Riven had forgotten why coming down was much less tiring than going up. Probably due to gravity or something. He didn’t have to make any effort to come down since it was just one little fall after another. All he had to do was take care that he not slip off the little plates he created in mid-air. There were times his enthusiasm at getting down made him leap forward a little too much and he almost missed the edge of the golden plates, teetering over the enormous drop.
Nevertheless, Riven ended up back on the battlefield without difficulty. Even if he’d fallen, he had his Essence. Viriya had made sure he’d had more practice than he should ever need at surviving long falls. He hadn’t had a good time on the wall of Rennervation city.
Thoughts of his time in Rennervation were wiped away as he beheld the battlefield. Or what was left of it, rather.
“Shit,” Riven muttered.
Bodies carpeted the area. Most were human, soldiers from Ascension Demesne who had their black coats ripped and their red trousers torn, blood dotting everybody everywhere. And they weren’t in one piece. Not a single one of them. Missing limbs drew his eyes—here an arm propped up as though someone was trying to claw out of their grave, there a leg lost from its owner, heads everywhere like balls of some gory sport.
There were demon and ghost corpses too, though those were fading to dead Sept even as he neared them. The Deathless weren’t as numerous as the human ones, though. It seemed the fighting had only appeared fierce, and in truth, up until the Infernal had joined the fray.
Riven was starting to feel chilly. Damn these Essentier uniform jackets were not meant to be worn in winter.
The dust was starting to clear, letting Riven see the direction the Deathless and the soldiers had run off. He needed to get to them. What other way was there to get to Rose? Rose. He swallowed. Riven had thrown in his lot with the Deathless, killing an Ascension Essentier in the process. There was no way Orbray was going to accept him with open arms no matter who he went along with or who vouched for him.
He had doomed himself, and in the process, had sentenced Rose to death as well.
Riven blinked and shivered where he stood. It was as if the ice all around was clawing up his legs and taking over his spine, freezing him in place and refusing to let him move. Rose dead, all because of him. He’d been too frightened for his own damn life to think clearly and hope that if he’d given himself over, they’d take mercy on him. If she died, he’d be the one at fault.
The body of a man stared up at him. Riven’s mouth opened a little, though no sound came out. It was the Essentier he had killed. Melott. There was a silver pin on his shoulder, denoting him a Thirdmarked of Ascendance Demesne. Soon as it became clear what Riven was looking at—Melott’s chest was a gory ruin, his chest filled with rocks that had crushed his heart and lungs—he gagged.
Scions, that was disgusting. It hadn’t looked as awful from above, but how could he have done something like that? So brutal. So barbaric.
So like Viriya.
Viriya. She wasn’t waiting in some battlefield, feeling guilty and lost. No, she was trundling onwards to the heart of wherever Orbray lay, ready to meet their foe face-to-face and settle it one way or another. Ready to throw everything in an effort to win. Riven had cursed her lack of subtlety but there was an elegance to her bullish endeavour. A truth to it that he had to admire.
Riven shook his head. This was far from the time to feel sorry or harbour doubts. The only thing he could do was move on and get to the bottom of this madness.
He had to get to Orbray and make sure Rose was still alive.
But before that, Riven needed to resupply himself. It felt awkward stealing from the dead, just as he had in Rennervation city. But he was forced to. When he took out his extra magazines and the spare vials Viriya had lent him, he had little of it left. They had kept the bare minimum on themselves so that Lacelle wouldn’t have any at hand either.
Thankfully, the dead here held a lot of Sept. The soldiers who had fallen all still had their ammunition. Riven filled his pockets and pouches too, then took up several extra bags until he looked like a walking armoury of Sept.
That, combined with the aura of death blanketing the whole area, reminded Riven of the Lintellant research facility. Nivi had better be all right.
Once Riven had stocked himself up with as much Sept that he could carry without feeling like a pack mule, he set off. The road was long, and he hadn’t found any food or drink on the soldiers. Not surprising. They were here to fight, not go to a picnic.
He was following the trail of Deathless. There was no other direction in which he could go, for there was no other way he could find someone to guide him. Why he hadn’t memorized a map of Ascension Demesne before coming here was anyone’s guess. But he had a goal now and he needed to stick with it.
Though every step made him baulk a little. The massacre hadn’t been localized to the battlefield. No, it had gone on, bodies lining the path like macabre road markers. The Fiends had torn the fleeing soldiers to shreds. Literally. There were times Riven wished he could keep his eyes closed, and he even did so once or twice when he wasn’t sure what in the Chasm he was beholding other than that it was some sort of dark red mass with more colourful organs littering the ground nearby.
War. This was war. Against the Deathless no less.
