26.

The three of them burst out of the wardrobe they had been hiding in, Vivian landing on her feet while the other two fell to the ground. Frantic and shaking like a tortured animal, she sought an exit with her eyes. Smoke filled the room around the girls. Vivian grabbed the two of them but their dresses’ collars and dragged them to their feet. Nyx took it all in stride but Alexis stumbled, seemingly still hung over.

All three of them had slept in the wardrobe after spotting the boat and remained there for the entirety of the next day. Several times they had been woken up by footsteps entering and exiting the room but they had remained silent. Shouting and even screaming was heard echoing down to them on several occasions but, still, they remained silent. But when Vivian smelled smoke, the scent that still haunted her dreams, she panicked and realized in an instant she needed to get out. So out they had tumbled.

After getting the other two girls to their feet, Vivian half guided, half hauled them out of the bedroom. She hadn’t yet spotted the flames but she saw dozens of corpses leaned up against the hallway walls. All of them blackened with empty eye sockets and lipless mouths, opened as if mid scream.

Nyx stopped and bent to examine one that wore an old fashioned tunic and sprouted gray hair from its blackened skull. “It appears to be Uriah Diamond. Fascinating. Whatever occurred to Lynn Jet’s arm and leg appears to have gone through Diamond’s entire body. Life itself has been absorbed out of him by his pores. I have never heard mention of any sort of disease that would affect someone so abruptly and on this massive scale. I believe this must be a Mystic Art of some sort. But of which element?”

“Nyx, we don’t have time for this! The entire place is burning down! We need to get out of here, now!” Vivian frantically dashed away and the other two followed, though Nyx hung a ways back muttering softly to herself and making frequent glances back towards the corpses.

Finally, they exited the building. They walked into the garden despite the darkness, Vivian still felt something inheritably wrong about the gardens. The usual scents of grass and flowers were replaced with rotting food and eggs. It made her gag with every breath. Even the grass under her feet felt off, crunching with every step. They wandered around for a few minutes, Vivian trying to keep Alexis on her feet while they searched for a new place to hide. Then, Vivian saw the gazebo in the center of the pond. Sitting there, a lantern to his side illuminating his pale skin and white hair, sat Rin.

The three of them crossed the bridge to him but he didn’t even glance in their direction as they stood by his side. His eyes were peeled on the library.

“I was afraid they had found you. I didn’t know what else to do, so I set the place on fire. Fire can’t hurt you so it wasn’t a risk to your life. Vivian. I need your help.”

Before Vivian could speak Alexis cut in. “What do you mean?! What’s happening here you brat? You set the entire building on fire? You could have killed us! Here’s another fact to take into consideration- NOT EVERYONE IS FIREPROOF! But I suppose if it doesn’t hurt your crush then it’s just fine, right?”

Rin looked over at her, baffled. “Who are you?”

Alexis’ face fell apart and her eyes dropped to the dirt, the moment of ferociousness blown away like autumn leaves. “I’m…I’m no one.”

“I didn’t want to hurt any of you but I need Vivian’s help. If she doesn’t then you’re all dead anyway. My kinsmen are here. I don’t know how, but they’ve crossed the ocean to invade. Vivian’s the only one who can stop them. If they reach Regnum, the entire continent will die.”

“Are they Mystics?” Vivian asked.

“No. They’re far worse. If you go within fifteen feet of them, they can suck your very life out. They’re next to impossible to stop. And every life they take, is a life they retain. Greed pushes them forward to kill everything in their paths.”

“Why haven’t they come here before? What’s stopped them from ending the world?”

“Paxami is what’s stopped them. The Pax are completely immune to the magic and fought my kinsmen a thousand years ago. They constructed a massive wall to contain the entire kingdom of Mortium. The magic was trapped inside the walls. Every tree and plant had been killed by the people in an attempt to lengthen their own lives. They had trapped themselves.”

“Why not just kill the people of Mortium?”

“At the time when the walls were built, all the people able to kill with the magic were killed. But there were innocents spread among them that either didn’t use their magic or didn’t have the gift for it. But that was long, long ago though. It’s possible for anyone with Mortium ancestry to develop the magic. The “mercy” the Pax gave was simply a cruel imprisonment among monsters.”

“How do you fit in? Why are you here?”

Rin remained silent for a minute. “I’m not the same as them. Not everyone from Mortium is a monster. I’m not like them.”

“So it’s like how not every noble has the potential to become Mystic in Neo Regnum?”

