by John Corwin
Not in the case of Cephus.
During the Second Seraphim War, I'd come to Tarissa seeking the help of the Darkling forces against Daelissa's army. My first day here, I'd met Cephus, one of the three members of the Trivectus, the governing body of Pjurna. At first, he seemed the most reasonable of the bunch, but that was before he tricked me into helping him murder Ministers Uoriss and Thala, thus propelling him to power.
He hadn't stopped there, kidnapping Nightliss and experimenting on her all while I was blithely unaware. When I'd rescued her, she'd been so beaten and bruised—a pang of regret tore at my insides.
Rest in peace, Nightliss.
On our way out of the Ministry of Research, I'd seen things that would make even the most hardened veteran's skin crawl. Seraphim in cages, bodies mutilated from horrible experiments, some of them turned into creatures that no longer resembled anything humanoid. If this mutilated soldier was any indication, it seemed Cephus had found a use for his cruel research.
The seraph's one good eye blinked open. The gem in the other socket glowed and a thin beam of Brilliance stabbed out. I didn't move quite fast enough. Pain seared into my right cheek. Shouting in pain, I rolled off the seraph and wrapped my arm around his neck from behind like a wrestler, squeezing his throat between my forearm and bicep.
He flailed, scratching my face, his legs thrashing. I pulled back my head to avoid his hands until he went limp from lack of oxygen. My fingers found a slow, steady pulse on his throat. I wasn't ready to kill him just yet, especially if he was a brainwashed victim.
The next thing I did was undo the leather straps holding the aether pack to the seraph's back. Two crystalline prongs pressed against the bare skin of his back through a slit in the uniform. The pack felt insubstantial when hefted in one hand. I opened the leather wrapping and nearly dropped it like I'd just peeled open a spider egg when I saw what was inside—a small glowing crystoid. Upon further inspection, I realized its surface was smooth instead of spiky, its insides sparking with electric aether.
"That explains things," I muttered. Even when it wasn't being fed by the aether beam from home base, it seemed to hold plenty of juice. I touched the crystal prongs and felt a rush of power in my blood. Cephus had been a busy bee. Not only had he found a way to destroy magic in Eden, but he'd come up with these aether crystals to power his own troops.
He'd severely underestimated our ability to fight off the crystoid menace despite an army of robots and armed airships thrown against us. Nightliss's burned, bleeding body flashed before my eyes and the hatred of a thousand suns burned in my chest. The day I laid hands on Cephus, he'd get a free Bible lesson because I planned to go Old Testament on his rotten ass.
I wiped my eyes and raced for a window facing north. I saw no sign of the other Darklings and, even worse, no sign of Elyssa. We hadn't even reached the target, and already this mission had gone to hell.
Chapter 2
Finding Elyssa was my first priority.
Knowing that I'd abandoned the mission to focus on her safety would probably piss off my girlfriend to no end. She'd kicked my butt plenty of times and I was more than willing to accept another whooping if it meant she was safe and sound.
I knelt next to the unconscious seraph and frisked him to make sure he didn't have anything else of value. He didn't even have a bladed weapon on his person, which meant Cephus was more interested in manufacturing glass cannon soldiers with tons of firepower but little experience or chance of survival.
What he'd accomplished was as impressive as it was repugnant. No matter how powerful, Seraphim couldn't naturally fly. If I really concentrated, I could manifest angel wings, but all I could do was glide. The last time I'd tried to flap my wings and fly, I'd nearly killed myself.
Thankfully, I didn't have to rely on wings to get out of this building. I reached over my shoulder and slid a shiny chrome rocket stick from the sheath on my back. It was a little dented from fighting, but a flick of the switch confirmed it still worked.
I preferred boomsticks—high-powered flying broomsticks—to the gadgets from Science Academy, but heading into an aether dead zone required desperate measures. Unlike broomsticks, rocket sticks had fins on the tail for steering and a rear exhaust port for flames. This model wasn't as fast or powerful as my boomstick, but it would do the trick.
