<div style="text-align:center;]<font size="5]Preface[/font][/align]
Eons ago…
Elysian was falling.
Her blood was a pounding drum in her chest, beating savagely; each breath that left the passage of her lips escaped in tandem. Fire. Blood. So much. The Blind Sight, her aura, made images into shapes and outlines without color—made what was beyond the castle walls wail against her heart. Agony, despair, fear, loathing, hate, malice, and love shifted and cycled within her; each emotion was louder than the next, each one like a plea or a call to arms. She could hear the cry of the people, his people; the malice though—that radiating and all pervading malice…
…Leviathan.
She shoved it aside, the heavy burden in her arms the one reminder that she could not deviate. The quiet thump beyond his breastbone told her there was time; she had time.
She focused on the sound of her knee-high boots clipping along the white marbled Great Hall, on the way Dae’s own boots echoed the same sound next to her; she focused on the swish of the magi’s robes, the silence of her abyssal-colored skin-tight attire that was—in its own way—an armor, and the smack of her sheathed blade hitting her spine; she made her emotions separate from all that she felt from others, from the man next to her. It wouldn’t do to lose control now; she refused.
“Almost there,” he said as they continued to pass windows blaring orange-red light, fear and anxiety lacing his voice—his very core.
He could not sense the lost of life the same way she did, but Gaea’s pain would be felt by him all the more. No, maybe she was wrong; maybe Dae felt the horrid assault on all they held dear more than she did in that moment. Perhaps it was harder for him because he was not capable of dealing with the onslaught the way she did.
It was easier to think as much when the man in her arms would not wake up, would not give her his bright blue gaze laced in warm ice—assuring her it would be alright… that she had not yet failed him in some way.
“Blade,” her partner addressed her next.
She did not look at him; the devoid and hardened expression did not change on her features beyond the narrowing of fiery red orbs. “I know.” Because she did. The surge of magick entered her aura, pushing through it like a swimmer desperately trying to find the surface for air.
When they passed the threshold of thick wooden double doors engraved with decorative knots, vine-work, and flowers they remained open long enough to reveal a flying swath of rippling black fabric heading towards them. This was what they both saw the moment they turned to face the enemy.
She should have been faster, she told herself as Dae lifted his oaken staff, slammed it down, and began to chant—as a spinning circle of blue-green runes hummed under him on the floor. She should have used her abilities to carry them all, no matter the exhaustion she felt. She wanted to ignore the way Dae’s robes were singed and torn; she wanted to ignore way it was hard to tell the red dye from blood—his or others’, she didn’t know; she wanted to ignore her own superficial injuries and the way her bones tugged at her to release the weight of the body in her arms so she might lie down and sleep; and, she wanted to ignore the way her mind kept on trying to go to that place—the one that planned ahead and screamed at her to ask: what after… after this?
Her eyes glowed and she banished it aside as her jaw flexed; white overtook the red as she made the doors snap shut before them—as she enforced a telekinetic barrier to keep him out.
“I will hold it. Hurry.” Hopefully he had enough power yet to create a barrier of his own that would keep long enough for them to escape. All they could do, as loath as she was to admit it, was bargain with time anew.
Stone and rope-vine bark coiled up from the floor, breaking marble tiles, and overtook the doors; a pebble of clicking sounds, grinding, came as the gray earth began to cover the throne room’s main entrance. Green leaves and blue flowers bloomed from the spiraling vines as it wove its way into the doors; it wasn’t until the actions stopped completely and Dae exhaled that she allowed her gift to recede and become replaced by his own.
And then came the pounding, the flash of magick across the only layer between the two of them and the might of one of Leviathan’s forces.
“He’s a Fallen Magi,” the shaggy brunette told her, his pale lips twisting. The action made the scruff of barely-there whiskers more pronounced—made him looked older and as exhausted as she was. “It won’t hold long, my lady. Ten minutes at the very best.”
“Then we leave,” she told him, ignoring the automatic desire to remind him to not call her that. She didn’t wait for him to reply. She turned, eyes glowing again as she reached out with her mind towards one of the two large and high-backed marble chairs. She forced it to slide back, grinding to reveal a opening that led below.
“You don’t understand,” he told her, not moving as she made her way up the stairs.
“I do,” she replied. “We are leaving. Now, Wizard.”
“I’m not asking you for permission,” he snapped back over the muffled pounding.
She stilled, fingers tightening over the blue and white Siderian silk covering their king’s body. One foot was on the platform while the other remained on the step below. As red-orange blanketed the room from all sides, from wide and expansive windows meant to let in the morning and evening sun and to accept the night sky, she swallowed the whole of it all. She swallowed the battle waging outside, she swallowed the dead and dying, she swallowed the blood and ash, and then she swallowed what he was telling her.
“I can grant you more time. Leave me.”
