Arakiel looked over the old man that lay on the ivy-covered ground in front of him, internally praising the fact that the plants’ branches were so thin that it hadn’t hampered their movements. The Middle royal’s body still occasionally twitched, but the wrinkled, highly reddened and blistered face remained still for the most part – he appeared to have lost consciousness at last. A faint, almost colorless sheen still remained on his skin, however.
To the front, Ezekiel panted heavily, hurrying to remove his helmet to better gasp for air.
Arakiel remained tense, expecting the king to jump up any moment now even if the better part of his brain told him that it was straight up impossible. Both had struck the man with a shard-tapped spell at point blank range… there should be no getting back up from this.
And yet, the man’s crooked hand still held the wavy long blade.
Arakiel moved over, still not letting the strain get to him. He could recuperate once King Cahir was gone for good.
He unsheathed his scimitar to make that a reality sooner rather than later.
“Wait,” Ezekiel warned. “He’s mine to kill.”
“So you can prove yourself a good little ‘knight’ for Alanna?” Arakiel jibed, yet he did not draw his blade further. “Just be quick about it.”
His hand went back to the pouch at his belt. He protruded an additional air and fire shard just in case. They had shared Zimraan’s ‘gift’ or perhaps ‘payment’ and he was willing to use every single one… it just had to happen at an opportune moment.
Had Cahir focused solely on defense in that moment, he wouldn’t have been hit.
Thankfully, he had not.
The power inside these traditional shards appeared much higher or perhaps condensed than inside Aurora’s dawnshards… this much was certain.
He found himself glancing to the side, towards Aurora who still remained right next to the entrance alongside Selene. Seeing her standing there without her soul showing… it felt wrong: Arakiel preferred her ablaze in gold, yet she hadn’t done so since…
Shoving the distraction aside once more, he flashed the seraphim a little smile and then focused on the matter at hand.
Ezekiel had finally gotten rid of his helmet which he carelessly let fall onto the floor after which he picked up his halberd. His amethyst eyes showed irritation and wariness.
“Where are the fae? Didn’t we carry out their wish?” He asked in short, strained bursts.
Arakiel’s eyes wandered across the king’s artifact armor that had partially turned black from his flame until they rested on the royal’s right hand, the hand that still held his wavy blade with the overgrown crossguard. It had to be another artifact and yet he had kind of expected more out of it.
Besides a little twitching… there was no movement in the body – and yet he still couldn’t quite believe it to be over.
Ezekiel hurried back over towards Cahir’s head and pointed his weapon’s tip downwards, ready to finally end the old man who had put up one hell of a fight. If either had been alone, they would’ve undoubtedly perished.
“Just finish him, they’ll show up for sure.” Arakiel returned at last, giving Ezekiel a nod.
Some of the things his partner had said made him worry, but maybe he just wanted to put on a good act for the seelie which were undoubtedly nearby.
“So long, your Majesty,” Ezekiel commented with a low chuckle and as he was about to bury the halberd in Cahir’s face, both of them were suddenly pushed away and back by a gust of wind.
“Watch out!” The blonde Ascendant warned right away while Arakiel cursed internally, yet when his eyes espied one of the seelie suddenly kneeling down beside the king, he relaxed a little.
Of course it was them.
Given the braided blonde hair, it should be Alanna – but the twins could’ve easily switched it up without anyone noticing just from sight alone. when he noticed the silver sprinkles inside her eyes, he had clarity.
The seelie in her new wispy green dress softly stroked the old man’s scruffy beard, her expression unreadable.
Behind her, Ezekiel’s expression darkened notably, but he dared or perhaps could not approach.
“Old decrepit coward you…” the seelie spoke in a low, disapproving tone. “To think you’d drink even for your final battle; and in your stupor, you forgot all about…”
The immortal looked to the side, towards the royal’s right gauntlet and the wavy blade. “Planeswalkers,” the fae spoke up, turning her face to the side. “You made a good first impression, but this battle isn’t over just yet…”
Arakiel repeated his earlier curse while additionally cursing the seelie as well – internally, of course. He knew better than to give them a reason to be displeased.
