Expectations were the last thing anyone ought to hold onto in the Beyond, and Riven tried to divest himself of it. Not that it helped. He still thought he’d land in the water, but that was foolish. Chasm, he didn’t even pass through any wet membranes or anything of the sort. Or maybe that was because he had his Essence armour on, though that should have given rise to water droplets, right?
There was nothing of the sort. Soon as Riven plunged into the pool, he was falling in the hall where he’d been before as if he’d just dropped from the ceiling. The real hall, not Lacelle’s little pocket dimension.
Naturally, his landing made all of them jump.
Viriya ran from where she was fighting off Lacelle and Wenster. She looked awful. Blood covered most of her, the crimson completely blanketing the green glow of her hands and daubing the rest of her in gory flecks, streaks, and splashes. Too much blood. It would have been nice to assume most of it was either Wenster’s or Lacelle’s but the slouch in her shoulders and the weariness claiming her whole, twisting her posture into one that shouted out she was exhausted, said otherwise. She was favouring her left leg too.
Riven’s heart sank. How long had he been gone for? He looked over to their opponents. Though Wenster looked as bad as Viriya with his uniform shredded to strings and his skin and flesh split and bloodied, he was still standing tall. Still in the form of that hulking, indomitable figure.
Lacelle, meanwhile, looked hardly hurt at all. Maybe Viriya had been too busy focusing most of her attention on Wenster to deal with the other Firstmarked. Riven couldn’t blame her. Would have been annoying with Lacelle disappearing every now and then.
“How in the Chasm did you get back so quickly, Morell?” Lacelle frowned at him, her brows furrowing deep. “You didn’t… go out of the boundary did you? You did!”
“What are you talking about Lacelle?” Wenster asked. “Where’d you send him?”
“I gave him a little sneak-peek of what my Essence can do, but apparently he took it a little farther than I expected, the bastard.” Her eyes bored into Riven’s, little icy spikes that poked holes in his very soul. She knew, she knew it all. “Care to tell us what you saw, Morell?”
Riven swallowed. All that he had heard, all that he had been told by that broken god Alb, was slowly sinking into him with the weight of a mountain. It was too much, the implications still swirling in his head faster than the winds of a cyclone. Scions, he needed some time to process it all.
“Where did you go?” Viriya asked. Her voice was careful, as though she was trying to stop it from cracking.
“Lacelle’s playground.” He kept his voice low. “And the Beyond.”
She stared at him. The seriousness of his voice had caught her attention.
“I’ll explain later,” Riven promised. “Right now, we need to deal with them.”
“I can kill Lacelle if you can finish off Wenster.”
“We’re not killing Lacelle.”
Again that look. “We’re not?”
Riven shook his head, “We’re not. She needs to live.”
“What are you two whispering about?” Lacelle asked. She shook his head. “If you’re not going to talk, Morell, might as well just get on with it. Maybe if you’re still alive somehow, I’ll wring the truth out of you.”
“Feel free to try.”
Lacelle grinned, then charged in. Viriya rushed ahead to meet her, her wounds unable to damp her ferocity or her speed. Scions, what in the world was she made of?
Wenster lumbered forward too, but Riven stayed put. He needed to focus. So he did, drawing on the pressure from within him to bring up his Essence. There was something different there though. Something separate. He pulled it out, letting the pressure burst free from him and pool the Essence in his hands. Riven’s eyes went wide.
His Essence was in his two, separate hands at the same time.
Riven almost laughed. For so long, he’d been limited by the fact that he could apply his Essence to one location at a time, either on himself or somewhere away from him. Not so now. He was free to do as he wished. But how far?
With another moment of focus, Riven kept the golden Essence on his palms, but shot more lines to just in front of him. It formed a small sphere of Essence, the gold in his hands still dancing strong. He could do it. He could now create his shields wherever he saw fit.
Viriya was still fighting. He was wasting time poring over his own Essence like that. Riven needed to join in the battle. She couldn’t do it alone.
Though at the moment, Viriya was handling it well by herself.
She had engaged Lacelle, Wenster forgotten somewhere behind, maybe because those wounds of his looked fatal at first glance. Riven knew better. But despite that, Lacelle was the obvious greater threat. Viriya was going toe to toe with her, blocking every blow that came from every direction as flames of orange Essence blazed all around her.
