Rowena

The Healer, my weaker self, was gone. Dead. I had taken her place.

I looked to the side, and saw the mortal man there. Zachariah. The friend of my other half. He looked at me with wide eyes, red hair hanging in his face. Two angels stood behind him, but they seemed content to watch. The male angel, Lorian if I remembered correctly, took in every part of my awakening. His eyes were expressionless, as if he had seen this every day. His sister, Lera, let her fingers trail along her blades as she watched the last of the black flames settle around my body. A small smirk pulled at her lips, her grip settling on the pommels at her back.

The mortal watched me with wary eyes, and I didn't miss the sadness in his aura. The Healer had been his best friend after all, but it didn't matter. Somewhere in the recesses of my mind I heard her memory bellowing, screaming and begging to be let out. But no. I had waited long enough, and I was here to stay now. The Blight of Grimwater was back. The Healer was nothing more than an echo.

There was only thing that mattered, and that was removing these damned Marks from my neck. The Healer wanted to go to the Far Shore to see her precious lost love, but she thought like a mortal. She felt emotions like a mortal. But there was a bigger prize to be had.

Yes I would kill, pay my debt, and take this realm for myself. I would lord over Death, the strongest of all the godly planes.

And then nothing would be taken from me ever again.

The Chosen would be the first in a long line for the gallows.

Power. Unbelievable power beat through my veins as I released it. It was my blood. My very being. This realm spoke to me, and some deep part of myself answered. And at that moment I knew I was home. That other material plane was nothing but a plaything for me. I was the silence that came after the final breath. I was the end, and what came after the end.

And it felt fucking right.

“Well then,” I said, sweeping into a curtsy with my pistols pointing outward, “You have what you want now. How does it feel?”

The Chosen laughed, throwing his head back and wrapping his hands around his middle. He did so for several seconds before looking me up and down. His eyes lingered on the aura of black flames surrounding me, before finally returning to my face.

“Frankly, I’m a bit disappointed. I was hoping for a bit more…well more,” he said with a shrug. It was my turn to laugh as I spun my shadow pistols around my fingers.

“You would think removing someone’s head would be enough to show them how much more you are than them,” I said too quietly, snapping the handles back into my grip, “But here I am having done it twice to you now, and you maintain your arrogance. Astounding.”

He swept into a bow, his eyes cast downward.

“You’ll have to forgive me, My Lady. Losing your head loses its intimidation factor when you can just grow it back. And you’re nothing compared to the God of Wrath’s Chosen. He was able to turn the sky blood red and make the ground quake beneath your feet.”

He lifted his head only, still holding his torso in a bow.

“And I think the accurate count would hold at two and a half decapitations. You nearly succeeded in the library,” he corrected, rising to his full height.

“Let’s see if the third time's the charm,” I said, holding my shadow pistols aloft and pulling the trigger. A blast of shadow came out of the end, turning into two, then four and then so many that I couldn't track it. Everything rippled around me as the shot rang out, the trees and flowers swaying back in the shockwave.

It missed.

One moment the Chosen stood there, and the next he was getting smaller, the black comets of raging shadow hitting the space where he had been moments ago. My eyes tracked him as his small body elongated into a serpent. He curled neatly around my next two shots before disappearing into the flowers.

Coward.

Growling, I curled my black flames until they were one with me. I threw them out until they formed wings at my back. And then I was giving chase, flying with half a thought. The darkness did my bidding as easy as your body breathes for you.

The Chosen wound and weaved through the undergrowth, using the protective barrier around it to shield from my attacks. I commanded the shadows to encircle him, but he slipped out by changing form seamlessly. A snake, a fly, a spider.

And he was fast. Very fast. I’ll give him that. I was about to call out to him before I realized where we were going.

The red ocean loomed ever closer with every slither he made. I had never been this close, but I knew what this was. The ocean to the Far Shore. I laughed, moving past the Chosen snake to speed ahead to the Near Shore.