The immortal flared up in her soft pink light, put one of her hands onto the blade while fixating Arakiel and the shards in his hand. “I’m pleased to see that you haven’t given your all just yet. We want you to go right to the edge, and then leap across.”
Four sigils formed and dissolved in the bat of an eye.
A smile formed on her far-too-beautiful countenance as Cahir’s outline began to glow in a soft, rose-colored sheen. Only for a moment, and then it was gone – just like the injuries on his face. This kind of rapid healing… it should be astral, or a highly skilled nature mage. In this case, undoubtedly the latter.
“What more do you want, my Lady!?” Ezekiel irritably shouted. “I was about to kill him!”
The fae’s body began to turn translucent as Cahir stirred, not sparing her ‘knight’ a glance.
At the same time, Arakiel felt the air around him turn solid for lack of a better word. From one moment to another, he couldn’t move anymore and judging the way Ezekiel froze, he most likely suffered likewise.
Whatever play the seelie intended to perform here, they were meant to observe for now. This humiliation he felt… he had to remember and recall it whenever he considered Nyanna’s boons. For now, he was a toy to her, regardless of what he did.
Meanwhile, the royal Middle opened his eyes and more or less immediately whispered in slow, almost disbelieving words. “Fodhla… my love?”
“Foolish old man you,” Alanna returned in an admonishing tone. “If you intend to prove yourself worthy, then you better remember my gift. I told you that your drinking habit would be your undoing. Honestly…”
Her words faded out just as her body did, yet the lingering trace of affection in them had undoubtedly sent the message.
“No, Fodhla wait!” The ascendant Alterator cried out as he easily returned to an upright position despite the armor, yet no additional answer returned.
Arakiel saw the visible frustration which slowly turned to dejection – that was, until he seemingly recalled that he wasn’t alone. It might've also been the smoke of those burning ivies over there since the royal turned towards them and as such, towards Ezekiel.
“Ah, you.” Cahir spoke up as he rose to a standing position. “No wonder my darling admonished me. That I would let myself get bullied by two pubescent rowdies.”
Neither could speak while the king let out a low sigh as he shook his head. “Very well, love. I did not forget about your blade; I just recalled the words you spoke to me when you handed it to me.”
The king held out the blade and gripped the hilt with both hands. “Of course… you are spectators now. How fitting; it explains why I haven’t killed you yet…”
The old man’s voice briefly trailed off, but then it resounded once more with renewed vigor.
“This blade was a gift from Fodhla for our wedding. A unique artifact she called it – an heirloom of her line, handed down through the generations.”
King Cahir turned around, towards Arakiel. His old eyes glowed with fervor while his lips formed to a small, soft smile. “I must be getting senile… why would I tell you about this.”
Shaking his head once again, he quickly got rid of one of his gauntlets and then cut his own palm, gripping the blade with fresh scarlet pouring out of him.
“You once warned me about feeding my own blood to the blade, my love!” King Cahir cried out with eyes wide open as the emerald tendrils around the blade’s crossguard began to move towards his free hand. “And now you force me to do just that! You remain fickle even in death, my beloved – and I wouldn’t have it any other way!”
The vine tendrils sought out the hand that fed it and then burrowed into it.
Pain briefly showed across Cahir’s face only to be replaced by an assured, confident smile as he casually swung the big two-handed blade around while the vines began to spread out over the entire blade, coiling all the way to the tip.
Right in that moment, Arakiel regained control of his movements while somewhere further out, between the fire and the worried noises of the seraphim, he heard a soft amused giggle.
Arakiel did not charge, nor did he immediately prepare to cast a spell. He did, however, unsheathe his scimitar in case he needed to defend.
Beyond the king, Ezekiel also readied himself for the second round, his deep amethyst eyes looking over to Arakiel.
Silently, they agreed on reaction for now.
As soon as the vines had thoroughly overtaken the wavy blade, the royal Middle charged at Arakiel without any further comment, his eyes showing intense focus.
