He pressed his hand to his heart. “Dear sister, your words sting me. But the time for talk is over. If you will not hand the stones over to me, I will have to pry them from your cold, dead fingers… though not before you watch your friends die.”
“That’s where you’re wrong. There are hundreds of us and only one of you.”
“You forget, I have friends also.”
Valoel raised his right hand, as if displaying the Wrath stone to the night sky. It pulsed with light once, twice; the third time, it sent a shockwave ripping through the air. It was like a psychic scream I could hear with my mind, instead of my ears. I wanted to turn away from the sound, but there was nothing I could’ve done to stop it from drilling itself into my head.
With the scream still ringing in my ears, in my brain, Valoel took to the skies on his black wings, raising himself over the ground and watching me from above. “You were wondering where my friends were,” Valoel said. “Ask no longer.”
The first of the Serakon swooped past him on huge, batlike wings. Roaring at the top of his voice and carrying a longsword that glimmered with dark and dangerous magic, the Serakon whooshed overhead and made a run at the Obsidian Order’s position. I was about to go after it, but then more Serakon moved in, seeming to almost manifest from the dark skies above us. Ten of them. Twenty. Fifty. I lost count, and that was the point when my nerves kicked in.
What if there were too many of them?
“You wanted a fight,” Valoel said, “You have one. But first, you’ll watch your friends die from the ground, like the worm you are.”
I turned around, and already I could see the flash of magic, I could hear the ear-splitting sound of steel ringing against steel. The battle had begun. I could only hope they would be able to hold their own against the Serakon. Looking at Valoel again, I couldn’t help but grin.
“You’re right about one thing,” I said, “I have my fight, and I’m looking forward to kicking your ass. But I won’t do it from down here.”
Arching an eyebrow, I rolled my shoulders and bid my kithe to stretch out of my back, the feathers ruffling gently with the breeze. Valoel’s eyes widened. He hadn’t been expecting that, which meant he wasn’t expecting what I was about to do next.
“How did you…?” he asked, stunned.
“It doesn’t matter how I got them,” I said, pushing myself off the ground with my wings. It was like I’d never lost them in the first place, as if my body had never forgotten how to use them. Each and every muscle worked in harmony with the others to hoist me into the air and keep me aloft. It was as easy as breathing, as easy as walking. “What matters is that this time, I’m not injured. And this time, I have these.”
I focused my power and energy through all three of the God stones, and it was like a flood of magic I almost wasn’t prepared to receive. My body hummed like a string plucked by the Gods themselves. Magic filled me, and then whirled around me like a small storm, lightning arching out of my fingertips, my shoulders, even my feet.
I could feel them working through me; the Gods, the stones. More than ever, I felt the pull of the Wrath stone, the Tenacity stone. They were calling to me, desperate to come back to me, but neither of them could escape Valoel’s grasp on their own. I would have to wrestle them from him myself.
Fair enough, if that was what it took.
Valoel’s frown settled, and he looked cool and collected again. “No matter,” he said, “It’s still not enough.”
“We’ll see about that,” I said, and at my thought, each and every one of the feathers on my wings ignited, transforming into small tongues of flame. Valoel put his hand up to protect his eyes from the light, and I saw my opening.
On wings of fire I lunged at him, and the fight to end all fights began.
The last time I faced off against Valoel I’d been injured, and he’d gotten the better of me. This time, I wasn’t injured. I had three God stones, I’d received their blessings, and I had my wings back… but he was still no walk in the park. Valoel recovered quickly from the sudden brightness caused by my wings erupting, and he was able to parry my dagger with the edge of his sword.
He tumbled back, stabilizing quickly with his wings, and then he came at me. His eyes were red, his face twisted with anger, with malice, but I was quick. Quick as a dart. I zipped out of his path and shot off into the night sky, heading toward the ruined quarter building on the far side of the construction site.
