by Matt King
I don’t need you to interfere, I need you to tell the Orphii and the Elosians to run toward the pass. They’re not going to survive what’s coming.
So much death…, she said.
Yeah, no shit, and there’s going to be a whole lot more if you don’t tell them to get the hell away from her.
He could see the indecision on her face. She glanced away, almost like she was looking for Meryn. Eventually, she closed her eyes.
The Mountain turned its head to look at her. Down on the ground, the Elosians turned as one like a flock of birds and began running for the hills. The Mountain bellowed after them.
August held tight as the huge Orphii started to move. It stepped carefully along the flat terrain, aiming its footfalls to avoid the fleeing Elosians. It cleared the distance to the hills in only a few steps. When it got to the edge of the valley floor, it lowered its hand, and with a turn of its palm, August tumbled out onto the ground along with a wave of dirt. He rolled to a stop near Aeris and the Horsemen.
He emerged gingerly from the pile of earth, trying not to show the effects of his dismount. “I’m good. Everything’s fine.”
Aeris helped him to his feet. “What did you see?”
“Tiale,” Ion answered, confirming August’s assumption.
“We have to get moving, now,” August said.
She looked past him toward Tiale’s hurricane with wide eyes. “All right. Come on.”
He followed her in a sprint toward the nearest mountain. When he looked over, he saw a hundred Elosians running to the same one. “The other mountain!” he shouted to Aeris, pointing. “The other one!”
They veered off to a smaller peak to the right, Orphii stampeding past them. Ion streaked ahead, flying low. August checked over his shoulder. The storm wall was getting closer. We aren’t going to make it.
As though he’d read his mind, Ion doubled back and grabbed the Alliance in arms of energy from his shell and lifted them into the air. He sped toward the top of the hill. Then, without warning, his ascent slowed near the top. He sat them down on a rough outcropping.
“We can’t stop here,” August said. “This isn’t far enough.”
“I tried to go farther.”
“What do you mean, you tried?”
“She wouldn’t let me.”
As one, the Alliance looked back at Tiale’s storm. The outer bands swirled directly in front of them, inching their way toward the mountain. Most of the Elosians were already past the slopes on their way into the canyon pass. Some, though, were too far back to make it. Their bodies flew up into the clouds, mixing with remnants of Galan’s machines and Ministers.
“So we run,” August said.
Ion’s face lost its red hue. “She won’t allow us to go far.”
“We can’t just stand here and—”
“August…” Aeris said.
“What? We can’t give up without trying.”
“Look at what’s coming.”
He didn’t have to. He could feel the pressure change in his ears as the storm grew closer. No matter how much he wanted to believe otherwise, he knew how it would end.
The three Horsemen put their weapons away and removed their face masks, tossing them over the outcropping’s edge. They took each other’s hands. Ion’s face changed from white to blue. He moved beside them. The closest brother placed his hand on Ion’s shell.
Aeris took one of the brothers’ hands in hers. She offered the other to August. In the reflection of her eyes, he saw the clouds moving like a runaway train. A bolt of lightning struck the rocks above them, leaving behind the scent of ozone.
Not for the first time that day, he took her hand thinking the end was about to come, and again, he didn’t have the words to convey how he felt. To complete the circle, he put his other hand on Ion’s shell. His fingers shook. His breath shuddered. He tried to think of something—anything—to stave off the fear. He was with his friends. He was with the woman he loved. He repeated the words to himself even as the winds became so loud they sounded like a train roaring behind him. He had no eyes to shut, and yet he wanted nothing more than to squeeze them tight. Dust raced between the group. He stumbled on his feet as the winds pushed and pulled. Aeris held onto his hand tightly.
Streaks of earth bombarded his armor—then fell away abruptly, dropping to the ground in curtains of sand. The din of the storm diminished to nothing. Aeris and the Horsemen opened their eyes slowly. August held his breath, waiting for the other shoe to drop. Somehow, the silence was more frightening than the storm.