Something strange was going on. Whenever Lacelle landed a blow on Viriya, her green Essence spiked at the point of contact, like some strange, shimmering armour make of jagged emeralds. The spikes shot outwards whenever there was a hit. Lacelle punched Viriya in the shoulder and the green Essence flared, growing into pins the length of Riven’s middle finger, injecting Viriya’s Essence into the Firstmarked. It swept along Lacelle’s hand and up her arms, an army of emerald termites looked to eat her through faster than thought, not stopping until it jabbed into her body. Lacelle collapsed.
But it wasn’t Lacelle at all. Viriya’s green Essence on the Firstmarked died, revealing just how it had ruined her arm—the skin had been ripped to shred, the flesh puckered and torn to show hints of the bone beneath. What in the world was Viriya’s Essence doing? The body caught fire on its own, orange flames consuming it until nothing was left.
The real Lacelle popped out from behind Viriya, but she whirled, ready and expectant. They repeated the same process. Lacelle attacked, Viriya’s Essence infected her only to show that is was just another dummy.
Something shifted, and Riven tore his eyes away from them. It was Wenster. Shit, he’d forgotten all about the brute.
Wenster had jumped. He sailed through the air, his wounds leaving a trail of blood everywhere as he shot towards Viriya. Damn it, her Essence wouldn’t help with something like that. No way could those green spikes repel a crushing drop with all of Wenster’s weight and power behind it. Worse, Viriya hadn’t even seen yet, all because of Lacelle. The other Firstmarked was doing a good job of distracting her, fire and punches weaving in at Viriya with equal force and abandon.
There was no time to warn her. Too late. Unless—
Riven focused, drawing out his Essence. The pressure sent golden lines shooting at Viriya faster than thought, focusing them into a tiny orb in front of her, too small for either her or her opponent to notice. He held the sphere there as more Essence flooded out of him, concentrating it into a compressed ball of air. More and more came out, all faster than he could think, faster than Wenster could land on Viriya.
Just as the brute came close, Riven focused again. His Essence exploded outwards. The orb expanded like a popped balloon but in reverse, the golden shield slapping Viriya back before she could react with her own Essence. She was thrown back, and just in time too.
Wenster crashed down, the force of his impact shattering Riven’s shield like it was little more than a house of cards.
Riven breathed out a little sigh of relief. He had missed Lacelle with the expanding shield after she had disappeared thanks to her Essence, but at least Viriya was safe. Not that she had any intentions of remaining safe for long.
She launched herself at Wenster. Two rushing steps forward, then she jumped and flew feet first at the big brute, accelerating every thumping heartbeat. Riven saw why. Green Essence glowed on the cracked ground where she had been standing before Wenster landed, and it Locked the Essence glowing at her feet, pulling her forward faster and faster.
Viriya was fast as a runaway train when she hit Wenster. Her boots collided with his shoulder and sent him tumbling backwards despite his bulk, green Essence spreading all over his skin and causing a dozen new ruptures on his flesh. He staggered back, shrieking at the impact as a wash of blood spurted out of his shoulder.
Riven didn’t know why he was waiting. He charged forward, calling his Essence on himself to reform his golden armour. It was stronger now, forming actual armour-like details on the film covering him—there were recognizable sections like pauldrons, greaves, gauntlets, and chest-and-backplates. All of it was formed by a few layers of weird chain mail, like his Essence had formed little squares that overlapped and linked together to form larger shapes.
There was no time to properly observe though. He was coming up against Wenster. Viriya had already been distracted by Lacelle, who had reappeared with her orange Essence to annoy her.
Wenster jolted around at the sound of Riven’s steps. Damn it, he should have been sneakier. Oh well. Despite all his wounds, Wenster was still powerful. Riven dodged his punch, but the air whooshing past his face promised that he’d have had his whole head ripped off his shoulders if Wenster’s knuckles had made contact. But strength meant nothing if he was too slow to hit. Riven dodged the next lumbering swing as well, stepping to one side and throwing his own punch into the brute’s guts. That would normally have done nothing, but Viriya had torn open livid wounds And Riven made sure to punch with every bit of his strength he could muster. The impact with Wenster’s rock-hard body shattered his Essence into glasslike shards, most of which stabbed into the brute’s wound.
With a scream, Wenster threw himself backwards. Riven gave him no space to recover. Bastard had wasted enough time and needed to know that he was supposed to be dead by now.
Riven threw himself forward and attacked with all he had. Wenster’s arm clubbed down, but Riven dodged, jabbing away at the brute’s other wounds. A vicious kick came in from the side, but Riven expanded his armour into a shield. It shattered at the hit, but Riven was already jumping back, throwing renewed Essence lines at the shards of his Essence thrown everywhere. Then he pulled them onto his arm.
