Chapter 65

There wasn’t much I could do from the ground. Three dragons meant three enemies I couldn’t reach. My only hope was to gain a little elevation.

I sprinted up the stone stairs of the watchtower, boots hammering against the steps as the spiral tightened around me. Wind and smoke chased me upward until I burst onto the roof.

Outside the curtain wall, Serah was locked in a brutal grapple with a blue dragon. She reared back and spewed a lance of yellow-white fire at a blue-green dragon diving straight toward Mirri. The beast swerved at the last second and flew straight at me.

“This is it!” Serah shouted, her voice carrying even over the chaos. “Go!”

Mirri bolted back into the keep. Good. Seth would need her.

I didn’t hesitate.

I charged and hurled myself from the rooftop, axe raised, slamming into the dragon’s flank. My blade bit deep. The creature roared and twisted violently, tearing the axe free as I skidded across its scales. I caught myself by grabbing a fistful of the bluish mane that ran down its spine.

I buried my axe into its back leg, buying myself a heartbeat of stability. Then I leapt again, planting my feet and snatching another handful of hair with my shield arm. The dragon shrieked and surged upward, spinning wildly to shake me loose. Its head curled back, jaws snapping at me.

I jammed my axe into its back and raised my shield just in time.

Its teeth crushed the shield like foil - metal screaming as it buckled and ripped from my arm - before the dragon spat the ruined thing away. It vanished into the air below.

I jumped again, clawing higher, fingers locking into the coarse hair along its spine. The dragon climbed, air thinning, the world dropping away beneath us. It snapped at me once more. I twisted to dodge - and lost my grip.

Scales blurred past me. Then its tail slammed into my side.

The world spun.

Something massive and red filled my vision, too fast and too close to make sense of. Impact. Pressure. Darkness closing in.

Then air again.

I gasped as light returned, finding myself clenched in Serah’s clawed hand as she surged after the fleeing dragon. She glanced down at me once - eyes fierce and focused - then lifted me to the base of her neck.

I grabbed a fistful of the crimson hair that streamed down her spine and held on.

Her wings thundered. We gained fast.

The blue-green dragon wheeled and dove straight at us. Serah didn’t flinch - she held course. They tore past one another in a blur of claws and blood, raking long, wet gashes into each other’s bellies. Serah kicked out with a back leg, catching the other dragon hard and knocking it off balance.

I let go.

I twisted in midair, facing the ground - facing my target - as the wind screamed past me. Above, Serah banked to follow, but she was too far.

Below me, the dragon thrashed, wings beating frantically. The ground rushed up. Its wings caught enough air to steady it.

I slammed into the base of its skull, axe first.

Its wings folded instantly. Its neck went slack. We plummeted together. I ripped my axe free and drove it down again, into the serpentine curve of its neck. It screeched weakly, body spasming, then went limp.

Serah caught me mid-fall.

Behind us, the dragon’s corpse smashed into the curtain wall, stone exploding outward under the **** of the impact. Serah beat her wings hard, barely clearing the far wall as we crossed the courtyard. Her tail struck stone, cracking it as she clawed for altitude.

Reality rippled - and we burst into a howling storm. Thunder rolled like a living thing. Wind and rain lashed my bare skin, cold and violent. Serah’s flight turned unsteady as she fought the gale, wings shuddering under the strain.

“I can’t do it!” she shouted back. “It’s not working!”

I scanned below, heart hammering. I didn’t see Mirri.

She must have made it. She would have found a way.

I shouted to Serah, but my words vanished in a blinding flash and a crack of thunder that rattled my bones and nearly tore me from her grip. My ears rang, pain blooming sharp and disorienting.

I shouted again - whether she heard me or not, I had no way of knowing.

* * *

“I-I-I,” Mirri sang, her voice riding a wall of electric guitars that echoed off the tufa towers like thunder given rhythm.

I grinned and swung Adhaneth, finally taking the offensive. For the first time, Brand backpedaled - **** onto the defensive.

“Crazy,” Mirri sang, the word stretching with the riff, “but that’s how it goes.”

Brand caught my strike on crossed daggers. My mana flared and I hurled a bolt of flame at him. He snapped up a shield of raw man, the fire splashing and guttering against it as I surged forward, following with two more blows in rapid succession. Metal rang. Sparks flew. I layered the **** - ice and wind, stone and lightning - each attack flowing into the next as I pressed every inch of ground he gave up.

With a thunderous roar, Serah tore into existence overhead, her vast crimson wings ripping through the sky. Ashlara launched herself from Serah’s back, axe raised high, a living missile of green muscle and iron will.

Brand blinked.

Not moved - blinked. His body vanished and reappeared twice in the span of a heartbeat, never crossing the space between. Ashlara hit where he’d been, slamming into the shore hard enough to kick up dust and leave a shallow crater.

It would have been a perfect superhero’s landing if the target hadn’t disappeared.

Brand’s arm snapped out and his dagger left his hand in a silver-black blur. It struck Mirri square in the chest.

The music stuttered.

Serah’s two-tone voice ripped through the silence, raw and furious, carrying the melody as if she were screaming it straight into the world. “We’re runnin’ off the rails on a crazy train!”

Ashlara charged again.

Brand blinked once more, reappearing just long enough to drive his dagger into her back as she passed through the space he’d abandoned. The blade bit deep. Ashlara staggered, breath tearing from her chest - but she didn’t fall.

I ground my teeth.

This had to end. Now. Before anyone else paid for my hesitation.

I surged forward, Adhaneth was liquid - constantly shifting from staff to shield and back - answering my will as Brand danced just beyond my strikes.

Behind me, the ground detonated.

Stone spears erupted upward in a jagged forest, blasting skyward with violent ****. Serah cried out as they shredded her wings and pierced her body, knocking her massive body from the air. She slammed into the earth in a rolling crash, carving a trench of shattered stone and churned soil in her wake.

