by K R Leikvoll
“WHY NOT?”
Wait. Just a moment longer –
“WHY NOT?”
“WHY NOT?”
“WHY NOT?”
We are almost there...
I finally could not smother the scream I released when I felt a piercing pain in my chest again. The soldier jumped, as he might have thought I was losing consciousness, and the sound was incredibly loud. It was enough to temporarily drown War out so I could think.
Lydris was outside the city limits – on his way to the south to avoid the Duskwraith fleet. It was too far for me to pursue. I would have to leave the battle, and that was something I knew I could not consider whatsoever. I wanted to hunt him more than anything else after we were reunited, but cursed fate had other plans.
We reached a point where my savior could climb up and bring us to safety, temporarily away from Levia’s fire and Duskwraith’s destruction. He had turned down a narrow tunnel with steps leading into a structure built into the side of the main cathedral. I could tell that was where we were because I was paying attention to the streets we traveled under. It had to be the cathedral just south of us, as there were hundreds of souls existing in the same vast space, hiding from the carnage outside.
“How fortuitous,” War hissed, finally realizing that a better meal than one measly Luxian waited above us.
The creaking of a wooden hatch door signaled we were finally moving out of the sewer. There were at least ten people in the room we entered from what I could see through my eyelids. They were making a loud commotion, and I did not understand every word, but I did my best through War’s commentary.
“Addamon, what are you doing here?”
“Eat her first.”
“I found this Evyan woman in the sewers, escaping the fire,” he said rapidly and out of breath. “Please, you have to aid her. She is badly wounded.”
“EAT HIM, TOO.”
I was set down on the ground gingerly. A few gasps filled the silence. Either they were staring at my flesh melted to the bone or they had noticed I was no normal Evyan. My body tensed, ready to react at any hint sign of attack.
“Her skin is as dark as slate! And her ears –”
“She has been burned, like I said,” the soldier repeated.
“You take too long, Lazarus.”
My eyes were peeled open against my will. The soldier and two fear-stricken priestesses were staring down at me. It took them a mere second to comprehend the endless pools of blood that were my irises. One was able to scream as a warning, but it did little to spare them.
War took over – or perhaps Lord Nakarius, finally fed up with its nonsense; it was becoming harder to differentiate between multiple consciousnesses dwelling within a single form.
I ripped into the soldier who had provided me aid first, as he was the closest. Priestesses were practiced in the healing arts, but that was hardly useful against a carnal, starved demon like me. It was messy… and blurry to recall. Everyone ran for the door, but they had barricaded themselves in so deeply, they hardly had a chance.
“Someone! We’re trapped!” one of the priestesses screamed, hoping someone could hear her beyond all the rubble they used to block the entrance. I could see forms on the other side of the threshold, but they were just as useless.
“NOT ENOUGH. MORE!”
Limbs cracked off and separated from bodies. Blood sprayed in spritzes, covering me and my wounds in the perfect salve to aid my condition. War and Lord Nakarius had never felt so burdensome before. I was no longer Lazarus in that chamber. I became a mere vessel for War and its desires. No matter how practiced one was, holding a Dark Essentia shard came with associated risks. Ultimately, when you make a pact with one of the shards, you seal your soul eternally. It cannot be removed but through death – and it can use you equally as much as you use it. No power was ever given freely.
Once the room of ten was eradicated and partially devoured to sate myself, I moved along to the barricade they struggled with. They may have not been a match, but it was effortless to destroy both the rubble and the door with a powerful blast of fire. I thought foolishly that War would recede into silence after ten souls. That snack only made it more driven to eliminate every living being it could.
It felt like it was dragging me by the hand as I made my way into a vaulted corridor. It led toward the main cathedral – I could see those that originally tried to aid everyone in the other room running for the door. I actually smiled at the sight; the soldier had made the task of reaching the most-sought-after foes simple. I let out a bloodthirsty scream and pursued them.
