Sylvara Astra clutched at the stump of her left arm, teeth clenched in pain as she staggered through the forest.
Tybalt was dead. Sylvara would bid him good riddance if his traitorous final act hadn’t cost them so much. Then again, those golden beams had opened up the city of Elmshadow well enough on their own. His help had hardly been needed.
Ludwig had been missing since the day Elmshadow fell. The chronicler could be dead or he could have made away with the retreating armies. Sylvara didn’t know and, with the way things were going, she doubted she would ever know. She could hope but that wasn’t much consolation.
A thin ray of gold blasted a tree to smithereens to Sylvara’s left. Splinters of wood exploded outward, catching her in the side of her face. Snow clinging to the branches scattered to the air as the rest of the tree came down. Her boots slid on the slick ground, forcing her to throw herself backward to avoid being crushed.
What was consolation was knowing that the Evestani army was without their heavy hitter.
He had been chasing her for the last three days.
She wasn’t sure how much longer that would last.
With the snow in the air swiftly settling, Sylvara threw herself behind another tree. It obviously wouldn’t help protect her but she could hope that it would obscure her. The Evestani purifier equivalent was not infallible. She would never have survived if it was.
Sylvara focused on her breathing, trying to still it. Three days with no rest, no food, no sleep. She was at her limits. There was nowhere to run. Nowhere to seek shelter. Either she would meet her end at the golden rays or she would collapse into the snowy ground and never awaken. Now that she wasn’t moving, closing her eyes alone was enough to make her feel like they would never open again. Her eyelids were so heavy.
Sylvara chomped down on her own cheek. The pain was enough to snap her eyes open once again.
Not yet.
She couldn’t die yet.
Reaching into the tattered remains of her inquisitorial uniform, she withdrew a long strip of white paper. Despite the dirt, sweat stains, ash, and everything else, the paper still looked pristine as she removed it from the internal pocket. Lettering marked with a luminous ink glittered on the surface, though the actual words were impossible for mortals to decipher.
A miracle, captured and contained for later use.
If she were going to die, she would just have to bring down that Evestani purifier with her.
Sylvara tensed. The sound of snow crunching under light footsteps made her suck in a breath and hold it.
“Done running?”
Sylvara grimaced at the lighthearted tone of the slightly accented voice. It sounded like a child. It was a child—she had seen him during her fighting flight. Perhaps no more than thirteen years of age, a young boy with glowing box-like tattoos around his bald head. But hidden within that young face was a relentless pursuer.
She had thought the Evestani purifier would give up after the first day. Even if it was using the same magic that the armies used to avoid the cold, it was still a child. They wore easily. Surely they grew as hungry and thirsty as Sylvara felt.
A bright, golden light filled the forest. For a brief moment, Sylvara figured she wouldn’t see the next moment.
More snow filled the air as a tree crashed to the ground somewhere behind her. It sounded like a large tree but she didn’t see a single branch. It must have fallen away from her.
She didn’t know exactly where the Evestani purifier was but if it fired off another beam, she might not get a chance to do anything.
Sylvara bit down on the paper and then used her hand to rip the sheet in two.
Blue-white light wrapped around Sylvara, bringing comfort and strength. Both had been sorely lacking in the last few days. It wouldn’t last long. Seconds. Maybe a full minute if she was worthy. She pivoted around the tree just in time to avoid a golden beam blasting through it that would have taken her head off.
The boy stood in the open between two trees, one of which had been knocked askew by the first falling tree. Missing one arm—taken by Arkk if the man’s testimony had been accurate—he adjusted the angle of the other, aiming it toward Sylvara.
She moved in a blur, crossing thirty paces in three smooth steps. The ray of gold went high and wide as the boy struggled to follow, blasting a hole in the forest’s canopy.
Sylvara slammed the shoulder of her missing arm into the boy’s chest, pinning him against one of the trees. She grabbed his wrist with her arm and wrenched it aside. A series of tangible cracks filled the air as his wrist and elbow broke along with his shoulder.
He didn’t cry out. He didn’t scream or shout or even get a little watery in his eyes.
He grinned.
Sylvara lifted a leg, slamming her knee into his side with enough force to pulp bone. She clipped the tree she had him pinned to, filling the air with splinters again.
The impact sent him skidding across the snowy forest floor, slipping from her grip with a few extra broken bones in his arm. One leg twisted in the complete wrong direction as he came to a stop.
Sylvara stepped forward, ready to stomp the boy’s head until it popped, only to stagger.
The blue-white light surrounding Sylvara faded away. She felt better. Not healed—her arm was still missing and she could still feel that gash in her thigh—but better. More energetic, more alert, more awake. Maybe that wouldn’t last, it could just be a brief burst of adrenaline, but she thought she might be able to stumble her way to a village.
But first…
She clenched her teeth and balled her fist.
The boy was on the ground. He couldn’t flex his wrist let alone move his arm. He just stared, one leg twitching at random.
“There will be more,” he said, tone almost conversational. There was a note of strain but nothing that indicated he was in pain. “You saw it, didn’t you? That hole in the world?”
