Chapter 15
The King
Terrill’s body was bound, unable to move. His very muscles were not his own, stuck to the ground by the sinewy, shadowy strands that made up Golbrucht’s magic. He tried to move, but found any attempt was met with pain. The other three were in worse condition, and Terrill surmised it had to do with his increasing resistance to the man’s shadow since he’d had a piece of Atrum’s soul inside him.
He shook his head. He couldn’t keep forgetting that all of it was Golbrucht’s soul, no matter whose guise he took.
Terrill strained against the bonds holding him tightly, the flames of the forest causing perspiration to drip down his forehead. He could see the stairs that led to the Abyssal Palace, and the vibrations of earth told him Walter and Lumen were there, running headlong into danger. Between him and that spot was the one who had caused all of this, orchestrating it behind the scenes. His rapier was out, rippling with the black shadows he was wont to use. He kept his eye trained upon Terrill.
The man considered him a threat.
“So, is this how you did it?” Terrill asked. He lifted his foot, trying to snap the strings tying him to his shadow. He wanted to scream at the effort, but refused to relent, only for his foot to snap back to earth, as if attracted by gravity. “This magic, your Soul String? Is it how you controlled them?”
“Handy, is it not? The old man can seal souls away, separating pieces from their vessels, but mine…it is a different thing altogether. A connection that binds us, Terrill!”
“Don’t you use my name! Don’t you dare use his voice!” Terrill shouted, spit flying from his mouth. The others groaned behind him, but had no words for the Fiend that had dared appear before them. “You’re not him! You’re nothing but a Fiend, Golbrucht! King of the Dark!”
Atrum, or he supposed he should start calling him Golbrucht, blinked. He hadn’t expected that, and Terrill took that as hope to keep moving. For all his machinations, he wasn’t all-seeing or all-knowing. “Well, that is indeed unexpected. When did you figure it out?”
Terrill’s breath hitched, coming out as a short gasp. Though his discovery had proven correct, it made it no less difficult to deal with. It was still Atrum in front of him. Still his voice. In some part, it felt like it was still his memories, as well. “It took a while, but Atrum would never condone the things you’re doing! But I figured it out when Lumen mentioned that he had been split at birth. We’re from Sayn. There’s only one person who could have fulfilled all of that.”
“Ah, that is where you’re mistaken in moniker, though not in truth,” Golbrucht said, waving his finger. His ashen-blond ponytail whipped in the winds, and Terrill feared that Walter had reached his target, with vengeance on full display. It was, in all aspects, unsettling. “I’m not a person, but a Fiend, though I’m sure you’ve guessed that, too. How else would I be born time and time again? How else could I slip between the worlds so effortlessly? You learned so much, but understand so little, Terrill.”
“I told you to stop it!” Terrill screamed. His leg finally broke free from the string, but it wasn’t enough to reach the boy-become-Fiend. “Stop using his voice. Stop using his memories of me!”
“They’re my memories now. Or did you not realize when Atrum accepted it? When he accepted his fate? No doubt Lumen is soon to accept his, as well. What a dutiful Chosen One. They all were.” Terrill’s teeth gritted, his arm raising against the stitching until he could finally wrap his hands around his sword. Golbrucht took a step closer, his red eyes flashing a warning to Terrill. He saw something else: not warning, but a lack of mirth. For all his jubilation in his plan being so close, he was not gloating, and nor was he taking pleasure in it. Or if he was, it was a grim pleasure. None of that erased the callous memories he was stomping over.
“The Chosen Ones you sent to their deaths! For what?! Why did you terrorize my country? Why did you use my friend as a tool? Answer me, Golbrucht!” His sword was drawn, swinging down and clanging with most horrendous clashing against the Fiend’s rapier. Their eyes were locked, and Golbrucht appeared to be all business, not a shadow of Atrum left behind.
“To bring about the destruction of Adversa, and topple the empire of lies as so dictated by the goddess, Crea.”
They sounded in antithesis to one another, or could have. Terrill didn’t know, and his confusion betrayed itself upon his face. “What does…that mean?”
“It means I’m breaking the shackles of fate upon this world.” The rapier was carried with force, throwing Terrill’s sword off, and with a swift kick, the Fiend ripped Terrill from the ground and sent him flying into one of the burning trees. The others cried out, and Golbrucht continued forward, demonic in the blaze that was the Taro Downs and beyond. A high-pitched keening from the elaborate palace accompanied his every movement. “This world has a predestined flow from beginning to end. A cycle of souls, Terrill. Crea’s design from beginning to end. While, of course, there’s no telling when it will happen, that cycle is fated to meet its end, and with it, the end of the world. A mere plaything for the goddess. And from the beginning that was always meant to begin and end with the integration of the two worlds.
