by Ryan Kirk
Alena checked once more for weavings, but there were none. She frowned. This was too easy. Either they were walking into a trap, or their plan had been so unexpected no one had prepared for it.
Her greatest fear had been that she would run into either Regar or the queen at the gate, but the room was empty. She assumed that both must be down in the square fighting Hanns. That thought alone compelled her closer to the gate. Hanns would need everything just to fight the queen. He couldn’t deal with his son at the same time. She took a deep breath, reached out, and touched the gate.
It was time to take Regar’s prize away from him.
55
Brandt wondered if this was how the world ended. The power of a single gate defied comprehension. The power of three gates left him senseless.
The wave of fire, hot enough to crack the stone it passed over, vanished before it reached Hanns. Brandt took a step back. One moment, an impossible inferno had sped toward him. Then he blinked and it was gone.
How?
A vicious wind rose as the air shifted in response to the rapid changes in heat, howling against Brandt. Brandt lowered his center of mass, genuinely worried the wind might carry him away.
Hanns, still as a statue, lifted a dozen stones into the air and launched them at his son. The speed of the projectiles was almost too fast for Brandt’s eyes to track. But none came close to Regar. He stood like a boulder in a stream, the rocks passing to either side of him. The stones, now forgotten, crashed into the walls and buildings far behind the prince, cratering the fine masonry of those who had come before.
Incredible feats of strength and control passed back and forth between the two men as quickly as thought. Fire, stone, and air were all utilized, often in combinations Brandt had never dreamed possible, limited by the cost as he was. At one time, vortexes of fire formed between the combatants, the pull of the wind threatening to suck in both the fighters and anyone foolish enough to be nearby.
At first, Brandt had worried about the Falari taking advantage of the battle, launching arrows down on the emperor. But no attacks came. He caught glimpses of faces in windows, but most Falari had vanished.
He figured they were the wise ones.
Brandt couldn’t leave. He had a duty to Hanns. Beyond that, he wanted to understand. As far as he knew, a battle like this had never been fought before. He wanted to learn from it.
But Brandt could make little sense of what he saw and felt. Everything happened too fast. His affinities screamed at various pitches, the sounds a disorganized cacophony ringing in his head. Every time he sensed a pattern, it shifted away from him.
Slowly, one fact did become clear.
Hanns was winning.
Brandt wasn’t sure it was a matter of power, either. This close, and at the levels these two were fighting at, it was hard to be certain, but Hanns didn’t feel twice as strong as Regar. His advantage instead seemed to come from experience. He dealt with Regar’s attacks more easily and responded with more creative counters that forced his son back with every exchange. It wasn’t much. In many ways, the two were closely matched. But Regar gave up a step, and then another one.
Perhaps Regar felt the same, because after another failed attack he drew his sword and dashed at his father.
The charge didn’t last long. Stone assaulted Regar from all sides, and the focus required to keep himself safe prevented him from advancing more than a single slow step at a time.
But he did advance. Hanns increased his efforts, but through sheer determination, Regar continued to close. The advance cost him. Stones cut through his arms, and one appeared to embed itself in his stomach. But Regar didn’t falter.
When Regar closed to within four paces, Hanns unleashed a fire attack that put all the previous ones to shame. Regar, no doubt acting on instinct, raised his sword to block the blast and was then enveloped in fire.
Brandt thought it was over.
But Hanns didn’t stop. He took one step forward and then another, fire pouring from him. Stone cracked and shattered with every step.
The song of the fire brought Brandt to his knees. He’d been able to endure the previous attacks, but the sheer focus of this one was too much. His head felt as though it might explode, and he clutched his hands to the side of his head, holding it together.
Then Hanns stopped, leaving nothing but echoes pounding in Brandt’s skull.
Regar still stood, a feat of impossible strength. His clothes smoldered, wisps of smoke drifting into the sky. The fine sword he held in front of him had been slagged, little more now than a melted and misshapen piece of steel.
The prince looked at the sword in his hand in disbelief. Then he tossed it aside. Even that small motion looked as though it might throw him off balance. Somehow, he found his center once again, made two fists, and stumbled forward.
In one smooth motion Hanns was there. His hand chopped at Regar’s throat, and his son’s defense was too slow to block it. The prince collapsed to the ground, choking and gasping for air.
Brandt frowned. The strike had been debilitating, but with more force, it could have been fatal. A martial artist of Hanns’ quality knew that. The emperor could have finished the fight.
Hanns leaned over his son, who still gasped for air, his face red. “Don’t push this any further. Please. Don’t make me go any further.”
Regar just lay there, spasming as his body slowly recovered.
Brandt wasn’t sure what to do. For the moment they were safe, but he didn’t trust the moment to last forever. The vast energies had driven the Falari away, but how long would it take before they returned?
Perhaps he should finish what Hanns clearly did not want to.
He couldn’t bring himself to move, though. This was a battle for the empire, but it was also a fight for his son’s life. Brandt thought of his own child, yet unborn. Could he go as far as Hanns already had? He felt as though he had no place in what happened between those two.
