“They are all dead,” Melchior said and it chilled her that he was so certain. He shook his head and smiled without humor. “Nuriel made it clear to me that the Shade had wiped out all of the Suleika and that would mean my offspring as well. I may be dead myself before long. Not sure if the Shade’s death means the element dies from within me or I go with it.”
Rienna’s stomach lurched and she spewed up whatever she hadn’t digested from their late breakfast. She didn’t want to lose Melchior, couldn’t conceive of losing anyone else. In her mind, if the end was to come, she was determined it would be all or none. Melchior watched her but did not drop his guard to comfort her. She was glad for that, but not at all happy that his eyes were voids again.
“Why can’t we banish them?” Rienna asked, pleading with him to stop this nonsense.
“Because I have to be the one to do it. I don’t think these are illusions. Haven’t you gotten the feeling that the island isn’t exactly pleased the illusions failed? We’re supposed to be small fry, a fly to shoo away and we’re not behaving,” Melchior grimly told her. Rienna had noticed that Dinsch was standing at the ready to fight as well. She guessed that he had already tried to quietly get rid of them but they weren’t cooperating.
Melchior’s skin had started to glow and steam distorted his form as the fires within his body ignited and he burned unharmed with Nuriel’s power. Rienna backed towards Dinsch, the heat becoming too much for her to bear. With every breath he took, he seemed to grow, slowly into the fire giant she had seen him become before. The lumbering undead paid no mind as they neared.
Melchior had left the circle so quickly that they barely had time to register. The crackling and whoosh of fire grew and there was a high-pitched squealing now that turned Rienna’s stomach again, making her need to cling to Dinsch for balance. The squeal was not from the throats of the undead, but from whatever liquids still remained in their corpses whistling like a teakettle. Dinsch had held onto Rienna tighter now that Melchior seemed to have a handle on the barbeque and rather than his eyes questioning her, he seemed to just nurture her and wipe the sweat from her brow. The fire runes that made up their circle of protection dancing excitedly as Melchior’s power flowed around them.
It was an odd contrast to the screaming undead, cooking in their unsavory death marinade. Rienna turned her face against Dinsch’s chest, sure that her unrest had been largely due to the side effects of her gross mistreatment. She wondered why Sea Star had taken the time to dress her but not heal her now, that she had been left to do so herself. It seemed odd, even more odd that she was so used to the worst always happening that she was even able to wander in thought like this despite the horrors around her. She wondered also how Melchior was faring, looking at the faces and bodies of those he had doomed simply by knowing them.
Once the gristly work was done, Melchior had gradually went from flaming hulk to himself again, his eyes dead as they met Rienna’s. It was not an illusion and organic terrors were not up Viper’s alley, so she wondered what other forces were at work that really hadn’t wanted them to succeed. It wasn’t enough to just kill them, it seemed; whatever opposed them seemed to always want them dead inside. Despite it all though, Rienna remembered she had been able to fall in love. Not just her, but Finn and Verity had found each other and she suspected Pierait and Lyria were more than just allies as well. Krose and Dinsch had stayed loyal to the other and just remembering that made her focus turn to Dinsch. If he was worried about Krose, so far he had been too stoic to show it. That spoke volumes about how much this journey had affected him. Stoic was not a word she had ever thought she would associate with Dinsch.
Melchior had approached and they stood in a tight circle, not speaking. Rienna looped her arms around their shoulders and laid a kiss on each on their foreheads and clanked their heads lightly together. This was a moment she wished she could freeze in her mind forever. Camaraderie at its finest, the world’s end be damned.
Krose had seen the swirls of fire ahead before Finn and Verity had and he had shuffled unsurely to a stop. He spun to look at them and Finn’s face was stony, frowning, where Verity just clung to him nervously. It was hard to believe by looking at her that she was such a clever, brave woman under her nervousness; they wouldn’t be standing there if not for her quick thinking though so he knew better. Verity was not someone you could predict on a first impression, especially since she had full control over what you could see. He found comfort in the fact that she never felt the need to keep up illusions with her friends.