“What, then, would happen should one of those worlds be irrevocably destroyed?”
“Destroyed?!” Torry shouted. She was pinned to the ground by the strings, unable to reach neither bow nor snap her fingers to create magic. Terrill’s eyes widened, the heat on the back of his neck blistering as he realized the strings were likewise constraining her soul. “You mean to destroy magic? You mean to destroy the core of what makes us who we are?! Adversa is the soul counterpart to Dimidia, and you would-”
“Yes, I would force an integration before its time. Swallow the Lifebloods, for so long as they remain, fate’s flow will continue unimpeded. People will act in fallacy, all according to prophecies and the like. My thousand years on this world have taught me this much.”
“A thousand?!” Floyd shouted, dropping to his knees. His flames were attempting to light themselves, but sputtered underneath the hold of the string, never threatening to break them. “That’s a long time to live, buddy. Did you ever think you just got, I don’t know, misanthropic or something? That’s the word, right?”
“I’ll admit, humanity holds little value for me at this stage,” Golbrucht said. He kept his eyes glued to Terrill as the Guardian pushed off the tree, his hand burning with the bark, but the shadowy strands no longer nearing him. Outside of Golbrucht’s vision, Krysta glared with loathing, her hands beginning to glow with her sacred light. “Why should they? As a Fiend, I’ve seen nations rise and fall. I’ve seen Sayn send young ones to death and have their own Guardians enforce the order as though that death was meaningful. Experiments to lead here merely exposed the worst of humanity.
“If the people’s humanity is a price to pay to achieve freedom from the goddess’s design, I will consider it a small price, indeed.”
Terrill couldn’t take it, not anymore. His foot risked the burn to kick off the tree and bring his blade smashing onto Golbrucht’s. The Fiend held him off with ease, but in spite of that, he could see the muscles of Atrum’s body straining. Perhaps he was a powerful being, but Terrill could see that Atrum’s body, or soul, or whatever he was, still had its limits. Terrill’s foot swung around, catching him off-guard, and Golbrucht stumbled backwards.
“You would end all of humanity, just for that?! Just to break some unseen cycle?!”
“It is not unseen, but etched.” Golbrucht’s hand raised, and his hair rose. Tendrils of darkness came from his body, slithering out for Terrill. Yet with a single strike, he cleaved the strings that sought to snare him. “What do you think the process of the Blessed is? It is the world’s soul destined to reach its proper place as decreed by the goddess. No deviation. You can see it before you here!”
As he spoke, his severed strings combined into a ray of pure darkness, which he fired towards the sky. It hung, and then split into thick tendrils that arced towards the Taro Downs, and the people who were attempting to recover. Terrill couldn’t reach them in time, but he could reach Golbrucht, and while he could, he pitched forward into a running tackle that drove his head into the Fiend’s stomach. It knocked the wind from his lungs before Terrill pinned him to the ground. His fist coated in stone, he brought it crashing down, only to stop.
“You couldn’t hurt an old friend, could you, Terrill?”
“I told you to cut that out!” Terrill made to complete the swing, but his second of hesitation cost him. Golbrucht brought his hand to Terrill’s chest.
“Chaos Beam.” Pure, unfiltered darkness formed in his palm and Golbrucht fired the spell. Terrill crossed his arms, feeling the burn as he was thrown away from his enemy by the force of the blow. Still, it was nothing compared to the torture he’d felt before, and Terrill had enough presence of mind to bring his sword slashing through, cracking the beam as though it was the ground he had decided to quake. Terrill dropped to the burning floor. Golbrucht stood. “Terrill, the Lifebloods are what regulate the flow. No matter what we try, they will return it to as it should be. You figured that out. How else could the hunter have known about crimes in Dimidia that affected this town on a mass scale? Because the Lifebloods made it so. If there is any deviation, they will correct it or incorporate it, all to maintain fate until the time of integration, and once that happens, it is too late.”
“Is that how you justify this? Or was slaughtering all those people in Dimidia just part of the plan? One of your experiments?” Terrill looked behind him, at the three who were struggling, before his eyes flicked back to the one at the root of everything.
