A deep chuckle rumbled in Cedric's mind.

He pounded a fist against his head, shuffling and shivering through the knee-high results of the blizzard.

The rush of the Relistar’s teleportation still rattled his skull. He desperately leaned up against a tree, spun so his back was against it and slid down into the mess of snow.

Cedric said nothing.

"Shut up." he growled.

"I'm a pacifist—"

Serkukan chuckled again,

"Clearly you're through permitting me anything other than torment."

With a swift summoning of Serkukan's reality-weaving magic, his armor and satchel were right back upon him in a blink.

The rain had cleared again beyond Cromer's vicinity to make way for snow, and it had become impossible to tell that it had ever rained at all beneath the dense white piles. His leather kit and the clothes underneath were useless against the frigidity. He reached for his warming amulet every few minutes, forgetting that it had shattered, either during the fight or from when the churning magic from his crimson gemstone cast him away into the forest.

He swallowed his guilt again. The same guilt that he had been swallowing for hours since waking, and would swallow for hours more until his death.

“Why do I see that vision every time I use the crystal?”

Serkukan did not respond.

"Nelreign." He glared at its highest stone tower, barely visible in the distance, while the rest of the castle hid behind snow-topped pine trees. Blue banners dangled down from the curved windows, with gold accents and sigils to signify the lord of the castle. "That damn place… if only I had let Rog take the crystal, I wouldn't be in this mess…"

Cedric rolled his eyes and pulled his legs up to his chest. "Then why me?"

"While I'm at it, maybe I should pluck his damn wings off…"

The Relistar grew hotter in his pocket.

He kicked the snow at his feet. "It's just talk. Just empty, meaningless words. Of course I'm not going to let Algirak win… What's the point in that? Not like I can help it, anyway..."

The silence embraced them then, and he felt a strange unease against the hairs of his neck.

"Light me a fire," he commanded.

In a single instant, the snow ahead cleared to make way for a stone-ringed bonfire. He shuddered, startled by the stillness of the leylines around them. A magic with its own source of energy… the Lunars were right…

He stared off into the distance for a long time without moving. His eyes did not seem to interpret much, until they suddenly recognized the outline of a spiked figure of ice about the height of a man, which had been creeping up on him for as long as he had been drifting off. "Frost cacti, and we're hardly even north yet…"

The silence hit him again, giving him no choice but to think, as he had been trying so hard not to. Thoughts of home, new and old. Thoughts of sin, past and future. And thoughts of death. To come. To deliver. He lowered his head into his collar.

"My past is irrelevant. These now are your murders. Not mine. You possessed me, or I never would have touched any of them."

I FIND THAT HARD TO BELIEVE. THESE ARE ALL MANIFESTATIONS OF YOUR OWN DESIRES, KILLS MADE TO PRESERVE YOUR LIFE AND LUXURY. THOSE BANDITS YOU FACED OFF WITH IN THE WOOD, THEY'D STILL BE ALIVE IF NOT FOR ME?

"I wouldn't have been cocky enough to rest my head in that wretched place…"

Serkukan didn't say anything. He was content to let the guilt wear away at his pawn, anyway, until he was nothing more than an empty husk which he could control as a weapon. With one last glance at Nelreign’s towers, Cedric shut his eyes. Soon enough, he was asleep, and Serkukan was left alone to ruminate on his plan. Or whatever plan Llestren had already set into motion. Once the night reached its darkest hour, he pulsed in brilliant red light, hoping Llestren might appear to brief him on what to do next, so as not to leave them unarmed and alone in the finale of a great war.

The dark shadow that soon manifested reminded him again how grim it had become.

The breeze whispered, “Serkukan.”

If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

The crystal fell out of Cedric’s jacket, glowing brighter in burning red than any torch could.

“Serkukan, it’s me…” rustled the bushes ahead. Black robes stood nearly invisible between them.

He limped toward Cedric like a wounded animal, the thin cloths around his arms dragging through the top of the snow. “Fear me not tonight; things have happened sooner than expected, and I worry that we’ll not have time to reconvene once Llestren’vatis reveals himself. Hate and fury, blood and darkness; the shadows, the paranoid sounds that no man should hear, and the splattered blood from your own hands. We’re meant to be, and I’m sure you’ve seen it at last.”

The trees rustled as he spoke, though Serkukan still said naught.