“Everyone inside!” a female highguard called to those fleeing.
We locked eyes and she scrambled to pull the last survivors in before I could reach them. I used my momentum to my advantage and summoned my wings, crashing through the door regardless of their efforts. They were not foolish, however. They knew better than to remain and scurried in various directions to find any hiding place or safety they could.
The main room of the cathedral was massive. It was far bigger on the inside than I thought from afar. Crimson light of fire cast through the crystal rooftop. A giant sigil – that of the Luxian Empire – was tiled on the floor in silver from what I could see underneath the copious amounts of blood everywhere. Screaming greeted my ears when the other crowds caught sight of me. They scattered like bugs.
A loud slam drew my attention. The main door – the one I was walking toward – was thrown open and shut again. I could sense most of the citizens that fled behind that threshold, but the highguard from before was determined to keep me out, even with her life. She was wearing a full set of white-silver armor and brandishing a long, two-handed sword. It was twice her size yet she held it with little strain.
“You go no further!” she yelled fiercely, pointing the sword at my heart from across the open space. Her gray eyes grew wide as I approached with no hesitation.
“This one is special. Eat her.”
I brought my blades across my chest, causing the flames to soar through the air in her direction while I closed our gap. She had to dodge to avoid being seared into pieces, but still expertly parried War from behind while she spun away. I was about to leap on top of her location when an unexpected, massive barrier of light forced me to rebound and tumble into a pillar.
The guardian was kneeling, clutching her sword defensively, with residual light waves seeping from her fingertips. I felt more like an animal than a Queen or prophet as I growled a bestial growl and lunged at her again. I summoned a vortex of flame from my hands and feet, allowing it to whip around me like a tornado, scraping the crystal ceiling. After a mere second of contact, it burst into shards, showering down on us both.
When the fire threatened to touch her, a smaller bubble materialized around her, allowing her to move into the eye unharmed. I could not parry her blows, repeatedly dodging around her wide sword with cunning agility. Her blade narrowly sliced my face in our exchange of strikes, but it was as close as she could get. I daringly called upon Levia’s fire outside, channeling it further into my vortex. With a sharp gesture of my hand, it cascaded from its form outward, colliding with the guardian and sending her crashing into the door she was trying so desperately to protect.
I flew to her after she impacted the door, eager to end our duel. She held her hands out, light still pathetically trailing from them despite how hard she had been knocked in the skull. Blood crept out from a wound on her head, and she whimpered when I lifted her into the air by her throat. The light tingled and irritated my skin, but she had lost most of her strength from the barriers she summoned.
The sight of an emblem temporarily stayed my hand. It was a silver “M” marked on a circular seal on her right shoulder. I studied her face again, as I knew she was strangely familiar. Choking and writhing did not conceal that she must have been another Maundrell. Her eyes were a different shape, but they were the same shade. Her nose was the same, as were her cheekbones. I smiled and tapped the s
igil with the handle of one of my blades.
“Your whole family is a bed of pests, isn’t it?” I asked her, studying her as she started to fade from suffocation. With a strong upward thrust, I plunged War through her breastplate and hooked her under her rib cage. I released her throat and lifted her further into the air with War, relishing in her screams.
I was about to enjoy picking her apart when a blast underneath us caved in the entirety of the center room. The Maundrell guardian was sent toward the front entrance while I flew into the wall to the east. My wings shielded me from most of the marble shards and rubble, but it was still rather disorienting. Once I gained my senses, I climbed to the edge of the blast-hole and peered into its depths.
The sound of a million screams – the sounds of Heresy – erupted from the hole, with an outburst of putrid green smoke. It was one of the plague devices, starting the process of permeating the air in its vicinity. Even as a demon, I was still nearly knocked off my feet from the smell. It was far worse than the one in Kaza’mae, and the one that had gone off as planned before we arrived. With the crystal ceiling out of the way, it beamed into the heavens, pouring through the clean air and infecting every living thing it could. I don’t believe we truly needed to detonate the third to cause a Naadean extinction, but it was better safe than sorry.