She didn’t turn to look at Dae; instead, her gaze tipped down to the cheek pressed against her breast. Fiery depths traced his features, the dips and curves of his face, the pink of his lips, and the narrow angle of his nose. They had not a need to memorize the way long silver-white strands—ones that just barely tinted sky blue in the light—were so abstractly different from her own obsidian ones. And yet, she followed the way they fell over his chest and touched her abdomen; at the way they fell over her arm pressed into his upper back… at the way his bangs kissed his gentle cheeks—ones that were marred by soot.
His clothes had always overwhelmed his body, seeming too large and yet not. But in her arms like some sort of sleeping bride, like this, within the folds up his Elysian-style tunic… he looked so much smaller.
She shut her eyes as her heart strained with the will of a too taunt lute string, as her own emotions clamored to be free from the box they were encased in—screaming to be felt fully. She refused too obey and crushed it all down before turning her stony expression to Dae.
“It is my duty. You will take him and—.”
“Mine as well,” he told her, unrelenting as his chocolate eyes hardened on her. “You and I both know that of the two of us you have a better chance of getting him out of here—alive. Go.”
When she opened her mouth to speak again he closed the distance between the two of them and placed a hand on her shoulder. “You were a bounty hunter before you were a Balancer, a God Weapon still.”
Her brow knit, eyes narrowing again.
“Logic dictates you go now or we all die, Paladin. You know that I’m right.”
He was. She didn’t like admitting it, but he was. Of the two, she was faster; of the two, he was better equipped to deal with a Fallen Magi.
“Live,” she ordered, failing to keep the rasp out of her voice as she turned; swift steps brought her to the hole.
“I had every intention of it, my lady” was the last thing she heard as the darkness engulfed her, before the scrape and grind was the only indication after that he’d replaced the throne to hide her escape. But it mattered naught, she told herself; her Blind Sight could still sense him. Unable to help herself, she let her aura concentrate on his form for a moment longer before she took in her ghostly dragontech-lit surroundings and sprinted off down one long tunnel.
Her feet barely touched the ground, white hot telekinetic force bursting with every motion. The long braid beat into her back, offset only by the weapon slanted and strapped there.
“Be well, my king,” she murmured as she prayed for the gods’ good graces, as she prayed that Dae would not yet become another body she had to bury or burn on a pyre. “May Gaea keep you safe,” she whispered for his sake, voice wavering with what she was not permitted to feel entirely.
She repaired the damage, mended the cracking sides, and tucked it all away with an exhale.
Metal rods the color of silver hung on the walls like torches and blinked as she passed them by, the effect a bit like turning a room’s illumination on and off again. She could see water condensation rolling along the stone; every so often her feet made contact with a puddle and the splash echoed in several different directions.
Her aura was expanding, Blind Sight reaching for the proper direction as she turned down another hall. But the farther she reached the more ill at ease she felt. Did the tunnels lead outside? She could not dally; she needed an opening, an exit.
“Damn,” she whispered as she stopped. She couldn’t run and reach that far. Eyes shutting and body made immobile, she relaxed into herself. One exhale; two. And then she reached again, father and father still. The Blind Sight shifted through walls, between spaces and cracks, above and below… out, and out, and out…
Red orbs snapped open and once more she was off, body a blur of movement as she sought the route mapped out by her mind. It wasn’t until she sensed the danger that her jaw flexed and she made a swift reroute before turning.
Fallen.
Another turn, another path blocked. She didn’t understand. Why?
The Balancer kicked open a door and dashed inside to escape the onslaught of black-armored eyeless warriors coming from two sides, certain the room would be empty. Instead, she found her final exit blocked yet again…
There were almost entirely motionless, taking up most of a room that was the size of the Great Hall. Lips were unmoving and dull black armor, lacking even the slightest shine, made the dimly lit space seem that much darker still. Men, women, magi, dragon, and notodama… they were present, all victims—fallen warriors—of Leviathan’s wrath.
There was nothing to sense about them, no emotions present to shift through her and reveal to her a mild idea of what they planned—what their master intended; after all, the dead didn’t feel. Bodies without souls were not capable of thought, of pain and joy.
“Blade Redwind,” a voice addressed from within the crowd. “Right hand to his majesty, rumored to have given her Loyalty Pledge as a Balancer in the Old Tradition, God Weapon—Paladin to Draco.” As the man spoke the crowd parted and backed up, giving way to create a circle of space before her. “And…” he trailed off, finally appearing from between the immobile bodies with a visible smile not covered by a helm. No, this man, bearded with curled hair the color of black sin, wore thin leathers and loose silks. “…The bounty hunter once referred to as… The Machine…” He paused. “Do I have it all, traygon?”
Lashes dropped just so, eyes narrowing. She remained silent and impassive; a cold and impenetrable wall for him to make of it what he would. And yet none moved to attack. This man… she could sense his emotions. His malice was laced in joy, a twisted and thorny miasma pricked in bloodlust—all directed at her and the man in her arms.
“We knew about your Blind Sight, an a ability unique to your kind,” he went on. “That is, you are curious as to why you didn’t see this coming, my lady, are you not?” He smirked, black abyssal eyes alight with satisfaction.
