When they received news of Tassikar’s death, D’Argen dropped his face in his hands and was not sure whether to laugh or cry. He had told him! He had warned them! He told Acela what would happen if she left Upates to his devices. He warned Darania that Upates would fail, and it would bring upon the deaths of hundreds.

Yet nobody had listened to him.

If he even told them at all.

Even Olde had not been able to predict it, though D’Argen had tried to force the magic faster with his prompting and pushing.

All D’Argen knew was that some of his visions, some of his memories of the future, would happen no matter what he did. Apparently, this was one of them. Yet along with Tassikar’s name were a dozen others. D’Argen had tried to warn Tassikar, told him to stay away from that area. Instead of listening to him, Tassikar had brought along others.

D’Argen raised his head from his hands and turned to face where Thar sat beside him. Thar’s back was so straight that it sent a twinge through D’Argen’s shoulders just looking at him. The rest of the gods were all in shock in the stone hall of Evadia where Acela had asked them to gather for the sombre news.

True. This was when they first learned they even could die.

D’Argen knew what came next. He looked away from Thar and over dozens of heads to where Acela stood on a raised platform. Beside her stood three of the other four. Upates was sitting at the edge of the platform, head bowed down and shoulders hunched. He knew he had made a mistake. They all knew it was his fault.

Yet none blamed him but himself.

D’Argen blamed him.

He had told him what would happen and Upates had waved him off.

Acela announced that the city Upates had started building was the demons’ territory now. They would have to go there and ensure the demons could not leave. And, as D’Argen knew it would happen, Vah’mor volunteered to be the one to go.

It was like a wave through the crowd as everybody started nodding.

Nobody wanted to go fight. There had been battles and wars between mortals, there had been fighting where the gods were asked to help or heal, but a fight against something that could kill them? Nobody wanted to go. They did not in his other memories either. Neither did he.

Yet D’Argen raised his hand high in the air immediately after Vah’mor’s announcement, interrupting Acela’s agreement.

“D’Argen? What is it?” she asked, her voice wary.

The crowd between them turned to face him and parted just enough for him to see her fully. Thar shifted as well, his shade moving so that it was not overlapping one of the gods standing beside D’Argen. The runner felt a shiver run down his spine and his lifted arm got numb from the cold.

“Don’t you think it would be better if more of us go?” he dared to ask once he could find the words. He dropped his arm, and it passed right through Thar’s shade. “Instead of sending just one. Not to say that Vah’mor could not do it themselves, I know all of us believe their prowess. But wouldn’t it be better if we had more?”

“Are you volunteering?” A voice sneered near him.

D’Argen snapped his head to try and find the source, but all the faces he saw looked shocked.

“I am,” he confirmed and faced Acela again. Then, he raised his voice, “I am volunteering to help Vah’mor with this.”

“There is no need,” Vah’mor replied, just as loudly.

“I’m not offering it for a need,” D’Argen tried to defend his words. “I’m offering it for—”

“There is no need,” Vah’mor interrupted him with the repetition. “You all have tasks to do here. The mortals that have already been affected by this will need help. I can take care of this on my own.”

“Again, I’m not saying you can’t, I’m saying—”

“Leave it be, D’Argen.” Another voice sounded closer to him. When D’Argen looked to find its source, it was to see Abbot staring at him. As soon as he looked at the artist, Abbot opened his mouth to speak again and said, “If Vah’mor needs our help, they will say so.”

D’Argen growled in frustration. He was ashamed for Abbot. For all the others standing around him that nodded along with the artist’s words. For himself, because he had not even thought it to offer his help in his other set of memories and kept quiet.

“It’s not a matter of need, or being able to. It’s an offer to help.”

“One that is not wanted,” Acela’s voice sounded.

When D’Argen looked back at her, he noticed that Upates had finally raised his head. His silence must have been taken as agreement because Acela turned to address the crowd again. She started doling out tasks that D’Argen already knew about. He did not leave the hall, no need to insult her, but he did not listen to her either. Instead, he locked eyes with Upates who was staring at him from under his heavy brow and through the oily tresses of his red hair.

Once Acela was done handing out orders, the hall started clearing.

D’Argen remembered that one of his original tasks was to retrieve Tassikar’s body. He also remembered how hard that task had been with the pain stabbing at him. It was the first time he had ever felt it and it had brought him to his knees with tears in his eyes. As he looked around the clearing hall, he did not notice pain on anyone’s face. Yes, they were saddened and depressed, some were angry, and some were scared, but not one of them had the creases of a pain like never before. Not like the one D’Argen still felt inside him now after Lilian’s death.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

A final glance at the platform revealed that Acela was sitting in one of the chairs there, Zetha with his arms wrapped around her. Upates had gone back to looking at the ground and Darania was opposite of him, staring at the ceiling and her small body swaying as if to some unheard music. Vah’mor was no longer there.

When D’Argen finally exited the hall, he was stopped with a firm grip around his upper arm. Thar’s shade continued ahead of him and disappeared within the crowd. D’Argen followed the tug until he was alone with Vah’mor away from prying eyes and ears.

“Do you believe I cannot do it alone?” Vah’mor growled, the anger obvious in their tone.

“What? No! I know you can. I still want to help.”

“Why?”

D’Argen had too many answers at the tip of his tongue but none of them made sense. Vah’mor was the leader of his aspect, but that was all. They were not friends. They were not even friendly. The animosity Vah’mor showed him too often had made D’Argen wary of approaching the other with any questions of help at all. Yet he still felt the need to offer.

