The force of his feet landing onto the ground caused a huge gust of wind to blow Crystal’s hair and the bottom of her robe backwards, but she did not even flinch.
“How many times are you going to cheat death before I can finally be rid of you!” the monstrous Bogdan bellowed. His voice was deep and distorted from the transformation, and his body had become bigger and uglier since the first phase. His eyes were still the same colors except for the white part of his right eye, which was now black. His black hair no longer had any gray in it and had grown much longer. His skin was rough and covered in spikes and scales and was a dark gray color now. His enormous wings had a span of at least twenty-five feet and he now had a long tail with spikes on the end.
“I will never be gone until you are, Bogdan, or should I say Gaull?” Crystal rebuked.
Bogdan roared with laughter that was so loud, the ground almost felt like it shook from a quake. Bogdan peered down at Crystal with a fanged grin and retorted, “Gaull is no one anymore. His power is mine now!”
Just then, Bogdan’s body began to shift and distort again. He glowed with an eerie black aura and began to grow even bigger. He laughed more and muttered, “Yes . . . here it is, the final transformation!”
“NO! Bogdan stop!” Crystal yelled.
“Silence! Now nothing can stop me!” Bogdan screeched. He laughed maniacally over Crystal’s warnings until he finally stopped and stammered, “Wait . . . what’s happening?”
Bogdan stumbled around as he continued to shift form, and suddenly a different, more menacing voice came from him and growled, “FOOLISH MAN! I WILL BE FREE!”
Bogdan’s lips moved with the voice, but he was clearly not the speaker, for he then replied, “NO! I have your power now! You will stay imprisoned where you belong!”
“THAT’S IT, HUMAN,” Gaull’s booming and sharp voice taunted, “FIGHT ME WITH ALL OF YOUR WRETCHED SOUL! STRENGTHEN ME!”
“Never! I will be the new dark god of this world!” Bogdan screamed. He placed his clawed hands to his face and continued to scream and fight the transformation.
Crystal desperately needed to act fast, so she called out to the beast before her one last time.
“Bogdan! Gaull! Whomever I am speaking to!” she yelled. Bogdan stopped struggling momentarily to stare her down, but she looked up at him with fearless confidence and said, “Bogdan, you are a selfish, heartless, and ruthless man. You have destroyed countless lives and now you stand here at the brink of destruction. I have come a long way and learned many things in the past ten years. The people I have encountered have strengthened me beyond belief; you say that having a heart makes a person weak, but in truth, it is the contrary. Caring about others makes me stronger, because when my loved ones’ lives are in peril, I stop at nothing to protect them.
“But despite all that you’ve done and all that you’ve taken from me, I would never have those people supporting me and making me stronger. I would never have developed the strongest traits I have if not for you, and so Bogdan, I am here to tell you that I forgive you!”
Crystal lifted her arms in the air and suddenly, a white light appeared in between them. Bogdan stepped backward out of shock and fear, and in a split second, Crystal’s body glowed with a white aura again and the light in her hands shot towards Bogdan. The light surrounded his entire body and he shrieked with pain as if he were being swallowed by flames. Crystal kept her concentration on him as he struggled against her power.
Crystal continued to glow and as soon as Bogdan tried to fly again, she shouted, “Kerali, attack his wings!”
On cue, Kerali led a dozen elven and human archers in an attack with a swarm of arrows that penetrated his enormous wings. The arrows kept him steady and close to the ground, but he was still able to stay afloat.
“Maryn! Taryn! Get him out of the air!” Crystal cried.
The twins and several rogues, mostly other halflings, began throwing darts and knifes at Bogdan’s wings, and that did the trick. He fell to the ground still surrounded by the light. Several knives hit his torso and stuck into his skin as well as his wings. Bogdan’s spiked tail then thrashed around and he swung his arms madly.
“Sigurd, get him on the ground!” Crystal commanded.