Arakiel reciprocated the feeling as he evoked a swathe of golden fire while dashing back, having stashed the two shards for now.
He expected King Cahir to be faster than before – which he was not. There were, however, a myriad of vines that shot out from the blade in search of Arakiel, yet his flames turned them to cinders.
Flaring his fire alteration alongside Aurora’s soul, he managed to outpace the royal Middle whose main weakness was undoubtedly his lack of ranged capability, although the vines were definitely aiding him in this regard.
Noticing Ezekiel’s move, he ran away in a straight line while constantly evoking new sigils in an attempt to keep the vines at bay.
In fact, there were so many that he could not keep this up for long but thankfully, Ezekiel’s shard-boosted silver lightning shot forth and hit the king in the back of his head, causing the Middle to cry out bitterly as his skin once again blistered – in some parts, it even burst, spilling boiling blood. Soft billows of smoke arose while his hair stood up in part.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
Unfortunately, the Middle royal’s wounds regenerated almost instantly, after which he briefly flinched as if disoriented.
Then, his eyes rediscovered and focused Arakiel.
He set out to charge once more, charging straight through a dawnshard-boosted swathe of golden fire which set his hair aflame but it regrew almost immediately, just like the rest of his unprotected body that got singed and burnt by the flames.
When Arakiel wanted to dash away, he found himself unable to do so and in a panic, he noticed small emerald-colored vines having slithered across the ground, rooting him in place.
In panic, he raised his scimitar with both hands to block the man’s overhead slash, but the sword’s vines suddenly shot out, coiled around his weapon which they they bent and then snapped in half like a twig.
His mind instinctively drew upon his soul as he flinched and in the last moment, he saw a thin shimmer of silver that just ever so slightly deflected the blade past his head, diverting it just enough to bury in his shoulder instead.
The vines coiling around the blade had parted just in the last moment to reveal the blade’s wavy edge and thankfully, it didn’t chop his arm clean off, instead burying right in his bone. He probably had his defensive alterations to thank for that.
The pain that followed made him scream out loud while he forced his mind to calm down as emerald vines began to rapidly coil all around his body in an attempt to crush him just like they had just crushed Zimraan’s gift.
Calling upon the soul inside, it rapidly formed the sigil just in front of his mouth and as King Cahir’s vines were quickly rooting and crushing him in place, he managed to activate it with the tip of his tongue.
“Die,” the Middle Alterator stated in a calm voice, his face having already regenerated in full.
From the side, he heard Aurora cry out his name again.
To the front, Ezekiel cursed out loud while hurling another lightning.
It would be too late.
Arakiel felt his entire body being constricted and crushed as the vines further began to burrow inside his skin when the sigil finally dissolved.
He burst into golden flames with no regards for cloth, vines or metal. Anything to stop the excruciating pain that seemed to intensify with every moment.
It freed him and undoubtedly saved his life for just a few seconds more, and he would’ve died just like that, but his clothes and much of Aurora’s soul paid the price for it.
King Cahir bounced back while pulling the sword from Arakiel which nearly made him faint while his vision briefly blacked out and then returned, blurred. Nonetheless, he could make out moving gold as his body stumbled slightly forward. He kind of lost control over it for a moment.
The accursed blade burned right as Ezekiel’s lightning must’ve hit given the Middle’s groan and the silvery sparks.
Arakiel felt hot metal pressing against his nude skin which was also painful, but not nearly as painful as having tendrils burrow inside one’s flesh or having a sword ripped out of one’s shoulder.
Arakiel wrestled control back, enduring the agony that followed.
His right, working hand searched for the pouch and the belt which were no longer there and already, he could make out more vines that attempted to strike him, but his fiery aura was too hot, too bright.
He didn’t feel any reach him, even if his eyes had trouble making them out.
Too large had been the shock to his fire-alterated muscles.
King Cahir intended to finish the job and Arakiel’s body was all out of options while his mind struggled to hold on.
But hold on it did.
He forced another sigil to form, one that had to remedy his current situation lest he perish for good.