“I’ll admit, I’ve run countless experiments. I created monsters from all of the little souls throughout this world. I used Sayn as a proving ground for what despair could do. I interrupted the cycle of souls, but even then, it wasn’t enough!” His passionate fervor was unsettling, like all the times Atrum would beg Terrill to help train him. He was still in there, twisted beneath the Fiend who cared nothing for life. In that madness, Golbrucht raised a hand, that offer he had extended once before rearing its ugly head yet again. “You’ve seen it, Terrill Jacobs. I split Lumen in two, yet both showed up. I razed Taro in Dimidia, and yet the memories remain on both sides. Adversa will always maintain this world, but if we blot it out, we can interrupt the cycle. Without the Lifebloods, no more souls can join the cycle and we can be free!”
“And what’s the cost of that?!” Terrill shouted. Both hands found his sword, pointing straight at Golbrucht. “But I guess humanity doesn’t matter to you. What’s another life, huh?! What’s another sacrifice?! I don’t think like you! You can take your offer back!”
“It’s no matter. What I’ve created here today has sealed Adversa’s fate.”
“No, it has not!” Terrill received no warning, but was able to step aside at the last second. The ribbons of light cascaded upon where Golbrucht stood, breaking his strings with ease. The Fiend finally recoiled, jumping back to avoid the blistering light. From within, Krysta stood, free from her bondage and holding her shining rapier. Floyd and Torry had been freed as well. She had taken control of the situation, and pointed her blade at the Fiend who made it happen. “You still need one Lifeblood, and I will not let you have it.”
“True,” Golbrucht spat, rubbing at his arm where Krysta had struck. It was smoking, as if inhabiting Atrum as his vessel could only take him so far. “But I only need to break four of them to shatter the balance that maintains this world, so long as light remains absent.”
Krysta had no words for him. Just like on the fishing boat, she struck. Her rapier flashed through the air, sending a bullet of light for Golbrucht’s body. This one, he didn’t afford blocking, and dodged to the side. It communicated all that it had to for Terrill. He kicked off for the man again, his foot kicking up dirt that turned to jagged stones. Each flew for Golbrucht, but before making impact, he held his hand up, suspending them in midair with his strings attaching all of them. Once joined, he whipped them around, bringing them through the burning trees that toppled over until they smashed into the ground, creating a trench where there previously was none.
“I told you, all things have souls, and so long as there are souls, I can be connected to each of them! Especially as a Fiend who operates outside the laws of nature!” Terrill was forced to hold his sword as a shield, the darkness within Atrum’s body becoming a wave that threatened to bowl them over. Krysta resisted with her shield, but could do nothing to the various tendrils and tentacles that emerged from the body. Behind him, at the Palace, Terrill could see the shadow thickening, all hope nearly lost.
Floyd chose to prove otherwise.
He roared upwards, his feet supported by Torry and her wind spells to bring his burning blades slicing through one of the shadowy strands. He looked like a phoenix, though it was only a moment before he landed and the imagery faded. “Terrill, you focus on dark and gloomy. Whatever attacks come this way, we’ll hold them off! You have to stop Walter, right?”
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“Yeah, we’re on it.” Terrill whipped back around, just missing Torry sending an arrow flying with a flash of fire that ate another attack from Golbrucht. This time, he wasn’t letting him get in his way. With a nod to Krysta, the two ran at the Fiend who awaited them. Swords clashed, their echoing now ringing through the leveled forest around them. It still burned, highlighting the shadow behind, and the people that were converging on the steps. “Why them, Golbrucht? Why Lumen and Charles?!”
He didn’t answer, too busy avoiding Krysta’s rapier aiming at his face. Terrill pressed that advantage with a hand to the ground, his fangs racing through the ground to unbalance his foe. It made blocking the only course of action, and Terrill followed it up with a fist to the face. Golbrucht flipped through the air, dusting off Atrum’s clothing. “Because Lumen was a key player in the reading of the world’s flow. I knew if I had any chance of breaking it, this would be how. The world proved it ironic that both parts of him would show up, but I still pressed it.”
“Yeah, then why me?!” His second question was asked with a quick kick to the side that Golbrucht caught. It left him open for Krysta, who formed a javelin of light that she hurled through the air. Atrum’s slower body showed his upper limits here, and though he tried to dodge, the attack clipped him on the shoulder, causing him to hiss through his teeth. Reminded of the mortality of that body, he seethed as he looked up at Terrill, tapping to his chest.