The three of them stood and watched the fires flare and each of them shared the same hope; that Melchior was taking care of something rather than one of their friends meeting their end. They would have been happy to know that that was the case.
When the fires started to die down, they started their march again and Krose wondered now if it was their friends ahead, had they been thinking the same thing when one of Viper’s death machines had exploded? There was no way anything on the continent had missed that explosion. How many of his friends had lived to see it though?
It did not take them too long to reach the area where the trees had been scorched, although it could have been easily missed since the strange trees seemed to have mostly healed in the time it took to approach them. Even the sooty ash Krose had expected to see was mostly scattered to the wind, although he noted that wind hadn’t been anything he could recall feeling since he had been here. It made his skin crawl thinking that this place had no room for change and unwelcome things were just erased. He chased one last thought into oblivion, not really wanting to know if that huge rotten black carcass he had woken to was a thing that remained or if it had only been staged for his misery. He preferred to think the latter.
When Krose had gone through the trees, he had immediately saw Melchior, Dinsch and Rienna standing in their runed circle and ran to them, flailing to a stop before reaching it as Finn had shouted a warning. In moments, all of them drew weapons and prepared to fight.
“Damn, I should know better than to be so reckless,” Krose scolded himself aloud. “You’re just illusions…”
To his relief, they did not go away. He started to sheathe his weapon, but Melchior backed away from the rune line as Krose set about crossing it. An illusion wouldn’t be able to do so, but then he already knew illusions weren’t the only threats here. Melchior did not drop his sword so Krose frowned and slowly raised his arms in surrender.
“Illusions aren’t the only things we fear here. If you’re Krose, bring Lumina,” Melchior warned.
Krose did not hesitate to do so and this Lumina looked cold and annoyed, short curly hair and pouty lips.
“Rest assured, my paranoid child of Fire, this place cannot use the visages of the elementals to trick you,” Lumina hissed at Melchior and he nodded and sheathed his sword.
“I thought as much but we cannot take chances now,” Melchior explained, which was quite possibly the closest to an apology most people will ever hear from him.
Rienna did not hesitate to run up and embrace Krose, nearly knocking him off his feet as she squeezed him and sobbed heavily. He had pulled his arm away but still winced and stroked her back with his uninjured hand.
Finn and Verity entered the circle warily, still hoping their friends would not become illusions themselves.
“The Mother is still recovering; should we summon her too?” Verity asked unsurely. Melchior shook his head.
“What’s wrong with your arm?” Melchior asked Krose now.
“Broken. We fought one of Viper’s machines. We wouldn’t be here if Verity hadn’t snapped into action,” Krose admitted. Melchior seemed mildly impressed and Verity humbly mirrored the pride Krose had shown in bringing it up.
Rienna had pulled back and wiped at her tears, shaking her head to clear it. She took the arm in her hands and her magic glowed warmly around it. He shook away the sling and undid the splint, flexing his arm with visible relief. Rienna’s puffy eyes met Krose’s kin
dly and she kissed his cheek. He was almost afraid to ask, but knew there wasn’t time for pleasantries.
“No sign of Ashe or the other two?” Krose asked her now and she froze almost imperceptibly before a distant gaze glazed over her face and her head dropped as if a great weight yanked at it. Krose instantly regretted being so tactless as he had never seen her look so empty and lost. The ragged bride had been full of vengeance while this Rienna was unreachable.
“Ashe is gone,” Rienna stated, in the same final way she had done before but she did not cry. She rushed ahead to avoid it. “We haven’t seen Pierait or Lyria, but we think that Pierait must surely be the one throwing up the beacon.”
“What happened?” Krose asked stonily, unable to stop himself.
“It doesn’t matter now; if there is time ahead, we can mull over this place later. No good will come of talking about it now,” Melchior answered, his voice dark and thick with emotion. Although they were all coming to terms with this possibly being their last stop, only Melchior had been able to talk about an ‘after’ with any real conviction. He couldn’t know how suddenly it boosted their morale.