Valoel gave chase, calling out to me from behind, taunting me. Beyond him I could just about hear the battle taking place. The Serakon were vicious fighters, and there’d been so many of them. Fate, Felice, Six—they could all fly, and they could all fight. Ness, though? She couldn’t fly, but her magic was incredibly strong.
I had to trust that they had this under control, that they wouldn’t let themselves be killed by mind-controlled slaves. I had to trust them, because if I didn’t, then I’d want to go and help them… and that was a sure-fire way to make sure Valoel won this fight. I needed to focus, concentrate on flying, on sticking low to the ground and weaving in and out of discarded construction equipment.
If Valoel had been thinking straight, he’d have soared up into the sky and watched me from above instead of risking his own safety by following me where the sharp turns and even sharper metal objects were thickest. But he wasn’t thinking straight. He was fueled by Wrath, and as much as it made him strong—stronger, even, than me—it also made him predictable, and prone to making mistakes.
I pulled a hard right at a stack of crates, knocking them down with my foot as I went, and Valoel crashed right into them. He cursed loudly, but he was back on his feet, back in the air, in only a few moments.
I aimed my hand at him and yelled. “Veshrim!”
A pulse of prismatic magic shot out of my hand and streaked toward him at the speed of light. It struck him in the shoulder, the pain of the impact causing him to groan, but he didn’t slow down much. In an instant he was coming for me again, soaring toward me on black wings, his sword gleaming against the moonlit sky.
I fired another beam of magic at him, only this one he deflected with the Wrath and Tenacity stones, which he kept held in his left hand. When he reached me, he launched a flurry of furious attacks with his sword that I had a hard time keeping up with.
I could see my fiery wings reflected in his wide, black eyes—the light wasn’t affecting him much anymore. Maybe he was using magic to protect them from me, or maybe the stones were protecting him from the light. I didn’t know, and it didn’t matter. His attacks were accurate, hard, and fast. It took all that I had just to keep his blade from biting into my skin.
Finally, I managed to parry him in such a way that it threw him off balance. I used the opportunity to fly away from him so that I could right myself, so I could actually breathe and plan my next attack. He was stronger than me, just as fast as me, and incredibly clever. He probably knew what I was going to do next before even I’d thought of it.
I knew what I had to do—I had to get the stones out of his hand, somehow. Of course, that was much easier said than done. His grip on the stones was vicelike and handling them didn’t seem to impair his ability to fight. My magic also wasn’t working as well as I thought it would. Even with the blessing of the Gods, Valoel was still proving very difficult to beat.
I was going to have to get creative.
“Alright, asshole,” I said, “Let’s make this a little more interesting.”
I turned around and shot away from him, willing the fire around my wings to burn out. Once the flames were gone, I made a rapid turn around the hollowed-out building whispering the word, “Voyda.”
By the time I emerged on the other side, my magic invisibility had fallen around me like a mantle, bending the light as it touched my body so I wouldn’t be seen. It seemed to throw Valoel off, but only for a few seconds.
It was enough.
“Do you really think you can hide from me like that?” he asked, already swoop
ing toward me, “Pathetic.”
I didn’t reply. Instead, I headed straight for the battle taking place at the front of the construction site. Already I could see wings, and swords gleaming, and magic flashing… and bodies. Some Serakon had been dropped, but so had some members of the Order. My heart leapt into my throat at the sight of what could’ve been friends of mine lying dead on the cold, gravelly earth.
Where’s Fate? Felice? I couldn’t see them among the bodies on the ground, though I’d have no chance of spotting them from out here, anyway. Maybe they were still up in the air, fighting in close quarters with the Serakon. I wasn’t sure, but as much as the thought that either of them could be hurt, or dead, terrified me, I had to push past it and complete my mission.
Valoel was hot on my heels and gaining on me—but only because I was letting him. I shot past a Serakon about to bring his blade down on an Aevian of the Order and slid my dagger into his side. The Serakon froze, and the Aevian blasted him with Veshrim magic powerful enough to send him hurtling from the sky and into the ground.
