by Tammy Salyer
Why? he cried. Why do anything you ask? You let my family die! After all my service, all Symvalline’s service, you let them die as though our sacrifices meant nothing.
Your family lives. They are preserved and secure.
Why would I believe you?
I will show you.
He was thrust into a bright emptiness, millions and billions of tiny specks of light moving past him too fast to discern. Then, just as abruptly, he came to a stop. His vision coalesced down to a small area, as if he stared through a monocle. Unlike a monocle, however, the lens he seemed to be peering through was faceted. Through it, he saw the beloved face of his daughter staring back at him.
“Isemay?” he whispered.
“Da! Is that you?” she cried. “Is it really you? Not a memory? How . . . where are you? I was so worried you were—”
He felt his hand reaching for her, though he could see nothing but the image of her face and a background of tall stone-like towers. He yearned to touch her soft cheek. “Are you safe, Crumb? Where is Symvalline?”
She seemed as shocked to see him as he was her and stammered, “I-I don’t know. Mum and I are in Arc Rheunos. There are people here who’ve helped me, but Da, Mum was . . . she was taken.”
His inner sight began to grow cloudy, obscuring her. “Da!” she cried.
But the vision misted away and was gone like smoke on a stiff breeze. “Isemay! Symvalline!” Ulfric wailed.
As the words left his lips, a blasting hot wind carrying hundreds of dead dragørflies battered his body, pushing him onto his back.
Urgently, Vaka Aster said, Ulfric, you must open your mind to me and allow me to stand against Balavad—
“They’re alive!” he cried aloud. “You did spare them! Take me to them!”
We cannot go to Arc Rheunos while we are vulnerable and I am bound to you. It was a mistake that brought us to Himmingaze to begin with. But I can return us to Vinnr and end my quin’s onslaught. Just let go the shackles on your mind.
But all Ulfric heard was that he could not go to his family while Vaka Aster remained caged. Fighting against the blasting furnace of Balavad’s and the dragørflies’ battle, he rolled to his side and reached out for the usurper’s Scrylle. His thoughts oozed like mud in his head, murky, sucking at him like quicksand. All he knew was that he had to look inside Balavad’s Scrylle, find a way to unmake the cage. Once he freed his maker, surely he could go to Symvalline and his child. Surely there was mercy in Vaka Aster, and she would let him do this.
He grabbed the celestial scepter, but neither of Balavad’s Fenestrii remained in the pile he’d dumped them in. Frantically, he scanned the floor. There—he’d kicked them aside when he’d fallen, and one had rolled toward the Knights, unnoticed by the Raveners.
“Mylla,” he commanded, “bring me that Fenestros.”
Chapter 50
It was said that Knights could not go crazy, that their minds were stolid and toughened by Vaka Aster’s celestial gifts. But what Mylla was witnessing in the Stallari could be described in no other way. She too saw the vision held between the usurper’s hands, the Stallari’s daughter holding a finely crafted pendant. The way Ulfric stared—it was like watching a dying man drawing his last gasping breath before surrendering to eternity.
Then the dragørfly legion struck, the Stallari cried out, and his hands flew to his head. The next moment, he fell and his eyes rolled back as if he were having a fit. Mylla and the remaining Knights watched in shock and horror as their leader mumbled incoherently, alternately writhing in place and growing rigid like a corpse. In his paroxysm, he scattered the celestial artifacts. One came toward her, but she feared to reach for it, despite the Raveners’ distraction. The four Knights present had heard Ulfric declare he was the vessel, but she didn’t know if they had been able to fully grasp that truth yet, and what was at stake. She was almost glad they couldn’t communicate through their Mentalios lenses. She wasn’t sure she could bear it as they all realized they were witnessing their last hope to save Vinnr and preserve their Verity’s dominion splinter into lunacy.
At Ulfric’s heart-rending cry of, “They’re alive! You did spare them! Take me to them!” and his conversation with his surely dead daughter, Mylla’s last doubt died. Balavad had won. The Stallari’s mind was broken. Their leader could lead no longer.
Ulfric looked at her then. “Mylla, bring me that Fenestros.”
