Lillith

I let out an exhausted breath. I feel like a dried out can of paint. Darian is dead. Victory cost an arm and a leg, but it was still victory, and the whole country knows it. I am so tired, and in so much pain. If it weren't for the blood of the headless corpse next to me, I'd be tempted to take a cat nap on this damn fountain. I'd love to pack it up and go home for the day, but there is still so much work to do. So many people must have died in the areas I couldn't protect. I warned as many people as I could. But my sound mana wouldn't reach everywhere, especially not the centers of the dispersal circles.

There are people that need help. And, unfortunately, there are still dangerous elements in the city. I don't know where Godfrey or Kallon are. Or any other mage that might decide what they just witnessed was a job opening. Godfrey was king last I checked, so it's possible he is dead. Kallon too, for all I know. But... I have to know. I also don't know if Edward is alive, or what happened to my father. I take a step and let out an agonized grunt as the poorly constructed prosthetic bites into barely healed skin at the new end of my leg. Fuck. Just call me Lillith of Endings a little too early. Yeah, I think floating around with force mana may be the way to go for a bit.

Accordingly, I lift myself from the ground with mana and release the tension on my legs. The pain doesn't fade, nor does the migraine it is bringing with it. In fact, as the green mist fades from my system, the pain is presenting itself more urgently, like a child desperate for attention. It is growing more difficult to focus on anything else. But focus I must because life isn't fair and god is dead. Or maybe because I give a shit. One of the two. Either way, I have to ignore the protests of my abused body and move as quickly as I can. I decide to head toward the palace, considering it the most likely place to find any remnants of royalty on either side, and probably where Ed ended up.

I still feel sick. The city is filled with pillars of igneous, anywhere a circle was drawn on the ground instead of a wall. They can be seen for miles, surrounding the great tree of the Radiant Woods. The tree which is probably, finally, unguarded. I could sure use a path to Sara's hat shop from there. I know not enough people escaped. This was too heavy a cost. This was not what I planned. I may have won, but it was a heavy victory. A victory with thousands of casualties. I can feel they didn't escape. My grief mana is still being fed far more than it should. The death in the sky is gone. The man who was threatening them is dead. But they are still grieving.

I still feel like a corpse. Any sense of accomplishment is strangled by the cost. All I can feel is miserable. My girlfriend is literally locked up in a dungeon. My brother is in danger. I am surrounded by the pained wailing of the families of the dead. And I am missing a few pieces. The shreds of loose flesh hanging from my wounds still sting somehow. I am starting to suspect Darian was unqualified to be performing amputations. I keep moving anyway, focusing on the palace in the distance. I feel like I am moving urgently. I am halfway across the city, only a few moments after killing Darian. But I'm not. Not enough. A bright, furious light shines from the highest tower of the palace. At the same time, the world grows muddy around me, like the air itself is made of wet sand.

Everything seems to blur and I feel a sense of... rejection. Like I have become unwelcome in my body. I mean, I can't blame it, considering what my choices have done to it. Still, it's my body. I can't be unwelcome in my own body. My skin begins to vibrate like the city around me has turned into some kind of shady carnival ride. I fix my eyes on the light. It's not mana. I can feel that in an instant. That feeling of too much blood being drawn starts in my fingers and crawls up my arm. Divine magic. Or nexus energy. Whatever you want to call it, I recognize the feeling instantly. It brings me back to a bedroom, years ago where a dead man tried to hurt me with it.

Now I truly move. I hadn't realized how much I was letting the pain and misery distract me before. I owe Ed an apology for that when I see him. Because I don't know what is happening, but it is some of the most powerful divine magic I have ever felt. And I can feel that I do not want whatever it is trying to do to me. I have something of a spider sense for that sort of entitled ill intent trying to control me. I call it 'being a woman'. I increase the power of the force mana propelling me and fly back into the air where I can easily avoid any of the horizontal circles still trying to limit my abilities. The vertical ones are easy to avoid now, at least. Even if the reason makes me sick to my stomach.

I need to use air mana to prevent air resistance as the speed I travel threatens to send me back to unconsciousness. I feel phantom limbs curl in pain as the excruciating protests of my injuries try to slow me down. I have no time to be slowed down. I have come too far. Too many people have lost too much. Whatever this is, I will stop it. The light grows brighter as I approach and the world swims into itself, like I'm looking at it from underwater. I see visions of similarly confused allies across the country. Volunteers, staggering. I see Autumn, my mother, and even Ed, who I am pleased to see alive, if heavily injured. These flash before my eyes at lightspeed as I travel. It feels like ages but it is only a few seconds before I arrive at the source, standing on top of an open watchtower.