“I suppose you could make that comparison. It’s not perfect though.”

“So how do we stop them? You make it sound like they’re invincible, but they can’t be, can they?”

“Well…that’s why I was looking for you. I need your help. I think I know of a way in which we can kill them all. We need to go back down to my sanctuary. Remember that place you followed me to?”

Vivian nodded.

“Okay. Then let’s go.”

“Wait,” Alexis interjected. “What about us? Should we come too?”

Rin eyed up Alexis and Nyx doubtfully. “I don’t think you’d be helpful. You’re not practiced Mystics. It wouldn’t be wise for either of you to come.”

“I am going with Vivian,” Nyx stated.

Rin raised his hands defensively. “I can’t stop you. Just know that we’re going down into a city with at least twenty mass murderers patrolling around.”

Nyx responded with a blank stare as if trying to figure out how that wasn’t an ideal situation.

Finally, Rin sighed and motioned with his hands to follow. Vivian followed with Nyx at her heels and Alexis hesitantly trailing behind them. Rin led them down a path into the city that Vivian wasn’t familiar with. It winded down the cliff side in switchbacks and reminded her of a game trail. As they got further away from the library, the darkness of night set in on them. The library remained a beacon behind them, flames ripping through the night. There were several moments where Vivian felt the dirt slip beneath her feet but she, thankfully, managed to correct herself by flinging her arms into the air wildly and grasping at anything within reach. She considered herself blessed merely for surviving as they reached the bottom.

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Rin pulled out a lantern from a crate at the foot of the cliff, he lit it and moved forward, illuminating the stone streets of the abandoned city.

They made their way through the buildings, weaving in and out of the streets. Nyx and Alexis were both panting heavily after only a few minutes.

Rin stopped. Vivian just barely managed to stop herself from barreling into him. Then, covering his lantern with his cloak, he placed a finger to his lips and gestured for her to come closer.

Peering around the corner, Vivian saw a burly man clothed in both shadow and heavy armor up to his chin. Moonlight mingled with the firelight from above gleamed off his bald head. His back was to them but he leaned up against a sword. Except calling it a sword was a generous use of the term. Vivian was willing to bet a blacksmith could forge four normal sized longswords out of the same amount of metal. Or two normal broadswords. With metal left over either way.

“Does he have power?” Vivian whispered to Rin.

“You can usually tell by hair color….which he doesn’t have. But I don’t think he does. Hardly any purpose in having a massive sword if he could drop people in a wave.”

“So, can we sneak past him?” Alexis asked.

Vivian took a deep breath and walked forward.

The man turned to her. He spoke an unfamiliar language in a nasally tone. After a moment of her continuing to walk toward him, he laughed and pointed his oversized weapon at her.

Then he swung the massive slab of metal at her neck. Vivian dropped down, ducking as the blade whooshed over her head, then rolled to the side. The man’s momentum put his back to her. She kicked the back of his kneecaps. He fell to a knee but shifted to swing the blade at her. This time she went over, rather than under, hurdling the weapon. Grabbing her fist for extra power, she rammed her elbow into his face. A sickening crunch insured, marking shattered bone.

The man howled with pain and dropped his weapon as he went to clutch his bloody nose. Vivian seized up the weapon from the ground and spun around, building momentum as she sliced through the air. Then the broadsword careened into him, picking him up several inches and throwing him back into a stone wall. It didn’t cut him, but rather, leaving a massive indentation in the side of his armor.

He lay there, motionless on the ground, facedown.

“Is he...dead?” Alexis asked.

“He may be feigning unconsciousness,” Rin warned. “Don’t get too close.”

Nyx ignored Rin and walked up to the man, looming over him with her examinations. “Blunt force trauma to his abdomen may cause internal bleeding. Likely broken ribs, even despite the heavy armor. Hard to declare anything certain without a thorough examination. Airway may or may not be blocked by clotting blood. But still alive for the moment.”

Feeling sick, Vivian turned away. She let her body react like in her training with Owen, but she had never hurt anyone before. Not except for the assassins all those months ago...but she hadn’t meant to do that, it just happened. This time she meant to hurt someone. And she had. Maybe even killed him.

She flinched as Rin touched her arm.

“We need to keep moving,” he said.

“Of course.” She used the massive sword like a walking stick, leaning against it, the tip of the blade standing on end at the stone ground.