Once Regar caught his breath, his first words made Brandt glad he had withheld his sword. The words were faint, the prince’s voice still weak. “I’m sorry, Father.”
The remorse in Regar’s voice signaled the end of the fight. Brandt heard the same remorse in the emperor’s voice as he responded, tears falling from his cheeks. “It’s all right. All will be forgiven.”
With surprising quickness, Regar drew a knife and stabbed it deep into his father’s stomach.
Brandt could do nothing but watch as a thin beam of fire erupted from his emperor’s back.
56
When Alena touched the gate, she entered another world.
As always, the initial rush of power threatened to pick her up and carry her away. This was the power of the gate, and she couldn’t imagine controlling it. She was certain that if she let so much as a trickle in, it would fill her past bursting in moments. Why Hanns thought controlling such power was wise was beyond her.
Alena relaxed and focused. She couldn’t control this power, but she could ride it. After a long heartbeat she broke free of the current and skipped across its surface.
She didn’t allow herself more than a few heartbeats to recover. Even if time passed differently here, every moment mattered. Brandt and the emperor would need every advantage she could give them.
When her mind was calm she dove deeper into the gate, deeper into the web that connected all life.
How long it took her to find the manifestation of the gate she was in contact with, she had no idea. This space left her bereft of time and distance, a sensation that disoriented her if she allowed herself to think about it for too long.
But eventually she found herself before the gate. It appeared as diamond, but if she focused, that latticework she’d discovered in Etar was present here, too. The gate was a weaving, albeit one of dizzying complexity.
She had worried that Regar’s control would be difficult to undo. Back in Etar, Zolene’s bond with the gate had taken her considerable time to remove, and that was
without the added pressure of a battle to affect her concentration. From a distance, she hadn’t been able to sense more than the basics of Regar’s bond.
Up close, she was surprised to see how clumsy Regar’s control of the gate actually was. Where Zolene had woven her own soul closely to that of the gate, Regar’s bond looked more like a hasty lashing. His technique appeared like something she would have tried back before she had learned anything useful about soulwalking.
It always came back to Anders.
As Alena looked at the crude working, she thought she could feel history squeezing at her. She’d suspected Anders had learned soulwalking, but he’d had no instruction. Of course the techniques he’d passed on had been crude. And with the restrictions he insisted on placing on his successors, it was little wonder they had never developed their technique.
Alena’s knife appeared in her hand.
Regar had tied several bonds between him and the gate. Alena put her knife to one and focused her will. Her blade slid through the lashing with ease. The lashing fell from the gate and withered as she focused on it.
Could it really be this easy?
Only three strands remained, and Alena set herself to a second strand, cutting through it with just as much ease as the first. These bonds were weaker than those Alena had tied between her and Brandt, and she’d thought that weaving weak.
For all the power they controlled, she thought of the Anders like children now, playing a game for which they didn’t even know the rules.
She turned her attention to the third strand.
Before she could make the cut, though, she felt a presence. Not in the soulwalk. She spun around, the motion slow, but she remained alone.
The feeling, she decided, was an echo passed down from her physical body. Her time had run out.
Hoping that Zolene’s comments about the self-healing properties of the gate were true, Alena reached up with her knife and made one cut running down the length of the gate. Where the tip of the knife met the gate, it slowed and burned a bright white light. Though she focused all her will, she barely made a scratch in the gate.
But she did make a scratch, and she now had some idea of what would be required to destroy a gate like Etar’s. Her blade sliced all the way down, cutting through the final cords wrapped around the gate. When she finished her cut, all Regar’s connections had been completely severed. She stepped back and studied the gate one more time. It was free, just as she believed the gates should be.
In that moment it occurred to her just how easy it would be for her to take control of the gate. It was right before her, with no one to contest her claim. If her physical body was in danger, that power might mean the difference between life and death. She didn’t feel the same debt of honor to the Falari that she felt to her Etari family. She could join Hanns in fighting the queen.
The temptation grew. It would be easy, and she even suspected she could learn to do more with the gates than those who feared soulwalking. She thought of the good she could do, of the changes she could make. Together, she and Hanns could find a new way forward for the empire.
She could protect others, the same way Brandt wanted to protect them all.
The thought stopped her in her tracks. She knew where these thoughts led. If she continued walking that path, how long would it be before she considered the stealing of souls from the gate justified? How long before she couldn’t tell the difference between herself and the queen?
She looked longingly at the gate for another long heartbeat, then turned away.
She came out of the soulwalk quickly. She passed through the levels separating her from reality with ease.
When she opened her eyes, back underneath the mountains, she came face to face with the Lolani queen.
57
Prince Regar stood over his father, aloof and detached. Fifteen paces behind him, Brandt stood frozen, unable to will his body or mind into motion.
The knife wound was fatal. Unless Hanns possessed some healing skill beyond Brandt’s awareness, his time remaining in the world was limited.
