by Matt King
“Turn around,” the voice ordered again.
August forced his head to look over his shoulder. He could sense that he was in his final seconds before death would take him, and this time it would be the end. He waited for the feeling of dread at the realization, but there was nothing. All he felt was the welcoming thought of the end of his pain.
“August, you must open your eyes.”
As another sword pierced his chest, August opened his eyes for what he thought would be the final time. When he did, he saw a light screaming toward him. The light changed from white to a fiery red. The voices in the darkness screeched in protest as the room flooded with light.
“I am coming,” Ion said.
August’s nightmare ended with a jarring crash. He woke up with the side of his head resting in the wet soil. His head throbbed. His vision was crystal clear, but that didn’t stop him from questioning what he saw. Ion streaked through the clearing, red as a demon, striking Mordric full in the chest and carrying him into the hut. The impact blew out the back wall, splintering the house into rubble.
With his head still pounding, August tried to get to his feet. He looked around for the others. Cerenus fell from the sky, bloodied with his cape shredded. The ground caved beneath him, forming a crater. Ellia’s gargoyles dove after him with claws extended.
Ion flew back into the clearing. The gargoyles disintegrated into clouds of black dust as Ion barreled through them. As soon as the second monster was dead, Ion crashed toward the ground beneath the platform where Ellia stood hidden in the swirling cloud of black. The impact rocked the tree, knocking the platform sideways. As Ellia fell, the cloud fell away, leaving the girl exposed. Ion shot out a pulse of red light that sent Ellia flying into the swamp.
“There…you…are,” a broken voice spoke.
August looked over and saw the little girl—
—Tiale…my name is Tiale—
—turn her face toward the melee. Her skin was dingy behind the strands of mossy hair covering her features. Through the veil, her eyes burned bright, terrible yellow irises ringed with red.
She turned her gaze toward Ion.
Ion floated back into the center of the clearing. His face still swirled hot with red. August tried to move, but something held his body pressed to the ground. His arms and legs wouldn’t budge. He glanced over to see Bear and Aeris lying motionless in the grass. Only their eyes could move.
She’s doing this. She’s keeping us down.
Tiale started to crawl toward Ion, her movements slow and stuttered like she was too lost in thought to control her limbs. A smile crept across her face as she moved. Her unblinking stare stayed locked on Ion.
Ion hovered with small streaks of lightning dancing through the air as he spun in place. He gathered the lightning and sent a bolt of it toward Tiale. Before it singed her, the lightning broke apart into thousands of sparks that dispersed harmlessly around her. She continued her march. Ion sent out another bolt that died just as quickly. When it fell apart, he tried to shoot forward. Tiale kept him in place. How August knew that, he wasn’t sure, but he could feel it, like she narrated the whole thing in his mind without speaking. He could also feel her hunger, along with something else: Fear, but not hers.
Unable to move, Ion tried releasing the same red pulse that sent Ellia into the swamp. The energy swirled around Tiale and then fell away like drops of bloody water to the ground. She was nearly upon him now. He tried another pulse, then another quickly after. Both dissipated harmlessly in a shower of rain.
Tiale reached out her hand. She curled her fingers, leaving a single digit out that moved toward his shell.
The air around Ion became distorted, like August saw him across a hot desert highway. A low vibration shook the ground. Ion surrounded himself with it like a shield, intensifying it as her crooked finger drew closer.
She touched his shell.
Like a stone, Ion fell to the ground. His red light died away, leaving the reflection of his plain metal hull. The air around him calmed as the clearing fell under a blanket of silence.
Tiale crawled closer to him. She smiled into her reflection.
“Still alive,” she said. “Still alive. Still alive!”
She looked around, laughing in fitful spurts as though she was the only one in on the joke. Her wild, stuttered laugh echoed through the trees.
Still laughing, she rose into the air like someone had picked her up by her shirt. She rocketed backward through the forest, breaking trees in half as she was tossed like a rock.
At once, the pressure keeping August to the ground lifted. He got up, still feeling like the pain in his head might come rushing back any second. The Alliance stood around him, beaten and disoriented. In the center of them all, Cerenus stood with his arm outstretched from sending Tiale away. He lowered it and picked the dormant Ion off the ground.
“We need to leave,” he said through tired breaths. “Now. We’re no match for them if they return.”
August nodded. Their survival came with no relief. Instead, it felt more like a stay of execution. He looked back over his shoulder at where Cerenus threw Tiale and he could swear he still heard her laughing through the darkness.
CHAPTER NINE
The Orphii lingered in the sky above Michael. He could hear the sound of their chimes even standing thousands of feet below them on the planet surface. It sounded like distant church bells.
“This is where I brought August to meet the Orphii after your attack on Earth,” Paralos said. “Meryn was a fool to leave them here for so long, but Meryn was always a fool.”
“You haven’t beaten her yet. What does that make you?”
Michael relished the brief flash of red that passed through Paralos’ light. Any power over a god felt rewarding.
“She will fall in due time. You will help see to that.”
