With his mind working sixteen times faster and more efficient than normal, he asked himself what could he do? What had he not thought of yet?
Plan after plan flashed in his mind as it worked at superhuman speed, each one useless. I have to think out of the box, he thought. Is there any other way I can use my powers that will help, any way at all that I’ve never considered?
What could his powers do? They could enhance anything that was a part of his physical self. Anything that was a part of physical self.
Daylen opened his eyes and said, “I know what to do.”
“What?” she asked disbelievingly. “How?”
“No time to explain,” he said releasing his bonds and being assailed by a wave of pain. It was even worse this time. Using two bonds to power jump to the Bloodrunner, which was still flying high above keeping pace with the island, Daylen used his other two to heal his headache.
The pain barely subsided this time, but Daylen was used to pain, he would just have to ignore it.
He landed on the deck with Lyrah right behind him.
“We’re out of time, Daylen!” Ahrek called out urgently.
“Not yet!” Daylen said, running to the helm.
Sain jumped aside, letting Daylen take control of the levers. “Everyone strap themselves in, because this is going to be rough!”
They did so, sitting on the inbuilt side benches and buckling the leather straps.
The seat straps were there in case of storms and bad weather, for skyships rarely ever flew dangerously, especially with the inbuilt safeties—but Daylen had disabled the Bloodrunner’s safeties falls ago so it could be towed.
There were straps for the helmsman, but Daylen didn’t need them. Instead he bonded light to his feet’s grip, which practically fused him to the deck.
Daylen yanked down the accelerator lever and the whole ship audibly groaned as it shot forward like a shotspike, the darkstone core threatening to rip itself from the ship’s supports. She had never been built to accelerate so fast, but Daylen knew what she could handle.
Everyone was thrown sideways in their seats as the ship accelerated incredibly fast, and as it reached the island’s front edge Daylen steered the ship to fly up in a flip, the g-forces truly intense, and then straight down, point first, like a plummeting arrow.
“Oh light, oh light, oh light, oh light,” Sharra panted in panic, squeezing her belt straps with white knuckles.
“I’m about to piss myseeeellllffffff!” Sain screamed.
“Daylen, I hope to the Light that you know what you’re doing!” Ahrek called out next.
“So do I!” Daylen called back, pushing the ship to go even faster, the island’s side flying past them in a blur.
Daylen yanked a back lever, kicking the ship into a wild rotating spin which caused everyone else to scream, even Lyrah.
Daylen worked the ship’s flight levers like a madman, fighting against the strain and directing the ship to the exact place he needed it to be before pulling the ship to a very quick but smooth halt.
Well, not quite a halt—the ship was still moving, of course, in perfect pace with the island, the helm five meters from the island’s side.
“Okay,” Sain said with a totally pale face, “now I really have pissed myself.”
“Me too,” Sharra said, sitting next to him.
“Daylen, I had no idea you could fly so…” Ahrek trailed off in amazement.
Daylen ran to Sain, and with enhanced strength ripped his straps off and dragged him to the helm.
“When I swing my sword you kick this thing into reverse, you hear me?”
“Yeah, yeah, sure!”
Daylen jumped off the helm and increased his mass so much that he came to a stop in the air and then fell crashing through the deck and the floors under it all the way until he reached the core, having reduced his mass incrementally with each impact so he could land without issue.
The core room was where one could get access to the sealed darkstone core of the ship, and the sunstone drivers fixed all around it.
Daylen summoned Imperious and cut out one of the sunstones inside a driver. A large hunk of brilliantly shining rock the size of a melon fell into his hand.
Daylen jumped out of the hole he had made, and in a great burst of speed ran to the bow.
He held the large chunk of sunstone in his left hand, Imperious in his right. He pulled his right arm across his chest, Imperious pointing behind him, and clenched his teeth as he channeled each bond into his sword. Daylen sucked on the sunstone’s light for the biggest surge he could manage, channeling everything he had into Imperious.
Imperious shone with blinding light and power and Daylen screamed in rage and passion, slashing out at the island before him.
As he swung, a line of white light shot out of Imperious in the shape of a blade over two kilometers long which cut into the island, leaving a trail of light behind.
The sound of shattering glass filled their air again and again; a deafening chorus as Daylen pushed his blade on.
The pain was unbelievable, the Light inside pushing on his body like he was getting torn apart.
Bright, thin lines of sapphire blue webbed across the white light where Imperious’s true blade swung, forming a web of cracks that appeared and then disappeared in quick successive flashes.
Shattering and shattering and shattering, the sword chimed until the enormous blade of light slashed out the other side of the island.
The massive island rumbled loudly as it was cut completely in two.
With a final deafening rumble, the island’s bottom half fell off.
As the underside of the island’s now exposed darkstone core was uncovered more and more, the light pushed the top half upward.
The bottom half plummeted to the ground. The upper half still moved forward, but now at a steep upward angle heading over the city’s shield entirely.
Sain had done as he had been told and flew the ship away from the two halves of the island.
The sunstone was now the size of a marble in Daylen’s hand and he staggered, falling to his knees.
The stone and his sword dropped to the deck, Daylen losing all control over his body.