It's Godfrey. Of course it is Godfrey. This was always coming. I knew it was coming. I kind of hoped it wouldn't, but I knew it would. He is tightly gripping a tall staff, the source of the bright light. I slow and hover over the tower, catching his desperate, pained eyes. He sees me as well, and falters, the light dissipating for a moment. The world rights itself as he does, and I can see tears running down his cheeks, sparkling in his beard.

"Nice walking stick, Gandalf. Whatcha doing with it?" I ask. He sighs.

"As usual, I have no idea what in the three planes you are talking about," He replies. "What... happened to you? Lillith... you look worse than I do."

I look down at my right shoulder. "Fell down the stairs," I answer glibly. "Come on, man. What is that? I don't remember you being a divine mage. If you had the kind of power I just felt, Baldwin never would have given me any trouble. Hell, I'd never have met you at all. What are you doing?" He looks down, weariness evident in his shoulders and head. He seems to be favoring his left side as well.

"Does it matter?" he asks. "I can just go somewhere else, you know. With my space mana. I'll be gone in an instant. You can't stop this, no matter what it is." I raise an eyebrow at him.

"Well, see, I don't think that's true," I dismiss.

"And why is that?" he probes.

"Well, old man," I begin, "if that were true, you wouldn't have started here in the first place. I'm fairly certain you saw my own light show a moment ago. Yet you still chose this spot for your own. Why start here in the first place if you had no reason to? It just drew my attention."

Godfrey sighs again, leaning against the stone side of the tower. "Perhaps I didn't know it would be so visible," he offers.

I laugh, then lower myself to sit on the same stone lip he is leaning against. "That would honestly be hilarious, and I kind of hope it's the case. But it wouldn't matter. Because, well, that's not how space works, I'm afraid," I inform him. He looks at me with a furrowed brow.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

"What do you mean by that?" he asks and I shrug.

"Space. You said it was space mana, right? Well, space doesn't allow physical matter to move instantaneously. Only information, really. And the aspects you would need to make that work, never mind the mana quantity, are beyond even you. Basically, you can't go anywhere because your space aspect is bullshit," I lecture. He laughs humourlessly.

"Lillith, I have been using space mana for longer than you've been alive. I know how space works," he replies.

"You thought you knew how space works," I correct. "Now you know you were wrong. Even if you can get it to work, it's going to take a lot more out of you." He shakes his head.

"You think I will just take your word for it? How would you even know that? An apprentice telling me my aspect is wrong isn't going to break it, Lillith," he retorts.

"Yeah. Yeah, it will. Maybe not entirely, but doubt and mana aspects don't mix well. And here's the thing. You and I share a fatal weakness. A weakness a lot of people have paid for in blood, I think," I answer, gesturing to the ruined city behind me. Godfrey looks down toward the palace with some trouble of his own on his mind.

"We are friends, of a sort," he guesses. "We respect each other. We want to believe in each other on some level. We will gamble on what the other does. Is that what you mean?" I nod, then grimace.

"You tried to get the circle to work, didn't you?" I hazard my own guess. He looks down in guilt. "Well. Did you?" He shakes his head.

"I managed to fake it. To fool the other nobles. By using it on a stone tablet, and enlisting priests to stop it from destroying itself. It made for a good show. But no. It never truly worked." he answers honestly. "How did you get it to work for you?"

I shrug. "I'm not sure. I kind of didn't. It's sort of been killing me, lately. Just a delayed reaction for some reason," I reply. He rubs the back of his head.

"So it really was hopeless all along," he responds. "I've been a fool. A coward. As terrible a king as all who came before me."

"All kings always are," I reply. It breaks my heart to know he actually did what I thought he might. So reckless. So... evil. He's always had a little of that noble entitlement, just under the surface. I remember the anger that used to bubble up at the wrong joke. But I still wanted to believe in him. He was my friend. But now... now he is just another king that needs to die. Still. Ed is still alive, it seems. We have a moment. "I don't suppose you have another wineskin on you?" I ask.

He laughs, and pulls just that out of his robe, tossing it to me. I catch it easily, only slightly aided by force mana, and open it to take a drink. "I don't suppose you have a danish?" he counters. I chuckle.

"Sorry, had it in my other hand," I reply, before tossing the skin back to him for his own drink. "So. What's it do?"

He looks wearily at the staff, still standing upright entirely on its own. "It sets things right. Or so I'm told. Grants a deeply held desire. A wish, if you will. I remember your fondness for fairy tales. It has a century's worth of divine magic stored in it. All to set things straight. To bring my people back to Potestia. To make it whole again. It will cost me my life. But it will make my country whole again. And Leave Dominic in charge to heal it," he answers. I sniff.

"We never should have been friends, should we?" I ask. "Look what it's left us with. What it's done to the people around us. Both of us, so desperate to convince the other to change something that never will. And here we are. You know I can't let you do this, right?"

