Thank you to my beta reader and editor, GlassThreads!
Chul Asclepius
The world around me seemed to fall away as that discordant song brushed my ears. The call wasn’t mana. Not really. It was… something more. A warmth that seemed to brush against everything at once.
I ignored the rising smoke, the smell of burnt and charred bodies. All I could hear was that wonderful song.
“Mother,” I whispered, clenching my fingers around Suncrusher’s handle. I rose back into the air, drawn by that warm fire.
The platform was easy to find. It was warm like no other, empty as it was. Suspended by chains and almost adrift in that endless expanse of smoke…
I settled down on the platform, staring at that central point where I heard my mother’s call.
This is another bitter lie, I told myself as I walked forward. It is a falsehood; a treachery of the Vritra.
But what if it is not? I thought, feeling that ember of hope. I remembered how my mother’s truefeather had sparkled, rekindling in the depths of the Hearth; my home.
My footsteps carried me onward as my breathing began to fall more and more out of sync. Sweat beaded beneath my martial robes as I focused on the item that pulsed that song.
It was a brilliant, white horn. Striations of orange-purple ran through it like life-giving veins, banishing the relative darkness of the cavern around me. Like a tempting knife, it thrust deep into the center of the platform.
I quested out with my mana sense as I approached, seeking some sort of trap. But… I found none. Even as I moved closer and closer, there was no inflection in the ambient mana, no shift in the world.
And I finally reached that strange horn, the heat from it both there and not. It was almost overwhelming, in a way. It tingled at a sense I’d never-but-always had, luring me in like a siren’s call.
I knelt slowly, reaching a hand out tentatively toward that little fire. The horn glimmered, like a single silver leaf atop the black of Charwood. The contrast was undeniable, unavoidable.
And finally, I brushed my hand against that horn. It was warm, almost with a heartbeat. And I knew instantly, deep in my bones. My Mother’s touch had graced this strange, asuran artifact. She had cared for it or loved it or–
A click sounded along the ground. On instinct, I wrenched the horn free of the ground, trying to swivel to confront whatever had approached. But before I could even shift a single foot more, dark, dark chains of mana wrapped around me. They ensorcelled each of my limbs, trying to bind me tight. Between those chains, a plane of dark, corrupted mana crept like a smothering blanket.
My eyes dilated as they focused on the strange item that had been tossed right beside me. An unfolded triangular pyramid pulsed with horrid decay as the chains flowed from its center.
I strained against the barrier, siphoning mana from my dysfunctional core. Sweat beaded along my skin, but despite the utter force of the energy flowing from my core, I couldn’t even force the barrier to shift at all.
“That is a force cage, Lord Chul,” a soft, serene voice echoed from the side. “It is modified by my own design, incorporating more efficient draining methods than any others. The spell imbued uses your own mana to power it.”
A snarl rumbled from the depths of my soul as my eyes flicked to the side. All the hope and fear and desire and everything was overwhelmed with darkness and fury as I took in the sight of the speaker.
It was a wretched Vritra. Her light hair was a mockery of the silver vines of the Hearth. With skin nearly as pale as the horn I clutched and horns darker than the night sky, I knew this she-devil to be a Scythe. She strode forward slowly, circling me like a predator. And in her hands was a strange, anvil-shaped artifact.
I could see naught but red fire. “You dare!” I bellowed, pumping more mana from my core as I strained against the chains. They creaked as they dug deep into my skin, the decay-aspected mana making my skin wither and rot. “I will tear off your horns and drive them into your skull! Lying, scheming witch!”
The Scythe finished her loping stride, instead staring me in the eyes. She tilted her head as I continued to thrash and struggle, just… watching. Savoring my utter humiliation and inner despair.
I had known, deep inside. Known that it could only be a ruse, just as that Wretched Retainer had lured me in. And I—like a child who never learned—had fallen for it once again. Dumb, dimwitted Chul. Thinking with his heart and not his mind.
I could almost hear Soleil’s bitter, condescending scoff. I could feel my Uncle’s wry smile as he shook his head in muted disappointment.
“Your struggling only further cements your trap, Lord Chul,” the Scythe commented, content to watch my burning anger and futile struggles. “Force cages, by design, drain their targets of mana to reinforce their bindings. And I have… improved on such technology. Far from enough to trap an asura, though… But you aren’t like every asura, are you?”
Indeed, I could sense the verity of the fell woman’s words. My core was weak and dysfunctional, unable to support the true capacity of my race. Already, the mana this artifact had siphoned from me only served to bolster these chains.
Such a device would not have held any of my Clan, I thought, deep in the back of my skull. But you are broken. Wrong. Why else would this wretched basilisk win?
My Mother… She’d always warned me of fell omens and false hope. And even as the warmth of her song radiated from my clenched hand, where the white horn still burned–
It burned, I thought suddenly, keeping my furious intent on the Scythe as I recognized something. My Mother will not allow me to succumb.
