by John Corwin
There was nothing I could channel to counter her next blow. I couldn't manage enough Stasis to ward it off, or enough Murk to shield myself. A stiff wind rose and the steel gray sky rolled overhead like a fountain of Stasis. To either side of cloudbank, black and white smoke from the raging battle flowed past like rivers. Daelissa and I stood at the center, her facing me with victory shining in her eyes.
"Finally my time has come." She burst into insane laughter. "I will end you and come back stronger than before. In a few years, I will have another Seraphim army at my back and proceed unhindered to conquer Eden. The mortals will bow before me and I will claim all that is mine."
I heard everything she said, but found myself captivated by the surreal scenery. It reminded me so much of the vision I'd had with rivers of Murk and Brilliance to either side of a tiny island while overhead, a fountain of Stasis roared past. I'd made a choice during that vision. Instead of the light, dark or the gray, I'd chosen all of them.
The choice is clear.
I thought back to my earlier attempts at channeling Clarity. At what it had done to Elyssa.
Run or fight.
If I leapt, I'd fall hundreds of feet and possibly die. Daelissa would get away and eventually form another army. If I fought, death was almost guaranteed, and the results would be much the same. Something told me neither of those was the right choice. Fear grew palpable in me. I didn't want to die. I wanted to live a long happy life with Elyssa and my family. But if I ran, if Daelissa survived this and escaped, my cowardice would pave the path for another war. The next time, it might be even worse. She might subvert more nom governments and use them in her conquest, causing a nuclear holocaust in the process.
But I was drained physically and magically. In short, I was out of options.
Daelissa released the translucent wall of energy. "Enjoy the sight of me for your last few moments on this earth." She blew the pulsating energy as if blowing me a kiss. Moving at the pace of a walk, it was too wide to dodge or leap over, and I hadn't the energy to levitate. The malicious smirk spreading on her cruel face told me that she knew how weak I was. Prolonging my death by fueling my fear and despair as I looked on powerless seemed to fill her with joy.
Everything grew quiet, as if the world were holding its breath while the fate of Eden hung in the balance. Then again, I might have just been scared senseless.
"Justin, I love you!" Elyssa shouted from somewhere behind me. "Don't die!"
I looked back and saw her, pale-faced and tired, still in pursuit. Her broom smoked and flew erratically. She wouldn't catch up in time. In that instant, I knew I wouldn't run. I'd do as I'd always done—cling to the last shred of hope and fight. Daelissa was powerful, but she was missing the most powerful element that not even death could stop.
Love.
Elyssa put her hands to her mouth. "Justin, Clarity is truth!"
In that instant, everything became clear. Destruction, creation, and Stasis were all different forms of change. Clarity didn't change anything. It simply laid bare something's true nature. That was why it didn't do anything to inanimate objects. That was why Elyssa had seen herself floating naked in a lake of clear water.
I knew what I had to do. Unfortunately, doing it meant I had no chance of escape.
I will always love you, Elyssa.
I channeled Murk from every finger of my left hand, and Brilliance likewise from my right, weaving the threads into gray. I channeled beams of creation and destruction from my eyes and into the gray. Clear energy rippled the air around me like a stone in a lake.
"Daelissa, I think the universe wants you to have a good hard look at yourself." I grinned. "I don't think you're going to like what you see."
A crystalline beam speared from the gray sphere and toward Daelissa. It did nothing to stop the deadly energy inexorably burning toward me and went through it. But that didn't matter.
Clarity found its target.
Daelissa stiffened, arcing as if someone had stabbed her in the back. She screamed. "No, that isn't me! That isn't me!" Tears poured down her face. She dropped to her knees. "I hate you! Hate you!" Her voice was raw with agony. "You're worthless!" Oily dark light and brilliant white poured from her in all directions. A horrific shriek tore from her mouth. "You are nothing!"
Exhaustion claimed me. I took one faltering step back and felt open air beneath me. Daelissa's magic wouldn't kill me, but gravity would.
The rush of wind filled my ears. It was almost a pleasant last sound to hear. I wondered how long it would take before I hit the ground.