“I want to say I understand your hesitation, Serkukan, but look at what he’s done to us! We’re mere fragments of what we were in Etheria, but our joint power can surely restore—”

A spark of light glistened from the crystal and the moon shifted to match its bloody hue. A sharp and fiery figure soon manifested beside the crystal, cast into the frozen haze by a flurry of lights from the Relistar; the murky image of a tall man, covered in crimson crystal armor. A cracked white star was embedded where his face should be, shimmering in the moonlight.

“Even still, Llestren’s mark binds you. The binding of a betrayer, of a—”

“My beckon was not for you, Kinslayer.” his voice was powerful and consuming.

“Serkukan, I—”

“No more lies, Algirak.” he commanded. “You destroyed the Omnestatum. You threw us into the thousand-year chaos, not him. You stole life away from domains that weren’t yours to rule, and collapsed Etheria beneath your heavy ego. Like Azafel picking from Evra’s Caloria.”

Algirak flinched.

“Did you think it was some sort of secret? I’ve been alive since the dawn of all dawns, and you thought you could obscure our most basic realities? Your ego—no—your hubris has taken its toll tremendously. You and Rykaedi both, even if you’ve grown this far apart… You’re both pitiful.”

“Serkukan, please!” Algirak pleaded.

“You’re going to use it to rend our reality. To face Azafel in his pit of pits. You want to become the sole arbiter of this realm. Am I wrong?”

Algirak shuddered and stammered.

“Too damned stupid to realize that you will die. Painfully. Without dignity. And with it, you bring not only our kin, but Evra’s universe, everything she painstakingly bore from her own flesh. Even if you do reach him. If you do win against Llestren and I… it would be the end—”

“I know what I—” he gasped, halting his rage. He focused, forcing the rasps out of his breath and voice. “I know what you think I’m planning. But Serkukan, you must understand; Llestren is… powerful! Much more than I! He manipulated me into destroying the Omnestatum, threatened me! But now, after all this damage is done, we need it, you must admit, to revive our race, to resuscitate our power! Without the Omnestatum, what are we?”

Serkukan cocked his head.

“And surely, surely it was… satisfying, no? All that destruction, all that rage built up in Etheria? Wasn’t it thrilling?” A smirk crawled across his lips.

“Satisfaction? You destroy my race, strip us all of our power, and you want me to be… satisfied?

But oh, yes, Algirak. Of course that primal satisfaction was there. Watching you raze and pillage, kill the worlds that my brothers and sisters created, and then kill them made me feel… elated.

My elation was tainted only by your stupidity. All of this effort. This genocide, this war, this destruction… just to rid us all from existence. Even the genocidal kings of this world are not as mindlessly destructive. Not even Tovas…”

Algirak’s raspy breath shook, rattling the bushes and leaves around them. “Llestren’s binding has made you weak! He’s twisted your mind as well, I can hear it in your inflection! The true Serkukan would have killed me if he didn’t agree! The real Serkukan would have… would have joined me! He was never one to hesitate, never one to mourn—”

“Llestren’vatis is near.” He looked to the night sky. “I feel the tremble of his shimmering moonlight in the star he’s laid upon my head.”

“You expect me to fear Llestren? Or you, for that matter? Serkukan, for thousands of millenium, our kin have bred weaker and weaker… our power is finite. We stretch ourselves thinner the more we prosper; is that not enough evidence that this is not our natural way of life? Not the way Azafel created us. With the Omnestatum, we were content never to reach for that same ecstatic, euphoric power that once shook our species. But if we had a pure artefact, something designed by Evra herself…”

“Auctdos Munor is not an equalizer. And neither is Dyosius. Your crystal is a damned gateway to Hell, for everything that exists.”

“Hell? You know about…” He paused. A cold shiver ran through him. He spun frantically, looking for spying eyes, but quickly turned back to glare into the star upon Serkukan’s head. “Serkukan, I can recollect their scattered energies if that would please you. I’m more than willing to restore our kin to what they were, amplified by Dyosius. Allow me this chance, allow me your trust to complete this artefact. You’ll see.”

Serkukan shook his head.

Algirak pulsed red for a moment with a frenzied scream, then returned quietly to his natural black hue. “Fine. But when Llestren reveals his true intentions, my offer still stands. Until either of us is dead, my offer stands.”

“Worry not; he proved his intentions to be pure last time we faced off in your shattered palace.”

Algirak cast one last glare at Serkukan before a strong, snowy gust of wind cast them both away. Cedric stirred uneasily as the echoes from their argument bounced through his head, and Serkukan’s growls ran rampant.

They could only pray, though they knew few higher powers that would answer either of their cries.

*