Chapter 23

The Brothers

A chill settled on the air while Lumen ran for Golbrucht. Atrum had been forced back under, but already Terrill could see the strain it was causing to keep that consciousness suppressed. His wounds were already causing the crystal to pulse erratically. Terrill shook the cold off, and charged down Golbrucht, his eyes focusing on Atrum’s deadened face. The clinical decision didn’t sit right with him. Though he understood that Winifred had been saved, he disagreed, and it made the scowl deepen upon his lips.

“Is that it, Atrum?!” he roared. Golbrucht attacked, a cannon of water firing in Terrill’s direction. Lumen was at the side of it, his sword set to strike, only for a vine to wallop him in the stomach. He was sent flying for the edge of the roof, but managed to stab the crystal the way he did before, pulling himself up. Terrill, meanwhile, fell, sliding along the ground to avoid the water that would have broken all of his bones. “You’re just going to give up? You and Lumen both! I thought you wanted to live!”

“This isn’t about that, Terrill!” Lumen said, pulling himself up with a grunt. He was farther away from Golbrucht, and Terrill knew he had to be the one to act. He leapt up, his sword slicing down before it was tangled in strings. The Fiend looked at him with slits for eyes, but groaned and grunted, his attempts to suppress Atrum more difficult the more unstable the world was becoming. The loss of fire was a blow enough, and Terrill used his anger to keep himself as warm as he could, no matter how short that time was. “This is about defeating Golbrucht. Isn’t it worth one life to save countless others?”

“That kind of talk is complete crap!” Terrill’s muscles and veins bulged, his entire strength being put behind his blade. Around his opponent, wind stirred, attempting to create a harrowing gale that would remove him, but Terrill stood fast. “This is nothing against Winifred’s power, Golbrucht! Now, release Atrum! Let him live!”

“He won’t be able to, and neither can you, Terrill Jacobs!” The winds increased, rattling the strings. Terrill continued holding on. He took one hand off of his blade and grabbed to the black strings of the soul, taking them in his hands. They cut deep into his flesh, but he could feel the power of the wind inside them, the same that had kept Winifred bound to this world. There was no other way forward.

“I don’t believe that! I promised to save him! And Atrum, you promised to defy destiny! To fight against the fate that was in store for you!” Terrill’s hand began to bleed, but the tighter he gripped, the more he felt Atrum, Golbrucht, and the Lifeblood of Wind within his hand. His body was slowing down, his magic draining, but Terrill had enough to summon it into his hand. “Dying is just laying down and accepting that fate!”

“There’s no other path left.” This was now Atrum breaking through, and Terrill stared him in the eyes. They were solemn and resigned, holding Golbrucht at bay. “You told me you’d save me, Terrill. Free me. This is the way to do it now, for everyone.”

“Then I’ll snap these strings and bring you home!” The last remnants of Terrill’s magic powered through his hand, straight to the strings of Golbrucht’s soul, tethered to the wind. It burst out, the power of earth cutting straight through and destroying the ties.

With an ominous whoosh through the air, the wind grew dead silent. No breeze blew through, as though the place had become a vacuum of sound. Terrill fell back, his sword skidding on the roof with him before he looked up to see Golbrucht convulsing.

“You fool!” His breath was caught between half-agony and half-maddening laughter that produced no echo. “You shattered my hold, used up the last of its energy to defend it. You are bringing things closer to the end! Just two to go!”

“Then we’ll end this before then!” Lumen catapulted himself upwards. His sword was enchanted with light, but that power was fading against the power that Golbrucht was displaying. One hand moved up, calling on the power of earth to split the roof. The tower began to crack straight down the center. Torry, Walter and Charles each planted themselves on one side, while Terrill jumped to join Lumen. He couldn’t defend the boy from that distance and ran in.

“Atrum, don’t stop fighting!” Terrill screamed. Golbrucht turned towards him, calling forth vines to ensnare and trip him while he was occupied with Lumen. Terrill didn’t stop running, slashing on through, only to find his blade stuck in one of the earthen roots. “I’m going to bring you home…so don’t…stop! Don’t give in! Keep remembering where we need to go. Remember Hart, and all the people waiting for us there! Remember our time as kids!

“I promised then, and I promise now, no matter if you’re a body or just a soul, I will protect you!”