He was one of The Raptured, but he was the first one she’d not seen in armor without daggers—without arrows and a bow. Where were his weapons? He wasn’t notodama; didn’t have the telltale dreads that signified the humanoid species known by all of Gaea for their martial prowess.
He chuckled as his hands formed fists at his sides.
Red eyes dancing with specks of yellow and orange drifted to one; her grip on her bundle tightened as she watched. Silently, it began slowly… a trickle of power that pricked at her senses, or rather a lack of power.
A star-specked cosmos of colorful black miasma—mist—fell from his hands… rolled off of his body.
Grigori.
A null to magi, to those chosen by their gods like herself—like her people. Her Blind Sight did not work on him, or the area he protected, because his ability voided hers. She was all at once glad Dae had not come in her stead. He would be nothing more than a babe against the might of such a being—of one not of this plane or realm, but rather the stars, and supposedly rumored to have come into existence before even the gods themselves when the universe ruptured forth and spewed the heavens.
He was chuckling again and she wondered if she’d given him an indication that she was surprised. No… but, why would a grigori…
It didn’t matter. She needed to get out of here now. But escape was no longer an option. A half a dozen, or even a hundred, Fallen would not be a problem for her. But one grigori? That would take all of her concentration.
“I will give you a warning, null.”
“Oh?” he asked, smiling all the more as he crossed his arms over his chest.
“Deliver to me the path I seek. Refuse, and I will make certain there is naught left of you to ever become one with the heavens again.”
“You believe you are in position to make threats?”
“Your presence here is a threat to His Majesty. Be gone.”
His grin gave way to white teeth and the twisted black malice at his core coiled before spreading further. She knew even before he spoke. “I think not.”
The Fallen descended; frozen statues no longer, they rushed at her to gain access to the man in her arms. Her eyes burned white as a barrier erected itself at her inner command, blocking them and making them nothing more than insects batting a glass bubble. Her gaze remained fixed on him, on the grigori until she closed her sight off entirely and knelt. Precious cargo she’d carried much of the night was lain out of the stone floor beneath her. She brushed silver-white strands from his brow briefly before standing. Black gloved digits gripped the oversized hilt at her back as her arm extended to reach; she pulled the sword from its sheathe—but not upward. No, but towards her left and then up. The holy weapon moved through its casing as if both items were one and the same, only parting by her will alone.
The six foot blade hummed, white glowing runes moving along the length of it as she stepped towards the wall of her barrier and beyond it. Radiant heat, light, trailed a path that followed the sharp edge as she swept it out and cut a path through The Fallen. Her mind boomed, her body did. The explosion pushed the rest of them, those who hadn’t been sliced bloody and asunder, all back—some falling lifeless like broken dolls while others tried to get up; it did this to all but the man whose gaze she held. He, in turn, had erected a barrier of his own.
Unlike the white tint her telekinetic aura maintained, his was as black as the night sky—half blooming in blue and violet.
As The Fallen returned to try and get to her charge, the ones that were lucky, the barrier held. It was true then; they wanted him. They wanted The High King.
Not while I have breath in my body, she avowed as she rushed forward and leapt up. She drew her weapon above her head; using not her weight or inertia, but instead the raw power of her telekinetic force. It came slicing towards his head as he tilted his face toward her, smirking all the more as he gazed at her through black hooded lashes.
Her jaw flexed as his barrier pushed against her sword, as she held herself in the air and pressed on—fibrous muscle beneath skin-tight clothing becoming hard and poised. Black and white lightening cracked, broke away and snapped between them. She could see the twitch in his brow and refrained from smirking at him then.
I will break your barrier, grigori. She would. Power… power like theirs was all a matter of will. And hers was indomitable among her people, second only to one other traygon one hundred years her senior.
“Magnificent,” he whispered, gasping a little. “But not quite good enough, dragon-dog.” The black in his eyes overtook the white and her own widened as a pulse of power struck outward. She inhaled sharply as the blast pushed her back; at the last moment she made her mind split into two—one part to totally focus on keeping the barrier around The High King erected and the other for the fight ahead. It wasn’t until just before her back met with a hard surface, a stone wall that cracked under her weight and motion, that she was barely successful. And when she felt something sailing through the air towards her, red orbs snapping open as she got her bearings, she tensed.
A stone block covered in black miasma bespeckled with white was mere inches before her face before she pushed back with her mind and took hold of the object. A crack formed and a moment later it shattered into a thousand pieces. It was in that brief fraction of a second when the composition changed that she overtook his grip. Eyes becoming a brighter white still, she flung the shards towards him—speed high enough to slice skin and more.
As his gaze met hers he countered and the pieces of broken block hung in the air—poised between them both… vibrating as they battled for dominance. And then, just like that, they broke further—dust blooming in the air. With a cry, she surged forward. Blurs, they were blurs. Black miasma clashed with white hot telekinesis; cracks formed along the ground and walls—the ceiling—where they met fist for blade; more blocks flew—objects became weapons; strikes of energy erupted from her body, the sword, and his palms—hers.
