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[>>Now replaying: Log 1.48.16.6 - The Flame and the Flood]

Date: 8.9.175 AA / 4404 LTC

Location: The Bunker at Haven-Of-Progress // Zephyro’s Domain

//Regardless grown,//

//It is common for addicts to relapse. It’s nothing to be ashamed of. You just have to try again.//

//Hatred, like time, is cyclical. It takes effort to break out of both.//

[>>DATA CORRUPTED]

E3 %Guys, you’re doing it again! You said you’d tell me a story, but all you do is fight!%

“Can't you make them hurry up?” I blurted out as my anger finally returned and bludgeoned the damn fear back into its hole. As I watched the people slowly funnel into the palace, I started thumbing my Torch on and off.

Click… whoosh… Click… silence… Click… whoosh…

It made for a satisfying rhythm.

“I doubt it, Sultana,” the vizier replied. He, too was looking at the crowd with worry lining the set of his shoulders.

“I have given my most trusted lieutenants all the authority they need. All we can do now is cover them, while they shepherd my people to safety,” he said while adjusting his turban, retying some lose strands

At that moment, watching him watch his people, it took all I had to ignore the voice in my head. It urged me to take control. To tell him to shove his sympathy and just do as he was told.

There are a few things that can never be unsaid, and by some fortune, I recognized this was one of them. Saying those words would change me, not just in Zephyro’s eyes, but my own. It would make me into a person that did not care about costs.

I wasn’t like that. I was…

I didn’t want to be like this.

> Ah!

…said a goddamn memory.

> …So that’s the Sam you were hiding under all that anger…

> Nice to know you Sam, I’m Patti…

I turned away, breath shuddering. A bit of smoke must have gotten into my eyes because they stung like hell.

My gaze wandered up the massive palace gates, over intricate carvings and ornate wood. My eyes rested briefly on the braziers, towering above me in silent, fiery judgment, but ultimately broke free, to lose themselves in the tiny speck of uncorrupted night shrinking directly above us.

Everything was a little blurry, but even without seeing the stars clearly I knew the darkness was almost done devouring them, just like it would swallow us all. It would wash over the city, and then it would—

“Sultana?” Zephyro said.

“Huh?” I muttered, rubbing my sleeves over my eyes.

“As your most humble servant, I would never presume to…” he sighed. For a moment, he was tense, but then he shook his head as if shedding all the pomp and pretense.

“Are you alright?” He asked. No honorific. Like a friend. Too close. Far too close!

“Oh, so that’s how I get you to talk to me like a person?! By crying? Do you think you need to protect me again? Do you think I’m some weakling? I can—“

I paused, gritted my teeth. That wasn’t fair, and I knew it. A tide of shame battered against what precious little rage I had left. But still, I exhaled, venting my unjust frustration.

“I’m so sorry, Zephyro, I just…”

“It is alright, Sultana. The tree that does not bend before the storm, breaks.”

It was the tone of his voice that nearly did it. That small moment of understanding, wrapped comfortingly in but a few, quiet words of what would be a platitude, if I hadn’t come to know the Vizier as I did. With but a handful of syllables, Zephyro had given me something I craved, but like all addicts, this tiniest hint of getting what I wanted almost made me scream in fear. This relief, baleful, was like blood rushing back into a limb you had long thought dead, painful beyond all soothing measure, and threatening to smother me in its comfort.

I rubbed my sleeve over my eyes again.

The tears wouldn’t stop coming.

My anger flickered in their flood.

The darkness surged, rushed in.

Zephyro reached out hesitantly as if to hold me, but I shrank back.

My chest heaved.

I couldn’t give in.

I couldn’t rest.

The last couple of hours returned to memory unbidden, replaying in my mind’s eye over and over as my thoughts spiraled deeper into a past I could never forget.

Zephyro standing over me, beating back the Ferals.

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

The fear in the eyes of the citizens as ravenous monsters tore into them.