“Try and slay me, witch,” I seethed, feeling how my core drained and my strength waned with every second I struggled. “The moment you step close to kill me, I will have my vengeance. I will drive my mace through your skull and savor the feeling of your blood on my skin for your treachery. This barrier is nothing before my might.”
The witch clicked her tongue, shaking her head as she took confident—yet still wary—steps forward. “You are mistaken, Lord Chul,” she said, settling within a few feet of me. She set down the anvil-shaped artifact on the ground. “You came in here claiming to wreak vengeance and blood. But very few—if any—in this cavern have yet seen battle with the Dicathian forces. You swing your hammer against the wrong nail. The men and dwarves you slew today? They bore no crime other than being in your way.”
I blocked out her words. All the Vritra spoke were lies and falsehoods meant to confuse and baffle.
“You used them as shields!” I echoed back, allowing my struggles to lessen. “So deeply must you fear my mace, Scythe, to hide behind them all.”
The woman adored the sound of her own voice. I would let her talk.
“You still think I wish your death,” the woman mused, tapping her boot against the artifact. It began to hum as it echoed with mana. “Toren told me of your motivations, Chul Asclepius. I do hope that whenever we meet again—hopefully under better circumstances—we can have a more reasonable discussion.”
Something clicked and whirred, before a slight, shimmering pane of purple began to fizz into existence beneath me. A portal.
“After all, I know you wish to meet your Mother again.”
I laughed. It was a deep, mirthful, hearty thing. Though my limbs were bound by treachery, I suddenly saw the path forward through the Vritra’s lies. Never before had I felt such hate in my blood, such desire for vengeance. It took that emotion, wrapping it about my mind and core like a cloak.
“Such words will work no longer, basilisk spawn,” I taunted, tensing in preparation as that portal began to expand. “The one in dark armor bearing greatsword tried such words with me before. But his treachery failed.”
The portal stopped expanding as the witch looked at me, her eyes widening slightly. “You met with Cylrit,” she whispered. I could see the schemes behind her eyes. Her hands flexed, and for once I saw the shift in her emotions as something cracked.
“I slew him for his treachery,” I snarled, funneling all my mana into my left hand. “And you are within my range.”
The daggerlike horn—which the chains had tried and failed to bind—flexed in my grip, pressing deep into the shroud of caustic decay. That single hole suddenly expanded as I funneled my energy through the horn, driving down and through. It parted like flouradine butter beneath a heated knife.
Suncrusher slammed into the pyramid—and it broke.
The Scythe was already shifting, her movements suddenly far more frantic as she sought to imbue the portal artifact with more mana. A blade of darkness fuzzed into her grip just in time as I surged forward, swinging Suncrusher down.
A shield of translucent black energy sparked into existence as I met her eyes, my face bared in a snarl of vengeance. A simple blow from my weapon cracked that barrier. Another shattered it entirely into a million black motes of energy. Those shattered remnants surged toward me, each becoming a tangle of graveyard mist.
I growled as the flames around my body burned away the spells. That mist became naught but ash as it failed to penetrate my skin.
But the Scythe was retreating backward, conjuring another shield about herself as she gritted her teeth. I saw something wild and dark churning behind her eyes as she prepared to fight me.
I knew her type. The scheming, planning kind that thought to lay ruses all about the battlefield. My meager mana reserves were already drained from that artifact. I struggled not to heave for breath or show the tiredness in my shoulders. No doubt the witch thought she could outlast my core with those shields of hers.
But I was a warrior of the Asclepius Clan. My wings would see me through any battle. My mind was keen for destruction.
I blurred forward, a snarl on my lips as my mace slammed into her shields once more. It parted like mist beneath the morning sun, but the minuscule time it took for me to tear apart that barrier gave her the time to move again. The fires licked at her dress, and her eyes were blown wide with concentration and fear.
She was floating downward, a black blade lashing out at me once more. It scored a few cuts along my arm before I could bat it aside, thick blood running along my robes. The Scythe flew upward, drawing my fury with her. The bare burns I had managed across her skin healed over with dark fire.
“Always, you run,” I seethed, sensing her uncertainty. “But I will find you.”
The Scythe could not outpace me, could not outrun my hammer. It took precious milliseconds to tear apart her shields, which gave her the time to zip away like an annoying fly.
But there was a way to deny her even this.
I tossed the horn into the air. In slow motion, it turned end over end, like a coin flipped on a wager of death. But no matter which side it landed on, it would come away with blood.
My eyes met with the Scythe’s as hers widened suddenly. In that space between heartbeats as the world seemed to slow, one bubble shield after another quickly began to fuzz into existence between us. One, two, three, four…
But it would not spare her. As I twisted in the air, leveraging Suncrusher like an axe ready to fell a mighty charwood, I wanted her to know that this was for my Mother. That the blood I spilled was done so with purpose.
I swung my arm. Suncrusher kissed the back of the horn for an infinite second, before it became less than a streak of light.
