Death

by Rosie Scott

  Cerin didn't reply, full of frustration and turmoil that he took out on each soldier he faced until he bathed the courtyard in red. Nyx and Maggie stayed nearby to keep fighting, though Nyx lightheartedly called out to us as we left, “You two are the only ones going in there, and you better be the only ones coming out!”

  “Let's finish this quickly,” Azazel suggested, loosing arrows into the castle's entryway even before my eyes could adjust to the change in light. Several Chairel soldiers dropped dead in lumps, and I threw enervat at the stragglers. As massive as Terran's army was, few soldiers had infiltrated the castle. Perhaps we had reached it so late they were nearly done raiding it. The hallways leading through the building appeared to be empty.

  “There are men ransacking in the lower levels,” Azazel informed me, pointing down at his boots where he could hear the ruckus even when I couldn't. “There is also a group of people talking jovially upstairs.”

  My first concern in the castle was finding Chance to ensure Terran didn't capture him, and the god kept most of his work belongings on the higher floors. “Upstairs first,” I decided, jogging up the stairs to the upper levels and stepping over Azazel's victims on the way. He quickly gathered his arrows from the corpses as he followed me.

  As I traveled ever upward, my ears finally caught the remnants of the jovial conversation Azazel had heard earlier. I followed the voices, summoning death magic as I exited the stairs on the eighth floor landing and walked down the hall.

  “...in this lovely weather.” Chance's voice was just as bright and happy as if he were talking with friends.

  “Lovely?” came the reply from an unknown man. “It's all murky and gray.”

  “And cool and energetic,” Chance pointed out in reply.

  A woman laughed merrily. “You must be a mage, friend!”

  “No,” Chance replied. That was a lie, for the god knew alteration and illusion magic. “I'm just a trader. After years of traveling I've become partial to cooler weather.”

  “A trader?” a younger male voice interrupted. “Nah...look at those golden eyes. You can't fool us. You're a god.”

  “Terran said as such,” the woman replied. After a pause, she asked, “What's he want with you, anyway? He just kind of up and left.”

  “Oh...” Chance laughed lightly. “Perhaps advice. Trading's all I know, and I heard Sera is ripe for tourism.”

  “Nah,” said the younger man again. “You know more than that. You're a god. Not a trader.”

  “Even gods have hobbies,” Chance replied as an excuse. A moment later, a chair audibly scooted back over stone. “Anyone care for tea?”

  I turned the corner of the room in question, finding a most peculiar sight. It was one of the many meeting rooms in the castle, but I had specifically given this one to Chance before leaving for Narangar so he would have his own office to do with as he pleased. It was a modestly-sized room, lined on each wall with bookshelves and cabinets. A desk faced the corner and was clear of clutter. The last time I'd seen Chance's office, it had been a mess of documents and texts from its last owner that he had offered to clean up himself. Evidently he had, for there was nary a granule of dust in sight. A fireplace lit up the room on the other side of a wooden table from the door.

  The table could sit up to ten people, and Chance and I had used it a few times to discuss city planning or trade agreements with my allies. Now, six people sat around the table in various states of laziness. Five of them wore Chairel armor, and one older man had the prestigious gear of a general. Their armor was bloodied and marred from recent battle, but they lounged around like it was their day off. The general had a pair of handcuffs sitting on the surface before him though he only fingered the metal subconsciously out of boredom. A mage had a length of rope still grasped in one hand, but she did nothing with it.

  The Chairel soldiers noticed my arrival with a heavy dose of curiosity and a bit of confusion. They made no move to fight us even though I held magic and Azazel had an arrow nocked just over my shoulder.

  At the center of the odd scene and between two Chairel soldiers was Chance, sitting on the chair that had scooted back. Rope burns reddened his golden-hued wrists, but he was otherwise uninjured. Chance and I exchanged glances, and his golden eyes flooded with relief. Perhaps Chance was using his aura to keep from being captured, but he'd run out of options.

  I scanned over the room's occupants before I asked Chance pointedly, “Friends of yours?”