He could feel that his heart had stopped beating, his strength completely sacrificed.
It had been too much. Ahrek had warned him about surging, but he had needed that massive boost, as otherwise he would not have been able to cut through the whole island.
He sagged and then slumped over, dying—and at the bow of the ship, there was no deck to catch him.
He fell.
Lyrah watched on in disbelief as the Conqueror did the impossible. Somehow, he was channeling light into his sword. She had not known that was even possible. None of the knights had.
And the power! He was surging too much—he was going to kill himself!
Dayless finished his strike, which had all only taken an instant, though the vibrations and the sound had been deafening.
He collapsed.
Lyrah pulled her straps off and stood to see the man who had just saved hundreds of thousands of lives fall from the ship.
“Daylen!” the Bringer called out, running to the ship’s siding. “DAYLEN! A skimmer, I need a skimmer!”
Time seemed to slow down for Lyrah. This was what she wanted, wasn’t it? That evil monster had stolen her from her family when she was only fourteen years old and abused her constantly. He had murdered millions and he deserved to die…didn’t he?
She honestly didn’t know. If she’d been asked a few hours ago, she would have answered yes without hesitation. But now…
With tears running down her cheeks, Lyrah raced to the side of the ship, calling out her sunforged sword and dropping it on the deck and then diving off headfirst, increasing her mass.
She plummeted like a shotspike, her increased mass pushing her though the wind resistance and falling with much greater speed than normal.
She easily gained on Daylen, but it wou
ld still be very close for both of them.
At fifty meters from the ground she grabbed him, reversing her mass and switching her free bond to the link with her sword, and then pulled.
Their fall quickly slowed and then stopped a meter from the road under them. Lyrah then gently slackened her link so that they drifted down the remaining distance.
They landed right in the middle of the highway out of the city a few hundred meters from the border of the shield. A massive crowd of evacuees were amassed here and were looking at them, utterly stunned.
Lyrah lay Daylen on the ground.
He was dead.
Why did I even bother? she thought to herself. No Lightbinder would be able to survive a surge like that. I didn’t save his life…but still, he didn’t deserve to become a mess on the ground.
He didn’t deserve? What was she thinking! He deserved that and more—he was the great monster of her existence.
Then why had she done what she had just done? Why, when looking at him, did she not feel as much hate as she once had?
The massive throng of people had made a circle around them.
The bottom half of the island had crashed onto the ground behind Lyrah, forming a new broad hill. Lyrah has seen these people trying to move out of the way of the island as it had flown over the land, the ominous shadow clearly scaring them away so hopefully no one had been crushed by the bottom half.
“We’re saved!” a woman said off to Lyrah’s side.
“You saved us, Lady Archon!” another person said.
“No… Not me,” Lyrah said softly. “He did.”
“Wait… I recognize him,” someone else said. “He’s that hero. The son of Dayless the Conqueror.”
“No,” Lyrah said, standing. “He is the hero that you’ve all been hearing about recently, but he isn’t the son of Dayless the Conqueror. This young man is Dayless the Conqueror.”
The crowd gasped in unified disbelief. “The Light is capable of many great and wonderful things,” Lyrah called out. “Just look at the Lumatorium, or my own powers… For reasons I cannot fathom, the Light saw fit to make the Conqueror young again, and he has been living each fall since then trying to do good. Ultimately, he saved the whole city.” She sighed. “I don’t know what to make of him any more than you do.”
The people were silent apart from the murmurs spreading the news to those who hadn’t been able to hear.
Shifting wind caused Lyrah to look to her side and see the ship they had been aboard come in low, a rope ladder being dropped.
Ahrek and the two children climbed down, the purple-haired boy carrying the Conqueror’s sword.
The Lightbringer ran to the fallen tyrant, kneeling beside him and pulling him to his chest. “Daylen!”
“Why do you cry, Bringer?” Lyrah asked. “You wanted him dead as much as I.”
“I did…but not anymore,” Ahrek said, weeping. “I’ve forgiven him.”
“What?” Lyrah said, ignoring her own doubts. “How could you?”
“Because that is the only true path to peace,” Ahrek said, looking at her with intense eyes. “This man was no longer Dayless the Conqueror.”
“But if he really was Dayless the Conqueror,” a man spoke from the crowd, “it’s a blessing he’s dead.”
“What are you saying?!” another woman protested. “He just saved the city!”
“It don’t change what he’s done!” the man replied.
“Of course it does,” another spoke out.
“And what if he had gone back to being the Great Bastard with those powers he had,” yet another person said. “Look at what he just did! He sliced a huge island in half. He could wipe out the city in a second if he wanted to.”
The crowd erupted into a massive argument.
“I don’t know much about the Conqueror and what he’d supposed to have done,” the young man who had flown the ship said softly under the riot of voices. Only those near could hear him. “All I know is that this man saved my life in more ways than I can count… I’ll love him forever.”
“This can’t be,” the Bringer said with quiet resolve. “I will not let him die… There is a reason why the Light sent me to him, I can bring him back.”
“Your last miracle?” Lyrah exclaimed in shock. “You can’t give your life for his!”
