Eliane sat perched upon a blood-soaked Silver Throne, and by its mere presence, more Infinity than she could ever need flew into her. Little by little, the divine essence dedicated itself to stitching back together her wounded body. She had to lean against a staff with both hands to keep upright even when seated — her thousands of new subjects mustn't see her weak.
The Throne was an island in a sea of destruction. The castle it had once inhabited, the Hall of Thrones, the endless corridors, the surrounding buildings that had been there for millenia: all gone. Nothing but dust in the wind.
The Throne, an object of priceless Infinity, was the only thing that had survived the fight. The feud for the right to rule.
Where Eliane now awaited a crown to be placed on top of her weary head, a view of an ornate chamber would have once stood. Now, there were no walls to stop the wind from sweeping past her skin. She was soaked in Ichor.
Maris’ body laid at her feet. She was in human form now. It turned out that her watery state was only a temporary alteration. After maybe ten minutes of trampling down on her, Christopher and Eliane had drained so much from Maris that the woman couldn't even sustain that facade.
Her physical flesh gave up far more quickly.
“She was pretty.” Eliane muttered, regarding the corpse at her feet. “A shame she had to die. I think we could have been friends in another life.”
Christopher sagged against the back of the throne behind her, catching his breath as he waited for his injuries to heal. “That’s what you take away from this? Gods, I didn’t agree to rule Hybrid alongside a crazed Queen, if that’s what you’re going to become! We just killed the last-”
Both of them fell silent as Maris’ body began to rustle.
Eliane felt her heart jolt in her chest. Maris’ body was spasming with the littlest twitch of movement, but she was undeniably alive.
When the Water Sect leader lifted a finger soaking with golden Ichor, her voice was only a faint croak of a whisper. “Eliane . . . you rotten, despicable bi-”
The Silver Throne smashed into Maris. Her blood splattered everywhere; including on Christopher’s cheek.
He stared, aghast, for all of one second. By the time you ascended to God-Graced, most individuals were so jaded to violence, that the sight of a corpse was no more upsetting than rain on what should have been a sunny day. What really shocked the Amphibian Clan leader was the way Maris died.
There was no recovering from an injury dealt by such powerful Supreme Steel. Even professionals from the Vitality Sect were hard-pressed to mend such wounds, and Eliane had used the most concentrated source of Supreme Steel in the world to crush Maris.
“So I think it’s a safe bet that she isn't getting up.” Christopher shook his head. “You stained the throne! Gods, we’re going to have to get this washed-”
“Let it paint the throne red.” Eliane interjected. “It will act as a reminder to what happens to those who dare get in our way again.”
Christopher said nought, his way of expressing approval. Despite his genial indifference, Eliane stared at the man from the corner of her eye. Without Christopher’s help, this fight may have gone a lot differently. Down a path that Eliane could never allow to see the light of day: her own untimely demise. It was only by the acquisition of his assistance that she felt confident to lead this final crusade against Maris. In return, the two agreed to be the first co-monarchs of Hybrid’s history. But did that mean that Eliane necessarily trusted the man?
Gods no. If her moral compass was any weaker, she would sneak poison into his food at the nearest opportunity. Though, then again, he was probably immune to any toxins she could get her hands on.
Eliane disliked the idea of ruling alongside Christopher. For one thing, there was the technicality of the King and Queen title. That suggested a relationship — the prospect of which Eliane found mildly disturbing.
But Eliane was a reasonable woman. Pah! Every God-Graced who had gone mad in the last century had likely told themselves that very same thing in earnest, but truly, Eliane would never allow herself to become as corrupted as Maris, Juniper, or even Damosh. When her time on the throne was over, she would gladly give it up.
Yet would Christopher do the same thing?
Eliane hoped that her self-awareness would prevent her from growing too power-hungry, but she had just annihilated a clan as powerful as the Water Sect in her conquest. She had to ruminate on that for an uncomfortable time.
“Christopher?”
The man turned to her. “Yes?”
“If either of us go mad, even if it's a small warming sign, we should tell the other.”
Christopher initially scowled at that. Then his eyes returned the reddish pulp on the floor that used to be Maris. “Yes.” He agreed. “I would not like to receive her fate . . .”
----------------------------------------
Zachary flinched, his entire body tossed aside like trash to be discarded.