Jumping and shouting, Riven rammed his golden shard-covered arm at Wenster’s ugly mug. It would have been a direct hit but the Firstmarked had recalled he had Essence of his own. There was an enormous flash of blue within him and Riven missed.
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Wenster had turned back into that misshapen monster.
When Riven landed, the Firstmarked was already on him. He charged in, and Riven dived away. There would have been no point in facing him in that state. Wounded or not, Riven was outmatched physically when he had broth superior strength and speed. Instead, Riven needed to rely on his Essence, especially now that it was powerful enough to act in multiple places.
He focused as Wenster turned, throwing his Essence around the Firstmarked’s face. A golden orb formed, distorting the image of Wenster’s head as though seen through thick glass, and the Firstmarked went still. He raised a thick, long arm and slammed his fist against the golden Essence. It cracked in the first blow, fractures spreading faster and threatening to give way to total collapse with subsequent hits.
Riven wasn’t waiting for that to happen. As soon as Wenster had paused, he shot forward as fast as his legs would carry him, straight at his opponent. Wenster fended him off without much trouble using his free hand. Riven punched but that was easily blocked, and his kicks were dodged with impunity. He tried to stay on Wenster’s blind side, but it was obvious the Firstmarked could easily compensate for his missing eye.
Wenster’s own kicks came in fast as a whiplash. Riven was thrown back but he focused, forming a separate shield behind himself to stop from being thrown too far back.
Then he used it to propel himself forward with his feet. Wenster hammered down with his fists just as Riven came close enough, but another little moment of focus meant he had another shield in front of him, this one to stop himself from being crushed by the Firstmarked. It was angled and ridged though, and Riven used the footholds to jump higher. He reached the peak of the angled shield, and then jumped even higher. More and more shields appeared in mid-air until he was as high as he needed to be.
Riven created another golden Essence plate to stand a couple dozen yards over his enemy. His other two impromptus shields disappeared. Wenster glared up at him, and Riven couldn’t shake the feeling that he was about to jump straight up to pull Riven down.
No point giving him that chance. Riven focused, and the plate disappeared.
He fell.
The Firstmarked was ready to catch him. Wenster’s arms shot upwards, but Riven drew on his Essence again. A golden sphere erupted into being all around him, the first layer of protection against Wenster’s defence-cum-counterattack.
He had no time to change tactics. The golden shield collided with his hands, and Riven focused before he himself hit it and lost the momentum from his fall. It shattered into a thousand little bits and pieces of Essence that sprayed everywhere. Riven had his armour protecting him but Wenster had nothing, The shards dug into him, hundreds of little jagged pieces jabbing into his wounds, cutting open new ones, and most importantly, forcing him to close his eyes and turn his face away.
Just what Riven had been hoping for. With a scream, he landed right on top of the Firstmarked and rammed his sharp, shard-wrapped arm right onto Wenster’s face.
The scream that tore loose from Wenster’s face was a brutal thing, a jagged, piercing screech that sliced into Riven’s ears and threatened to take his hearing. Blood splattered him, coating him in warm crimson on his head and shoulders. Wenster struggled too, his arms flying at Riven to throw him off.
Somehow, Riven clung on. One arm wrapped around the brute’s thick neck and held on for dear life while the other clubbed his face from the back. Despite feeling like he was riding a bucking horse, Riven focused with enough concentration to make his Essence form two separate shields to ward off Wenster’s flyaway arms. He was hammering in too wildly to conjure enough force to shatter the shields, though they still cracked under the strain. Scions, he was too strong.
Riven pushed off from the big bastard. He needed space to focus. He needed some time to draw in his Essence and finish Wenster.
The Firstmarked stopped his shrieking and random running. For all that his face was a mess of blood, punctured flesh and skin, and still-glowing shards of golden Essence, he still wasn’t fully blind. He glared like he was going to tear apart Riven limb by limb.
Then he stood straight and still. “Lacelle.”
Orange fire blasted the area a second later. Lacelle emerged a moment later. Riven looked past them to check where Viriya was. She was standing at the other end of the hall, looking quite dumbfounded. Then angry.
“Get him,” Wenster ordered.
Lacelle nodded, then disappeared in another flash of orange fire. Riven peered at Wenster, who was trembling all over. Him? Who was he referring—
Another flash of burning orange Essence, and Lacelle reappeared with Vorellick in tow.