Tiale’s uninvited voice penetrated his thoughts. She is here.
The girl was there and then she was gone, almost like a ghost passing through a room. He let go of Aeris’s hand and pivoted to see the battlefield again. Ion hummed loudly at his side. Seeing what was left of the Void’s surface made his stomach sink. The barren flats looked like a pane of shattered glass. The ground was splintered and torn apart, showing angry rivers of red where lava ran between the fissures. Bones and body parts littered the ground. It was carnage on a scale that was all too familiar. He could’ve been looking at the remnants of Earth.
In the center of it all, standing on a lone solid piece of stone, was Tiale. She faced the opposite horizon only a few hundred yards away from the mountain. Her head angled up at the sky, where Galan and Anemolie still stood watch. Galan looked horrified. Anemolie beamed with pride.
“Who was she talking about?” Aeris asked.
August looked back. “You heard that too?”
“We all did,” Ion said.
“Well you two seem to be close. Care to tell us what she’s doing?”
Ion hummed in place before answering. “She told me that reality was a book already written. From what she expressed to me in our previous encounter, most of her mental energy is spent transversing reality, back and forth across time.”
“We don’t have time for the scientific breakdown,” August said. “Is there a short version?”
“If her reality has an end, she seems to have reached it. She’s no longer transfixed by the story of time. She’s at its terminus.”
It wasn’t the answer he hoped to hear. He turned away from the sight of her. Behind the mountains, with her face lit by the muted sunrise, Soraste’s eyes gazed nervously down at the Void. I think Amara is coming, she said.
“And what about Meryn?” Aeris replied.
She is close.
August glanced over at the opposite mountain. The Elosians and Orphii continued to run into the canyons. “Can you get us out of here?”
Soraste shut her eyes. When she opened them again, they were wide with shock. This is impossible. The child isn’t letting me.
August’s heart sank as he looked back out to the plains where Tiale continued to stare up at the sky. Then, behind the visions of Anemolie and Galan, a white burst of energy sparked. It grew until it was a wall of light dominating the sky. The light faded, leaving a warbled view of space with a blurred sphere of energy in the shape of a woman on the other side. Amara stepped through the synapse membrane, seemingly smaller than both Anemolie and Galan. They moved aside to let her through. Between her hands, she held a roiling cube of light. Whatever was inside raced around the edges of the cell like it was primed to explode.
Behind her, an enormous monolith twice the size of the gods emerged. Its face pulsed with hints of red beneath a black textured surface.
August released his mask to get a better look. “What the hell is that?”
“Pyra,” Ion answered.
He had imagined a lot of things when it came to Pyra. At first he assumed she was a figment of Amara’s imagination, then once Meryn confirmed her to be real, he assumed she looked like the rest of the gods. What he hadn’t expected was a towering slab of floating rock that looked like it was made of embers. Human form or not, though, her presence couldn’t be good.
Another flash of light preceded Meryn’s arrival, this time behind the mountain where the Al
liance stood. Unlike Soraste, she stayed in her shapeless form, hovering silently next to the god. He wished he could’ve felt good about seeing her again, but just the sight of her left him anything but comforted. He didn’t want comfort; he wanted to know about Bear. He supposed the absence of his friend told him everything he needed to know. He turned away from her. I wish you hadn’t come back, he said to himself. If she heard him, so much the better.
“Meryn, good,” Amara said. “I am glad you’re here to witness this.”
If Meryn answered, no one could hear it.
“The war has come to an end,” Amara continued. Her voice seemed shaken and weak, yet buried beneath mania, something exactly opposite from the first time he’d met her on Earth. “For nearly as long as the Circle has been in existence, we have bickered and fought over something none of us can ever attain: control. We fought this battle for too long, first with words, then with armies and champions. That battle is no more.” She looked down at the roiling cage of energy between her hands. “Paralos embodied much of what plagued our kind. He was petulant, arrogant, and worst of all, hungry for power—power over those who could never be his equal. Still, he strived for more, his immortality fueling him. Without the natural cycle of life and death, his war would never end. But now, by the grace of Pyra, we can put a stop to this destruction.”
