by Rosie Scott
The opening and slamming of a door echoed out from the hall just before I turned the corner. Panicking voices only somewhat muffled by a thick wall led me to the last room on the left. As I headed there, a university employee hurried into the hall from a different area before skidding to a stop as she saw me approach.
I pointed with authority at the room she'd fled from. Without a word, she spun back toward the door and re-entered the room to wait out the remainder of the battle.
I reached my destination. Terran had locked the door, but this one was wood so I couldn't dissolve it. Instead, I degraded the metal handle and lock mechanism. The sand hissed as it piled, and the terrified screams and cries of children echoed through the hole before I kicked open the door. It slammed against the inside wall and bounced back to hit me as I walked through, but I paid it no mind.
This was a children's playroom. Bookshelves lined one wall, and cabinets full of toys and sleep aids lined another. All the fabrics of furniture, drapes, and toys were colorful with imported dyes. Terran crouched beside his four children, and a terrified caretaker stood behind them.
Aella was twelve-years-old and the eldest. She had my brother's brown hair and her mother's light gray eyes. Beside her was Ignatius, who already rivaled Aella's height at a few weeks short of his eleventh birthday. Ignatius's hair was as bright red as mine and stood up in wisps as if mimicking the flickering flames of a torch, and his eyes were greener than Terran's. Gaia was eight and all of her features mirrored her father's, even down to the sharp jawline and sturdy bone structure indicative of earth mages. Finally, the shortest and youngest of the bunch was Evian. The seven-year-old had long brown hair pulled back in a stubby ponytail and a pair of the bluest eyes I'd ever seen. Freckles dotted both his forearms.
All four of Terran's children clearly had magical abilities. It was no surprise, for the Seran bloodline ran through Terran just like it had through all the heirs and regents before him. But that royal bloodline would end here.
Terran's eyes glistened as he fought for words. He recoiled in fear as I stalked toward him and his children, but he managed, “Y—your nieces and nephews, sister.” He audibly swallowed with emotion and stood up to block my path to them. “Have mercy.”
Terran was attempting to appeal to my emotion. I would've been shocked that he thought it would work if I could feel anything but rage.
“You have no sister and I have no mercy,” I replied to him, following as he backed toward the far wall. As I passed his children, I stared at them, pointed at myself, and advised, “Remember my face.”
Terran exhaled shakily. “Kai—”
I grabbed my brother's throat and slammed him against the wall as we finally neared it. Terran's larynx bobbed beneath my hand as I turned back to stare at the children's caretaker and yelled, “Get them out of here!”
The woman squeaked with surprise and pushed Aella and Ignatius toward the door. “Come, children.” The eldest kids held hands with the youngest as the caretaker ushered them from the room. All the children asked questions and looked over their shoulders as they left. Today would be etched in their memories forever.
“Kai, please,” Terran heaved at the end of my arm as I turned his sheathed sword to sand. The metal buckles on his armor jingled as he trembled. “Please have mercy. I will disappear with my kids and you'll never hear from me again. I promise on my life.”
Boot steps skidded to a halt at the door as Azazel and Cerin finally caught up to me. Terran's eyes moved over my shoulder, flashed with distaste at seeing Cerin, and came back to mine.
“I gave you mercy once,” I told him, my voice hoarse with regret and mourning. “The Battle of the Dead. It was the 83rd of Red Moon, 418. I know this because I remember it well and have cursed the decision ever since. It was the only time I let emotion rule my head and it is the only regret I have. I offered you a place with me. You rejected it. You've killed one of the greatest friends I've ever had. Now your place is with my corpses.”
Terran frowned and expelled a shaky breath. “Then kill me, Kai, but I beg of you. Let my children live. They have no part in this.”
“Your children were never my fucking concern,” I spat. “In your ignorance you trusted the most untrustworthy god alive, and all because you couldn't be bothered to believe a necromancer.”
“Promise me,” Terran pleaded. “Promise me they'll live.”
