by Anna Carven
Pure energy.
He felt the pull of the void between worlds. He heard its seductive song. He could so easily turn into nothing and drag Acheros and Nykithus kicking and screaming into that place the humans called the Netherverse, where time ceased to exist and energy was a state of being.
But he wouldn’t survive that either.
He wanted to survive.
He wanted to be with her.
He was selfish like that.
Almost there…
But he needed to buy some time, and Acheros was in a rare talkative mood.
“Why did you create us?” he asked, his voice unrecognizable to his own ears. A wave of horror swept through him as he realized that he sounded exactly like an Auka. That was the effect of Esania’s powerful vir. The energy he’d harvested while she was aroused was greater than he’d realized—far greater. “Why did you come to Khira? Why did you choose to breed with the Vradhu?”
So many questions that had never been answered.
Just as he was on the very brink of turning into the same monster as his sire, Imril finally had a chance to understand his existence.
He opened his eyes and met Acheros’s steady gaze. Acheros smiled Nykithus’s smile and turned his black eyes into dark pools of infinity. “Hm. Before you turn us all into stardust, you are entitled to an explanation, at least.”
The stone floor under Imril’s feet was melting. He was sinking into the molten rock, but it didn’t harm him the way the liquid metal from the Hythra had.
He was almost at peak output, and he was momentarily invincible.
Soon.
He would hit Acheros soon, because if he went on like this for too long, he would burn up all his power and fade away into nothing, like a solar flare.
“So explain,” he growled, the power roaring in his ears.
“I am a scientist, my child. Our people are few, and we are ancient. You come from a rare line, Imril.” He laughed again, a hollow, chilling sound. “There was a time when the Auka had finite lifespans just like the Vradhu, but some of us engineered our own immortality. We stole energy from the place between worlds and wove it into our flesh, and when the rest of our people died out, we were the only ones to survive. Alone. Unable to reproduce. So they sent me in search of a vessel, a body that could contain my seed, that could withstand the elgida and all the changes needed to bear my young, and I finally found it in Marial.”
Imril’s pain transformed into something raw, yet very, very old. “That’s all she was to you? A vessel?”
“No, no, I did feel affection for her on occasion…”
“Bastard.” Suddenly, Imril’s hand was around Nykithus’s neck. Immediately, the Drakhin’s silver features melted away, his flesh incinerated, his bones turned to ash, his blood vaporized.
He became dust right before Imril’s very eyes…
Is that… it?
Imril’s anger surged, and the ceiling started to collapse.
You can’t leave without answering—
Acheros materialized across the other side of the room, millions of tiny particles coalescing to form Nykithus’s silver body, his dark wings.
Of course, Acheros wouldn’t be so easy to kill. Imril stalked forward. “You don’t even get to speak her name.” Affection? Monster! You tortured her until the end of her existence. “You killed her.” And I was just a naive stripling, unable to protect her.
“She had grown old. Weak. She poisoned your minds. You and Mael both. Look at us now. You were supposed to guide and nurture your people, Imril. Thousands of revolutions wasted, and we are back where we started because of her.”
Imril didn’t want to hear any more. Acheros’s cold dismissal of the sacred female who had given them life… it made him sick to his stomach.
I can’t allow a creature like you to exist in this Universe. I’ll destroy you, even if it means I have to go down with you.
If Nykithus and Acheros and Ton Malhur and its malevolent Naaga were destroyed, at least Esania would have a chance of surviving this. The Vradhu were the true inhabitants of this land, and if there weren’t any troublesome Drakhin or Naaga around, they would easily be able to protect the humans.
Even if he wasn’t there.
He drew on the darkness inside him, and it gave him strength. “Enough.”
He stalked forward, and power rippled down his arms. The air around him felt strange. He felt strange, as if he were existing in two places at once.
Imril didn’t care. All he wanted to do was obliterate this monster.
He darted forward, becoming an incandescent blur as power surged into his legs, making his movements impossibly fast. Suddenly, he was in front of the monster, wrapping his hands around its neck before it had a chance to retreat.
There was no hesitation.
Imril roared as he channelled power down his arms, into his hands, his body shaking. The walls shook. The floor under his feet was soft. Bits of stone began to fall from the ceiling.
He drew on thousands of revolutions of pain and hatred and the sheer agony of not knowing why, of not even knowing what he was.
Of grief at the death of a race that never should have existed.
“Fool,” Acheros rasped. “You would throw away everything I would give you? And for what?”
For her, I would. Without a second thought. You are no match for her, Acheros.
He released his power in a massive blast, and his hatred burned right through the monster’s face…
And everything else.
The air around him turned white-hot.
Burn!
Acheros laughed, his voice distorted by the roar of Imril’s power. His—Nykithus’s—face seemed to melt, turning into a dark shadow.
No!
He would not give Acheros the chance to tap into his own dark power. Imril poured more and more power into his blast, until he was committed beyond the point of no return.
“Wh-where did you get this power? This is…”
And for the first time in his life, he heard a note of uncertainty in the Auka’s voice.
