Another reason to hate aristocratic life: stairs. Winding staircases from every point of interest to every other. Between each room. Always stairs, always steps. It did something for Eris’ physique, but served otherwise only to infuriate. The Magisters of the Old Kingdom had discovered how to create elevators with mana millennia ago, yet still she was forced to walk up and down like a plebian, powered by raw locomotion. On most throughout the Keep the spiraling twist was so strong she couldn’t even use Blink to expedite the process.
Those thoughts had drifted through her mind since she officially moved in to Keep Korakos. Now they were nowhere near her consciousness, as she frantically bounded toward the great hall with Rook behind, except in so far as she was reminded with every thigh-burning and ankle-crunching step that she loathed staircases even more than she loathed the obese—and perhaps even more than the obese loathed staircases.
“Get Aletheia,” Rook commanded Ajax. “And Khelidon, and—everyone. Is Jason still here? Get him, too—”
“Do not bother,” Eris said. Her voice echoed. “This creature is not Astera.”
“Do you know that?”
“She turned to dust at our boots, Rook. It is not Astera.”
“What does the elf look like?” Rook asked.
“Tall. Very tall. Fair skin, dark hair. Muscle-bound. And she’s in armor,” Ajax said.
“That sounds like Astera to me. It would mean everything for Aletheia to see her again—”
“Rook,” Eris stopped at a landing and blocked his way forward. She took him by the arm. “Astera is dead. The girl will never have her surrogate sister back. Should you like to haunt her with this apparition? Would you enjoy being teased by your mother’s reappearance, only to learn she was some other woman in disguise?”
He understood her meaning suddenly. His head shook and he whispered, “No. Then who is she?”
They started down the steps again. “One who knows that the visage of a dead, old ally is how to best get our attention. Astera at the gate was not likely to be ignored. We are lucky she did not choose Zydnus.”
“So it’s a spell.”
“Of course it is a spell.” She thought it over more thoroughly. “So it must be a magician. It—” The realization struck. “It must be the Seekers.”
“They wouldn’t dare attack a duke’s keep,” Ajax said.
“They have found us at last and lure us to where a trap might be set,” Eris said. “We are walking into it now.”
They arrived at the ballroom. “No,” Rook said. “The only Seeker who knew about Astera was Lukon. Why would they choose her? It must not be them. There’s something else afoot, Eris. Could it be Robur?”
She scoffed, laughing at first, thinking he was joking. Then, “No.”
“She comes alone?” he asked Ajax.
“No one else. She’s waiting in the bailey,” Ajax replied.
Eris and Rook gave each other a long look. “I am telling you, Rook,” she said. “This is some manner of ambush.”
“But what if it isn’t?”
“The risk is not worth it.”
A long moment. “I have to know. Have a servant fetch my sword, just in case.”
Eris grit her teeth. She addressed Ajax next, “And my staff, and gauntlet, and focus. Let us be prepared.”
Ajax looked irritated to be given so many commands, but he obeyed. Rook and Eris waited for his return in the great hall, and they gathered six retainers and eight guards—there were several more outside with ‘Astera’ already—to defend them just in case.
“We have cause to believe she isn’t who she seems,” Rook addressed the men, “so stay alert. But look relaxed.”
How it was one should look relaxed while armed, armored, and gathered about thirteen similarly outfitted and likewise nervous men, Eris was not sure.
Soon Ajax and a slave returned with their things. Rook hung his sword at his belt, then took a seat in his throne at the great hall’s rear. Eris stood at his side.
“Let her through,” he commanded.
A man in a helmet nodded. A bar was lifted from across the back of the gate. A lock undone. A great latch unsealed. Then the door was pulled ajar, creaking, its groan echoing throughout the hall, and on the other side, on the threshold between night and the torchlit keep, was an elf.
She stood a head taller than Rook. Heavy mail hung from her shoulders, tightened around a deceptively thin waist. She was lean and sturdy and broad and perhaps as ugly as any elf could get, which was to say still flawless in physique, and Eris knew well that however athletic she looked, she would be capable of feats far beyond her appearance.
Or so might the real Astera have been.
Eris felt nothing but suspicion to behold this dead ‘friend’ again. As Astera approached down the carpet Rook shifted in his seat; Eris closed her eyes for a moment to see if she might sense an elf’s Essence.
There was an aura. A sizzling of mana around her. An ember of the Aether in this great hall, yet an ember shielded from the cool wind, on the verge of being snuffed out. Almost like…
This was no human in disguise. The creature before them was an elf—or some other being of mana. With that accomplished she tried to detect the illusion; that was difficult without Supernal Vision, but her blood wouldn’t react to raw mana off an elf’s Essence in the way it might to a spell. She would be able to feel Arcane Semblance, and with concentration, perhaps dispel it. As a conversation began she focused as hard as she might, directing her staff toward the thing before them, trying to sense what magic had a hold on the one who appeared to be their slain companion.