“That’s why we’re here.” Michael looked up at the Orphii again. They filled the thin yellow sky from one horizon to another. Maybe Paralos saw them differently, but to him, the Orphii were nothing more than shards of light hovering in the atmosphere. They looked about as dangerous as an aurora.
“I don’t get it,” he said. “These are the things that killed Galan’s army?”
Still burning bright even in his bodily form, Paralos hovered above the ground as he looked skyward. “They are creatures of great strength. What you see now is their unbound state. Like this, they are nothing more than consciousness without physical form. They’re the opposite from you—nearly god-like in power but with no vessel to wield it. Not until they bind, anyway.”
“What do you mean, bind?”
“Look there,” Paralos said, pointing.
Michael followed Paralos’ direction to a canyon off to their right. A creature nearly as tall as the mile-deep rift walked into the grasslands at the mouth of the ravine. It looked like it had stepped out of the center of the world, with skin made of boulders fused together by a glowing red liquid, like magma. A single eye dominated its face. It shined like a diamond.
“That is their bound form,” Paralos said. “The Orphii are eternal when they stay in their ethereal state. Each may choose to bind itself to a physical object—in this case, the Orphii fused with rocky earth—and when they do, they have made the choice to give up their immortality and make themselves mortal.”
“Why would anyone choose to be mortal? Doesn’t make sense.”
“Not all who live crave eternity.”
Michael looked through the red haze of his shell to the god. He wondered if Paralos pitied the Orphii or envied them. The blank expression on his face didn’t give a clue.
“Meryn convinced them of their importance in winning the war,” Paralos continued. “The Orphii were Cerenus’s until she made a deal to give up most of her worlds for the right to claim them as her army. Even so, she had to persuade the leaders of the Orphii that they should enter the Circle War at her side. Do you know what finally convinced them to fight?”
“No,” Micha
el said.
“She told them they were part of the living universe, and that to earn the right to live meant giving up the assurance that they would not die.” The god scanned the horizon with an almost wistful stare. “Today they will understand her true meaning.”
More Orphii gathered around the walking skyscraper, smaller ones that barely came up to its feet along with others that were varying sizes in between.
“I trust you know what to do,” Paralos said.
“Of course I do.” Michael lifted off the ground to fly toward the Orphii. He stopped and turned once he was in the air. “Where will you be?”
“I cannot stay here. You could hurt me in this weakened form.” The sarcasm was heavy, despite the fawning expression. “I will return once you’ve completed your task. I wish you luck, champion.”
Paralos dissolved into a cloud of light and shot away through the Orphii hovering overhead.
Luck? Michael turned his attention to the valley. His heart raced. It had been too long since Velawrath and he hadn’t felt the rush of energy he was used to after releasing his power for some time. He couldn’t pinpoint why he was feeling nervous, and that was worse than actually feeling the nerves. What was there to worry about? That he wouldn’t be able to kill the Orphii? Impossible. It was the last few targets that had been weak and not him…
Wasn’t it?
As he drifted toward the largest of the Orphii, his worries amplified under the creature’s diamond stare. It watched him float into the grasslands. Michael had faced a living world—a champion the size of a planet—but he hadn’t felt the weight of its glare in the moments before its death.
The Orphii bellowed, rallying the rest of the Orphii to its side. Overhead, the unbound chimed in unison.
You are a champion of the old god, a chorus of voices spoke in Michael’s head.
He looked around, unsure who he should speak to. It was almost like the Orphii channeled all of their voices through the giant standing in front of him. “I champion no god,” Michael answered. “Not anymore.” He floated higher until he was at eye-level with the beast.
Why have you come here?
“I think you know why.”
The Oprhii giant looked down at the smaller creatures around him. You bear the mark of the Circle. You are nearly a god. Why would you prey on us?
“Because I don’t want to be nearly anymore.” Saying the words helped wash away his fears. His nerves drained, leaving behind a growing confidence. These creatures were nothing before him. No one was.
“I’m the Gemini,” he called out, making sure each Orphii heard him. “And you will die just like all the rest.”
As he summoned the power inside him, he watched from behind his encasement as the giant began to gather the smaller Orphii around him. He fell to his knees, cratering the valley floor, and placed his arms around his brothers to form a shield.
Above him, the unbound chimed their pleas.
Michael closed his eyes to tune them out, listening instead to the surge of energy inside him that built like a rushing, relentless wave. As it surged forward, he fought against its tide to hold it in. When the pressure threatened to shatter him, he unleashed the blast on his prey.
The Orphii screamed as one, and then he silenced them.
Every bit of doubt about his strength disappeared in a fiery explosion that disintegrated the planet, leaving nothing behind but the smell of singed earth, and the echoes of dead Orphii in his ears. Once he’d spent his full force, he began to draw in his bounty, and the feeling was nothing like he’d experienced before. Just when he thought he’d absorbed it all, more came in, and he drank it thirstily until his body felt like it was too large for his skin.
Michael opened his eyes, smiling before he even saw the transformation.