Pressing the neckline of my Nightingale armor retracted it down to my waist so I could strap the aether pack on my back. The second the crystal prongs touched my skin, I felt the beckon of raw aether. I tugged up on the waistline and the armor grew back into a skintight layer of protection, spreading beneath the crystal prongs and breaking contact with my back.
"You've got to be kidding me," I groaned. I'd hoped the armor would grow over the aether pack. Instead, it was doing what it had been charmed to do, sliding across the skin no matter what clothes or gear the user was wearing. Even though I had a short sword at my hip, using it to cut through Nightingale armor would be like cutting through a titanium-plated tank with a can opener.
That left me with one option.
I flew the rocket stick out of the broken window, the aether pack snug against my back. I was also as bare-chested as a male model in a shopping mall. Though I felt naked without the armor and my nipples went hard as diamonds from the cold air, I now had access to magic.
"Or I could slice someone real good with my nipples," I muttered.
Gaining altitude, I rose above the tallest buildings and looked around. A fresh rush of power indicated the aether beam from Cephus's fortress had found me and even now recharged the power pack. Since I couldn't possibly be mistaken for one of his unfortunate minions, it seemed likely the aether beams homed in on the aether packs and not the users.
My heart dropped at the sight of a black-clad figure on the streets below. I dove straight down, pulling up at the last instant when I realized the body belonged to one of the Darkling soldiers. It was a breadcrumb that might lead me to Elyssa.
The hairs on my neck rose and I had the distinct impression someone was watching me. Though the streets were completely empty of people, there were plenty of buildings to hide in. Unlike Eden, there were no planes, trains, or automobiles in Seraphina. The cities relied on skyways and cloudlets for transportation. Without magic, none of those had power, and as I'd discovered in the last building, not even the levitators worked. That meant if someone was watching me, they were probably doing it from ground level.
I rotated the hovering rocket stick in a circle, but saw no one. Since my eyes hadn't found anything, I used another of my super senses and focused on ambient noises. The faint but unmistakable explosions from channeled energy echoed in the distance. I swept the rocket stick west and zipped forward.
A moment later I stopped to silence the rush of wind in my ears. The cry of battle sounded closer now. The echoes through the canyons of empty streets made it difficult to pinpoint the source, but it seemed to emanate from the north. I twisted the throttle to full and zipped down the road. Movement caught my eye. I pulled hard right and veered down a wide avenue flanked by crystalline towers.
Elyssa and another figure fought two soldiers on the ground. Divots in the street and surrounding buildings bore evidence of the firepower the Darklings had employed, but Elyssa was no easy target. Before I reached the fight, it was over and the attackers lay unmoving on the street.
I hopped off the rocket too quickly, stumbling forward and wind-milling my arms to stay upright. "Elyssa!"
She caught me in a hug and pressed her lips savagely against mine. "Justin, what happened? Why are you topless?" Her nose wrinkled. "Your nipples are rock hard."
I caught a troubled look from her new companion and my eyes widened with shock. "Flava!"
"It is good to see you again, Justin," the healer of the Tarissan Legion said in a tone that didn't jibe with her words. "We hoped you would be here with your army months ago."
My stomach sank with the leaden weight of guilt. "I'm sorry, Flava. We should h
ave come right after the war. Maybe we could have prevented the terrible things Cephus has done here and on Eden." Maybe Nightliss would still be alive.
Flava's eyes hardened. "You promised us, Justin. You said you would lead us against the Brightlings and unify Seraphina." Her hands tightened. "Now the Tarissan Legion is all but destroyed and the Darkling nation is on its knees. Even weakened after the war in Eden, the Brightling empire could swallow us with little trouble."
Elyssa stepped between us. "We're here now, Flava. That's what matters."
"Where is your army?" Flava cried. "Where is our salvation?"
I took a deep breath to quell the tide of sorrow and regret rising in my throat. "The blame is mine, Flava. The moment I had a chance, I ran away from war. I thought your people could defeat Cephus on their own and I would come later and help you against the Brightlings." I ran a hand down my face. "I had no idea Cephus was capable of this. He nearly destroyed all magic in Eden."