Shit. Why hadn’t the bastard run yet? Or had he run and just got caught. Riven had done so much to free him, to make sure he was safe, and look at him—caught again. Stupid, old bastard.
Lacelle grinned at Riven. “It’s so easy to read your mind, Morell.” She laughed outright. “Don’t worry, he tried to run. It just that once you were gone, I had no trouble finding him again and putting him right where he needed to be.”
Riven frowned. Putting him where he needed to be? She sounded like she had caught him and then locked him away in her personal storage. He stood straighter, eyes widening a little. Of course, the little pocket dimension created by her Essence. She must have sent Vorellick there after Riven had charged into the Beyond.
“Surrender now or we will make this man beg you to surrender.” Wenster grinned a nasty, soul-shrivelling smile. “I haven’t pulled out a nail in a long time.”
Riven grimaced. Torture. That didn’t sound good at all. It was one thing to kill off the man, another to make him suffer so that his life turned into a living rendition of the Chasm. Vorellick understood the implications too, and he had gone very pale, now quivering all over. How was Riven going to get that man free?
“Cowards,” Viriya said as she walked over. Every step made Riven think she was going to keel over and fall, never to get back up again, but she kept on pushing. Her face was resolute as ever, more indomitable than Wenster’s blasted, Essence-fuelled body. She was going to pay for overextending herself soon enough. “You’re hiding behind an innocent man who’s got nothing to do with anything. How low can you sink?”
Wenster shook his head, though he stopped rather quickly. Riven grinned when Wenster scowled at him. “You won’t understand the necessity of surviving any way possible, girl.”
“I know you’ve accepted defeat. You’re now clutching at straws.” If Viriya could be any more disgusted, she would have to wear a sign saying more disgusted or some other thing like that. The twist on her face was utter revulsion and nothing else. “Let him go and die with some shred of dignity.”
“Dignity?” Wenster laughed outright, though he stopped soon once more. Riven had to stifle his own laughter when the brute glared at him. Wenster’s face must have been feeling quite nice right about now. “Victory is all that matters, Rorink. Get that through your thick head, and if you survive, you might just make something of yourself. You need to win, and you need to do so at any costs. That’s all that matters.”
“You bastards,” Riven shouted. “Let him go already!”
Lacelle shook her head, red hair weaving around.
Viriya pulled out her gun and aimed at the mismatched trio. “Your last warning. Let him go, or you’re going to pay worse than you would have otherwise. It’s not going to be pretty.”
She didn’t raise her voice much or even specify how they were going to pay, but it was obvious how she wanted to proceed. Things were either going to go her way, or they were going to pay. Simple as that. And they all knew Viriya well enough that her threat was basically a promise.
Wenster wasn’t cowed. “What, you’re going to shoot while we still have him? You can’t, stupid girl. I’ll kill him with my bare hands if you even dare to take a step forward. Now lower that gun and—"
Viriya fired. There was no question asked, no last warning issued, nothing at all to indicate she had been preparing to fire her gun in such a volatile moment. Her bullet whizzed out and struck Vorellick right in the head.
Riven gasped as the man fell to the ground. No doubt, he was dead before he hit the floor. They stared. All of them. Riven , Lacelle, and Wenster too, all of them mesmerized by the corpse pooling blood at their feet,
Viriya had just shot the hostage dead. What in the actual fuck?
She wasn’t waiting for them to collect themselves though. Now that there was no hostage to worry about, Viriya charged in. Her next shot took Wenster in the head. He was a Firstmarked though, and some sort of innate instinct had activated his blue Essence. It flared within him, turning him bulky again as Viriya’s bullet shot at him. He rose several inches in height, and she was already on him before he could touch the ground. Lacelle disappeared in a flash of burning orange again, but Riven knew what to do. He focused, drawing an Essence shield around Viriya and Wenster. There. Now that spatial acrobat could stop interfering with Viriya.
All for the best. Viriya was in the process of crushing the life out of Wenster. She punched him and hit him, evading his every return blow and hammering her own at him to make him buckle and fall back.
It was insane to see. He punched. She dodged, sinking a fist into the wound on his guts. He kicked out, but she jumped, her next blow ramming her green spikes into his torn face. Wenster even had the audacity to grab her in a crushing bear-hug. Her Essence flared, jagged green spikes jabbing into Wenster who fell back. Blood had splattered everywhere, obscuring too much of what was going on within.