Her many turns of responding to his commands had her reaching for Balavad’s Fenestros before she realized she was doing it. But she stopped herself. Desperation lurked like a dangerous beast in the deep lines of his face and belied the tone of his voice, a tone that rang of hope and, even more tragically, of belief. But she no longer believed, she couldn’t believe, his intentions were true. Their Stallari was gone, reduced to a fractured, hollow, unpredictable shell. It gutted her, even more than watching Havelock turn his back to her, for she’d had so much longer to learn to admire and love Ulfric, as a mentor, as family. Now nothing could save them.
Unless . . .
She jerked her head to look at the Glunt, who stared at the dragørfly-and-Verity battle glassy-eyed and dumbfounded, and the memory of something he’d said rang through her mind. When I slugged you in the chin and knocked off the goggles you’re wearing, she somehow stepped into my head.
“Mylla, the stone!” Ulfric demanded.
Still, she didn’t move. Rattling the Stallari’s mind had given Vaka Aster a moment of liberty, at least the Himmingazian’s description had made it sound that way. Could Mylla perhaps do the same? Free Vaka Aster by knocking Ulfric senseless?
One thing she was almost certain of: she could punch much harder than the Glunt.
With the speed of a bruhawk, she swept up the Fenestros and lunged toward Ulfric. The fuming edges of the usurper’s inky cloud roasted her, and she caught the sound of wrathful screeches and hissing—the Ravener horde alerted by her actions readying to attack. Ulfric jumped up to meet her and reached out for the Fenestros. Grasping it tightly, she bypassed his arm and swung with all her warrior strength, connecting squarely with his temple.
She expected him to topple instantly. No one could have remained upright with the strength she put into her swing. But he merely lurched a step as his head rocked aside. At that moment, a tendril of the black vapor surrounding Balavad whipped out, wrapping around her much as the flying sea worm had earlier. It crushed her, the pressure agonizing, squeezing the air from her. From behind her, Safran cried, “Mylla!” as she was jerked around to face Balavad, his sooty eyes ablaze with rage.
“That’s mine,” the Verity rumbled, his voice corrosive in her ears. “Release it.”
The pressure increased, as did the pain, and she cried out and dropped the Fenestros. She tried to draw a breath, but the vapor choked her. Around her, the last of the dragørflies burst into smoke and ash, their battle all but lost.
“Now you will see what happens when you or your Knights cross me, creature of Vaka Aster,” Balavad said and sent the tendril still locked around her whipping toward Ulfric, preparing to rip her apart before his eyes.
She blinked at the jolt, and when her eyes focused she was face-to-face with—
Vaka Aster.
“Help us,” Mylla breathed.
And then she released one final scream as what felt like a million daggers tore through her flesh.
Chapter 51
Jaemus’s one regret was that he wasn’t going to live to have any more. As he watched Mylla bash Ulfric with the Fenestros, he reflected that, though he’d never been one for fisticuffs, he certainly wished the old hermit Griggory had done the same to him before he’d ever stolen the celestial artifacts from his Gram. Maybe then he wouldn’t have ended up where he was now, nor would Cote and the Glisternauts. They all could have died a peaceful death under the, by comparison, delightful effluvium of the Glister Cloud.
And things continued to get worse.
A writhing branch of vapor extended from t
he terrifying Verity’s bubble of shadow and fastened Knight Evernal in a grip that practically shrieked This is what agony looks like. From where he knelt, he could see her teeth gritted against a scream and the muscles in her neck straining hard enough they looked ready to snap.
The Verity ordered her to release the Verity stone and flung Evernal around to face Ulfric. He saw her eyes widen, then she did scream. The wail sounded wrenched from the depths of her spirit, a wracked, excruciating cry. By the way it cut off abruptly and her body tumbled bonelessly to the chamber floor, he knew she was once again dead. This time really dead, surely.
And despite that she kept calling him “Glunt,” her passing saddened him. With an unexpected lump in his throat, he turned his eyes back to Ulfric.
Who was acting quite strangely indeed.