A titanic black tree stood on the sandy beach. A thunderwood tree, but far larger than any I had ever seen on the material plane. Silvery leaves shone on top, giving off a brighter glow than the rest of the garden. Its trunk could not have been encircled if a hundred people linked arms. The branches disappeared into the sky, and its roots reached into the red ocean, disappearing into its depths.

I landed on a lower branch that was at least the width of a road, the metallic bark unyielding under my feet. I kept my shadows formed into wings, my pistols held ready. Looking down, I tried to watch for the Chosen. Instead I saw my reflection in the unnaturally still red water.

My eyes had lost their radiant blue, instead replaced by a glowing red surrounded by black where white had been. Black armor hugged me all the way to my neck, and the wings of black flame seemed to feast upon what little light there was.

But I wasn’t here to look at my true form. Tearing my eyes away, I watched for my prey or anything amiss. I wasn’t stupid. This was the same game we had been playing since our first fight. This man did everything for a reason. If he had led me here, then there was a plan.

But I was strong enough to fight him now. And I was done holding back.

Some presence brushed against my mind, but I dismissed it as I continued to scan the shoreline. My aura of black flames pushed against that pressure, but it was persistent. I whirled around, eyes narrowed on where I felt it coming from.

A girl’s voice echoed on the shore as mist began to gather.

Mommy…Mommy!

A small form stood in the feint glow. A child. A child with long black hair and violet eyes.

I pulled the trigger, the darkness consuming the figure. It melted into nothing, but I felt nothing from it in return. Like trying to grab rock only to realize it was sand.

Please…please don’t leave me…

I whirled again, the voice seeming familiar and distant. But then there was another voice. An older female, soft and pained.

Hush, my Curadh…

Another form materialized out of the mist. A woman with long hair and clear blue eyes.

“You’ve tried this cheap trick before,” I murmured, leveling my pistol at the woman’s head. She looked at me, confused. Even as blood spilled down her front. Even as her face grew pale.

“What’s wrong, Cruadh?” she asked in a sweet voice. Her voice. A voice from a human childhood.

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My pistols didn’t move an inch.

“Come out and face me, Chosen,” I ordered even as the figure drew ever closer, “The woman this would have worked on is dead. She shattered along with the rest of my humanity.”

My mother was within arms reach now, her face aching sad. Sweat began to bead on her brow, her skin clammy. And then I smelled it. The stench of human refuse, sickness, and fever.

"Souls are never broken, Curadh" she murmured as she collapsed to the ground, "Only lost for a little while."

I pulled the trigger.

This time the figure didn’t fade. She screamed in agony as the shadows consumed her, the form tearing apart as if a hundred wolves were feasting on her. Somewhere deep inside me someone was howling. Screaming to stop hurting my mother, but I didn’t listen to it. That mortal part was weakness.

Pathetic.

My mother’s screams raged on as I gazed upward into the sky. And that’s when I realized that the symbols of the Gods were all equidistant here, even Death’s.

“I know why you lead us here,” I called into the gloom, “This is neutral territory.”

Silence was my answer. I turned and turned, flames forming an aura around me again. But then I felt it. That pressure at the edge of my mind.

“I fail to see how you managed to kill other Chosen when you can’t even face me,” I said quietly, closing my eyes and feeding into the shadows. They became my eyes. I spread them out, seeking my prey. I would find him and end this. And then I would find the gangs who threatened peace. I would kill them. Send them to the abyss where they belonged. But this Chosen would be the first to die.

“Are you in such a hurry to die?”

Opening my eyes, I saw the Chosen standing on the shore below me, his face pulled into a too-wide grin. Something had changed about him, and it took me several seconds to realize it was his eyes. They now glittered a faint gold color around dilated pupils.

Just like the God of Knowing.

