Rayne’s physical makeup dissolved into a photonic mist. It condensed then funneled into Montague’s breath.
Montague’s limbs twisted and bent. Burton knew that it must hurt him, but Rayne, in his soul form, had to unchain the Nekrum’s marble from Montague’s mind first. Then, from the top of Montague’s head, a bright string of white light shot into the sky, sweeping aside the clouds. The angel’s soul left Montague’s body and rode the string of light, ascending up to the auburn light from where it was tethered.
After Rayne had left his body, the Nekrums’ grip over Montague’s mind was purged. He let go of the marble and suddenly became aware. He rose to his feet. “That wasn’t so bad,’ he said, dizzily. Then he passed out.
The troll, Grimm, came up from behind and caught him. “Got’cha this time,” he said with a proud smile.
Burton laughed. Drops of blood flew from his throat. Eggward came to his side. They both watched the marble turn to ash.
In the early morning sky above, the Nekrums’ ship looked like a comet as it fell into the milky pink horizon, a streak of smoke in its trail. Burton watched. It was beautiful, both the sight and the thought of what it meant. After suffering for generations, the world of Naan will know peace once more.
When the auburn moon crashed into the ocean, the earth quaked.
All around him, the last of the dead elders fell to the ground as if they just shut down. They were disconnected from their energy source. The mages lost their focus as if dazed. They didn’t even know what to do with the weapons in their hands, so they stopped fighting.
“The hybrids are all slain,” said Sir Simon in the distance. Soldiers cheered.
It was sad. But it was better that way, Burton thought. Those people couldn’t be cured. Their condition couldn’t be undone or reversed. Surely, the unused human parts of them had been either thrown into the river or used as food after their bodies had been ripped apart. Even if the hybrids had survived, they could never return to their families in their altered form.
For the first time, Burton witnessed Ikarus and Graleon soldiers standing together alongside the trolls and the mages, who were now free from the Nekrums’ influence, strolling peacefully, yet confused, on a land soaked in blood—the union Burton had always hoped he would see.
The venom was killing him fast, and he wanted to say goodbye to the world and people he’d spent five hundred years protecting.
Anna Lott rushed down from the old castle tower, nearly tripping down the moldy, cracked steps, after she’d seen a gargoyle fly straight into the neighboring tower, where more people were hiding. The monsters with leathery wings circled above like hawks, stalking them.
“Quiet,” she said softly to the handful of survivors that were following her. “Not a sound.” She thought if these gargoyles were anything like birds, then they might be able to hear even the tiniest whispers on the ground.
Anna wished that she had her flute.
More gargoyles joined in the attack. They crashed into buildings, crippling their bodies to topple them over. One after the other, they flew full speed to their deaths. The next target was the southwest tower of the castle, where Anna was hiding. The flying monsters hacked at the pinnacle, and from top to bottom, the castle collapsed piece by piece.
Anna led the people down the steps to the basement of the building. Rounding down the stairwell, a gargoyle broke through the stone wall, exposing the fleeing party. When it reached for her, she fell back, off the step, falling to the ground outside.
The gargoyle paid no interest in the people running down the stairs. It wanted her. When it got close, Anna recognized the face. Something familiar was under its scaly skin. It was the fisherman, Lief. He was deformed with claws for hands and talons for feet. He had literally turned into the monster that he truly was, she thought.
She ran through a maze of collapsed stones as the monster, Lief, hunted her. It broke through the rubble and followed her scent.
In the courtyard there was a fountain that held two feet of water. Slowly, she submerged herself, careful not to ripple the surface. She stopped holding her breath and inhaled. The stagnant water was thicker than the sea and the rivers and harder to breathe. There were more particles moving in and out of her lungs. But there was at least enough oxygen for a short visit. She felt around at the algae-covered bottom and found a twisted iron rod, perhaps a poker from an old fireplace. It didn’t matter what it was, only that it could puncture skin.
Anna could see Lief’s deformed shadow flying across the entire courtyard, swooping down to investigate on each pass. He went back and forth a few times before he stopped and hovered above her in the fountain.
She clasped her hands and prayed. To defend herself, she knew she had to kill him. But it wasn’t even Lief anymore. He was a monster.
Finally, he dove down at her as she lay under the water. Anna lifted the rusty rod and held it up as straight and as tight as she could, piercing Lief through the mouth and out the belly in his descent. His body and wings went limp. For as rotten of a man she knew Lief to be, she still felt sorry for what had happened to him.
A bright flash in the distant sky distracted the last of the flying monsters. Like moths, they all flew to the light.
Then the earth quaked. Suddenly, Anna felt a tremor in her heart, fearing for Rayne’s life.
Beyond the ruins of Illyrium, there were bodies of men littered across the once grassy landscape. She walked through the blood-stained fields of cleaved limbs and guts. The foul smells
