Edward

I don't know if I'm chasing or fleeing. I am doing exactly what Lillith asked, begged me to do. What she risked everything to give me the chance to do. But... I still feel like I'm a terrified child, running while Henry is taken. Because the man I am leaving my little sister with is more dangerous than the men I am chasing. I could feel it in the air even without his mana on me. Even as he fell to the ground with his flesh charred and his tunic burning. I could feel it. He wasn't dead. He was still dangerous. And Lillith is going to be fighting for her life.

And I am powerless to help her. Even if I stay, it will just waste her efforts. But I can't get the image of that coward out of my head. That arrogant child, leaving his little brother behind. Hiding behind bravado when I thought he was dead. I need to focus. The best way to help Lily is to get the spikes, and get back to her. I can't think about who I am chasing. I can't think about my father. I just have to catch the other man and get the spikes back. I can't fly like I've seen Lillith do, but it doesn't seem like my enemies can either. Instead, I create quick bursts of wind behind each step, pushing me further and faster than I'd be able to manage otherwise.

Unfortunately, both men I am pursuing have their own tricks. Dad looks over his shoulder at me before exchanging words with his companion, then abruptly stops before turning and looking at me. He stops and waits, and I groan. I really don't want to do this. My wind pushes me forward anyway. He is glaring at me with a deep disdain I know I could never climb my way out of. As the gap closes my heart pounds and my stomach twists, like I'm a child on his way to be reprimanded. When I am ten paces from him and his red mana forms into hot flames, I create a huge burst of wind beneath me to vault over him, hopefully avoiding the confrontation altogether.

I tried so hard with him. I really wanted it to all be a mistake. I knew he was working with Darian. I knew he was angry. But I wanted my memories to be wrong. The genuine happiness when Lily was hurt. The moment I realized I admired a small, sad man. Or at least the moment I began to suspect it. I spent my entire childhood waiting to be my father. Worshipping him. Emulating him. Twisted branches of wood try to tangle around me as I leap over him and I have to knock all of them away with wind.

I wanted to be my father so, so badly. He was my entire world. A pillar my life revolved around. He was what I wanted to be for Lily. A protector. A provider. A mountain to provide shade and protect her from the winds of the world. I didn't respond well, when she grew taller than me. Not literally but... I knew I would never provide her with shade again. I modeled my response after my fathers when he realized the same. Petty attempts to hammer her back down. To maintain my status above her with excuses and insults. I thought it was alright. Good, even. I thought I would someday be vindicated in all of it, because my father was the same. Because he was above reproach. Because he couldn't be wrong and if I was careful to step where he had stepped, neither could I.

Then I saw his face, after he tried to marry Lily to the man who beat her behind a church. I saw his smirk at her blood and her pain. And I saw his rage at Mom. And I felt the filth of my admiration rising up my throat and crawling across my skin. A wall of wood is waiting for me as I make it through his first spell, and I am finally forced to stop. I have to cushion my impact against the wall and then cobblestone with wind. I stand in front of it and pound a frustrated fist against the side. The image of the first man I killed flashes through my head. I can't do that to my father. I can't. I don't know if I have the stomach to do that to anyone.

But as I turn, fire surrounds him and I see that same look of disdain. And Lily is fighting for her life. I can't waste time on him. I need to end this all in a single spell and continue chasing the riot spikes. "I was so proud of you, Edward. I wanted to be proud of you more than anything. To watch you grow into a man. You will never understand the disappointment you have left me with. The emptiness when you turned on me, in favor of the child who destroyed our family. You were so promising. So bright. And you had a chance to bring our family back together. To do what even I couldn't. And now... now I have to... You'll never understand," my father lectures. I have to fight the quivering that tries to take control of my lip.

I wanted the same thing he did, really. A chance to bring the family back together. I knew I would fail, but if he hadn't been so determined to kill Lily... I don't know. I hoped he could be convinced to let go. I was. Part of me still wants to believe I can, if I could just stop him long enough to really talk. But Lily's life depends on me. For all my worries about inferiority. For all my panic about not being trustworthy, she did trust me with our lives. With her life. And, unfortunately, Dad's allies clearly didn't trust him as much. However impressive he thinks his fire is... his mana is weak. They gave it to him as a collar, not a weapon. He is with them to trap Lily and me, and nothing more.

So I am able to overpower him. Not easily enough. I still have to fight for it. And the last hope I have for him dies with that. Not weak enough to subdue but spare, at least not quickly. Not powerful enough to delay me without it being willful on my part. My mana climbs from the ground and strangles his. "I wanted you to be proud of me too, Dad. I loved you so much. Admired you so much," I reply. He summons all his mana. His mana which flares with the water running down my cheeks, but remains too weak. The glass aspect forms all around him. "You are wrong. I understand that disappointment. It is etched into me where my pride once stood."

"What are you doing? Stop this now, Edward! Stop this now!" he demands. He still sounds like he is lecturing a child. And the glass solidifies. Not in a thousand shards, but in a single, uneven pillar. I couldn't leave my father like the shredded meat the last man I fought ended up as. Instead, he dies in the glass. Still. Unmoving. Forever looking down his nose at me. Forever waiting for the respect he is owed as my father. I was like him, for a while. I was just like him. But he lived and died the same way. Frozen in time. And I couldn't live like that.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

I turn and leave him there. I have no time to grieve what I've just done. No time to clear the water from my eyes. I have to keep moving. Maybe, in some small way, I can at least feed Lily's mana a little more now.

