My right arm tingled as the void energy continued to build in my chest, and black smoke trickled out of the rim of my leather glove. “Lia,” I croaked, deaf to my own words, “I’ll...fix this. I promise.”
No more lies, Elden,Amaya’s voice thundered, shifting from the usual cold detachment to focused anger. You’ve forced my hand here. Remember that. The shattering noise came again, so loud that it vibrated my brain inside my skull. A bright flash forced me to close my eyes, and when they opened again, the world was broken in two. A thin line ran through the air around the clearing, refracting the forest around us as if I were looking through a pane of broken glass. Smoke poured out from the ethereal wound, blocking the sunlight and plunging our clearing back into the ominous crimson glow of the emberwoods.
Another earsplitting crash echoed out from the crack, and it spread further through the air, its sparkling tendrils reaching out towards Marin and Lia. “Marin, watch out!” I shouted, taking a staggering step towards her. “Run!”
She looked up from Lia’s writhing body and scanned the clearing with a panicked expression. “What? From what?” she cried, her eyes blind to the cracks in the air only a few inches from her head as she scrambled backwards.
I’m going to kill you, I seethed at the presence in my head. I don’t care what you are, or where you are, I’m going to find you, and I swear on every—
NO. MORE. LIES.The crack in reality above Lia shattered open with a gout of smoke and black flame. Marin stumbled away, holding her hands up against the sudden heat. A hissing black void hung in the air where the world had broken away, revealing the horrific expanse I had entered three times before. My body flooded with its deathly energy, and dark flames sprouted uncontrollably from my fingertips and licked across the sky-blue metal of my sword. I tried to take a step forward to help Lia, but the flames immediately advanced up to my chest as I moved; I instantly froze in place and redoubled my efforts on fighting off the dark presence that threatened to take control of my body.
A shadow flickered in the void, revealing itself a moment later as it clambered through the crack with impossibly sharp bladed arms. The beast paused as its central carapace appeared from the shadows, examining the new world around it, then immediately reared up and brought its scythes down towards its closest target. “NO!” I bellowed, fully embracing the darkness as I lunged forward to stop the monster’s attack. A swirl of black flame surrounded me as my blade shot out and impaled the beast through the side, immediately engulfing it in my conflagration. Its form shimmered beneath the black flame for a brief moment, then disappeared in a wafting cloud of black ash. The maw of the void beside me receded and snapped closed, and the refracting crack in the air vanished in a final plume of smoke.
I hardly noticed the stabbing in my chest through the rage clouding my mind and the flames rippling across my skin. I looked down to find the source of the new pain too late: blood gushed from a gaping wound in Lia’s chest, drilled down through her armor to puncture her heart and lung. My knees buckled and brought me to the ground beside her. “No. No, no, no,” I murmured, running a hand over her bloody leather armor and sending a rush of healing magic through my flaming fingers. “No, I’ll fix this. I promise.”
Her eyes stared up into the smoke-blotted sky, dancing back and forth in search of something she couldn’t see. Our connection was too saturated with pain for me to find her consciousness: everything was static, and noise, and death. The sparkling green energy returned to me as it finished its job, but I could tell immediately that it wasn’t enough. The blankness in her eyes remained, and she struggled to breathe as she coughed up the blood pooled in her once-punctured lung.
I pulled her up into my arms and cradled her body, turning her face up to look at mine. “No, Lia,” I shouted at her, confused and broken, “I fixed it. You can’t die now. You can’t! YOU CAN’T!” As the fury overwhelmed me, I felt my link to her mind fading, replaced with nothing but blinding pain and outrage. “NO! NO! I WON’T LET YOU DIE!” My voice echoed in a tortured chorus.
Lia didn’t seem to hear my protests, and her labored breathing slowly faded until she fell still in my arms and died.
***
17. THE END OF THINGS
I warned you.
I stared into her unfocused eyes, unwilling to accept the reality before me.
You brought her here. You filled her with death.
Deep within my core, I felt my last bastion of resistance break, and the darkness filled me to the brim.
It’s time for you to fulfill your purpose in this world.
A repeated sound echoed out at me from somewhere ahead, but I didn’t care enough to figure out what it was. I looked up momentarily from Lia’s eyes to find Marin standing a few feet away, red-faced and screaming. My brow furrowed as I tried to remember why she was here, but my mind repeated a single word among the darkness: DEATH.
“LUX!” Marin screamed again. “What do I do?! Lux? LUX!”
A sudden, massive rush of energy consumed my body, and my form disappeared behind a curtain of wicked black flames. “Run,” I answered her with a growl.
“Lux, we have to help Lia! We have to—”
“RUN!” I roared in a bestial voice that was not my own, flaring the intensity of the flames that surrounded me. Her face turned to one of pure terror, and she retreated into the red forest ahead of me without argument.
Drink deeply from the cup you filled. It overflows for you.
I don’t understand.