That wild expression on that boy’s face, quietly pleading for my help before he came undone, spattering his Logic, his essence across the street. All over me. Seeping into my eyes, my ears, my mouth, making me see, hear, and taste the truth.

Advance’s pinnacle, wreathed in flame as the artillery magic broke the shield, then the steel, then the glass, then the people.

All I had worked for lay in ruins.

Stax’s eyes, dancing, Lorelye’s, laughing, Patti’s, gentle, Iruli’s, shrewd… All of them, lifeless.

All my friends were gone.

I was alone.

But that didn’t matter now.

It couldn’t.

It mustn’t.

I gave Zephyro a hasty nod to make myself stop caring, and even though he seemed to know that I couldn’t possibly be fine again, he nodded in return and returned to his vigil. There were still people to save, and a city to protect. I would have enough time to think afterward, still needed to find out what happened to me, get out of this computer, and bury the goddamn Mage Lords in the remains of their palaces.

I needed to fight.

I needed a fight.

Click, whoosh, Click, silence, Click, whoosh…

“Sultana, are you sure you don’t want to—“

There it was again. That tone of voice. I was sure I’d fold. But what to do about it? Ignore him? Yell at him? Give in? The last option was terrifying, and the first two… I didn’t want to be a person who repaid kindness with anger, but it was so tempting. Anything to avoid breaking that dam.

When I saw movement in the shadowy alleys and several Ferals emerged from it, the rush of my relief came so out of left field, it was like a punch to the gut.

As the looming threat of compassion vanished and a soothing rage blanketed my mind, one last click stopped the rhythm of fire and silence. Pharus roared, and illuminated by crackling teal flames, I faced the enemy.

“We have incoming, Zephyro,” I said after a quick count. “At least six cybernetic rats and one hyena that's made out of some sort of fog. Looks sickly green, so perhaps it’s poisonous or corrosive, or both.”

To my side, I felt Zephyro shift, ready to jump into action. “They will be as harvest before the fall, inshallah.”

He unsheathed his sword with a satisfying hiss, and tense seconds crept by. The Ferals stayed where they were, eying us and making weird, threatening noises. Not at us, however but at… each other?

“I think they’re talking?” I said, with a raised eyebrow.

“They are preparing, that is not good. If I might be so bold as to offer to lay my humble advice at your feet: We should strategize as well.”

“I thought the strategy we had so far worked out well? I mark them, you kill them?” Pharus’ flames crackled in their cage.

“This is true, Sultana, but you see: The ungodly beasts have been feasting on my people and grew fat and slow as a result. However, they also grew increasingly powerful. I suspect that what you see is but a vanguard, the quickest to arrive, but also the weakest. Even so, most worryingly; they already seem capable of strategic thinking, surpassing mere pack mentality.”

“It’s definitely a change from earlier, but yes, they have been growing more intelligent. The wolf could even speak. Human speech, I mean.”

“It could speak, Sultana?” Zephyro glanced at me, surprised. Then his expression hardened “Usually, you don’t see this sort of behavior in the Ferals this far down The Path. That is not a good sign, Sultana. These beasts are far too strong already, and if there are more coming—as I believe—they will pose an increasingly difficult challenge.”

I tilted my head in reluctant acknowledgment. He was right. I didn’t really need a better weapon with Zephyro by my side. I wished I had a target painting device like Pharus during the war, but then again, it wasn’t like I had hypermobile artillery like Zephyro, either.

Back then, I did most of the fighting in a desperate attempt to keep my friends from the front lines, to avoid losing one more. It had been futile, of course, but at least it made me feel like I could do something. I wished I had that same feeling now, instead of this desperately furious struggle against the void.

But that wouldn’t matter once I was finally fighting again.

I coldly regarded the Ferals gathering on the edge of the Plaza, still conversing in warped voices that were barely audible due to the distance.

I just itched to bring the fight to them. To secure the kill. To unleash the raging flame inside my soul that demanded I fuel it with more and more violence.

Chris? I asked in my mind.