“Nothing would make me happier,” I whispered, leveling my pistols at him without delay. I pulled the triggers, sending two bullets of purest shadow at his head. But I saw he wasn’t paying attention to me. Those gold eyes penetrated me, pulling me into…into…

And then there was that pressure on my thoughts again. More insistent this time. The bullets seemed to slow as they trailed toward him. Voices were echoing around us. A scene I had only seen in my nightmares.

Please. I won’t bother you again. Just let me go! Please! PLEASE!

A male voice answers as hot metal hums with anticipation.

The only thing you have to do is scream.

A high pitched shriek paired with hiss of burning skin.

Fayra screams again and again.

Something rang in my soul, the memory echoing in some hollow place. Just as a shard of that pressure pressed past my defenses.

My head was being torn apart. Every part of my mind was being ripped from me. Nothing felt real anymore. Not the power in my hands, and not the body I now inhabited. It was like every fact seemed fiction, and fiction could be fact. My thoughts were not my own, running through my mind without cause or reason.

And yet those bullets crawled toward him slower now. I saw them, but I didn’t. Nothing was sure now. The pain was excruciating. Like lighting striking me. Burning me.

“Power means nothing,” The Chosen was saying, still staring at me with those golden eyes, “If you do not know how to wield it.”

He strode toward me as I felt him pulling a strand of memory, tugging it forward.

“And now, I have what I need to destroy you.”

Something was tearing through my skull. Every memory. Every sensation. Everything was real, and yet nothing was. I was reliving it all. Those dark days were pushing forward like a knife. That was the only reality. Images faster than I could realize flashed before my eyes. It wasn’t in my head. I was standing in them. I heard, saw, smelled, and tasted every part. They were not memories. They were the only thing I knew. The only thing I could think about.

Screams and wails in the streets of blood and dust which settles and Death looming here in this garden which calls to my soul.

“You’ve taken my only reason for living,” the young healer says to the Goddess with red eyes. The Goddess sends a wave of pain at her through their bond. The Marks on her neck scream as the young healer goes to her knees.

“I had to give some reason to want to die, didn’t I?”

My beginning. My end.

There was only one thing I knew. I was desperate for it to stop.

Stop?

Stop.

My eyes flew open through the pain. I came back to myself in bits and pieces. I wasn’t this man’s plaything. I was a Chosen of Death, gifted with god-like power. And it was about time that I started to use it.

The bullets halted in mid air.

The Chosen stood root to the spot in mid-transformation into a song bird. He was already bending around to dodge the blackness from my pistols. I smiled, pulling more of the black flame aura from around me and commanding it to wrap around him. The second they made contact, they too froze in place. Finally, I aimed my pistol at point-blank distance under where each of his wings would be.

The Chosen squawked as soon as I released my hold on time, but it was nothing compared to the sound he made when I pulled the triggers. Feathers went flying, and my shadows slammed him to the sandy ground. I didn't let up, sending a spike of shadow to impale the flightless bird to the shore.

"No more running," I said quietly as the Chosen began to heal. I stalked toward him as he transformed.

"What's next? A bug? A rat? A weasel?" I muttered, never breaking stride.

I was very wrong.

The tiny bird body became indistinct, groaning and thrashing against its impalement. Legs and arms shot out of the body and formed into a humanoid shape. As he grew, he molded his body around the spear of shadow to become free. I waited, leveling my pistols as he finished his transformation. After all, he had given me the same privilege. And I had all the time in the universe.

The shifter rolled away from the shadow, the hole in each arm healing as he reformed. I kept waiting for him to turn into a giant or some sort of creature, but he didn't.

A featureless face stared at me with those same golden eyes. The skin was an odd gray and seemed to never be still, waves running along the surface of his body continuously. He was the shape of a man, though an aura of power pulsed around him. A sort of energy that made the sand around him hiss and sway in a forgotten breeze.

"Out of energy, are we?" I asked before a whispering voice came from a mouth I couldn't see, the gold in his eyes flashing.