Rienna grabbed Krose’s arm and poked at it to test it and he smiled to show he was okay, giving her an approving thumbs-up and a quick peck on the cheek.
“It wouldn’t hurt my feelings to never bring this place up again, to be honest,” Krose reassured Melchior and from the looks on everyone’s faces, the feeling was mutual. Krose looked around and could see night was not far off.
“We’ll camp here for tonight,” Melchior told them now. He did not stick around to talk but went into his tent. He did not tell them now of the intense pain that was riding him. He supposed he didn’t have much time left, but they had other things to worry about. If their slim chances became nil, none of them had much time left anyway. No damn point in dwelling on it though.
The only thing that seemed to lighten their spirits the next morning was seeing their group had doubled in size, but it was a short-lived relief. Once they stepped outside of the circle, they knew with dread in their hearts that the illusions still lurked. In a few short hours, they would reach the beacon and find if friend, foe or both awaited them. There were no guarantees, but in all actuality, there never had been. From the moment Viper and the elementals stepped into their lives, they had none. They had been blanketed in the illusion that they had, but illusions were not their friends any longer and they had none that did not come with a price.
Not far from them, Pierait and Lyria, the luckiest among them so far, rested. Elcarim was not a place that slept so soundly as one would hope, not with Viper and old curses resurfacing. Pierait, in his trance, grew weary and his mind was frantic from lack of real rest. He sat there, being little but an open channel for souls to flow and tower around them. Unbeknownst to his friend, Pierait had been tortured in his quiet place as well. His fount had been filled with the souls that had been claimed when the world below shook with the old gods’ unrest. His heart had hurt for Rienna in the moments when he felt Ashe’s soul join the flow as well. Souls did not keep their identities, their individualities, for long; they were energy and when souls reassembled from the wellsprings, they were not like Frankenstein monsters of past lives, but a piece of everything and everyone that rejoined. The Lifestream was a place where energy gathered before it found matter, a body, to transform into a life. It flowed with the struggles of souls trying to make sense of their own purpose, chock full of impurities and salvation.
Another thing that disturbed Pierait is how Melchior’s soul seemed to linger on the brink of the wellspring now. It was confusing that he could feel it linger like a child on the side of an icy pool sticking their foot in, not quite sure whether to plunge in. He felt Melchior’s despair, determination, even his love for Rienna. Pierait silently asked the well to reject him. Not that it would listen, but he had hoped it would. More so because all of Melchior’s bastards had also made themselves known to him. It stabbed at his heart that his friends suffered through so much. Was it cruel not to let them join the Lifestream? He thought it might be crueler still to let a soul never have a chance for something more.
Pierait did not know that Lyria had started to stir. At first, nothing off had occurred to her but as her brain gathered its thoughts coherently, she remembered that only two things would wake her: their friends entering the beacon or their foes. Lyria did not see their friends now and the earth was trembling beneath them. Lyria stumbled to her feet and saw that the ground beneath the tranced Pierait was rising. Acting quickly, she dove and pushed him well out of the way although still too close for comfort to the emerging death machine, a match to the one that had attacked Krose, Verity and Finn not long ago. These wicked monstrosities were the stuff of nightmares; Lyria was lucky that her and Pierait had missed them exploding from the humanoid bodies of children.
Viper had gotten impatient after all. Their friends were so close yet so far and he intended to leave them a nice present of limbs and despair. He had the added benefit of seeing the worry cross the faces of Rienna and her friends as Lyria’s mad dash to rescue Pierait had abruptly stopped the beacon. Lyria panicked when Pierait did not wake but started to thrash as if riddled by seizures. She did the only thing she could think of and called Mot to protect them. He indeed shielded them from the blades of Viper’s assault, but Mot had unhappily let Lyria know that he would not be able to hold it for long before she would need to figure out a different plan of action. Or die, but death elemental or not, he did not delight in telling her that. Mot did not feed on death and in fact, leading the ones that the old gods stirring had snuffed out was already taking a lot out of him. Lives cut short always had a hard time entering the Lifestream again. He knew it had been taking a toll on Pierait as well.