A sonic crack echoed out through the silence. The white speartip flashed, phasing through each shield the Scythe conjured without a hint of resistance. That strange effect it had on decay-type mana arts granted it passage as it surged closer and closer to the witch’s core.
The horn sank deep, deep into her chest. It jutted from her sternum like a nail as she blinked in surprise more than pain. Blood sprayed across her dress as her constructs sputtered out. The Vritra looked down at her chest as she began to fall, uncomprehending.
I was beside her in an instant. My hand wrapped around her pale, thin throat. I squeezed, cutting off her cough of agony into a ragged gurgle. Blood dribbled down her lips as I held her in the air.
“Impressive,” I snarled, squeezing as I threatened to snap her thin neck like so many twigs. “You managed to shift to stop my Mother’s horn from spearing through your core. But you have only doomed your heart instead.”
I threw the Vritra-blooded thing down to the nearest platform. She offered no resistance as she tumbled, her body blackening in an expanding radius from that dagger piercing her heart. Blood trailed her small form in splatters with each tumble. She made no sound of pain as she finally rolled to a stop, red pooling beneath her.
I tapped down a split-second later, fire burning in my veins. “You will tell me all you know of Aurora Asclepius,” I commanded, marching forward. “Then I shall shatter your horns and grant you death.”
The Scythe weakly pulled herself to her hands and knees, one hand clutching at the horn still embedded deep into her heart. She coughed blood, convulsing as that cleansing decay spread. “You… You are a fool, Chul Asclepius,” she moaned. “An asura, maybe… But a foolish child.”
I snarled as I finally arrived at her prone, weakened form. “And you are a witch playing with the lives of millions.”
I knelt, my hand reaching out as I prepared to finish this. But then… Then I felt that heat. Like the horn still embedded in the Scythe’s chest, but louder. Insistent. A war drum thundering with the demand of a star.
I spun on my heel, my heart hammering in my ears with sudden need. Mana threaded along every inch of my body as I braced. I knew not from what, knew not how. But some deep, primal instinct in my blood told me. If I did not act now, I would die.
Screaming, I swung Suncrusher upward. She guided me as much as my instinct, knowing that my life would be forfeit if I did not perform as necessary.
Only a flash of white and searing heat greeted me, before Suncrusher met resistance. Time held no meaning for that moment as I stayed locked in combat with that spear of plasma. I feared the might of my Mother would fail me as the heat scoured away at my mana barrier, burning deeper and deeper. The surface of my arms were charred as that heat blackened my skin.
But I refused to fall here.
Through the sweat and stars and pain of my bones creaking, I heaved upward with my weapon. With a cacophonous boom, the spear of white, burning energy ricocheted off my mace.
It surged upward like the ballista bolt of a godbow, streaking and burning a hole through the ceiling of the cavern. On and on and on it went in an eyeblink, melting a hole all the way to the sky beyond.
I heaved for breath, my arms feeling as if I had performed one thousand repetitions of a straight punch. I whirled, ready to yell in challenge to whoever had interrupted my hunt. Whoever had hurled that beam of plasma at–
Plasma, I thought suddenly, halting in the air. The mana arts of my Mother.
It was not hard to find the one who had assaulted me. The sunlight from the desert far, far above streamed down like a halo onto their glowing, burning, pulsing form. Those heavenly rays glittered off their wings of crystalline mana like the sea I’d seen not long ago as they hunched over the Scythe.
His hair was the same red as my mother’s. The same, impossibly vibrant shade. Like blood and fire dancing beneath a campfire as it swayed in the breeze. Familiar runes traced along his arms like feathers, burning against the darkness like the lava all around. I could not see his face, but I knew wing glyphs must have shone beneath his eyes.
The Phoenix Will of the Asclepius Clan burned in this human’s core, spreading its familiar insight all across his veins. A Will he should not have. Could not have. Unless… Unless…
I opened my mouth, closed it. Opened it again, then choked off a sob.
“The ghost of Aurora Asclepius follows him,” the Good King had said.
No, I thought, feeling that hope I’d carried for so long begin to smolder as its fuel started to evaporate. No, no. This cannot be.
My Mother was truly dead: and now she was held captive within this being’s core.
Toren Daen
The smoke and blood and dust and screams of dying men pounded in my ears as I knelt over Seris’ body, my lifeforce burning in my hands in washes of dawnlight.
“Chul! My son!” Aurora said, rushing past me to try and talk to the wild phoenix. “He is here, he is–”
I couldn’t hear my bond over the sound of my blood in my ears. Under the effects of Soulplume, I could see the spread of that inverted decay across Seris’ veins in perfect, pure clarity. How the point of Inversion, digging deep into her heart, attacked and ripped at her black heartfire.
“We’re going to fix this,” I said, forcing myself to try and be calm as I held the Scythe in my arms. “My magic will fix this.”
