She turned to face Magnus as he and Aliria drew near. My heart beat too loudly in my ears as my mouth ran dry. The last thing I wanted was to leave her alone, but I couldn’t stay. I had to protect the others. I had to go.
“One last thing, Sam. Before we part,” she said, raising the knife to her palm. “A gift, and a curse. Perhaps you’ll use it better than we did.”
Evelyn stuck the knife in her palm, wincing as she dug deep into her flesh. After only a second, she pulled something free from her hand. It was a small orange crystal, smooth like a cut gemstone. Her blood stuck the gem as a light pulsed within it.
“Catch!”
She tossed it back to me as she strolled toward Magnus. “It’s been fun, Sam.”
I caught the crystal in my right hand. As soon as it touched my hand, a searing pain flared to life as my skin bubbled and hissed. The gemstone burrowed into my palm. I clenched my teeth as I fought to keep from screaming and took off towards Raven.
Evelyn walked calmly towards Magnus, but as she turned away, she changed. The pale silver of her hair fell away to midnight as her hair changed colors. Her skin grew a few shades darker as she walked away from me. In a handful of seconds stood the girl who walked into my life all those many years ago and offered me a chance at salvation.
Evelyn was gone. In her place stood Jessica Bell.
As soon as Jessica got close, she activated Aura of the Antimage. It shot from her skin in a whirlwind towards Magnus, but I blinked, and he disappeared, reappearing in the same instant twenty feet away, out of range of her aura.
The wind picked up as I ran, but a single word carried.
“Move.”
I turned back as Magnus spoke. Jessica shook her head, raising her swords.
Magnus spoke again, but it was lost to the breeze as she stood in his way, refusing to back down.
He shook with rage. The veins in Magnus’s neck throbbed against his tan skin as he bellowed an unhinged scream.
Jessica fell.
She jerked, turning, her head tilted towards me. Her vacant eyes glassed as they stared through me. Jessica dropped to the ground and closed her eyes.
They would never open again.
I ran and climbed onto Raven as Adam stared at his sister, an all-too-familiar emotion clear in his eyes.
He twitched, two summoning crystals in his hands as hatred filled his face. I knew what he was about to do, and I understood. I understood. But I couldn’t let him.
My sword cleared leather, and I bashed the emerald pommel into his temple.
Adam dropped unconscious, and I caught him on my shoulder as Eris took my hand. Raven didn’t even wait for me to climb aboard as she took to the skies. We were high in the air in seconds, and only when I was sure Adam and I were secure did I look back.
Magnus and Aliria were small as they stood on the castle’s tower, staring at us. He watched us leave for a few seconds before turning and walking away.
I pulled Eris close as we flew away from Castle Aliria as fast as Raven could. I didn’t know what to say, what I could say. Evelyn was gone, but I didn’t have time to mourn her. I would wait until we were safely back at the castle before I let myself grieve.
Evelyn and I had had a rocky relationship at best, but she was a comrade, a mentor, an infrequent lover at times, and my friend. But I never really knew her. The revelation that she wasn’t who I thought she was was proof enough. Despite that though, in a dark part of my heart, I’d cared very deeply for her.
A single tear slipped down my cheek before I could stop it, and I brought my hand up to wipe it away.
What came up wasn’t my hand. It was, but my skin was ghost white, the color bleached from my skin.
“What the hell?”
Eris turned at my voice, her compound eyes going wide as she looked up at me.
“Sam?”
“What?” I asked.
“We need to land,” she said, loud enough for Raven to hear.
Raven swooped down to relatively open stretch of the Badlands. Sand swept up around us as she landed. Eris hopped off as I carried Adam and set him down gently.
“Hand me your pack,” Eris said, holding her hand out.
I pulled it from my inventory as Raven shifted back to her human form and walked over, her eyes as wide as Eris’s, and they never left mine.
“That is you, isn’t it, Sam?”
Eris pulled out something and handed it to me. It was a mirror. I took it and held it up to my face. I couldn’t hold back the gasp that slipped through my lips. What the hell?
I didn’t look like myself any longer. I shared the same features that Evelyn had. My hair was a polished silver, my skin pale as a corpse, and my once-amber eyes were a brilliant gold, shining bright as I stared at myself.
“What the actual hell?”
Eris just stared at me, but Raven shrugged. “It’s not a bad look.”
I turned on her and pointed at my face. “This doesn’t freak you out?”
Raven shook her head, kicking at a stray rock in the sand. “I served Magnus for years. You’d be surprised at how little fazes you after that.”
I mean, that’s fair, but this is…I don’t even know.
Adam stirred on the ground, sitting up with a pained groan. He glanced around at the desert before his eyes landed on mine. He stared at me for what had to have been hours before he broke contact and dropped his head and slumped his shoulders.
“She’s dead?”
“I…I’m sorry.”
He was motionless for a long moment before he nodded. Adam stood, sand sticking to him and falling as he got to his feet. He looked at me and held his hand up before dropping it. “I’ll explain…I’ll…later…later.”
Before I could ask what he meant, he pulled a scroll from his inventory and unfurled it. The Script circle flared to life, and Adam vanished as he teleported away.