Beep? Came their almost immediate reply.

How much would it cost me to upgrade Pharus?

{[Pharus, Temper of the Torchbearer] v.06 - Electronic Warfare Suite: REQUIRES 60 LB}

I caught myself taking a step toward the Ferals and stopped.

What was I doing? Hadn’t I just said I wanted to stay back?

A sliver of ice sank into my spine.

It was at this moment, with my foot already in mid-step, that I realized that despite my best intentions, my anger would get the better of me yet again, and there was nothing I could do to stop it.

I had lost the battle the second I let it back in, laced it into my willpower. I was sure that if I took a moment to pause and check that fraying rope in my mind, I’d find it burned to ash and crumpling away from that single, searing-hot thread.

For a brief, crystalline moment trapped in a panic-inducing stillness of the mind, a memory I desperately tried to forget shifted from blissful haze into terrible transparency.

> Blue eyes dancing, a ballroom, graceful feet moving in rhythm. A trail of red silk, out the door, into the garden, where no one can see us.

> “You are a good fighter, Sam,” Stax says, which is the weirdest thing to say after a kiss, but also so very Stax.

> “No, I am not, and you know it,” I laugh.

> “Hah! True! But you could be! You just have to wield your anger instead of letting it wield you. Ah, Sam… then you would be unstoppable…”

> “I’ll show you unstoppable.”

> “Is that a promise, Lady Samantha?”

> “Maybe.”

> —

> Flashes of fire and the hiss of steel against steel. My pulse throbbing in my fingertips, my jaw clenched so hard it hurts... Another volley. Fireballs splash impotently against my back, but an arrow sneaks past the overloaded barrier, sinks deep into that stupidly fragile body I am trying to shield with mine. There’s a pained grunt. He doesn’t have enough life left to scream anymore. More arrows. Two quick grunts. I sink closer, try to protect him better. All for nothing. I lower my head in shame, and hear a whisper—

> “…who is the wielder, and who is the weapon, Sam?”

I tried the strand, then, to see if it would let me climb back up.

Just a mere touch to that white-hot thread that held me dangling over the abyss.

Blazing fury singed my thoughts, and I pulled back harder than I should have.

Immediately, there was that dread again, filling my lungs like winter rain, and before its rushing glacier torrent, my denial broke like a wet origami flower.

I could no longer rely on my judgment.

I had fooled myself into thinking I was in control yet again.

Yes, the anger would keep me going, but it would never stop, would keep pushing me, going past what I would usually accept as reasonable, past what anyone would consider safe or sane.

> The Torch blazes against a Mage’s weakening shield. There’s panic in his eyes, but I can’t let him live. I can’t let any of them live. They will just come after me again and take more of my friends.

> “Kill them all.”

> I don’t shout, I don’t scream.

> It’s barely more than a whisper.

> And yet, my command shrieks over the battlefield like an army of wraiths.

Even then it would demand I push on, or leave me naked in the storm.

The thought woke more images, memories of burning cities, and contemptuous looks, dragging me deeper and deeper into a maelstrom of terror and guilt.

But then, when everything seemed lost, the rage returned in all its cruel glory and soothed my fear. It was here for me. I just needed to give in. I hadn’t wanted any of those things, it said, and so I couldn’t be made responsible for it. Chris, Lorelye, Stax, Patti, especially Olre, they’d all made their own choices, made their own mistakes. How could they all put this on me?

It was their… I hadn’t… I didn’t… it was so goddamn unfair!

Warmth spread through my arms and legs, and my breath quickened. I wouldn’t fail again. I would do what needed to be done. I just needed to make sure I was prepared for that inevitable moment.

> “Who do you want to be, Sam?”

A memory of Patti, so close and so soothing, tried to push me off track, but I needed to be in control, needed to lead, needed to be at the tip of the spear, so no one would have to suffer from my mistakes…

I inhaled sharply.

“No, Sultana, wait!”

I screamed a rage-fueled Wish, and the Logic obliged.