It wasn’t fair that she’d spent most of her strength fighting her way to the castle with Dae. She could feel her body straining, aching, even as she forced herself to brink of… she didn’t know. She was so weary; it would be easy to give up now, but she couldn’t. She refused. She refused for the man on the floor who deserved none of this—the beautiful man who…
Her blade cut the air as she exhaled a breath, as sweat gathered along her brow and touched a lash; she blinked, and her jaw tensed as the liquid splashed on her cheek. His hands came together, smacking to trap her blade between them. When she inhaled, drawing strength from an already dry well, she pushed on with a burst of whatever was left—cutting through and lodging her weapon in his solid shoulder. He hadn’t had a chance to become intangible miasma this time. She—
A spark died—the candle snuffing entirely. Darkness.
Dae.
“No…” she whispered as she felt the tie she’d strung to him snap entirely, as she felt the thin connection she’d left behind to watch over him go entirely.
The sharp blow laced with abyssal energy lashed pain and poison across her cheek, was enough to offset her balance. The shock, the agony, that struck through her made her release the hilt once the force of his blow dislodged her blade from his shoulder.
Gods no… her mind breathed as she stared down at the floor, eyes shaking.
Her friend… her partner… He’d not been strong enough for the Fallen Magi after all. And she, in turn, had not been fully prepared for his death either.
“Take The High King!” she heard the grigori shout.
And then it hit her.
Her eyes shot to the body on the floor, the unconscious form she’d been protecting. Her barrier… she’d let it drop. And they’d descended like leaches to a bloodied corpse. She moved forward, staggering—gasping—and unable to force strength into her legs. A scream ripped from her chest; not a war cry, not a confident order the cease, no, a desperate wail laced with failure and loss—laced with regret and broken despair.
She dropped to the floor, knees slamming against stone as she felt a second thread snap… as she felt the life go from her king… her…
“Adrian…” she whispered, head lulling from a combination of exhaustion, pain, and emotional dislocation she was still fighting to feel entirely—yet another battle she was failing to win.
“And that’s the end of an age…” she heard the grigori grunt.
She said nothing; matted black strands fell from her braid and cascaded haphazardly to shield her face, her moistened eyes. It was hard not agree with him, some abstract part of her mind thought—continued to think as she heard steel scrape against stone, as she felt his motions while he lifted her weapon behind her and held the point in the air behind her back.
“Goodbye, Balancer. You were a noble opponent.”
Long lashes dropped as blood beat in her ears, as the last of her strength left her, as desire to do more came in earnest at the final acceptance of Adrian’s death—as acceptance came for the death of a man she…
I love you.
The grigori drew the point back and she waited for the end.
She gasped as something familiar burned through her veins, as something roared to life at commanding inner cry that this—this—was not how it was supposed to end. Blinding light covered the room; it covered everything in voiceless chorus of echoes wrought in disbelief. She felt the grigori’s body burst, crumble the ash—The Fallen were swept away in the explosion of raw power—gone.
Something sliced to either side of her spine—bursting at the same time the light painted and destroyed her enemies. Red rained on the walls, the floor; it cried from black wings that outstretched from her back.
Her chest heaved and she gasped as it all receded. As the light died entirely and she found herself in an empty crater surrounded by empty cracking walls, surrounded by angry muffled explosions and sounds from without—reminding her of the battle.
“Adrian,” she murmured, leaping up and out with newfound strength. She ran to his body, his broken and bleeding body. Another cry as she took him in her arms, as she knelt and drew his head to her chest and curled into him—as her wings drew close to her back and she let it all wash over her.
“I love you…” she said. “I have failed you.” And then she finally allowed herself to cry, to feel what she could between all else. Memories of another man, of another who’d also been entirely unexpected and all that she’d adored for spaces of existence, consumed her. Those memories burned with new ones—with this moment and this…
“Is this the end?” she whispered next into his hair as she cut off the thought, dry lips rubbing soft ash. “The end of an age?” she went on. “Of gods… of peace?” And then she looked up, garnet orbs darker—hollow. “Is this what you always intended for me, My Lord?” she cried to heavens. “Can you hear me, Draco? Was this my final purpose? To pledge my life, my sword, to another and fail in that duty—again?
“Was this Our final purpose?” she asked louder. “We were his Balancers—this world’s protectors…! Does that…” And then she let her head drop; she squeezed Adrian’s lifeless body to hers as if doing so could bring her some measure of solace, taking deep inhales between sobs. “…Once more,” she asked, not knowing what she was asking for. “Once more…
“Please.”
In her next inhale there was light—nothing but the light. Not hers, no. Something different. Everything paused… time stood still. The light expanded beyond the castle walls, beyond the city buildings and streets, over the hills until there was naught else left to cover.
“Once more then,” a voice whispered in turn. “Once more.”
Eons ago…
Elysian was falling.