  Chance leaned back in his chair to defensively pull away from the table and said, “Nope.”

  Azazel loosed arrows, and I leeched from the others through funnels. Within seconds, the five enemy soldiers fell off their chairs as Chance exhaled with relief. The god stood up from his chair and said, “I'm so happy to see you alive and...well, here,” he began. He motioned to the bodies on the floor of his office. “They were trying to capture me.”

  “Then they weren't doing a good job,” I commented, raising the soldiers from the dead.

  “Terran is in the castle,” Chance said, staring at the undead general as Azazel held the corpse still to retrieve his arrow out of its eye. Sensing the god's stare, the corpse turned to glare back, still bleeding from its fatal wound. Chance grimaced at the sight and looked back at me. “I'm glad you're on my side, Kai.”

  “My brother,” I reminded him.

  “Yes—sorry,” Chance offered, sensing my current impatience. “He stormed the castle with two gods at his side. Never met either of them. Based on what you told me, I think one of them is Raphael. The other one is human in appearance like me. Terran was under the impression you were in here since he didn't see you outside. He told his men to capture me and anyone else they found in the castle and then he and the others went downstairs.”

  “They almost succeeded,” Azazel surmised, noting the handcuffs on the table and Chance's rope burns.

  “They started to, but when I heard Terran's men reach the stairs I used my aura,” Chance explained. “Kept thinking I'd come up with a plan to do more than stall them, but they were talkative bastards.” He followed Azazel and me as we went back out to the hallway. “Thank you for rescuing me, Kai. I'm sorry I'm useless when it comes to fighting.”

  “You're not useless,” I replied, preparing two new spells preemptively as I led the men down the left staircase. “But you do owe me one hundred gold.”

  It took Chance a few seconds to get my joke, and then he huffed with amusement. Other than Azazel's plea for the god to stay behind him, we were silent as we traveled down to the entrance hall in search of my brother.

  The clash of steel and screams of battle were louder than ever when we reached the ground floor again, for the noise easily passed through the broken castle entrance as we passed it. I hurried down the main hallway and under the upper landings, passing guard rooms and toilets and an armory on the way. Terran's men had gone through all these rooms, for even the kitchen was a mess of fallen dishware, broken chairs, and squashed food. I led Azazel and Chance through the kitchen at the back of the castle, on my way to the stairs leading down into its basement.

  A hand reached out and grabbed my upper arm just as I took the first step down. I turned back. Azazel put one finger over his mouth to keep me quiet and jerked a thumb back to the main hall. I frowned in confusion.

  “You heard them,” I whispered, pointing down at the lower levels.

  Azazel hesitated as he listened closely. He shook his head, jerking a thumb back again. “They passed us,” he murmured.

  It took me a moment to understand what he meant. While Azazel and I had freed Chance, Terran and his men must have went back upstairs. Either they had passed our floor and went farther up in suspicion or need of more intel, or we had passed them on our way back down. Given the castle set-up, it was easy to miss seeing others climbing its staircases in the entryway while one was down a hallway, for the hallways faced the center of the entrance while the stairs went up either side. Regardless, somehow two people searchin
g for each other had missed one another, and now I was in the back of the castle while Terran was near its front doors. Just on the other side of those doors was Cerin.

  I abruptly turned and squeezed past Azazel and Chance to walk back through the kitchen and to the hallway. I refreshed my life and alteration shields in preparation of defending against earth magic. Finally, I summoned enervat in both hands and turned the corner of the doorway. For the first time since the Battle of Hallmar, I saw my brother.

  Terran and his entourage filed into the entryway at the other end of the castle after coming downstairs empty-handed. My brother wore the armor of a general though his was even more prestigious due to his royal status. The green cloak I'd given him almost two decades ago for his twenty-fifth birthday was stained with blood along its right side. Terran's dark brown hair swished past his upper neck, weighed down with the sweat of adrenaline and the blood of my allies. His handsome face was creased with age and stress and shadowed with a few days of stubble. Terran was nearing his forty-fourth birthday, and every bit was visible on his face. My brother had once been beautiful with youth, but he was now so aged and mature that I felt an extra tug on my heart because I could have mistaken him for Theron. Such thoughts only furthered my depression, for if Theron had still been with us, he would be getting too old for battle. The passage of time felt more real and insurmountable then than it ever had, and I felt so much sadness weighing me down that rage was far from my grasp.