He hadn’t seen this kind of brutality at Welmark, nor had he witnessed a similar horror in the Frontier when the Frontier Guards had fought that army of Fiends. At both those instances everyone had been too busy trying to stay alive. Trying to survive, just like Riven.
Here though, none of the Fiends had to worry about life and survival, not when they were free to chase down the frightened running for their lives. Forget Welmark and the Frontier, this was more like the time those demons had assaulted Rattles.
Like the time Riven had failed Bartle and Darley.
Riven stopped. He’d come a long way—the ice patches were distant glints and the still- lingering dust was a far-away cloud that nearly melded with the rest of the area. But what was the point though? What was any of it worth if these demons were going to be loose and free to kill whoever they wanted? Riven should have made a deal with the Infernal, made her promise not to harm innocents. It might have amounted to little given that it was a demon he was speaking of, but Mhell would have helped him enforce it.
There was no point in winning if everyone died anyway. There was no point in surviving if nothing else in the world did.
More to it all, as Mother had said.
Riven started walking again. He had to make sure. So much responsibility on his shoulders. He had to make sure Rose was alive, had to make sure the Fiends didn’t go insane and kill literally everyone—Rio had said Anvarroh, the old Infernal they had fought, had sought control so there was hope—and he had to stop Orbray from calling down a Scion’s blasted… well, Scion.
But it was starting to wear on him. How far had he come? Riven paused to check, but there was no way to tell. The ice was gone and the dust wasn’t there and the path was still flooded with dead bodies.
He was tired too. Oh so tired. His shoulders drooped and sweat ran down his body everywhere, doing their best to get into every uncomfortable place imaginable. Riven couldn’t go on like this. He had to find some way to cut down the distance or else he was going to collapse from the exhaustion. And slow. So, Chasm-damned slow. He wasn’t going to last long out here in this desolate wilderness, this cracked wasteland that nothing called home, unless he found succour.
Succour. Riven blinked. There was something in the distance, under a big Coral tree. Or someone, rather. A figure in white stood under the tree’s bony boughs.
Riven took a step forward, then faltered. Damn, he was more tired than he’d thought. He took another, and this time, he fell to the ground. His breathing had turned hard and ragged, his limbs were doing their best to tremble out of their sockets, and he was having trouble hearing, seeing, feeling anything at all.
He was going to die. No. Not like this, not when he was so close to getting some help.
Riven raised his head again, opening his mouth to call out but any sound he might have made died in his throat. The figure was too far away. Even if he’d shouted, the person in white would never have heard him.
Survival. If there was one thing that Survival meant, it was that he couldn’t give up. He couldn’t, not without using everything he had first. So he focused.
His Essence came easier than ever. The pressure built up like air in a furnace, rising, boiling, ready to force itself out if it wasn’t released soon. Riven couldn’t keep it trapped inside himself for too long. But where was he to let it out? How was he to let it out? He hadn’t once thought of how it might help him survive such things that didn’t involve violence or physical damage. What about illness, starvation or thirst, rapid shock, or fear that could cause a heart attack? How in the world was his Essence, these golden lines that turned everything into a shield for him to protect himself with, supposed to help him with deadly exhaustion? Could it even?
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Riven steeled himself, trying to rise to his feet. Yes, it could. Of course, it could. He had saved Glaven’s life with his Essence’s help somehow, and if he could use it on someone else, surely Riven could use it on himself too.
Back on his feet, Riven focused. He drew in the shield around himself like protective armour, but even closer. Riven didn’t even have to make any effort to stand. When he leaned in, his Essence armour supported his weight. Then he focused on himself. He let more Essence out of himself but kept it right on his skin. It seemed his Essence only became Essence that could affect the world once it was out of his body.
But could Riven apply it to himself? He had to try. Taking in a deep breath as though he was about to plunge into an enormous pool, Riven drew the Essence within himself.
The feeling was strange, and he had to wonder why he hadn’t thought of doing this before. It was like becoming light, but not actually reducing any weight in the process. His Essence was filling up spaces within himself as though it was taking the place of his flesh, bones, and organs, replacing them all with much lighter variations made from his golden Essence. What in the world was going on inside him? Riven swallowed, suddenly feeling cold all over. What if the change was permanent, if in fact there was some kind of change going on within him?
No point dwelling on it. Even as he was filled to the brim with his golden Essence, he felt his weariness drain away. The pressure within him was now warbling, a discombobulated mass that whirled around like a broken twister. Maybe it was the reverse flow of Essence back inside himself that was causing it to seemingly malfunction.
Riven blinked. The world was starting to disappear. He stepped forward as though he was just caught in a bank of stray fog, but that should have obscured the world behind a misty veil. Not turned it into a blurry vision, as though he was seeing the world through frosted glass.