No, acting wasn’t the right word. Glowing. As Jaemus watched, the ends of Aldinhuus’s hair lit up, as if filled with the same bioluminescent chemicals that many of the creatures in the Never Sea hosted, each strand turning into a blue-green rope of radiance. And the star on his chin practically blazed. In moments, the rest of the man’s skin joined in the transformation and began incandescing like pure blue fire. Jaemus fleetingly wondered why the Knight had never done that before, then the thought fled as the light suddenly erupted, like the heart of a star, and filled the chamber with the power of a sun.
In sheer disbelieving terror, Jaemus squeezed his eyes shut, even clapped his hands over his ears, though there was no sound. A painless wave of pressure hit him, seemed to sink into his chest, and then the dread, terror, horror—every emotion he should have been feeling—all disappeared, as if consumed in the impossibly bright pulse of blue. He didn’t know if it was death itself that was squashing his natural responses, or if knowing death was inevitable had simply made him accept it. The frightening Verity was terrible and was probably going to kill them all in some unique and horrible way, but this explosion would at least be quick.
But, then, if it was going to be so quick, why did he have so much time to think it over? And if death was this slow, he certainly wasn’t complaining about how little it hurt. Which was to say, it didn’t.
For being such a brilliant engineer, Jaemus, he thought, lately you’ve only excelled in misjudging things. If you live through this—ha, ha—you may need to rethink your high opinion of yourself.
He heard clattering and thumping around him and, oh so slowly began to peel open his eyes, steeling himself for whatever attack would come next. For the moment, however, this looked to be an unnecessary concern. The entirety of the Ravener horde lay stunned on the chamber floor, still enough that he wondered if they, unlike him, had been killed by the eruption of light, which had mercifully subsided. What remained was a cerulean-white halo around Aldinhuus, surrounding him, yet somehow coming from within him.
Of course, Jaemus realized, this wasn’t the Knight he knew, not strictly anyway. This was their Verity herself, Vaka Aster. Mylla had somehow released the celestial sprite from whatever cage Aldinhuus had erected, and the being now practically oozed through Aldinhuus’s skin.
He didn’t need to warn himself not to misjudge what to expect next—there was no doubt that whatever happened, things were about to get very interesting.
“Release my creations from the influence of your spark, Balavad, and desist from your assault on Vinnr.” The voice carried the same crystalline resonance Jaemus remembered from when Vaka Aster had spoken inside his mind, but was now deepened by Aldinhuus’s own bass.
“My quin,” the scary Verity said. “I would not have expected you to meddle with the will of your own Knight.”
Vaka Aster refused to be baited. “Why do you seek to control Vinnr? You are master of your own realm.”
Balavad settled to the floor, still cloaked by his miasma, and drew closer to the Vinnr Verity. Where Vaka Aster’s ring of light and his dark cloud touched, sparks like shooting stars flew hither and yon. Jaemus detected a sharp, though not unpleasant, odor, like lightning-struck stone. The Knights to his right had not been affected, as he hadn’t, by the sudden surge of radiance from Vaka Aster, and they bowed their heads in reverence, though their eyes followed the two Verities raptly. Amazingly, they appeared calm, almost serene. Jaemus realized his own face must look comical to them, arranged, it felt, into a wobbly rictus of shock and terror.
For no reason at all, he thought, I am representing Himmingaze here. A little dignity isn’t too much to ask for. The absurdity of this almost made him chuckle, but he doubted he’d ever get over this superlative fright enough to chuckle again. Nonetheless, he forced his expression into one he hoped was a little less like a man about to piss or pass out, maybe both, and more like one on the verge of the greatest discovery in Himmingazian history.
“The Syzykí Elementum requires singularity and a singular dominion,” Balavad said. “Because of us, the Five, it is broken, but I will restore it. I will become the Elementum.”
“No,” replied Vaka Aster. “The Syzykí Elementum is all things, united or sundered. It cannot be broken. Nothing that exists does so outside the Elementum. Has our sundering so corrupted you that you’ve forgotten?”
“Then my ambitions are part of the Elementum as well,” the monstrous one reasoned, and Jaemus had to agree with the sense of his words—if everything was part of one thing, then nothing was an outlier; it was basic logic—as little as he understood what in the name of Himmingaze and the Never Sea’s black waters they were talking about. “And I will be its master,” Balavad finished.
