guards. They held flags of the yellow fist. Weapons hung from their belts.
“The first of many,” Ulamn shouted, and the others raised their fists and cheered. They marched forward, ignoring the three in the corner. Twenty more arrived wielding polearms made of a strange red iron that matched their crimson armor. Again Qurrah screamed.
“The pain will lessen with each passing,” Velixar said, his voice raspy and weak. “Celestia has not yet given up hope of breaking our spirit.”
“I can see that,” Qurrah gasped as he crumbled to his knees. Thirty more soldiers entered. They held supplies for constructing tents and fortifications. The half-orc winced, his teeth locked tight so that his scream came out as a hissing moan.
“Try to rest,” Tessanna said as she stroked her lover’s face. “It is only pain. You have endured worse.”
“That…” Qurrah said as he gasped for air. “That is a lie.”
A group of forty marched into the throne room carrying long planks of wood atop their shoulders. Qurrah arched his back against the wall and smacked a fist against the cold stone. Sweat covered his face. Through blurred eyes, he saw Velixar did little better. His skin had turned pale and rotten. His eyes were tiny spots of red amid a dried up skull. Velixar pulled his hood low across his face and turned away from his disciple.
“Do you understand the power we control?” Velixar asked. “Without us they cannot enter. To defeat the armies of Celestia and Ashhur, they will need thousands of Thulos’s war demons. If we break under the strain, they will be trapped here.”
“Thousands,” Qurrah gasped as another group of forty entered, marching in perfect formation with gigantic swords strapped to their backs.
“It will get easier,” Velixar said. “I promise.”
Ulamn finished ordering his men to set up camps along the outside of the castle and approached the necromancers.
“We normally have a hundred gatekeepers to share the burden of passing through our armies,” he said. “To have only two will slow us greatly.”
“We have time,” Velixar said. “How many centuries have you searched for this world? A few extra months will be nothing.”
“Thulos will not be able to enter,” the demon general said. “You both are far too weak to support the entrance of a god.”
“When Celestia is defeated, and her elves ash and bone, we will have the strength,” Velixar said. “How many come with you?”
“Two hundred, for now,” Ulamn said, glancing at Qurrah. “Will he survive?”
“He will,” Tessanna said, answering for him. “I know he will.”
“So be it. We will camp within the city. A battle has been fought here, and it will do us good to be surrounded by the bodies of the conquered.”
Qurrah’s scream interrupted them, which then turned to laughter.
“Is it true pain makes you stronger,” he asked in between laughs. “Because you won’t need a god after this. I’ll be one.”
“His madness is…” Ulamn began.
“None of your concern,” Velixar said. “Go tend your army.”
The demon general frowned but obeyed. Two more groups exited the portal before it shrank. The stars fixated in position. Qurrah gasped in relief as the light returned to Velixar’s eyes.
“I will be in prayer,” the man in black said before marching off. He could not bear to be in the same room as his disciple. He slammed the doors shut behind him, leaving the two lovers in silence. Tessanna knelt down and held Qurrah as he gasped in pain.
“I wish they would have let me sleep first,” he said, the right side of his face cracking a smile.
“Sleep now,” Tessanna told him, kissing each of his eyes closed. “Recover your strength. You will need it by the morn.”
He did as he was told, far too weak to argue otherwise.
M ira slipped through the many fires, her heart panged by the sight of so many suffering. She wondered how many would never wake from their sleep. Ten? Fifty? A hundred? The cold would claim so many. She reached the edge of their encampment. A lone guard walked by, a faded cape wrapped around his body and his helmet pulled down to cover his numb ears. He nodded at her as he passed.
“A throne of a king,” Mira said, her eyes staring off in the night. Visions danced before her, not of her own creation. “And a mural with the gods’ entrance. Is this what you want of me, Celestia? Is this my purpose?”
She waved her hands, tearing open a blue portal. Her whole body quivered with fear and excitement. She knew who waited on the other side. Could she face her, knowing what her dreams demanded?
She didn’t know, but she entered anyway.
T essanna stood as the small blue portal ripped open beside the throne. She smiled as a healthier, livelier version of herself stepped through. They stared at each other with gigantic black eyes, the eyes of goddesses.
“I dreamt you would come to me,” Tessanna said.
“Is that all you dreamt?” Mira asked.
“No,” Tessanna said, smiling at her sleeping husband. “I dreamt of my child. And I dreamt of you dying, my dagger plunged deep in your breast.” She drew her dagger and licked the edge, not minding the blood that trickled from the cut she made on her tongue.
“I don’t trust my dreams,” Mira said. “I’ve defeated ancient demons, Tessanna. Armies have quivered and fled by my hand alone.”
“And Qurrah quivers from mine,” Tessanna said. “And he is greater than any army.”
Soft white mist fell from Mira’s hands as she summoned her magic. “Dreams change,” she said.
“Never,” Tessanna said. “Only we change. Our dreams stay the same.”
Mira hurled a lance of ice, which quickly shattered from a wave of Tessanna’s hand. Seven more lances followed, each one breaking as she laughed.
“Is this all?” Tessanna asked. “I thought you were supposed to be my mirror?”
Mira spread her arms above her head and glared. A ball of fire grew, shaking with intensity. With all her strength she hurled it across the room, but not at Tessanna. Instead it flew straight for Qurrah’s sleeping body. Tessanna shrieked, twirling her hands on instinct. A wall of shadow cocooned him. The fire exploded, burning curtains and filling the room with smoke. Qurrah was unharmed.
Tessanna glared at Mira. She was no longer having fun. Mira saw this and smirked.
“I lived alone for so long,” Mira said. “As did you. What would it be like to lose him and return to that loneliness?”
“Never,” Tessanna hissed. Bolts of shadow shot from her hands, splashing across a magical shield.
Mira uncrossed her arms, and from the center of her chest a bolt of lightning streaked across the room. Tessanna caught it in her hand, laughing as she felt its power char her flesh. Her laughter ended when a second bolt struck Qurrah, dissolving her barrier around him. Qurrah, exhausted beyond measure from opening the portal and enduring the arrival of so many troops, remained unconscious.
“How afraid of loneliness are you?” Mira asked. Before she could hurl a second attack at Qurrah, the lightning bolt left Tessanna’s hand, strengthened by a surrounding aura of fire. Mira brought up her shield and cried out in pain as she halted the spell. Tessanna gave her no reprieve. She locked her hands together, braced, and then fired a gigantic beam of shadow. Mira did the same, except pure white magic streamed from her hands. The two beams struck, the sound of their meeting a concussion of violent thunder.
“You will break,” Tessanna said. “You have no idea the pain I can endure.”
Suddenly, Mira halted her beam and hurled herself into the air with a levitation spell. Tessanna’s spell continued onward, blasting apart the doors to the castle, destroying several homes, and eventually knocking a hole in the wall surrounding the city. She swore as several soldiers in crimson armor entered in a frantic search for the cause of the tremendous magical power.
“Stay out of this,” she shouted to them. The men glanced about, saw Qurrah lying vulnerable, and ordered a protective barricade. Mira frowned at the sight, her one advantage now blocked by a wall of shields.
“You have no escape,” Tessanna said. “You aren’t strong enough to beat me, and even if I fall, others will kill you. This accomplishes nothing.”
