No, Aliisza thought helplessly. Don't kill him! She staggered to her feet.
Tauran swung his mace at Zasian with both hands, but the weapon bounced harmlessly off the amber barrier surrounding the priest. The countershock sent the angel teetering backward, off-balance.
Zasian raised his hand and gestured. A column of pale yellow flame erupted around Tauran, scouring him. Aliisza could see the angel flinch in anguish and drop his mace.
Stop, she silently pleaded, tears welling in her eyes. Don't do this.
Behind the alu, Kael screamed.
Aliisza whirled around to see Micus driving the blade-her blade-through the knight's gut. The angel pushed Kael backward, using Aliisza's weapon to guide him against a column. When the half-drow struck it with his back, Micus shoved the sword in deeper.
My son! Tears streamed down her face. Don't kill my son, she pleaded.
Zasian stood over Tauran's still form and chuckled. 'Now do you see the power of the lie?' he asked Aliisza. 'Now, when you've been a party to the betrayal, do you understand the triumph of deceit?' The priest gestured around the room. 'This is it. This is Cyric's moment. And you played your role O, so well, Aliisza.'
The alu glared at Zasian through her tears. She wanted to claw his eyes out. She took a single step forward. 'Burn in the Nine Hells for eternity, you-'
Zasian gasped and his eyes went wide. He staggered forward, his arms flailing. He seemed to be trying to reach behind him, but his arms wouldn't work right. He fell to one knee, his eyes rolling up in his head.
Behind the priest, a woman stood there, indistinct and cloaked in shadow. Only her eyes appeared real, and they glittered with delight. She held a black dagger in her hand, dripping with Zasian's blood.
Kashada, Aliisza realized.
Zasian began to shake. He looked back over his shoulder as his body slumped. He fell to the stones of the floor, twitching, staring at the shadow-shrouded woman. 'You!' he said hoarsely. 'What have you done?'
Kashada giggled. 'Cyric sends his regards,' she said to Zasian. Her voice was husky with allure. 'He thanks you for your service. The betrayal is now complete.' Then she looked up and stared at Aliisza.
Aliisza didn't know what possessed her to do it, but at that moment, she drew on the magic of Pharaun's ring. Kashada became clear and solid to her.
Where a shadow-image of mysterious beauty once existed, a decrepit woman stood, garbed in simple robes. The woman's homely, wrinkled face smirked, and her graying hair hung down in limp strands behind her back. A nimbus surrounded the old woman. Aliisza could see it as a larger figure, a beautiful black-skinned creature of lithe grace and dangerous cunning.
The raven beauty from her vision.
Shar.
The nimbus of Shar held a large staff in one hand like a walking stick.
The alu understood, and she wanted to retch.
Kashada and Shar were connected. Kashada was Shar-or a tiny piece of her. The shadow-mystic had been made, a creature to serve but one purpose, so that Shar could be in two worlds at once and steal a staff. Everything else was just one more lie, one more betrayal. Zasian had been told the biggest lie of all, by his own god.
The realization that some small part of Shar stood in that room with her made Aliisza tremble. She wanted to throw herself prostrate on the floor, to hide her eyes. But she could not tear her gaze away.
The nimbus and the old woman smiled together, but it was not a warm expression. There was cold satisfaction there, and hatred. Hatred for all things living.
The pair of them disappeared, leaving only a swirl of shadows.
'No!' Aliisza screamed into the darkness.
Myshik stepped out of the shadows to one side.
'Please,' he said, lifting his bloody axe and coming toward Aliisza. 'Don't do that. It hurts my ears.'
Aliisza sobbed. 'But I saw it,' she said, looking at him plaintively. 'I saw him kill her, with the staff.'
The half-dragon smirked and opened his mouth to say something in reply, but the words never came.
Aliisza felt a ripple of something pass through her. It was magic, pure, undiluted. A bubble. It crashed into the alu, through her.
Everything around her shimmered with the ripple's passing. It looked different afterward, for the heartbeat that she could take it all in.
Then the fabric of reality imploded.