My arm jerked painfully in its socket as someone grabbed it. I heard Elyssa cry out in a long, agonizing scream. I opened my eyes and saw her tear-filled eyes looking at me. Saw her slumped over the broomstick, arm hanging unnaturally from the shoulder. Her fingers somehow clung to me in a white-knuckled grip.
"Grab the broom!" Elyssa sobbed. "Help me save you!"
Moving my other arm was like moving dead weight. The broomstick seemed too far away to reach.
"Damn it, Justin, do you love me or not?" she screamed. "Grab the broomstick!"
Out of nowhere, I felt a tiny jolt of extra energy inside me. Putting everything I had toward moving my arm, I flung it upward. My fingers scraped the bottom of the stick and missed. Elyssa cried out as my momentum jerked on her arm. I dully realized I should have gone for the stirrup instead of the handle since it was much closer, but no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't summon the energy to move my arm again.
"No, no, no!" she shouted, eyes clenched shut with concentration. Her sweaty hand slipped down my forearm to my wrist, wrenching Elyssa's arm again. Her tears rained on my face. Her hands slipped to my fingers. For an instant, they hooked together.
"It's okay," I said. "I love you."
Elyssa's eyes opened wide as she lost her grip.
I plummeted to earth.
Well, about ten feet or so. Don't get me wrong, the impact still hurt, especially since my back landed perfectly on a broken tree branch. I shouted in surprise at the sudden impact.
Elyssa's boomstick levitated lower until she was right over me. She groaned. "I guess it's a good thing I headed straight for the ground while I was holding onto you."
I snorted. "I guess so." Unfortunately, I was too tired and hurt to move. "I'm just going to lie here forever. I'm exhausted."
"Me too." Elyssa toppled off her still-smoking broom and landed next to me with a loud grunt. "Lying here with you forever sounds wonderful." The riderless broom rose a few feet and spun in a lazy circle.
"What happened to your broom?" I asked.
"Serena hit it with a spell when she stole your broom." Elyssa groaned. "I really hope we can capture that over-analytical little imp, because I'd like to punch her in the face."
Daelissa's cloudlet, probably damaged by her attack on me, lost altitude, drifting lower and lower as it diminished in size. It finally settled down not far from us. I heard moaning and sobbing.
"Help me up," I said.
Elyssa pulled me to my feet. We staggered to the cloudlet. Daelissa huddled in the middle. Dark veins laced her alabaster skin. She looked up at me, bloodshot eyes filled with tears. Her hand reached for me. I hesitated, but took it.
Something amazing happened. Daelissa smiled. It was not a cruel smile, or an evil smirk, but a genuine smile. She looked nearly identical to Nightliss in that single, perfect moment. "Thank you." Her voice was a faint rasp. "I was lost, but you found me." She shivered violently. "The truth is too much to bear." Daelissa's grip grew weak. The curve of her lips relaxed, and the light left her eyes. I released her hand and let her body recline on the cloudlet.
I dropped to my knees and stared at her. My eyes wandered the destruction all around us. Bodies piled on the ground, the forest flattened and smoking. How many people had died because of this woman—this Seraphim? Why hadn't I known how to use Clarity before? I could have stopped her sooner. I could have prevented this. None of this should have happened!
Grief welled in me until I couldn't take it anymore. I leaned into Elyssa and cried. She hugged me and shook with sobs of her own.
We had won. We had survived.
The cost had been staggering.
Chapter 38
Someone shook me awake.
I opened my eyes and found Shelton and a group of Templar healers hovering over us. We must have fallen asleep. For a moment, I thought everything had been a dream. I turned and saw Daelissa's body not far from us. It's real. The war is over.
Shelton whooped. "I can't tell you how happy I am to find you alive." He chuckled. "Man, you two look awful." He glanced at Daelissa. "The queen bitch looks even worse."
The healers loaded us onto flying carpets and began treating us.
"I'm not feeling so hot," I said in a scratchy voice. Actually, I was feeling very hot thanks to baking in the sun for much of the late afternoon.