More soul rushed out of him, so much more than he would’ve wanted but he didn’t have the luxury for a measured approach.
The right hand reached for the forming sigil and he drew into himself just as Ezekiel’s voice resounded throughout the room.
“I killed Fodhla!” Ezekiel cried out in a voice that relayed glee. “And Transcended had I fun decapitating that insufferable wretch!”
In that moment, Arakiel ground his teeth as the astral healing thankfully worked its magic. His body’s flesh knit in the span of a few moments and although he could almost feel his vitae leaving his aging body, it didn’t matter.
His vision returned to a sharp focus and he rapidly regained control of his nearly-severed arm.
To the front, Ezekiel – aflame in bright silver – met King Cahir who had quietly switched targets and the two were rapidly exchanging blows. Ezekiel’s wide slashing motions alongside what Arakiel presumed to be a fire shield of his own were aiding him against the onslaught, but he’d eventually suffer a similar fate if Arakiel didn’t do something.
It was just… he had barely any soul left and he was almost shocked just how much he had used up in these few short casts. He used to have such an abundance.
Around him, ivy had begun to burn in golden flames just due to the sheer heat he had radiated while the metallic lamellar breastplate that had been woven into his doublet was more hindrance than anything at this point but there was no way he could possibly get rid of it right now. The metal was searing hot.
No, he just had to endure the pain.
His fire shield had ceased and Aurora still called out his name in an increasingly worried tone, but she thankfully stayed away from the battlefield.
Down below, amid in a bed of ash, he saw the shards that had been inside the little pouch and his belt.
He knelt down and reached for one of Aurora’s jagged dawnshards at which point he noticed that his own skin showed no more sheen of any kind.
It struck him like lightning and he felt like the greatest idiot of them all.
How could a supposed veteran like him have forgotten!?
He needed to accelerate Cahir’s time… make his alterations run out.
Arakiel cursed his own stupidity for it should’ve been obvious.
Sure, the man’s alterations might last much, much longer than Ezekiel’s or his own… but as long as they were there, there was no way to kill him and they wouldn’t be able to hold out.
No, he needed to strip the alterations and then deliver a deadly blow.
With a new plan in mind, Arakiel reached for as many shards as his hands could hold, which ended up being most except for one fire shard.
It didn’t matter.
In a crouching position, he fixated King Cahir who was rapidly gaining the upper hand on Ezekiel despite his companion occasionally weaving spells into his defensive and brief, rare, offensive actions.
He tapped Aurora’s gold and folded the space between him and the Middle Alterator, burning one of her shards’ gold in the process.
Right after having blinked just behind Cahir, he immediately drew upon another dawnshard’s gold in order to deliver another mental attack against their opponent.
As soon as the sigil dissolved, he immediately tapped both astral shards and preyed upon their power in an attempt to create the largest astral healing spell he had ever done.
Cahir’s movement frozen for a moment, but his blade shot out vines towards the back, right at Arakiel.
It pierced his shoulder, severing his left arm’s tendons but luckily, he had already been in a position where the shards didn’t roll out of his hand.
“Push him my way, now!” Arakiel cried out, biting through the pain and the fatigue that began to mount to unsustainable levels.
“To the edge – and beyond,” the seelie’s voice that resounded in his mind reminded.
His own body couldn’t approach as the vine burrowed inside him, slowly beginning to spread little tendrils that crawled underneath his skin.
It hurt so incredibly much, but he bit through it anyway. He had to, there was no other option.
Ezekiel acted quickly enough – thankfully. He just tackled the stunned Cahir who then stumbled backwards, falling right in front of Arakiel who shoved the forming golden rune forward, touching the old man’s head.
The astral shards dissolved, the Middle royal began to glow in a heavy golden sheen while Arakiel hurriedly drew upon one of the red shards in an attempt to do something as his vision already blurred once more, pain having nearly claimed him.
King Cahir’s eyes opened immediately as the mental attack wore off and he immediately jumped up and lunged at Ezekiel without giving Arakiel even a glance.