  Raphael was by my brother's side just as I'd expected, protected by one of his super strength shields. Raphael's guards and robust alteration shields protected Terran and another man beside him. The unknown man beside Terran was evidently the other god since he was so well-protected, but I couldn't see his eyes from here. He appeared human, with shoulder-length hair that stayed off his neck with a stubby ponytail. I thought his hair was black, but as he moved, it glimmered bronze. Such a vast difference in hue confused me, so I decided my eyes deceived me. The mystery god was brutally handsome, with a jawline so sharp it could draw blood and well-toned arms that led to long fingers clad in various metals. Such jewelry led me to the safe assumption that whatever his powers, he dealt in magic.

  Terran and his godly friends were well-protected. I didn't want to use enervat, for death magic was easily absorbed by alteration shields and would do little damage against Raphael's stronger guard, so I dispelled it. I had a high coursing through my veins, making my body jittery while my mind complained against the abuse of its pain. I decided to use the harshest element that could cause the most damage to Raphael's shields while remaining hard to absorb by the alteration magic. In both hands, I summoned metal.

  I inhaled deeply for a surge of confidence and walked forward, raising both hands toward my brother at the other end of the hallway and releasing metal shards like they were repeater crossbow bolts. As the first projectiles spun through the air with a metallic ringing, Terran glanced up in the realization that he was not alone. I continued shooting metal at him, summoning the same spell in both hands after I'd thrown every shard. Over spinning silver, I watched Terran's face get angered and the metal get absorbed.

  Absorbed? I kept shooting metal, but I slowly realized that Terran's alteration shield refused to break. The shards clashed into it before sticking to the magic as if it were made out of glue. Metal vibrated rapidly as it melted into a silver liquid that absorbed into Terran's shield with a hiss. Within his protections, my brother's long hair lifted to float away from his face on sparks of static.

  “Varian,” Terran said, glancing over at the mystery god. My brother swiped a finger across his throat.

  Varian raised a palm toward me, and then I flew back toward the kitchen like I'd been hit with a super-powered version of telekinesis. My foot hit something hard with the snap of bone, and a rush of heat and pain shot up my leg. I heard a body slump to the floor nearby, and then I hit the back wall of the castle on my side. New agony throbbed through my left arm, and nausea overwhelmed me as I finally collapsed in a heap on the stone floor, only separated by my brother and the gods by a kitchen counter. Tears of pain welled in my eyes as I tried to recover. I rolled over on my stomach to crawl. My left arm and right foot were utterly broken. I couldn't see or hear Azazel, but through teary eyes I found my other ally. Chance hurried up the stairs toward me from the basement, so I assumed Azazel told him to hide in the case of a fight. As he came toward me, however, I shook my head once, encouraging him to stay hidden. Chance's nostrils flared with indecision, but he abided by my request and slunk back into the shadows of the stairwell.

  Boot steps clunked down the hall and into the kitchen as my brother and his godly allies came in to see the damage. I finally crawled just far enough past the counter to see Azazel's still form on the ground at Terran's feet.

  Terran kicked Azazel once in the shoulder, checking for consciousness. Tears welled in my eyes when Azazel made no move to get up, and my stomach trembled with panic.

  “Don't you dare hurt him,” I seethed hoarsely, pulling myself closer to my brother.

  “I can't hurt him anymore than you already have,” Terran retorted, his voice shaking with anger that he did a good job of keeping out of his demeanor. He pointed at me and ordered, “Paralyze her.”

  “For what, brother?” I blurted, trembling with pain and anger. I lifted my good arm to shoot enervat at Varian as he neared. Oddly, the god's hair now appeared copper. Varian smirked as the magic absorbed into his shield easily, then stopped my defensive measures short with a single spell. I went still, staring blankly at Azazel's body and unable to do anything about the rage growing in my chest.