I just stared at the spot where Adam had been for a long while after he left. I was so unsure about anything anymore, and Adam was literally the last person who could give me answers.
“Best to give him some space,” a voice said beside me.
I looked down at Edna, who’d appeared at my side.
“Where were you during all that?” I asked, throwing my hands up.
“Around. There was nothing I could’ve done to physically help you. My interference is limited, as I explained to you when we first met. I can do little to directly help you, unfortunately. Though freeing me has given me back full access to the system once more.”
“So, if you so chose, you could initiate a purge like Magnus wants?”
“I have the capability, yes, but it goes against my primary programming, which is why Magnus needs access to my source code to change my programming to his wishes.”
I scratched at my silver stubble. “And he needs Eris to do that?”
She nodded. “Eris is a copy of my code, though scaled down and without any command functions, but our cores are virtually identical. With her, he’ll be able to grant himself system admin access, and he can modify me at will.”
Eris and Raven walked over. Raven dragged my discarded pack through the sand and used it as a makeshift stool while Eris wound her hand through mine and leaned heavily on me. I pulled her close and kissed the top of her head.
“So what do we do? How do we fight Magnus? Evelyn was the strongest fighter in the world, and even she couldn’t stand against his chronomancy.”
Edna shook her head. “Mistress Bell was designed to be the counter to Mister Parks. Which is why he was forced to such drastic measures. Mistress Bell knew exactly what she was doing.”
“She still died,” I spat. “I should’ve stayed and fought.”
“And you’d have died right alongside Mistress Bell. Which was the last thing she wanted. She chose you as her successor. And I find I don’t necessarily disagree with her choice. You’ll do.”
“I still don’t know how I’m going to pull this off. Magnus is so fa
r outside my league it’s not even funny.”
Edna shook her head and reached out a finger, tapping me on the chest. “I have a plan in the works, but it will take time to move everything into place. I will help you as much as I can, but Evelyn gave you the tools needed to succeed.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“Pull up your character page.”
I did as she asked and pulled it up. What stared back at me was unbelievable.
Character Name: Durandahl
Level: 69
Exp: 3800/6800
Race: Demigod
Class: Hive Knight (Errant)
Reputation: Wanted Criminal
Bounty: 1300 Gold
Stats (+)
What? What the─what! I closed the screen with shaky fingers, my head reeling. “Edna, what is this?
“What the hell does Demigod mean?”
Edna shrugged. “You must ask Master Bell that question. The shards go beyond my understanding.”
She stared off into the distance, at a wyvern flying far off. “I must depart now. There is much that requires my attention.”
“Wait!” I shouted and tried to grab her, but my hand passed through empty air as she disappeared as if she’d never been there in the first place.
“Dammit,” I cursed and kicked a deep groove into the sand, sending grains scattering it a wide arc.
I plopped down next to Raven and leaned against her side as Eris came and sat in my lap.
“It’ll be okay, love,” Eris said, snuggling into my chest while Raven trailed her fingers through my hair, brushing against my scalp with her fingernails. It was divine, but I was drowning.
“I don’t know how anything can ever be okay again. So much is happening that I don’t understand, and I’m so far out of my depth it’s scary.”
“How do you think we feel?” Raven asked, twirling a lock of my hair around her finger. “I don’t fully understand anything that’s going on either, but I don’t think we really have to understand it to do something about it. We protect each other to the end. That’s what we do. Nothing else matters beyond that.”
She’s right. Without Adam to explain things to me, I’m just choking on what I don’t know. He’ll explain things in time, but he needs to grieve for Evelyn. We will all need to grieve for her. For everyone we’ve lost.
If we couldn’t respawn anymore, that meant that those who had already died wouldn’t be coming back. Alistair, Jasmine, Evelyn. I would never see them again.
Deal with it later. We need to get home.
I kissed Eris on the head and stood, giving Raven a kiss too.
“Thank you.”
“Always,” she replied, her crimson eyes alight as she smiled at me.
“All right. Let’s go home.”
Chapter 32 - Coming Storm
“Just sit still,” Wilson scolded me for what had to have been the fourth time that hour.
“Sorry, shoulder’s numb. It feels weird,” I said, shifting in the leather chair. It clung to my exposed back and crinkled every time I moved.
“We’re almost done, you big baby. Just a few more minutes,” he said as he continuously hammered the needle gently into my skin, pausing only to dip it into the small jars of ink on the wooden table beside us.
I stared out the window of Wilson’s room. It was much the same as mine, though not as spartan. Wilson had numerous canvas paintings hanging around the room. Some of us, some of scenery around the world, and more than a few of a woman I’d never seen before. She was young, striking, but not beautiful. She had the same gray eyes as Wilson.
His bed was carved form the same wood mine was, though he’d requested a queen, rather than a king, and his wasn’t a poster bed.
The sun hung high in the sky, and I squirmed again in my seat after another few minutes of silence. Why is it a sword wound bothers me less than a handful of tiny needle pricks? “It’s not that it hurts, jackass. It’s just uncomfortable.”