She had seen it. It was the only reason she was alive right now. The sky broke right when this purifier had her cornered. It had distracted him long enough for her to get away. Not just away but get a lead that led to this three-day nightmare.
Sylvara didn’t respond. She moved over, drawing a short dagger. The end of the blade had broken off at some point. It would still work.
“I imagine we’ll be allies when we next meet. The Ecclesiarch will have seen it. How could he not? Whatever fear gripped his heart when he heard of Evestani’s armies marching across your Kingdom must pale in comparison to what he must have felt that day. You’ll have new orders to work with me. Won’t that be a treat… The world is ending if we don’t stop it. You realize that, right?”
Sylvara said nothing as she knelt next to the purifier, gazing down into his glowing gold eyes. She raised her dagger.
“Well, see you around, I suppose.”
The light in his eyes faded before Sylvara could strike. His interlocking square tattoos on his head faded and dimmed.
A scream split the air, startling Sylvara back a step. It wasn’t just a shout. It was a cry of pure and absolute pain, terror, and agony. The boy’s brown eyes darted around, filling with tears. He tried to move but what little he managed only made him scream harder. His voice was already turning to a rasp as he ruined his throat, only pausing his scream to suck in fresh air.
What manner of evil was this?
That purifier… hadn’t been this boy from the start? Possession was the first thing that came to mind. Arkk had said it back in Elmshadow but she hadn’t believed it. Only ghosts and gods could possess others and neither fit with what she had seen. Those tattoos…
A fresh scream startled Sylvara from her thoughts.
She clenched her teeth.
The boy’s body was battered and broken. He couldn’t move. Even if she dragged him to a village, she doubted he would survive. In the unlikely case that he could be nursed back to health… what would stop that purifier from possessing the boy once more?
Leaning forward once more with her blade at the ready, she could see the awful horror in the boy’s teary eyes.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
She dragged her blade across his throat.
The screams in the forest cut out.
After a minute, the gurgling died off.
Allies, that purifier had said? To stop the end of the world?
Sylvara stood, arm trembling.
Exhaustion was setting back in. But she wasn’t dead yet.
And she couldn’t let herself die here. There was a purifier in this world that needed to be excised.
Duke Levi Woldair paced back and forth in front of his throne, listening to the court jabber on. Advisors, nobles, and generals all sat at the long table, giving out various reports. The vast map of the Duchy, spread out over the table, was covered in little painted markers denoting active combat, force concentrations, and settlements that had not reported in as of late.
The initial foray into the Duchy—His Duchy—had slowed in the last week. Ever since that…
That…
Levi stumbled just thinking back to it. He tried to blot it out of his mind. He had seen the mind healers of the Abbey but they had done nothing. If anything, they were as disturbed as he was, if not more so. If they couldn’t help themselves, how could they help him?
It was like merely seeing it had torn a hole into his mind just as it had torn a hole into the sky. He could almost feel it in the back of his skull, writhing and twisting.
Shaking his head, Levi turned and focused on the table, seeking distraction from the dire events bearing down on the Duchy.
Olah Faran stood at the table, gesticulating with both hands and the entire top half of her body as she made a report. King Abe Lafoar was marshalling his forces to reinforce the Duchy but they had run into weather trouble. The cold winter was not kind to large armies or their supply lines.
Useless.
The Duchy bled. Broken in two. If the King or his precious princes thought the barbarians at the gate would stop at his borders, they were dead wrong. Yet they dragged their feet. Evestani’s Golden Order had come up with a solution for the cold, surely the Abbey of the Light could as well.
Levi looked around the room, scowling. Normally, such a meeting would warrant the presence of Pontiff Bernardin or one of his underlings as a representative of the Abbey. Ever since that…
That thing.
Ever since that thing had happened, the Abbey’s upper level leaders had holed up in their church and had hardly left. He hadn’t the slightest idea of what they were playing at. The Duchy didn’t have time to let them—or him—have panic attacks. Everything was burning down now.
Levi clenched his teeth as Olah took her seat, allowing Viscount Wesley to take the stand. The Viscount started blathering on about droll matters entirely irrelevant to the war effort. Who cared that some nobody village out in the east had been hit by raiders? That happened all the time. None of the villages would be standing anywhere if Evestani’s army resumed their marching.
That was the one good thing about that thing. Evestani’s momentum had ground to a halt. Their main force stood firm just past the Elm mountains but the Duchy was rallying everyone they had. The army had already met up with White Company’s forward force. The Order of the Claymores was merging with them. First Legion and the Burning Shadow mercenary companies were keeping some smaller Evestani detachments at bay.
Why this, why now, why attack?
Things had been going so well. Yes, there was some bad history between the nations. But that was history of a previous generation. He had met the sultan and shook the man’s hand. He had even been set to wed the second daughter of Evestani’s sultan. Had they accepted his gifts of food and resources knowing they would use those resources against him?
Those were a spiral of thoughts he had been down many times in the past few weeks. He tried not to dwell on them now.
“Astrologist June believes we will see a warming in the weather in around six weeks,” the representative from the Cliff Magical Academy said. “There will be a brief resurgence of cold about a week after followed by steadily warming weather after that.”