Seris only groaned, her pale, bloody hands clutching at the wound where Inversion still erupted from her chest. Her eyes were foggy and distant, not really seeing as they stared past me. That inkblot black pyre in her chest pulsed in abject agony as a virus of burning white slowly crept from the center.
I ignored everything else. I didn’t have time to question how any of this had happened after I’d rushed back from the Hearth; after Mordain’s sudden, searing message to my soul. That I needed to hurry before it was too late.
My healing magic rushed along my veins as I stared down at the fatal injury. Need to remove the instrument; heal over the wound after, I thought, the surgeon’s mindset I used creaking under the weight of the red blood coating everything.
I looked into Seris’ eyes, drawing on every one of our shared experiences as aether hummed between my fingers, calling on every shred of empathy I could. She seemed to suddenly focus as I began to call to her heartfire.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.
The Scythe’s bloody hand grasped my shirt, streaking it with blood as she stared mutely at me, a tapestry of broken quicksilver.
“I’ve got this,” I whispered, grasping the base of Inversion where it drove into her chest. “Just listen to my heartbeat, Seris. That’s all you need to do, okay?”
A drop of blood dribbled from the Scythe’s pink lips. I thought she understood.
I started to pull Inversion from her chest. Slowly, painfully it raked across her ribs as it sheared through flesh. Her blood—tainted with specks of dark lifeforce—sizzled and burned away wherever the horn touched. In fact, the entire front of her body was blackening at an accelerated pace, but…
As I slowly wrenched the white dagger from the Scythe’s heart, I called to her lifeforce in tune. That dark energy flared as I used every shared event to seal over the cracks. Our shared idealism and desire for the people of this world to be free. The tentative touches and kisses we’d shared. The uncertainty we both felt as our masks fell away.
And she healed. As the bladed edge of Brahmos’ inverted horn wrenched itself slowly from her chest, her tissue and muscle and organs sealed over. The blackened skin of hers gradually healed under her sputtering soulfire.
As I finally hefted the dagger away, I heaved for breath. Adrenaline coursed through my veins as I stared down at the Scythe’s chest. The flesh was healed, certainly. No longer was there a gaping wound driving through her heart.
My eyes widened as Seris limply grasped my shirt. Fuck! I thought, seeing inverted white specks dancing in the black bonfire of her lifeforce. Fuck, no!
“Toren–”
“Be quiet,” I admonished in a snap, recognizing what I was looking at. A living virus; an infection of reversed decay deep in her lifeforce. “You’re not healed yet. It’s not–”
But my words cut off as I suddenly choked on my breath. I heaved inward, a stream of hope and desire and love assaulting me from all sides, compressing inward from my very essence. The Brand of the Banished seared even hotter from where it pierced my soul like a hot nail.
Aurora.
It all suddenly rushed back to me. What exactly had been happening before I’d hurled a Stake of the Morning. The crumbling ceiling of Burim; the smoke from the Undercrofts and scent of blood everywhere. Chul, my brother, looming over Seris’ broken form.
I’d acted on instinct and sheer desperation as I’d seen it, not thinking. Not comprehending.
Chul is here, I thought suddenly. He’s in this cavern, right across from me. My brother.
I turned, my shrouded wings rippling as I locked eyes with Chul. The brand on my neck burned.
His clothes were torn in a dozen places, revealing freshly healed skin. His lifeforce pounded like an orange-purple bonfire, just like mine. Its thunder drowned out nearly everything else.
His eyes… Each iris was a different color. Burning-coal orange and pure-lake blue. Phoenix and djinn, just like me. Just like Aurora.
We were frozen there, staring at each other. The emotions radiating from Chul’s intent were so full of pain and growing sorrow that it almost brushed away the rising fury pounding from my heart.
He hurt Seris, I thought, grinding my teeth as we held each other’s gazes. Mine burning and angry, his uncertain and terrified. I felt the urge to lash out and strike him for what he’d done to the Scythe. Why did he–
But the ghostly vision of my bond’s shade tore me away from my thoughts of sudden vengeance.
Her ghost stood before her son, her phantom hand outstretched. Burning tears streamed down her face, tracing lines like a firefly in the dark. “Chul, little chick,” she begged softly. “Look at me, please. I’m here! Look at me!”
Even as she blocked his sight, though, he never averted that shattering gaze from me. I could feel as something in his soul began to wither and break the longer he stared at me, tears welling in his eyes.
Aurora sensed it, too. She knew what I could feel, knew all of me. A panic rose in her as she snapped her widening gaze back to me, the both of us coming to the same conclusion at once.
He can’t see our Mother.
Lady Dawn’s ghost turned back to her other son, something in her mind beginning to shift and creak in turn. A foundation that had been smashed on her banishment further listed sideways as her sole remaining anchor stared past her. Ignored her, as if she did not exist.
As if she were dead.
