Begin Book 2

Seth was gone.

I felt the absence like a wound carved straight through my soul - a hollow that would never close. Hot tears streamed down my face as sobs tore out of me, raw and uncontrolled.

Why? I was going to close it. I was closing it. Why wouldn’t he wait? He knew about my vision. He knew what it meant - and he did it anyway.

“Why?” I screamed at the sky, my voice breaking.

Yveth collapsed beside me, dropping to her knees. Crystal tears slid down her cheeks and froze as they fell, shattering softly against the ground.

Then, from the corner of my eye, I saw Brand twitch.

Somehow the impotent cock-sock had survived.

Why did he live when Seth didn’t?

Rage flooded me - hot, ****, and absolute - as I **** myself upright. My body screamed in protest. I was spent - drained by the Faith it had taken to get here, hollowed out by the mana I’d burned sealing the rift, wrecked by the run, the fight, and the loss.

I didn’t care.

If I had to suffer, then so would he.

Brand staggered to his feet, swaying, his expression unfocused. Black tendrils crawled up his face, pulsing beneath his skin as if alive. The blood vessels in his eyes had burst, staining the whites a uniform, furious crimson. When his gaze found me, a smirk tugged at his lips.

I gathered what little mana I had left, intent on pouring every last drop into his pain.

“ERADICATE!”

I didn’t hear the word so much as notice its absence - as if sound itself had been torn away. The void where it should have been was more deafening than any scream.

Dread slammed into me. My legs buckled. Color drained from the world, bleaching everything into stark black and white.

Brand twisted.

Bones cracked. Skin stretched, tearing in places. A shrill, keening chorus of whines rose - high, piercing, unbearable - drilling straight into my skull. It climbed and climbed, vibrating through my teeth, my eyes, my thoughts. Blood trickled from my nose and ears as his form inverted itself, black becoming white, white becoming black, reality stuttering around him.

I clutched my head, uselessly covering my ears as the sound crawled inside my brain.

Then it was gone.

He vanished in a blink. The whines cut off instantly, leaving behind a silence so sudden and wrong it made my stomach lurch.

“Myrddin!” Elise screamed.

I didn’t know what the word meant.

Yveth moved.

Her form tore itself apart and reassembled in a heartbeat - an arm elongating grotesquely before slamming into the ground as a massive, frost-white claw. Her legs shattered and reformed into powerful, digitigrade limbs. Another claw struck stone. Opalescent wings burst from her back, unfurling in a thunderous rush of air as a long tail ripped free from her spine.

She roared.

The sound shook the earth itself.

As a dragon, she was immense - at least half again as long as Serah, who herself dwarfed the dragons that had attacked our home. Thick white scales armored her body, glittering in the light as waves of cold mist rolled off her in heavy sheets. Pale gray eyes, ringed in dark, smoky scales, burned with glacial fury as she scanned the shore.

Near the scorched ground where the rift had been, something moved.

An amorphous black puddle spread across the stone. Pseudopods lashed out, gripping scrub and rock as it hauled itself forward. Wherever it touched, leaves browned and withered instantly - then bloomed into black, fuzzy rot like some obscene fungus.

Yveth leapt skyward and exhaled a torrent of killing cold.

The lake froze solid in an instant. Grass locked beneath thick ice. Frost raced across the shore. I lost all feeling in my fingers and toes - my tears froze where they clung to my cheeks and lashes.

“Do not let it touch you!” Yveth cried, her voice unchanged despite her draconic form.

I stared in horror. Nothing I knew could survive that kind of cold - yet there was real fear in the goddess’s voice.

Black tendrils cracked through the ice. New blooms of corruption flowered instantly around them, searching, probing.

And then I saw her - just a heartbeat before it did.

Ashie lay a short distance away, her back against a shattered limestone column, her breathing shallow and uneven.

I **** my terror down and willed my numb legs to move. I staggered, nearly fell, ran, then slipped on the ice and slid the last few feet, crashing into her.