“That one was Atrum’s idea. Well, Atrum’s memories, at least.” Terrill’s eye twitched at the explanation, and his sword flashed out, grating against the rapier held in the man’s hand. He spun around to strike again, but the attack was blocked. Another stomp later and Golbrucht was set off balance, Terrill’s sword bearing down upon him and bringing him closer to the ground. Outside the burning forest, Torry and Floyd were intercepting the shadowy strands that, upon a quick glance, were coming from the funneling darkness of the palace atop the hill.
“You used his body as a vessel! You used his mind to trap me here! Then you’d try to use me and my friends to burn the world down! Why?! Why would you commit all of us to that hell?!”
“How many times must I tell you, boy? Fate is eternal. A simple change cannot divert its course, so I had to seek other avenues!” He righted himself before he hit the floor, his knee flying into Terrill’s jaw. As the Guardian fell back, Krysta was right there, her blinding rapier stabbing into the wound of his shoulder, smoke rising from the dark being where he was struck. His own rapier snaked out, and before Krysta could dodge, her upper arm was slashed at, cutting into the surface. She leapt back, clasping to the wound. “The prophecy told of a chosen hero born to the royal family, clashing with a king of the darkness. So, we made it into a different kind of hero facing off against a mere Shadow King. The words would change. The circumstances would change. But even this cannot be enough. That is why I had backup upon backup.
“Every action was calculated. Every step measured, and though I was delayed for fifteen years by the light that sought to hold me back, fifteen years was nothing to me. I am transcending fate. I am more than a Fiend, punished for defying the world’s flow. I am the Shadow King, and I will create a Shadow to bring this world back to its starting point. I will be free!”
Golbrucht’s sword now thrust forward, set to impale Krysta. The darkness was laced around it, heightening the sense of death. The air thrummed with it, and Krysta dropped to her knees with whatever the Lifeblood was feeling. She looked up, glaring defiantly at the Fiend that had caused the Lifebloods to be this way, but his blade did not stop.
Terrill stopped it for him, his sword blocking the blow. His other hand reached out to grab Golbrucht and strike him across the face. “You want to be free? Do it on your own! Stop involving the rest of us! Stop tangling Atrum and the other Fiends in your strings!”
His fist was caught on its downward swing. They held in place, shaking. The ground quaked, all going silent with nightfall. The popping and crackling of flames could be heard from Taro, and the people screaming for more water. Torry and Floyd were doing their best, but at the light, little grin that spread over Golbrucht’s face, twisting all of Atrum’s once kind features, Terrill began to despair.
He looked to Krysta, clutching her chest, on the verge of screaming, but not like she always would in the place of a corroded Lifeblood. This time it was different. This time it made him see clearer the pain the Shadow was causing to her, and whatever doubts had manifested inside on the boat.
All the work and sacrifice you put in meant nothing. It didn’t change a thing.
I hate that part of myself.
“I’m sorry. I couldn’t change it. I can’t stop it. Stop screaming.”
“It comes.” Golbrucht’s chilling statement made Terrill’s blows come to a stop. He lifted himself from the Fiend, hearing it so clearly in the dead silence.
Then the Abyssal Palace exploded. Darkness erupted from its very core, the living manifestation of despair and regret. Everything he had tied together to that one spot had been overwhelmed, and driven by the despair, fear and other negative emotions felt by the souls that resided in the Taro Downs, it was breaking loose.
It wasn’t solid yet, though.
“Krysta, it’s not over yet. Get up and keep moving.” Terrill backed away from Golbrucht, shielding Krysta in case he decided to strike again. He did no such thing, laughing as all of the darkness pouring into the air flickered in and out of sight, tied to him by his invisible strings. “Krysta!”
“It is too late. One so sensitive to the light may cut through, but never endure the unending Shadow. I will cleave her soul and leave nothing but the darkness behind! None shall cut my strings of fate, not after this!” The blade in his hand brought the shadows streaming forth, pouring into Golbrucht’s vessel. The wounded parts were stitching up and Terrill found himself lost in that tempest of souls. Krysta had collapsed, and outside the raging storm, he could see Floyd and Torry trying to get through to no avail, inching far too slowly to reach them. “The Fiends have tried, as Clay ran his mouth about, but even he knew this was inevitable. Even after he fought me, drowned in his own attempts to defy fate, he accepted that there was no freedom without destruction and despair. Atrum has accepted the same. All this is left now is the final drops of despair to be realized. The final curtain that the Lifebloods cannot fix when the knight falls and the Chosen One accepts there is no running from death without joining me.”