The music died and the sudden silence was worse than any scream.

I cried out - but the sound was cut off as Brand’s dagger buried itself in my chest.

Pain exploded outward, white-hot and absolute. My knees buckled and I hit the ground. Brand stepped back, wrenching the blade free, and I felt my blood pour out with it - warm, slick, and terrifyingly final.

And for the first time since the fight began, Brand stood over me unopposed.

* * *

Brand smiled.

He’d won - like he always did.

He tangled a fist in Seth’s hair and yanked his head back, forcing their eyes to meet. Seth was weak now. So weak he could feel it - Seth’s Faith fraying, thinning, ready to be torn free and claimed. The thought made something inside him flutter with giddy anticipation.

But what stared back at him wasn’t surrender.

It was defiance.

And the godling smirked.

“You’ve lost,” Brand said calmly. “I’m taking your Faith. Then I’m killing your friends. Gods or not - I don’t care.”

Seth laughed, a wet, broken sound. “Brand,” he wheezed. “Is that really your name? Or is it short for Brandon or something?”

Brand’s fist smashed into Seth’s face.

That name didn’t matter anymore. It belonged to someone small. Someone left behind. He had transcended it - become more than anyone had ever believed possible.

“You were supposed to be the ultimate weapon,” Seth rasped. “The gods made you a pawn… but you wanted to be king.”

Another punch. Harder.

“They’re just as stupid as humans,” Seth went on, spitting blood. “They make the same mistakes.” He grinned through crimson-stained teeth. “You’re not the only one from Earth.”

Brand froze for half a heartbeat.

“And they made me an even bigger weapon.”

Seth roared.

White-hot flame erupted from his mouth, swallowing Brand whole and hurling him backward. Agony ripped through Brand as fire scorched his flesh. Instinct screamed.

He tore the orb from within his cloak - the gift from his Lady. His last resort. He’d never imagined needing it.

The flames touched the orb.

It burst.

The explosion flung bodies and stone alike, ripping apart the last standing limestone columns and blasting the ground flat. Reality itself seemed to buckle.

Brand’s vision swam as he **** his eyes open.

Where the orb had detonated, space itself had split.

A tear.

It throbbed - vibrated - its pulse drowning out all sound. Light spilled from it in a twisting kaleidoscope, colors that hurt to look at, hues that didn’t belong to the world at all.

Brand staggered to his feet and limped toward Seth.

The godling was stirring.

Brand hurried, seized Seth by the throat, and lifted him from the ground. He could feel it now - Faith, warm and vast. He began to pull.

Then pain lanced through his back and exploded out his chest - blinding and absolute.

Brand gasped and looked down.

A black tentacle jutted from his chest, slick with blood and gore, writhing as if alive. Whispers flooded his mind - chittering, overlapping, unintelligible yet horribly familiar. They clawed at his thoughts, laughing without mouths.

He released Seth.

Brand stared at his own hand as though it belonged to someone else. It looked wrong. New. Unfamiliar. As if he’d forgotten what hands were meant to be.

The world lurched.

Something wrenched him sideways, and he was hurled through the air, crashing into the ground yards away - hard enough to knock the breath from his lungs.

The tear pulsed behind him.

* * *

I tore the dagger from my chest and let it fall.

Blood poured freely, hot and slick, but I shoved the pain aside. I drew on my mana and pressed my will inward, knitting flesh and bone. The wound resisted - then slowly yielded. Warmth spread through me as vitality crept back in.

Ashie charged.

Brand vanished in a blink and reappeared behind her, his motion smooth and inevitable. The dagger sank into her back.

I screamed.

Seth surged forward, answering with fury. He became a blur - staff flowing like a living thing, flowing from staff to shield and back again as he pressed Brand without mercy.

Serah dove from the sky.

A heartbeat too late, I felt the spirits cry out.

The shoreline exploded.

Stone spears tore up from the earth, shredding Serah’s wings and ripping through her body. She slammed into the ground, carving a long furrow of ruin through stone and soil before coming to rest.

Brand plunged his dagger into Seth’s chest and I screamed.

I dragged myself to my feet.

He seized Seth by the hair and struck him. Words were exchanged - I couldn’t hear them - and then another blow.

Seth opened his mouth.

Flame erupted-

-and the world detonated.

The blast threw me back. I hit the ground hard, scrambling to my hands and knees as dread hollowed me out.

Before me, the rift from my vision pulsed.

It throbbed like a wound in reality, its vibration drowning out all sound. There was no wind, no screams, no thunder - only that terrible, omnipresent hum.

Brand held Seth by the throat.

From the tear in space, a black tentacle uncoiled - an absence of light and matter, vibrating in perfect, horrifying harmony with the rift. It lashed out in an instant.

Brand’s chest exploded in a spray of gore.

He dropped Seth as the void-tendril hurled him away like refuse.

I tried to cry out. To warn Seth.

I couldn’t hear my own voice.

Light erupted from the rift as it widened, slamming into the tower and blowing a hole through its side. Stone and debris vanished into the roarless chaos.

I had to close it.

I reached for the spirits and found them screaming.

The rift was not of this world. Its presence flayed their essence, scorched the land, tore at everything that lived and breathed. Their agony tore at me in return, but I didn’t let go.

My will slammed into theirs.

I **** them to listen.

I **** them to mend the wound.

Light burst from the rift again, stronger this time, ripping the top from the tower. The crash should have been deafening - but the rift swallowed it whole, leaving only its endless, hateful thrum.

The pale woman burst from the tower, shouting something I could not hear.

I didn’t look at her.

I redoubled my effort, bending the spirits to my will until my vision swam and my teeth ached with strain.

I just needed a little more time.