Fire Heart (The Titans: Book One)

by Dan Avera

  You are weak, said a voice in his head, unfit to bear the title carried by men far greater than yourself. You are a lesser being, standing ever in the shadow of true gods. Give up, fool.

  “Damn you, Will, fight it!” Leyra screamed, and then she slapped him so hard that his head whipped painfully to the side and he fell the rest of the way to the bloody deck in a heap.

  And suddenly, his mind was clear. He shook his head, more for effect than anything else, and got tentatively to his feet. All around him men and women were crumbling in despair, their faces ashen and horrified. Some sobbed, hiding shamefully behind their hands. But most simply sat dumbstruck, unable to move or even think any longer.

  Clare was among them; she had fallen to her hands and knees next to Will, and her dark hair hung in a curtain around her face. It did not hide the tears that dripped to the bloody wood below her, though, and as he watched her Will felt a wave of pity wash over him. He fell to his knees and put his arms around her, drawing her close. She tried to push away, but the resistance was weak and he pulled her into a bear hug, pinning her arms to her sides.

  “Don't listen to him,” he said softly, not entirely sure of what he was doing but positive that it needed to be done. Clare was too important to him to fall under the traitor's sway, and he was not going to let them have her. “I know what he's saying, but it isn't true. You have to fight it.” He felt her struggling cease, and she sniffled loudly.

  “I can't protect you,” she sobbed quietly. “My hand...my mortality...I'm nothing.”

  “But that is not true,” Will said, and he held her out and lifted her chin. She would not meet his gaze, though, and her gold-flecked eyes focused on a point somewhere down by his elbow. “Clare, listen to me—that is not true. You have saved my life so many times that I am beginning to think you're truly a guardian spirit from the Void.”

  “You have scant moments to live. Show yourself, Dragon King, or all of these people shall die.”

  Will ignored the terrible voice and concentrated on the woman before him. “Clare, look at me—look at me.” She lifted her eyes haltingly to meet his own, and when she found them a spark of recognition lit within their emerald depths. “You are my protector,” he said firmly. “I have faith in you. None of those problems matter.”

  She sniffled again and dried her eyes clumsily with the heel of her hand. “But...I...” she trailed off, searching in vain for further self-degrading words. So Will kissed her.

  He reasoned that physical stimulation had worked on him, so he might as well try it on Clare. He had no intention of slapping her, though, so a kiss felt like the logical answer. Oh, let's not fool ourselves, he thought as his lips crushed against hers. It was not a soft kiss, especially after her hands came up to his head and pulled him against her even more deeply. Missed my chance back at the City. Might as well seize the moment.

  She broke away abruptly with a gasp, tilting her head down so that her brow touched his but her lips were free. Her good hand continued to rest at the curve where his neck met his shoulder, and for awhile she was silent, her panting breaths the only sound she made. “Thank you,” she finally said, her voice nearly a whisper, and then she started to laugh, albeit nervously. “Thank you,” she said again, and then she pulled away and rose unsteadily to her feet. He stood up next to her, suddenly feeling very awkward. The sensation was banished in the next instant, however, when the ship beneath his feet began to quake.

  “I grow tired of this game.”

  The voice was, if at all possible, even louder than before. The wind whipped into a frenzy, tearing at the ships' sails and battering Will with wicked force.

  “This is no game,” said a new voice, and suddenly the wind halted and the ships fell back into quiescence. It was Feothon's voice, Will realized, and a burst of joy shot through him. The Titan's words tore through the air like righteous thunder, drowning out every other sound. “The Dragon King is here, as are we all. You have chosen your battleground, coward. Show yourself and fight.”

  Terrible laughter shook the air then, and in the midst of the seething mass of retreating tamyat the sea began to swirl, forming itself into a gargantuan maelstrom. Thousands of demons shrieked as they were pulled unceremoniously into its core, disappearing moments later as it sucked them into oblivion. And from the very center of the sea storm rose a shining figure, its arms outstretched as though to embrace the world.

