“We have to try again. They’re slowing down,” I told Zach. Alan, nearby, leaned forward.
“Perhaps now we can put the revenants in position. It seems these two have done a number on each other,” Alan said. “We should be ready to strike when we have the chance.” I glanced at Zach for his opinion. He gave a swift nod.
I motioned for everyone to follow covertly along the sides of the gardens, letting Ruk and Irrikus have the main strip of courtyard. I whispered orders to move in as close as possible, directing Alan to concentrate on getting the revenants to circle Irrikus. With any luck, they might scare the Immortal Council members, who continued to cower behind Irrikus in the fight.
Ruk used his fiery attack again on Irrikus, but the ruler merely seemed to soak it up. Although Irrikus was physically exhausted just like Ruk, his armor scarcely showed signs of the battle. Destroying it was our first priority. My pulse raced as I glanced down at my bracer. Ruk fell back toward a stone planter, so close that I could almost reach out and touch him. Irrikus panted heavily, wiping sweat and blood from his eyes. I had to act now.
I wrenched the bracer off me, yelled Ruk’s name, and tossed it to him. He caught it nimbly in his beastly claws, glancing down at it with a twinkle of recognition in his lavender eyes. Irrikus howled with fury, struggling to respond in time, but Ruk was faster. The bracer shifted abruptly, glowing with a violet light. His beastly claws shifted into hands, and the bracer slid over his new fingers, his frame having grown more and more human as the fight went on. As the weapon shifted perfectly onto his arm, his body slid finally into the form I’d seen in the Higher Plane, save for the armored scales still on his skin.
When Irrikus attacked this time, Ruk went berserk. He slammed the bracer against Irrikus’s chest plate, taking a hit from the terrible sword in exchange. Irrikus stumbled back, his hands pawing at the heavy metal armor in confusion. Ruk grinned with satisfaction and moved in.
A crash sounded from the corridor, blowing a gust of leftover fog out from the hall. I felt a pang of relief as Dorian’s handsome face emerged, along with his team. Bravi snarled. Blood poured down the side of her face, rich with shadows of the dark energy she’d drunk. Laini and Juneau followed behind them. My relief plummeted inside me. No, I didn’t want Laini here.
“What’s going on?” I demanded. The building trembled, giving a groan. Inkarri must have gutted more of the infrastructure with her mount.
“We got her,” Dorian breathed. “Inkarri finally went down with her mount, but I have no idea if she and Sonia survived. It wasn’t safe to leave anyone behind to check.” His eyes darted from Gina to Laini. I met his worried gaze and felt Zach’s hot stare upon me. We all knew what might happen here today. My blood felt hot as it rushed through me. They can’t die today. Not on my watch.
The fighters were on their last legs. Ruk looked lean and thin, powerful muscles tight underneath his scaly skin. The ruler of Itzarriol looked rough. After his armor was unmagicked, the wounds came easier. Blood poured from him. So much blood that I wondered how he still stood upright.
Irrikus’s lips curled with disgust. His eyes bulged with exhaustion and madness, an Immortal completely undone. He rushed forward and met Ruk in a grapple. They pushed against one another, teeth gritted and snarls coming out with the last whispers of hatred between them. Their bodies sagged, and yet, they fought as if pushed on by an invisible force. Ruk’s lavender eyes had never looked so intent, even in his complete exhaustion. They broke away for a moment. Irrikus dragged his sword across the ground and threw himself forward for a final slash, but Ruk was faster. He’d waited almost a thousand years for this moment.
Ruk formed his hand into a spiked blade and drove it straight through Irrikus’s chest. Irrikus gasped for breath. His sword clattered to the ground. Ruk ripped his hand away and fell back onto one of the stone planters, panting. He completely shifted back into his humanoid form, with tattered robes hurriedly forming to cover his body. His skin shifted lazily, the scales turning leathery until it reached his smooth skin in some places, but not others. As it did, the bracer slipped from his arm.
My modified bracer dropped to the ground with Lanzon’s stone shining hot. Lanzon had done us the greatest service, in the end.