He nods as he moves close to me, this time handing me the wine instead of tossing it. I take another drink. "But I still have to do it, you understand. You're right. I can't flee. But it doesn't matter. It's already started. It will protect me from you, until it's done. That's what they told me anyway. I'm sorry. I know you believed you were helping. But look out there. You are as dangerous as I am. This country is better off whole, and without either of us in it." He finishes by holding a hand out, and I return his wine.

"So. Why did you stop when I showed up?" I question. He smiles at me.

"We have a weakness, you and I," he echoes. I nod.

"So it will stop me from harming you, will it? And what if I try to use it instead?" I ask. His eyebrows try to reach his hairline.

"I... don't know. But I won't stop what I am doing, even if you do. And it will kill us both," he replies uncertainly. I look up at the sky for a moment. There are specks of ash in the air from my last fight. Then I look over my shoulder at the ruined city. Finally, I shrug, and hop down, landing painfully on my makeshift legs. I look skeptically at Godfrey for a moment, then try to pick him up with force mana. Light flickers from the staff dissipating my mana before it reaches him.

"Well, fuck. Had to try," I lament. Then I wrap my one hand around the staff. "I guess we are going to see what happens." Godfrey looks at me with glassy eyes, before hobbling over and placing his hand a little above mine.

"Goodbye, Lillith," He says. "Thank you for giving me my life back, for a while. I'm sorry I was a disappointment afterward." I nod.

"Goodbye, Godfrey," I reply. "I wish... different choices had been made. Maybe in another life, we can be a different kind of friend. People that have any right caring about each other."

"Do you think there are other lives, after this one? Doesn't seem like the sort of thing you would believe."

"Yeah, well. I have a good feeling about this one."

We both begin to pour our wills into the relic. The light returns, divine magic enveloping us both. I feel the discomfort of his will, but also the familiarity of my own. I immediately know the answer to my question. I can feel it, and so can Godfrey. Only one 'wish' will be granted. It's not like a genie, either. It won't bring back the dead or grant eternal life. But it will allow one of us, whoever wins this battle of wills, to bend the world a little.

The vision Godfrey pours into it is ambitious. All the refugees from Potestia returned. Healthy. Safe. But here, and under the rule of Dominic. And me, gone. I suppose he doesn't need that bit anymore. I don't think either of us is likely to walk away from this alive. But the magic responds to the intent. I feel it all around me like a thousand leeches. Again I see flashes of the changes he tries to make in the world. Kallon is dead, I see that with my own intent. I need a counter 'wish'. Something to direct my will toward.

I can't bring back the dead. I don't need the buildings back. No. Kallon and Darian are dead. Dominic... Dominic seems to be with Ed. Something tells me I don't want him gone. I'd like to help save the injured, but as I try to push that will, I realize my chances of winning dwindle. I need something smaller. Something easier to focus on than Godfrey's. Otherwise, it will be too close a call, too large a gambit.

There is one thing I want. One thing that fits. Someone. Godfrey's intent has to span the entire globe. It has to take the will away from thousands of people. Mine is far more simple. Mine is focused on a single woman, in a single town. He pushes, and I push back. I watch him age before my eyes and wonder if I am doing the same. I don't feel like I am. I wonder if that means I am winning, or losing.

I see the life draining from him, when suddenly the hatch leading to this tower opens and Ed pops out. Godfrey and I both look at him, neither of us able to stop what we are doing. Ed climbs up, probably responding to the same spectacle and feeling I did. Once he makes it up, he turns and waits. A moment later, Dominic appears, propelled by wind magic. He, too, is missing an arm. Is there something in the fucking water or what?

"Grandfather," he immediately calls. "Grandfather, stop this. Stop this now!" Godfrey turns to look at him, but his will remains just as strong. "I won't be king, and I think you know you can't be either. Grandf- Grandpa, It's over. Please. We have to let this go." That's all it takes. My will starts rapidly overtaking Godfrey's. The vision Godfrey was projecting goes dark with a few words from his grandson.

He looks over and smiles warmly. "Thank you, Dominic," he says. "I am glad you are safe. I love you," he says. It was as easy as that. Dominic doesn't want to be king, and Godfrey's vision for the future collapses. A moment later, so does he. He falls to the stone, dead. It hurts, but it's a relief as well. Because, well. I would have had to kill him. He started as my friend, but he became something too dark to leave alone. And I wouldn't have. He needed to die. And I needed to kill him. It sucks that it hurts anyway. I hate when I love the people that hurt other people. I have to try not to think about it.

I try to withdraw my own will, but it's too late. It's already working. I look over at my brother and my friend's grandson. Then I shrug, just before I feel myself fall into the world like the ground is water. There is nothing but bright color and confusion for several moments... but I don't die. Instead, I find myself exactly where I have wanted to be for a long time. No longer in Visenar. Instead, I am in the Kingdom of Endings.