by Allen Snell
“This is who I am,” Drake said plainly.
“This? It’s really not! These are just losses and rejections. That’s not who anyone is.” Garen looked behind him. Amidst the memories barred open, a faint silhouette formed of Drake sitting at the Spellsword dining table. He smiled humbly. A violent wind tore through the shapes and whisked the memory away.
“This is why I have to save these people,” Drake said with pained confidence. “To give them something other than pain and loss.”
Another shelf burst against the ground. His mind was increasingly unstable. Every memory of safer times was rupturing. Every separation felt permanent. These were the gates tugging at Drake’s soul. Persistence blurred into Rupture. Therov didn’t have to plant false memories or distort the past. He just had to swap the enduring with the excruciating.
Garen let go of the visuals he’d used to navigate Drake’s mind. He needed to be somewhere more sacred, a place that no substance could define. At the very least, he understood Drake’s pain, isolation, and abandonment now. That sense of understanding formed a thread to the soul.
Where sight failed him, sound persisted. The screams of the Earth Spirit Kephalos let him know he’d arrived.
The low chuckle of Therov followed. “I had high hopes another soul would join the eye of my storm today. You are not the one I was expecting, but I accept your offer.”
“I’m not staying, and neither are you.” Garen tried to move toward Therov. He lacked the mobility Ampelis seemed to possess in Karna’s memory. There wasn’t any sort of physical space to move in or subdue him.
“You think you can dismiss me like her? I see ignorance runs deep in your blood. Regardless, you are my guest. Size me up and feel your meager stature.”
Garen knew taunting back and forth with Therov would be a waste of time. He tried to address the Earth Spirit. “Kephalos, can you help me?”
Therov allowed no pause for a response. “I think Persistence itself has seen the power of Rupture. He knows that nothing can remain still forever.”
Garen could almost make out an image of what was taking place. A slender old man curled into a ball. He whispered nonsense and shouted at nothing.
The deep, breathy voice felt like it was growing closer to Garen. “Kephalos barely remembers the wretch he was and it stupefies him. Putting my claws into his mind is like raking dry stone. But you…you are flesh to my touch. Can you feel the puncture?”
In an instant, Garen stood in the grassy field outside his childhood home. His mother’s eyes met his, wide and pleading. The beam of light cut through her until her screams stopped and dust remained. Garen spun and saw his father, expression strong, stronger than he could ever be. A pop within his head twisted his neck. His body fell limp. Argus placed a hand on Garen’s shoulder, and he spun to face his towering friend. He hung in front of Garen, impaled on a thick spike. Argus stared down at Garen with a disappointment the man had never shown him before.
“It’s all okay,” Argus affirmed. “You couldn’t have saved me. We were all gonna die.”
“No, Argus, I could have. If I’d been faster, I…”
“Nah, you ain’t stronger than death. You should’ve learned that by now, ‘sidering how many times you’ve lost to it.”
Garen had no words, only a chasm of grief and regret. Faces lined a crowd surrounding him, lives he’d taken. Lives his friends and enemies had taken. Sustek. Pyralis. Tarn. Sarkos. Tragus. Amiri. There were more than he could count, more than he thought existed. But there they were, a crowd of sullen eyes judging him for his failure to live up to their expectations.
“You fight death like a child throwing stones at the sea,” Amiri stepped forward. “And you led all of us to that water’s edge.”
Tragus stood on the opposite side of Garen. “You should suffer the way you made us suffer. You brought this rupture on us all. You deserve what you feel. Feel it with us.”
They were right. He felt their pain. He felt his own shame and embarrassment as well. Every inch of stable ground stayed in place long enough to collapse under him. That was life. Rupture was constant and relentless. There was nothing he could do but keep on losing all he loved.
Among the wailing sea of those he’d let down, a surprised cry echoed above them all. He knew the voice. It didn’t belong to a single one of the crowd. These imaginary faces were lost for good. But not this voice. Not yet. He’d let her down, that much he knew. But she was still alive. None of these faces, none of these voices were as real as her. Naia was real. Her pain was real. Garen blinked and left Drake’s soul. He saw the pain she felt.