“From One unified to Five sundered Verities, each with our own realm over which we have unchallenged dominion—this is what we as the Elementum decided,” Vaka Aster said. “If you break with the Elementum, you forfeit your rights within it.”
Vaka Aster held both arms out, and a blue-green wave of light flowed from Ulfric’s open palms, splashing as many as half the assembled Raveners. Many had begun to stir sluggishly and reach for their weapons, their expressions reflecting confusion, disorientation, and in some, a dawning dread. As Jaemus stared, awestruck by the rippling light, he realized some of the horde were changed. Their garb was the same, but their skin now glowed with color that appeared more alive than dead, and their eyes had cleared, varying in hues from blues to browns to greens. Though their features ranged from fair to dark, to the last they all looked very like Aldinhuus and Evernal, in short, like people of Vinnr. They must have been mutated and absorbed into Balavad’s army, but were being reclaimed by Vaka Aster.
Yet it seemed as if the usurper wasn’t willing to give them up. “Accept your losses,” he snarled, “and leave these creatures to me. You abandoned them. I offer them what you taunt them with and then take away. Their lives. I will spare them and allow them to continue eternally under my sway.”
“Corrupted, twisted lives. I have taken back my own creations. The first, the most fundamental rule of the Elementum was to set the realms in motion and permit our creations to unfold on their own, to follow their own wills, without influence beyond what is necessary to preserve our realms. Do you think they would choose eternity as your puppets? That is not life as the Elementum intends it.”
Balavad’s acid voice carried throughout the chamber. “Your own corruption, Vaka Aster, is that you believe their wills matter.” He laughed. “You speak of rules, yet here you are, having yourself forced your will on one of your own.”
“I have stepped forward in his absence.”
“You stole his form.”
“To preserve my realm.”
“Your realm,” Balavad sneered, waving a long-fingered hand dismissively. Then, in a tone as smooth and dark as warm oil, he crooned, “Perhaps you would be easier to persuade if you no longer had one. To arms, Raveners!”
Balavad’s hand chopped downward and his miasma billowed, enveloping Vaka Aster in a cloud of black. For a moment, it looked to Jaemus as if he was staring into an absence of matter and light, as if a hole to the eternal emptiness beyond the Gre
at Cosmos had opened where Vaka Aster stood. Then biting pain pierced his chest, the same as the first time Balavad’s poison fog shot through them. As Jaemus cringed and clutched at his torso, barely keeping his eyes at a squint, he saw the people of Vinnr gripping their own bodies, some groaning, some stumbling back down to their knees. In terrifying synchronicity, the Raveners of Balavad’s realm swept up their hooked swords and readied to attack.
“You were outwitted by your own Knight, Vaka Aster, and have become trapped in a cage you cannot escape. I can see this wound I inflict on you spreading to your creations. As your vessel dies, they will too. Your weakness for your lesser creations has decided their fate, as it has your realm’s.” With a nightmarish grin, he called, “Raveners, destroy them.”
A new spike of pain shot through Jaemus’s gut, and a guttural cry escaped the pale golden-haired Knight beside him. Beyond him, the swarthy Knight and the injured one clutched each other tightly, their eyes squeezed shut in torment. The pain grew agonizing, mounting in a pressure that he felt would burst him to pieces, and he wanted to beg fate to just kill him outright.
“Then let it be your realm’s fate as well,” came Vaka Aster’s voice, thin and echoing as if traveling from a great distance. “One vessel is as assailable as another.”
From the center of the dark circle, a glow began to burn, igniting the black ether into curling flames.
Lightning-fast, the glow formed into blue flames in the shape of Ulfric’s body, then shot toward the usurper, colliding with an impact that made the air roil throughout the chamber like a hard ocean current. Jaemus’s pain dulled, allowing him to draw a full breath that smelled of an unlikely mix of brimstone and sea breezes. The fallen Vinnrics scattered among the Raveners seemed to recover too, and they dove for weapons. The chamber erupted into hand-to-hand combat as some defended themselves against the Raveners, and others attacked first. Ghastly shrieks and screams, grunts and cries of rage flowed throughout, a spectacle beyond any Jaemus had ever seen—or wanted to.