  The Fallen One had made his entrance far away from where Will stood, but the distance between them did nothing to diminish the brilliance with which the sun glared from the traitor's silver armor. It was blinding, and Will had to cover his eyes with his arm. He heard several people cry out in awe or terror, and beside him Clare gasped.

  “You are finished, Feothon,” the voice boomed. “You have been finished for five hundred years. All of you have. You simply have yet to realize it.”

  The glow began to diminish then, fading away into a shimmering halo of silver light around the figure. Will peered hesitantly over his forearm, squinting against the glare, and saw that it was drawing closer. The men it passed shrank back in terror, covering their faces and curling their bodies into fetal balls. “What are you doing?” Will cried, and hauled the man nearest him to his feet. “This is all a trick! It's just part of the Fallen One's power—you have to fight it!” The sailor stared at him fearfully, his eyes glazed, and Will shook him bodily.

  “You are strong, Dragon King,” the Fallen One rumbled. “The most powerful creature in existence, without doubt. But you have yet to come into your strength. I can feel it, deep inside of you, clawing madly to free itself from the cage you have placed around it.” His next words were pensive, and even slightly confused. “Why do you fight it, I wonder? Why do you hold back? You could unleash it and annihilate me in an instant.”

  Cage? Will stared at the Fallen One in confusion. He could barely call upon his power even when he needed to; it came and went as randomly as the winds. He had certainly not placed any restraint on it—if anything, it had shielded itself from him.

  “I sense doubt in you.” The Fallen One was near enough to speak normally, and his voice lost the disturbing rumble it had carried moments before. Now it felt as though the traitor's words were for Will and Will alone. “Doubt, and fear as well. Pestilence's minions were sure you were coming into your own. But...this is most perplexing...”

  Unsure of how to respond, Will chose simply to remain silent and inspect his new adversary. Unlike Pestilence, this Fallen One looked positively regal—godlike, even. He wore shaped armor forged in the likeness of a male body, the metal pristinely polished silver; no matter how the traitor moved some part of it painfully reflected the sunlight into Will's eyes. Night-black clothing beneath the armor compounded the effect, making the glare seem even brighter. Will felt almost awed in the man's presence. And then his eyes came to the Fallen One's face.

  Before, when the terrible words had echoed through the armada and bent Will to their whim, he'd had an inkling of which traitor he might be dealing with. Now, though, he was sure: Despair. Like Pestilence before, this one's face was covered. But rather than a cowl, Despair wore a grinning deathmask as bright as his armor. So detailed were the mask's features that Will felt he was in fact somehow gazing upon the Fallen One's true face. But it never moved, never shifted, and its mouth was stretched permanently in a rictus grin that made Will shiver with revulsion. Its eyes had no pupils; two flawless silver orbs stared back at him, and in their polished surfaces Will saw all of his fears realized—all of his nightmares.

  He tore his gaze away, suddenly aware that his heart was beating much more quickly and his breath was coming ragged and heavy.

  “Be careful, my king,” Despair said softly. “To gaze into my eyes is to invite defeat into your heart. For an adversary such as yourself to fall under my power would be...disappointing.”

  “You're nothing like Pestilence, are you?” Will said, ignoring the Fallen One's words and walking with forced calm u
p to the ship's railing. Despair was very close now, hovering a scant few paces from where Will stood. “He was mad with fear. But you...you're just evil.”

  Despair chuckled. “Evil is in the eye of the beholder. But you are right about Pestilence. He was always afraid—afraid of death, afraid of Agony, afraid of the Titans. It was only through his machinations that we were able to gain this power, but he was rather tiresome to keep around.” He laughed again. The sound was slightly sickening. “You have my thanks for disposing of him. Not to mention the power that came to me upon his death.” He held one hand up and slowly curled it into a fist for effect. “It is...intoxicating. I want more. I had forgotten what it felt like to absorb another's essence. Were I so inclined, I would at this very moment be scheming the downfall of my brethren. Thankfully I am not.”