Shit. He reeled back. What was going on? Riven looked around, heart hammering. There was no sign of any Cataclysm descending from the heavens, nor any other strange anomaly anywhere. He was sure this was what had happened when the Cataclysm had come down—turned the whole world except near its vicinity, indistinct and blurry.
And now Riven was doing it instead. Holy Scions, what had he done to himself?
There was one thing that hadn’t gone blurry and indistinct though, and that was the figure in white. If anything, he had become clearer. A he, yes. Riven recognized that intricate white ivory armour, that etching of gold all over it, the images that formed on his helmet and breastplate.
The Scion’s Hand was here.
Riven’s hand automatically went to the left side of his waist, expecting to feel the hilt of his longsword there. But damn Viriya had taken that too after he’d been forced to leave it behind so that Aross could capture him. What a load of horseshit.
“Why do you hesitate?” the Scion’s hand asked.
Riven blinked. They had to be well over two hundred yards distant, yet it sounded like the man in white armour had spoken from somewhere just beside him. What kind of magic was that?
Tentatively, Riven tried speaking too, keeping his voice normal and even. “What are you doing here?”
“Couldn’t I ask you the same thing?”
“You could. I don’t think I’m beholden to answer someone who doesn’t do the same for me too.”
“Really? I was the one who asked first.”
“But I asked before that, remember? I’m sure I did.” Riven wasn’t sure. Not in the least. But this man, one of the Chosen, couldn’t have recalled any of the specifics of the conversation when he had faced the Cataclysm either. “I asked what you were doing here back then too, and you blew me off. So, I’m asking you now. What in the Chasm are you doing here, Chosen?”
The Scion’s Hand laughed at him. “Are you so feisty now thanks to your new powers?”
“You know about that?”
“You visited the Beyond. I—we—know about all comings and goings between the Beyond and the mortal realm. And it is a given that any unfortunate soul who ends up there will always come back irrevocably changed.”
What had Lacelle said? That it was too dangerous to go to the Beyond since anyone who went there never came back as themselves? Riven felt colder than ever before. No, it couldn’t be. He felt fine. Was fine. The damn Chosen must have been trying to mess with his head.
Riven couldn’t be like one of them.
“Changed how, exactly?” Riven said as he stepped forward, closing the distance between them.
The Chosen grew larger as Riven walked on. “The Beyond now clings to you. To your very soul in fact, so you cannot simply use some trick of yours or some other’s Essence and get rid of it.”
“And the Beyond, this piece of it that I have with me, does it come straight from the Scion?”
“How do you mean?”
“What’s so special about this piece? Or is it some random point in space has taken over my soul?”
“Ah, that is nothing to think on too much. You simply have a piece of a Scion with you.”
Riven stopped in his progress. A piece of a Scions. Shit. He didn’t have the Sept crystal with him. It was still back in the car with Viriya, and she had driven off with it.
“I see I’ve surprised you,” the Chosen said. “It’s nothing too frightening, I assure. We all have it. All the Chosen.”
“I’m not a Chosen, though.”
“No. But you have been to the Beyond, as I said. Few mortals—”
“Come back from it unchanged. Yes, I know.” Riven paused, trying to order everything he was being force-fed into a more proper order that he could actually make sense of. “You still haven’t said what in the world you’re doing here, Chosen.”
The Scion’s Hand stared around, and Riven unwittingly followed the man’s gaze. The wasteland was as desolate as ever, though a few lone Coral trees broke up the monotony, all of them steely grey like the one he was standing under. No thorngrass though. There was nothing for that dangerous shrub to grow on.
“I’m here to level the playing field, Riven Morell,” the Chosen finally said. “There are others of my kind out here, and I mean to stop them.”
“Others of your kind? You mean more Chosen?” Riven swallowed. “Why?”
“Why do I want to stop them, or why are they here?”
“Both.”
“Curious you should ask. I thought you knew already.”
Did he know? What did Riven really know? That talk with Alb, the broken god who had supposedly granted him his power of Survival, had revealed a lot about what was going on in the background. A conflict between the Scions, between the very divinities they all worshipped.
And now, one was about to spill into this realm.
“Did you kill that Cataclysm?” Riven asked.
The Chosen frowned, looking a little embarrassed. A stray wind blew in and made his long auburn hair flicker over his face, veiling it from view. “I couldn’t. I had underestimated my opponent, and he escaped.”
“So… he’s still out here?”
“I suspect so. I don’t believe he ever returned to the Beyond.”
“He’s been here all this time? How? Where?”
Riven glanced around even as he asked. The land was rising steadily, turning from highlands and hilly rises to grey and brown mountains in the not-so-far distance. Still lifeless though, still cracked and shattered everywhere. There were little craters here and there, shallow depressions that indicated where water had pooled from the mists, only to evaporate by noon.
