The shattered remnants of the City of Illusions stretched around Artorious as he moved through the empty streets, stepping over debris, broken buildings, and torn banners that fluttered weakly in the bloody haze of the sky. The city was unrecognizable, little more than a haunting shadow of what it had once been. Cries of wounded Dreamstriders and Obscaurus echoed faintly from the distant alleys, their bodies crumpled and broken, eyes pleading in their strange, alien way, though Artorious barely looked at them. All that was left here was a testament to the blood, dust, and betrayal he’d sacrificed in Kaedmon’s name.
Ahead, a hulking, twisted figure slumped in the center of the ruins. Carliah Argent—if she could still be called that. Her transformation was nearly complete; her body twisted and fused with monstrous anatomy. Her neck stretched too far, ending in a head that resembled a dragon’s, warped and misshapen, with her mouth lined with serrated fangs that glistened in the red light. Her eyes, though barely recognizable, flickered with a dim, fractured humanity.
Artorious sat beside her, looking out over the wreckage that had once been an ancient and beautiful place. “Is this what you envisioned?” he finally asked, his voice echoing off the silent stones. “For the world, for us… for everything?”
Carliah let out a strangled, guttural cry, her form twitching in pain. He could see the desperation and torment tearing at her as the last shreds of her humanity tried to cling on.
“Is this what Krea envisioned? Is this what Kaedmon wanted?” His question was met only by her beastly, guttural scream, a sound devoid of anything but rage and suffering. He sighed, knowing she was too far gone to comprehend the words. The silence stretched long, broken only by her shivering breaths.
Suddenly, with a speed that surprised him, she reached out, her clawed hand grabbing his arm in a grip that felt like iron. He tensed, ready for an attack, but instead, her body slumped forward, her breath ragged as her broken voice rose again, wretched and agonized. “Why?” she whispered, the word garbled, like her voice was being crushed in her throat. Artorious looked at her, startled by the question and unsure of its meaning. But she continued, her monstrous eyes locking onto his, filled with a depth of emotion that was still entirely, painfully, human.
“Why couldn’t you… do it?” she spat, her face twisting, the words barely intelligible. “Gyko. The hat. Even now… you can’t.”
Artorious felt his chest tighten, though he remained silent. This question—he realized with a jolt—wasn’t new. She’d asked him this before. And in his silence, he felt her gaze bore into him, more monstrous than ever.
“Why?” she repeated, her voice cracking into a scream. “Do you hate us all… so much? Do you hate me so much? Did you want the honor for yourself? Did you want to live a legend among the flock, a hero among the sheep? Tell me,” her voice cracked as she gasped for air, “tell me now!”
Her accusation was a blade through his heart, because a part of him knew that he could never satisfy her. He looked down at her and felt a bitter laugh rise to his throat. Here, at the end, she still didn’t understand. And perhaps, he realized, neither did he.
Carliah’s bloodshot eyes held his with an almost desperate focus, her mouth trembling as she let out one last, whispered plea, barely a breath, “…why?”
“Because I was afraid,” Artorious replied, the words slipping from him unbidden. “Because… I’m still afraid.”
For a long moment, she was silent, her monstrous form staring at him, her expression unreadable. Then her mouth twisted, and laughter bubbled out, grotesque and unhinged. “Even with all the power in the universe,” she sneered through her laughter, her voice a horrifying mixture of rage and mockery, “you are still a weak little boy.”
Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more.
He rose slowly, pulling his arm free from her weakened grip, her monstrous fingers slipping off his armor. Her gaze shifted from anger to something else, something even she couldn’t hide—fear.
“Arty…” Her voice cracked, the last hint of humanity trembling within it. Her monstrous, slitted eyes widened as he unsheathed his blade – her blade.
“What do you think you’re doing?” she growled, her voice trembling.
Artorious looked down at her, a wave of calm washing over him as the last traces of doubt vanished from his mind. He met her eyes, his face impassive, his voice low and resolute as he answered her.
“What I was made for,” he said, his voice steady and cold. "I'm killing a monster."
She tried to resist – filled with that old strength that had characterized her in life. But he put her down with a swift mercy stroke that took the rotting head from her shoulders and silenced her final shriek of defiance. As the head tumbled away, he could see the tiny threads of her blonde hair that still clung to the top of her grey skull.
Only then did he let himself kneel, and his sword drop with a dull clutter to the ground.
“Kaedmon,” he said aloud, feeling like a prized fool for even pronouncing that name. “Is this what you want? Did you make me this way – just to suffer through life?”
The darkening clouds above gave him no answer. The city was silent as stone.
And so, he let his voice carry, throwing his head back and crying out. No one was here to hear him, now. Finally, he was alone. He’d be alone for the rest of time.
“If we live by your Law, then how have I sinned?” he asked the uncaring sky again. “I am as you created me. I can only be…as you created me.”
He clutched his head, suddenly filled with ghostly voices from his past. Carliah, barking orders at him. His old friends screaming as they burned in pyres he created. His mother crying out for him to live…to survive.
“It is too much, Kaedmon…” he whispered as he closed his eyes to the world. “You ask me to give my life for this world, yet you blind me with cowardice. You give me power, and yet you temper me with fear.”
He saw his mother’s charred face, her mouth open in a scream that was never heard.
“You ask too much of me,” he said. “Because in the end…I am only human.”
He was ready to accept his imprisonment. Indeed, it seemed like he would almost welcome it, so useless had he realized he’d become.
But he had cried out, in pain, and in despair.
And for the first time in his life, a voice answered:
Dost thou desire an end to suffering?
At first, he couldn’t be sure he’d heard anything. Then, as he looked up to see the parting clouds of the Delve above his head, he saw a guiding beam of light shine down upon him.
Then he saw more – he saw his Brother Greycloaks burning as the fires of the Archon engulfed them. He saw whole cities put to hybrids swords, babes and women alike speared clean through by their fiery retribution.
Then, at the very center of the chaos, flying high above it all – he saw himself.
Dost thou desire life - everlasting?
He was an angel, now. Unafraid, unperturbed, and filled with strength that went beyond even the powers he had been given in his mortal life. He knew what the voice – so angelic, and so caring – was asking him. Would he give up his own mind, his own humanity, to succeed?
“…yes.”
He said it with the stuttered whisper of a man who no longer believed in anything at all. And as those words escaped his lips, he knew he could never take them back.
From above, the hand of God stretched out its lithe, pale fingers to him.
Then take the hand offered to thou, child of Light, the voice said. And you shall become something greater.
He reached out as commanded. It felt good, here, not having to think.
To have the oblivion he desired. To let go…
You were born weak, Artorious. But you shall be made worthy.You shall be my wing that shall herald the end.
He felt the arms of Kaedmon wrap themselves around him. Soft, like the feathered wings of an angel. He felt his limbs constrict, and his shoulder blades contort as new bones began to grow, and beneath his skin, his organs mutated. Artorious bent his neck, and closed his eyes, seeing visions of his ascendance as a true Lightborn.
He knelt as the incubation began, knowing – feeling – that something was happening inside him. Something that could now not be stopped.
Let the Archon fall. And let all of Argwyll feel my cleansing light.
He was becoming something…greater.