The sword cleaved out of Naia’s side coated in red. Garen shot a beam of impulsive light. The concentrated ray disintegrated the Apatten on contact. The outpouring of wrath was beyond his control, but he didn’t question it. Killing that creature did nothing to aid her wound. Naia fell to her side. Garen released another burst of light, this time purely blinding. The remaining two Apatten on the roof staggered back. Garen unsheathed his sword and cut through the first in a rage, dismembering it with thoughtless efficiency.
The second didn’t move toward him or run away. It tilted its head with a hollow, vacant stare. Its eyes glossed over, causing Garen’s eyes to widen. The Apatten raised its sword and plunged the blade into its own chest.
Garen spun around to find an explanation. He saw her in the sky. Morgan hovered with a rage that exceeded his own. She lowered herself to Naia’s side. Morgan’s hands trembled as she searched over the wound. She placed one hand against the gash and held her sister down with the other. Naia screamed louder and more violently than the cry that pulled him to reality. The bleeding stopped, but so did Naia’s thrashing.
“Tell me she’s alright,” Garen’s voice cracked.
Morgan’s anger and sorrow were buried deep behind her blank expression. “I don’t know. If she’s not, it’ll be my fault.”
“What? No, she was protecting me.”
Morgan breathed deeply and maintained the even tones. “And I could have stopped this long before if it weren’t for my selfish restraint. These creatures have no depth. That compulsion you spoke of—it cost me nothing.”
“You made him kill himself?”
Morgan nodded slowly. “And he won’t be the last.”
More Apatten came sailing over the wall and landed on rooftops surrounding them. The swarm of Apatten sprinted at the trio, closing in around them.
They stopped simultaneously. The looks of frenzy on their faces vanished. Slowly, each one stepped off the nearest edge of the roof. The shops were only two stories tall. The fall would be unpleasant, but probably not lethal. As the Apatten stepped over the edge, Garen saw them lean forward. Their bodies turned in the air. He didn’t need to witness how they took the fall. The sound of necks snapping was unpleasantly distinct.
Morgan floated upward on wisps of flame. If the magic was taxing, she didn’t show it. Drake had stuck around long enough to witness what she was capable of. The flames under Morgan’s feet roared to life. She ascended into the sky and Drake bolted. Garen expected their game of cat and mouse to resume, but she didn’t pursue him. He shot toward the far end of Kalyx in what seemed like a panic. Morgan just floated higher and higher.
Garen shook the surprise from his face and knelt beside Naia. He hesitated before finally removing her jerkin to treat the wound. The cut went clean through the boiled leather. The white tunic beneath was stained red along her side. Strangely, the fabric closest to the wound was burned away entirely and surrounded with char. He could smell the singed flesh.
It became clear what Morgan had done for her sister. Naia wasn’t bleeding anymore. The swollen red skin was burned shut. He could feel her shallow breaths for the moment and knew there was hope. Garen wanted to speed along her healing, but the wound was too risky. The traumatic use of heat might have sealed it, but he saw the decay her burns and blisters would invite. Garen left it alone. She needed a physician and a cleaner environment bef
ore he tried accelerating any part of the process.
He folded back the metal roof under them. Muffled shouts of terror came from below. It was a good sign. He needed people to look after her, to hold her back if she tried to get up. Garen stayed on the roof and used a bed of wind to lower her into the small home. The occupants cowered across the room.
“Don’t let her leave,” Garen ordered. “She’ll be difficult to convince, but she won’t hurt you.” Garen flattened the metal sheeting. He tested it with his weight, making sure any additional Apatten sent over the wall wouldn’t come falling through.
The fires throughout the city showed how far the fighting had spread. Some flared with the sounds of battle. Flames held back the invaders. Others burned steadily out of control where the battles were already lost. There were countless breaches in the wall now. Apatten kept pouring in. Garen searched the sky for Morgan. He saw her to the north, standing on the throne room balcony. She stared out across the city. If not for her resolute words, he would have thought she’d given up.