There was nowhere to hide. Nowhere for a Cataclysm, one that was as remarkable and eye-catching as Riven had seen with his glittering, pearlescent exterior. Someone would have noticed if it was above ground.
“The Beyond,” the Chosen said. “Not the true Beyond of course, but what little he had brought with him. He can use it to stay out of the mortal realm until he needs to come out.”
“And that’s why you haven’t left either? Because your job isn’t done?”
“Well, that. And as I said, the meddling of other Chosen and powerful Deathless.”
“Do you know where they are?”
“Somewhat?”
“You know, for an immortal warrior under the Scions, you’re quite underwhelming.”
That probably wasn’t the smartest thing to say, and the Chosen’s ochre eyes flashed. But there was no real anger in him, just the frown from before that was directed at himself as much as it was at Riven. “Do you wish to see?”
“You’re going to show me where they are? How?”
“One moment.”
The Chosen concentrated for a moment, then the world turned distant. Everything blurred, and the farther Riven stared, the more it looked as though he was seeing the world through frosted glass. Everything had gone hazy.
Riven breathed in sharply. Shit, the Chosen had brought in his little space of the Beyond.
The world kept shifting. Riven had assumed, they’d stick to one spot, but he felt it rush around them, the wind cavorting and making his clothes flap and his hair dance. They were moving, not the world. When they stopped, though it was still indistinct and mostly blurry, Riven and the Chosen had halted leagues high in the air.
“Where are we?” Riven asked.
“Watch,” the Chosen instructed.
He was looking below him, and Riven stared down as well. Deathless. Innumerable Deathless carpeted the ground far below, so many, it didn’t matter how hazy or clear they were. It was easy to tell that there was enough to swamp not just Ascensions Demesne, but the entirety of Severance Frontier, perhaps.
They were all demons too, hordes upon hordes of Fiends crossing the land. Most of them lumbering along the ground but several were in the air, flapping wings that were anywhere between from butterfly ones to bat wings. A few Infernals strode amidst them, denoted by the pool of extra space their prowess and rank had earned.
So many. How in the world was Orbray supposed to beat them all? They’d tear the entire Demesne apart. As much as Riven wanted the bastard to lose, this was insanity. Everyone would die.
“Where is this?” Riven asked, voice a little shaky.
“On the boundary of Ascension Demesne,” the Chosen said.
“And one of the enemy Chosen is here?”
“Perhaps.” The Chosen tutted, as though chiding himself for not being able to tell. “Us Chosen can blend in very well when we choose to do so, and so long as we keep our powers hidden, no one would be able to find us.”
Riven looked his companion up and down, noting his brilliant white armour with gold etching, his short, red cap fluttering in the wind, his tall figure and striking face. “Right. I’m sure you can blend in easily.”
The Chosen missed the sarcasm. “Do you wish to see more?” He didn’t wait for Riven’s answer, and the whole world flashed by him again until the scenery had changed once more and it became a little less blurry. Now they were floating between two mountain peaks, watching distant figures run through a snow-filled pass, their spiky, jagged outlines making it all look like they were there one moment, gone the next.. Phantoms. “It’s all like this. Deathless are coming in everywhere, and they will surely be victorious. High Invigilator Orbray might have pulled off something more he could possibly ever chew, unless his plan works. A Scion could turn the tide easily.” The Chosen looked at Riven, ochre eyes trying to pierce through to his very soul. “What will you do, Riven Senolan Morell?”
What did he want? To stop Orbray from summoning the Scion right? But then, if he did that, the Deathless would eradicate everything. He knew how vicious they could be, knew just how strong and powerful and utterly merciless they were.
Those demons would leave no one alive.
Riven dragged in a deep breath. “We need to stop Orbray from summoning a damn Scion.”
The Chosen looked in parts both surprised and relieved. “I was assuming you’d want to stop the Deathless by any means, even though Orbray is your enemy.”
“I do want to stop the Deathless. But a Scion down here …” What had Viriya said once? That a Class Three Deathless like a Cataclysm could destroy the entirety of Severance Frontier, but a Scion could turn over the entire world. “A Scion is much worse.”
“Much worse,” the Chosen agreed. “Then let us depart, shall we?”
“Where to?”
“To where we can defeat Orbray.” The world started shifting again, the Chosen’s personal bubble of the Beyond transporting them out of the confines of time and space. He gave Riven a curious little look. “Do you know how we will stop the summoning?”
There was that poem on the statue in Providence. Riven wracked his memories, but the exact wording escaped him. “Orbray needs all three—a Cataclysm, a Wraithlock, and a Revenant. Once they’re all in one place, a Scion can be summoned via some sort of ritual.”
“That’s right. So you know what exactly we must do?”
“I do.”
Preventing just one of those three from showing up should be enough to stop the summoning, and Riven knew just the person he needed to stop.
Mhell.