“No,” Aurora whispered, her deep red hair seeming to lose more and more color. I could see as that vibrant feather-red became more and more pale, more and more lifeless. “Look at me, my son. Please, see me.”
She raised her phantasmal hand, the ghostly skin seeming far too sunken for a healthy woman. It inched closer and closer to Chul’s face.
My eyes widened. Some deep, instinctual sense told me. As the Brand of the Banished seared constantly in the back of my mind, it told me of this danger.
I reached my hand out, calling with my soul and my mind. Aurora, no! You can’t–
She touched her son’s face, looking and needing that connection. And all went white with pain. That spike in my soul expanded, rippling over my twin soul with little pockets of pinprick agony deeper than anything I’d ever known.
But while I collapsed forward, yelling in pain as something in my soul shuddered, it was nothing compared to what echoed from my mother’s shade.
She lit with smoke as she touched her son, the Brand on the back of her neck flashing. She screamed in horrendous, sorrowful pain as the very touch of her son burned her soul. The cry of grief and white fire echoed over our bond, making the cavern shudder and shake. My vision doubled before it could return to normal.
My mother collapsed to her knees. She clutched her burned hand, the pads of her fingers smoking from where she’d touched her son. I blinked, questing out to her with a tentative brush of support–
“I can hear her scream,” Chul muttered, never having taken his eyes from me, even as my Will flashed in and out. “She’s trapped, leashed. You… You are her cage.”
I opened my mouth, trying to work past the dryness in my throat. God, it was as if all the cotton in the world had suddenly been rammed down my mouth as the aftereffects of that pain in my soul made it hard to think. Hard to feel. Hard to–
A gout of fire erupted from Chul in an omnidirectional wave as he screamed in sudden rage, his intent dipping with fury. I barely had the wherewithal to recognize the attack was coming.
Seris, I thought, feeling my body creak into action. She’ll be caught in the wave.
I held the Scythe with my right arm, clutching her close to my body protectively as I shrouded myself with mana. I pulled my wings in as I held out my left hand, white mindfire erupting in a sheltering barrier as that heatwave approached.
My mana was nearly instantly overwhelmed as I braced against the heat, clutching the Scythe close. The interplay of white flames and telekinetic force was pushed back under the sheer wave of orange, before it enveloped my hand and arm and traveled further up.
I didn’t even have time to scream as it washed over us, melting into my wings as I siphoned more and more mana from my core. I sweated through the howling bellow of the phoenix, my vision blurring as I hunkered down.
And it was over just as fast as it had happened. I groaned, burns scarring my entire body as my heartfire fought to heal it over. My crystalline wings drooped as they melted, but Seris…
She was looking in wide-eyed horror at my left arm. No, where it had used to be.
Now there was only a charred stump.
“Seris, I–”
Something smashed through my remaining feathers like a freight train, splintering and shattering them into a million glimmering shards. Somewhere in the distance, Aurora screamed.
I flew from the platform like a broken bird, trailing smoke as I struggled to reorient and understand what exactly had struck me. I blinked through the searing pain as I stared upward.
Chul was racing down after me, screaming in fury as he leveraged that mace of his, fire and rage shrouding his everything. He hefted it back, ready to drive it into my skull.
The world rushed back into focus as adrenaline began to surge, as my fury began to burn hot and deep in my soul. Mana and heartfire pumped across my body, healing my surface wounds and repairing the shattered remnants of my wings.
Veins of heartfire threaded from the stump of my left arm, the pain ignored as a shrouded arm covered the lattices of aether. My conjured fingers clenched as a saber grew in my right hand.
I saw the murder deep in my brother’s eyes. Saw the desire for blood and fire, piercing deep into my soul.
I rolled to the side just before a stalagmite could drive through my back like a jutting spear. As I rolled, I lashed out with a saber of white plasma, severing the hundred-foot-tall spire of rock at the base. It cut through like a hot knife through butter, but I wasn’t done.
I grasped the spear of rock with my regalia, before outlining it with burning plasma. I snarled, then waved my shrouded arm.
The spear of stone accelerated with a sonic boom, rushing toward the phoenix that sought my death. For an instant, he was blocked from my sight as the spike approached him.
In that space between seconds, I landed on the ground. The heartbeats of thousands of terrified dwarves and mages and innocents thundered in my ears as they rushed for cover and fled for their lives. Far above, different hanging stalactites and platforms were beginning to fracture. Lavaducts hung askew as their iron chains melted through, dripping their contents into the Undercrofts far below.
All the innocents here, I thought. They’re all going to die. If I can’t get him away, they’ll all suffer!
Soleil’s words echoed in the back of my skull, driving the formation of my Shrouded Spirit about me as my heart beat. When asura fought, lessers died.
Suncrusher smashed through the javelin of plasma-laden stone I’d sent upward, shattering with a boom that shook Burim’s foundations. Flaming boulders erupted everywhere, threatening to crash into the ground and extinguish more heartbeats.