  Perhaps it was a trick of Will's mind, but the silver mask seemed to grin even wider as the traitor leered down at him. “It is a pity,” Despair continued, “that I cannot simply wait for you to dispose of the rest of them for me. It would remove a terrible burden from my shoulders, and I would not have to wait such an abominably long time for my...comrades to die.” His shoulders slumped then, and his mask seemed almost to droop in mock sadness. He held his hands up in a gesture of defeat. “Unfortunately, Agony would have my head on a pike if I left you at a time like this. The opportunity is too tempting to pass up, though I admit that was supposed to be the case in Prado as well.” He gestured expansively then, and his voice boomed with mocking joviality as he addressed the rest of the armada. “And look! Fortune has truly smiled upon me today. Had I known the Titans would fall into a trap such as this so easily, I would have done it centuries ago.”

  “You cannot fight all of us alone and hope to win,” Serah said, and she stepped forward next to Will. “Even one of you will die in battle against all of the Titans.”

  Despair laughed, his whole frame shaking with mirth. “I think not, dear Serah. You see, I—”

  He never finished. With a boom that sent the ocean into a maddened frenzy, a great torrent of water exploded upward from underneath the Fallen One and engulfed him completely. Sea water sprayed high into the air and fell like rain upon the watchers, drenching them. It burned Will's eyes, and the taste of it made him shudder in disgust; gone, it seemed, was the tolerance for salt water that had come with the merfolk's gift. He pressed the heels of his palms into his eyes in a futile attempt to alleviate the itching burn. Involuntary tears flowed freely down his face to mix with the sea's remnants, and when he had finally blinked the majority of it away he was able to catch a last blurred glimpse of Despair's struggling form before the traitor disappeared beneath the waves.

  “This be my domain,” thundered Borbos' voice, and Will realized that the Titan had been waiting all along for the opportune moment to attack Despair. “You may be strong, traitor, but you will never be as strong as the sea.” With those last words, the deck began to tremble beneath Will's feet. He held out one hand to steady himself, and with the other instinctively caught at Clare's arm. She darted a glance at him but said nothing.

  And then the sea exploded.

  As before, great torrents of water leaped high into the air. But rather than rain down on the armada, it fell in pounding sheets that knocked men off their feet and left them dazed and dumb. Will looked up just in time to see a blanket of sea water falling toward them before it slammed into him with the force of a soggy stone wall. He fell to the ground in a clatter of armor; his ears were full of water, and his head swam confusingly. His eyes fell on Clare, who seemed to be in a similar condition. “Are you alright?” he asked. His words came out garbled and slurred, however, and Clare gave him a dazed stare. He shook his head and asked again, this time with somewhat greater success. She nodded slowly, and then blinked and shook her head to clear it.

  Something out of the corner of Will's eye caught his gaze, and he flicked his head around to see...

  “Borbos?” he wondered aloud, his voice a hushed whisper.

  Towering high above the waves was an enormous man made entirely of water. His body ended where his waist met the sea, and the water around him swirled violently in a massive maelstrom. Will could see fish and sharks swimming within his body, weaving in and out among long strands of kelp. No, wait... The sea-man turned toward the Fury for a brief moment, and in that instant Will saw a flash of yellow where the eyes should have been. Borbos and the Sea Spirit, Will realized, and he gaped in astonishment. So that was why we needed to rescue him.

  “We have to retreat!” Feothon cried then. “Flee to the shore, or we will all die here!” The Titan dashed across the deck toward the aft end of the ship. “Serah! Give us a wind!”

  “Feothon!” Leyra called, and he stopped to look back at her. Will found her amid the now frantically seething crowd of sailors; she stood like a boulder against the tide. But there was pain on her face—pain and fear, and memory flashed through Will as her premonition of death raced through his mind. “There are two of them!” she yelled, and Will saw Feothon's face fall. The Forest Lord hesitated for only an instant longer before continuing on his way to the helm without a word.

  Will clambered clumsily to his feet before helping Clare to hers. She nodded her thanks, and then they turned as one to Leyra. “Can you see where the other one is?” Will asked, but Leyra shook her head in frustration.