"Thousands died here," Flava said, her voice trembling with rage. "Ketiss is dead, the legion scattered to the winds." Teeth bared, she poked me in the chest with a finger. "There is nothing but doom on our lands. You earned your name, Destroyer. The Primogenitor has punished us for our inaction against the Brightlings."
Many Darklings worshipped the Primogenitor, the supposed creator, and Cephus had tricked the population into thinking I was the Destroyer, a bringer of doom who would help the Darkling defeat their ancient enemy. I'd thought Flava had been cured of religion. Maybe she was throwing this back in my face. She had every right to be furious with me.
Before I could respond, Elyssa spoke in a calm voice. "We're here to destroy the crystoid—the crystal meteor—blocking the skyway from the Alabaster Arch." Elyssa put a hand on Flava's shoulder. "We're here to undo the damage."
"Destroy it?" Flava said incredulously. "One of those abominations turned the city center into rubble and killed most of the legion. Had I not been surveying the meteor near the skyway, I would have died as well."
"My god," I murmured. "Most of the legion is dead?"
"Yes," she said through clenched teeth. "These crystoids will be the death of us all."
"We can safely nullify them," I said, forcing my voice to remain steady. "Can you get us to the one near the skyway?"
Flava shuddered and stepped back. "Do not tempt me with hope, Justin."
"Get us there and we can do it." I added steel to my tone and stepped toward her. "Nightliss died along with hundreds of others because I waited too long." I tried to hold back the sorrow, but tears blurred my vision. "I failed everyone, Flava—everyone!" I took a deep breath. "This time, I won't rest, I won't stop until Cephus is dead and Seraphina is set to rights."
"Nightliss is dead?" The rough pain in Flava's voice nearly sent me over the precipice.
I nodded. "There was a bomb that would have killed our entire army. She sacrificed herself—took the bomb far into the sky."
Flava bit her lip and nodded. "We have all paid the price for your inaction, Justin."
"It's not his fault!" Elyssa shouted. "Do you know what he's been through? What the war against Daelissa cost him even before we asked for your help?" She angrily thrust her swords back into her thigh sheaths. "If Justin hadn't stopped Daelissa in Eden, she'd be ruling your whiny ass right now."
The Darkling reared back like she'd been slapped and her eyes went hard—a far cry from the gentle soul who'd saved my life in the final battle against Daelissa. "Perhaps that is so, but we lent you our help and received none in return. You can see the brutal results."
"Well, unless you know how to time travel, we can't do anything but move forward. Standing here casting blame in our faces is only wasting time." Elyssa sighed and turned her attention to me. "I see you took one of the enemy aether batteries."
I gladly accepted the change of subject. "Yeah, but the armor goes underneath it and I need the prongs to make contact with my skin."
"I can't believe you don't know how to adjust that by now," Elyssa said. "Tug up and out on the hem."
I pinched the hem at my waist and did as instructed. This time the armor spread over the pack instead of under it. I met her raised eyebrow with a shrug. "Hey, nobody ever told me it was that simple." I nearly groaned with pleasure as my frozen nipples thawed.
Flava knelt next to the unmoving soldiers and studied the aether pack. "Cephus has grown bolder by the day, sending his minions to kidnap any Seraphim still living in the city."
I pulled off the soldier's mask and exposed the shaved head, scar, and eye socketed with a gem.
Flava gasped and stumbled back. "What is this monstrosity?"
"One of Cephus's victims," I replied. "I don't even think he was a solider before."
"He's engineering Seraphim into soldiers." Elyssa's voice seethed with disgust. "What happened to the city population?"
"They fled to the outer edges," Flava said. "Without the skyway, there is no way off the skylet."
Tarissa floated on a massive miles-wide skylet above a tremendous aether vortex. "If memory serves, it's about half a mile to the ground from the edge of the city?"
Flava nodded. "It is less now due to the crystoids, but not enough for someone to survive the fall."