Swords clashed in the street below. The Apatten cut down a pair of city guards. In retaliation, Garen shifted toward them and plunged his sword into one. He knew none of it mattered. Thousands more would fill the streets, but he wanted these three dead just the same.
Garen yanked his katana free and carved into the side of the next. The creature didn’t resist or recoil in pain. Garen looked into its eyes and saw the vacant stare. Garen stepped back from the group. They had the same glossy eyes and neutral expression. The sounds of clanging steel died off in every direction. Garen watched eight Apatten in front of him turn their swords against themselves. They buried the blades into their chests.
Garen pulled light around the street corners and witnessed more of the same. Apatten one after another took their own lives without regret. One of the creatures ran down the street empty-handed. It pulled a sword from a fallen Apatten’s chest so it could do the same.
Corpses surrounded him and lined every thoroughfare in the city. There were still massive sections of the outer walls intact. He knew there would be thousands of Apatten outside waiting for their opportunity to enter. Garen bent light over the wall and witnessed a blanket of gray bodies. Every one of them lay dead by their own hands.
A silence covered Kalyx so still he could hear the crackle of fire. There were no words, not even questions to what they’d witnessed. An unwinnable war, won. They didn’t know how. They might never. But they were victorious. The first shout of triumph echoed in the distance. Another followed. It was slow, most too stunned or hesitant to accept it, but the cheers grew.
Garen ran toward the city center, passing homes that cracked open their doors. A man stood motionless, staring at the self-impaled creatures. A woman wept for joy. As more curiosity pulled people out of their fortifications, the celebration grew. Word spread like wildfire. Kalyx would stand the night. The further Garen ran, the fewer dry eyes he saw. He couldn’t imagine how they felt, to be delivered miraculously. He almost could. Even to him, Morgan was something of a mystery.
Garen reached the palace walls of Spiredal. Here, the cheering had reached such a fever pitch that it echoed through the streets in one continuous shout of joy. Garen smiled as a guard at the gate waved him closer. Moments ago, they’d been prepared to lay down their lives to hold this gate. Not anymore.
“What happened? Is it really over?” the man asked.
He thought back to Morgan’s words about the Gate of Compulsion. He knew it violated her conscience to use it, but if there was one thing he should have seen coming, it was her putting the needs of others above her own.
Garen nodded. “We’ll be singing a certain Spellsword’s praises for a long time. It’s over.”
He didn’t know the man, but that didn’t stop the armor-clad fellow from embracing him. They laughed, and for a moment Garen let go of every pain and worry he’d felt for the past day. For a second, their safety and joy was easier to focus on than the doubt of what comes next.
But only a second.
An explosion roared above them. A cloud of debris filled the sky. Smoke obscured the upper half of Spiredal. The cap of the tower plunged through it, falling directly for them.
Chapter 34
The feat of magic shouldn’t have been possible. The upper column of Spiredal was wider than most blocks of the city. But there was no time to question the reality. In two seconds, it would flatten him. Garen light-shifted as far as he could see down the street away from the palace. He had no other option but to run.
The tower crashed against the ground, sending a wave of wind, dirt, and stone shrapnel out. Garen turned his face away, expecting a painful sting. It was much more. The blast threw him forward, hands and forehead scraping along the pavement.
There was no silence in the city this time, but the ringing in his head quieted it all much the same. Garen shook the coat of gray dust off from him as he staggered to his feet. He wiped the blood from his forehead. The ringing subsided, and screams emerged in every direction.
The courtyard of Spiredal was covered in rubble. At its center, a half-intact cylinder of stone laid on its side. The sky cleared enough to reveal almost all of Spiredal still standing. But the cap, from the throne room up, had been ripped apart. The marvel of white stone lay in front of him. It covered the bodies of those he’d just celebrated with. There would be a dozen more faces for Therov to torment him with. Garen would endure it. Drake needed to die. Garen would have to take his friend’s life, trap Therov within him, and deal with the spirit personally.