Astera kneeled before the throne. “Rook,” she said. Her voice was perfect: it moved in time with her lips, and it was Astera’s voice, just as Eris remembered.
He glanced around to his guards. “Astera?”
“You never expected to see me again, I take it.”
“Dust rarely reconstitutes itself,” Rook said. “Explain yourself.”
The elf glanced around the great hall. “Is this Korakos?”
“We’re still undergoing renovations. Explain yourself, Astera.”
She stood. “I woke up several weeks ago. I can’t explain it. One moment I felt nothing; the next, the sun of Darom was against my face. I think the Aether sent me back. We have stories of such things in Seneria, I know it might be hard to believe…”
Eris was still focused. No matter how hard she searched, she detected no trace of any spell here. She knew she was mistaken, of course she was mistaken, until the thought dawned. A moment of epiphany. The only way to mimic Astera’s voice would be a spell like Aethereal Voice; casting that with every word would be conspicuous, it would require mana, yet when this elf spoke, there was no such spell. None at all. It was not using magic to talk.
It was Astera.
“You’re right,” Rook said, “I don’t believe you.”
“I’m telling the truth,” she said. “What can I do to prove myself to you?”
“Arrest her,” Eris commanded suddenly. She looked to the guards. “Apprehend her at once.” Then to Rook. “There is no spell. Have her arrested.”
A look of confusion took to his face for only a brief moment. Then he nodded—he trusted Eris. “Arrest her.”
The guards stepped forward.
“What?” Astera said. “What are you doing?”
“Your story does not fool me, creature,” Eris said. “Did you honestly think we could be so easily deceived?”
“I don’t know what—”
“Clearly you do not.” Two men in armor grabbed Astera by the shoulders. Many more stood by to intervene. Eris continued, “Rook, there is no spell, and we both know she cannot be Astera. That means she must be something else.”
“Like what?” he whispered back.
Eris didn’t know for certain, but she had several terrible ideas. An elf was bound to its appearance unless it used a spell to alter it, as a mortal; if no such magic was in use, then this was not an elf, for it could not be who it appeared to be. Yet Eris detected its Essence. An Essence of pure mana—but it had seemed shielded, almost sheltered from detection, like a fire being kept from fuel.
That meant she was some other manner of demon. A shapeshifter who could mold its appearance to truly become the subject of its impersonation, without the need for any spell at all.
“Is this how you treat me? After everything we’ve gone through together?” Astera said.
Rook stood up. “What have we been through together?”
The elf looked surprised. “What?”
“Prove you to me you are who you pretend.”
“We—met in Chionos. We defeated the bugbears. We rescued Eris from the Arktids in Nanos, vanquished the Manawyrm, and killed Lord Arqa.”
He nodded along, but hesitated. “You missed a year.”
Her expression went cold. “We spent a year together in Darom.”
“What did we do?”
She didn’t respond. Rook took another step forward.
“You’re not Astera,” he said. “But I didn’t need Eris to tell me. Astera would have asked about Aletheia first. Who are you?”
Her eyes closed. She was considering something, thinking over her options; Eris was convinced this was some agent of the Seekers, but she wasn’t certain what manner—
But then she felt it. The heat of the flame turned up. The scent of mana stronger in the air. The fire within this elf was stoked. When Astera opened her eyes they were no longer the pupilless white globes of an elf, but instead glowed with violet mana. Her face now showed nothing; it was limp, lifeless, like a doll, as if the occupant within the body had been manually animating every expression and was now preoccupied with some other task, too busy to puppeteer the face that no longer mattered.
This was a demon.
Rook stepped back. Drawing his sword. “Grab her!”
Another guard stepped forward, so that three men were now on the demon, trying to grab hold of it. One punched it in the head while another tried wrestling it to the ground, but it was far stronger than even Astera: with the flick of an arm it sent one heavily armored man flying across the great hall, knocking another to the ground in the same movement. The third it grabbed with one of its hands, clenching tightly around his neck, lifting him up off the ground…
Its eyes flared. Its other hand was placed over the man’s helmet. Purple heat, like the searing of a fire spell, sizzled between its fingers and the metal, but nothing burned; instead the guard within only screamed. He screamed and screamed and screamed in pain even as nothing seemed to harm his exterior, and all the while the glow in the demon’s eyes grew brighter, until it finally dropped the man back to the ground.
He fell to the demon’s feet without life, yet still breathing. Suddenly Eris recognized this creature. She knew what she had just witnessed. She understood that this demon was a species of vampire—an aethereal abomination that could turn human souls into mana, just like Lord Arqa. Only this demon did not bother with a human host, and it did not bother with the pretense of blood.