“Oh, they'll live today,” I replied quickly. “They'll live tomorrow. Maybe the next day and the day after that. But I promise you: when they grow older after reliving this day over and over in their memories and rise up against me, I will kill them without a second thought. I will drain the lives straight out of their bodies and give their energy to those I love so what you did to Nyx will never happen again—”
Shing!
My angered rant was rudely interrupted. Terran acted so quickly and unexpectedly that I was left behind in current events and scrambled to catch up. My brother's chest heaved with adrenaline, and his eyes portrayed a mixture of anger from my recent words and anticipation.
Anticipation of what...?
The drizzling of blood called my attention downward where a small puddle formed around my boots. The hot liquid drained freely over my armor and down my leg from a dagger that stuck out of my heart. The blade was so deep within my chest cavity that I could feel the pressure the handle put on my flesh.
Anticipation of my death.
I blinked, confused. I had a shield. Then I realized I was so close to Terran that he was within its protection, rendering it useless in close quarters. My brother had wizened up from our last battle; he'd decided to carry a backup weapon. I'd turned his sword to sand, but I hadn't anticipated Terran would ever carry a dagger.
Cerin cried out my name, but Terran's gaze didn't falter. My brother watched me with a mixture of emotions as he waited for me to die. Relief exuded from his eyes. Terran knew he wouldn't leave this room alive with Cerin and Azazel here, but he felt relief that I wouldn't, either.
Boot steps scrambled behind me as Cerin rushed toward us. The scraping of metal rang out as Azazel unsheathed his karambits. I still held Terran's throat with one hand, but I swept my other arm back toward Cerin and Azazel to hold up one finger, telling them to wait.
Terran frowned. His eyes fell to the blade, making sure it was still there. Cerin and Azazel hesitated behind me, so I brought my free hand up to the dagger handle in my chest. I stared deep in my brother's eyes as I slowly pulled out the blade. When it was fully out, the stab wound squirted blood with such force that it splashed over Terran's face in streaks. I tossed the dagger across the room, and it slid into a children's toy chest with a clatter.
Terran panicked once more. He squinted against the blood that dripped down his face and protested, “Y—you should be dead! I killed you! I stabbed you in the fucking heart!”
“And I felt my heart put up resistance to the blade,” I replied coolly, my voice eerily calm despite the splattering of my blood that continued spraying over Terran's armor.
“The rumors are true,” Terran breathed, shaking more violently as he connected puzzle pieces in his head. “Dear gods. Necromancers...the rumors are true.” My brother stared at me from beneath locks of hair that dripped with my blood. Eyes once full of turmoil went distant until a stranger stood before me. “You were once my sister.”
“Yes,” I agreed, summoning a leeching funnel in the hand that held his throat, “and I once loved you.”
Black magic fanned out from my fingers, sinking into the hot flesh of Terran's throat and returning to me with his energy. My brother's beautiful green eyes dulled as he succumbed to death and slumped against the wall until I let go of him. Terran's body crumpled to my feet, newly painted in my blood as his skin and armor absorbed some of the puddle.
“Watch the door,” Cerin pleaded with Azazel, before he grabbed my shoulders and pushed me gently against the wall. My lover was shaken as he studied the wound. “Your heart...” he murmur
ed, his rough voice trembling. “This wound should have killed you.”
“It didn't,” I replied simply.
“No,” Cerin agreed, funneling the energy left of his high into my chest. “It didn't.”
Both Cerin and Azazel were intensely troubled by Nyx's death, but they didn't speak of it. Azazel watched the hallway from the doorway with his bow in silence. When he spoke, it was to inform me.
“Our men infiltrate the university behind us,” he began. “I told them to only fight hostiles. Many employees are here, and the soldiers might surrender.”
“Thank you.” The warmth of Cerin's healing energy continued to massage the tissue surrounding my heart.
Azazel stared at my wound as Cerin mended it and asked, “Adrenaline?”
It was a vague question, but I understood. After all, adrenaline was how Azazel had survived being stabbed in the heart back in Hazarmaveth. The only difference was that his was punctured. “No,” I answered.
“Thank the gods, Kai,” Azazel replied with sad relief, smiling as warmly as he could before staring back out at the hallway.