Frozen blood stained the ground around her. Frost coated her skin. She was too heavy to drag. I poured what little mana I had left into her, **** to heal the knife wound in her back.

Nothing.

Just like Grams’, it wouldn’t close.

Tendrils snapped toward us - only to recoil as yellow-hot fire tore through them. Serah had dragged herself closer, her enormous body riddled with punctures that oozed dark blood. Her wings were shredded; she couldn’t even lift herself upright.

The tendrils withdrew as Yveth blasted the area with more ice.

“ROIL!”

Sound collapsed inward again, crushed into nothingness. Primal terror slammed into me and I clutched Ashie with all my strength, too weak even to tremble.

The ground ahead of us began to vibrate - then liquefy - then bubble. Color bled from the world - the sky fading to pale ash, Ashie’s green skin dulling to fogged evergreen, the lake washing out to lifeless steel.

The black mass erupted from the ground, lashing toward Yveth. She twisted midair, barely dodging the pseudopod as it surged a hundred feet skyward before crashing back down. It recoiled, seeping once more into the earth.

“Run!” Yveth shouted as she wheeled overhead, sealing the ground in ice again.

But I couldn’t.

I had nothing left.

And Ashie was still in my arms.

* * *

Light hammered into me as inky black tentacles ripped and flayed, tearing at flesh that no longer knew how to exist. Agony drowned everything. Adhaneth slipped from my grasp and vanished into the darkness below.

The rift stitched itself shut behind me.

I’d done it. We’d done it.

The Myrddin were sealed away again. It might have cost me my life, but the others were safe. Lilae wouldn’t have to grow up in a world poisoned by these things. Tib, Dur, Issa, Brinja, Elarion, Mak - even Torvek - would never know their horror. Ashlara, Mirri, and Serah would live. Elise, too.

That was enough.

I fought anyway - against the tendrils peeling my skin apart, against the blinding light that battered my Faith, against the screaming chaos that gnawed at my Will. Something gave with a wet, final crunch. My arm tore free and dissolved before the Myrddin could claim it. I screamed as a leg was ripped away and turned to ash, my body breaking down into fragments of pain, light, and void.

Even my voice unraveled.

There was nothing left of me but a tiny flame - my Faith - guttering in a howling, impossible wind.

I felt it as I started to fade away - crying.

I had no ears, no body, yet the sound reached me all the same, vibrating through the spark of what remained. Lilae. Her small voice was shattered with grief, sobbing so hard it felt like it might tear her apart. I would miss her. I would miss all of them.

Ashlara’s grief rolled over me next - raw, furious, devastating. She had been the first person I met in this world. Our beginning had been rough, volatile, painful. And then it had grown into something fierce and real and full of love.

Serah’s fire still burned within me - the only thing keeping my spark alive. She had lived so long in fear, caged by duty and expectation, and only recently tasted freedom and love. I prayed she would carry that feeling with her for the rest of her life.

Then came Mirri.

Her pain crushed down on me, vast and intimate all at once. She had built so much of her life around me - around the hope of me. I was the future she had believed in. The partner she had waited for. The one who would give her children, who would let her rejoin her people, who would fill the space she had carved in her heart over a lifetime of patience and loss.

Her fear nearly snuffed me out.

Fear.

Primal. Absolute. Unimaginable.

Mirri’s terror.

Something was wrong.

The rift was sealed. They were supposed to be safe. And yet her fear cut through me like a freezing gale, battering my spark - threatening to extinguish it even as it promised to fan it into something greater.

“They need you,” a woman’s voice resonated within me.

They need me, my spark echoed back.

I exploded.

Faith roared. Will ignited. I reached out with a hand I hadn’t possessed a heartbeat before.

An arm plunged into the maelstrom - feminine, powerful - clad in silver, a vambrace etched with three feathers. Her grip found mine, iron-strong, unyielding, and she pulled.