A member of Rook’s retinue leveled a pollaxe’s spear and rushed at the demon’s side while it was preoccupied. The hit went clean through the mail, but the elfin face showed no reaction. Instead it turned and, with a simple gesture, cast a spell: a burst of energy ten thousand times stronger than anything Eris had ever seen before. The knight was thrown across the room, but he was dead long before he hit the wall.
Two more guards rushed to engage. One landed a blow to the demon’s face with his sword, but the blade went clean through, as if nothing at all were present, while the other was caught at once in a gust of incinerating wind. His skin melted off his bone and he fell to the ground, dead. Then the demon drew its sword and, in a flash of steel, set a gray fire along the blade, and it ran the length of the weapon clean through the first guard’s armored torso. He gasped as blood gargled from his mouth, and as he went limp against the demon’s arms, it traced its fingers down his back, extracting what little light remained within its victim before he died.
“Fall back!” Rook shouted, but his men needed no instruction for their route. Already the guards fled out into the bailey or deeper into the keep. Meanwhile he lunged at the demon with his own sword, aiming for its neck—and he caught it, slicing through to its windpipe, the enchanted blade doing something more than nothing against the demon’s aethereal body.
Purple blood leaked out from the wound.
But the demon hardly recoiled. It knocked Rook’s blade away, and while he parried the riposte, he was forced backward—and it raised a hand to cast a spell.
Eris interceded just in time. She jumped in the path and extended her Spellward gauntlet; with less than a second to spare she caught a barrage of magic missiles that shot out from the demon’s wrist. But it wasn’t deterred. Seeing her vulnerable now it went to strike—
Rook caught the blade again, and that gave Eris the time she needed to scramble away. She had been trying to rush a burst of mana, an impromptu exorcism that might make this demon vulnerable, but there was no time to focus; she wasn’t nearly prepared. Instead she did the first thing that came to mind:
She projected Disintegrate with her arcane focus. Marking every inch of the demon with her imagination. Building up mana with her staff, and then letting it go in a flurry of devastation. All of the demon’s armor turned to dust within seconds, leaving Astera’s body standing naked in the great hall, and then the sword it held went with it, so the demon was completely disrobed and disarmed.
Rook seized the opportunity. He brought the blade around in an arc, cut off the demon’s right arm, thrust through its thigh, sliced into the opposite bicep, then impaled it through the heart. Purple blood poured everywhere across the floor. Then he rushed to its side and sliced off its head.
Eris ran to him. They embraced each other, then looked down at the mass of gore beneath them.
The body melted into the ground. Skin putrefied away over the course of seconds, like wax put to an open flame, molding itself into the ground. Astera’s pale skin dissolved into purple—and then it began to bubble. Boiling. Sizzling at their feet. Until—
It steamed away into vapor in the air. The demon’s aethereal residue became a cloud of mist, boiling off the ground and into a cloud of fog, and for a moment it gathered; a crackling violet miasma of a demon’s Essence loose on Earth but banished from physical form. Then it trailed quickly out through the gate, fleeing the great hall, leaving no sign at all of any intruder save the death and destruction it had wrought.
----------------------------------------
“Close the gates!” Rook roared. Their cowardly retinue had returned. The four dead guards were taken away, while the one who had been strangulated was brought before Eris for examination. “Do not open the great hall for anyone, do you understand? Let no one in until I say so! And tell the men not to engage any elf unless they have enchanted weapons!”
Ajax, who had conveniently avoided the fighting, nodded and went to carry all this out.
“What in hell is happening?” Khelidon asked. He wore a robe and looked exhausted.
Eris kneeled down before the guard. They were still in the great hall. He was propped against the wall, his helmet removed, and he stared blankly forward.
“Some sort of demon attacked us,” Rook said.
“Demon?”
“We killed it, but—there might be others. Or it might be back. We don’t know.” He came to Eris’ side. “What did it do to him?”
She put a hand on his chest. Searching out. Looking for something to grab onto with her Essence. She sensed Rook, and Khelidon, and the other guards, and…
Nothing else. She was numb to this guard. His soul was gone. And without a soul, he was immune to her magic—just like a Cult Custodian.
“‘Tis as I suspected,” she said. “The demon took his soul. She—it—needed to do so to fuel its magic. It is a vampiric demon, like Lord Arqa, which feeds off mortals.”
“Why is it here?” Khelidon asked. “Why attack us?”
“The Seekers,” Eris said. “Why else?”
“We don’t know that for certain,” Rook said. “It might be—something else. We’ve traveled across all of Esenia, we might have let it catch onto our scents. Maybe it was looking for a challenge.”
“Rook is right,” Khelidon said. “The Magisters don’t send assassins after a duke. It isn’t done.”