His foot cracking into the crystal, nearly falling into the chasm that had formed, Terrill pushed onward, his sword finding the right angle to break through the root. With a kick, he sent its remains flying back towards Golbrucht. They froze before they reached him, but his assault on Lumen ended, the boy climbing the plinths of earth left behind. He reached the top and came soaring down, sword in hand. Golbrucht moved to block with the frozen root, only to pause, Atrum coming through once again.

“I know, Terrill. I want to see them again,” he said, yanking the root aside and allowing Lumen to slash down his torso. He grunted with pain, but Golbrucht took control to strike Lumen with a single hand and send him flying back. Terrill caught him, the two sliding towards the chasm, but stopping before they could pitch into it. Lumen let loose a ragged breath, and Terrill could see the blood staining the front of his clothing. He shook, the royal trembling in his hold.

It was too twisted. Too wrong.

“If you want to see them again, then don’t decide on this way! That kind of sacrifice would mean nothing!” Terrill let go of Lumen, pushing him back to keep him out of the way. Foregoing his sword, Terrill’s fist screamed out, tears flying from his eyes as he punched Atrum across the face. “Or is this what you always wanted? I thought you wanted to defeat the King.”

“If dying is what it takes, then I’ll gladly pay the price. I’ll be more than a puppet, at least. This is my decision.”

“It’s no decision at all!” Terrill’s other fist followed through, his sword changing hands.

“But it’s mine.”

Terrill froze at that, his fist, still in contact with Atrum’s cheek, quavering. He had never considered it, hadn’t wanted to, but thinking on Winifred’s final moment, it rang true to him. He shook his head, not wanting to accept this. In that second, Golbrucht took control, the eyes changing to red.

“There is no decision so long as the cycle continues unimpeded. All any of you are is a puppet, but I’ve made sure we can transcend that!” Golbrucht’s claw, deteriorating with the crystal, pierced through Terrill’s side. In agony, but refusing to scream, Terrill drew on his defiance to grab Atrum by the head and bring his forehead smashing down. It dazed him, but broke him free from the Fiend’s cruel grasp.

Terrill’s feet lost their purchase, but Lumen soon returned his earlier favor, catching him and propping him up. Their eyes met, and Terrill saw the resolution. More than acceptance, there was pure conviction.

Puppets.

Freedom.

It was what they had all been in the twisted game of Fiends and fate. It was all any of them wanted.

And with every string snapped, Terrill started to wonder if there was any other way than by fulfilling the role destiny gave them. It was something Golbrucht understood all too well, his speech magnifying in the deadened air.

“Now you understand, Terrill,” the Fiend said. His callous, unemotional smirk settled on Atrum’s lips. “The more we avert it, the tighter we wrest the strings away, this world’s flow will render its decision. Even now, the Chosen One intends to die so as to kill me. What is that but an enforcement of destiny?”

“It’s our choice. The one made by our shared soul!” Lumen let go of Terrill, running at the Fiend that had controlled his own life from his very birth. His sword traveled upwards, creating with it a ribbon of light that made a deep groove in the crystal. Golbrucht raised his hand, forming an earthen shield, but stopped, groaning. The light impacted his body, causing him to howl. Lumen gasped.

When the light receded, the wound was plain; Atrum looked ragged, the body containing Golbrucht held together only by the continued existence of the Lifebloods and Adversa.

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“Terrill…set us free.” Atrum’s staggered speech made Terrill’s hands tighten, his own sword’s grip causing his hands to sweat. The continued plea was one he hated hearing.

“No freedom but by my hand!”

“Freedom…?” Terrill watched Atrum, his soul in eternal conflict with Golbrucht. A tremor visited the tower, and the seas on the edge of Priscus could be seen churning, at times full of water, and others barren and lifeless. The Lifebloods were coming to an end, and still Golbrucht remained. Behind Terrill, a hand emerged on top of the crystal roof, Krysta hauling herself up with what little strength remained to her.

She was still fighting.

So were Atrum and Lumen, in their own way.

You saved me… Terrill closed his eyes. When he opened them, he conversed with Atrum directly, nothing between them, not even Golbrucht.

“Don’t you want to go home? Don’t you want to…”

“Terrill. I will go home.” His moment of defiance peaked, and Atrum stepped forward under his own control, irrespective of Golbrucht’s soul. It strained at both boy and Fiend, tugging at the Lifebloods, but it proved to Terrill beyond a shadow of a doubt: his friend had made his choice. “I’ll always remember Hart, the life that I lived. That’s something he can’t take away. And if it means protecting them, then I’ll give my life, my soul meaning. The fate that condemned me to be his puppet will break under my choice.”