I turned around to tell the Aevian to flee, but no sooner had I turned around that I saw Valoel’s sword sticking out of the Aevian’s neck. Blood spilled out of the sides of his mouth. When Valoel pulled the sword back, the Aevian fell like a wet rag to the earth, spiraling as he fell out of the sky.
“Bastard!” I screamed, and I went for him, striking at him with my dagger like it was a fistful of snakes. Each attack was quicker than the last, and while he was able to deflect most of them, one of them made it past his guard and cut a straight line through his right bicep. He dropped away, cradling his fresh wound.
“That will be the last time you injure me,” he growled.
Though I was panting from the exertion, I still had plenty of energy to flip him the middle finger. “How’s that, asshole?”
Valoel came for me again, and this time when I lunged away from him, I headed for the ground. I was better than him in the air. That much I’d been able to tell from the last few minutes of fighting with him. But as long as I was up there, grabbing the Wrath stone was going to be impossible. I needed him on the ground, where he was slower.
“Seline!” Draven called out just as my feet touched the ground. “What are you doing?”
“Keep the Order back!” I yelled, “Valoel is mine.”
The battle raged around me like a storm.
Above, the sky was thick with winged Serakon fighting Aevians of the Order. It was a mess of feathers, and leather, and swords, and magic, but at the same time it was like a dance. Where the Serakon were strong and tough, the Aevians were swift, and this balanced the two sets of combatants out. Who beat who all came down to that one lucky hit, whether it was a longsword that cleaved into an Aevian or a carefully placed strike to a Serakon’s fleshier parts.
From the ground, the more magically inclined of our fighters were there to lend their support, firing bolts of magic into the sky. Kandi, Mercutio, Romeo, and Bastet had formed a protective dome of magic that kept the Serakon from getting in, but allowed anyone inside of it to fire up into the sky. Ness was there, standing alongside the mages, only she wasn’t trying to hurt the Serakon—her magic was targeting our own people, healing their wounds as they fought.
And then there was Draven, the fastest and strongest among us, the best fighter we had. His hair was plastered to his face, his hands and his sword were covered in blood and he had cuts on his arms and shoulders, but he wasn’t falling. Enemy after enemy came for him, and with a quick parry and riposte, he brought them down hard and fast.
It was mesmerizing to watch him fight… but I had my own fight to tend to. I spun around just as Valoel landed behind me, my dagger whipping out expecting an attack from a longsword, but he didn’t strike me with his sword. His hand moved just as my necklace swung toward him… and he grabbed it.
He’d completely forfeited his own defense so that he could grab the stones, and he’d paid by allowing me to dig my blade into his ribs. I was frozen. I didn’t know how strong the necklace itself was, but I had a feeling he’d be able to rip it off me with a single tug.
For a long moment we stared at each other like that, our eyes locked, pulses racing. A trickle of blood spilled from the corner of his mouth. When he grit his teeth at me, I saw more blood in his mouth. The stones hung between us, the locket dangling under Valoel’s closed fist. The Wrath stone seemed to hiss into my mind, drawing my attention to it, and I realized two things as soon as I looked at it.
One, Valoel was unarmed… and two, his grip on his own stones had weakened from the injury I’d inflicted.
I thought, maybe, if I was fast enough, I could grab both stones out of his hand. But if I did that, I’d be sacrificing my own stones, and hoping I succeeded. If I failed, then Valoel would have four stones, and I’d be left with one. Suddenly, we all lose. Just like that.
“This is it,” he said, blood staining his lips. “This is how I beat you.”
“I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but my dagger is in your ribs,” I said. “If I twist it right now, you’ll never survive.”
“You underestimate the power of these stones.”
“Maybe, but it’s more likely you think you’re tougher than you are.”
“We’ll see about that.”
I saw the intention to pull in his eyes before he did it. In that split second I had a choice—protect my own stones, or go for his. I pulled my blade out of his ribs and kicked him hard in the stomach, hard enough that when he fell back, he yanked the necklace free from my neck and took Hope and Wisdom with him.