“None of your fucking business,” he growled, squeezing his hands around Nykithus’s neck. How was the Drakhin’s body still in one piece? Of course, that was Acheros, using his monstrous abilities to keep Nykithus alive.
Imril didn’t relent, even as Acheros drew on the darkness, absorbing Imril’s power… just like Mael. “If you cease this now, I might consider not killing you.”
It was Imril’s turn to laugh. Acheros was rattled, and he was trying to undermine Imril’s confidence, but he had the upper hand.
He was going to finish what Mael had started.
What did it really take to kill an Auka?
He was about to find out.
The shadows rose higher and higher, sucking away his power, creating a swirling vortex in the center of the room. Acheros grabbed Imril’s wrists, trying to pull his hands away, his burning face twisting into a grotesque mask.
Consumed with power and hatred, Imril stared at the creature that had tormented him for so many thousands of revolutions, feeling strangely empty.
Suddenly, Acheros looked small, weak; a shadow of the terrifying, godlike Auka he had once been.
And Nykithus was nowhere to be seen, his presence completely absorbed by the malevolent Auka.
“You dare do this to me? I made you.”
Dark tendrils of shadow pierced through Imril’s energy, coalescing around his feet, rising up his body, lessening the ferocity of his destructive blast just a fraction.
You think I’m any different to Mael? I just want you dead. Gone.
He wanted freedom.
He wanted to burn everything away and start anew, with her.
Fire could be cleansing, too.
Through their tentative bond, he felt her, and she was frantic.
Don’t fret, my love. I will come back to you.
He could escape this. He had to.
Imril released his grip
around Acheros’s neck and pressed his hands against his chest, still channeling his energy. The Auka’s cursed power was weakening him fast.
Finish it.
With a roar, he drew out every single shred of energy in his body, throwing it at the Auka.
Boom!
The shadows retreated.
What was left of Nykithus’s body… still moving, it dropped to its knees.
Is this it?
Completely drained of strength, Imril could only dare to hope as he dropped to his knees. As the power left his body, something else replaced it—excruciating pain.
Thud!
“Wha—?” He blinked, his hands dropping to his stomach.
A blade protruded from his belly, buried right up to the hilt.
“There are many ways to kill a Drakhin,” Nykithus hissed, his voice coming from that grotesque face—bones protruding, flesh burned away, sharp teeth exposed in a terrible grimace.
Drained of all his power, as weak as the day he’d emerged from Za’s burning crater, Imril gasped, hardly able to believe that he’d been brought down by a mere blade of all things.
“Why?” he gasped.
“Fool. You were soft. You let him get away with too much…” Acheros’s voice faded as Nykithus fought for control of his own body, his skeletal face twisting into a terrible grimace.
“We… knew… you would return,” Nykithus hissed. “We tried our best to prepare, but fucking Mael and his cursed shadowveil… The Naaga… they just want to be free.”
He was fading. Acheros, fighting to regain control, was growing weaker. Imril was bleeding out.
Soon they would all be dead.
What does it take to kill an Auka?
A weakened one, apparently, could be killed with an intense blast of power from an Auka halfling.
“Ah…” With great effort, Imril pulled the blade from his belly and flung it away. He placed his hand against the wound and tried to seal it with his power, but the tiny blast he created was weak and lacking in precision.
His power was almost completely depleted.
His brilliant aura flared out, and suddenly they were engulfed in darkness. Shock spread through him. “The… Naaga?”
All of this was over that made race of servants? Those submissive blue-skinned ones, who did not speak a word unless bidden, who were physically incapable of defying him… until now?
“They are not your slaves anymore,” Nykithus whispered, his voice fading. “Their descendants… are also… my children…”
How?
Realization struck Imril in the gut, almost flooring him. His shoulders slumped in exhaustion, and the last of his anger drained away. “You… you had a mate?”
“She was my lukara, and she… was with child,” he whispered, his voice a barely audible hiss in the silence of the vast, dark chamber.
“You lie,” Imril whispered, shocked to the core. “The Naaga can’t sexually reproduce with Drakhin. They are not—”
“No. You do not understand them at all,” Nykithus said fiercely, finding a final burst of strength. “Did you ever stop to wonder why there are male and female Naaga?”
“Wh-what have you done, Nykithus?”
Nykithus had taken a Naaga as his mate. The old Imril would have dismissed the thought as ridiculous, as wrong, but as he thought of Esania, of her human fragility and the way she made him want to tear apart the Universe just to keep her safe…
He understood.
He understood so very well how Nykithus could have tried to kill him.
Imril grunted in pain as he summoned the very last trace of his power, generating a gentle flare that provided just enough light to see by.
Nykithus stared back at him, a shell of the fierce Drakhin he’d once been. “It’s evolution. You can’t stop it. You have to kill me now, but it doesn’t matter anymore, Overlord. It is good that I die here under your hand, because I take you and our cursed sire with me into the fucking void. She might be gone, but my… our children will survive. You won’t.” Nykithus slumped forward, and Imril caught him in his arms. The pain in his stomach was excruciating, almost obliterating any awareness of his surroundings. “It’s evolution.”