Her blood was a pounding drum in her chest, beating savagely; each breath that left the passage of her lips escaped in tandem. Fire. Blood. So much. The Blind Sight, her aura, made images into shapes and outlines without color—made what was beyond the castle walls wail against her heart. Agony, despair, fear, loathing, hate, malice, and love shifted and cycled within her; each emotion was louder than the next, each one like a plea or a call to arms. She could hear the cry of the people, his people; the malice though—that radiating and all pervading malice…
…Leviathan.
She shoved it aside, the heavy burden in her arms the one reminder that she could not deviate. The quiet thump beyond his breastbone told her there was time; she had time.
She focused on the sound of her knee-high boots clipping along the white marbled Great Hall, on the way Dae’s own boots echoed the same sound next to her; she focused on the swish of the magi’s robes, the silence of her abyssal-colored skin-tight attire that was—in its own way—an armor, and the smack of her sheathed blade hitting her spine; she made her emotions separate from all that she felt from others, from the man next to her. It wouldn’t do to lose control now; she refused.
“Almost there,” he said as they continued to pass windows blaring orange-red light, fear and anxiety lacing his voice—his very core.
He could not sense the lost of life the same way she did, but Gaea’s pain would be felt by him all the more. No, maybe she was wrong; maybe Dae felt the horrid assault on all they held dear more than she did in that moment. Perhaps it was harder for him because he was not capable of dealing with the onslaught the way she did.
It was easier to think as much when the man in her arms would not wake up, would not give her his bright blue gaze laced in warm ice—assuring her it would be alright… that she had not yet failed him in some way.
“Blade,” her partner addressed her next.
She did not look at him; the devoid and hardened expression did not change on her features beyond the narrowing of fiery red orbs. “I know.” Because she did. The surge of magick entered her aura, pushing through it like a swimmer desperately trying to find the surface for air.
When they passed the threshold of thick wooden double doors engraved with decorative knots, vine-work, and flowers they remained open long enough to reveal a flying swath of rippling black fabric heading towards them. This was what they both saw the moment they turned to face the enemy.
She should have been faster, she told herself as Dae lifted his oaken staff, slammed it down, and began to chant—as a spinning circle of blue-green runes hummed under him on the floor. She should have used her abilities to carry them all, no matter the exhaustion she felt. She wanted to ignore the way Dae’s robes were singed and torn; she wanted to ignore way it was hard to tell the red dye from blood—his or others’, she didn’t know; she wanted to ignore her own superficial injuries and the way her bones tugged at her to release the weight of the body in her arms so she might lie down and sleep; and, she wanted to ignore the way her mind kept on trying to go to that place—the one that planned ahead and screamed at her to ask: what after… after this?
Her eyes glowed and she banished it aside as her jaw flexed; white overtook the red as she made the doors snap shut before them—as she enforced a telekinetic barrier to keep him out.
“I will hold it. Hurry.” Hopefully he had enough power yet to create a barrier of his own that would keep long enough for them to escape. All they could do, as loath as she was to admit it, was bargain with time anew.
Stone and rope-vine bark coiled up from the floor, breaking marble tiles, and overtook the doors; a pebble of clicking sounds, grinding, came as the gray earth began to cover the throne room’s main entrance. Green leaves and blue flowers bloomed from the spiraling vines as it wove its way into the doors; it wasn’t until the actions stopped completely and Dae exhaled that she allowed her gift to recede and become replaced by his own.
And then came the pounding, the flash of magick across the only layer between the two of them and the might of one of Leviathan’s forces.
“He’s a Fallen Magi,” the shaggy brunette told her, his pale lips twisting. The action made the scruff of barely-there whiskers more pronounced—made him looked older and as exhausted as she was. “It won’t hold long, my lady. Ten minutes at the very best.”
“Then we leave,” she told him, ignoring the automatic desire to remind him to not call her that. She didn’t wait for him to reply. She turned, eyes glowing again as she reached out with her mind towards one of the two large and high-backed marble chairs. She forced it to slide back, grinding to reveal a opening that led below.
“You don’t understand,” he told her, not moving as she made her way up the stairs.
“I do,” she replied. “We are leaving. Now, Wizard.”
“I’m not asking you for permission,” he snapped back over the muffled pounding.
She stilled, fingers tightening over the blue and white Siderian silk covering their king’s body. One foot was on the platform while the other remained on the step below. As red-orange blanketed the room from all sides, from wide and expansive windows meant to let in the morning and evening sun and to accept the night sky, she swallowed the whole of it all. She swallowed the battle waging outside, she swallowed the dead and dying, she swallowed the blood and ash, and then she swallowed what he was telling her.
“I can grant you more time. Leave me.”
She didn’t turn to look at Dae; instead, her gaze tipped down to the cheek pressed against her breast. Fiery depths traced his features, the dips and curves of his face, the pink of his lips, and the narrow angle of his nose. They had not a need to memorize the way long silver-white strands—ones that just barely tinted sky blue in the light—were so abstractly different from her own obsidian ones. And yet, she followed the way they fell over his chest and touched her abdomen; at the way they fell over her arm pressed into his upper back… at the way his bangs kissed his gentle cheeks—ones that were marred by soot.