Irrikus gasped for the last moments of his life. My eyes filled with tears. It’s over. Our long fight for peace was quickly coming to an end. The universe’s greatest threat was on his dying breath. It was finally happening. He fell to his knees and slumped forward, still finding the strength to prop himself on one arm as blood gushed down his torso.
“Help me,” he whispered hoarsely. His Immortal Council members trembled behind a line of angry revenants. Alan stepped forward, and the revenants did the same, circling around Irrikus. The fangs from the controlled vampires extended as they grew hungry from the dark energy around them.
Irrikus lifted his head one last time to give Ruk a hateful glare.
“You are not worthy,” he murmured. His gaze drifted to Dorian and me. “None of you are.”
“You took everything from us,” Dorian replied stonily. He gripped a blade in his hand and strode toward Irrikus as the revenants closed in. “From my people, I bring you a gift you don’t deserve.” Bravi and Laini rushed behind him, their eyes glowing with vengeance.
It would not be an easy death, but Irrikus didn’t deserve one. He fell to the ground. The beast of a ruler—who had caused mass genocide and the makings of the apocalypse—was done for. The revenants waited for a beat, allowing Dorian to signal for attack, before all the vampires descended upon Irrikus in a bloody fury. Bravi let out a victorious scream.
A tear rolled down my cheek. The being who’d stolen happiness from so many was finally dead. We had won. Our moment of victory felt unbelievable and surreal on the rooftop of the stadium.
We had done it.
27
Lyra
The hush came after the vampires drained Irrikus of life. The air was still and filled with a semblance of peace, a feeling of finality. A faint amber light emerged from Irrikus and floated into the sky. His evil had been used to nourish the people he’d harmed, and there wasn’t much substance to his soul now that it had been stripped of darkness.
I stumbled forward toward Dorian in a numb, disbelieving trance. He turned to face me with the same delirious relief. Had his glacial eyes ever looked so bright against his pale skin? The shadows dancing beneath it were a vivid, inky black—their beauty enriched by Irrikus’s lifetime of wrongs. I opened my mouth to say something. The air had dried my single tear of victory. All the words to contain the moment couldn’t find their way out of me fast enough.
"Father!" A shout came across the yard from the corridor leading to the stadium. Inkarri limped forward. Her head had been badly injured, with a gash running down the side. When she walked, her steps were like those of a wounded deer, but she must've sensed his death. Her face contorted with rage and grief. "Is he—?" The second question came raggedly, and the final word lodged in her throat. Sonia followed behind her, battered and bruised, but alive.
Inkarri tried to push through the rest of our allies to reach us, but Alan's revenants moved quickly. They were in front of her in a flash to prevent her from getting any closer to Irrikus. I looked to where her father had fallen. His corpse was already a withered remnant of its former glory, drained of its dark energy. Splatters of blood sprayed the pavement. It smelled acidic. Dorian, Laini, and Bravi looked savage with their faces streaked with blood. It's only natural that they wanted a hand in his demise.
"This can't be," Inkarri muttered. Her anger drifted into baffled disbelief. She shook her head. Her hair was matted from blood and dirt. "I never thought… He seemed incapable of death," she whispered to herself, and tried to push against the revenants, but they held steady. Alan looked on with a calm but cold eye. I needed to do something about him, but we needed to do a ton of things at the moment. Irrikus was dead. We had to help Reshi with the remaining revenants in the Mor
tal Plane, flee Itzarriol, and get to the tear before it melded. I laid out the plan in my mind, step after step. The ideas slid into place like bricks. Hope flooded me. Irrikus was gone, and suddenly everything seemed possible.
Bravi let out a sigh of relief. Laini leaned against her. A silent exchange of happiness and victory passed between them. My grateful gaze found Dorian again, and I smiled at him. Ruk gave a weary grunt. Our valiant fighter was wounded and exhausted. I quickly jogged over to him.
"Are you okay?" I asked. "That was an impressive fight, like nothing I've ever seen. Thank you." He waved me off with a dark smile.
"No need for thanks. I did what I intended to do. Don't listen to what any wise, peaceful beings try to tell you about being the better person," Ruk replied dryly. "Revenge feels wonderful." We turned to see Dorian rounding up the Immortal Council members. Things would flow much better now that we’d removed the leader of Itzarriol from the picture. I picked up the bracer. It had morphed down back to my size and though battered, was still useable. I placed it back on me, whispering a silent thanks for everything it helped us do today.
