by Ben Wolf
Gill blinked several times at the sight and tried to shield his eyes from the brightness of the display. The deafening boom of thunder that followed threatened to blow out his eardrums. The power of the blast created a shockwave that not only rattled the buildings in Sharkville but also knocked some of them over as if they were stacks of straw in a strong wind.
Gill’s shack actually lifted off the ground, but only the back end, which faced the lake. When the shockwave passed, his shack settled back in place with a loud clatter, and he knew that every piece of glass and pottery he’d acquired over the years had crashed to the floor in the process.
He paid it no mind, though—not with everything else happening right before his eyes.
The tree tore apart at the top, its leaves and trunk ablaze with orange fire where the lightning had split it in half. Then a burst of green light, nearly the same color as the bolt of lightning, pulsed up from the center of the tree and extinguished all the flames in a whoosh.
It shot straight into the black clouds overhead and lodged in its center, a fiery green eye of the storm around which everything else began to swirl.
As the mighty tree slowly collapsed, the storm began to move east—fast—as if it had been summoned to do so. Gill, who had finally retrieved a spyglass of his own from inside his shack, watched it for a moment, but the sight of the tree falling apart stole his attention again.
The two halves of the tree toppled east and west, landing just short of the impassable mountain ranges lining each side of the valley. The rumble and the vibrations of the huge tree smacking the valley shuddered the ground under Gill’s feet and rattled his teeth.
“What in the Overlord’s name is going on?” Jake asked.
Gill shook his head and aimed his spyglass back toward the fleeing storm. “Beats me. But it ain’t nothin’ good.”
Valerie’s eyes popped open, and her head throbbed with pain. She reached up to touch it but instead found her helmet back on her head.
That didn’t make any sense.
She recalled fighting Axel in the street, recalled him dropping her own axe on her, and that was it. Now, as she considered her surroundings, she realized she was in the King’s dungeons below Valkendell.
Axel must’ve taken her here instead of killing her. It was too bad he’d chosen the path of rebellion after all. He’d been a nice enough guy, if not a bit rough around the edges.
Alright—very rough around the edges. Jagged, even. But he’d showed promise in so many ways…
Valerie couldn’t dwell on that now. The distant booms reverberating through Valkendell above told her that not much time had passed. The stones that made up the walls told her the story of what was transpiring both inside and outside the fortress.
She had little time to act. The battle still raged on, and she was missing it.
She fastened her helmet to the rest of her armor and rose to Gavridel’s full height. Her head swam and throbbed even more when she did, but she exhaled a calming breath and focused herself. A little headache wasn’t enough to stop her from doing her duty.
Her axes were nowhere to be found. It made sense that Axel wouldn’t have brought those with her, but she could get back to them easily enough.
She ignored the chains and the lock on the door and instead entered her own dimension. Inside, rather than the abject darkness of Axel’s shadow dimension, jewels and gems of every conceivable color and size sparkled all around her so brightly that it almost hurt her eyes to look upon them.
As she moved through the gemstone dimension, the ocean of colorful stones parted to allow her to move. She pinpointed her axes with ease and found them still lying in the street where Axel had left them. They appeared as opaque black objects, easy to spot against the rainbow of color everywhere else she looked.
Like her armor itself, she had painstakingly carved and shaped the axes from individual stones she’d found within this dimension. It had taken decades to complete the full set, but in the end, it had all been worth it.
Now was not the time to reminisce, however, so she opened the portal into the real world yet again. Amber lightning and purple flames tore through the gemstones, revealing the bleak streets of Solace, and she stepped out, leaving the gemstone dimension behind.
As she picked up her axes, she realized some sort of storm was rolling in from the west. The otherwise sunny day had darkened thanks to the angry black clouds overhead.
When Valerie saw the eye of the storm aglow with green light, she recognized the maelstrom for what it really was. Inside her mask, she smiled.
She had to get back to the fight with Lumen. There was still a chance they could win.
Lumen’s power was overwhelming Calum. He’d tapped every last bit of the King’s power just to defend himself, and it had left him exhausted and withered like a dying rose.
But even a dying rose still had thorns.
Emptied of the King’s power, Calum summoned the light Lumen had given him. It was probably a terrible idea, but he’d run out of other options. If he didn’t keep Lumen’s focus on him, it might put Lilly at risk. And if something happened to her…
The light from Calum’s chest filtered into his arms and down to his fingertips, no longer burning like before, but cool like a refreshing flow of water through his veins. As Calum’s hands began to glow, Lumen regarded him with curiosity.
“You would use my own power against me?” Lumen laughed again.
“It’s not your power anymore,” Calum said. “The King made it mine forever.”
“The King is a liar and a fool.” Lumen added, “A dead fool. What I have given, I will also take away.”
Calum forged a spike of pure light, just as Lumen had when he’d thrown them at Matthios. He held it in his hand as if it were real—he could feel it as if it were solid, yet somehow thrumming at the same time. Then he hurled it at Lumen.
The light zipped across the throne room, but before it could strike Lumen, it slowed to a stop. Then it turned back and launched at Calum instead.