“It appeared as Astera in an attempt to lure us into the open, where we could be attacked,” Eris said, growing impatient. “When its ploy failed, partially, it abandoned such tactics for a more direct strategy.” Then a thought—sometimes she astounded herself with her brilliance. “And it chose Astera because Astera has no ties to the Seekers. There is no way to implicate the Gray Council in my death, nor the deaths of anyone else it kills; they will be blamed on a dead elf instead, for none but the slain will recognize their killer for a demon.”
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The two brothers were idiots who did not see how this was obviously the correct explanation, but they seemed willing to take her word for it. Rook frowned.
“Why did it know some things and not others?” he asked. “Its impression of Astera was all wrong, but it had some of her memories. It was like—it had forgotten some things and not others.”
“That I do not know,” Eris said. “It seems as though it remembers only what I was present for.”
“So is it dead?” Khelidon said. “Will it be back?”
“Your guess is as good as mine. Actually, no, ‘tis not, but I still do not know the answer.” She thought hard about this. Contemplating. Head in her hands, She felt sick and closed her eyes, using every ounce of her mental power to come to a conclusion. And…
Rook put a hand on her back. “Are you all right?”
They shared a glance. “I am fine,” she said. “I—believe I know what this demon is!” It struck her suddenly, and Rook helped her back to her feet.
“And?” Khelidon said.
“Among Jason’s many notes on vampires, I recall something I read—that in the Old Kingdom, there were Magisters who summoned demons to this world and bound them to their will to carry out assassinations. I had read of these assassins elsewhere, such magicians were known as Warlocks, but I did not know of this detail until Jason mentioned it.”
“You remember what you read on a note over a year ago?” Rook asked.
She looked at him with a furrowed brow. “Would you not?” Then a shake of the head, she continued, “They are not quite vampires, though they are related. I believe they are called Hunters, or Kynigoi, for they can be summoned, contracted to carry out a task, and then be banished back to the Aether once their target’s soul has been…consumed. For that is all they desire: to seek down, to hunt, the soul of the one they have been sent after. Once that purpose is achieved, they return harmlessly back to the heavens, until they are needed once again.”
Khelidon frowned. “I don’t suppose this poor bastard was the one soul he was after.”
“…I do not think it likely. More likely it seeks me, or perhaps Aletheia. It may even be Rook, but—”
“It must be you,” Rook said. “That’s why it didn’t know of Astera’s time in Darom. It only knows what you know.”
Eris nodded. “At the very least,” she said, “we should be self-satisfied. ‘Tis not common the Magisters feel the need to use such archaic powers to hunt down their adversaries. They are clearly frightened of us.” She shook her head. “You saw the demon’s Essence escape. We have not slain it, not yet—it must be made vulnerable first, like Lord Arqa. It will be back. No doubt ‘tis gathering somewhere at this very moment.”
“Can you make it vulnerable?” Rook asked.
“I…do not know. I need more time to think. My spell has worked on other demons, so I believe it might work on the Kynigos as well. I will not be able to try it until I have detected its Essence, however, and I will need you to protect me while I work.”
That wasn’t all. She had no Manastone and no soulcharm. The ritual in Arqa had required the expenditure of a vast amount of energy, and she had nothing but her own Essence available to her now. It would be very challenging to do correctly.
Khelidon rubbed his eyes. “So, brother. What do we do?”
Rook tugged on Eris’ skirt, pulled his hand away from her, and sighed. “Keep guards posted all night. If there’s any sign of the Kynigos returning, tell them to signal the alarm and run back to the keep straight away. Otherwise we wait. And pass out all the enchanted weapons we can.”
There were three enchanted swords throughout the whole of the keep: Rook’s, Aletheia’s, and Hierax’s, which was given to Ajax just in case. There was also Lord Arqa’s sword, but they left that in storage, sealed away in the duke’s secret vault.
Aletheia arrived some minutes later to the great hall. Rook explained the situation to her, and she, in her normal nervous style, fell quiet. Then they waited. Eris still had some of Jason’s notes and she studied them, but found little useful new information: she remembered everything he had written down for her. Not a word had left her mind.
The minutes ticked away. The others waited nervously, but Eris kept herself distracted. She was busy remembering the ritual she used against Lord Arqa. She thought back to that battle in Darom. She prepared herself to do it again—quickly if she had to.
Then the alarm bell rang outside.
Rook stood. “Fetch Ajax,” he commanded to a guard, and soon he had returned. Minutes passed. The bell still rang. “Where are they? You told them to come back to the keep straight away, didn’t you?”
“I told them exactly what you told me,” Ajax said.
More ringing. No knocking at the gate. No one entreated entrance. Another moment, and then—the bell stopped.
“Open the gate,” Rook commanded.
“You want to go out there?” Ajax said.
“I won’t leave my guards to die. Open the gate!”
“‘Tis not like the gate will stop a demon in any case,” Eris said.