I screamed deep from my soul, a mindfire stamp erupting from the soles of my boots. My shrouded spirit pulled me through the sky like a javelin. I lashed out with my regalia as I ascended at hypersonic speeds, pulling every shattered stone under my sway as I sent them cascading inward like a collapsing gravity well.
Chul didn’t seem to care, bellowing with grief high above as he continued to fall toward me. Any chunk of fire-covered stone I sent his way was smashed by a swing of that mace. Broken by a martial style I knew, burned with techniques taught to me long ago. The cavern was awash with the sound of shattering stone and magic wildfire as the collateral spread hundreds of feet in every direction.
“It’s only ever deceit!” he screamed, more to himself than to me. “I am done listening! I bring you justice!”
I zipped and weaved, my wings guiding me along as they seared through the dust and debris. My hand clenched around my saber as my eyes pierced the gloom. Instincts of a thousand thousand phoenixes of long past saw me through the storm of rock as Soulplume burned in my veins.
Up and up I surged, my breath hot and my soul seared.
And then we finally met in the middle. Suncrusher swung for my head, seeking to take it away as it pulsed with flames. I ducked around the blow, parrying it with my wings. The sheer contact made them burn, droop, and shatter, but I had already woven around Chul, swiping at his back with my shrouded saber.
But the phoenix was not caught off guard. Far from it. He whirled about with a tornado of force condensed into a rising uppercut as fire coated Suncrusher.
Rising Talon, I thought, recognizing the counter he was about to use. Mana thrummed along my body, my core aching from the suddenness of it. I grabbed the hilt of my shrouded saber with both hands—one flesh, one shrouded—and prepared to make good on the training I’d done for the past month.
I forced my heart to beat. For one, singular moment, Resonant Flow expanded my power. Ripped apart my limitations. Dawnlight burned from every wound and scar as my heartfire threaded through every vein.
I swung my saber downward, screaming in tune with Chul as my spirit glowed with phantasmal light.
My saber met Suncrusher. A shockwave erupted from the collision, rippling outward and tearing countless lavaducts from their iron chains.
There wasn’t even time to look each other in the eyes.
Chul shot down like a burning orange comet as the world finally seemed to fall back into focus. I blurred upward, my shrouded arm breaking alongside the sound barrier. The pushback from the clash shattered every bone in my right arm, making it erupt with crimson blood.
I didn’t even have time to recognize that before I slammed into the ceiling, a crater larger than a house welcoming my body. I wheezed, something in my back breaking as my Shrouded Spirit cracked. Blood streamed from where I was wedged in the stone.
My heartfire flowed from my already-tired heart, washing away my wounds as I pulled myself from the crater. My core—though it ached from the use of Resonant Flow—was far from exhausted.
I gritted my teeth, my eyes tracking around the cavern of Burim as I was given this brief reprieve. The devastation from a few simple clashes had already made the many stalagmites rumble and creak in a way that forced my stomach into my throat.
My eyes snapped to the platform I’d been before. Seris wasn’t there anymore. She’d moved. She was safe, which meant–
“Toren!” Aurora yelled, suddenly manifesting before me. “You need to stop this! You can’t fight him!”
“Can’t fight him?” I seethed, images of the devastation already spreading and the broken form of Seris flashing in my mind. “What do you want me to do instead? Just let them all die?!” I yelled back, Soulplume hot in my mana channels.
My mother grabbed my shirt with her burned hand, tears streaming down her face. “Just don’t fight!” she begged, her soul crying in a pain I could not comprehend. “He’s your brother, Toren! He’s my son! He’s the only family I have left!”
And suddenly, the rising fury and bloodlust coursing through my veins was doused by the sorrow my bond felt as she wept into my chest. The events of the Hearth tumbled through my mind, burning in tune with that brand on my neck.
I swallowed, my mind churning as I tried to think of some sort of solution. “Aurora, I–”
Suncrusher erupted from the translucent chest of my mother, before slamming directly into mine. I smashed back into the rock as my Shrouded Spirit cratered inward alongside my ribcage, bones fracturing and impaling my lungs. I wheezed, my eyes bulging as I was pinned by the weapon.
A boot slammed into my face, pressing me further into the rock and crunching my nose. “I will free her!” Chul yelled, rearing back with his boot again.
A shrouded saber fuzzed into existence in my hand, lifeforce pulsing along its edge, before I swiped it at the phoenix’s leg. It scored a deep cut, blood spraying. And as the lifeforce of my blade intersected the veins of heartfire in his calf, I tore.
Aether streamed along my blade, rushing back into me as it was dominated by my heart. The sheer purity of it served to heal the damage in my chest near-instantly. While Chul buckled, grunting in sudden pain, I flared my regalia.
A hundred tiny fists of telekinesis and sound appeared around me, slamming into Chul’s body in a sudden, cacophonous eruption. Each of those sound spells traveled through his body, rebounding and compounding deep in his chest.
