Terrin was dead.
Nitiri watched Elurra cradle his torn body, his dark blood smearing her dress and skin. She kept calling his name, but his eyes were lifeless and black, and his skin had a deathly pallor. He was clearly beyond help. Demons surged around them, but they didn’t care about the three Incarians anymore. Another Guardian was pushing through the rift, fully prepared for combat. They had strange weapons that shot balls of light around the room. Flashes exploded around them, and one hit a Demon’s core. It exploded with a feral howl.
Nitiri couldn’t tear her eyes away from Elurra and Terrin. Elurra’s screams were closer to wails as she clutched at his body. Terrin’s contorted face reminded her of Cade’s. Elurra’s cries sounded like her own.
This is my fault. The realization hit her like a boulder dropping on her shoulders. I am responsible for his death. What have I done?
It was a simple question, but it rocked Nitiri to her core. The curtain of anguish and obsessive hatred lifted as she realized how far she’d fallen. She’d been so bent on her revenge she’d lost herself to bitterness and hatred. Elurra was right. She’d become the one person she hated most: her father. She’d killed magic users to steal their blood. She’d oppressed her people. She’d ruthlessly crushed her enemies, including her brother. She’d become a power-hungry beast without realizing it, all to bring Cade back from the dead.
What would Cade think of me?
Her anger and woe had turned her into someone he would despise. His death had destroyed her and driven her to madness.
And now I have inflicted the same pain on Elurra.
She took a few steps back to try to escape the nightmare, but she couldn’t run from herself.
Most of the Demons were dead. There were only a few left, and the Guardians outnumbered them. The yellow-eyed Demon was still alive, along with Tiberius. A group of Guardians engaged the yellow-eyed Demon, but the beast had fed on her guards and was therefore more dangerous. One of the Guardians shot a ball of light at it, but it passed through harmlessly. Another tried to slice its outer layer, but the Demon reached out with billowing tentacles and disarmed the glowing man. The Guardian screamed as the Demon grappled him and lifted him off the ground. Nitiri winced as the tentacles sliced through the Guardian’s skin and his blood dripped to the floor. His screams intensified as the Demon plunged his hapless victim into its billowing mass and began to feed. The yellow-eyed Demon wasn’t the only one they were struggling with. Their new weapons had clearly taken their foes by surprise, but the Demons were adapting. Another one of the shadowy horrors managed to kill a Guardian and consume their pain. As a result, it grew stronger.
Once a Demon is fed, they can become true nightmares, Nitiri thought.
Three Guardians were lying dead on the floor, all victims of Tiberius. Another Guardian emerged from the rift with one of the light cannons and joined the group surrounding the yellow-eyed Demon. Four of them opened fire at once, ripping through the obsidian fog hiding its inner layer. One had a lucky shot to the core. Three more cannons fired shot after shot at Tiberius, but none had any effect. The red-eyed devil laughed ominously, and spikes of darkness shot out of its body. The attack ripped through the Guardians’ force fields and impaled them. One slumped to the floor and joined the dead while the others crawled away, clutching deep wounds. Tiberius had been feeding for months, and hitting his core was like hitting a sparrow in the dead of night. Nitiri shuddered when she thought of what an army of fully fed Demons would look like. The Guardians looked tired as their wounded multiplied and their medic struggled to keep up.
Another figure emerged from the rift, and sighs of relief fluttered through the Guardians. She had short platinum hair and high eyebrows. With her stiff posture and decorated uniform, she gave off an intimidating air of authority.
“Tiberius, we have not faced each other in decades,” she said in a businesslike tone as she approached the Demon casually.
The Guardians all saluted as she passed and retreated from Tiberius to stand behind their leader.
“It has been much too long, Ulliet. I missed our sparring matches,” the Demon replied.
A thin, humorless smile spread across her lips. “How about we have a final fight, for old time’s sake?”
Tiberius lashed out at her, but Ulliet was prepared. With unbelievable speed, she pulled out a small gun. It came to life in her hands as she pulled the trigger. A wide beam of dull light hit the projectile swinging at her but didn’t slow his attack. Tiberius’s claw slammed into Ulliet and burst into a cloud of harmless smoke instead of slicing through her. Tiberius’s eyes widened in surprise. Before he could process what had happened, Ulliet charged forward, the beams from her gun sweeping across the billowing mass. She pulled out a canister with her other hand. A sucking noise filled the air, and a swirling tornado of fog tore away from the main body of the Demon and disappeared into the device. Tiberius roared. Tentacles of darkness shot out of him. Ulliet casually dissolved them and sucked the poisonous gas into the container as well.