Brandt could still pull on the power of the two gates through Hanns. The emperor drew breath, so he was still connected to his gates. Brandt could finish what the emperor hadn’t been able to. He heard a primal scream echo in the square.
A moment later, he realized the scream was his.
Whatever fear held him in place vanished. He charged the prince. He didn’t care that Regar controlled a gate. He didn’t care that Regar had trained his entire life for this moment. All that mattered was that Regar had killed his father.
And betrayal demanded blood.
Brandt’s charge ended the moment Regar turned his attention to the former wolfblade.
Regar’s gesture was dismissive, but it was no less dangerous for that. A gust of focused wind struck Brandt like a wall, picking him up off his feet and throwing him straight back. He hit the stone of the square hard. His training kicked in and his body relaxed. He rolled twice before coming back to his feet, sword still in hand.
Undeterred, he charged again. Another gust of wind, even stronger than the first, knocked him back off his feet. This time he landed hard, the wind expelled from his lungs. He coughed and struggled first to hands and knees, then to his feet. He wouldn’t stop, not until Regar was dead. Even if it meant drawing from the gates through Hanns’ dying body.
Regar’s voice sounded heavy, as though even speaking challenged him. “Don’t, Brandt. There’s no point.”
Brandt stumbled forward anyway.
Regar raised his hand, no doubt preparing his final attack.
Brandt was out of ideas. But he wasn’t going to stop, either. Before Regar could unleash his attack, his face went pale. He frowned, then he crumpled to the ground.
Less than ten paces separated Brandt from Regar, and he didn’t plan on wasting the opportunity. He closed the distance in less than two heartbeats, risking lightness to skip across the square.
Disoriented as he was, Regar still possessed the presence of mind to roll away from Brandt’s sword. But while he dodged the deadly edge, he left himself open to Brandt’s knee. The two collided with a crack of bone on bone. Brandt overextended and lost his balance, tumbling over the prince. Worried about cutting himself, Brandt let go of his sword, which clattered behind him as he rolled to a stop.
Brandt recovered before Regar. In a moment, he was on his feet, pummeling the prince with fists, elbows, and kicks. Not every blow connected, but when one did, a surge of satisfaction filled Brandt.
In the midst of the beating, Regar collapsed again, his muscles losing all their strength. He folded like a rag doll, and Brandt wasn’t sure the prince would ever get up. Brandt didn’t think he was the cause. As vicious as his attack had been, it hadn’t been fatal.
He needed to end this. As satisfying as beating Regar to death with his bare hands would be, the sword was quicker, a more certain solution.
Brandt turned and walked to his sword. His body was sore and tired. More than anything, he wanted this to be done.
Brandt picked up his sword, turning around to see Regar back on his feet.
He swore and rushed toward Regar before the prince could summon his affinity again. He hadn’t expected Regar to recover so quickly.
It was already too late. Regar hit Brandt with another gust of wind. Brandt braced himself, then realized the gust of wind was little more than a stiff breeze. Regar frowned, looking down at his hands like they had somehow betrayed him.
But Brandt understood. Alena had done it. She had severed his connection to the gate. She’d actually succeeded.
A surge of hope filled Brandt as he charged forward.
And then he was met with fire.
Instinctively, Brandt turned the fire away, allowing his body to absorb that which he couldn’t deflect.
Sweat broke out on his forehead, and he felt the tremendous power coursing through his body. Regar might not have his gate anymore, but he still had a gate
stone, and that was more than enough to kill Brandt. Brandt was still limited by the cost.
More fire washed over Brandt, and he couldn’t control the power anymore. He released the energy, letting it go in any direction it pleased. All that mattered was ridding himself of it.
When the power finally faded, he was on his knees, surrounded by blackened stone.
Regar stood several paces away, well out of reach of Brandt’s sword. Even if the prince had been closer, Brandt wasn’t sure it would make a difference. He wasn’t sure he possessed the strength to even lift the weapon.
Regar laughed, a hint of madness at the edges of his voice. “It doesn’t matter. The gate will be mine again, just as soon as I’m done here.”
Brandt sighed. Even the idea of arguing sounded exhausting.
After everything, he was still useless in this fight. He still wasn’t strong enough. And Alena had denied him his best chance to get stronger.
He wasn’t sure if Regar moved with incredible speed or if he was just that weak. But one moment Regar was standing in front of him, and the next the prince was driving his knee into Brandt, mirroring the attack he’d just endured.
Brandt tumbled, managing to hold onto his sword but little else. Regar came again, apparently not concerned that he was an unarmed man fighting against a former wolfblade with a sword. His fists found Brandt’s kidneys, stomach, and face. They landed like bricks.
Brandt could barely summon the energy to see the blows coming, much less avoid them.
One kick sent Brandt skidding across the stone.
“Get up,” Regar said. “Get up and die like a real warrior.”
Brandt wasn’t sure where he found strength. Perhaps it was fueled by anger or perhaps his body was slowly starting to recover from the elemental attack. Either way, he found his feet. His balance wobbled for a moment and then steadied.
