Celeste could only watch in horror as her friends were cut down before her. She wanted to run to them, to heal them. Or to just run, to get away from this man. To get away from this Chaos. But it gripped her tight. The long cold fingers of the darkness grasping her arms, her stomach, her neck. It seized her mercilessly, freezing her in place as X continued his slow stride toward her. Her eyes could move though, and they darted among her dying friends. Their souls nearly gone now. Valleresa, her skull crushed. Arabella, with a snapped neck and an empty gaze. Gardinal, who had begged her to run with his final breath, now lay dying with his throat and spine crushed.

Even Vallerian, who always pretended not to care, lay disemboweled near Charlotte. Their souls seemed to match in rhythm together, Vallerian and his pet, both thrumming slower and slower. Her eyes searched frantically, to her friends, to the priests and priestesses who lay dying beyond the courtyard, to the faith militia piled in heaps of metal and flesh. She could see their souls, could see them slowly fading away.

“Please no…” She cried, hot tears filling her eyes.

X stood in front of her, his presence leaving her numb. She felt like those street children, left out in the winter with snow burns that left their fingers and toes as black as coal. Celeste looked up at him, his cold mismatched gaze burrowing into her. X shook his head, then raised his dagger.

“It has been… so long.” X spoke, exhaustion in his voice. “But it will finally be over.”

The dagger flashed through the air and was stopped as Kriss burst in front of her. Celeste gasped as Kriss held his hands up, pressed against X’s wrist.

“Don’t…” Kriss grunted, struggling to hold back the massive, Chaos-empowered man. “…you… even… try.” Sweat beaded on Kriss’s brow as he pushed against X, muscles bulging as they both pushed all their force against one another.

Then the dagger began to move, slowly at first, pushed back by Kriss. Kriss roared with the strength of a lion, his long blonde hair matted with sweat.

Then X sneered, and backhanded Kriss across the face. Her oldest friend spun, twisting to face her as X reached out with his clawed hand and grabbed him by the scalp. The dagger flashed forward, reaching his neck.

I’m sorry. Kriss’s mouth formed the shape of the words, but no air came as the dagger slit his throat. Kriss fell to the ground, blood seeping fresh into the cold stone, staining the hem of her gown. Celeste could only look at him, stare at her oldest friend as he joined the rest of her closest friends. She felt something, something small, something glowing within her.

“It is over child.” X spoke, cold hatred coating every word. “You have shown me your goddess’s best, and I have found it wanting. Your champions have fallen in the face of Chaos, and you are helpless against it as well.”

Out the corner of her eye, Celeste saw a face hiding behind a pillar. A face she recognized. Brother Lesseral, the very priest who had attacked her months ago in her chambers. He looked haggard. The months had not been kind to him. Run. She thought. Please brother Lesseral, do not be caught here now.

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X grabbed her by the throat, lifting her up. That glowing presence, floating in her mind, growing brighter slowly.

“You are so pathetic.” He sneered. “So weak. How did my people ever think that your gods would do us better than the Chaos.”

Celeste looked to X and saw his soul. It looked like that Korek baby’s soul, so long ago, so coated with black stain of Chaos. She was going to fail this man; with her death he would be truly lost. That darkness would take him over then, completely sold to the Chaos. All her friends had died believe in her, had died to save her. That light grew brighter in her mind, radiating.

No. Celeste thought, feeling light welling up within her. It was a different light, not the one that she used to heal every day. A light she had felt twice before. In Rekiak’s home, when all had been lost. And in the sewers, when she had first faced the daemons. Like a seed it floated within her, a part of her, but also apart from her. Within her own mind she could see it, glowing brilliantly, perfectly.

Both times she had tried to grab it, she had been knocked unconscious before she could do anything. Please Mother. She prayed. Please have mercy on me, give me the strength to help this man.

And with that prayer, Celeste grabbed that seed and held it tightly.

Light exploded into her, like a wave crashing against a rocky bluff it beat against her flesh. If the power she drew on every day was a stream, this was an ocean. No, larger than an ocean. An endless sky of the Mother’s grace rushing into her. Pressing against her skin it pushed on her. It crashed through her veins, their thin walls bursting as the pressure only continued to build. Her body began to collapse under the pressure, and agony spread across her. Agony, and pure ecstasy at the presence of the Mother’s grace.

“Do you think you can stop me?” X shouted, the power seeping out over as loud as a flock of a thousand birds, or a waterfall at the beginning of spring. She could barely see X past the light that exploded from her. He no longer grasped her throat, his clawed-red hand at his side, a shriveled husk of cinder. “I will not lose so easily child.” He snarled, raising his dagger once more. She wanted to move, to put up her hands to stop that dagger, but the power surged through her with its own will. She floated, she realized, dangling above even X’s head as the First Mother’s power contorted her body.

X’s dagger swung, arching towards her heart with a black metal blade that glistened from her light.

A man thrust himself between Celeste and X, X’s dagger digging into his heart.

Celeste heart sank as she stared at Brother Lesseral, blood dripping down his threadbare robes. A tear formed in her eyes, but it was not of water. Pure light, bubbling out of her and floating upward.

X pushed off Brother Lesseral from his blade and turned to her, horror contorting his face as he lifted his hand up to block out the light that radiated from her flesh. It was painful, and amazing. It was agony, and ecstasy.

Celeste. A voice like chimes, like a child’s laughter, like the spring breeze rustling the trees, echoed in her mind. Hear me, Celeste.

Celeste felt herself burst. Her skin burning away beneath the light in an instant, and the power of the Mother above exploded out of her, crashing like a wave across the courtyard. Where the power ended and Celeste began was of no consequence any longer. The power was no longer in her, it was her. The light glowing so bright it blocked out her eyesight.

Then it was gone, and when Celeste opened her eyes, she found herself no longer in the courtyard.