“What are you doing?” he shouted.
“Harvesting Cythraul poison. Isn’t it marvelous? After years of study, we finally came up with the perfect weapon.”
Tiberius let out a thundering rumble of rage and charged at Ulliet. She smiled and let him come. When he reached her, she aimed the gun directly at him and held down the trigger. A steady beam of light punctured the dark mist. She was enveloped in Tiberius’s outer layer, obscuring her from Nitiri’s view. Nitiri could see a spinning circle of light through the shadows like a lighthouse in the fog. Clearly, Ulliet was spinning around, creating a pocket of light amid the gaseous being. She became the heart of the storm as the cloud started to rotate around her. There was a loud whooshing noise and the smoke billowed outward. Everyone backed away from the toxic cloud. It dispersed, leaving Ulliet standing alone in front of the Demon.
“I can release your outer layer from your control, Tiberius. You are held together with a biomolecular field, but we have found a way to dissolve the bonds holding you together. You’re just a cloud of gas with a dense core and a consciousness. When I destroy your layers, your weakness is exposed.”
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
For the first time, Nitiri saw a hint of fear in Tiberius’s eyes.
“I will find your core, kill you, and end this fight,” Ulliet declared. “Once we purge you filth from Yamoi, we can live in peace.”
Tiberius let out a hissing noise akin to a laugh.
“The Voltmuri will find you. There is no escape. All life will bow before the lords of conquest, and Yamoi will fall just as your home world did.”
Ulliet’s face contorted with anger, although Nitiri noted a hint of trepidation in her eyes as well. The final battle resumed, although the victor was already clear. Ulliet had every advantage, but Tiberius had a different plan in store. Unexpectedly, he tore away from Ulliet and charged forward, wrapping those who didn’t dive out of the way in his smoky body. But he was no longer interested in attacking. Ulliet yelled for her men to stop him, but it was too late. Tiberius vanished through the rift. Ulliet didn’t seem perturbed.
"Gess, catch," she called, throwing one of her men the canister. "We got a good bit of poison. See if we can use it to track Tiberius.”
There were six Guardians in the room, not counting the dead. Now the battle was over, they looked around and took inventory of who and what was left. Ulliet noticed the Incarians for the first time and squinted at them critically.
"Who are you?" She asked, addressing Nitiri. "You have nanites, but the computer cannot isolate your number. You have…more than one signature.”
Nitiri stayed silent. She was sure Ulliet could make her own deductions. Before Ulliet could voice her growing suspicions, one of her men gave a cry of surprise.
"Captain! This boy...well, he's dead now, but he has Zavier's DNA."
Ulliet turned her head sharply.
"Access the Magic database. I need updates.”
"Zavier is dead. He got sucked into the void," Elurra said softly, her voice getting lost among the murmur of Guardian voices.
Ulliet heard her, and her eyes locked onto the blonde girl cradling the dead body. Elurra looked up and studied Ulliet. Her eyes were as vacant as Terrin’s. She held the corpse in her arms tightly, as if she were trying to save every drop of his heat.
"They both died to stop the Demons.”
The deceleration seemed to take the rest of Elurra's strength. Her head slumped forward, and she rested her forehead on Terrin's still chest. Her hands balled into fists, clutching at his thick jacket. Ulliet opened her mouth to respond, but before she could, Gess yelped.
"Captain! The computers have isolated the canceling metal's signature. We can find the rest of the stones."
"Transport all the signatures you can find to this location.”
"Some of them are in protected buildings, Ma'am. Give me a moment to remove the dampening fields," he said, his fingers flying over an invisible keyboard.
A minute later, a triumphant grin crossed his face, and a humming noise filled the air as a pile of white metal appeared. Some of it was random chunks from the ground, but a few of them were crowns. Nitiri smiled bitterly at the irony.
I was trying to get my hands on those for months, and they figured out how to compile the stones within a half hour of being here.
The Guardians looked at the pile of metal warily.
"We need to get the Kutsal Stones back to Yamoi. Without a way to return to Incari, we can finally purge Yamoi of the Cythraul, but we need a rift stable enough to get us all back, and then a local to cast them into annil and seal the rifts to this world for good.”