“Then…” Terrill swallowed, taking a few short breaths. He felt the tears prick the corners of his eyes, and his hands shake on his sword before he steadied them and raised it high. “Then…if it will save you…

“I’ll set you free!”

“You cannot set a puppet free!” Golbrucht howled, casting lines of crystal towards Terrill with the intent to skewer him. Terrill ducked under, and slashed through the more brittle pieces. He reached Lumen, nodding at him as the two ran for Golbrucht again, this time as a force that understood the only way.

“Puppet? Golbrucht, you’re the puppet!” Terrill said. He gripped one of the lines of crystal earth and vaulted himself upwards. Before he could fall, a shield was created underneath his feet, allowing him to get even higher. The strings drew inward at the sight of Terrill coming for him, but the Guardian didn’t stop his race towards Golbrucht. “You were so obsessed with breaking fate and the cycle that all you did was continually force people to have no choice of their own. You and Alexander, both. Using people is just a way of deferring your own choices!”

“And what other choice was there to make?” Terrill reached Golbrucht, and the Fiend turned his strings into a black blade. Their swords clashed, sending a pulse over the entire city. They broke away, and collided once again, their blades dueling in a whirling storm of steel and shadow. “Even you refuse the notion of sacrifice, leaving but one option. Is that not consigning yourself to fate? I, at least, chose to sacrifice Adversa. To sacrifice magic. Which would you choose to sacrifice to save the world from its end?”

“I wouldn’t sacrifice something that I have no right to choose!” Terrill screamed. His blade locked against Golbrucht’s and instead he reared back and clocked the man across the face. Atrum’s body broke free of the crystal, all of the strings now rooting to the base they were standing upon. Frost was forming now, the absence of heat freezing the entire northern city over. “That’s up to them. Their choices. And if I can have a say about it, then everyone walks out of here alive!”

“That’s naïve! If we want to break that which controls us-” Golbrucht grunted as Terrill brought a knee into him. He countered with his blade coming at Terrill’s side. The attack was blocked, but Terrill was pushed away, only for a pained Lumen to strike from the side, driving his blade into the hip. His own body bled from the effort, but he pressed on. “We need to sacrifice something! So, what will it be? Your friend? The Lifebloods? There is no change or conflict you can walk away from without that! There is nothing you can protect! I will sever it all!”

His words translated to action. The city glowed with angry red, and Terrill almost fell. Krysta had dragged herself up to the roof, clutching at her chest, but he didn’t need that to know. Golbrucht was putting all of the Lifeblood’s power into one place: a form of pure magical energy that would deplete them and end any further opposition. The raging storm of that magic filled the air, sweeping the others closer to falling off the tower, while Lumen’s bleeding body hunkered down.

It coalesced into a single form of water and earth, murky and abyssal. Without words or warning, Golbrucht hurled the great magical concentration at Terrill. It covered much of the roof, pushing Lumen aside while he waded through its storm. Floyd, still hanging on, slipped further down the tower, shouting for those on the other side. Terrill, however, faced it head on, and when it approached, he plunged his blade into the magic. Cries were heard, but they were lost to Terrill, putting all his body behind his defense.

His skin ripped, peeling away to the muscle, causing agony to shoot up his arms, into his very face. He refused to relent, the powers of the Lifeblood consuming him, rattling his bones. A battle of wills to see who would end up cracking first.

Every tormenting thought rushed into Terrill, from all across history, and for the first time, Terrill felt like he was experiencing the very flow that had tormented Golbrucht, Krysta and Alexander. He could feel their pain across the world, and the crumbling of the Lifebloods that sustained all of them. Pushing further inside, Terrill could feel that primordial pulse of magic, trying to fuse with the land. All of the souls in the cycle were trying to break loose, nothing to guide them or integrate them.

Terrill knew: he was feeling the encroachment of Adversa upon Dimidia.

At the end of it all was Golbrucht, the King of the Dark that had long played with fate in his sole attempt to be free. All the lives bound across his single string could be seen. Terrill’s shirt began to disintegrate from the sleeves, and his legs started to be exposed as well, the magic ripping away his body, down to his very soul. Yet in that, Terrill could see Golbrucht’s soul. Though he lacked the magic to do it, he could still feel that light within, wrapped up in a cocoon of the little darkness that remained, holding Atrum’s soul hostage.

Neither would be free unless it ended, and Terrill pushed ever further against the magic. His sword began to break to pieces, but his body refused to give in until a crack formed in the vortex of elements.