He received a mouthful of mud, a thumping pain seizing the side of his body, and several broken shards of his mask stabbing into his cheek. He looked up warily to the men towering over him. It was utterly pathetic, but in his desperation to get away, Zachary pulled himself backwards through the morass. His entire outfit would be drenched in dirt and animal waste.
“Look at you, grovelling around in the mud like a pig.” One of the men spat at him. “You thought you could hide your little secret all this time?”
“He must take us for idiots, boys. What, are we idiots?” One bald man asked.
The last of the three patted a heavy-looking truncheon into the palm of his hand. “I suppose it was quite stupid to let this pest live.”
Sneers were sliding into place on each of their lips. Zachary used the opportunity to try and slip away. There was an eruption of pain, the gravelly sound of bone breaking, and then his left leg refused to move.
The limb would be as dead as the rest of him, if he didn’t get the hell out of there.
“How about you try to predict the future of this outcome, eh, Zachary?” Ichor dripped from the man’s weapon.
Zachary’s heart jackhammered in his chest, but the prospect of it ceasing to beat altogether terrified him. He almost couldn’t hear the man’s words over the incessant thumping. The heart was an instrument, and the song it played was nothing short of a dirge.
The manor of the Trickery Clan was suddenly illuminated by a crackle of lightning. The only sect Zachary had known all his life, the building he had spent countless hours working within.
All a lie. The prophecies he predicted, the deals he made with hapless strangers, the grand promises of his own oracular powers.
His executioner dangled him up by one arm, pulling down the cloth of his tunic.
A colourless painting on his abdomen. There, at last, his Death-Mark was exposed for all the world to see.
And in that moment, on the brink of a horrid death, the world was a very small thing to Zachary. Just him, these three men who longed for nothing more than to clobber him into a thick paste, and the long, uncaring night.
“What deceased god plagued you?” One of the men muttered. Zachary was too busy contemplating his own mortality to take notice of which. “Ah, the late Rento. God of isolation.”
After pouring over an endless array of history books, Zachary was very familiar with that name. The Isolation god had been killed early into the Celestial War, his withdrawn nature leading the deity into hiding. With no allies formed, no fighting spirit, and an ambush planned against him involving twenty or so gods . . . it was said not even a drop of his divine blood survived that fight.
The remains of Zachary’s mask clung to his face by blood and puss alone. It was a typical theatre mask, the tearful counterpart to a laughing face. It seemed very fitting for the sombre night.
Despite what a disaster Rento’s touch had made of his life, he too seemed like a fitting god, even to Zachary. Zachary himself was isolated in a sea of people. His loneliness was a crippling contradiction to the walking lie of his life. All his years amongst the Trickery Clan, he’d never been able to fit in with his peers. They had loving families, for one thing. Doting mothers and strict fathers that never hesitated to shower their children with unconditional love. Zachary’s parents loved him in a way, he had to admit, enough to allow him to hide his Death-Marked curse. But that was the extent of the warmth they extended to him. They acted less like relatives than acquaintances. He felt like a stranger to his own kin. Something they put up with, but they could never hide their resentment.
Were Zachary to have been born into any other clan, disguising his fate never would have worked. Oracular powers, though, were something one could falsify, and though the weight of his guilt threatened to crush even his will to live, Zachary pressed on. He survived by fabrications, deceit, and false visions of the future that never saw the light of day.
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
And on-one in his clan ever found out. His life was hard, but as long as he survived, Zachary sustained himself by the hope of a better future. But just like the visions he imparted upon his customers, Zachary was grasping onto a lie.
His real future? The way things were progressing, there was only one outcome: six feet under. Not even granted the small mercy of a coffin.
“We at the Trickery Clan may not be the cleanest of sects, Zachary, but we are far from scam artists. You have brought shame upon your family. They’re good people, Zachary. How on earth did they conceive a rodent like you?”
The three men conversed for a moment. Then, with the solemn gravitas of an executioner, the man raised his truncheon.
Zachary closed his eyes, and waited to die.
He was left waiting.
There was an eruption of vermillion light. Zachary suddenly was rejuvenated with the will to live.
Because whoever had ever killed the three men of the Trickery Clan, would probably be able to provide Zachary with a much more painful death.
Their bodies dropped to the ground, followed by their weapons only a moment later.