When Cerin finished healing my wound, I raised Terran from the dead and directed his corpse to grab the dagger he'd used against me. Cerin seemed surprised at my actions but said nothing. I led the two men and my brother's corpse back out to the hallway, on my way to Sirius.
Even fifteen years after I'd last been in this university, I remembered its hallways by heart. They had fixed some and remodeled since my attack, but they all led to the same places. Sirius's rigid mentality on magical laws extended to every decision he made. Although I'd destroyed the tower that held his offices the last time I was here, I knew he would have rebuilt it in the same spot.
Signs posted near intersections of hallways and beside doors directed me to my final target. Sirius's most loyal soldiers clashed with us on our way. Seeing Terran's corpse broke their already low morale before we defeated them.
The tower that held Sirius's office started out familiar enough as I climbed its steps, but after a few stories it was completely remodeled from crumbling long ago. We took out many soldiers on the staircase, leaving their bodies to fall and roll down to the bottom. Eventually, they stopped coming. For as great as Sirius's army was, it wasn't limitless.
Office of Sirius Sera. Must have appointment. Knock before entering.
I sought life through the wooden door of Sirius's office. Only one sliver of red appeared from where he stood behind a desk. It was typical of him; he would often hide and send his men to do his bidding. Sirius had once projected this weakness on to me as a child, claiming I did nothing for myself. I found it ironic that I was here after traveling the world and shedding blood, sweat, and tears myself, and Sirius would still not approve.
I ensured that Cerin and Azazel had protections against Sirius's magic if he threw it, and then I dissolved the door's lock with earth magic. With a glance at the sign that reminded me to knock, I violently kicked the door in.
The crackling of electricity echoed against the walls as the bright whitish-purple veins of Sirius's chain lightning filled my vision before arcing out and absorbing into my shield. I threw out paralyze from both hands, unable to see Sirius but hoping one spell would hit him.
The air magic ceased. Sirius fell forward to his desk, paralyzed. Every part of me wanted to recoil after seeing him again after all these years. Sirius's dark hair had long ago faded with both abundance and color, and it surrounded a glaring bald spot in a strip of white. Cold gray eyes that had never known joy stared back at me from sunken sockets. The wrinkles from decades of frowns and scowls stretched across his face in canyons.
Before Sirius could fall to the ground, I thrust his body back with telekinesis until it banged against the wooden bookshelf behind his desk. As I kept him still with the magic, I shot a summoned metal blade just below his lowest rib. Blood sprayed over the papers on his desk with the impalement. The metal also lodged into the books and wood behind him, and because it sat below his supportive ribcage it kept him standing. Summoning two ice shards next, I targeted his upper arms.
Crrk! Crrk!
Sirius's severed left arm fell to his office floor after the icicle broke through the humerus and all surrounding tissue. His right arm put up resistance, hanging by a thick thread of flesh and muscle. I turned to Terran's corpse, finding it on the ground and smoking from being hit by Sirius's air magic. The dagger was still in its palm, so I grabbed the blade and went around Sirius's desk. Holding the mutilated arm, I tore through the hanging flesh with the blade and let the limb fall to the floor. I tossed the bloody dagger onto the desk and waited for Sirius to come to.
When he did, he gasped with pain and panic, and his breaths ended with bumbling sobs. Sirius didn't move, but he couldn't. He had no arms, and if he moved off the metal blade impaling him to his bookshelf, his internal organs would slop out of the wound.
“You are a curse! A fucking curse!” he cried hoarsely, breathing hard as he looked over me and the two men behind me.
“I know,” I replied dryly.
“Fifteen years!” Sirius wailed. “Fifteen years! And for what? The death of one man? Was this entire war over one man?”
I turned my face to catch Cerin's eye. “Two.”
Sirius shuddered with painful breaths as he glanced behind me at the necromancer he'd spent years trying to capture. “You have only proved my point. All these years...” Sirius trailed off into crazed laughter. “You are walking proof that necromancers should never be in power. You have upended the entire world and swarmed it with your corpses. Chairel's army was undefeated for millennia because we spent so many resources to kill necromancers before they could become a bigger threat. Nothing stood a chance against us. Now? Now...” Sirius coughed, and blood expelled from his lips, rolling down his chin and dripping off to the floor. “There is no going back.”