Sigurd let out a battle cry and brought his axe down on Bogdan’s tail, slicing the tip off. Bogdan then tried to charge at Crystal, but as they promised, the other swordsmen and axe wielders defended her and struck Bogdan’s arms and legs with their blades. As the monstrous King fell to the ground on his side, Blaze and Gavril readied their swords for their turn to strike.
“So why didn’t you tell me?” Blaze asked Gavril.
“Tell you what?” Gavril asked.
“About you and my mother and how she died. Why did you hide it from me?” Blaze clarified.
“Would you have believed me?” Gavril answered.
Blaze shrugged his shoulders and replied, “Probably not.”
“Then that’s why. The first time I saw you in the City of Magi, all the memories of your mother came flooding back to me. I couldn’t believe how much you looked like her and every day you were at the hideout, it took everything I had not to tell you what happened. I knew you wouldn’t believe me and even though I tried to hate you because of Bogdan, I couldn’t help but want to like you. I wanted to trust you for that reason too, and even when I had the chance to kill you, I could never betray your mother’s memory by doing so,” Gavril said.
Blaze let Gavril’s words sink deep into him. He focused his entire mind, body, and heart into his next task, and when Crystal called their names for them to charge, he said to Gavril, “Well, let’s do this for her, Father.”
Gavril smirked and replied, “For her and everyone else who counts on us.”
Then, father and son charged for the monster side by side and with no hesitation, plunged their swords into Bogdan’s chest and ended the battle.
CHAPTER 25
Everyone backed away from Bogdan as his still body shifted back to its normal size. The light faded from his body and Crystal stopped glowing. After seeing her legs tremble slightly, Blaze realized that Crystal was about to collapse and rushed over to her as she fell to her knees. He knelt beside her and held her up while she regained her energy.
Just as Bogdan lay completely motionless on his back and reverted back to his human form, a large, black shadow seeped from his skin. It floated like a cloud of smoke and then took the form of a distorted face. The shadowy face let out a shrill, inhuman scream before fading away in the air and disappearing forever.
“It’s . . . over,” Crystal panted.
“Just relax; you used a lot of energy with that spell,” Gavril said softly as he approached her.
Crystal then tried to stand, but Blaze stood as well and held her arm.
“Hang on, you need to rest,” Blaze scolded her.
“Just a minute, please. I have to make sure he’s dead,” Crystal pleaded. Blaze nodded and released his grip.
The monsters in town had disappeared and the villagers, rebels, mages, and elders had crowded around the sides of the square. The watched as Crystal slowly made her way to Bogdan’s still body and knelt beside him. Even with his eyes closed and his body still, Bogdan’s face was still fierce and sharp. His chest was covered cuts and stab wounds that were still slowly bleeding. Crystal leaned over him and reached her hand to his neck to feel his pulse.
However, before her fingers even touched his skin, she screamed as Bogdan’s hand flew up and snatched her arm. At that same moment, his eyes flew open and he lunged towards her. Bogdan landed on top of her and wrapped both of his hands around her neck and once again, Crystal desperately tried to release his grip.
“You’ve ruined everything I have fought for you parasitic bitch! Why won’t you die?” Bogdan screamed.
Crystal then felt him lift off of her and felt a pair of arms pick her up. She realized it was Gavril who held her in his arms when he rushed off to the side and placed her on the ground. Several other rebe
ls knelt beside her to make sure she was all right. After he was sure she was fine, Gavril then ran to Bogdan’s direction where Blaze was now kneeling on top of him and savagely punching him in the face.
“Blaze!” Gavril shouted. He stopped a few feet away from the quarrel when he saw Blaze stand up and unsheathe his sword.
Bogdan lay on his back again and Blaze stood towering over him with his sword. He held it in both his hands with the blade pointed downward straight at Bogdan’s chest. Blaze looked down upon the man who he once called his father with nothing but disgust and hatred. There was no fear or dread in the king’s eyes; all Blaze could see was what seemed to be anticipation. Blaze’s sword hovered over Bogdan’s body for some time. His body tensed up and the hilt trembled in his hand as he finally had the chance for his revenge.