“Golbrucht!” Terrill shouted, but the wave of darkness that pushed out became a web of shadows that prevented him from reaching the Fiend. He tried to cut at them, but failed. Then, Krysta reached up and took his hand, shaking her head while she resisted her vomiting.
“We can’t. It’s too much. Terrill…we shouldn’t…” She looked up, tears streaming down as the darkness howled around her, but never touched her, as if repelled by her very body. A burst of flame seared the air, allowing Floyd to get through and skid to Krysta’s side. “We shouldn’t be here.”
Terrill’s hand clenched on hers, threatening to break it as he heard her say that. “Cut that out. We’re not done yet, we still-”
Golbrucht’s words rang true. There was a great shadow looming over them, but he still needed one last element to make it happen. One last piece of despair.
Lumen’s despair. The despair of one destined to die realizing he had no choices left to him; none that were his own. That alone gave Terrill reason to despair, until he realized what waited at the steps. Walter was going to kill Charles. He was going to kill the one man that represented kindness to Lumen’s loneliness. Charles would break, and Walter’s rage and pain would grow, and Lumen would…
But he hadn’t killed Charles yet.
“Krysta, I can’t believe that,” he said, his voice concealed by the swarm of darkness. In front of him, the mounting shadow, fed by the Lifeblood of Darkness that amplified it, formed a cocoon around Atrum’s body. He still thought he could cut through it, but only the three near the Abyssal Palace mattered. “I can’t believe this was all for nothing. I can’t believe I wasn’t meant to…”
“Terrill?” Floyd asked, watching as the Guardian gripped his sword tighter.
“Protect her, Floyd. Torry. Keep her from the darkness, along with yourselves. I have to remind them of what you taught me… It’s the only way.”
“The only way to what?” Torry asked, doing everything she could to keep herself from blowing off her feet. Screams issued from the town behind, blotted in black over the red flames.
“The only way to save everyone.” Terrill began to ran. Krysta’s hoarse voice called out, trying to grow louder as he gained distance, each word quieter than the next.
“You can’t! Terrill, you can’t! It’ll…it’ll swallow you, too! I can’t bear that! I can’t bear to sacrifice anyone else!”
“Don’t interfere!” Golbrucht’s scream was met with his shadows flying out, each growing sharp as it had at Fort Tierial. Terrill turned to defend, only for Floyd to fly in, his leg wreathed in flame as he burned through it.
“If he doesn’t want you to interfere, then it means it’s the right way to go. Leave him to me and Torry. Go, Terrill!” Another shot of shadow fired and this one Floyd used his crossed daggers to cleave through. It left the path open to Terrill. Or somewhat open.
“Out of my way!” His scream was accompanied by him slamming the earth, great statues of stone splitting the shadows that attempted to get in his way. It created a path forward, and no matter the exhaustion that spread to his limbs, Terrill continued on, out of the devastated woods and on to the steps that rose towards where the storm was greatest. “Lumen! Walter!”
His cries were deafened in the storm, and he tried to wave it away, but the darkness was too thick. All he could manage was bowing his head to move forward, hoping to find some sign of them as he arrived on the doorstep of the Abyssal Palace. Its doors were sealed shut, but that didn’t matter, as three men were outside it, with one in between two of them. Terrill beat back against the shadows, hearing an explosion from behind and seeing the orange glow that was Floyd lashing against the shadows before being snuffed out. Terrill kept forward.
“Out of my way, boy!”
“No, I will not! Charles would never do what you say! He would never!”
“He would, and he did. Now, move, before I’m forced to hurt you, as well!”
“Walter, stop!” Terrill shouted, but just as before, the man could not hear him. His spear had been stopped by Lumen’s shield, the boy being pushed back. It would not be denied, Walter’s rage burrowing through the shield that stood between him and Charles. All the eerier was that Charles did not make a move. He did not fight. He just stood with his blades planted in the ground, waiting for a death they all knew was coming.
“I said move!” The butt of Walter’s spear snapped out, striking Lumen, who could no longer hold his position. Wind sputtered out, and the young boy was thrown aside, into the doors of the palace. They did not open, and he fell down to the stone at their feet, coughing. He tried to get up as Walter jumped through the air and angled downward. “Fight me, coward! Fight back! I want to know you understand pain!”
Terrill pushed his legs further than they ever had been before. Charles’s body was paralyzed by the wind that Walter was emitting as the hunter finally ran his spear through the man’s shoulder. The broken pieces of the knight’s mask showed an unflinching Charles, his eyes red as Golbrucht maintained control.