Sen wandered over in an elegant flutter. Gently, she pressed her beak to Ruk's shoulder. He stiffened, but his face eased as her healing power flowed through him. I was grateful for her presence. Even if she hadn't participated in the battle directly, she came through for us in her own way.
Inkarri finally crumbled to her knees. She shook off the hand of a revenant who attempted to hold her back. "I'm not going anywhere," she muttered. Her gaze was as lifeless as her father's body.
The revenants could deal with her. We had an area to secure. I pressed my comm, trying to contain my happiness. It’s bad luck to celebrate a battle too soon. Of course, I had the corpse of our greatest enemy on the ground right next to us, so it was difficult not to. But Reshi’s last communication with us made me nervous. She was under attack in the control room. Had the hunters gotten in?
"Reshi and Gomez, the council has fallen," I relayed. Dorian and Bravi gathered the Immortal Council in a line while Laini and Juneau helped lash the members into bindings. We couldn’t take chances with any of them, although they hardly looked up to fighting. Seeing Irrikus—their beloved and almighty leader on the ground—had taken the wind right out of them.
Zach and Gina were still staring at Irrikus. Gina shook her head, as if to say she couldn't believe he was dead. She stooped to where Irrikus's sword had fallen, not touching it. It had shifted back to its natural crown shape. Even after death, Irrikus's magical accessories were impressive. They littered the entire battlefield, and all except the chest plate were still magicked. When Ruk touched the main chest piece, that was the biggest weakness Irrikus had. Every being, even Irrikus, had a heart.
Unbelievable. After all this time, we finally did it. A wave of shaky relief washed over me. I needed Reshi to respond, or we’d have to send a scout immediately. I turned to look for Chaka, but the annoying scrape of fingernails against stone sent a sudden unsettled chill through me.
I turned to see Alan, shaking his head and tutting, as he picked up a piece of Irrikus's armor. It was a mere bracer, nothing serious. He held it up into the light to examine it. As he did, I noticed his maker guards growing closer and closer to him. It was not unusual. One always remained close by to help him walk, but they moved as three.
Except… Alan seemed to walk fine, now. And his maker guards? Their eyes were on us, not on the Immortal Council.
My skin prickled with foreboding. I looked to my side and gestured a warning to Zach. His eyes narrowed. We knew Alan. This couldn't be good.
"What are you working on?" Zach called, loud enough to gather everyone’s attention. "Gonna make a new peg leg from your dead buddy's armor?" His attempt at humor was carefully light. He doesn't want to startle him. We can move before he does anything. My stomach knotted with unease. This was our victory moment. Alan’s bizarre actions made me anxious, even if it didn’t make sense. He couldn’t possibly use Irrikus's stuff, as a human. I took a step forward though, my knife in hand. Lanzon’s stone was warm in my bracer.
"Director Sloane calls for a new beginning," Alan said, without looking at Zach. It was a code phrase—in response, his makers suddenly surrounded him and raised their weapons, forming a circle of protection around him. He smiled lovingly at the bracer.
"No," I whispered, watching in horror as the makers each placed a hand on Alan's body. I raced forward, but a gust of energy blasted off the makers and sent me careening into the remains of a charred tree. When I recovered, everyone was watching Alan stretch his limbs. His body floated a few inches off the ground. His skin glowed with the same amber as the souls in the sky.
Irrikus's bracer had clamped onto his forearm like a second skin. A shin guard followed.
Sen's eyes widened. "Stop him," she cried.
Bravi aimed a shot at his head with her vampire gauntlet, but the blast merely ricocheted off the powerful glow of the makers’ magic. Rivo attempted to attack from the other side with a crossbow, but the revenants rebuffed him easily. With his maker guards surrounding him and the revenants cutting off our other allies, he was protected on all sides. This couldn’t be happening.
Ruk breathed heavily. "I didn't think to—" His thought was lost as Alan chuckled, his head tilting back to let out the gravely sound.