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Henry

Autumn and I run through the city. We both run as fast as we can. I barely know how to find the building Ed told us about, but we have no choice. The plan has already gone wrong. "Is anyone still trying to contact her?" I ask the sphere I grip tightly in one hand as we run.

"Yes, but neither she nor Edward are answering!" The woman on the other end cries. Shit. Shit shit shit. She was so careful. Ed was so careful. And then she tells someone about the plan at the last minute? Shit! Whose side is the spy on? I have to hope it's Godfrey. If Darian catches wind of this somehow... Godfrey will at least want Lillith alive. Maybe. It's Godfrey, it has to be Godfrey.

"It's Godfrey, right, Autumn?" I beg "The fucking traitor went to Godfrey, right?". I know she doesn't know. I just need reassurance. I need to know. She looks down quietly instead of responding. She has been quiet since we got the call. Something is wrong, but we don't have time to address it. We stop at a four-way intersection in the road. Where did Ed say it was? Where did... Right, that way. Toward the wall. I grab Autumn's hand and run as hard as I can. As I do, I realize I need to rely on Ed's crap directions less and less. But it's not a relief.

I look back at Autumn and see it on her face as well. The pressure. We are approaching a powerful mage. A mage powerful enough that Lily never would have willingly fought them in the city. The pressure grows like a sweltering summer day and it becomes difficult to run. Eventually, we can't anymore, but we do find our destination. Not only does it look exactly like Ed described and emanate that foul aura of power but... there seem to be a few men hiding nearby. Not just any men but... priests? Fortunately, their focus is on the building itself rather than anything in our direction or they would have spotted me immediately.

So not guards then. Autumn and I duck behind an old restaurant nearby. "What do you think they are doing here?" I whisper. She looks at me with wide eyes.

"I- I don't..." she trails. She is having trouble focusing. I am scared too, but there has to be something under all of it. Neither of us are exactly 'punchy' as Lily would say, but... she is somewhere else entirely. I put my hands on her shoulders and look her in the eyes.

"Please. Autumn. I love you. But my sister needs help, and you know more about things like the church than I do. Please. Why would they be here?" I ask again. Her breathing is heavy and her eyes flick back and forth for a moment before finally locking on mine.

"I... priests are healers. They may have brought them as healers," she finally replies. Well, that wasn't a part of Lily's plan, so...

"So they are here so, what? They can heal any wounds they get in a confrontation?" I ask.

"M-maybe? I don't really understand divine magic. What do we do?" she asks.

"I don't know. Knock them out maybe? I figure if the owner of this aura wants them here, we don't, right?" I respond.

"W-what if they are here to heal Lillith and Edward, like... to take them prisoner?" She suggests. Shit. I don't know.

"I don't know. I don't think they would need to, right? Shit... I think... I think we have to make a call here," I reply. "Sitting here isn't going to help anything. We have to guess..."

"And then do what? You'll hit them with acid? Kill a couple divine mages? There could be more than the ones we see, Henry," she counters. Shit, she's right. At least she is present now.

"My mana's not really that kind of acid, I can't kill anyone with it. But we have to do something!" I answer. I have water mana as well but... I am not practiced in combat. I use magic for alchemy.

"What about a potion then? Anything to knock them out?" Autumn asks. I mentally catalog the potions I brought with me.

"I uh, I have an anesthetic but it has to be ingested. And I have green mist," I suggest. The response to this is the most ordinary 'Autumn' she has been all day.

"Why in the third plane did you bring green mist? What's the plan? Get them too high to heal?" she asks. I shrug.

"It's got Lily's poison in it. We can't activate it, but she's used it to kill people before. Maybe we can use it to give her an advantage!" I suggest. Autumn looks like she is going to protest when the door of the building literally flies off its hinges and a furious, bloodied man with one arm storms out. The priests jump and run to meet him. As Autumn suspected, more than the few we could see end up swarming around him. Eight in total, it seems.

"You said you could keep her alive longer than that!" He snarls to the priest's terror.

"We have been trying, your Majesty," one of them begs. "It's not working on her! We don't know why!"

"Do you know how hard it's going to be to stop this fucking rebellion without her?" the man snarls. That must be Darian. "Get in there, all of you, and bring her back!" He snaps. Back? What does he mean back?

"Your Majesty, the Collector gives us power, but bringing back the dead..." the priest protests.

"She wouldn't be dead if you hadn't convinced me of the wonders of your damn magic. So go fix your mistake, or join it," Darian orders. "Except you four. She did something to me, and you and every other priest in the church are going to fix it!" With that, and without waiting for a response, he explodes in deep red mana, leaving only the four remaining priests behind. My heart tries to beat out of my chest as the remaining priests rush into the building in his wake.

"No, they're not..." I whisper. Autumn bites her lip and I look at her desperately. "Please... please can you..." I trail. She looks at me in terror, but hesitantly nods. She sneaks up to the side of the building, and I follow. We make it to a window but neither of us wants to look inside. I give Autumn another desperate look and she clenches her eyes shut for a moment, gripping her blouse with one hand. Then, slowly, she gets up on the balls of her feet and peeks through the window. The strangled shriek she chokes back hits me like a landslide.

She falls backward and holds one hand over her mouth in horror while her eyes bulge. My heart is in my stomach. I have to see. "Wait, Henry," she protests in a whisper as I peek inside myself. Ed is nowhere to be seen. But the priests huddle around a woman I know well. Lillith lies in a pool of water and blood. Her right arm has been brutally severed at the shoulder. Her right leg is the same at the knee. I see her left foot, casually thrown to the side in its own pool. A sword protrudes from her gut, pinning her to the ground. She is completely motionless, and her open eyes are empty. She is dead.