Elyssa winced as the healers reset her dislocated arm. "What's the situation?"
Shelton grinned. "Daelissa's army surrendered a couple of hours ago. We've been combing the area for you and other survivors, but digging through all the wreckage and destroyed trees has taken hours of family fun." He glanced at Daelissa again. "What did you do to her?"
I followed his gaze. "I hit her with Clarity."
He raised an eyebrow. "The clear magic that didn't do anything?"
"Yeah. Elyssa figured out what it does."
Shelton gave me an expectant look. "Well, spit it out."
"It reveals the absolute truth to whoever I hit with it." I thought back to Daelissa's last words. "The truth was too much for her to bear."
"Uh, promise you won't ever hit me with that stuff." Shelton grimaced. "I ain't too sure I want to see the absolute truth about myself."
I chuckled. "That's something none of us want to see." We were silent for a moment, then I asked, "How's my family?"
"They're fine." He motioned with his head. "Your parents and sister are out looking for you. I'll let them know you're here." He touched the comm pendant on his Arcane robes and sent the message.
Within an hour, Elyssa and I felt well enough to walk. We went through an omniarch portal to the caverns beneath El Dorado where the Templars placed Daelissa's body in a preservation spell. The large cavern was filled with the wounded and dead.
I found Nightliss staring at the body of her sister, a deeply troubled look on her face.
She looked up as we approached. "My sister is truly dead."
I couldn't tell what she was feeling, so I asked. "How do you feel?"
Nightliss bit her lower lip. "Relieved. Sad. I wish I understood what drove her to be the person she was."
I looked closer at Daelissa's body. She looked like a white marble statue that had cracked from age and weather. I noticed crusted blood on her right hand, and curiosity drew me toward the wound. I motioned to a nearby healer. "Can you remove the preservation spell for a moment?"
The woman nodded. "Of course." With a wave of her wand, the shimmering field around the body flickered away. The healer left to tend to other wounded soldiers.
I examined Daelissa's hand. The wound had closed, but not fully healed before death. "Sorry about this," I told Nightliss.
She peered closely at it. "What is that beneath her skin?"
Elyssa handed me a small dagger. I sliced open the skin, feeling a bit ill as I did so. Once I cleared away the muscle, I found something that made us gasp in surprise.
"Kiddo!" Dad came up behind me and gripped me in a bear hug.
I groaned as sore muscles protested. "Ow."
He pulled away, a huge smile on his face. "Sorry. I kinda forgot you just saved the world."
Ivy latched her small arms around my waist. "Oh, Justin. I was so worried about you."
"When they broke your cloaking spell, everyone saw you headed for Daelissa," Mom said as she stepped beside Ivy. She kissed me on the cheek. "Thomas told me you planned to detonate a malaether crucible." Her eyes reddened. "I was sick with worry but powerless to help."
Despite my bloody hands, I returned Ivy's hug and Mom's kiss. "It had to be done."
Mom embraced Elyssa. "I can't tell you how happy I was when Shelton told us you were okay."
Dad looked at Daelissa's still form. "Wow. After everything we've been through, I can't believe it's over."
"It is surreal," Nightliss said in a soft voice.
Elyssa nodded toward Daelissa. "Maybe you should show them what we just found, Justin."
I took Daelissa's hand and exposed what was fused inside her palm. Mom gasped.
"Is that what I think it is?" Dad gave me a disbelieving look. "All her notions about Brightling superiority and—wow."
"When Nightliss told me about her family and told me about the odds of a Brightling child being born to two Darklings, I didn't think much of it." I touched the tip of the crystal prism embedded in Daelissa's hand. "She didn't want to be a Darkling so much, she figured out how to implant a prism inside her hand so she could channel Brilliance and look like a Brightling."
"That would explain why we saw her scratching her hand," Elyssa said. "She must have been using so much power lately that it began to irritate her skin."
I shook my head in disbelief. "Daelissa was a Darkling all along."
"Now I understand what Daelissa meant," Elyssa said. "The truth was too much for her."