Those spells would have turned any lesser mage’s innards to mush, but I could sense they only knocked the wind out of the phoenix. He wheezed, his barrel-chest heaving as he floated backward.
That was enough. I blurred forward, a shrouded arm regrowing as lifeforce flashed along its length. I slammed a nigh-ineffective punch into his ribs, imbuing it with heartfire. And as that damage reverberated through him, I pulled on his lifeforce at their intersection.
The energy I siphoned served to heal me a little more, while hampering any recovery the phoenix might have made. I ducked under another wild blow that burned away my shoulder, before cracking him hard in the elbow. I sensed the joint fracture under my strike.
And once again, we were zipping around the sky as we traded spellfire and our weapons flashed. Shockwaves and fire trailed all across the cavern as we flew, each of us bearing claim to the sky. My shrouded wings turned away a gout of phoenix fire, before I retaliated with a shallow cut to his torso that would never heal. I barely ducked the swipe of his hands, but a bit of the flames that left them left burns along my back.
But Chul was beginning to slow already. I could sense it, like a predator on the wind. Every blow I landed, every bit of heartfire I siphoned? It accelerated an already exponential process.
He might have been an asura. Might have been the strongest being I’d ever fought, might have been stronger than me at the beginning of this battle. But the young phoenix’s core was dysfunctional, held back by Andravhor’s lesser physique. He was tiring, had been tired before our battle even began. And now every blow we exchanged left him more and more exhausted, while I was left invigorated.
“I’m not your enemy, Chul!” I yelled, ducking around another wild sweep that trailed fire across the ceiling. More stalactites fell, carrying screaming dwarves and Alacryans with them. Tears blurred at the edges of my vision as the instinct to put down a threat to all those close to me warred with the grief and desires of my mother. “Just stop and listen to me! I’m your brother! Your mother is here; with me!”
“I have no brother!” the man bellowed, moving through half a dozen martial movements that nearly took off my head with each strike. As we dueled across the sky, both of us asserting our claim to the winds, my skull ached with every life lost from the shockwaves of our clashes. “All I have heard is lies and deceit! I listen no longer!”
I cursed as a stray bolt of fire-mingled plasma slammed into a nearby stalactite, searing through with casual ease. And in horrifyingly slow motion, the spire of earth cracked. Fault lines spread up the stone as it—and a hundred others—began to rumble.
My eyes caught on those of a young, dwarven child as she cried, the platform she stood on creaking and warping. Someone familiar was holding her, whispering sweet nothings I thought I could hear.
For an instant, the world around me fell away. My bloody duel with Chul; the cries of my mother as I tried to wear him down.
“Mother Earth will help you,” Barth said to the girl, holding her tight. The half-dwarf storyteller had always been joyous and upbeat. A true lover of life; a man who found beauty in everything. But as the storyteller–who had done naught but give happiness and fulfillment to all around him–trembled beneath the clash of titans far above, I felt something in me twist. “She’ll save us, little one. She’ll–”
I ignored Chul entirely, leaving him to drift away in the sky. My shrouded wings flapped frantically as I flew toward the cracking stalagmite, hoping against hope that I could save them. That I could stop the cataclysm about to befall those innocent souls.
I shot forward like a streak of white, calling on my telekinetic regalia as fire coated my arms. If I could sear the cracks shut–
It was only my constant training in the Beast Glades that saved me. With Sonar Pulse always active, that pinprick knowledge of approaching doom barely spared me from Suncrusher’s whirling form. The mace belched fire as she whirled above my head.
My shrouded spirit glistened about me like furious armor as I reoriented on my enemy. I thrust both my hands out, gathering fire and sound mana as Chul surged toward me, his hand outstretched.
White plasma erupted from my hands, searing in a warping line. Chul barely brought his hand up in time, a mask of worry on his face.
The monstrous phoenix blocked my white plasma. Blocked it, with a single hand. I could see his skin slowly blackening and burning as he roared, slowly being pushed back in the air. White embers flew everywhere from the splash of impossible heat.
But it was working! I thought with gritted teeth, feeling my core strain. I was holding him at bay. I floated forward in the air, sweat coating my entire body as the mana hummed.
Suncrusher whirled back, swirling toward Chul’s outstretched right hand. At the same time, he clenched it in his fist, and his eyes gleamed.
On instinct and desperation, I forced my heart to beat. Resonant Flow echoed across my weary body, my mana channels and veins growing as they allowed more flow. The white plasma erupting from my hands suddenly became a blinding flash as impossible power roared like thunder from my fingers. What was once the width of my torso became wider than a house.
I was too slow. Suncrusher imposed itself between Chul and my assault. When the forces of mana and power collided, my attack rebounded off the spherical surface, carving a line through the ceiling of Burim. An inverted trench of molten rock revealed the sky hundreds of feet above as my failed strike sliced through the stone like a knife through paper.