Indeed, after some time, Lyria noticed that the barrier was fading and Pierait had only just stopped seizing but he did not wake. She would not leave him to die alone and helpless and resolved that this was the end of their journey. She clasped her arms around his shoulders, his head cradled in her lap and she set her face bravely, looking at the machine and preparing to die.
When the machine lurched forward, she shut her eyes and braced for a quick end, hoping it would at least be quick anyway. She had seen his other machines tear some of Rienna’s soldiers limb from limb in Myceum so she knew she might not be so lucky. She heard and felt the strange heavy thump of the machine but the gears that had been whirring away were becoming sluggish and she heard them no more.
When Lyria dared to open her eyes, she saw Finn was standing on the back of the thing, in a sort of hero’s pose that would have made her laugh but she was simply too grateful to ridicule him now. He held in his clawed hands pieces of the monstrosity that he had torn from the back of the head. Verity and Rienna had run around the heap and gathered Lyria to her feet to embrace her. Dinsch and Krose were helping Pierait come to his senses and Melchior held back, his aloof leader persona intact. Only if they had looked closely, they would see that he was not just being a jerk; he was dying. Sweat beaded on his forehead and it took all his strength to not breathe heavily. Pain was something Melchior had learned to hide well.
Only someone knew better, no matter how well Melchior hid it and when Pierait came to his feet, he stumbled over to Melchior.
“Rienna, come here,” Pierait ordered her, but without any strictness. His voice had been soft and sympathetic. “You cannot heal him but maybe you could lessen his pain.”
Rienna frowned at Pierait but did as he bid.
“What do you mean? He isn’t hurt…” Rienna said looking Melchior over. Even having his game revealed, he stayed stoic. A stabbing pain in that moment called his bluff and he made an “umph” sound as he collapsed to a knee.
“Melchior, what’s wrong?” Rienna asked, panicking now.
“There is no time for this. Viper is not going to wait much longer to attack again,” Melchior barked angrily, shoving her away unkindly.
Rienna’s anger f
lared now. “Don’t give me that, Melchior! I’m going to heal you now, but you’re also going to tell me what the hell is happening!” Rienna told him, her voice more dangerous and unbending than any of them had heard from her yet.
Rienna pulled Melchior to her now, resting his head on her chest, her kneeling on the ground, him still on a knee beside her.
“I’m dying. The dark element is abandoning me. You can’t heal me, Rienna,” Melchior told her, his voice an odd combination of tough and childishly scared.
Tears sprang to her eyes as the magic swirled around them as it usually did, but her heart despaired to see the relief was minimal. She grabbed a handful of his hair and yanked his head back to see his face and she ran a hand over his rough jawline tenderly and bent to kiss him.
This wasn’t the chaste sort of kiss she had started with Dinsch (that had turned a bit overheated); this was a deep, desperate kiss that had shocked Melchior even, his eyes having shot open wide then drifting drunkenly closed as she moved her mouth over his. His mechanical hand fumbled at the glove on his other hand and he removed it so he could stroke her cheek, his fingers trembling unsteadily. The others had watched, both in states of awe and embarrassment, most of them wanting to look away but then being unable to. It was a wonder to watch, a thing that even those watching felt intoxicated by. Verity had even grabbed Finn’s hand and squeezed it now and he had squeezed it back, looking away to share a smile with her. He kissed her lightly on the nose, knowing it would be silly to attempt to outdo that kiss.
When the kiss had ended, Melchior was looking at Rienna dumbfounded, a slow smirk spreading on his face.
“That was definitely worth the wait. I can die a happy man,” Melchior said tenderly, hoarse with budding lust.
Rienna supposed she should be sad but anger was her go-to emotion and this was no different. She grabbed his jaw tightly between her hands and made him look at her.
“Not now, Melchior. Maybe we can all die soon, but don’t give up yet,” Rienna demanded of him now. He nodded at her and smiled, rising to his feet. The pain had dulled to discomfort for now, but for the most part, it seemed to be bearable.
The Truth about Heroes: Complete Trilogy (Heroes Trilogy) Page 58