“I can, and I…” But the Bringer was cut off by a gasp of breath—from Daylen.
“Daylen? Daylen! He’s alive!” the Bringer cried.
Daylen gasped again, his hand reaching to the sky.
The blue-haired girl with them sobbed in relief, and the crowd was a mixture of cheers and cries of fear.
“He needs to be healed,” Ahrek said urgently. “We need another Lightbringer. Someone find a Lightbringer!”
“No need,” Lyrah said, feeling completely incredulous. “He’s channeling light. He’s healing himself…but it’s impossible. He surged so much,” she continued uncertainly. “No Lightbinder should have been able to survive that.”
Daylen, the monster, breathed in heaving gasps.
How could he have survived! Lyrah screamed in her mind—and, as she did, an answer came.
“He has four bonds,” she said in awe. “His body must be capable of sustaining and channeling far more light than a regular Lightbinder, which means he can surge to a much greater degree. That must be how he survived!”
Daylen sat up, holding his chest. “Ow…” he said expressively.
Ahrek laughed. “Light, you had me worried.”
Lyrah felt sick. Oh, she felt less hatred when looking on this man, but there was still plenty of it left. He was still Dayless the Conqueror—he had still done all those terrible things to her…and yet she had helped save him.
“Oh, my head is pounding. Where am I?” Daylen asked.
“The highway out of the city,” the Bringer answered. “Do you remember what happened?”
“Remember! Light, I’ll never forget. That hurt like a bastard.” Ahrek helped him to his feet where Daylen noticed the crowd. “Ahrek, they’re staring at me with a bit more intensity than I’m used to.”
“They know, Daylen.”
“Oh.”
“Here,” the boy said, handing Daylen his sword. “From the sound you made when you struck the island, I thought it had shattered into a million pieces, but it doesn’t even have a scratch.”
“Thank you, Sain,” Daylen said, taking the sword and looking at the blade. “I wasn’t sure if the darkstone core of the island would have any effect since the actual blade didn’t touch it, just its projected power. I guess the effects travel both ways, which means any other blade would have shattered as soon as the darkstone core was struck.”
“It sounded like a million dinner plates being smashed,” the young blue-haired girl said as she clung to the purple-haired boy.
“That was Imperious resisting the darkstone. Light, so many breakings were just used that I’ve lost count.”
“Breakings?” Ahrek asked.
Imperious dematerialized into light that Daylen pulled into himself. “Sunucles can’t really become indestructible, but I did find a way to give them more lives.”
“Is that the secret?” the boy asked.
“That’s just how it functions,” the Conqueror said. “I won’t be telling anyone how it’s achieved.”
“Daylen, you should go,” Ahrek said, looking at the crowd. “Before word reaches the government of who you are.” Ahrek then glanced to Lyrah. “After what you did in saving the city, I think even the Archon here will permit it—for now.”
Lyrah still didn’t know what to do or what to think. She hated this man, the Conqueror; yet just like the Bringer had said, he had saved the whole city, as well as Lyrah’s life when they had fought together on the island, even after she had tried so hard to kill him.
Daylen looked to the crowd and didn’t reply right away. He sighed. “No.”
The Bringer tried to protest, saying, “Daylen…”
“You were right, Ahrek,” Daylen said. “For twenty years I’ve been trying to punish myself; and in doing so, I’ve denied all those I’ve wronged the chance to confront me as you have.”
“But, Daylen, they won’t see you as a changed man! Look at what I went through before seeing it. They’ll call for your head,” the Bringer urged.
“Then I might finally get to rest. If I’m truly sorry for my crimes, I’ll answer for them. I see that now. There’s no other way.”
Ahrek eventually nodded. “Very well, but I’ll remain with you through this.”
“Thank you, Ahrek,” Daylen said, and stepped forward. “I am Dayless the Conqueror!” he called out. “Yes, I appear young, but that’s because death was too good for me. I hate myself for all the evil I have wrought and living with the guilt has been unbearable. So don’t think that my prolonged life is a blessing.”
Daylen felt tears on his cheeks as he continued. “I can never undo the terrible things I’ve done… And for them, I’m sorry. I know my apology does nothing to fix things, and everyone alive has some claim on me for justice. And so I’ll let you. Tell the authorities that I wait for them at the Fallton. I’ll come willingly and accept whatever punishment you feel I deserve.”
Lyrah watched as the monster walked away.
The crowd parted before him to make a wide clearing; whether this was out of respect or fear, she couldn’t tell.
Nor could she understand her own conflicted feelings. Part of her still wanted revenge. But was that needed? She had confronted her monster, fought him, and proven to herself that she was not weak or afraid. She felt good for that.
Cueseg had been right. She had needed to confront her fears—
“Cueseg!” Lyrah said in agonizing remembrance as she looked to the island that was rising high into the sky.
Cueseg, Kennet, Lem… Every Archknight who had been in the city apart from herself, was now dead. The sudden pain was nearly too much to bear.
“Lady Archon, are you okay?” the young purple-haired boy asked.
Lyrah couldn’t prevent a tear from running down her cheek, but when she spoke her voice was stronger than she expected. “No. I need your help.”
Shadow of the Conqueror Page 50