Ulliet looked up, and her eyes locked on Nitiri. As she was the only one in the room without direct Guardian decent, she was the only one who could touch the stones. Nitiri stepped forward, her heart racing.
This is the moment I have been waiting for, she thought. The Guardians need me to do them a favor, so I have bargaining leverage.
“I will help you on one condition,” she said.
Ulliet stiffened, and her eyes narrowed. “What do you want?” she asked sourly.
Nitiri opened her mouth and hesitated.
What do I want? Cade will no longer know who I am. He could never love me after all the wrongs I’ve committed. She was at a loss for words until Elurra caught her attention. I cannot fix what I have done, but I can stop it from happening again.
“I will close the rift if you bring Terrin back from the dead,” Nitiri said as she made up her mind.
Elurra’s head snapped up in surprise, and a few of the Guardians looked shocked.
“Impossible, even we cannot bring back the dead,” Ulliet said immediately, but Gess hummed as he tapped his screen.
“Actually, the computers have extensive files on this boy. In fact, he recently used the transporters in the Anchor base. We could easily recreate his body,” the thin man stated as he adjusted a strange visor covering his eyes.
“Replicating a body and resurrection are very different things,” Ulliet replied dryly.
“That’s true normally, but oddly…it may be the rift interfering…but the computer is registering at least thirty life signs in this room, excluding our own. Most of them are Cythraul, but a few belong to our fallen soldiers, and one of them is half Incarian. See? This is Quay’s life sign, but she’s scattered across the floor over there.”
Ulliet ordered one of her men to check the body, but it only took only a second to confirm Quay was dead. Ulliet took the screen from Gess and studied the readings. “The rift has somehow preserved their consciousnesses?” she asked in disbelief.
“It appears so. It must be the time difference near the rift. They’re physically dead, but the time lag leaking through from Yamoi has preserved them temporarily. There have been isolated cases of this around temporal wormholes before, but the rift isn’t strong enough to keep them here much longer.”
Ulliet’s face hardened, and she made a split-second decision.
“Genia, retrieve the transport files for all of the dead. Gess, isolate each consciousness and come up with a way to draw the old souls to the new bodies, Zir, start making the new bodies as soon as we have the transport files. Start with the Incarian boy. Tierrel, find…” Ulliet kept rattling off tasks, and the Guardians burst into activity. She turned to Nitiri. “You. Take the stones out of the metal. We need to make the rift more powerful to keep them here.”
“I will take out some, but one stays until Terrin lives again.”
Ulliet glared at her, but she had no way to bargain. As soon as the stones left the blue-tinged metal, any living being from Yamoi that came into direct contact would end up scattered through the rift.
“Fine,” she agreed.
Nitiri nodded and started working the latch open on Reagn’s crown. A silence fell over the group as they endeavored to go about the monumental task of raising the dead.
I never imagined my private sitting room would become a site for necromancy of this magnitude, she thought, her blood racing in her veins as she remembered how excited Cade got every time he discovered a new spell. Her heart ached as she imagined his enthusiastic reaction to meeting the gods of magic, although she had personally expected the Guardians to be less cold-hearted.
Nitiri finally pried the metal cage open and placed the sacred stone with the others. Immediately, the rift grew. The opaque center became more distinct, and blurry moving shapes on the other side became visible. It was like watching a battle through a waterfall. Nitiri felt tempted to stick her hand through the vortex and breach the barrier between the worlds.
“I think I have isolated the phase signatures for all of our casualties. Hopefully, we can use them to draw the souls to the correct body,” Gess reported.
“Good. Go test it on Quay. What about the Incarian boy?” Ulliet asked.
“Well, I don’t have a signature for him, but the girl seems to have a bond with him—”
“They’re bond mates? She should be able to draw him into the new body then,” Ulliet said crisply. “Start bringing our people back. Get that girl updated on what she needs to do.”
He nodded and hustled off toward the row of bodies. Nitiri followed him, mostly because she found Ulliet’s manner unnerving. Elurra was already beside Terrin’s new body. It had taken some persuading to get her to let go of his original corpse, but Nitiri was glad someone had convinced her the shredded body wasn’t of value anymore.
“Can they bring him back?” she asked Nitiri desperately.
Her innocent blue eyes reminded Nitiri of her brother, and she had to glance away to avoid her guilty conscious.
“I am sorry, Elurra, but the Guardians cannot bring him back,” she revealed reluctantly, “Only you can.”