He was met with a swathe of silver fire that didn’t seem to disturb him in the slightest. Soon enough, the noise of the two clashing followed once more with Ezekiel’s voice sounding more strained than the king’s.
In the meantime, Arakiel had managed to conjure up a small flame that burned through the vine that had pinned him down. He still couldn’t use his arm, but at least he could move again.
Arakiel had two more dawnshards, two more astral spells, basically. He thought about healing himself once again, but decided against it.
Instead, he put one of Aurora’s shards that still held gold onto his useless arm and then tapped its gold once more.
King Cahir and Ezekiel were already so far away once more, he would need to blink again – and he did just that, even if it quite possibly put him on the edge.
Blinking was extremely fatiguing still.
This time, however, he didn’t follow up with a mental attack, but instead, he focused all his mind onto drawing upon the red in three of Aurora’s shards. He fed them all to an offensive evocation.
A giant ball of golden fire formed in his right hand and he lobbed it over towards King Cahir and Ezekiel. It didn’t matter if it hit directly or not – it’d set everything aflame and a measured approach was no longer feasible.
In the meantime, he got up from his crouching position and charged forward as quickly as he could… which wasn’t too quickly. Nonetheless, he siphoned power from actual fire shards this time around.
He put it into a small, condensed sigil as best as he could and right as his giant ball of flame exploded into a shower of golden fire that put everything in a sizable radius, including Ezekiel and the Middle Alterator aflame, he dashed through the fire and straight at King Cahir who himself still didn’t seem too bothered by the flames, but his sword and its vines most certainly did.
Arakiel snuck up on him again, having approached under the cover of so many other noises.
He buried the golden rune right in the Middle’s nape, immediately following up with the last round of astral healing he could muster.
Cahir screamed as his entire head briefly vanished inside a brilliant golden flame while Ezekiel used the window of opportunity to stab his halberd’s tip in the man’s head.
Arakiel barely heard the steel piercing the man’s flesh and he doubted that it had done considerable damage.
“Give it your all!” He cried out, adding. “Lightning first!”
Using the last tidbits of his strength, Arakiel drew upon Aurora’s white alongside the last wind shard he had – only to notice that they didn’t mix. So in a split-second decision, he forewent the sole shard and instead called upon upon three of Aurora’s which he fed into a sigil that formed in his right hand.
From it, he created another wedge that he thrust into the burning Cahir as soon as the scorching, burning flesh fell off.
The dazzlingly bright golden lightning hit the old man before he had time to react and from hereon out, Arakiel and Ezekiel burned through their entire stash of shards in an escalating cascade of lethal spells.
No matter how often King Cahir’s flesh reformed, he was always a little disoriented at first at which point another strike hit him all while his accursed blade slowly but surely succumbed to the golden flames, just like all the ivy around them.
Enough smoke had begun to fill the hall that he could constantly smell it and the heat had began to turn to scorching levels, even without the accursed lamellar plate searing him with every movement.
His own consciousness began to fade rapidly as his fatigue and mind leapt over the edge, but he kept on siphoning off of shards until he had used up every single last one and at some point, he wasn’t even sure if Cahir – or he himself – was even alive anymore.
Arakiel had certainly numbed to the pain and when he instinctively struck the Middle Alterator once more, no magic happened and he just collapsed onto the floor, unable to move even a centimeter.
Losing his grasp on Aurora’s aspect, his vision turned blurry while what little soul inside him remained tried its best to keep his mind awake… but it fought a rapidly losing battle.
There was only the crackling of lightning and flame in his ears, repeating over and over.
Only the scent of burning flesh alongside smoke remained in his nose.
Nothing but gold, silver and blackness filled his eyes.
Someone collapsed with a loud clank, soon followed by another person.
From the back, he heard shouts.
And then a voice whispered into his ear, one so ethereally melodious and beautiful that it hurt.
Yet right now, it gave him the means to hold on just a little longer, just enough to hear, to listen.
“Father of our unborn… you were magnificent.”
And then he felt warmth spread throughout him, bringing relief and respite, starting right from the ear.