A booming voice blasted through the clearing. Zachary scooped up the truncheon, edged backwards, and with grim determination, prepared to defend himself against an even deadlier foe.
“I thought that a clan named after trickery would be perfectly content with your behaviour.” That green light only intensified. “What a shame they didn’t appreciate your inventiveness. That’s where I can come in.”
Before Zachary could process what was happening, he found himself walking close to the source of the light. His leg had miraculously healed, but he was too entranced to notice.
“Yes, there we are. Come to me boy for a better life. Come to me . . . my noble paladin.”
----------------------------------------
Faris never wanted to go down like this.
The daunting scope of a minor court stretched out ahead of him. Faces stared out from rows starting at the very front of the chamber, and ending all the way back, where he had to squint to see. All waiting to see his downfall. Lustful at the thought of it.
A chandelier up above provided enough light that he couldn’t hide himself in the dark. Anywhere he looked, more faces scrutinised him. There would be no escape. No haven to be found amid his wrongful sentence. With his predicted rulings, emerging as a free man from prison was an impossible prospect. All Faris would be known for, all his legacy would amount to, was a life of crime.
Curse the justice system of Heaven’s Pinnacle. He never thought for a moment that living in the most civilised city on the planet would have its downsides. Now his privilege was coming back to bite him.
Look at them all. A venomous hatred took hold of his brain. You’re all monsters.
Beyond all this grandeur, this veneer of law and justice, Faris could see the truth. Ethics were a flimsy excuse for people to live out their barbaric desires: to see a man executed. Laws too: a facade people hid behind, all so they could feel justified in letting an innocent man be slaughtered.
Wolves. Everyone here were predators drooling at the mouth for the next kill. It made him sick.
And Faris had simply been present at the scene of the crime. That was why, under the rule of joint enterprise, his entire life was being flushed out.
It shouldn’t have gone like this. He simply wished to work alongside his sect, the Matter Clan, in bringing about a new age of brilliant technology. Since he was a little boy, that had been his most pure desire. Seeing innovations like photographs had filled him with nothing but inspiration. Faris hadn’t wanted anything to do with the coup.
Faris thought he could see his dreams burning right before his eyes. His soul heard the finality of a match being lit, the intangible accumulation of his hopes and aspirations being used as kindling. His soul heard it burn, and dancing before his eyes, it seemed to taunt him.
The chains that held him down, the same variety that were used in that Ambition Clansmen’s trial, prevented his Mark from seeing any use. Otherwise, Faris was mightily tempted to call down the ceiling upon them all.
Now that would be a way to die. Not left to rot in a cage for decades upon decades. Nothing to fill his days but squabbling inmates and the desperate sadness of solitary confinement.
He was only a Foot-Soldier, due to serve his military enrollment that very year. He could handle himself. If it weren’t for these chains . . . how much damage could he cause before someone finally put a bud in his life?
It was a dangerous line of thinking. The kind that, at any other point in Faris’ life, he would have been mortified to have. But today was different. Something was different. He wasn’t sure what it was, or why it was, but it was like his own inner filters, his self-censorship, had all ceased to be. He was constantly on edge, and while that made perfect sense considering the situation, something didn’t sit right with him.
What kind of a man was he becoming?
“Faris of the Matter Clan.” A tall ambassador from the Justice Sect stared down at him imposingly, her hands planted on the podium before her. “The jury has come to their decision. For conspiring with a coup to break the union of our twin cities, in a despicable ploy to tear Great Oasis and Heaven’s Pinnacle apart, you have been determined to be . . .”
This was utterly ridiculous. Being present while a few of his peers started a riot didn’t exactly constitute, in Faris’ opinion at least, a criminal sentence.
The jury, however, didn’t seem to agree.
“Guilty.”
Faris hung his head in . . . not shame exactly. What was that feeling? That cocktail of emotion waiting to erupt to the surface? Suddenly, visions of tearing the judge to bloody shreds bombarded Faris, and he couldn’t deny the vast satisfaction they provided him. Sure, he hadn’t done anything as his friends killed more and more clansmen, making a pile of their corpses right between the two cities. The rendezvous point where the representatives of both Heaven’s Pinnacle and Great Oasis often came to meet.
The place was symbolic of generations of peace and prosperity.