“It might delay the inevitable,” Ajax said. But he motioned to one of the nearby knights, and together they stepped toward the gate, going to pull it open—
“Wait,” Eris said. “Do not open the gate.”
“Eris!” Rook said.
“Listen to me!” she yelled. “Wait!”
She raised her staff. Concentrating. She felt something, distantly, a spot, and she concentrated…and there it was. Beyond the wall. Growing stronger by the second. Coming their way. She smelled it, and when she closed her eyes she saw it: the purple sun, the radiant spot in her eyelids, of a demon’s Essence. Burning mana much brighter than before.
That was enough for her to lock on to. That was enough for her to banish. The Kynigos was an assassin; it had known how to conceal its Essence, known how to make it difficult to track when it first confronted them. But now it was done with its attempts at infiltration, and now—
It was coming for the gate.
“Get back!” she shouted. “Away from the gate!”
All those inside listened to her. They fell back toward the throne, Khelidon and several others fled directly out of the great hall, and not a second later there came a thump. The gate was hit by a battering ram; it shuddered within its frame, knocked inward by immense force. A moment, and then another hit came, and then another, and another, until finally with a tremendous gust the gate was blown off its hinges.
It flew across the room, tumbling over itself. Eris ducked as the shadow passed above her. It collided with the columns between the great hall and ballroom with a metallic explosion.
The figure of Astera stood where the gate once hung.
Now her eyes were violet bonfires. Her skin coursed with purple mana. Behind her was the castle’s bailey, and within the writhing bodies of the handful of guards Rook had stationed outside for early warning against any future assault.
They had made it near the gate, but not fast enough. Yet they were all still alive.
Now Eris felt the demon’s Essence clearly. It was more exposed than ever. Ajax took a single step forward, but an invisible hand grabbed him by the waist, lifted him in the air, and tossed him against a column. He fell tumbled to the ground. The demon went to do the same to Rook, but Eris stepped in its way, and she reached out with the glove to dispel any projection of telekinesis.
The Kynigos was deterred for only a moment, but that was enough. Eris let out a fireball. It shot from the tip of her staff and collided with the demon’s body as though it were solid, engulfing it in flames—
The fire cleared. There was no damage. Magic did nothing against this creature.
The demon approached unrelentingly.
“I need time,” Eris said.
Rook nodded. “Run,” he said. “Run! Up the stairs! Go!”
Aletheia hesitated—she was disgusted by what she saw, clearly, and she wanted to fight back, but there was no way to get close and she knew it. Even if she and Rook both charged at once, one of them would be incinerated, and they would still have not succeeded in the exorcism.
Rook grabbed Eris by the arm and tugged her after him, sprinting to the ballroom’s staircase. Aletheia went first. She slipped through the door, ushering Eris and Rook after her—and while Eris didn’t see the demon behind her, she saw the expression in Aletheia’s face, the widening of her eyes, and it was only as she reached the threshold behind Rook and helped him push the door shut that she turned and saw the orb of purple fire shooting toward them, that she felt the spell crackling through the air, and it was much too large to dispel with her gauntlet—
A golden forcefield appeared within the ballroom. The orb hit it less than a second later, and the whole of the ballroom and the great hall was consumed by burning mana, by an immolation of fire and a rush of energy that sucked the oxygen from the staircase.
Rook didn’t stick around to watch. He pushed the door shut and latched it. Then Eris sealed it with Hold Portal, ensuring that nothing save complete destruction would ever see it opened again.
“Keep going! Upstairs!” Rook said. Aletheia led the way.
Eris tried to work as she moved. She used the staff to pull forth mana, used the focus to store it, and she remembered the impression the exorcism spell left on her Essence. It would be easier this time in one respect: she had used it before, and she could rely on the memory of that use to guide her will.
Her lungs burned as she sprinted up the stairs.
“Where are we going?” Aletheia said.
“I need time,” Eris said again. She still felt the demon beneath them; it was following, homing after them—after her. “To the top of the keep.”
“How long do you need?” Rook said. His voice remained steady while Eris grew exhausted.
“I do not know. Longer. Time to focus.”
“It can break down doors!” Aletheia said.
“There’s nowhere it can’t reach. It—” He stopped for a moment, letting Eris pass him on the stairs before following after her. “I’ll distract her. When she comes for you, I’ll distract her. That will buy you time.”
She grabbed him by the collar. For a moment she glared into his eyes. “You will do nothing of the kind. You will stay with me.” Then up the stairs again. “The Kynigos has the power to kill us at a great distance; we must stay out of its range. You will not distract it. We will not confront it until it is vulnerable.”
Now they were all panting. When Eris closed her eyes she saw the demon’s Essence, that violet sun, and she had already begun stripping away its anchoring to the mortal world. But when she opened her eyes, when she moved again, she had to put it all on pause—she couldn’t run and perform this ritual at the same time. She needed to sit down and concentrate.