With his jaw clenched, Calum tried to grab it with his mind and wrest control of it back from Lumen. Sure enough, the spike slowed yet again, but Calum couldn’t get it to turn back or completely stop. It continued creeping ever closer to him, even as General Anigo and Lilly tried to batter Lumen with their own weapons.
Calum strained, pumping more and more of his concentration into the single spike. He sensed it fracturing the instant before it shattered, and instead of one large spike, dozens of smaller shards jabbed at his chest and arms. His armor stopped some of them, but a few of the larger shards broke through and punctured his skin.
He yelped and recoiled as warm blood oozed from the wounds. He hoped they were superficial, but he couldn’t tell for sure.
“Calum!” Lilly shouted to him. “Are you—”
In that miniscule moment of distraction, Lumen struck.
His sword flashed through the air and slammed into the Calios. The force of the blow knocked Lilly across the throne room and into the wall with a sickening smack, and she dropped to the floor, motionless. The Calios tumbled from her limp hand and rattled to a stop next to her.
“Lilly!” Calum shouted.
He forgot his own wounds and darted over to her. He found her still alive, still breathing but definitely injured. He didn’t know how badly.
Had Lilly been holding the Calios any differently, and had she not been wearing her armor, Calum was certain the blow would’ve killed her.
He wanted to stay with her, but they were still very much in danger. As he rose to his feet and turned back, Calum noticed a lone form separating him from Lumen.
General Anigo stood before Lumen with his golden spear at the ready.
Chapter Fifty
General Beynard Anigo had a nice ring to it, he’d decided.
Pity he’d only gotten to enjoy the new title for a few days.
But at least he’d die knowing he’d always stood for the truth. For what was rig
ht.
For the King.
He raised his golden spear, a gift from the King himself and forged by Matthios’s own hands, and pointed it at Lumen. “I told you I would never yield.”
Lumen looked down at him with those insidious blazing eyes. “And I told you what would happen if, in the end, you still failed to see the wonders I have brought to this world.”
General Anigo recalled Lumen’s words as clearly as the day he’d spoken them. “You told me I would perish the same as the rest of your foes.”
“Precisely.”
General Anigo had stared down this particular death before. Regardless of what happened to him, the truth was still the truth, and he was obliged—even commissioned to speak it.
“Whether I live or die,” he repeated his own words, “I serve the one true King of Kanarah. And that will never be you.”
Lumen remained silent for a long moment. Finally, he said, “You may not realize it, but I gave you the same gift I gave your valiant friend Calum. When I skewered you through your heart back in Kanarah City, I left a taste of my power inside of you as well.”
General Anigo recalled the uncontrollable pain in his chest, the difficulty of breathing, the horrible sensation of dying while yet living.
Then Lumen raised his hand, and General Anigo experienced it all over again.
An unseen force seized General Anigo from the inside of his chest and began to squeeze.
The golden spear dropped from his hands and clanged on the floor.
He gasped, but the pressure stole his breath.
He looked down and saw white light glowing through his golden armor as if it were made of glass. The stone floor beneath his feet dropped away, and he found himself hovering in the air, unable to breathe and barely even able to think.
Then Lumen’s voice entered his mind, just as it had before, speaking in impressions rather than words.
Even though your heart cannot be won…
…it can still be crushed.
Captain Anigo’s eyes widened as the pressure in his chest sharpened, and then he saw nothing else but the brightness of pure white light as he exhaled his last breath.
Try as he might, Condor couldn’t keep up with Axel for much longer. The boy was relentless in his attacks, chasing Condor through the ever-darkening sky, thwarting his tricks, stymying his plans, and ruining his chances at landing any significant blows with Matthios’s spear.
Axel’s void-hopping didn’t help things, and neither did Condor having to use a spear. The nasty storm brewing overhead made Axel harder to see, as he blended in with the angry storm clouds above. Condor felt fatigue digging deeper and deeper into his body, whereas Axel only seemed to be moving faster, hitting harder, and reacting quicker.
“Well done, Farm Boy,” Condor said between haggard breaths as they traded blows and parries in the air. “You’ve certainly proven a worthy opponent.”
“Don’t quit on me yet, buzzard,” Axel taunted. “I’m just getting warmed up.”
Condor swatted Axel’s sword aside, spun his spear overhead, and slammed it into Axel’s shoulder. It was a superficial blow, but it knocked Axel askew for an instant. But when Condor threw a follow-up swing, Axel had already dodged it.
Condor didn’t see Axel’s boot coming toward him until it was too late. The kick didn’t hurt, but it forced Condor back. He tried to come forward again, only to realize that Axel had opened a void behind him—a void that was now pulling Condor into it.
He strained against the void’s pull, but he knew if he managed to break free, he’d be flying right into Axel’s range of attack. After constantly fighting for what seemed like hours, he just didn’t have the energy left to resist, and the void won.
It inhaled him into the darkness and promptly shut, and Condor readied his spear to attack the instant he saw the waning rays of daylight again.
A portal behind him opened, and Condor whirled to face Axel once again.
As he did, an intense pain plunged into his back.
When he looked down, the tip of Axel’s sword was protruding from Condor’s chest, right through the center of the Raven’s Brood emblem emblazoned on his breastplate.