"How?" he asked, standing fully and displaying the tall but slim body of indistinct gray.

"How what?" I asked, twirling my pistols again.

"How did you resist the pull of memory? How are you still standing? Nobody has been able to come out of it before," he asked with something close to respect, standing with his feet wide and his hands clenched at his sides. The corner of my mouth lifted in a predatory grin as I stared at him down the barrels again, the black aura surrounding me pulsing.

"Simple, " I said, tightening my fingers on the triggers again, "Death consumes everything. Even knowledge."

Blackness shot out of my pistols, pushing him backward but otherwise doing little damage. His feet dug into the sand as the branches of the thunderwood tree swayed above us. That odd aura pulsed around him as he squared to me again. That pressure radiated from him like a furnace spits out heat. I saw his face look at the sky then, and his eyes lingered on the God of Knowing's symbol in the sky before I reach out with my shadows, encasing us in a dome of darkness.

"I said no more running. Fight me," I growled, allowing the pistols in my hands to fade into the gloom as if they had never been there. The shifter emitted an odd light against my shadows, barely visible. His head whipped around, trying to spot a hole in the dome where there was none. Finally he faced me fully, that odd aura pulsing at his fists.

"Fine. Then we do this the old fashioned way," he said before lunging toward me. He fist came up, aiming directly for my face. I could see the power behind it, enough to separate my head from my shoulders.

I could have cast a shield of shadow. I could have dodged the attack. Hells, I could even have sent down a rain of shadow spikes on top of him. But I didn't. I met him with a punch of my own, a fist of shadow meeting a fist of light.

CRACK.

Lighting erupted from between our fists, penetrating my dome and shooting into the black sky. It was joined by another as our other hands met. I could only feel the impact of his power as it met mine. Neither of us shrank an inch despite the sky roaring above.

The Chosen shot a leg out at my head with the same glow on his gray skin. I slammed my palm into his calf, redirecting the attack upward. In the same motion I looped my free arm around his thigh, intending to yank him off his feet. He anticipated it, jumping and twisting to arc his other leg into my face with immortal grace. The blow met home, but the remaining aura around me softened it. My head snapped to the side all the same, agony arcing down my jaw. But I kept my grip on his leg somehow, slamming him down into the dirt.

Still reeling from the kick to my face, I sent him a kick of my own to the stomach. He tried to regain his feet, but my foot knocked the wind from him. It gave me just enough time to curl more shadows around my fist . I dove on top of him in the same motion, and punched him with all the force I could muster with the weight of my shadows as well. His featureless face was nothing more than a canvas for bruises and blood.

He rolled beneath me, but I brought my other fist down on his exposed throat. And then I did it again. And again. And again.

My fist paused as I saw the shifter had stopped fighting back, only guarding his face.

"If you killed the other Chosen," I said through panting breaths, "Then they must have been weak."

An incoherent gurgle came from the shifter as he tried to speak, but only blood bubbled from his throat.

His head lifted as I stood suddenly. I stepped away from him to give him some room, even as his body started to regenerate.

"Stand up," I growled, hooking a rope of blackness around his throat and hauling him to his feet.

He staggered, holding his healing face and throat. He sank into a fighting stance, but I said nothing. Did nothing except maintain the dome of darkness. And waited. I allowed him to heal just enough to start to speak as he squared himself to me again.

"We--" he began before my fist slammed into his jaw, breaking it. He fell to the sand again, a hand flying to his new wound. I stepping forward, standing over him with slitted eyes.

"Stand up," I repeated, feeling energy course though me, and I knew my eyes were glowing red. Red with rage. Red with vengeance.

The Chosen backed away from me until his back hit the edge of my dome of shadow. His eyes cast around with panic even as they glazed over with pain. I felt his aura pressing against mine as it did before, trying to pierce into in. I blocked it easily this time, knowing his presence now.

"I said stand up," I said too quietly into the gloom, "You'll beg for the Abyss before I'm done."