"How many crystoids are in the city?" Elyssa asked.
"Two—one on the eastern edge, and the other to the west near the skyway." Flava pulled the pack off the unconscious seraph. "They are enough to disrupt the skyways in all directions."
"Where is the rest of the Darkling army?" I asked.
"I hope they still maintain our national borders," Flava said. "Ketiss thought we could defeat Cephus without withdrawing other troops from their positions. We lost contact with the outside once the crystoids hit."
"I wish he'd been right." I tugged the aether pack off the other soldier and handed it to Elyssa. "You might as well wear this in case I run out of power in this one."
Flava turned away and slid her tattered uniform down to her waist to strap an aether pack between her shoulder blades, then slid her arms back into the sleeves and fastened it in the front. The low-profile pack made a discernable bulge against her upper back, giving her the appearance of a hunchback. I decided not to share that observation since her admiration for me had dwindled from hero to absolute zero in the past few months.
Besides, I didn't feel like joking about anything right now. The people of Pjurna were hurting something awful and I had to complete my mission if there was any hope of fixing it.
"What about them?" Elyssa looked at the slumbering soldiers. "Can we do anything to restore them?"
Flava knelt and pressed her hands to the head of a seraph who looked barely older than me. Then again, he might be fifty years old. Seraphim like my mother could live for thousands of years, provided nothing awful happened to them. The destruction of the Grand Nexus had ended the First Seraphim War over two thousand years ago by sundering the link between Eden and Seraphina. In Eden, all the Seraphim had been reduced to infantile husks with an insatiable appetite for life force. On this side of the Nexus, the results had been less spectacular, but no less devastating, reducing the life span of any Seraphim caught in the blast to centuries instead of millennia.
"I might be able to heal him, but I dare not use all the power in this aether pack for him," Flava said after a moment of silence.
I looked up and estimated how high we'd have to go to catch a recharge from the aether beams. "I don't suppose you learned how to fly since the last time I saw you?"
Her eyes regarded me gravely. "I was one of many who trained so we could fight the archangels on even terms, but I have nowhere near the skill of Cephus's"—she looked with distaste at the scars on the seraph's face—"mutants."
Brainwashed they might be, but I hated to leave these soldiers without helping them. For the time being, it couldn't be helped. I'd learned the hard way that making command decisions sometimes meant sacrificing the lives of others. In this case, I didn't feel all that horrible
about not helping the seraphs that had tried to kill me earlier, but I didn't want to appear insensitive.
"Once we destroy the crystoid, we'll have all the power we need to help them," I said. "We have to go."
"Agreed," Elyssa said without hesitation.
Flava frowned, but nodded. "The trek through the city is dangerous and the crystoid is guarded by more soldiers."
"Soldiers like them?" I motioned to the mutants.
Flava shook her head. "Unless the guard has changed, the crystoid soldiers are loyalists of Cephus and the Void, not like these poor souls."
"I guarantee they reported to Cephus that we're here." Elyssa clenched her teeth. "There goes our quick mission."
So much for stealth and finesse. Cephus's people knew we were here and they would be ready for us.
Chapter 3
The plan had seemed so simple. The last remaining crystoid in Eden was in the ocean, far enough away to be no danger to the noms—normal humans. Each crystoid beamed aether through a sky portal bridging the dimensional barrier between Eden and Seraphina and straight into Cephus's fortress.
The quickest way to transport an army to Pjurna was through the Alabaster Arch at the Three Sisters way station in Australia, but it wasn't functioning due to the crystoids Elyssa and I had been sent to eliminate.
Using the last sky portal seemed the best way for a covert mission to succeed. How Cephus had detected our small bodies against the expanse of the sky before we'd fallen even a few hundred feet was still a mystery. Once the other sky portals began to close, he must have expected an attack.
Flava led us down winding pedestriums, using cover and stealth every step of the way. We spotted more aerial patrols overhead and were forced to hide until they were gone.
"I have a feeling the guard on the crystoid will be tripled by the time we get there," Elyssa said.