“Terrill… Terrill, you have to stop him!” Lumen pleaded. He was unable to move, crawling forward like a child wishing to cling desperately to his mother. “Please! Charles would never! He can still be freed! Don’t let him die!”
Walter spun in the air, bringing a kick to Charles’s helmeted head and sending him for the ground. The swords cracked through the stone, spinning in the air. One clattered, but the other was caught by Walter, who stood over his prey with disdain. He carefully placed the sword on Charles’s neck. “Have you any answers for your sins?”
He had none.
“Walter, take back that sword,” Terrill said, as calm as he could with how fast his heart was beating. Walter turned his eye, leveling the same amount of disdain for even daring to stop him. “He’s not fighting back. Killing him now will do nothing but help Golbrucht. It will only drive everyone to despair.”
“Always the same with you,” Walter growled, and his words were those of a beast’s, torn apart by vengeance. “Always saving people. Always sparing those who don’t deserve to be spared! Then other people pay the price!”
“Then I’ll pay that price for them! Walter, you don’t need to kill him to live!”
“But they’re not living!” Walter shouted. His spear fell, dropping from his hands as he put his second hand on the blade, quivering over the neck of the Phantom Knight. Still, Charles would say nothing. “They’re burning. Even now. My mother. My father. My brother…my wife…all of them. He took everything from me!”
“That was Golbrucht, all to lead to this moment! Walter, put the sword down or so help me, I will put it down for you!” Terrill roared. He lifted his sword higher, only to find his own hands shaking. His words were strong, but he began to fear that he, indeed, was not. He hoped Walter would stop, and wouldn’t call him on his bluff. “Golbrucht did this, all to drive everyone here to despair. To protect the source of his Shadow in the Lifeblood. Do you really think killing a man controlled by that architect will bring you peace?”
“It will bring them peace! It will stop this ache and it will stop the burning! Then I can kill this Golbrucht, too!” His hand left the sword, clutching at his chest. After coming so far, still, Walter was unable to act. His Blessings, his obsession, and he was still hesitating at the moment of truth. “Then I can…I can be…”
“Free?” Charles’s gruff voice took them by surprise, lifting his head from the ground as his helmet fell off. His eyes were changing colors, swapping back and forth between his stony brown and those that were the red of Golbrucht, the strings flickering.
Yet they were of the same mind.
“Walter!” Terrill shouted, but he was too late.
“Yes, let us be free at last.” Before Walter could land any killing blow, before Terrill could reach them, and before Lumen could say a word, Charles lunged forward.
He grabbed the blade with both hands and rammed it through his midsection. Walter’s hands shook, watching the blood coat the blade as it flew in the air from Charles’s body. His red eyes faded, the older man slumping forward on the sword before it fell from his body, clattering with bloody red.
“NO!” Lumen screamed. He crawled further for Charles, the man coughing blood on stone.
Walter stood in shock, staring at the man who had caused him so much pain now dying before him, robbing him of his own choice of vengeance, and worse. He had seen firsthand how Golbrucht controlled the man, and Terrill was forced to do nothing but watch as the hunter sank to his knees. His hands shook at the bleeding knight before him, his body trembling before he clasped his head. “You…why would you…?”
“Charles! Stay awake! Charles, please stay alive. You can’t die as one of his puppets.”
“Why would you kill yourself?! Why would you take what little I had left to rely on?!” Walter screamed, the pain of his accidental deed and the complex emotions that came with it tying him ever deeper to the shadows.
It took only five words to unravel everything.
“Because I…want…to die.”
Terrill stood in shock, his sword threatening to fall from his hands. He wanted to emulate Walter in falling to his knees, and he wanted to scream like Lumen, but his throat couldn’t find the ability to do it.
Because he, too, felt despair, and only too late did he realize what a mistake that was.
“And now,” the booming voice called over the shadows, a black cocoon rising high into the sky, “the final string.”
Terrill’s eyes widened with dread as the shadows around the four of them became real, those pieces of their soul given shape in the presence of the Lifeblood, before being bound to Golbrucht. With a tug, all of the pieces of shadow about the area were drawn together, forming into one around the cocoon that contained Golbrucht and Atrum. The sky, however, never grew any lighter, for the shadow became solid. Corporeal. An ominous orb with many flailing appendages. It had formed at last, its red eyes shining in the night as it levied its gaze downward.
With a bellow, the Shadow blotted out the sky.