beyond the doors to the recreated hall of communion. The doors were closed, and Shyvus tossed his gauntlets before touching Valis’s throat.
Everything went black, and Valis felt himself falling, felt his consciousness slipping. His chest heaved, trying in vain to get air into his lungs. His diaphragm tried to help, making his core hurt.
Then there was sweet, warm relief. Something snapped, and Valis gasped. He choked on the first breath and rolled onto his side, curling up in the fetal position. He hacked until his throat felt raw, his coughs coming out like dog barks. Shyvus pushed a water skin to his lips, and Valis drank greedily.
“Thanks,” Valis said. “Let’s get back in there and finish this.”
“You sure you’re okay to get back?”
Valis shook his head. “Whether I’m sure or not, I won’t leave Tavros to battle the Sovereign Priest of Qos alone. Let’s go.”
Shyvus helped Valis stand, and as a team, they threw open the doors to the replica hall of communion and ran in. Shyvus stopped at his mate, and Valis dodged what few black-robed figures were left and sprinted for the reliquary.
Kaphir had Tavros pressed against the wall with bands of black magic. The skin underneath the band at his throat grew red and irritated. Tavros clenched his jaw, and Valis could only imagine how much pain he was in.
With a deep breath, Valis raised both hands in front of him, palms up, calling the mist of holy gold to him. With a thought, it gathered and solidified. Valis spread his arms wide, willing the power to gather around him.
Then he brought his hands forward into a clap that made Valis’s ears ring with the sound of his gauntlets smashing together. All the power Valis had leaked out assaulted Kaphir’s shield. The moment it broke, Valis shot an arrow of gold into Kaphir’s chest as he turned around. He lifted his hand and prayed to Dapen and Racal. They answered his call, lifting Kaphir off the ground. But Valis didn’t guide him.
With a breath, Valis messed up on purpose. Rather than pulling in tandem to keep Kaphir from wobbling, Valis pulled from all directions.
Kaphir screamed, his body contorting. His shoulders and hips dislocated.
With another yank of gods-fueled power, Kaphir exploded into a fountain of gore just like the training dummies had when Thyran first taught him that spell.
Bits of entrails and flesh dripped from the ceiling, splatting on whatever surface lay below it. Valis ignored the rain and haze of blood and viscera to run to his husband’s side.
“Is it over?” Tavros wheezed.
Valis pulsed magic into him, healing the burns from where Kaphir had held him against the wall, healed his throat. “Yes.”
“Thank fuck.”
“Check the hall, please,” Valis said.
Tavros kissed him sweetly and headed for the doors to the reliquary. He tapped one of the doors, and Valis moved them aside with a push of magic. Tavros peeked around the wall and nodded. “Shyvus and the others have the situation under control. But let’s shatter their shields and get this done.”
Nodding, Valis wiped some gore off his nose and headed for the reliquary doors, taking up the wall on the other side of the doorway. With a deep breath, Valis nodded. He made their shields soundproofed and made it so his army could hear him. “We’ll break their shields. You throw stasis or kill them. Got it?”
“Sir!” the Aesriphos shouted in unison.
Valis glanced at his husband. Tavros nodded. And as a unit, they stepped into the doorway, their shields up and doubled. Valis shot arrows of golden light, battering the enemy priests’ shields into nothing. The moment they dropped, Tavros and the other Aesriphos sent the final killing blows.
Then everything went quiet for a long moment. Several heartbeats went by before cheers rattled the domed ceiling.
Valis lifted a hand for silence. “Is the entire monastery secured?”
Shyvus nodded. “We cleared the entire monastery when you told us to phase to safety.”
“Thank you for trusting us,” Valis said. “It was hard, but we managed.”
Cassavin sauntered forward with Nevesar right beside her. “Did you have to make him explode? The reliquary looks like a nightmare. And frankly, so do you.”
“He deserved it,” Valis said with a shrug. “But let’s get out of here. I need to go secure the god jar. Shyvus and Phalin, stay here with us in case anything happens. The rest of you, head back to camp.”
“Sir!”
Valis lifted a hand to wave them off, then headed back into the nightmare room, stepping over bits of bone and shredded skin, muscle, and ruptured organs to get to the vault in the back of the room.
He placed his right hand over the magic lock and flooded the door with power. When nothing happened, Valis tried with his left hand. He concentrated and focused his will before sending his black magic into the lock with enough force that the entire magical door shattered into splinters of blackness that Valis absorbed before they could dissipate on their way to the floor.
On the other side of that door was another with a chain and a series of physical, mundane locks. Valis shattered those, sending shrapnel in every direction. Most of the shards bounced off Valis’s shield. When he removed the chain, Valis opened the door and glanced around. Artifacts lined the walls, and Valis wrinkled his nose. Would Thyran want any of this?
Instead of guessing, Valis erected a magical litter and headed inside.
“You’re going to take everything?” Tavros asked.
“Might as well,” Valis replied. “Thyran may want it for the reliquary in Avristin. Or he might know where they came from and wish to return them to their rightful owners.”
Nodding, Tavros entered behind Valis and helped him load items carefully onto the glowing golden sheet of magic. When they finished and only the god jar remained, Valis called Shyvus in.
“What is it?” Shyvus asked as he bowed.
Valis bowed slightly in return. “I need you to phase all this to camp and return.”
Nodding, Shyvus took over ownership of the litter, and in the next heartbeat, he and the litter full of artifacts disappeared, leaving Valis and Tavros alone with Qos’s god jar.
“It’s finally over,” Valis whispered.
“Not yet.” Tavros leaned his forehead against Valis’s temple. “You still have to purify the jar, and we still have to get home.”
