He was sitting on one of the dining chairs in the middle of the foyer.
“Ahrek, we have to go.”
Ahrek took a moment to answer. “I suspected you from the first time we met,” he said in a soft, defeated tone.
“What are you talking about?”
“I thought my suspicion foolish, but I just kept noticing things. Like how you said you’ve visited the cities of the Floating Isles. You know enough about them for that to be true, but when I mentioned that I’d heard they were rebuilt, you said that you had heard the same, not seen, meaning you hadn’t visited them since their destruction, which occurred before the time of your supposed birth.”
Oh no, Daylen thought numbly.
“That might have simply been a slip of the tongue, but you speak with the knowledge and experience of someone far, far older. You possess skills that take a lifetime to develop and perfect. You face battle with the confidence and calm of one that has fought in war. The Shade thought you the Conqueror. You know the names of the girls he forced into his bed and every sunucle that was linked to him is linked to you.”
Ahrek remained staring at the wall, his back still to Daylen. “Still, even with all this, I gave you the benefit of the doubt—that was until this fall, where I spoke to a sunsmith and paid a visit to the records office. The sunsmith told me that indeed a link has a very small chance to pass on, but only to the first-born child. We both know that Dayless fathered hundreds of children, and if you were one of them, you would be among the last born, not the first, which means there’s only one way that Imperious could be linked to you. At the records office I found that every single thing you’ve said about your childhood was a lie. There is no birth certificate of you anywhere, and your name is missing from every single orphanage in all of Mornington.”
Ahrek stood and turned to face Daylen with an expression as cold as death. “So, Daylen, I’m going to ask you a question—and by the Light, you will answer me honestly. Are you Dayless the Conqueror?”
Chapter Forty-Two
After the knights declared war, things changed drastically for me. No one really understands how powerful the knights are. I certainly underestimated them after killing my advisor knight, Puppy, but apparently Puppy wasn’t particularly strong.
In one battle, a single knight defeated a whole fleet, summoning an apocalyptic storm and calling down lightning that utterly devastated my ships.
Once the Knights joined the resistance, who were well prepared and equipped, I was beaten back again and again.
* * *
Daylen’s heart felt like it had been pulled down further and further with each word, and he now looked at Ahrek feeling nothing, his soul void and empty. “Yes,” he replied.
Ahrek’s face was as still as stone. “Which Bringer did it?”
“Did what?”
“Used his last miracle to make you young?”
“I didn’t even know that was possible.”
“You have lied to me every fall from the time we met, Dayless,” Ahrek said, the last word dripping with venom. “STOP IT!”
“No Bringer did this to me,” Daylen said truthfully. “I was turned young when I received my powers, and trust me, it’s not what I wanted. If you recall from the note I left, I was actually trying to kill myself.”
“Yes, by casting yourself from the continent. Pity that didn’t work out for you.”
“Yeah. Now what?”
Ahrek huffed a bitter laugh. “It’s funny that we’ve never truly met before the freak accident that turned you young. We have a long history, you and I.”
“What do you mean?”
“Ahrek isn’t my original name; it’s the one I took up after becoming a Lightbringer.”
“Really?” Daylen asked, wondering numbly in what way and to what extent he had hurt this man. “So who are you, then?”
Ahrek stared into Daylen’s eyes, their faces locked. “Rayaten Leusa.”
Daylen stumbled back, feeling as if Ahrek had just physically kicked him in the gut. His world reeled and he fell to the floor, catching himself with a hand.
“You’re Rayaten Leusa?” Daylen asked, his eyes wide in utter astonishment.
“Yes. Every battle you fought against the rebellion, every alliance forged against you—I was behind it all.”
Daylen’s head was spinning.
“Do you know why I became the leader of the revolution?”
“No.”
Ahrek’s voice quivered as he spoke. “You killed my family. My wife. My son, my daughters! You killed them all, you bastard!”
“I…I’m sorry,” Daylen said quietly.
“You think that means anything?!”
He shook his head. “I know it doesn’t.”