They reached the top of the stairs. The duke’s quarters. The hallway where Eris fought the Custodians with Khelidon. Aletheia led them to Rook’s bedroom, there was nowhere else to go, but its heavy doors might provide some protection. They rushed inside.
Eris sat on the bed. “This will do. The demon still approaches. Ensure the door remains closed.”
“She’s going to melt it open!” Aletheia said.
“There is no choice!” Now she closed her eyes, but suddenly Rook grabbed her, pulling her to her feet.
“Better idea,” Rook said. “Into the vault. That will keep her away.”
He found the enchanted brick along the walls, just like Khelidon had, and drew a prick of his own blood. He tapped it—and the secret passage into the duke’s vault opened.
Eris smiled at him. He was not so ape-like after all. She had forgotten entirely. She rushed inside, and the rest of them followed after her.
----------------------------------------
A mechanism on the other side allowed Rook to seal the vault from within. Eris wasted no time; she sat in the center of the vault, now cleared out of most everything except Lord Arqa’s sword and a few other artifacts from their travels, and she focused on her ritual.
No soulcharm this time. No Manastone diadem. Only herself and her staff. She needed to channel a vast amount of mana toward this demon, blowing away all that bound it to this world.
She had a head-start. The arcane focus was already charged; it spun about its axis a dozen times per second, glowing green above her palm. Keeping the energy stored within took more concentration than she could spare, but there was no choice. She held it back with a muscle in her mind and focused on the approaching scent of the demon. Lord Arqa had smelled like a graveyard, like soil and decay mixed together after rainfall; the Kynigos was different. The Kynigos had a scent more akin to bludgeoning perfume. It overwhelmed her senses, dulling her mind, distracting her, but she had to block it out—even while keeping her gaze transfixed.
The purple sun grew closer. It was on their level now, approaching down the hall.
She began the exorcism. She let the mana slip from the arcane focus. She blasted away the elf shell that concealed the true identity of this demon.
The blue sun flickered. Like blowing out a candle, except the candle was a burning building. Some of the fire danced at her breath, but it made no difference. Not yet. She needed more.
The channeling continued. She poured forth more mana on the flame. With enough time the demon’s Essence would be extinguished: its inner core would be revealed. She just needed time.
“I can feel it,” Aletheia said.
“How far?” Rook asked.
Several seconds passed. “It’s outside the vault. It knows we’re here.”
“It must be following Eris—like my compass. Eris?”
“Be quiet,” she hissed.
She felt it. Now beyond the vault’s door. In her bedroom. Standing twenty feet away, through the corridor.
More mana onto the sun…
The walls shook. The black bricks of the castle rocked. The foundation of the keep trembled like an earthquake.
“What’s she doing?” Rook said.
“She’s trying to get us! Hurry up!” Aletheia shrieked.
More and more mana through the staff. Eris pulled down as much as she could. Energy coursed through her veins. Every inch of her skin became numb, yet still she felt hot power flowing through her blood, its streams lightning rods for the Aether through her body, to her fingers, connected to her mind and soul, then focused outward toward her target. With the demon so close, casting this spell so nearby, she could feel her ritual making more and more of a difference, but it wasn’t enough: she needed much more magic. She needed Manastone.
The shaking grew worse. A shelf collapsed. A brick tumbled out from the wall. A stone fell down onto Eris’ shoulder, but she maintained her concentration.
“I need…” Eris said. “More mana. More time.”
Her eyes were firmly shut. The rumbling roar of the vault around them deafened her; her words were lost. She heard a crash, and then—
A small hand grasped hers. The next breath she took was made with new invigoration. When she opened her eyes she saw Aletheia sitting next to her, focusing hard, opening herself to the Aether—and channeling her essence into Eris.
Eris tightened her grip on Aletheia’s hand. She let the arcane focus hovering above her palm fall down to the ground, deactivated; she wouldn’t need it any longer. Her Essence was amplified twofold. She felt so much more powerful, like she had tapped into an entire new world of magic, and now she knew she could banish this Kynigos, this Hunter in their bedroom—
The enchanted passageway crumbled onto itself. The bricks fell to the ground, and through a small tunnel Eris saw the Kynigos looking back at her with violet eyes. It stepped onto the rubble as the earthquake ceased and it approached, melting bricks in its path with magic, turning them to ash.
Rook interposed himself.
Eris closed her eyes.
She blew as hard as she could. The sun would be extinguished now, no matter what, with her breath. She threw bucket after bucket of mana onto the Kynigos’ Essence, and before her eyes she watched the violet beacon against her eyelids fade, and fade, and fade; she watched as she peeled away the exterior, exposing whatever demon lurked beneath; she flaked away the skin of Astera, and—
She was drawn into the air. Aletheia’s hand slipped from hers. The last thing she saw was Astera in the corridor with an arm extended out toward Rook; he was raised into the air, too, lifted off his feet, his sword knocked from his hands, powerless against the Kynigos’ magic. The demon approached him. Immobilized him. Raised the other hand to place it on his heart, certain to suck out his soul—
Then Eris’ lungs emptied. A pulse of green mana shot from her heart, sweeping through the keep.