Wenster tried to get up from where he had fallen, but Viriya finally ended the battle. She kicked him in the head. He shouted, and tried to protect himself with his arms, but Viriya used her Essence to Lock them back on either side of him against Riven’s Essence shield. Then she resumed her kicking. Blow after crunching, thumping blow landed on Wenster’s head, and his shrieks eventually faded to a keening moan. It ended with one loud, wet crunch, and Wenster finally silenced.
“Find Lacelle, you idiot!” Viriya shouted.
Riven tore his sight from the blood-flooded little sphere. It was less gold and more scarlet now, daubed with gore all over. But he couldn’t let that distract him. Lacelle. He looked around, but there was no sign of the other Firstmarked. No glimmering orange fires anywhere in the whole hall. Riven’s heart sank. She hadn’t escaped, had she.
No. He wasn’t going to let her get away. Not when she was the only way to figure out how in the world he had ended up in the Beyond.
Not when she could send him there again.
Riven focused, letting the pressure build within him, bubble up like an overflowing cauldron filled with a boiling potion. His Essence flowed from him like he was a cornucopia of gold, spewing from him with the force of a geyser. Hopefully, he still had enough Sept. Golden lines flew out of him, thick as tree trunks, spreading out over the entire hall in a matter of blinks. With some more concentration, Riven shaped them all into an enormous hemisphere, blocking off the exit down the stairway.
That had to have done it. He wasn’t sure he could spread the shield out even further even if he’d wanted to. They waited for a while, no sound in the whole hall save the few lone drops of blood falling from the top of the shield around Viriya and Wenster’s corpse and into the dark scarlet pool around her feet. Plunk, plunk, plunk.
Riven swallowed, pushing down the bile clawing up his throat. It was only necessary.
Orange fire flickered at the very edge of his shield. It blazed across the golden surface, running as though it was seeking a way out. But there was none. Riven had made sure of it. The fire stopped, then petered out, leaving a frightened and wary Lacelle standing at the edge of the hall.
“It’s over,” Viriya said. “Stop fighting, and stop running. If you surrender, I won’t kill you.”
Lacelle only gave her a hard grin. “Hah. Surrender, she says. There’s no such thing. Death is all that awaits the defeated.”
“It doesn’t have to be that way.”
“Look at you! You’re one to talk about surrender and mercy. You with your blood and gore and fucking brutality, you monster.” Lacelle took a deep breath. “Besides, you’re out of Sept, same as me. Your Essence is going to fail soon enough. I can wait until then and make my way out.”
Even as she said it, Riven’s shield around Viriya collapsed into golden dust. Shit, she was right. His Sept really must be running out if he couldn’t maintain his Essence any longer.
Viriya didn’t seem to care. She stepped over the corpses and started walking towards Lacelle as her Essence began to fade. The golden glimmers went out slowly but surely, and the emeralds crusting her all over were losing their lustre.
But her movement left the corpses free and alone, nothing else there to distract Riven from staring at them as though he had never seen dead bodies before. This was different though. This was barbaric. Savage. What had she told him once? Something about ends justifying the means? Something so long ago now, it felt like. This was the perfect example of that—Wenster’s head had been crushed to a pulp of blood, grey matter, and bits of bone, while Vorellick lay lost to the world with the wound in his chest still spewing dark blood like it was a gory spring. Monster. That’s what Lacelle had called Viriya.
Riven swallowed. The Viriya he knew wasn’t a monster. The Viriya he knew had helped a boy and his mother escaped to freedom, risking her reputation and livelihood in the process, even after they had turned into Deathless. The Viriya he knew was far from a monster. Sometimes cold, yes, and often unfeeling and refusing to let any glimmer of emotion show. But she was no monster.
Who, then, was this Viriya?
“You have one choice,” she said as she reached Lacelle. Her green Essence was little more than winking spots on her, the spikes having disappeared completely. She was defenceless. Essenceless. “Surrender. Or die. Which will it be?”
She stopped a yard from Lacelle. Now that the green Essence was gone, the wounds all over her were much clearer. It was impossible. How was she still standing with her shoulder bruised so bad it had to be broken, or her arm sheathed in blood that had seeped out of the livid gash it sported, with one leg standing at an awkward angle as though to condemn her.
But she was still Viriya. Still indomitable. Still undefeatable.
Still a monster to her enemies.
Lacelle stared at her for a moment. Then she relented and gave the slightest of nods. “I surrender.”