“Anara, my wife; Deston, my son; Arenna and Sereen, my daughters,” Ahrek fumed bitterly. “Know the names of at least a few that you butchered!”
“I’ll remember them.”
“Good—and now you’ll take those names to your grave.” In a flash of light, Ahrek created a white diamond sunforged blade and kite shield, swinging the sword down at Daylen.
Without thinking, Daylen’s sword arm shot up and he summoned Imperious from light, blocking Ahrek’s attack.
“I’ve wanted to die for the last twenty years,” Daylen said through clenched teeth. “But the Light has denied me my wish. So please, Ahrek, please, kill me if you can. I want you to…I just can’t let you.”
“Lies! No pain in this life is close to what the Light has in store for you,” he snarled. “All I have to do is ensure you meet it!”
Ahrek lashed out with the skill of a Grand High Master, but with Daylen’s sunforged gauntlet and enhanced speed and reflexes he easily deflected each of Ahrek’s attacks.
“Ahrek, this isn’t you!” Daylen said amongst the singing sunforged blades as he withdrew step by step from Ahrek’s onslaught.
“You don’t know a thing about me!”
“Killing me will do nothing! My destiny is Outer Darkness, where my existence will be destroyed. That isn’t a punishment, it’s a gift!”
“For one such as you, the Light will see that you answer for every one of your sins before your existence ends!”
“Yes, by prolonging my wretched life!”
“I’ll prove that false by killing you.”
“Ahrek, we don’t have time for this,” Daylen said desperately as he deflected more and more strikes. “There’s a half-kilometer-wide island about to ram the city and I have to help stop it!”
They had fought their way out of the penthouse onto the patio by this time, their swords chiming off one another again and again.
“You still think so highly of yourself,” Ahrek replied harshly. “What can you do that the knights can’t? That’s where Lyrah has gone, isn’t it?”
“I have to know that the city is safe!”
“The world will never be safe as long as you still breathe!”
Daylen reached the edge of the building and quickly performed a power jump to get away.
As Daylen soared through the air, he looked back to see Ahrek running after him, jumping from the edge of the Fallton.
“Ahrek, no!”
But Ahrek didn’t fall. He flew directly toward Daylen with an outstretched hand.
Ahrek can fly?
Something suddenly grabbed Daylen around the waist, stopping him midair.
It was the invisible force from Ahrek’s power. Ahrek was still flying toward him, his sword held back, ready to thrust.
Daylen grabbed the skimmer at his waist and moved it away from him with an outstretched hand. He locked the skimmer in place, enhanced his strength to maximum, and heaved. He ripped the handle clean off, not having come close to breaking Ahrek’s invisible hold.
Daylen didn’t have time for this. Luckily, he had a way to incapacitate Ahrek, and hopefully it wouldn’t kill the Bringer.
As Ahrek reached him he swung, his sword leveled to take off Daylen’s head.
Light, the man wasn’t kidding around. Ahrek clearly knew that Daylen could heal from anything but a deathblow.
Daylen went to block with his gauntlet but feinted, triggering his darkstone dagger.
An invisible force grabbed Daylen’s gauntlet the very moment he was about to touch Ahrek’s sunforged sword. Daylen had suspected Ahrek would do this; there was no way the Bringer would let him shatter the sword, and his reply had just given Daylen a point of leverage.
With his strength still enhanced, Daylen heaved his arm outwards, his body braced against Ahrek’s first hold, both breaking the hold on Daylen’s gauntlet and blocking Ahrek’s sword strike with it.
Ahrek screamed as a loud crack rung the air. He dropped his sword and shield to clutch at his chest as he fell.
The force holding Daylen’s waist disappeared at the same time, and he fell with him.
Ahrek’s eyes were closed and his teeth bared against pain.
Daylen reached out, grabbing Ahrek to save them both from the fall.
Ahrek’s eyes shot open and he grabbed the darkstone dagger still sticking out of Daylen’s gauntlet. Light flashed and the Bringer summoned a sunforged sword in his other hand before skewering Daylen without hesitation. Ahrek twisted the sword and slashed it out of Daylen’s side.