She dropped her staff and fell back down to the ground. She lurched over, coughing, tasting blood in her mouth. She threw up onto herself.
Aletheia grabbed her and pulled her upright. She opened her eyes just in time to see Rook tumble to the ground after her. He landed on his knees, and when he looked up, the figure of Astera was gone.
The true outline of the Kynigos stood before him.
----------------------------------------
The Essence of the Kynigos in Astera’s body had been bright. It had been powerful. It had been easy to detect, once it was resigned to wielding magic against them. But it was nothing like the creature before them now. The true form of the aethereal demon was so bright that it appeared the same to Eris with her eyes opened as it did with her eyes closed. She saw it against her Essence no matter where she looked. She felt it everywhere around her.
It was too bright. Almost impossible to make out. Only after seconds of staring could she see the shape in the manner it must have appeared to Rook, to any non-magician.
It was a featureless mass. An inverted teardrop of opaque purple. It had no legs but sat suspended above a cloud of darkness that flickered with blue and violet light, oozing mana wherever it went. Two eyes burned in the middle of its torso, lambent and glowing just like Astera’s had been when the demon’s true intentions were revealed, and its only appendages were two spectral arms.
Eris tried to stand, but she collapsed. Manarashes formed across her skin. She threw up again. Aletheia left her side and helped Rook up.
The Kynigos lurched one step toward Rook—
He grabbed a sword from the ground and cut at it. He sliced away at a tendril of mana protruding from its arm and it hissed in pain, reeling backward. It lurched closer again, but its eyes lowered to the blade in Rook’s hands; it hesitated to see its point. When he stepped forward, it retreated back.
Rook looked down at the sword in his hands. It wasn’t his family blade. It wasn’t Aletheia’s, either.
It was Lord Arqa’s sword. The tremors had knocked it over, off its perch, and rolled it toward him. But he wasn’t questioning anything now; he kept up his pursuit, and the demon fled backward, until they both arrived in Rook’s bedchamber.
Eris crawled after them.
The Kynigos’ eyes looked between Rook and now Aletheia at his side. Silently considering them. It could still use magic—still, at a moment’s notice, incinerate them all. But it didn’t. Instead it turned. It turned not toward the room’s entrance, but toward the room’s balcony, toward its windows that overlooked Katharos on the dark horizon. For a moment it gazed at the city. And then…
It disengaged Rook, and it drifted directly toward the balcony.
“Get back here!” Rook shouted. He lunged after it, but as his sword made contact with its back, the blade hit only glass: the demon had phased through the solid material. For a moment it lingered on the other side, but then it vanished into darkness, disappearing into the night.
It was no longer bound to a corporeal body.
“What’s it doing? Where’s it going?” Aletheia asked.
Rook watched the window for a moment, waiting for it to return, but when it was clear they were alone, he rushed to Eris and grabbed her, embracing her and lifting her up into the bed. She gagged at the sudden change in elevation.
“Eris.” He looked her in the eyes. “Are you okay?”
She felt very sick. The final burst of energy had tapped her too greatly. She overcast. She wrapped her arms around Rook’s torso and let her head fall against him. Gathering her thoughts. Stilling her mind.
She was still not too far gone to think, however, that she was a marvelous magician.
“Eris,” he said again. He ran a hand through her hair. “What happened? Why did it leave?”
Another moment. She felt more composed. But she shook her head. “It recognized Lord Arqa’s sword. Knew it for the blade that slew one of its cousins. It fled rather than face it.”
“But it’s a hunter. You said it was coming for your soul,” Aletheia said. “Why would it leave us? It could have killed us, we were trapped—"
“I was wrong,” Eris groaned off-handedly. But then she recoiled. No. Of course not. She wasn’t wrong. She was never wrong. “The spell—the mark that was placed on me. I must have lifted it. The Kynigos is summoned to hunt down a single mortal soul; I freed it from its directive.”
“But it wasn’t banished. It left,” Rook said. “Out through the wall. We didn’t kill it.”
“Now ‘tis one of many rogue demons in this world,” Eris said. She collapsed backward onto the bed. “The Gray Council have failed to control it. Their pet runs free. And I—am alive. We have won.”
“It might come back,” Aletheia said.
“If it does, I will banish it again.”
“This is our chance to kill it,” Rook said.
“It would have killed you, had it not been for my intervention and good luck,” Eris said. “We have won. Leave it at that.”