He scoffed and switched needles, changing to one dipped in a soft white ink. “Well, you’re the one who insisted you had to have a tattoo. Now, seriously. Don’t make me restrain you. I swear, I’ve tattooed eighteen-year-old kids who took it better than you.”
I laughed, and his hard expression softened.
“I know you don’t like sitting still, Dur─Sam. But if you keep fidgeting, you’ll make me slip, and trust me, you don’t want to have a permanent testament to your inability to sit in a chair for a few hours like a normal human, do you?”
I held up my right hand, still not used to the color. “You forget. I’m not human anymore.”
Wilson sighed and put down the needle, dabbing at my bleeding flesh with a white cloth. He held it up, the blood a pale reddish orange. “How can I forget when your blood is this color? I just hope Adam comes back soon.”
“It’s only been a week since Evelyn died. We all know what he’s going through. He just needs time to process.”
He looked up at the picture of the woman on the wall and sighed.
“Yeah, I know.” Wilson shook his head and picked up the needle again. “Though why you decided to get a row of jasmine as your first tattoo is something I don’t get.”
I titled to look at them. The outline of six jasmine flowers attached to a stemmed rose from my bicep to my shoulder, with a few petals falling away toward my chest. It was beautiful, even though it was only half finished.
“To remember her by. Jasmine deserves to be remembered by someone other than her mother, and I made a promise to never forget her.”
“I understand that, I do,” he said between hammering. “But why her? Why not get a tattoo to remember Evelyn, someone you’ve known for years rather than getting one for a girl you knew for a few days?”
I held my hand up again and turned my palm to face me. I ran my thumb over the rough callouses that had formed over nearly two decades. I stared at the silver-white scar on the center of my palm and closed my fist. “I don’t need a tattoo to remember Evelyn. I remember her every time I wield a sword. She’s with me every time I face an enemy, and she’ll be with me when I run my sword through Magnus’s chest.”
“And how are we supposed to go about this?”
I shrugged my shoulders and winced when Wilson picked up a clean needle and jammed it an inch deep into my forearm.
“Ow!”
“Sit still,” he warned me again as he pulled the bloody needle free.
“Okay, by the nine kings of hell, I got it,” I said and proceeded to imitate a statue as he finished working on the tattoo, “but to answer your question, I haven’t the slightest clue as to how I’m supposed to go about doing this.”
He snorted. “Well, it’s just our lives on the line, no big deal. Seriously, though. You’ll figure it out. You always do.”
“Only after you’ve told me how wrong I am at least a dozen times before I figure it out.”
“Which is exactly why I know you’ll figure it out. With me backing you, you can’t possibly lose,” he said and bumped my arm with his.
We didn’t speak after that, and another hour and a half, and he’d finished his art.
“Some of my best work,” he said and slapped my shoulder.
It stung, but I shook it off and stood from the leather chair. I looked at my ink and had to admit, it was spectacular. “Thank you, Wilson,” I said, holding out my hand.
He came over and pulled me into a quick hug before he stepped back and brushed his hands over his well-tailored vest. “Think nothing of it.”
He handed me a jar of ointment and told me to apply it several times a day for the next two weeks, and I promised him that I would.
I thanked him again and left his room, heading back to mine.
The silence of an empty room met me as I opened the door and stepped inside. Raven and Eris must still be training.
As proud as I was of both of them, it was practically all they’d been doing since we’d gotten back. They trained with
Reina and Yumiko most days, but I’d seen Gil slinking in a couple times to help them work on their combat skills. Since without Evelyn, I was the best hand to hand fighter in the guild, I trained Raven and Eris on close quarters combat, but neither of them fought with a sword, so I left their weapons training to those much more qualified to teach them than I.
Sitting in that chair for nearly two hours had made me restless, but Wilson had advised against taking a bath right after, telling me to wait until at least the morning, but as long as I didn’t get my shoulder wet, I didn’t think it would be an issue.
I went to the bathroom and shut the door firmly behind me. I dropped out of my linen trousers, but before I went and got in the bath, I went to the mirror, and like I’d done every time I was in front of a reflective surface, I stared at myself. At my golden eyes and too-pale skin.
Still can’t get used to them. I look alien, like I’m a different person. I chuckled. I am a different person. I can’t even deny that anymore. Over a decade of being Durandahl, and in less than two months it’s all come crumbling down.
As I stared into eyes that weren’t quite mine, I sighed. I don’t know who I am anymore.
I’d spent so much time burying Sampson Acre that I couldn’t quite remember what it felt like being him again. Maybe that’s for the best. Sampson Acre ran from his problems, and Durandahl buried them under too much alcohol and violence. Maybe I don’t have to be one or the other anymore.
Maybe I can just be Sam. The good and the bad together.
As I walked away from the mirror, I glanced at the placid water and decided maybe for once, I would heed Wilson’s advice.
I climbed back into my pants and exited the steam-filled bath. My open balcony caught my attention, and I habitually poured a drink from my decanter and walked outside to lean against the stone railing.
I can’t believe what my stats are right now. It’s ridiculous.
Character Name: Durandahl
Level: 69
Exp: 3800/6900
Race: Demigod
Hive Queen Page 44