Daylen screamed and tried to kick Ahrek away from him, but Ahrek held to the darkstone dagger like a lifeline, which also prevented Daylen from shattering the Bringer’s sword with it. Ahrek went to slash at him again, but Daylen kicked even harder, causing the dagger to snap free and knocking them apart.
Daylen got a second of healing in before he increased his body’s fortitude and mass, which slowed him considerably. Stones shattered under him as he fell the remaining meter, making a deep depression into the ground.
He switched all his bonds back to healing and tried to look about.
His head was reeling from pain—but Daylen was used to pain, and he managed to figure out that he had landed in the middle of a main street, a large crowd of people startled by his sudden appearance.
Daylen crawled out of his crater and looked past them to see Ahrek floating just above the ground some twenty meters away, his eyes pressed shut and face scrunched in agony. His arm was pointed beneath him, palm open to the ground. In a second or two he drifted upright, his face slowly relaxing. He absorbed the sword in his hand, but Daylen’s darkstone blade was nowhere to be seen.
Thankfully Daylen was almost fully healed and had climbed to his feet. He had nearly been cut in two.
“I don’t have time for this!” Daylen hissed to himself.
Ahrek noticed him quickly and he flew in his direction like a shotspike. He reached a hand forward and force-grabbed Daylen, picking him up and throwing him with incredible strength at one of the buildings to his left.
Clearly Ahrek had learned not to grab Daylen with two telekinetic holds, thereby giving him a point of leverage. With only one force grabbing him, Daylen could do nothing to stop it.
Instead he increased his mass and fortitude, curled himself into a ball, and held Imperious tight.
He smashed through the entire building. Daylen hit the brick building behind the first, making a large spider-web crack in it and falling to the alleyway, where he landed uninjured.
“Glad that worked,” he said to himself. He hadn’t been sure enhancing his fortitude and mass would prevent injury to the level it had.
Daylen channeled all his bonds to speed and shot down the alleyway like a skyship in fight. He held his gauntlet in front as a windshield, yet the drag from his clothes still nearly ripped them off his body. Then he noticed that Ahrek hadn’t snapped his darkstone dagger free from his gauntlet but had ripped it clean out, wrecking the springs and leaving no darkstone at all.
Looking back, Daylen saw Ahrek hovering in the air. He seemed to spot Daylen easily.
At my regular speed, I can sprint at thirty kilometers an hour, making this speed four hundred and eighty. No—the wind resistance is slowing me, but surely Ahrek can’t match this speed. Daylen had thought too soon, for he noticed something shining in Ahrek’s hands as the Bringer flew at him easily closing the distance.
He’s surging, Daylen realized. What a good idea, he thought before skidding to a stop, kicking in a door, and ducking into a building.
It was a stockroom for one of the stores that faced a main street. Daylen ran and grabbed the sunstones from the bracketed wall sconces. He tucked three under the glove of his gauntlet where they lay fixed on his skin.
As he did so, a loud whining siren rung in the air.
Daylen knew that sound: it was the Night Siren, usually used to announce the fall of night, but it was also used for other city-wide alerts. “Lyrah! She’s started the evacuation,” Daylen said to himself with some relief.
Daylen heard steps land on the cobblestones outside.
“All right, I clearly can’t escape him, so I’ll just have to end this.”
Daylen increased his mass and then his speed, but not nearly as much as he could—he didn’t exactly want to crash through the building on the other side. It was dumb luck that he hadn’t hit anyone when Ahrek had thrown him before.
Daylen ran to the door, timing it so he would reach it at the same time Ahrek did.
He rammed Ahrek, knocking him into the brick wall on the other side, which splintered in a massive circular crack.
But Ahrek wasn’t hurt at all; in fact, he hadn’t even hit the wall. He had pushed himself off it with his powers, letting the force he could create absorb the impact. Ahrek must be pushing against anything that came near him, effectively making an invisible protective barrier.