With a flurry of bone, Raven flew through the beam into the air, empowering it and sending it far and wide. He only needed to take care of one more before Vince would call for a retreat. That gave me little time to work with, but I am sure that was the intention. He knew how things usually turned out when I was left alone with a city to be destroyed.
After a glance to the dying corpse of the Maundrell, I flew across the hole to the door she had been guarding. What was so precious that she would be willing to die for it? The Emperor, of course. If he needed protection, he would be no match for me. I kicked the door down and entered the next corridor with growing malice.
At the end of the next long hallway, I could see another small crowd pushing through to safety. I recognized them…
One was Alexandra. Another was my cursed sister Cyndre. They were protecting the Emperor – he had hair just as fiery as Alexandra’s. There was a wound he was struggling with and was requiring help walking. How pathetic, I remember thinking to myself. What happened to the glorious days of fighting for your people? Every monarch I encountered was cowardly and weak. Alexandra and Cyndre held the door for him and his court, arguing furiously as I grew closer.
“Go! Go, now! You have no chance of holding her off,” Alex told Cyndre seriously. Her hand on her sword tightened with the sound of my boots clinking against the floor.
“How dare you! You have to save your father!” Cyndre pleaded, but Alexandra ignored her and shoved her out of the way.
“No! You need to get them out of here. You can’t use magic, so just go!” Alexandra snapped. My pale-haired sister glared at me and hurried through the door before slamming it behind her.
“My, my… how long I’ve waited to face you like this,” I purred to my rival. I flicked the blood of the guardian off of my blade and gave Alexandra a wicked smile. Though I showed otherwise physically, my mind was screaming. I hadn’t forgotten her pollution of Yuelle. For that, she would rot in the Void. I swore it.
Alexandra tensed, holding her golden-edged sword out in defense of herself as if it would matter. She was excellent at fleeing, sneaking, and acting like a rat, but she was no match for me in one-on-one combat, which was something we both knew. Her smell was that of ash and the salt of her tears. The minor wounds she had from fighting outside were unfelt to her; it was clear that she did not care what the outcome was, as long as her family was safe.
“It was a mistake to think you could be saved,” Alexandra said, firmly planted in front of the door despite how close I was getting.
“Did it really take you this long to realize that?”
She parried the first strike I used to gauge her abilities, following it up with a slash I had to catch between my blades. She let out a furious yell and pushed with all the force she could muster. I released her sword, jumping back as it threatened to cut down my torso. My left wing knocked her in the face from the side as I did so, likely Lord Nakarius’ assistance flowing through me. She was removed from the door, but I hardly cared about following the Emperor or Cyndre when I had her.
Alexandra was able to catch herself so she was not entirely defenseless on the ground when I followed up with more strikes. I was impressed – I will not lie. Her prowess was almost equal to the Divinus herself. Her blade was imbued with the light, cutting through my armor whenever she had an opening. Though I tried to knock her off balance again with my wings, she was quick to dodge every attempt skillfully. When I finally caught her on one of her rotation of swings, a beam of light cascaded from above and shattered the marble ceiling above us, directly on my location. It forced me back to the direction I came from.
As I spun out of control through the air, I grabbed my bow and nocked an arrow, aiming for Alexandra’s location. I released as I landed, watching it soar for her face. I waved my hand and willed it to shatter in the air into shards when it was close. A flash of gold disintegrated my shards, but it was pulling on her strength to do so. Light magic was excellent against the darkness, though it was draining to summon without a source so near like the Void. She was practically committing suicide by trying to use all of the abilities she could.