My mana sputtered out as Resonant Flow stopped after that single heartbeat. I listed downward, feeling pain deep in my mana core at my failed attack. White embers and molten rock dripped from the sky like rain, creating a strangely beautiful array of dazzling light and heat as the world seemed to slow.
And then Chul was in front of me. His meaty hand grabbed my arm, crunching through my shrouded spirit and shattering my bones. But the pain wasn’t just a physical thing.
The very contact made the brand on my neck burn my soul. As one Banished, I could never afford to interact with those of my clan ever again. My body locked up as I yelled in horrid pain, my vision flashing white as visions of my Sea burning echoed across me. My mana failed me, every technique and bit of knowledge searing way.
“You steal the techniques of my mother, parading them about while you keep her caged,” he hissed, blood dribbling between his teeth. In his fist, Sucrusher’s burnished surface gleamed. He raised his weapon, preparing to bring it down on my skull. “It is a crime worthy of–”
A flash of bronze soulmetal slammed into the young phoenix. Aurora’s relic separated us, giving me barely enough time to avoid a fatal injury from Chul’s mace. The massive avian construct whirred, pushing us apart.
“Chul, you are mistaken!” Aurora cried, molten tears streaming from her relic. White fire embers and drops of lava rain splattered off her body. Every touch of her relic and her son caused even more white-hot soulpain to reverberate through both of us. “I am here! Please, stop! Think of the stars! Think of our stream!”
My mother’s relic batted away Suncrusher with her wing as she forced the half-phoenix into a nearby stalactite, pinning him with effort. Orange-purple smoke rose not just from her joints, but every part as the agony flashed through her.
Chul thrashed and tore at the relic as she fought to keep him pinned. The sound of her voice seemed to send a fresh wave of misery through his intent, an agony that was as potent as any wildfire ripping through him as he heaved against her bulk.
“Stop fighting us, please,” Aurora begged, her heart breaking. “I love you, Chul! Let us stop this madness!”
Through it all, I was falling, that earlier soulpain still wracking every inch of me. But it wasn’t just me that was falling. Stalactites across the entirety of Burim rumbled as my strike destabilized the ceiling. The heartfires of thousands screamed in a sudden bonfire, every single one crying out for salvation in a tragic song like icicles amidst a winter storm.
And then they hit the ground, shattering into uncountable pieces as the very cavern of Burim roared with crushing stone. The earth heaved in response, the mana in the atmosphere twisting and churning far below as the shockwave traveled deeper and deeper.
All those people, I thought, still falling. They’re all… They’re all–
“Lies! Always, always more lies!” Chul bellowed, tears streaming from his eyes as he fought against his mother’s restraining vice. “Your deceit fails you, Living Cage! Your illusions and mockery of her voice do you nothing!”
“I’m here, my son,” Aurora crooned, fighting through the blistering-hot soulpain as she pressed her beak to Chul’s ragged face. “Just… please. Stop.”
But despite his words and his thrashing, the bulky manchild slowed. The words of Aurora seemed to find their place as he began to weep along with her relic. His movements slowed, and the pain leaking across his intent told me everything.
I finally, finally managed to even out in my flight. I struggled to think straight through the smog of decimated heartfire as earthquakes rumbled through the ground far below.
“This is cruel,” Chul whispered amidst the dearth of voices around us. “Such illusions… Why must they–”
“This is cruel?!” I snarled, clenching my fist as I glared at the manchild pinned to the stalactite. “Do you have any idea how many people you just–”
“Stop!” my bond snapped, her head whirling on me. “Stop fighting. I won’t have my sons killing each other!”
I recoiled, wincing as I hovered awkwardly in the air. My lungs were choked from smoke, and I was bleeding from a dozen burns. My skin was blackened and charred in too many places, but I didn’t feel it through the adrenaline. My shrouded fist clenched.
Chul didn’t look much better. He bled from a hundred wounds, each of them unable to close because of my heartfire arts. His mana was nearly entirely drained from his system, his defective core burning out.
Aurora slowly removed one talon. “It’s okay, my little battling songbird,” she said quietly, not even voicing the agony I knew coursed down to her very essence. “We just… We just need to talk. Like we always did in the Sunswept Glades.”
The young phoenix didn’t move as Aurora’s relic pulled itself away from him. He looked—he felt—utterly terrified and confused as he looked between the relic and me.
“I…” he started, looking ready to flee, “I do not–”
But then the cavern rumbled. I felt the shift in the ambient mana first, fire and earth meshing together with sudden ferocity. An earthquake rumbled through the mile-wide cave, shaking the Undercrofts and making stalagmites crumble.
My eyes darted to the far edges of the cavern, where the lava that flowed from the ducts originated. I could sense it, somehow. Sense the buildup.
Boom boom. Boom boom. Boom boom.
It grew, like a heartbeat in the dark. The very pulse of Mother Earth began to increase, my dread and horror rising in turn.
And then those slow, meager streams erupted, spraying lava all across the cavern with the force of a thousand jets.