The realization made me feel awful. "When I hit Daelissa with Clarity, it made her face her own worst nightmare. She saw her true nature."
Elyssa's face saddened. "More than anything else, Daelissa hated herself. Facing every terrible thing she'd ever done in a single moment of lucidity killed her."
Tears trickled down Nightliss's face. "Channeling only Brilliance in a body with an affinity to Murk must have driven her mad." She wiped her eyes. "If only I had known, perhaps I could have convinced her to stop. Perhaps my sister never would have become the monster she turned into."
Dad gave us a sage look. "Well, kids, the moral of the story is this—just be yourself." He chuckled at his own joke.
"David!" Mom gave him a disappointed look.
Ivy giggled. "That's funny."
Nightliss seemed lost in her own world as she stared at the body of her sister. "I could have saved her," she murmured. "I just didn't see the truth."
I hugged the petite sera to my chest. "There was nothing you could have done. It's not your fault."
She backed away and managed a small smile. "She is at peace now. I should take solace in that, at least."
Thomas, Leia, Michael, and Phoebe appeared from the direction of the control room a few moments later. Elyssa cried out with happiness and ran to them.
Shelton and Bella came in behind them, broad smiles on their faces. I showed them our discovery.
"Well I'll be a vampire monkey's uncle." Shelton's mouth dropped open. "What a hypocrite!"
Dad chimed in with the moral of his story again and Shelton guffawed. I had a feeling Dad would be using this joke for centuries to come.
Bella sighed. "Sometimes I wonder who the real children are."
Looking around at the people I called family, a deep joy radiated in my heart, melting the fear, tension, and drama of the past few months. We did it! I could finally have something approaching a normal life. Despite the prophecy, I had somehow survived.
I spotted Ketiss across the cavern talking to his wounded soldiers and excused myself so I could talk with him. He knelt next to a still female form. My throat constricted when I saw it was Flava.
She blinked and tried to smile, but her face showed deep, purple bruises.
I knelt next to her. "Are you okay?"
"Not dead yet," she said in a raspy voice.
Ketiss stood and saluted in the Darkling way. "You have saved the Promised Land, Destroyer."
"Please, just call me Justin from now on, okay?" I glanced over my shoulder at Nightliss. "Is she off the hook for being a bad guy?"
He nod
ded. "Our religion was mistaken about her affiliation. Nightliss has proven beyond doubt that she is not to blame for the sins of her sister."
I turned back to Flava. "What you did was so brave. If you hadn't saved me, Daelissa might have escaped. You are directly responsible for me being able to end this."
Flava managed another smile, but talking was apparently too hard for her right now. She had nearly sacrificed herself to save me. She'd told me she loved me. I suddenly wondered if her sacrifice had been the one mentioned in the foreseeance.
"She will be awarded many honors," Ketiss said. "Unfortunately, Cephus's sins against our people have left us with a great deal to sort out when we return." He looked at me uncertainly. "Do you intend to come to Seraphina and aid us in driving back the Brightlings?"
I had nearly forgotten about that, but a promise was a promise. "After I've seen to the recovery here, we will try to solve the problems of Seraphina, starting with Cephus and working toward the Brightling Empire. I would like to see everyone as equals under your law."
Ketiss looked uncertain. "Would it not be better to destroy the Brightlings?"
I realized I had a lot of convincing to do if his feelings were indicative of the greater population. "Everyone has a purpose, Ketiss. We should seek to heal the old wounds caused by millennia of misguided elitism. By uniting the Brightlings and Darklings, all Seraphim will thrive."
He still didn't look convinced. "Perhaps you are right, but it will be a long and difficult journey."
That's an understatement. "Difficult, but worth it in the end." I kissed Flava on the forehead. "Rest well. We'll talk again soon."
She managed a word. "Yes."
On my way back to Elyssa, Underborn and Fjoeruss intercepted me.
"Mr. Slade," Underborn said in a rather smug voice. "It would appear my efforts paid off just in time."
Fjoeruss arched an eyebrow. "What is curious to me is that many of the students from Science Academy claimed they were ready for the assault nearly an hour before they deployed."