YOU LEAVE A BACKDOOR TO ALGIRAK WHEN YOU DO THAT.

His mind warped. Cedric Castelbre stood suddenly in Cromer, in a memory he'd rather have considered the distant past. Everything was in flames, the rain poured down like a monsoon… Hunters ran and shouted and howled in horror.

Cedric lifted his gaze. There he was, that Great Red One. Serkukan's crimson suit of armor bounded between innocents, Hunters, and knights alike, struck them down, ripped out their hearts, painted his crystalline armor in all of their blood…

“That's me,” said Cedric. “That's still me…”

And he looked down. There he stood, again, now as a young boy. The boy who was abducted so long ago by the Sylvet — back from when his hair was still black, his clothes were still dirty rags from hours spent playing in the mystical elven forests...

Cedric knelt down to put his hand on the boy's shoulder before he glanced up at his own messy brown hair with a scoff. “Maybe the dye-job was a mistake after all, huh?”

But the boy did not laugh. His face stayed dazed, stunned. He didn't react in the slightest, entranced as a victim of trauma might be...

“Hey,” Cedric shook his shoulder, “hey, I'm not doing too bad. Am I? Have I failed in your eyes, is that what this is? Have I let you down, have I abandoned you? I never chose any of this, you know that! When those fucking Sylvet pricks killed my mother, you think I was happy!?”

Cedric shoved the boy to the cobbled ground. His horrored gaze did not change.

“You've got nothing for me!? I've worked my fucking ass off to make you happy, to make it up to you! And you fucking lay here in horror like you didn't commit the same atrocities that I did! We're the same person, let me remind you… You and I, Lorik Valenkir, are the same shitty bastard, no matter how you cut it. And I like being Cedric. Hell, I fucking love it. If anything, Cedric Castelbre is a million times the person you'll ever be.”

He gestured to the scene behind him and it changed from flaming Cromer to flaming Calamon. The rain stopped. The devastation became a thousandfold

“You think this is me? That that..." he nodded to the gargantuan red dragon in the sky, tearing the world apart. The ley no longer responded to his demands for the carnage to stop. "That's me? I'm not that demon. Not anymore." His voice cracked: "And now, there's nothing that can be done to stop him. There's nothing. No way to put an end to his terror. Now he's unbridled, I can't do anything! Before, I could command him, tell him what to do, use him like a tool! That was always the plan! That was the plan and I… I failed. Is that what you're saying? That this was a forgone conclusion? No matter what I did, you think this was destiny? You think this was always going to happen? We had an understanding! Fucking LISTEN to me!”

Cedric kicked a nearby helmet, sent it flying with the head still inside. It bounced off the last support beam of a nearby house, sent the whole structure crackling down to the ground in a landslide of wood and stone.

The boy cowered, covered his face from the rising dust.

“So what happened? What was my mistake? What happened in Cromer? No. What happened in Nelreign. That's where I fucked up. The key… the key was IN MY HAND! The key was in my hand, and I…”

Cedric looked down at his bloody hand. He grew quiet.

“...This isn't a fight I'm involved in anymore. Now it's Serkukan against Tartys… The ley… I can't feel the twice-ley. Is that why I can't command Serkukan? But then, what happened? What happened…?”

The world grew dark all around him. Blackness engulfed his entire vision.

“...I hope Faunia is okay.”

And then a new vision opened up all around him: he was suddenly displaced to a familiar field in Kylinstrom, stood alone in a clearing between Siln and Dreslon, not far from Azar'kara. He spun left and right in alarm, overcome with anxiety.

“She's here… She's here — Tirolith!”

Cedric ran for the steaming crater ahead and fell beside it. There was a naked Tirolith, battered almost beyond recognition, slick with water and blood, flattened in a mass of twisted flesh and broken bones. She could only manage gags and murmurs, her voice bubbled with blood and oozing bile.

“Tir…!” Cedric whimpered.

The grass crunched behind him. He summoned his Sylvet shortsword to his hand, darted around.

Tirolith raised a shaky, desperate hand as the figure approached.

And Cedric saw her: Faunia Vleren, donned in Ithlo’vatis’ coat and hat, stood with a cool expression over what should have been Tirolith’s grave. The girl in the pit looked so desperate… but the woman standing over her looked so… bored. Just like Tartys…

“...Faunia!?” Cedric gasped.

“Faunia…!” Tirolith whimpered in agony, strained to free the words from her throat. “I tried! I thought I had to let loose like I did in Alisa, I thought I had to go berserk! It wasn't enough, it wasn't…”

Faunia looked up to the sky, toward Aeon. “Shhhh… I know what we need to do, Tirolith. I've seen Truth. And that weapon of Truth, that weapon is unstoppable with Dyosius in tow.”

Tirolith gasped and gagged. Tears streamed down her cheeks. Her blood was beginning to dry up, to evaporate…

The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

Faunia looked back down at her.