Gina gasped as the crown rattled beside her. She reached out to grasp it, but it shot toward Alan before she could. She chased after it, running far closer to the guards than the rest of us. My adrenaline spiked as I attempted to follow, but Ruk jerked me back. As the crown flew toward Alan's head, a streak of lightning erupted from the crown and struck Alan. For a moment, it sat ridiculously large on top of his smaller human head, but the crown glowed as the light died down until only the metal was alight. The crown morphed into something smaller, but still sinister and warped, to fit atop Alan's head. He let out a pleased sigh. Inkarri snarled with outrage and disbelief. The sight of her fallen father’s crown on top of Alan’s head made her shake her head in futile denial.
I jerked against Ruk's grip. "Why are you stopping me?" I had to get Alan, and Zach needed to grab Gina. Alan was trying something. We didn’t have time for this. Ruk’s lavender eyes sent an icy sensation of fear through me.
My brother sucked in a sharp breath and jumped forward for Gina, but it was too late.
"No," Ruk breathed. Two revenants moved like passing shadows and snatched Gina. One drew her into a chokehold, dragging her back toward Alan. The revenant's dead eyes stared mercilessly at us. The sight numbed me to my bones. No, this wasn't how it was supposed to go. Ruk had sensed it coming, but I hadn't because I hadn't seen the scene go down like this in the window. It wasn’t supposed to be revenants taking Gina. All of this is wrong.
"Everyone freeze, or she dies," Alan and the revenants croaked at the same time. He laughed, and all his sounds came out in unison with the revenants’, like a chorus of dark angels. "That was far easier than I expected." Gina struggled against the revenant, trying to lodge her knife into the vampire's wrist, but the revenant jerked her arm over Gina's throat until her breath caught. Her arm jerked at some hidden motion by the revenant’s partner, and her knife clattered to the ground.
"Don't struggle," the revenants and Alan said. He lifted his hands. "The final touch?"
The makers channeled their energy into him once more. The crown and the gem vibrated in unison, until the metal from the crown climbed down to cover Alan's gem eye. It fully merged with the jewel, covering Alan's poorly healed face. Rage coursed through me, right alongside fear as I stared at Gina. Her brow, dotted with sweat, crinkled as the vampire’s nails dug into her. Blood appeared in tiny dots on her skin.
"I will rule Itzarriol," Alan announced along with his revenants. He splayed his fingers, lifting his hands as if he were a deity visiting from the heavens. "You will all bow to me.”
28
Lyra
In the vision, Gina wasn’t killed by a revenan
t. I could still fix this. We could still fix this.
I watched, helpless, as the revenants dragged Gina back. Alan and the makers quickly pushed their way past Bravi and Dorian to the captured Immortal Council members. If we attacked now, the revenant would slit her throat.
Alan studied the council coldly, like he was evaluating a line of soldier ants. "Tell me, who would like to pledge their loyalty to me, and who wants to be thrown to the vampires? I require absolute obedience." His icy tone sank into my bones with the dreadful realization that this was real. We had been so close. If Alan hadn’t taken over, we’d be wrapping up in Itzarriol right now and preparing to head to the tear for Ruk to fix it.
To my surprise, some of the Immortal Council members appeared to hang on to their spines and loyalty to Irrikus. Only five offered their devotion to Alan. How quickly a house of cards comes down and is rebuilt.
Anger, hot and with no place to go, seethed within me. Now that Alan had mutated his body with the makers' magic, he had passed the point of no return, a ghost of a human. Unlike Aurora’s unfortunate transformation, he seemed completely settled into his new state. The crown on his head radiated authority. He made a slicing motion across his throat, and his vampires dispatched the unwilling Immortal Council members. Alan fired into three of them himself with the gem gauntlet. He had plenty of fighters with him, yet he needed to see his power for his own sick satisfaction. They writhed on the ground, mortally wounded and destined to bleed out while this madness unfolded. More blood joined the battlefield, long after it should've stopped flowing. My gut coiled with disgust and horror. It was a firing squad.
Next, he turned to Inkarri with a pitying look. She was a broken heap of a warrior, still staring at her father's crumpled body. Her face told me that her father’s passing had left her in a storm of conflicted emotions.
Darklight 7: Darkfall Page 25