“Everything you've ever achieved, ever worked for...” I trailed off, reaching out to tip his head back to face me “...it's gone. Ruined. Destroyed. Do you regret murdering Bjorn?”
Sirius spit at me. Bloodied drool sprayed over my jaw. I left it as he seethed, “Bjorn was a traitor. I'd execute him over and over again if given the chance. The only regrets I have are not killing that bitch of an assassin and not hiring more to finish the job she failed.”
A nerve in my eyebrow flinched at his insults toward Nyx. “And to think this hatred of me came long before I was ever a threat to you.”
“You were a threat to everyone!” Sirius yelled. “Your very existence threatened Sera! They told me the wrath of the gods would befall this city if I let you live! What the hell would you have done? Let the city fall for the life of one girl?”
“It depends on how much I loved the girl.”
“Exactly,” Sirius spat. “And I never fucking loved you.”
I stared evenly into his eyes and replied, “Which emotion would you like me to show? Surprise? Hurt? I feel neither.”
“Bjorn told me so many damn times that I should show you how I felt,” Sirius went on, his voice trembling. “Little did he know, I did. I showed you nothing but disappointment and antipathy and resentment because that's all I ever felt for you.”
“Then you are one stupid, miserable son of a bitch,” I retorted. “What kind of idiot brings a child under his wing just to hate her?”
“I didn't take you in to hate you,” Sirius seethed, stopping to cough up more blood. “I took you in to solve a problem I couldn't fix.”
My face contorted with bafflement. “What problem? You knew nothing about my powers for years—”
“I thought you could replace the little girl!” Sirius screamed at me in a sudden burst of upset. Tears welled in his eyes until they overflowed, falling freely over wrinkled cheeks. “The stillborn little girl with the red hair! Someone delivered you to my doorstep like it was a sign! If she had red hair, we were going to name her Kai. Childbirth took them both. Just a few years later, there you were! Red hair!”
Sirius broke down into sobs. “I named you Kai.”
I was silent as I watched Sirius cry and bleed out onto his office floor. Terran had often told me about how his mother had expected a little girl, and even Sirius had looked forward to her birth. I'd never considered that the loss led to his willingness to take me in.
“Perhaps it's for the best things happened as they did,” I finally said. Sirius slowed his crying and glanced up at me. “I had the mental fortitude to make it out of this hellhole. A weaker mind may have cracked. You would've driven your unfortunate daughter to suicide.”
“Fuck you,” Sirius hissed. “I would've treated her better than you.”
“I can only go by experience.”
“I could only hope to go back and drive you to suicide,” Sirius rambled. “Every time you were trouble or rebellious, I'd look into those golden eyes and rue the day I took you in. My daughter had gray eyes. Those golden eyes were always a reminder that you could never—would never—be my daughter.”
“Save the sob story for the blackness that quickly approaches; maybe it will care,” I replied, standing up from his desk. I stared deep into his quickly tiring gray eyes and commented, “Your eyes are a reminder of your mortal weaknesses. You are dying too quickly, Sirius. It's disappointing. I'd hoped to spend more time testing your limits. What a fatuous coward you are, hiding in your office and sending Terran to his death alone.”
“Unlike you, Terran is skilled and intelligent,” Sirius retorted. “There is hope for him yet.”
“Is there?” I grabbed the bloody dagger and sent death magic into Terran's corpse from across the desk. As it rose, Sirius panicked once more. “I guess you missed how your magic burnt his flesh when we entered together to kill you.”
“Terran!” Sirius sobbed with horror, looking away when the corpse snarled with hatred. “My son! You are a monster! Damn you to hell!”
“I'm not going to be traveling there for a while yet. You'll have to save a spot for me.” I urged Terran's corpse to stay back as I walked right up to Sirius and held his head up to force him to face me again. “Do you have any last requests? Perhaps you'd like to be cremated.”