Cedric couldn't manage another word. He glanced between the two of them. Their relationship suddenly looked so sullen, so empty…

Faunia held a hand out toward Tirolith. She simply asked, “Do you trust me?”

And then the vision fell into nothingness.

X

Hemah had reached Aeon. She floated perfectly in place over the grand city of white and gold.

The citizens pointed. They screamed. They panicked. Another Etherian, another tragedy… The city's bells began to ring resoundingly in terror.

The sky was still black over Aeon from what Kogar had wrought — Hemah floated in that one spot which glistened, the place where light still hovered down from betwixt the dark clouds, illuminated a singular stream into the collapsed palace in the center of it all.

She howled. Her voice became a cacophony of thousands of screams, shook and shattered windows all over the whole land, crumbled buildings, sent the people into desperate hiding like ants to her magnifying glass.

Rykaedi — Arobella stepped out into that stream of light. She stared up from where the throne had once been. Her pudgy face became a violet-eyed sneer.

Then came Hemah's sunlight. She exploded like the flick of a mage bulb’s switch, instantly illuminated everything around her, coated the clouds in gold before they burst away to reveal the black sky beyond, the infinite stars which were now immaculately perceptible in her terror.

And the rain from those clouds did not even reach the ground.

She screamed out until her eyes rolled over, roared and thrashed and bellowed until her lungs were sore and raw, until blood rolled from her nostrils, over her lips…

But when she stopped, when she opened her eyes… Aeon was still there.

“WHAT!?”

KRCH!

A sudden blow shattered the back of her skull. Hemah rolled over in the air, barreled toward Aeon, still unlit as though her light hadn't penetrated their shadow.

She slammed hard against something — something invisible which blocked her from reaching the city. And then she saw its platinum glow.

The back of her skull had healed imperceptibly fast. Her golden hair did not reform over the mushy, lumpy flesh. She turned back to see Faunia Vleren, that whore from Calamon, floating above her. Her body was engulfed in crystal like ice, crystal dyed red with blood, overlaid with a platinum, vibrating aura… an aura which held the colors of all Etherians.

“DYOSIUS!? No, NO! I'M the only one fit to wield their power! I'm the one chosen to be successor to Etheria, to the OMNESTATUM! Not you, not some… some putrid fucking whore! I'LL FUCKING KILL YOU!”

Now, Tir.

Hemah was at Faunia's face instantly, like she'd always been there. Her golden claws swept in a flurry through the air.

But Faunia, too, was gone before she knew it. The Silver Sword warped behind Hemah, pulled visible lines of ley from Hemah's flesh, lines of ley which stretched like lute strings, dug into Hemah's cheeks and robes, sliced her in stripes all up and down her body. Like dragging a dog by its leash.

Hemah screamed out, exploded into sunlight.

Faunia yanked downward hard and the strings of ley completed into a bubble all around the woman. The sunlight did not penetrate that rainbow sphere which floated translucent around the sun goddess.

Faunia's breath wasn't even ragged, she wasn't even tired.

She looked down to her hands.

Thank you, Ithlo’vatis. Without you, I…

His sacrifice won't be in vain, Faunia.

She clamped her hands shut.

No. It won't be.

Faunia turned back to Hemah, her spiked gauntlet reached toward the bubble. She began to tighten her grip, began to crush, and watched the bubble mimic her in kind.

Hemah screamed, more and more desperate to escape as Faunia's own twice-ley barrier became tighter and tighter, locked Hemah in place, constricted her, began to break bone.

Only Faunia's mouth was visible beneath Tirolith's icy helm, bearing no expression at all. She hoped, she prayed, that it was only a side effect of what she'd done to Ithlo’vatis… But just as well, she liked that coolness, that sudden lack of empathy. And that brought a smirk to her lip.

“I think that's about enough.”

Snap!

The bubble vanished. Hemah fell.

Faunia reached out in alarm.

And Arobella caught her. Hemah did not stir in her arms. And that violet witch smiled scornfully at the Silver Sword.

“Little did I expect the Heretic here. But you're not Cedric anyway, are you, darling?”

“What are you doing, Rykaedi?”

Rykaedi floated down until her bare feet touched the glistening barrier. She asked, “You did this? I'm impressed, to use Dyosius to such an extent I'd thought you'd need the crystal itself… How did you manage such an astounding draw upon the ley?”

Faunia slammed down across from Rykaedi. The barrier reverberated. “Where are you taking her?”

Arobella smiled. “Home.” And she stroked her hair. “She deserves it, don't you think?”

“I've spared you thus far because we weren't strong enough to protect Calamon. I won't listen to Cedric on this anymore—”

“Then I'll tell him to get his bitch in check next time we meet.” She smiled and waved. “I'll be seeing you again, soon!”

Faunia leapt forward with a howled attack. Rykaedi was gone in a warp, folded into herself and away to Etheria.

All Faunia could do was bellow a prolonged, frustrated “Fuck!”

And away she shot, like an arrow for Calamon...