“Doesn’t matter anymore,” D’Argen finally answered with a shrug that dislodged Vah’mor’s grip on him. “It’s not needed nor wanted, but I still felt the need to offer it.”

Vah’mor’s silver eyes narrowed in on him. “What do you know?” they growled out, low and dangerous.

The question caught D’Argen off guard, but he shrugged again. “Nothing! I know you will win. I know you don’t need my help. I still thought it would—”

“Stop thinking and do as you are told,” Vah’mor interrupted him and walked away.

D’Argen found himself staring after them with his jaw loose. After a moment, he felt the bristles of anger curl his lips and though he was tempted to go after Vah’mor and beat the arrogance out of them, the thought was immediately wiped from his mind when he saw Thar.

“Fine!” D’Argen hissed under his breath and Thar raised a single eyebrow as if to mock him. D’Argen ignored the shade and walked away.

Over the next few years, with Vah’mor off alone to fight off and contain the demons, D’Argen was tasked with running to the mortal nations in the area and providing support. It was much the same as the last time. The difference this time was, he tried to help more than the orders he was given. Instead of delivering news and clearing the path for refugees and caravans, he incited riots and convinced mortal leaders to put together armies. He tried to get the fighting between mortals to stop and turned them all to a common enemy instead.

In return, many mortal armies and smaller legions were killed by demon ambushes. He did not hear of the results of his encouragement until years later, when Acela summoned him to the stone hall that had closed its doors to the mortals. She informed him of how many his words had killed by bringing out paper after paper after paper with unimaginable numbers written on them.

And while the numbers were staggering and the information alone made him sick, it was the few names of the dead mortals she listed that had D’Argen’s knees weaken. Every name she mentioned was a mortal that he remembered from his other memories that led the fight. He tried to push them to start fighting earlier, and it has resulted in their untimely death. One such death had led to a revolt in one nation, the citizens turning on their leaders and tearing them to pieces. Another death had resulted in multiple villages being too weak to defend themselves against raiders and nomads.

And the raiders became more and more. They did not care for the demons, other than the fact that the demons kept the citizens around them wary and scared. It made for easy pickings, or so D’Argen learned.

By the time he exited the stone hall, the sun had long set. The night, however, was darker than it had been in decades. There were no fires and laughter and music in the centre circle. The heavy clouds in the sky, a result of the forest to the east having been burned down when two mortal nations clashed, still hung heavy over them and blocked the moon from sight.

The next day came the order that D’Argen had been waiting for for a few years. He was surprised it came so late and he knew Acela had sent others to do the task in the years before. He also knew that Acela’s orders had sent multiple gods to their deaths. While the mahee did not scream for it, D’Argen did not believe the ones that did not return had fled. None of them had fled before.

So, when Acela sent him to Adda-on, D’Argen ran off without even waiting for directions. He slid to a stop before Adda-on’s workshop, now expanded to five buildings from the original one, with over a dozen artificers helping her and double that for the mortals. The heat from the furnaces hit him before he even opened the door to the main workshop and the scent of hot metal and burning charcoal had him sweating under his robes in seconds.

Adda-on was busy, hammering down on the hot metal while using her mahee to smooth it out, so it was one of the mortals to hand him the sack with weapons. D’Argen did not bother to look through it or wait for any other instructions. He shouldered the heavy pack, wrapped an additional leather tie around his chest and another around his stomach, and then ran.

The sack was heavy and with his speed it felt heavier still. It took him half a day of running before he was able to wrap his mahee around the sack and the sharp edges of the weapons inside it, so they became lighter.

When he neared the mountains of Kaariai, he did not slow his steps. He knew, from instinct and memory both, where to step to make it deeper into the mountain’s bowels. When he finally closed off his mahee and slid to a stop, it was on a small ledge overlooking the ruins of what was once Upates’ budding city and would become it again in the future. The short spire he had seen before was still there, even if all the other constructs around it were nothing but rubble. The spire itself had taken a lot of damage, but it still stood as a haven for Vah’mor, even as demons crawled out of the deeper cracks of the mountain under it.

There, in the middle of all the rubble, was Vah’mor.

They were as resplendent as D’Argen’s last memory of them. Every strike was precise and exact, cutting down at least one of the creatures that rushed at them. They were surrounded, but did not seem bothered by it in the least.

Years.

Vah’mor had fought the demons alone for years. The only aid they received during that time were the weapons that others had been tasked with delivering them. As D’Argen watched, the long spear in Vah’mor’s hands snapped in half under the jaws of a demon that looked like a lion with fire for its mane. Vah’mor used the broken shaft to clear a path to the spire.

D’Argen picked out his own path down the mountain faces and to the spire. It would have him running too close to a cluster of demons that were fighting one another, but he was fast enough to avoid them. The black blood of the demons and the stench that came from them was overpowering, but D’Argen still saw the traces of red staining the ground he ran on from the others that had been tasked with what D’Argen now had to do.

He slid to a stop just inside the spire’s door and then ducked under the swipe from a blade. Vah’mor looked surprised only for a moment before they turned their sword away.

“Acela’s orders,” D’Argen informed them before they could say anything. He undid the leather straps and unshouldered the pack. It fell heavy with a loud clank, the blades inside it hitting the stone with a ring.

Vah’mor nodded and said nothing at all.

D’Argen waited until Vah’mor had a blade in their hand and strode out of the spire once more. Then, he ran out and found his ledge, sat on it, and watched with both awe and a simmering anger as Vah’mor tore through Upates’ abominations with glee. Even though he was so far away, he could have sworn he saw Vah’mor smiling.