“I will…protect…everything!” he growled, his voice strained and cracking from the exertion that threatened to claim both body and soul. His sword was breaking through, his feet progressing towards the Fiend. “Because I am a Guardian. Fate be damned, and so…will…YOU!”

Terrill’s sword finally completed its arc, and a fissure of light broke the elements in two. The spell shattered into many cracks and crevices before, in a wail of mourning, it broke apart. The energy buffeted Krysta, sending her back down, while the combined trio of Walter, Charles and Torry held fast to one another. Terrill didn’t stop for them, nor for Lumen and Floyd. His momentum carried him forward, through the remains of the spell, to reach the Fiend. He brought his sword down, but found it knocked away by Golbrucht’s fist.

The deflection left him wide open. As Terrill’s sword struck the ground, Lumen grabbed it, running with a roar, and Terrill ducked under Atrum’s open arms. The strings were snapping, the Lifebloods losing their energy. All around them, the tower shook, some of the land that supported Priscus crumbling to dust, while the waters started to drain. It didn’t stop Terrill from grabbing Atrum’s attacking arm, holding it back, leaving Golbrucht with just one arm to try and attack Lumen.

Terrill hugged the arm tight, knowing what would come.

Sacrifice to save… Terrill bit at his tongue, yearning for his physical pain to overcome the emotional, his arms gripping tight to the friend he was forced to say goodbye to. Lumen came close, his blade’s light reaching a zenith, and Terrill could see he was not alone. Krysta, fading fast, was making that light exude its purification, pure opposition to the element Golbrucht used. The Fiend saw it, attempted to prevent the blow with his hand, only for Lumen to pierce it.

He drew it back, and Terrill could see the Fiend’s eyes widen, and could see the new form trying to emerge, trying to unknot the combination of their souls.

His body, however, stopped when Golbrucht was halfway undone, a shadowy presence, still tied to Atrum. Terrill’s friend had taken control.

“Not this time. You won’t…escape…” Atrum grunted. His body was locked in place, preventing Golbrucht from leaving, and Lumen was there, his blade thrusting forth, offering them mere seconds. “You won’t take any more futures, Golbrucht!”

“You think you can defy me?! I have shattered all!”

“Then we’ll shatter you…as the path we’ve chosen!”

Atrum was unmoving, his arms spread wide. Golbrucht’s form tried to take control of the arm Terrill wasn’t holding to, but was too late. Terrill waited for the end, and his friend looked to him, smiling. Only one word needed to be shared.

“Goodbye, Atrum.”

“Sever him!” Krysta screamed, all of her energy used to do so.

Then the blade pierced through Atrum and Golbrucht together, a beam of light shooting out. Terrill let go, the heavy oppressive air falling on them. Atrum’s arm dropped like lead, and he coughed out blood. Both lost control, and Golbrucht’s form split off. Where once there were tight strings, now only frayed edges remained. The Fiend fell back, hacking and spluttering, and from his own gaping wound came not shadow, but crimson blood. He gripped for that wound.

“No…”

Lumen and Atrum fell forward, catching each other as their shared soul bled. Light glimmered between them, but they were fading.

Yet Atrum smiled. He was free.

The same could not be said for Golbrucht, who could no longer staunch the bleeding. All of the wounds he had accrued in Atrum’s body opened wide, and he collapsed to his knees, looking to the sky. The city continued to crumble around them, and Terrill saw the same had started to happen to Golbrucht. From his gaping wound in his chest, his body was starting to break apart, his soul disintegrated. His hand reached upwards, hoping to grasp something far beyond his reach.

“I want to…” he gasped out. His hand lowered, scrabbling all over his body, as if he could put it back together. “I want to see it… I want to be with it…a free world… A world without fate.

“Let me see it…”

Terrill watched him, his last desperate act to hold on. After centuries, his body was failing, nowhere to go but into the flow of souls he hated so much. Terrill watched after him with pity. “You never could, Golbrucht, because you’d never feel free. But now…you can be.”

Golbrucht stopped, his head lifting to stare across at Terrill. He could not hold anything together, his body and soul on the cusp of disappearing. His mouth opened, and closed before he could get the words out. Only two managed to escape his gurgling throat, choked with the despair he had long inflicted on many others; that which he never would again. “I want…”

Golbrucht’s body turned to ash, the duty of the Chosen One completed at long last. And the world began to fuse, breaking apart at the seams.