“Oh, Light.”
Ahrek’s powers grabbed Daylen and smashed him back and forth into the side walls of the alleyway, the Night Siren whirling in the air.
Daylen had increased his mass and fortitude the very moment Ahrek grabbed him, surging off the sunstones at the moment of each impact. Large holes were shattered into the brick walls with each collision. Again and again he was smashed, moving up the alleyway in a zigzag of demolition.
He was eventually thrown to the cobblestone ground.
Daylen stood, dust and rubble falling off. “Haven’t you figured out that that’s not working?” he said, and power jumped away.
Daylen half expected to be grabbed by Ahrek’s powers again, but it appeared that he had finally gotten the message.
Daylen soared over the buildings and landed in the middle of a main street.
There were a lot of people bustling on the street but they were clearly too preoccupied with the evacuation, announced by the Night Siren, to notice him or even care.
Ahrek flew after him and thrust his hands outward, light bursting from his hands and materializing into four sunforged swords, two on each. The swords moved forward with Ahrek, each one spinning to point at Daylen. Ahrek then threw his hands forward and the four swords shot at Daylen like arrows.
“Light!” Daylen said, jumping to the side, dodging the swords—but the swords flew around and attacked again.
With enhanced speed and reflexes Daylen blocked and parried with his gauntlet and sword, dodging those attacks that got through his defense.
It was the most intense battle he had ever fought. The attacks came at an unbelievable speed, one after another, several at the same time, and even with Daylen’s enhanced speed and reflexes he was very hard pressed to keep them at bay.
Ahrek was incredibly powerful!
And then Ahrek himself attacked in conjunction with his other swords, adding more pressure to the onslaught.
Daylen blocked and switched all bonds to speed, lunging out of the fray in a sudden flash. He then power jumped on a long arc to get some distance and breathing room.
But Ahrek was right behind him, sending his swords forward.
Daylen landed on a high-rise rooftop, spinning to knock aside the swords that were right behind him with his enhanced sunforged gauntlet. That gauntlet had s
aved him from getting struck many times in this fight already.
The swords attacked again and Ahrek came with them.
It was too much and a sword passed his defense, cutting Daylen deep in the thigh.
Grunting, Daylen rolled out of the fray and yelled, “Back in Blackheart’s den, you said I was a better man than the Conqueror! Can’t you see I’ve changed?”
Thankfully Ahrek paused, the four swords hovering above him. “You think the little good you’ve done absolves you of your sins? You must answer for your crimes!”
Daylen took the pause to heal his wound. “How did I do it?” he asked.
“How did you do what?”
“How did I kill them?”
Ahrek sneered. “Of course you wouldn’t know. What’s another drop in a sea of blood? My family and I lived in Daybreak.”
Daylen’s heart sunk. Daybreak—of course.
“I was away during the attack,” Ahrek added, “and returned to find the entire city destroyed with every man, woman, and child executed by your order.”
Daylen’s guilt welled inside, bringing with it a pain greater than any injury he had ever received. He closed his eyes, trying to bear it, eventually nodding as a tear ran down his cheek. “Now I know. Anara, Deston, Arenna and Sereen. I told you that I’d remember them, and I will.”
Ahrek readied himself to attack, his resolve not looking to have changed a bit.
This might really be the end, Daylen thought with hope—but if he simply let Ahrek kill him, it would be exactly the same as if Daylen had done it himself, running away from his pain like a coward. Daylen was many things, but he was not a coward. The only way to know if it really was the Light itself that was granting him the release he desired was if Daylen fought with all his might to stop it. Then, and only then, when his death was caused by things completely outside of his power, would he know.
Ahrek burst forward and without thinking Daylen defended, moving like lightning, yet it was still barely enough.
Energetic chimes sounded in fast succession as sunucles clashed on each other again and again. Daylen spun and weaved, moving four times as fast as he was naturally able, like a superhuman dancer pushing his skills to their very limit.
Shadow of the Conqueror Page 45