  “Go,” Terran said to the gods. “Both of you. Evacuate with my other men. I will follow you after I deal with Kai.”

  Two sets of boot steps exited the kitchen and went down the hall. My brother came back into view, both palms upturned as he summoned clear earth magic. He thrust the spells into the rear castle wall, and stone slowly dissolved into sand.

  “You destroyed Sera, sister,” Terran announced, summoning two more of the same spells and directing them into structural stone. “You've destroyed the integrity of magic by spreading necromancy and sharing your bed with one who wields it.” As he spoke, he continued dissolving stone. “In many ways, you have ruined my life and everything I'd ever wanted it to be. For nearly twenty years I have been burdened by thoughts of you and what could have been. You have destroyed so much, Kai, that I find it only fitting that when your corpse is eventually recovered, it will be amongst rubble.”

  The sharp crack of stone echoed out from above where the castle walls began to split and cave as the lower level degraded into sand from multiple weak points.

  “It all points back to him, sister,” Terran continued, backing out of the kitchen until he stood in the doorway and stared at me to commit my still form to memory. “You are wretched, but it wasn't always so. As badly as I want you dead, an old part of my heart that is covered in scar tissue still loves who you once were. I will keep this in mind when I kill that necromancer you hold in such high regard. With each ounce of pain I feel, I will carve another wound out of his flesh. I pray your death is painless, but I will make the necromancer's demise as agonizing as I possibly can. I will burn both your bodies into dust so you can never rise, and then I will forget I ever had a sister.” Terran's eyes glistened with a mixture of emotions, and he swallowed hard before he finished, “May you find peace in the death you hold so close to your heart.”

  With that, my brother left to return to the battle raging outside where Cerin and the others were vulnerable. I laid on the floor, battered and paralyzed as Comercio's castle crumbled around me.

  Thirty-eight

  Sss...

  Granules of breaking stone fell from the ceiling like dust. I stared at Azazel's body, my eyes welling with tears of frustration from being powerless. Boot steps hurried up from the basement, and then Chance grabbed my leg, pulling me through the kitchen to the stairwell. Panic rose in
my chest, for I couldn't speak to give Chance orders, and my heart was tearing to leave Azazel. Whether he was alive or dead, I couldn't leave him here. But I also couldn't speak or move, and Varian's paralyze spell lasted longer than most.

  Chance tugged me over the crest of the shadowed staircase, taking the view of the kitchen from me. More tears of frustration and panic fell as the ceiling started to collapse, large chunks of stone cracking and falling to places I couldn't see.

  “Shit. Shit. Think!” Chance's frustrated rambles echoed in the dark stairway above me. “Alliv material in masse.”

  The god rushed back up the steps and into the crumbling kitchen with the alleviate spell I'd taught him summoned in one hand. The soles of his boots squeaked on polished stone as he rushed around, and then I heard his rapidly retreating footsteps and leather grazing over the floor. Chance yelped in surprise as the stairs beneath my paralyzed body shook violently with the reverberations of collapse as all went black. Moments later, I smelled herbs and the salt of light sweat. Chance summoned an alteration light and stuck it to the inside wall of the stairway, giving my surroundings a new creamy glow. Before me was Azazel's face, eyes closed and a deep bruise darkening his left temple.

  Chance's breaths of panic echoed in the stairway, and then he announced, “Azazel's alive, Kai. It all happened so fast so I didn't know if you knew. I know you can't talk, so...” he trailed off into a sigh. “I'm just trying to make things easier, I guess.”

  My chest flooded with relief at his words. As another vibration rattled through stone, Chance pulled us farther down the steps until Azazel and I were beside each other on the basement floor. It was so pitch-black in the lower levels that I realized the entire kitchen had collapsed with rubble blocking the doorway's helpful light.

  “I apologize for being late to save you. Every time I'd think the coast was clear, Terran kept talking.” Chance huffed and planted another alteration light on the wall, brightening the castle's first major storage room. “The man just wouldn't shut up.”