Blood streaked along the sword’s bright-blue edges, tainting them reddish purple, and it trickled down the front of his charcoal-gray breastplate.
Condor tried to suck in a breath, but he couldn’t. He drifted out of the void with Axel behind him. Axel must’ve opened two rifts at once—one to distract Condor, and another to attack him from behind.
It had worked.
Condor’s grip on the bronze spear faltered, and it fell end-over-end toward the city streets below. He absently hoped it would cut a wandering monster in half as it landed, but in his next thoughts, the pain of his imminent death registered full force.
The taste of copper flooded Condor’s mouth, and with the last of his strength, he twisted away, pulling Axel’s sword out of his hand. With the blade still lodged in his back and sticking out of his chest, Condor stared at his foe.
He’d been wrong. All along, Condor had truly hoped Axel would find his way. Instead, he’d stumbled into darkness, lured there by the promise of power.
He’d received the power, alright, but it had come at an incredibly high cost. He’d abandoned all of his friendships, everyone and everything that he loved, and he’d become the very monster he’d sworn to destroy.
Condor wanted to say all of that and more to Axel, but he couldn’t speak. He barely had energy to stay airborne.
He locked onto Axel’s bitter blue eyes one final time and marshaled the last of his breath to utter four final words: “I forgive you, Axel.”
Then Condor’s eyes closed, and he dropped from the sky.
It all happened before Calum could even get close.
Now General Anigo was dead, as was Matthios.
Lilly was unconscious and injured.
Calum was alone and powerless to fight back.
“Now do you finally understand?” Lumen faced Calum again and hurled General Anigo’s corpse to the side like a child discarding an unwanted doll. “Nothing any of you do can stop me. I rule Kanarah, and I will remake her in my image.”
“You’re killing everything!” Calum shouted at him. “You’re not the King! You have no control, no love for this place. You just want it for yourself, not for the people.”
“It is mine by right,” Lumen declared. “If something can be taken from you, then you do not deserve to have it.”
Lumen hovered closer and closer to Calum. He didn’t fear for himself—his death was as inevitable as Matthios’s or General Anigo’s at this point.
But he couldn’t let Lumen hurt Lilly any more.
Inside his chest, Calum gathered what little of the King’s power he had recovered. He only had one last attack before the end. It would either be enough, or it wouldn’t.
As Calum called forth one last blast of power, he noticed a line of purple flames accompanied by the crackling of amber lightning opening wide behind Lumen.
That was his chance.
Calum loosed the blast, and a stream of green energy as wide as his chest collided with Lumen’s breastplate, halting his progress and then forcing him back about six inches, but no more.
And that was it. Calum had given everything he had.
Lumen stared down at him, shaking his head. “Pitiful.”
But behind him, the purple-and-amber void yawned open wider. Then a pair of familiar emerald-armored arms wrapped around Lumen’s waist from behind and hauled him backward.
Lumen tried to react, but Gavridel pulled him into the void before he could resist. Then the void sealed shut, and Calum was left alone in the throne room with Lilly and the corpses of Matthios and General Anigo.
Calum regretted not saving some of the King’s power to help heal Lilly. He’d been thinking of saving her from Lumen, but maybe he should’ve saved her life so she could flee instead. Had he made the wrong choice?
As he ben
t down to examine her again, she stirred and looked up at him. “Calum?”
“Yeah,” he said. Tears stung the corners of his eyes. “It’s me.”
“Is it over?” she asked.
He shook his head. “No. Not yet.”
Lilly blinked, then her eyes widened. “Calum… I can’t feel my legs.”
Her words sickened him to his core. He really had failed her.
“It’ll be alright,” Calum said to her, hoping it would be true. Then he lied to her a second time. “I used some of the King’s power to numb you up. You’re hurt, but it’ll pass.”
A look of relief filled her eyes, and she gave him a faint smile. “I love you.”
Calum smiled back as tears streamed down his face. “I love you, too. I always will. Now I have to go.”
“I know,” she said. “Find a way to stop him, alright?”
Calum nodded. His voice shaking, he replied, “I’ll try.”
“Live or die,” Lilly reached up and cupped his face, “this is not the end for us. I promise.”
Calum just nodded again. If he didn’t leave now, he’d stay with her until Lumen destroyed all of Kanarah around them, until he separated them forever.
Calum stood and wiped the tears from his eyes, and then he flew out of the throne room without looking back at her.
White-hot spikes of pain jammed through Gavridel’s armor and dug into Valerie’s flesh. Lumen had punctured her armor with dozens of light spikes as a means of defending himself.
She grunted, but she didn’t release Lumen until they fully emerged from the portal in the sky over Valkendell. By then, the maelstrom had blanketed the entire city in darkness, except for the vibrant green glow in the center of the storm and the occasional arc of green lightning streaking through the clouds.
Valerie normally didn’t try to stay airborne while wearing Gavridel’s armor; it was a strenuous enough task to just move in it, let alone keep it flying, but she had to see the look in Lumen’s blazing eyes once before she succumbed to her wounds and her ever-growing weakness.
