Ruins of Fate

by Alledria Hurt

  "The best, no, but close. Perhaps you will find yourself a more worthy opponent in me."

  The very air obeyed his command to throw them back toward the doors where they landed and slid.

  "You are not the gods you think you are. I am a GOD. You are little better than rabble in my presence."

  Leviana squeezed her eyes shut. She didn't want to give up her position at the front, but the third, the silent third, thrust her way into the limelight and they changed. Their skin warmed in tone and her eyes fell shut before opening with their awesome blue.

  "Brother, come with me."

  The second attempt to keep them pinned split around them as Coralai beat her wings against it.

  "Eniaden, wake up. Now is our time."

  Nalcet snarled at the sound of Coralai's brother's name. No one had spoken it in hundreds of years.

  Eniaden stood to his feet and tossed his head as his hair plaited down his back to be who he was once.

  "Cora, we will finish this."

  Together, they moved, forcing Nalcet to split his focus, but he was prepared. Bringing his hands together above his head, he showered himself in silver and gold light which tightened into a shield against his assailants.

  He watched them in silence as they considered his newest tactic.

  "Do you think to hide from us?"

  Eniaden's claws caught in the light as if it were fabric and it began to tear.

  "Too long we have waited for this moment, to bring an end to our killer."

  "We strike for our father, who could not stand with us."

  "Why do you think he did not stand with you? Do you not remember how he stood unfazed by your broken bodies? He gave you to me and then in his remorse cursed me for his own lust for power." Nalcet's fear began to show on his face as Eni demolished his defense one streamer at a time.

  Cora took on the other side and they worked together to pin him in place.

  "You lie."

  "I never lie. I told him. I saw the want in him. He offered you to me. I would never have laid a hand on you. He offered you as sacrifices. How could I have harmed you? Sinda bore you. How could I harm anything which came from her without cause?"

  Nalcet's words blurred together. He babbled his seeming confession out to them. Still he could do nothing to stop them from destroying his shield. Finally, he skipped away, putting distance between them before trying once again to push them back. He retreated to the edge of his well.

  "Think of it, Coralai. Eniaden. I swore myself your protector. I swore an oath on my life. Do you truly think I would throw that away for this?" The small of his back hit the wall and he tilted backwards over the well dangerously. "Tell me this, why did your father not come with you?"

  "He said he couldn't enter."

  "He abandoned you to do his dirty work," Nalcet said. "He chose not to come because if he had to face me, he knew he would be undone. He would never be able to hide his choice from you. He knew it. You know it. Don't kill me for a choice I never made alone."

  "You talk quickly to save your hide, yet did nothing for your fellows. I don't believe you," Cora said. "Liar. Murderer."

  She rushed up the stairs to the well and Nalcet let her come before putting a hand out to stop her short. His palm super-heated in a moment and she was thrown backward a smoking hole in her armor. Eni went after him next, much more warily. He would not be caught off-guard after watching what happened to his sister.

  "Do you need convincing, young one? Your sister made a fool's choice. Your father betrayed you both. Certainly you do not think we did not have his permission to kill you both."

  "If he gave his permission, then we will settle with him in time enough."

  They danced away from the well, Eni pushing Nalcet to defend himself over and over with his solid light defenses as Cora pushed herself to her feet. Her skin, exposed through the ruined material, looked scorched, but it did not stop her from once more joining the fray.

  "You have no chance against me," Nalcet said as he took hold of Eni's blade and used it to fling him to one side where he smashed into and then through a column to land in a cloud of rubble. Yet his wounds dripped blood from the cut.

  "You are no more a god than we," Cora said. Her slash went across his chest, opening his flesh and revealing black corded muscles beneath. Eni recovered from his fall and sprang forward to dig his claws into Nalcet's back right at the shoulders and hang on with all his weight to rip open his skin. "We will rip you apart."

  Together they did exactly that.

  His best attempts at stopping them did nothing.

  One piece at a time, they destroyed him until he writhed on the floor staring up at them with bloody and broken eyes.

  "I would have given you eternity," Nalcet croaked.

  "You did," they said. Eni crushed his throat beneath his boot and they watched him expire.

  The temple plunged into darkness as the well stopped emitting its light and the walls lost their luster. The pair hooked hands together to walk away as an earthquake rocked them off their feet.

  The land rebelled against the loss of the magic that so long sustained it.

  It drained into the air and returned to the lands from which it had been stolen.

  After the shockwaves dissipated, they stood on the ruined stairway leading up to the temple as Ancel walked up.

  Eni ran to him while Cora lagged behind.

  Ancel had aged, his formerly impressive muscles faltering under his skin.

  "The curse is broken."

  "But Backaran lives—"

  "He may have been part, but he was not the one upon whom the curse lay," Ancel said. "I have only this to ask, will you go with me?"

  They exchanged glances.

  "Can we? Will the others not die?"

  "I don't know," he said. "But I think if they have strong enough wills, they won't."

  Coralai's eyes flickered and Jalcina came to the fore. "I don't want to stay. I want to go. I want my family, just as you wanted yours."

  "Then you will leave the body to the Immortal Queen, though her kingdom lies in pieces."

  "Yes."

  "Then that is your choice," Ancel said before placing his weathered hand on Jalcina's forehead. "Go to the heavens, child." When the woman's eyes cleared, they were clear and blue as sky. Leviana lived.

  Eniaden shook his head. "It will not be so easy with mine. Neither Warden nor Vadian will choose death."

  "Then only you can leave." Ancel placed his other hand on the forehead of his son. "I can only grant them peace."

  Leviana moved just in time to catch the body as it fell and she knelt alone, holding him tight as he breathed in sleep.

  "Vadian?" She whispered the name of her love to the sleeping form. No one responded.

  Warden and Vadian found themselves on the eternal plain they now knew to be inside their mind. With only the two of them, the place took on the look of Arathum, a city they both knew. After a few moments, they stood in the execution plaza with its columns towering over them.

  "What will we do?"

  Vadian's name whispered on the wind.

  "Leviana awaits me," Vadian said. "But will you let me go to her?"

  "You mean will I die so that you can live with her?"

  "Yes."

  "What do you offer me?"

  "Ancel sent Jalcina to the heavens. Certainly there is a place there for you as well, with the family you lost."

  Warden closed his eyes to see the face of his mother as she had been while still radiant and alive.

  "She chose her family. Will you choose yours?"

  "They belong in heaven. I belong in the abyss, a place I would much rather not go."

  "We will both remain betweem then because I cannot go to the heavens without her and she awaits me alive."

  A smattering of rain moved around them, dark heavy clouds rolling from the horizon offering a thick storm of sheeting rain.

  The pair stood in opposition.

  "A
battle of arms," Warden said. "Best man wins."

  "Agreed. Let us see who deserves life."

  Leviana kissed him when he opened his eyes.

  Together in the ruins, she asked of him,

  "Who are we now?"

  "Husband and wife."

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