What? Was Faris wrong for finding a little disturbed joy in watching that symbol be bastardised? Was he morally suspect for not lifting a finger, as the death toll only grew?
To that, Faris could only shrug. There was something infinitely entrancing about a flaming train crash, something about watching everything fall into chaos. Order turned into disorder.
“Considering the circumstances, Mr Faris, and particularly the fact witnesses spotted you laughing as your friends tortured innocents in that square, I think only one outcome can come from this trial.”
By Faris’ next breath, the Justice Clanswoman had disappeared from her stand. Faris looked up to where she was only inches away from his face.
“I can see into your guilty conscience, Mr Faris, or lack thereof, and what I see there is evidence enough. An execution is the only salvation I can offer you.”
This was what they had all been waiting for. Faris couldn’t help but cackle out madly as the rows of people stood up, cheering. Here it came, their moment of intoxication. The high they so longed for.
Finally, they would get to see some blood.
The woman drew out two matching daggers. A personalised set, by the looks of it. Faris knew his Ichor wouldn’ be the first to stain that gleaming metal.
Judge, jury, and executioner. That was what the Justice Clan was. This court system was merely for show. They held the real power. Faris was no more corrupt than them.
Faris did nothing as she lowered her daggers; could only cringe as the tips pierced his chest.
He didn’t notice it, at first. A hand tapping at his shoulder.
Did you want power?
Time seemed to decelerate, pinpricks of pain erupting out of Faris’ belly. Soon, entire avalanches of agony would befall him.
Power. I could give you the strength to scatter this place, and everyone in it, to the littlest ashes. All you have to do is ask. You’ll be one of us: one of my paladins.
Faris’ eyes widened. A stream of blood was spurting out of his chest now, pouring into the woman’s eye, but she didn’t appear to care.
There are certain decisions in life that seem to change the entire course of your destiny. Routes that bend, curve, and ride through the maze of fate, sending you spiralling into an entirely new, unexpected direction.
This was one of those moments.
Yes, he thought amidst the pain. Yes, yes I do. I want your strength.
There was a sound, like that of an angel falling from heaven, followed by a great bubbling of blazing emerald. A magical energy that dwarfed any power he’d felt before.
And Faris was going to drown himself in it. He raised both hands, allowing all of his lord’s power to fester inside his body.
He wondered whose screams he’d hear first.
----------------------------------------
Margaret couldn’t stop the river of tears from cascading down her cheeks.
“You’ve lost too many people in this needless war.” The cloaked man held out a hand, imploring Margaret to take it. “I can feel your pain. Your agony sings to me. Let me cure you. Let me give you the might to protect those you care about. You won’t ever have to feel this way again.”
In the middle of her living quarters, this stranger was offering Maragaret the chance she was too scared to dream for. An escape from the perils of the Celestial War. Through an open window, she could eye a wild tempest of a rainstorm wreaking havoc on the Labour District of First Rite. He must have come through from there, but she couldn’t imagine how he’d have fitted.
With a gloved hand, the mysterious man wiped a tear from her eye. “There, there now. It’s all going to be alright. You never have to lose anyone ever again. I’ll make sure of that.”
Margaret, despite her better sensibilities, rested her head against this stranger's shoulder. He held her in his hands, as she bawled against the green of his cloak. He was only young, his jet black hair far from well groomed. But the aura he emanated . . . Margaret felt like she was in the hands of the oldest person in the universe.
All of her children, all three of them, had travelled to the front lines. None of them had returned. All reduced to statistics for a war that didn’t seem to be progressing. A war that had lost sight of its original objective.
“Gods and mortals . . . “ she spoke silently. “We were the bad guys all along, weren’t we?”
It was like Margaret could hear the smile forming on his lips.
“You’re starting to understand now, aren’t you? Your children's deaths were in vain, but that doesn’t mean their memories have to be wasted. Become one of my paladins, be graced by the glory of nature’s Unbounded, and I promise you, Margaret, you will never have to cry at the loss of a loved one again.”
He held her hands, inching close to her face. There was nothing romantic about it — besides, he was far too young for Margaret’s tastes — but Margaret felt drawn to this man.
“Will you join the cause?”
A green light enveloped her mess of a room. Margaret felt as if the correct answer — the only answer — had been handed to her. “Of course.”