Immediately, he could see that he was taller. Much taller. Beyond that, his circle had grown. Red arms of plasma shot from his skin to connect with his shell. They danced along its surface on all sides of his body, constantly tethering him to his cocoon. His red light shone even brighter beneath his skin. Everything about him looked different, but there was more than that. He felt able, not like before when he saw the Orphii as a challenge. He could topple kings now.
Or gods.
His eyes searched for Paralos. When he looked through space, he saw it differently than he had before. There were pathways through the stars, white strands just barely visible, as though he hovered in a giant spider’s web. He wasn’t sure how, but he felt a connection to the pathways, as though they were at his command.
But what command do I give them?
He sensed something near him before he could answer his question, a surge of energy nearby. Then, ahead of him, a thread appeared in space. The light around it warped as it widened until he recognized the shape of a synapse. The doorway grew to an immense height. Paralos must have gathered all his strength before returning.
“You’re too late for the show, old man. The Orphii are dead.”
When the face of the portal formed, a god floated through, but it wasn’t the one he expected. Every ounce of power he’d felt surging through him only moments before fell dormant instantly, as though it were nothing in the face of the immortal.
“Hello, Michael,” Amara said.
She spoke to him like an old friend, warm and welcoming. Michael kept his face blank despite the feeling of dread growing in his stomach.
When her synapse closed, she gathered her energy into her human shape. She stayed bright, but not for the same reasons Paralos did. He knew Paralos showed his strength to make sure Michael understood how powerful he was. Amara didn’t have to make a show of it. She was too strong to appear as anything less.
“You have the mark of the Circle,” she said.
He stayed silent.
“It is just as I told you it would be. You were always meant for greatness.”
Amara’s return was something he and Paralos had prepared for. Paralos told him she would eventually seek him out and try to persuade him back to her stable. What he hadn’t counted on was fending her off himself without Paralos at his side. Facing Amara like this wasn’t like his daydreams. In those, he could look into her eyes as he showed her how truly powerful he’d become. Now, standing in front of her at her most powerful, he was left the same feeling he’d always had around her.
Like he was a child.
No, he quickly shot back. That’s not me. Not anymore.
He stoked the power inside him, flaring the crimson beneath his skin. “I’m not this way because of you.”
A smile cracked the corner of her lips. “I have missed you, Michael.”
“Have you?” He tried to act as he saw himself in his dreams, strong and defiant. “I remember this time when I was a kid. My mom had a cat, and she used to scream at him when he tried to put its paws on her stockings. She hated that cat and treated him like a piece of shit every day for as long as we had him. One day, he ran off. The neighbors brought him back that night, and do you know what she said? She said, ‘I missed you.’”
Amara tilted her head as she studied him. “That story is a lie.”
“I know. I thought you’d be more comfortable telling stories that weren’t true. Isn’t that what you’re best at?”
She looked at him, only this time he could feel her looking past his eyes and through to his thoughts. He didn’t fight her. There was no reason to try, not when he’d been wanting her to know for so long.
“Paralos,” she whispered.
“He told me everything,” Michael said. “He looked into my mind and told me which of my memories were real and which ones were your lies.”
“He told you what you wanted to hear.”
“No, he didn’t, because I didn’t want to hear any of it.”
Amara no longer had the soothing smile on her face. Glints of red flickered in her light. “He had no right to tell you these things.”
“No right? You had no right to do what you did. I believed ever
ything. Everything you made me think about my father, my family—all of it was a lie!”
“Michael—”
“Don’t,” he said. “Save your purring for someone who still cares what you think.”
“You do not?”
“No.” He spoke quickly before doubt crept in and stole his resolve. “All my life, people have been taking advantage of me and the way I am. You made me kill all those people.”
“Made you,” she said, nearly through a laugh. “Look at yourself, Michael. You are on the brink of becoming part of the eternal. This is what you wanted. All of the lives you have taken live within you. They are not dead. They are life itself. All I did was give you the means to harvest them. It was always in you to reap that harvest.”
“But my father…”
“What about him?”
“He loved me and you planted things in my head to make me kill him.”
Her smile returned, but it wasn’t there to soothe him. It felt more like she was unsheathing a weapon. “He didn’t love you, Michael. He felt sorry for you.”
“Go to Hell.”
“I saw his thoughts. Why do you think I had no reservations of turning you against him?”
“I don’t believe you.”
“He pitied you, Michael. Thought of you as a pet. He treated you kindly because it made him feel good about himself, not because he thought you deserved it. In truth, he wished to be rid of you.”
“Stop it.”
She floated closer to him. “Everything I told you, everything I sent to you in his voice—they were his thoughts. I only told you what he thought to himself when he believed no one could see. You were a burden to him.”
“No. No! I don’t believe any of this. You told me those things to make me lose control. That’s it.”
“Is that what Paralos tells you?”
“He tells me more than you ever did.”
“He tells you only enough to keep you under his control. Nothing more. Did you really think he would allow you to become a god? Think about who he is, Michael. His only wish is to rule the gods. You are a means to an end. Once he helps you gain enough strength to kill the rest of the champions, he will not help you further. He won’t need you anymore. And when he doesn’t need you, he’ll take away everything he’s helped you gain.”