A low chuckle escaped Nykithus’s nonexistent lips, and it sounded strange; the Drakhin’s voice was fused with Acheros’s. “And so we all go down together, Imril, and over a female, no less…”
“Fuck you.” Digging deep, Imril found the strength to punch Acheros in the face. He took a deep breath, trying to wipe away the terrible feeling of regret that welled up inside him.
Because Esania was still there in the back of his consciousness, calling out to him, desperately wanting to be with him, and he could feel the full force of her emotions through her elgida.
Humbling him.
He took Nykithus by the hand. The Drakhin was still reeling, his breaths coming in great big gasps.
“Nykithus,” Imril said softly, staring into sightless eyes that were burned beyond all recognition. “I am sorry. If only you had come to me first, I would have…”
“Would you really?” Nykithus stared back, somehow finding the strength to grasp Imril’s arm with one skeletal hand. “You would have had her executed, because you were the biggest nightmare of all, Imril Lightbringer.”
What would you have done, Overlord?
The truth was, Imril didn’t know. The Drakhin laws he’d created were absolute.
Drakhin-Naaga relationships were forbidden, punishable by death. The law served two purposes. To keep the bloodline pure, and to protect the Naaga.
Their history was filled with cases of Naaga being killed because some foolish Drakhin had taken one to his bed.
Finally, Imril had put a stop to it.
His words, his law.
And now he was dying.
Part of him suspected Nykithus was right.
Cerulean blood spilled through his fingers as he clutched his belly, trying to stem the flow of the bleeding.
Esania was still there in the back of his mind, but she’d gone very, very still, as if she knew something was terribly wrong.
I’m sorry, Esania.
Nykithus gave a great, shuddering gasp. The light in his charred eyes faded, and he fell backward, his great skeletal wings spreading out on the stone floor behind him, the membranes in between burned away.
Dead.
And there was no sign of Acheros either.
This time, he was gone for good.
A feeling of resignation swept over Imril as he closed his eyes and slumped forward, preparing to enter the Netherverse for eternity.
The song of the place between worlds flowed around him, pumping through his weak heart, carrying him away on its hypnotic, rhythmic beat.
And still he could feel her, resolute, unwavering, never quite giving up on him.
Come to me, Esania. I need you.
That was his last thought before he drifted away into the dark, seductive embrace of the void.
Chapter Forty-Two
Something was wrong. Esania reached for Imril through their bond. Over the past few minutes, he had been angry, frantic, consumed with hatred, and filled with despair.
And now…
He was fading. She’d felt his power surge and then blink out like a supernova.
Something was terribly wrong.
She didn’t waste time.
“Hey, Esania, where are you goi—”
She held up a hand, silencing Mai. “Later. I have to go.”
She had to find him. She didn’t care about whatever danger she might encounter.
There was only one person who could possibly take her there.
Mael.
She headed toward the stairs, leaving a whole bunch of staring humans in her wake.
“Wait, Esania, what are we supposed to do, now that we’re—”
“Figure it out,” she snapped, breaking into a run. “I have to go.”
She ran past fallen pillars and dodged creeping
vines. She avoided slippery looking patches of moss and the occasional stray stone. As she reached the wide open double doors, her strides widened, her white dress flapping around her knees, her braids flying. Guided by dim light that came from sconces in the wall, she ascended the crumbling spiral stairs two-by-two and sprinted down the corridor, pumping her arms, going faster and faster as she felt Imril’s life-force ebb away.
She was sure of it now.
He was dying.
She pushed the double doors open with both hands and sprinted past a startled Sara, running across the floor until she was just inches away from Mael.
Instantly, her energy drifted toward him, but she didn’t care.
“Take me to him,” she gasped, her chest heaving up and down from the exertion. “Don’t you fucking ask, Mael. It’s urgent.”
“If I leave here, the shadowveil will fall,” Mael said softly, opening his eyes. To her surprise, he looked perfectly earnest. “Are you certain you want to do this, human?”
“Yes.” She clasped her hands together in a pleading gesture. “I think something’s terribly wrong. He’s hurt… perhaps even dying.”
“What’s going on, S?” Sara was on her feet, hovering at the very edge of Mael’s radius.
“Don’t take another step,” he said softly. “I don’t want to feed from you… yet.”
“I’ll explain later,” Esania said, her voice rising in pitch as Imril’s presence through the bond grew even weaker. “Don’t make me get on my knees and beg, Mael. If there’s a way to get me there now, just make it happen!”
Mael’s dark eyes widened a fraction, but he didn’t move.
Sara put her hands on her hips. “Mael, just do what the woman asks.” Her eyes narrowed. She actually had the nerve to boss him around.
Bless your heart, Sara.
“I can take you there,” he said softly, and Esania’s heart almost burst in relief. “But the journey will not be without risk to you. Bending the fabric of space-time is incredibly taxing on me, and when we reach Ton Malhur, I wont have much energy left to protect you.”
“But I have vir,” Esania countered. The stars know he needs it. The thought that her energy alone could save Imril and give Mael the strength to protect them if needed… it filled her with hope.