Six weeks.
Levi stared at the representative. An older warlock by the name of Duvat. It had been nine weeks since winter settled in but only about six since the war began. In just six weeks, Evestani had ripped through half the Duchy, free to move at will thanks to their magic while the defending forces had to contend with the weather. If they got their momentum again, they could be at Cliff City before the first snow melt.
Even once the weather started to warm, apparently in six weeks, it wasn’t like winter would vanish overnight. Some areas of the Duchy would stay cold. The north especially. Cliff City, tucked in the shadow of its namesake, often had snow on the ground well into when the rest of the land started growing their spring crops.
Would it be too late? How soon would the King’s army be able to join up with the defense? It was a long way between Cliff City and the heart of Chernlock. The King’s army was moving but not fast.
They were likely to show up too late.
He turned to the side, opening his mouth to speak to his most trusted advisor.
Only to stop.
She wasn’t there. Not anymore.
Trying not to scowl, the Duke merely waved a hand, gesturing for the next speaker to take the stand and report on whatever else was going wrong at the moment.
Would it kill them to have some good news for once?
“We received a notice via Swiftwing harpy,” the Great Marshall said. A young man for his station, even younger than Levi was. “It claims to be from… The Avatar of the Golden Heart.”
Levi’s eyes scanned around the room, once again wondering where the representative of the Abbey was. This sounded like a religious matter and, until recently, he had very little interest in religion beyond paying lip service to keep important people happy. Presumably, this avatar was something akin to the Ecclesiarch of the Abbey of the Light. The leader of the Golden Order.
So he nodded. “And? I presume there was more to the letter than an introduction.”
The Great Marshall placed the letter on the table. It was too far away for Levi to see the actual text but he could easily see the large, loopy lettering in gold on its surface. “In short, it demands our immediate and unconditional surrender followed by our full support in consolidating our forces against the one that threatens to rip our world into pieces.”
Levi flinched despite himself. The threat had to be referring to that thing. There was no other possibility. “‘Rip the world to pieces.’ Those were the exact words used?”
The Great Marshall nodded his head.
“Hand it over,” Levi said, stepping toward the large table. The Great Marshall, seated halfway down the table, passed it along. Each of the advisors quickly glanced over it, eyes on it exactly as long as it took to pass to the next one down.
Levi accepted it from his spymaster, a man he had once thought to be competent before all this mess with Evestani. He stared down at the golden lettering, eyes roaming over the text. He didn’t quite internalize it, however, thoughts swirling about distracting him from the actual words.
Immediate surrender. Threat to the world. Those were a dangerous combination to put to paper. Especially here among the leaders of the Duchy. If someone got it into their head that this threat could only be resolved through Evestani or just that surrendering would see them earning concessions, he would be in danger of waking up to find a knife buried in his back.
“Evestani has slaughtered our people, our armies, and our fellow kin with no regard for weeks. Now they have the gall to call for cooperation? This ‘Avatar’ of the Golden Order was wise to send a letter. Had he come himself or even sent a messenger, their skulls would be on a pike outside the gates.”
Levi drew himself up, walking back and forth to force his advisors’ eyes on him. “The Abbey is not unaware of this threat. They are assessing the situation and the proper response to what we all witnessed several days ago,” he said, not entirely telling the truth. The Abbey was probably doing that but they had neglected to inform him of their goings on. Much to his chagrin. “We will follow their plans in dealing with whatever threat there may or may not be. But we will never bow to the slaughterers of the very people who have placed trust in us to see them to safety.
“If any of you have objections or, Light forbid, sympathy for these—”
A rumbling in the floor cut off his speech. Levi’s eyes widened even as those at the table stood, fear obvious in their faces.
The manor had been attacked before. But that had been through infiltration. He had gone over every last individual with access to the manor and ensured there wouldn’t be a repeat. Only the most essential servants, guards, and staff remained behind and only the trustworthy from those categories. His staffing had dropped by three-quarters. There was no chance they had missed someone.
Yet he could hear alarmed shouts coming from outside the throne room.
Guards were moving. His advisors and leaders were backing away, all except the Great Marshall who had drawn his sword. His most trusted bodyguards were already moving around him, readying a defensive line that would allow him to retreat out of one of the side doors.
Levi didn’t move, locked in place. He stared in the direction of the noise, teeth grit.
The far doors to the throne room blasted open, throwing back the two guards who had been working to secure them. Immediately, a sweltering heat rushed through the chamber. Orange fire licked at the walls as three figures moved into the now-open doorway.
The light from the fire was too bright, too intense to get a good look at the figures. It swept around them as they almost casually walked further into the room. The heat alone was enough to keep all the guards backing away and yet they weathered it without apparent difficulty. All he could see were their shadows and, as they approached…
Their eyes.
One stood wreathed in fire, eyes glowing like the embers in a raging bonfire. One stood with red eyes, glowing as a demon’s might. The last…
The last had eyes like burning suns, set into a slice of the night’s sky.
Just like that…
That…
That thing.