Silence. Rook traced Eris’ arm with his fingers. At length he said, “Souls.”
“What of them?” Eris groaned.
“That’s what the Kynigos consumes. Souls. Like a vampire.”
“That is what I said.”
He looked to Aletheia. “It left when it saw Katharos. It left when—” He jumped to his feet. “Why bother fighting three armed adventurers with enchanted weapons, when an entire city of innocent, unsuspecting civilians lies at our feet?”
“It’s going to Katharos,” Aletheia whispered.
Rook stared at her. Then he said, “We have to stop it.”
Eris turned to her side. “What?”
“No one else knows it’s coming. We have to go, now. You can track it, can’t you? Then let’s not waste more time.”
He didn’t waste time. He grabbed Lord Arqa’s sword and rushed out into the hall. Eris did her best to follow after him.
“Rook!” she screamed. “Are you mad?”
“Not presently,” he said without looking back to her.
“The demon is gone! We are safe! We ‘have to’ do nothing!”
“How many citizens will the demon we’ve just set loose kill? How many souls will it take before it’s stopped tonight?”
“I do not care,” she said.
They were near the stairs now. He stopped and turned to her. “Those are our people!”
“‘Twas not I who summoned the demon. Lay the blame at the feet of the Gray Council, or whoever else is responsible. And leave this task to the Cult Custodians!”
“They don’t know it’s coming, Eris. They could take a day to respond, and by then—we saw what it did. It could kill a thousand people in that time.”
“Yes! We saw what it did! It will do the same to you, if you chase after it. Why do you think you can face it down now?”
“I have to.”
“Rook! Listen to me! If you seek after this demon—it will kill you! You cannot go!”
“We’ve slain one vampire before. We’ll slay another.”
“No! Lord Arqa was a madman, and he allowed himself to fight in the sun, where he was vulnerable. This demon will make no such mistake. And you forget what that victory cost us, Rook. How many dead? And the final fight cost Astera her life, before she gave it away willingly for Aletheia. You were nearly killed, and so was I.”
“Eris!” he said. “I’m a duke of the city, It’s my job to protect its people. I don’t care what happens, I’m going. I’ll tell the Cult, I’ll scramble the guards, I’ll signal an evacuation—and I’ll pay whatever price I need to pay.”
She grabbed him weakly. Staring into his eyes. “You will die.”
“This is my duty as a vassal of the Archon. I can’t hide while a demon comes to attack the very people I swore to protect”
“Our duty is to each other; no one else matters!”
“I love you more than anyone else in the world, Eris. But you aren’t the only life I care about protecting.”
“You cannot possibly be suggesting this—Rook!” she pleaded with him, “we have won! This battle is over! You cannot risk your life simply because you wish to play the hero!”
He grabbed her back. “I won’t stay here and let others die in my place.”
“Better them than you!”
He shook his head. “If you don’t want to come—then stay here.”
“I am spellsick, you idiot! I cannot come even if I was mad enough to want to! You—you fool! How can you possibly be—no one can possibly be this stupid! You absolute imbecilic—I will not let you go!”
“What did you think those oaths I took during my coronation meant? Do you think I was lying when I took it on my honor I’d keep the people of the city safe?”
“Yes! What is your honor worth, Rook? It is meaningless! Surely it is not more to you than me?”
He shook his head. Rejecting the question outright. “I’m going.”
“No! Wait here! We have won! Why do you not understand!” Eris felt more suddenly histrionic than she ever had in her life. She was furious, and all at once she was terrified. “Do not leave me, Rook! The Kynigos is our problem no longer! Forget it! Let it go! If you do not—then we are done! You cannot possibly think that this—this is acceptable? You cannot—” Her voice was clogged with tears. She lost control of herself. “Obey me!”
Aletheia grabbed Rook by the arm. “Please listen to her,” she whispered. “We saw—you don’t know what it can do. You can’t stop it, Rook. Please. You have to stay here.”
He looked at Aletheia for a long time. “I love you,” he said. “I love you both, so much. But there isn’t time for this.”
He took one step toward the stairs—but hesitated. There was time for something, it seemed, because he grabbed Eris by the waist and brought her in close against his chest, and he kissed her. It was a long, slow, awful kiss, that reminded Eris of precisely how pointless it was for him to leave her now, for him to go after a demon that posed him no threat for the sake of a people he did not know.
Then he ran down the stairs.
Aletheia lingered for a minute. Her breathing quickened. She hesitated, then she sprinted after him—and Eris was let alone.
She felt hatred for Rook then. Ire unimaginable that he would abandon her like this, risking so much for so little. She would kill him when he returned. That fury washed away all her sorrow and fear, and it gave her the conviction to follow after him.
But it was a very long way down to the first floor of the keep for someone who felt as hideously ill as she did. By the time she finally reached the great hall, he and Aletheia were long gone.