From the inferno of my spark, I was dragged back into being - arm, shoulder, head, torso, whole again - as if the flame had only ever been a doorway.

For an instant I saw her clearly - a valkyrie in gleaming silver armor, wings spread wide, silver hair flowing, skin the color of charcoal, eyes black as the void between stars.

The raw Faith and chaos threatened to unravel me once again as she dissolved into motes of silver light that drifted independently of the turmoil around me. They coalesced around my hands - hardened into plates of armor that encased my forearms. Plates locked into place over my forearms, my arms, my shoulders, my chest, my legs. A winged helm sealed around my face. A greatsword formed in my hand, heavy and perfect.

Prismatic light from raw Faith shattered across the silver plates. Lightning crawled over the armor as power flooded me - almost enough to tear me apart.

I welcomed it.

The blade sang as I cut through the Myrddin around me. Inhuman screams ripped through the roiling chaos as they scattered and fled.

The armor hissed and crackled where chaos brushed against it. It protected me - but I could feel the strain. I was not invincible.

I focused.

I found the beacon of blue light laced with green - Mirri - and stepped.

* * *

Ice detonated as the mass of black tentacles reared again - frozen shards of fungus and stone blasting outward, raining down in jagged chunks. It lunged.

I threw myself forward, forcing my aching body between it and Ashie. I didn’t have strength left. I didn’t have magic left. But I could still stand.

Silver light exploded.

The impact rattled my bones. The ground bucked beneath me. Heat washed over my skin - flame rolling past in a roaring wave that danced across me without burning. Then it was gone.

I blinked hard, dragging the world back into focus.

A dozen yards ahead stood a warrior clad in gleaming silver armor, a massive sword held easily in one hand. Silver fire poured from the visor of their helm, reflecting so brightly off the armor that I couldn’t tell if they were man or woman. Power - absolute and incandescent radiated in waves.

Where the flames touched, the world was purified. Ice liquefied. Water boiled away from the shore. Broken limestone blackened and collapsed into smoking ash.

The silver fire faded.

Their eyes shone like sliver points of light for a heartbeat longer - then softened, cooling from silver to blue.

“A-Arthyr?” Yveth called softly, her voice cracking.

She was no longer a dragon. She stood in her simple gray dress once more, pale eyes trembling with unshed tears.

The warrior glanced at her - just for an instant - then turned fully toward me. They moved quickly, purposeful, every step heavy with intent. They dropped to one knee, and the winged helm split and slid back.

Seth’s face looked up at us.

“Mirri? Ashie? Serah?” His voice broke as tears streamed down his cheeks. “Are you guys okay?”

He pulled Ashie and me into a crushing hug. I barely felt the pain - only the solidity of him, the reality of his arms around us.

Serah dragged herself closer, and Seth reached out, resting a gentle hand against her massive snout.

Somewhere behind me, I heard Yveth whisper his name.

I didn’t care.

Sobs tore out of me as I pressed my face into the cool, unyielding metal of Seth’s breastplate. I clutched him like he might vanish again if I let go.

For a long moment, none of us spoke. We just held each other and cried.

Ashie groaned.

Seth immediately pulled back, concern snapping through him. Yveth knelt beside the orc, examining the wound in her back. She passed a glowing hand over it, frost and light whispering in her wake.

“You may heal it now,” the goddess said quietly.

I gathered the scraps of mana I had left and pushed them into Ashie’s wound. The bleeding slowed. The flesh knit just enough. It wasn’t finished - but she’d live.

That was enough.

Seth stood and his armor began to dissolve, breaking apart into drifting motes of silver light. They floated a few feet away, then drew together again - reshaping into a tall warrior woman with dark gray skin, silver hair, and vast, radiant wings.

“Thank you, Adhaneth,” Seth said softly.

“Tend to your own,” the woman replied, her voice calm, and motherly. “We will speak later.”

She dissolved into silver light once more, settling gently into the familiar shape of Seth’s staff.