Garen wiped the thin layer of blood from his hands onto his trousers and readied his katana. He light-shifted into the air, repeating the process several times to keep from falling. He searched for any sign of Drake or Morgan. He saw neither. Instead, Drake’s voice immersed the city.
“I have done only what the Spellswords were meant to do. To protect against corrupt uses of magic. Those Apatten would have overthrown the miscreants of Kalyx that oppress the weak, and then I would have disposed of them. You rejected your own salvation. Your leaders would prefer to sacrifice your lives rather than lose control. Now, you’ll see the consequence…is losing both.”
Most of the crowds below had huddled back into buildings. The few left in the open spun around, unable to find the source of the voice. Kalyx’s second tallest building shook. In the center of the city, the pillar of steel and glass over a hundred feet tall leaned hard forward. It snapped in two places. Garen moved quickly toward it, but the lower piece crashed to the street before Garen could arrive. The second leaned and hung in the sky for a moment longer, allowing Garen to light-shift into the air beside it. He passed through solid glass, a facet of light he’d never considered trying before.
It wasn’t a crowded room. It didn’t have any of the heroic opportunities he imagined while rushing toward it. An elderly couple huddled together, hugging each other in the corner of their living quarters. There was no leaving them now. As the tower leaned, the floor turned to an extreme angle. Garen ran up the incline and wrapped his arms around them. Neither was particularly large, but he had to pour his depth into the wind spells to carry them both. The wall of glass shattered. Garen lifted them through the jagged rain.
The tower fell beneath him. The bellowing roar of the impact followed. Garen guided them down on the wind, still using far more depth than was wise. He let them fall a little faster with him, hoping to keep his depth above a quarter with so much left to do. They hit the ground safe yet abruptly. The elderly woman didn’t want to let go. Her husband helped coax her free and thanked Garen. He smiled back weakly. He knew there were hundreds more in that building that he’d done nothing to save.
Another explosion rang from a stouter building south of him. One of the five stories collapsed, spewing glass through Prosquarity. Another floor flattened, followed by the rest. Above it, Drake darted through the sky toward another building.
Garen light-shifted toward Drake but reformed earlier
than intended. Each attempt only reset how fast he was falling. He landed in the glass-covered forum below. He knew exactly who was opposing him. If the consistently barefoot Aethis wanted to fight him here, she had better be ready for the dance of a lifetime.
The forum looked nothing like its Prestige Week version. There were no masses gathered to witness demonstrations and shop for magical luxuries. Ironically, the white arch still stood: “Peace through Progress. Progress through Peace.” Rubble, fire, and screams surrounded them. Aethis stepped into view across the forum. Her demeanor had changed, too. The coy smile from earlier was gone. There was a thirst for murder in her eyes.
Aethis kept her poise as she walked. The glass slid away from her feet with each step. Her black dress had acquired a few small tears along the side, but her smooth, golden skin showed no imperfections. The braid of vines still adorned her head, now mimicking her once dark, curly hair.
“Stopping the Apatten hasn’t changed who will prevail today. Drake could have leveled this city any time he wanted. The Apatten were a kindness, one that you spat in the face of. You should be convincing your king to surrender, not trying to fight the inevitable.”
Garen glared back at her. “You’ve never given me a reason to trust you. You’ve actively warned me against it. I’ve got no reason to listen now.”
“You have every reason. Think about it. Either you die, and I don’t care what a dead man knows. Or I die, and then I really don’t care what you know. Can you see any other outcome?”
“You’d deserve it,” Garen said.
“Oh, and you wouldn’t?” Aethis laughed with anger. “Defending slavers like it makes you noble for the sake of defending? Protection isn’t noble when it gives shelter to evil. You’ve seen that now.”
“I have,” Garen said coldly.
“So why would you let these tyrants run free? Sarkos wanted them eradicated. Drake believes we can enforce boundaries. I’m guessing you don’t have an intelligent thought in your head about the matter.”