  “Visions of him are...cloudy. Insubstantial. Not that it would make a difference, though, were I able to see him clearly.” She darted a quick glance at Clare before continuing. “Will, remember what I said: I cannot see your death. You must be careful...both of you.”

  Will nodded, suddenly fearful. Two Fallen seemed, quite frankly, unbeatable. Had the Titans themselves not said that one could duel a Titan with an even chance of success? And that had been before Pestilence's death; they were even stronger now. His eyes fell on Clare, and he felt fear twist his gut—not for his own life, but for hers.

  “What do you see in Clare's future?” he asked, and Clare shot him a confused look.

  Leyra cast a nervous glance between the two of them. “I...this is not her time. I can say no more.”

  Will nodded. He supposed he would have to live with that. Now if only he could think of some way to fight both traitors—

  His thoughts ceased abruptly as a tremendous boom sounded behind him, and he whirled around in time to see an entire ship seemingly tear itself apart. Wood and metal broke and bent and was sent careening out far away into the sea. The crew fared no better, and Will watched in mute horror as men and women were thrown screaming into the air, only to be rent apart by whatever force held the ship in its thrall. Body parts fell to the sea like a grisly rain, staining the waters around them crimson.

  “Your time has come,” a voice rumbled, deeper than the deepest thunder. It was a terrible sound, one that shook Will down to his very bones and made the air tremble around him. There was so much pain in the voice, so much hatred, that Will felt he would be smothered by it.

  “Strife,” someone whispered behind him, and he turned to see Serah gazing over his shoulder. Malice darkened her face, and Will could see in her eyes the faint flickering beginnings of lightning bolts. When she moved, her body was tense with anger, and the thin veneer of control she kept over her rage frightened Will almost as much as the thought of whatever had torn the ship asunder.

  “Where is he?” Will asked, and Serah turned her flashing eyes on him.

  “Close,” she spat. “He will pay soon. For everything he has done.”

  “Face me,” Strife roared, as though in answer to Serah's assertion, and suddenly the skies began to darken with black storm clouds. They appeared from nowhere, roiling and billowing with unnatural speed to blot out the sun and plunge the world into darkness. Red flashed sporadically within the depths of the thunderheads, the telltale signs of some otherworldly lightning, and Will was taken for a brief instant back to his dream in the forest. He did not stop to wonder why he could only just now recall t
he details.

  No, it wasn't lightning, he thought, remembering. It was a heartbeat.

  But this was no heartbeat. The flashes of red came faster and faster, casting a dim, erratic crimson sheen across the darkened waters. Peals of thunder rolled through the air, drowning out every lesser sound in their wake and deafening those who did not cover their ears quickly enough. Jagged bolts of blood-red lightning split the sky asunder and struck ferociously at the sea, boiling the waters away and instantly killing any living creature unfortunate enough to be close to their tendrils. Some found their way to the ships of Borbos' armada, and those that could not avoid the lightning's path were smashed asunder. Wood and cloth burned with an unnatural blood-red flame, and the fires leaped about hungrily, consuming everything in their path as though of their own volition.

  The Fury was saved from a similar fate only by Serah's intervention; each crimson lightning bolt that came to rend the ship found its path blocked by a glaring blue-white one. It was a reactive battle, however, and judging from the look of deep concentration on her face Serah seemed to be hard pressed to even ward off the few bolts that sought the Fury.

  “Stop the fires, Will,” Clare said beside him, and he turned to see her gazing out at the carnage in horror. She looked back at him, her eyes shining like emeralds despite the bloody glow. “Will, you're the only one who can do it. Just do what Borbos told you to.”

  Will licked his lips nervously and flicked his gaze to the burning ships. The lightning was coming even faster now, and the flames had grown with frightening speed. Nearly a third of the armada's remaining vessels were either afire or sinking rapidly beneath the surface. “I-I don't know if I can,” he stammered. “There's so much...”

  Clare seized his face and pulled him around so that he was looking at her once again. “You can do it,” she said forcefully. “Will, I know you can. Please, Will. You have to save those people.”