However, Blaze’s body suddenly became relaxed and, with his hand still holding the hilt, he let the tip of his blade hit the ground beside Bogdan. Blaze closed his eyes and took several deep breaths as he backed away. Crystal stood and started walking towards him while Gavril stood off aside and waited for what Blaze would do next.
To everyone’s surprise, Bogdan burst into laughter. He rolled onto his side, lifted himself slightly with his arms, and he looked up at Blaze and taunted him.
“I knew you had gone soft. You can’t even kill me!” he boasted. Bogdan then continued to laugh until Blaze replaced his sword into its sheath.
“Actually, Bogdan, I was trying not to kill you,” Blaze retorted.
“What the hell are you talking about?” Bogdan countered.
“Don’t you get it? I was fighting the urge to kill you because I refuse to follow in your footsteps any longer. There was a time when I would have killed you without a second thought. I used to want you to die for stealing my life from me, but the truth is . . .” Blaze stared him down again, and this time, he stared back with a hateful and shocked expression. Blaze finally muttered, “. . . You don’t deserve death.”
The crowd of people inched closer and Crystal watched Blaze with a smile, proud of his courage.
“What is that supposed to mean?” Bogdan growled.
“Look around, Bogdan.” Blaze told him, “Everyone here is someone affected by your cruelty. They are all watching you as you lay humiliated and alone on the ground, and in your already weak and wounded condition, you won’t be alive much longer anyway. I can’t think of a better way for your life to end than for all these people to watch you squirm alone in the dirt.”
Blaze then turned and walked off towards Crystal. She smiled at him again and he smiled back. Crystal approached Blaze to embrace him, but stopped in her tracks when she saw Bogdan rise to his feet behind him with one of the halflings’ throwing knives braced in his hand and charged towards Blaze while he still had his back turned.
“Look out!” Crystal shouted to Blaze.
“If I die, I’m taking you with me!” Bogdan screamed just as Blaze turned around. He was about to grab his sword to defend himself when Gavril stepped in front of him and drove his sword straight through Bogdan’s heart. The knife slipped out of Bogdan’s hand and tumbled loudly onto the ground.
With a fierce glare, Gavril looked Bogdan straight in the eyes only inches from his face and whispered, “You took Althea from me, but I will never let you take our son.”
In his dying moments, Bogdan felt a sense of defeat for the first time in his life. His skin grew pale as the blood pumping from his heart poured down his body. His bloodshot eyes closed slowly and Gavril removed his sword and let his mortal enemy collapse lifelessly to the ground.
Bogdan’s body grew still and his blood spread into a large puddle at Gavril’s feet. He backed away in time to avoid the blood staining his boots and his body began to wobble faintly back and forth. Crystal and Blaze both walked up behind him in time to catch him before he collapsed backwards.
“Be careful, you’re still weak,” Crystal said gently.
“Don’t worry; I’ve dealt with worse than this,” Gavril assured her.
Crystal and Blaze then exchanged glances in an awkward silence after remembering the scene of Gavril being stabbed by the cursed dagger in Althea’s vision.
The whole town square remained speechless by what just happened. Sigurd, Kerali, Maryn, and Taryn all walked forward and knelt down in front of Crystal.
“You were all amazing!” Crystal praised them.
To her shock, they then bowed their heads before her and the crowd knelt and did the same. She let Blaze hold onto Gavril, stood up, and announced, “You may all stand now. Go and spread the word across the kingdom that Bogdan is dead and Cierith is free!”
With that, the entire crowd stood up and applauded.
****
By the next morning, nearly the entire kingdom of Cierith had heard the news of Bogdan’s death. Those who had long before lost hope of a peaceful future suddenly found themselves celebrating life and looking forward to the next day. Tears of fear and sorrow were replaced with tears of joy. For the first time in ten years, the people of Cierith left their houses in the middle of the night to dance in the moonlight and anticipate the morning light.
And for the first time in their lives, the small children that would someday be the future of Cierith could sleep well that night knowing that they would still be alive in the morning.