“Yes. But Father is safe, and the last god jar is right here. It feels surreal.” Valis turned his head and kissed Tavros, their lips clinging for a long moment as they took comfort in each other. After all they’d been through to get here, Valis needed to feel grounded, and Tavros seemed to sense it as he removed his gauntlets, setting them on a case next to him. He carefully removed Valis’s neck guard and laid his hand on Valis’s nape.
Valis dropped his head forward with a groan. Tavros kneaded the muscles there until Valis lifted his head for another chaste kiss. “Thanks.”
“Always, love.” Tavros took a moment to replace Valis’s neck guard. His fingers traced over the engraved line that said, “Property of Tavros.” Tavros smirked but said nothing as he touched the front of his own neck guard that said “Property of Valis” along the front.
Valis gave him a stupid grin and turned toward the jar. “Let’s get this purified and get the fuck out of here. This place makes my skin crawl and makes me want our bed back in Avristin.”
Tavros nodded and leaned against the wall. He couldn’t do anything more than watch because he didn’t have the dual magic necessary to purify it to make it safe for handling and transport.
As Valis got closer, his skin started to crawl even more, but he reached out and grabbed the jar with his left hand. When that crawling sensation made him nauseous, Valis let go and backed up, breathing deep to try and stave off the urge to retch. It took him a few minutes, but he approached again, and again took hold of it in his left hand. He flooded it with his black magic, then started a drain. The artifact was so potent that Valis’s eyes immediately lost all color vision, leaving him in darkening shades of gray and black.
Valis filled himself with the holy gold. He purified the magic flowing into him, shoved golden magic into his eyes to stave off the darkness. With a deep breath, Valis took hold with his right hand, so he cradled the god jar to his chest. As he drained the black magic into himself with his left hand, Valis pulsed holy gold back into the jar at a slow, steady rate.
After about fifteen minutes, the black magic that the jar had been steeped in for over two millennia trickled to a halt. Valis stopped the power transfer and probed the jar for any darkness that might be left. But it felt… normal. Just in case, he filled the jar with more golden magic and placed a golden shield around it, so this place wouldn’t corrupt it again, and so it wouldn’t break if he accidentally dropped it.
When he turned around, Tavros reached out but aborted his attempt to touch Qos’s jar. “It’s safe?”
Valis nodded. “It’s purified. I also snapped a shield around it to keep the gold magic from seeping out, and to keep this place from tainting it again. We need to get out of here. It’s time to go home.”
They stepped into the hall of communion. Valis nodded toward the exit when he caught Shyvus’s attention. “Let’s go home, guys.”
“Music to my ears,” Phalin said. He sounded exhausted, and Valis couldn’t blame him. They had been up since well before dawn and had fought constantly. Now it was past time for the evening meal, and he could only imagine that the entire army needed supper and sleep.
Phalin walked beside his husband. Shyvus linked their fingers, both devoid of gauntlets, the metal gloves and wrist guards hanging from their sashes. They led the way, Valis and Tavros keeping close behind them.
By the time they made it out of the monastery and into the cavern that concealed it, Valis wanted a bath, a hot meal, sleep, and for their journey to finally be over. But they still had to travel halfway across the continent of Peralea to get there.
Valis took a moment to take out his pocket watch and scry after Aryn. When the boy’s face appeared, Valis smiled. “Hey, there.”
Aryn grinned. “It’s really over?”
“We have to get home, but yes.”
Valis cleared his throat and glanced up at the opening to the labyrinth. “I need you to send all mages into the cavern. We have one thing left to do.”
“On it,” Aryn said. Then the inside of the pocket watch showed only a golden shine. Valis closed it and put it away.
“We had the others take bodies with them,” Shyvus said. “We know how you feel about everyone receiving a proper pyre. We weren’t about to scrape Kaphir off the ceiling, floor, walls, and furnitur
e for a pyre, however. You’ll just have to live with that.”
Valis huffed a laugh, and they settled into easy, companionable silence until the mages filed into the cavern.
“What need have you?” Nevesar asked. “Are we not done?”
Valis nodded toward the monastery. “I’m bringing it down.”
“The… the whole building?” Rylas squeaked. “Really?”
Shrugging, Valis turned his attention back toward the white building. He waited until everyone stood around, and Valis raised a shield around them. “Everyone hold on to each other. I may need to borrow power from you. Are you all okay with that?”
“Sir!”
“Then feed it to me when I say,” Valis said.
Valis widened his stance, pushed his exhaustion away, compartmentalizing it just as Aenali had taught him, and lifted his arms. He had never performed a task such as this, but he flooded the monastery with black magic, followed it mentally through every room, every hall, every cell and office, and antechamber. He turned it volatile, and ignited it, setting off explosions within the monastery.
From the outside, Valis took a page from Kaphir’s book and tweaked the spell with a single thought. He keyed up his magic. Fifty solid, flaming balls gathered before him, and Valis laced them with caustic black magic to be sure they did what he’d intended.
He called out, “Fuel me! Send me your power!”
Immediately, Valis felt unimaginable power flooding through him, and he pumped it into those fifty balls of horse-sized fire and rock and black magic, making them bigger, more volatile, more destructive. He created twenty more, scraping up his reserves. Then, with a shout, he sent all seventy balls hurtling toward the building. Some headed for the cavern’s ceiling. He needed to bring down the entire cavern. No one would ever use this place again.
The impact made the ground shake. The explosions as the balls impacted made it hard to hear, leaving Valis’s ears ringing. Chunks of the ceiling fell, huge boulders smashing into the ground, bouncing off Valis’s shield. The monastery itself seemed to implode, the whole towering building caving in. Then it exploded outward, shattered white bricks flying in every direction.