Before I could launch myself in her direction once more, the foundation of the building rocked violently. Another explosion – that time to the south of us – was enough to demolish the entire cathedral, bringing the corridor down around us in an avalanche of marble and stone. Alexandra was close to the threshold of the next door, quickly throwing it back open and diving to safety. I jumped into the air and flew after her, spinning and twirling away from the building caving in around me.
As I got closer, almost close enough to grip the door frame, Cyndre appeared in front of Alexandra. She held out her hand and her icy violet eyes ignited. A chill escaped her fingertips, covering me in a sheet of frost. It was a foolish attempt, I thought at first, melting it off immediately. However, hurting me with that spell was never her intention.
The rest of the corridor crashed down on top of me, pinning me to the floor. The outside was exposed, letting an intense wave of heat scald the rubble from a pass of Levia’s fiery breath. I screamed with the wrath of the Void and fought with the marble, cracking it and breaking it to dust as nimbly as possible. I was so deep in a pit of fury, I did not believe rationality would return until I saw Alexandra’s head on a spike. It gave me the strength to fly free, despite the shredding and damage done to my wings.
When I finally pulled myself out, the only person that awaited me was Cyndre. Shadows swarmed her form as if she were a demon just the same as any of my other kin. One simple spell was all it took for the Void to begin its dominion over her soul. She knew that, however, and took a crunching step toward me.
“You will never hurt anyone again, Nyzara,” she declared in a shaking voice. The shadows were twisting around her, but she fought it and kneeled a mere foot away. She knew the price she had to pay to stop me.
I, foolishly, took her seemingly vulnerable position as a disadvantage and prepared to sever her head from her body. War was chanting; Lord Nakarius was observing. My past, my horrid, wretched past, would never define who I was now. Nyzara was long dead.
As I brought my blade down, a turquoise light, as bright as the one the Divinus had summoned, exploded in a blast far bigger than that of the plague devices. I was knocked so high into the air, I lost my sense of direction. Icy knives impaled me with the force of a dozen blades. It propelled me clear across the city until I fell from the sky and crashed into a building in the east.
I was too drained to move much once I impacted; I simply let my body go limp and studied the inferno of flames and ghastly vortex consuming the Capitol whole. I was willing to bet the
Luxians thought it was the end of the world – the one true Armageddon. I would not blame anyone entertaining that thought remotely. It was hard to picture anything outside of the chaos I was witnessing, and it was partially mine, to begin with.
The sound of the dragon bellowing and retreating toward the sea was likely my sign to leave, but it was the last thing I wanted. Lydris was only a few leagues away – Alexandra was somewhere in the city still, alive and avoiding her punishment. I could keep fighting, I was sure of it.
Another roar. A sharp, invisible tug from Vincent through our bond forced me to my feet.
As I climbed through the wreckage to get back to the road, I ran into Raven waiting just outside. He was soaked in blood – none of it his own, naturally. In a way, it angered me. I was far more maimed. Beyond that, I could not sense Varnoc anywhere in the city and I was positive Raven left him somewhere. If he was dead, wouldn’t I have felt it?
“Where’s Varnoc?” I asked him with a malicious glare. He frowned.
“He fled after the first device went off. I expect he’s headed toward the east.”
“I should go get him.” I tried as hard as I could to summon my wings.
“Sacrifice first,” War demanded.
“Lazarus.” Raven planted a firm grip on my shoulder to keep me from running off. “That action was weak. He did not redeem himself this day.”
I looked at Raven bewildered for a moment before I dropped my gaze to the dead bodies on the street. I expected much more preparation given the events in Kaeda, but it was clear the young Divinus Eve was not remotely her previous incarnation Evelynn, or Evelynn’s previous incarnation, Lylann. I reached out a hand and demanded they rise from the grave. Violet magic swirled around the bodies, entering their mouths and eye sockets. They sat up, jolted by necromantic energy, and returned to their feet. I would have gazed on them longer, but the sight of a distant crowd put them in a state of bloodlust. They ran rampantly away, forgetting they had been dead only a moment ago.