They moved through the now so familiar city as if in mourning. The only noises holding silence at bay were Nyx’s murmerings to herself. Vivian vaguely noted a balcony above their heads. Then, on a whim, she dropped the massive broadsword with a clang as it hit the ground, and turned away from the group.

“Vivian…” Rin said, glancing back to her.

“I’ll be right back.”

She walked up to the balcony and claimed her once rusty short sword. Now it gleamed in the moonlight, the blade oiled and sleek, not a spec of rust remained. It still felt poorly balanced in her hand, but in a familiar way.

Rejoining the others, they continued on, leaving the broadsword to gather dust behind them. They passed the stone pillars, the trap door coming into view. But, just as they did, a pale hand reached out from behind the pillars, grabbing Alexis and pulling her back.

“Xillian,” a voice spat the name.

Turning around, Vivian saw a pale man, bloodshot eyes locked onto Rin. Tall and wiry, his long arms crisscrossed Alexis, holding her close. One clamped down on her shoulder while the other lazily stroked her throat with a manicured thumb, as if he held a weapon in the empty hand. Alexis shuddered under his grip.

“Don’t move,” he said with a thick, exotic accent.

“Brother.” Rin turned and eyed him up and down. “The years have treated you well.”

The man discharged a series of coughing laughter. “Well. Not as well though, as yourself.”

“Will you release my companion? We have things that need attending to.”

“How rude, I came all this way looking for you and you already want to leave? It’s been how long since we last spoke? How long since you crossed the sea?”

“Not long enough.”

“You were supposed to come back. Come back with an army. You were meant to save me. I waited for you, Brother. I withered away as I waited and waited. Until I decided to handle things myself. I figured that you must have met a grisly end. So I joined up with the Insurrection. But I found no news when we infiltrated Paxanimi. Then a few greedy nobles offered us a deal, granting us an access point in Regnum. Or, I suppose it’s Neo Regnum now, but you’d know all about that. Because I’ve heard reports about you.”

“Brother, I’m certain you’ve misunderstood whatever you’ve heard,” Rin said.

“I couldn’t believe my ears, either,” the man continued. A rage flickered through his eyes. “An assassin, a god, tamed by a Mystic. Tell me, Brother, tell me about this man who is more important than your family? Tell me about Silvis.”

Under his breath, just loud enough for Vivian to hear, Rin muttered, “Act Vivian, we need you.”

“What’s that?” the man asked.

Rin spoke words in a foriegn language and white bones shone through the man’s skin as he clenched down on Alexis’ shoulder, the rage in his eyes stoked with more fury.

Taking advantage of the focus and venom the man pinned on Rin, Vivian did as Rin commanded. She stepped forward and threw her sword. Owen taught her a dozen times over never to throw a sword, explaining that they’re not made for the practice, instead opting to teach her how to throw a knife. But she had no knife. So the sword spun into the air. Somehow, by some miracle, it embedded itself into the man’s neck.

Painted in blood, Alexis shrieked as she scrambled away from where he fell.

Laughter gurgled through the lips of the man as he rose. Gripping the sword, he pulled it from his throat with a squelch. The bloody blade clattered to the ground. Then he reached a hand toward Alexis. Color drained from her skin as the wound on his neck sealed itself.

“Vivian! Now! Fire, Vivian!” Rin yelled.

Flames flickered on the tips of her fingers. But no, her brother’s screams danced in the back of her mind. The smell of burning flesh.

The colorlessness of Alexis’ skin morphed into a hollowing darkness.

Vivian closed her eyes and a blast of heat exuded her. She tried to push it toward the man, but she felt controlless. She opened her eyes to see, with horror, the man, still standing, burning alive in front of her, wordlessly. Hair and clothes burned away entirely, his skin melting and reforming on his bones as the life magic battled with the flames.

Rin stepped forward, holding her short sword, and stabbed upwards at the man’s heart.

“Not here,” he said to the burning man. “I won’t let you do that here.”

He removed the blade and stabbed again and again. No blood spilled out of the man, the wound instead appeared to cauterize the moment the sword left the man’s body, only to have the sword sheathed into him once again, slicing a new pocket into the burnt flesh.

Still, the man remained silent at the onslaught, instead opting to glare at his brother when his eyes were formed enough to do so.

“Xillian,” he said to Rin, his voice now hoarse and crisp.

“Goodbye, Brother,” Rin said. Then he plunged the sword into him one last time. The man’s lanky body collapsed to the stones.