His clothes had always overwhelmed his body, seeming too large and yet not. But in her arms like some sort of sleeping bride, like this, within the folds up his Elysian-style tunic… he looked so much smaller.
She shut her eyes as her heart strained with the will of a too taunt lute string, as her own emotions clamored to be free from the box they were encased in—screaming to be felt fully. She refused too obey and crushed it all down before turning her stony expression to Dae.
“It is my duty. You will take him and—.”
“Mine as well,” he told her, unrelenting as his chocolate eyes hardened on her. “You and I both know that of the two of us you have a better chance of getting him out of here—alive. Go.”
When she opened her mouth to speak again he closed the distance between the two of them and placed a hand on her shoulder. “You were a bounty hunter before you were a Balancer, a God Weapon still.”
Her brow knit, eyes narrowing again.
“Logic dictates you go now or we all die, Paladin. You know that I’m right.”
He was. She didn’t like admitting it, but he was. Of the two, she was faster; of the two, he was better equipped to deal with a Fallen Magi.
“Live,” she ordered, failing to keep the rasp out of her voice as she turned; swift steps brought her to the hole.
“I had every intention of it, my lady” was the last thing she heard as the darkness engulfed her, before the scrape and grind was the only indication after that he’d replaced the throne to hide her escape. But it mattered naught, she told herself; her Blind Sight could still sense him. Unable to help herself, she let her aura concentrate on his form for a moment longer before she took in her ghostly dragontech-lit surroundings and sprinted off down one long tunnel.
Her feet barely touched the ground, white hot telekinetic force bursting with every motion. The long braid beat into her back, offset only by the weapon slanted and strapped there.
“Be well, my king,” she murmured as she prayed for the gods’ good graces, as she prayed that Dae would not yet become another body she had to bury or burn on a pyre. “May Gaea keep you safe,” she whispered for his sake, voice wavering with what she was not permitted to feel entirely.
She repaired the damage, mended the cracking sides, and tucked it all away with an exhale.
Metal rods the color of silver hung on the walls like torches and blinked as she passed them by, the effect a bit like turning a room’s illumination on and off again. She could see water condensation rolling along the stone; every so often her feet made contact with a puddle and the splash echoed in several different directions.
Her aura was expanding, Blind Sight reaching for the proper direction as she turned down another hall. But the farther she reached the more ill at ease she felt. Did the tunnels lead outside? She could not dally; she needed an opening, an exit.
“Damn,” she whispered as she stopped. She couldn’t run and reach that far. Eyes shutting and body made immobile, she relaxed into herself. One exhale; two. And then she reached again, father and father still. The Blind Sight shifted through walls, between spaces and cracks, above and below… out, and out, and out…
Red orbs snapped open and once more she was off, body a blur of movement as she sought the route mapped out by her mind. It wasn’t until she sensed the danger that her jaw flexed and she made a swift reroute before turning.
Fallen.
Another turn, another path blocked. She didn’t understand. Why?
The Balancer kicked open a door and dashed inside to escape the onslaught of black-armored eyeless warriors coming from two sides, certain the room would be empty. Instead, she found her final exit blocked yet again…
There were almost entirely motionless, taking up most of a room that was the size of the Great Hall. Lips were unmoving and dull black armor, lacking even the slightest shine, made the dimly lit space seem that much darker still. Men, women, magi, dragon, and notodama… they were present, all victims—fallen warriors—of Leviathan’s wrath.
There was nothing to sense about them, no emotions present to shift through her and reveal to her a mild idea of what they planned—what their master intended; after all, the dead didn’t feel. Bodies without souls were not capable of thought, of pain and joy.
“Blade Redwind,” a voice addressed from within the crowd. “Right hand to his majesty, rumored to have given her Loyalty Pledge as a Balancer in the Old Tradition, God Weapon—Paladin to Draco.” As the man spoke the crowd parted and backed up, giving way to create a circle of space before her. “And…” he trailed off, finally appearing from between the immobile bodies with a visible smile not covered by a helm. No, this man, bearded with curled hair the color of black sin, wore thin leathers and loose silks. “…The bounty hunter once referred to as… The Machine…” He paused. “Do I have it all, traygon?”
Lashes dropped just so, eyes narrowing. She remained silent and impassive; a cold and impenetrable wall for him to make of it what he would. And yet none moved to attack. This man… she could sense his emotions. His malice was laced in joy, a twisted and thorny miasma pricked in bloodlust—all directed at her and the man in her arms.
“We knew about your Blind Sight, an a ability unique to your kind,” he went on. “That is, you are curious as to why you didn’t see this coming, my lady, are you not?” He smirked, black abyssal eyes alight with satisfaction.
He was one of The Raptured, but he was the first one she’d not seen in armor without daggers—without arrows and a bow. Where were his weapons? He wasn’t notodama; didn’t have the telltale dreads that signified the humanoid species known by all of Gaea for their martial prowess.
He chuckled as his hands formed fists at his sides.