August tried to prepare himself for whatever was about to happen. He checked Aeris, who watched Amara’s speech with an unblinking stare. Her fists clenched, waiting for any number of unknowns, just like he was.
Galan and Anemolie had mixed expressions of awe and anticipation. Their eyes stayed riveted on Amara.
“As a symbol of Pyra’s grace,” Amara said, “I have decided that there will no more casualties of this war. You are all welcome in Ascension, our life beyond this life, though many of you don’t deserve it.” Her eyes cut to Meryn. “But forgiveness in the face of treachery is true strength. I will welcome you all.”
She let go of Paralos. His prison floated between her hands. He rose along with her arms as she turned toward the monolith. “With this final sacrifice, we put an end to our immortal curse. Pyra, I give you life once more.”
Paralos’s body floated toward the towering stone. As it got closer, the dull red glow on Pyra’s surface gathered around its center like a hungry mouth ready to feed. Amara seemed close to collapse. Whether it was from excitement or weakness, her arms shook as she held them toward her god.
August triggered his mask again, just in case. Paralos had always been someone who thought ten steps ahead of everyone else. He was a survivor, even if it meant killing millions of people in order to survive. There was no love lost for him—not after what he did—but some part of August was uneasy watching the old god go to his death. It seemed unnatural, like watching a pillar of existence fall.
A deep hum reverberated off Pyra’s surface as she began to absorb the energy. It was unsettling to feel it through his armor. Still, he watched along with the rest of the Alliance as Pyra devoured him.
There was a sound from the giant like a pronounced sigh as Paralos faded away for good. Pyra’s light intensified steadily along the crevices of her surface until they were a brilliant red. Amara moved aside. She wore a look on her face like a mother seeing her child for the first time.
Pyra’s monolithic form began to morph. It rounded and expanded until she began to take a more humanoid shape. Arms and legs extended from a growing torso. Her skin smoothed until it was uniformly slate gray. She dominated the sky, with her legs extending below the Void’s horizon. In front of her, Amara’s dwarfed form floated like a butterfly.
August waited along with everyone else to hear Pyra’s first words. Her voice started as a roll of distant thunder as her mouth parted and her eyelids gently rose, revealing silver reflective cores.
“At last.”
With frightening quickness, she shot her hand through the Amara’s heart. The matriarch of the Circle grabbed listlessly at the arm sticking through her chest, a look of pained disbelief on her face. Tendrils of red radiated from the wound and snaked across her surface. They branched and multiplied until she looked like she was wrapped in the black web of a spider. She died like a storm cloud breaking apart, revealing Pyra’s hungry face.
The Alliance held a collective breath, stunned into silence.
Anemolie and Galan both tried to run away through separate synapses as soon as Pyra absorbed Amara’s life. Pyra sent an arm through each of the gods, simultaneously killing them both before they could escape. As she took their power, she grew in size. When she was done, her silver eyes turned to the Void.
The force of her stare made August take a step back. There was nowhere to run. He watched along with the others as Pyra closed in on the planet. Red streaks colored her otherwise smooth gray skin. Her eyes were unblemished, polished to a mirrored silver.
Below her, Tiale stood stoic, still looking up at the sky in the middle of the aftermath of her own carnage. Pyra seemed to focus on her first. She lifted a hand and sent it down through the Void’s thin atmosphere, sparking wisps of fire along her fingers. As it closed in on the surface, her hand split apart at the end of each digit into writhing tentacles. Her feelers surrounded Tiale, then dug straight into the Void’s floor. Move! he wanted to yell. He couldn’t help a gasp as Pyra forced her hand down like a striking snake. Tiale disappeared beneath it. There was a spray of white light that was immediately deadened by the expanding hand of Pyra. Chunks of earth flew up around her impact. The entire surface seemed like it was starting to melt.