The feeling of disconnect was instant, and painful. It was like having a limb ripped off. Roaring, I fell to my knees just as Valoel tumbled onto his back. I watched him scramble to get to his feet, with one hand on his wound and another hand on the stones he’d just taken from me. Laughing, he pushed his fist out toward me, showing me he’d beaten me.
“It’s over, Seline!” he yelled, “I have the stones, now.”
Hot anger rushed into my chest. My entire body tightened like I’d been grabbed by a giant. I almost couldn’t move, or breathe, let alone speak. I found the strength inside myself to force a grin and turn my eyes up at him, and I watched his excitement deflate.
“Why are you smiling?” he asked, and then he realized. He was able to apply pressure to the wound on his side because he wasn’t holding his own stones anymore.
Slowly, my body shaking from the effort of containing the stone’s power, I opened my palm. Sitting inside were Wrath and Tenacity. The last time I’d held Wrath, its own power had been enough to tear my skin apart. Phantom cuts bit into every inch of my body, some of them painful, some of them painless.
That wasn’t happening now. The Gods’ blessing had gifted me with the endurance necessary to control it the way Valoel had been able to. To tame it, to bring it to heel under my own willpower. And that meant I could now do exactly what I’d wanted to do.
“Dropped something?” I asked, and with a thought, I severed Valoel’s hold on the Serakon.
A pulse of psychic magic exploded from me and shot out in all directions. I could feel them with my mind; not just the Serakon, but everyone under the stone’s control. I only had to visualize the desire in my head, and the stone released them all at once. Every single psychic chain shattered, and as they did, I watched the Serakon fighting our side suddenly stop fighting entirely.
Many of them dropped their weapons, others handed them over to the people they were fighting against. Valoel watched, his eyes wide, the smug smile gone from his face, my stones still dangling from his closed fist. I raised myself up, keeping my eyes on him the entire time. If I hadn’t, I would’ve missed him falling to his knees and clasping his hands together.
“Please,” he begged. He tossed the locket with the stones at my feet. “Please, don’t kill me…”
I stared at him from where I stood. He looked so small, now. He’d tucked his wings in behind his back, and he was hol
ding his hands out like he was praying. They had blood on them from his wound. I watched a line of it dribble into the cuff of his shirt. He was pleading for his life… I hadn’t expected this.
I picked my stones up from the ground and immediately felt their power rush through me again. It was as if my entire body had started to sing, every inch of my being harmonizing with the stones. I felt whole, complete, stronger than I’d ever felt in my entire life.
“Of all the things I thought you’d do tonight,” I said, “Begging was the furthest thing from my mind.”
“Don’t kill me…” he said, “I’ll go away. You’ll never see my face again. I swear it.”
Draven walked up beside me and dug the tip of his sword into the ground. “He doesn’t deserve to live,” he said.
“I know,” I said, “But the choice isn’t mine…” I turned my eyes up at the Serakon hovering above us. “It’s theirs.”
The Serakon watched Valoel from their vantage high above us. In my periphery I saw Six moving closer to Valoel. She had her wings stretched out behind her back and blood on her face. Her skin was paler than usual, her eyes burning with amber light. She’d had to fight, and maybe even kill, members of her own kind today. People who otherwise she wouldn’t have had to kill.
I could sense the anger in her, as if the Wrath stone were acting like some sort of psychic receiver. She didn’t say anything, neither did any of the other Serakon. Instead, they descended on him like piranhas. I didn’t shut my eyes. I didn’t turn away. I watched the Serakon fall on Valoel and tear into him with their claws, their teeth.
I’d never seen a more brutal display in my entire life. This was a scene I would never forget. But I could accept that. No one should forget the kind of atrocities people are capable of committing upon others. If we do, we open the door to letting it happen again, and I wasn’t going to stand for that.
The Obsidian Order Boxed Set Page 79