Red eyes dancing with specks of yellow and orange drifted to one; her grip on her bundle tightened as she watched. Silently, it began slowly… a trickle of power that pricked at her senses, or rather a lack of power.
A star-specked cosmos of colorful black miasma—mist—fell from his hands… rolled off of his body.
Grigori.
A null to magi, to those chosen by their gods like herself—like her people. Her Blind Sight did not work on him, or the area he protected, because his ability voided hers. She was all at once glad Dae had not come in her stead. He would be nothing more than a babe against the might of such a being—of one not of this plane or realm, but rather the stars, and supposedly rumored to have come into existence before even the gods themselves when the universe ruptured forth and spewed the heavens.
He was chuckling again and she wondered if she’d given him an indication that she was surprised. No… but, why would a grigori…
It didn’t matter. She needed to get out of here now. But escape was no longer an option. A half a dozen, or even a hundred, Fallen would not be a problem for her. But one grigori? That would take all of her concentration.
“I will give you a warning, null.”
“Oh?” he asked, smiling all the more as he crossed his arms over his chest.
“Deliver to me the path I seek. Refuse, and I will make certain there is naught left of you to ever become one with the heavens again.”
“You believe you are in position to make threats?”
“Your presence here is a threat to His Majesty. Be gone.”
His grin gave way to white teeth and the twisted black malice at his core coiled before spreading further. She knew even before he spoke. “I think not.”
The Fallen descended; frozen statues no longer, they rushed at her to gain access to the man in her arms. Her eyes burned white as a barrier erected itself at her inner command, blocking them and making them nothing more than insects batting a glass bubble. Her gaze remained fixed on him, on the grigori until she closed her sight off entirely and knelt. Precious cargo she’d carried much of the night was lain out of the stone floor beneath her. She brushed silver-white strands from his brow briefly before standing. Black gloved digits gripped the oversized hilt at her back as her arm extended to reach; she pulled the sword from its sheathe—but not upward. No, but towards her left and then up. The holy weapon moved through its casing as if both items were one and the same, only parting by her will alone.
The six foot blade hummed, white glowing runes moving along the length of it as she stepped towards the wall of her barrier and beyond it. Radiant heat, light, trailed a path that followed the sharp edge as she swept it out and cut a path through The Fallen. Her mind boomed, her body did. The explosion pushed the rest of them, those who hadn’t been sliced bloody and asunder, all back—some falling lifeless like broken dolls while others tried to get up; it did this to all but the man whose gaze she held. He, in turn, had erected a barrier of his own.
Unlike the white tint her telekinetic aura maintained, his was as black as the night sky—half blooming in blue and violet.
As The Fallen returned to try and get to her charge, the ones that were lucky, the barrier held. It was true then; they wanted him. They wanted The High King.
Not while I have breath in my body, she avowed as she rushed forward and leapt up. She drew her weapon above her head; using not her weight or inertia, but instead the raw power of her telekinetic force. It came slicing towards his head as he tilted his face toward her, smirking all the more as he gazed at her through black hooded lashes.
Her jaw flexed as his barrier pushed against her sword, as she held herself in the air and pressed on—fibrous muscle beneath skin-tight clothing becoming hard and poised. Black and white lightening cracked, broke away and snapped between them. She could see the twitch in his brow and refrained from smirking at him then.
I will break your barrier, grigori. She would. Power… power like theirs was all a matter of will. And hers was indomitable among her people, second only to one other traygon one hundred years her senior.
“Magnificent,” he whispered, gasping a little. “But not quite good enough, dragon-dog.” The black in his eyes overtook the white and her own widened as a pulse of power struck outward. She inhaled sharply as the blast pushed her back; at the last moment she made her mind split into two—one part to totally focus on keeping the barrier around The High King erected and the other for the fight ahead. It wasn’t until just before her back met with a hard surface, a stone wall that cracked under her weight and motion, that she was barely successful. And when she felt something sailing through the air towards her, red orbs snapping open as she got her bearings, she tensed.
A stone block covered in black miasma bespeckled with white was mere inches before her face before she pushed back with her mind and took hold of the object. A crack formed and a moment later it shattered into a thousand pieces. It was in that brief fraction of a second when the composition changed that she overtook his grip. Eyes becoming a brighter white still, she flung the shards towards him—speed high enough to slice skin and more.
As his gaze met hers he countered and the pieces of broken block hung in the air—poised between them both… vibrating as they battled for dominance. And then, just like that, they broke further—dust blooming in the air. With a cry, she surged forward. Blurs, they were blurs. Black miasma clashed with white hot telekinesis; cracks formed along the ground and walls—the ceiling—where they met fist for blade; more blocks flew—objects became weapons; strikes of energy erupted from her body, the sword, and his palms—hers.