Pyra turned her gaze to the Alliance.
Tiale’s gone, Soraste said, panicked. I can create a synapse again.
“The Elosians and Orphii first,” Aeris said.
Soraste’s portal appeared quickly in the valley beyond the mountains for their armies to escape. Overhead, Meryn stayed quiet despite the chaos.
“We can’t fight her,” August said.
Aeris nodded. “I don’t plan on staying here. Soraste?”
Before Soraste could answer, Pyra’s other hand came rocketing through the sky toward her. Soraste watched it come with a resigned, powerless stare. At the moment where Pyra’s hand pierced her body, August lost sight of the world. Everything became a series of jumbled images and sputtering sounds. It was like a car wreck that wouldn’t end. He lost all sense of direction or place. The ground disappeared beneath his feet and he had the sensation of falling. Then, a spike of pain. Something sharp pierced the front of his mask.
His mechanical vision sputtered and finally went out.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
His body came to a jolting stop as the vertigo mercifully ended. Immediately, his hands went to his eyes. The sensation was all too familiar. Once again, his sight was gone. He groped for something to grab hold of as his frantic breaths filled his ears. There was nothing. His arms and legs dangled as if he were floating in air.
A woman’s voice called to him. His panic nearly drowned her out. “August…”
His words tumbled out. “I can’t see anything. I can’t see. I can’t see.”
“You’re alive,” Meryn answered. “Be glad for it.”
He steadied slightly when he realized it was her. “Where am I?”
Her mental fingers seized his thoughts. It wasn’t like he remembered it feeling before. She took his mind by force. As she did, his vision gradually returned, fading in little by little until he saw her celestial face directly in front of him. He startled when he realized he was floating in space. The blue and tan surface of a planet turned slowly beneath him. His vertigo returned. He concentrated on a distant star until the sensation left and then looked back at Meryn. Soraste floated behind her, her face dour. She held a hand to her shoulder even though Pyra’s attack had left no mark.
“Thank you,” he said. Reaching up, he felt the skin around his eyes. The metal was still jagged from where he’d been hit. Both of his mechanical eyes were shattered. “I think.”
Something about the tone in her voice didn’t sit right. She wasn’t the quiet, thoughtful Meryn anymore. Her words were hardened, like she’d lost all pretense of caring how he felt about what she said.
“Where is everyone?”
“Below.”
He didn’t dare look down again. For the first time, he let himself assess what he’d just seen. Pyra was alive, and Amara and the rest were dead. Meryn saved them—again—but singled him out for some reason. He didn’t like where it was going. “What are we doing out here, Meryn?”
She didn’t answer immediately. Instead, her eyes seemed to gaze through him as she thought. “Something I should have done long ago.”
He wanted to move away, but couldn’t. She held him in place, suspended above the planet. Over her shoulder, Soraste wouldn’t look him in the eye. “Where’s Bear?” he asked.
“Dead,” she said matter of factly. “He fought your battle for you and won, and then he paid for your life with his own. Do you think it was worth it?”
“It should have been me,” he said without thinking.
“Yes. It should have.”
Her tone was icy. She stared at him like she might tear him apart any second. He felt the same way about her, but without the means to act. “If you’re going to kill me, get it over with.”
“I’m not going to kill you. I’m going to give you everything you ever wanted.”
The pit in his stomach deepened.
She turned to face Soraste. “Are you ready?”
“Not yet,” she said weakly. Her eyes cast down to the planet. “I don’t know if I want to do this.”
“Then leave and fend for yourself. We don’t have time to waste.”
Soraste shrank under Meryn’s harsh tone. She looked like she tried twice to speak before the words actually came out. “One last thing.” She closed her eyes. Like a cell dividing, a small part of her body split away, hovering in its amorphous shape just above the planet. It was small, barely larger than August. When she opened her eyes again, the smaller part of her raced down toward the planet.