Bogdan’s body was cremated the next morning and his ashes were spread in the forest surrounding Cartigo, as was Valamar’s after they were gathered from the throne room. There was also the question of what to do with Valamar’s riches. As Gavril put it, Crystal was technically Valamar’s widow since he considered her his wife, so she was entitled to everything he owned upon his death. Crystal decided to sell Valamar’s estate and use all of his wealth to not only rebuild Cierith, but also to help the poverty-stricken citizens of Daldussa.
But most importantly, Crystal was now going by her true name again. She wasn’t used to the name anymore, but she knew that she didn’t have to hide her name anymore, and she bore it proudly.
And so Princess Amelia was alive once again.
Over the next week, the elders returned to the City of Magi to tend to the Cierith refugees before telling them about the liberation. Once they did, they sent with the refugees a new robe for Amelia as a gift. It was the same design as the one they lent her the last time she went, but this one was red-violet in color rather than the previous pale green. They also sent her a story book that Bredewig found. It was based off of the hero who defeated Gaull, and the elders figured that she would like it.
Blaze had opened the book to read it one day and when Gavril saw it, he laughed and blurted out, “That was your mother’s favorite book.”
Blaze suddenly felt like he got hit by a ton of bricks when Gavril told him that, and he replied, “My mother told me in the Lost Realm that she named me after the hero from her favorite book . . .”
“That’s right, Blaze. That means you were named after the hero who defeated Gaull,” Gavril replied.
Blaze flipped the book open furiously and, sure enough, he saw his name written throughout the book.
Gavril then laughed again and said, “Isn’t it funny how fate works out sometimes?”
****
Princess Amelia had some free time a week after Bogdan’s death, so she decided to go for a walk to the garden just outside the back of the castle. There had been massive damage to the whole city as well as the castle itself and Amelia had had her hands tied organizing the rebuilding of everything. She hadn’t even been officially crowned yet and Amelia was already worn out.
Amelia walked into the garden to find Blaze waiting for her. He wore nice, clean clothing consisting of a long-sleeved white shirt, a dark green tunic, brown pants, and dark brown boots. He sat on the same stone bench that she sat on with her parents on numerous occasions, and to her surprise, the tree was still there beside the bench.
“I figured you would come here,” Blaze said with a smile. He then stood up, approached he
r, and passionately kissed her.
Amelia wrapped her arms around him and held him while his lips brushed over and pressed against hers. For several minutes, he moved his lips in unison with hers and she melted when he slipped his tongue into her mouth.
He slowly pulled his lips away and locked eyes with her for a brief, but intense moment. She felt herself blushing and let out a nervous laugh. Blaze seemed to find it cute, which embarrassed her more.
“By the way,” Amelia finally said softly, “what was that promise my father was talking about?”
Blaze let out a small sigh and answered, “The night we found your parents’ graves, I sneaked away while you were sleeping and visited the graves again. While I was there, I promised your parents that I would do whatever it takes to give you your kingdom back and, if I made it out alive, I’d spend the rest of my life making up to you the things that were stolen. I didn’t think they would hear me but obviously, I was wrong.”
Amelia smiled humbly and bowed her head trying to hide a tear.
“Well you’ve completed the first step and lived through it as well,” Amelia stated after picking her head up again. She then added, “So what is the next step?”
“Well, step two can only be achieved if you want it to be, Crys—I mean, Amelia. Step three will also depend on what you decide for step two,” Blaze said.
“What do you mean?” Amelia asked.
In response to her question, Amelia was then surprised to see Blaze kneel before her on one knee, gently grab her left hand, and ask, “Will you marry me?”
Amelia’s heart nearly stopped and tears flooded her eyes and all the while, Blaze never flinched or looked away from her.
“Yes . . .” she stammered out with joyful tears, “Yes, Blaze, I will.”
With that, Blaze lunged upward and scooped Amelia up in his arms. She let out a cry of surprise and laughed as he held her up with his arms around her waist and then let her down, kissing her again.
Deliverance Page 30