It wasn’t fair that she’d spent most of her strength fighting her way to the castle with Dae. She could feel her body straining, aching, even as she forced herself to brink of… she didn’t know. She was so weary; it would be easy to give up now, but she couldn’t. She refused. She refused for the man on the floor who deserved none of this—the beautiful man who…
Her blade cut the air as she exhaled a breath, as sweat gathered along her brow and touched a lash; she blinked, and her jaw tensed as the liquid splashed on her cheek. His hands came together, smacking to trap her blade between them. When she inhaled, drawing strength from an already dry well, she pushed on with a burst of whatever was left—cutting through and lodging her weapon in his solid shoulder. He hadn’t had a chance to become intangible miasma this time. She—
A spark died—the candle snuffing entirely. Darkness.
Dae.
“No…” she whispered as she felt the tie she’d strung to him snap entirely, as she felt the thin connection she’d left behind to watch over him go entirely.
The sharp blow laced with abyssal energy lashed pain and poison across her cheek, was enough to offset her balance. The shock, the agony, that struck through her made her release the hilt once the force of his blow dislodged her blade from his shoulder.
Gods no… her mind breathed as she stared down at the floor, eyes shaking.
Her friend… her partner… He’d not been strong enough for the Fallen Magi after all. And she, in turn, had not been fully prepared for his death either.
“Take The High King!” she heard the grigori shout.
And then it hit her.
Her eyes shot to the body on the floor, the unconscious form she’d been protecting. Her barrier… she’d let it drop. And they’d descended like leaches to a bloodied corpse. She moved forward, staggering—gasping—and unable to force strength into her legs. A scream ripped from her chest; not a war cry, not a confident order the cease, no, a desperate wail laced with failure and loss—laced with regret and broken despair.
She dropped to the floor, knees slamming against stone as she felt a second thread snap… as she felt the life go from her king… her…
“Adrian…” she whispered, head lulling from a combination of exhaustion, pain, and emotional dislocation she was still fighting to feel entirely—yet another battle she was failing to win.
“And that’s the end of an age…” she heard the grigori grunt.
She said nothing; matted black strands fell from her braid and cascaded haphazardly to shield her face, her moistened eyes. It was hard not agree with him, some abstract part of her mind thought—continued to think as she heard steel scrape against stone, as she felt his motions while he lifted her weapon behind her and held the point in the air behind her back.
“Goodbye, Balancer. You were a noble opponent.”
Long lashes dropped as blood beat in her ears, as the last of her strength left her, as desire to do more came in earnest at the final acceptance of Adrian’s death—as acceptance came for the death of a man she…
I love you.
The grigori drew the point back and she waited for the end.
She gasped as something familiar burned through her veins, as something roared to life at commanding inner cry that this—this—was not how it was supposed to end. Blinding light covered the room; it covered everything in voiceless chorus of echoes wrought in disbelief. She felt the grigori’s body burst, crumble the ash—The Fallen were swept away in the explosion of raw power—gone.
Something sliced to either side of her spine—bursting at the same time the light painted and destroyed her enemies. Red rained on the walls, the floor; it cried from black wings that outstretched from her back.
Her chest heaved and she gasped as it all receded. As the light died entirely and she found herself in an empty crater surrounded by empty cracking walls, surrounded by angry muffled explosions and sounds from without—reminding her of the battle.
“Adrian,” she murmured, leaping up and out with newfound strength. She ran to his body, his broken and bleeding body. Another cry as she took him in her arms, as she knelt and drew his head to her chest and curled into him—as her wings drew close to her back and she let it all wash over her.
“I love you…” she said. “I have failed you.” And then she finally allowed herself to cry, to feel what she could between all else. Memories of another man, of another who’d also been entirely unexpected and all that she’d adored for spaces of existence, consumed her. Those memories burned with new ones—with this moment and this…
“Is this the end?” she whispered next into his hair as she cut off the thought, dry lips rubbing soft ash. “The end of an age?” she went on. “Of gods… of peace?” And then she looked up, garnet orbs darker—hollow. “Is this what you always intended for me, My Lord?” she cried to heavens. “Can you hear me, Draco? Was this my final purpose? To pledge my life, my sword, to another and fail in that duty—again?
“Was this Our final purpose?” she asked louder. “We were his Balancers—this world’s protectors…! Does that…” And then she let her head drop; she squeezed Adrian’s lifeless body to hers as if doing so could bring her some measure of solace, taking deep inhales between sobs. “…Once more,” she asked, not knowing what she was asking for. “Once more…
“Please.”
In her next inhale there was light—nothing but the light. Not hers, no. Something different. Everything paused… time stood still. The light expanded beyond the castle walls, beyond the city buildings and streets, over the hills until there was naught else left to cover.
“Once more then,” a voice whispered in turn. “Once more.”
Sometimes I feel like a girl~... sometimes I don't~
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Phantasy: Duty Before Love [Book 1] - Comments Welcome - by Blade - 09-09-2015, 07:18 PM
Phantasy: Duty Before Love [Book 1] - Comments Welcome - by Blade - 09-09-2015, 07:18 PM
RE: Phantasy: Duty Before Love [Book 1] - Comments Welcome - by Blade - 04-01-2016, 10:06 PM