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Chapter 99: Fallen

Grand Duke Gerith Barinten, Liege Lord of Fovoham and Heir to Riovanes Castle, pounded up the tower staircase, gasping for air as his blood soaked into the rough bandages tied around the throbbing stumps where his fingers had once been.

How had it all gone so wrong?

He had been secure in the seat of his power, with all his forces marshaled to him. He had broken the will of a Zodiac Brave through the loyalty of his Hand, had seduced Ramza Beoulve by that same loyalty. He held two of the twelve legendary Zodiac Stones, had commanded powers and resources that even the old Ydorans would have hesitated to engage in open battle. How had he lost his fingers? How had he lost his Hand?

He did not know precisely how many of his Khamja or his Hand were dead. But he had seen Loffrey's sword thrust through Clara's belly: he had seen Wiegraf and Clarice locked in a flashing, frantic combat: and he had seen the sun-like mane of the lion-demon ignite when Berkeley had tried to hold him. The explosion that had followed had blasted Barinten through the door his men had just opened for him.

And Barinten, battered and bloody, had scrambled to his feet and run, for fear that death would claim him, clinging to the only treasure he'd managed to snatch from the burning wreckage of his life: clinging to the Pisces Stone that had tumbled from the table in the frenzy of combat, as Barinten had been pulled from the room where the demon had revealed itself.

Gasping, he pushed his way out onto the gabled roof, his head swimming with exertion, clutching at the bloody bandages around his hand, clutching at his stolen Stone.

"Grand Duke."

The voice was an ugly snarl of rage: Barinten dropped the Pisces Stone and snatched the gun from its holster on instinct and fear, whirling around to face the voice. He almost sagged with relief when he saw the speaker: Rafa, her white clothes made grey by the exertions of the past few days.

"Rafa," he breathed. "Thank the Saint. Demons are loose in our castle."

"How terrible," Rafa replied. "I know you wouldn't want any rivals."

A stab of cold dread in Barinten's heart. He smiled feebly. "Who would want to face demons?"

"Worry not, Grand Duke. You will have nothing to fear before long."

More fearful cold, stealing up from the corner of his heart. Old nightmares, long pushed to the corners of his mind, turned hungry eyes upon him.

"Whatever is the matter, dear Rafa?"

"Don't you dare call me dear!" Rafa growled, taking a step towards him. Her skin was shimmering with magic, her eyes blazing with hate. She shouldn't be able to look at him that way. She shouldn't be able to hate him. There should be nothing left but the fear.

The pounding pain in his bloody hand hurt. He let some of his anger creep into his voice: "Rafa. You have your duty. The rest of the Hand is in battle against a terrible foe-"

"I cannot help them now," Rafa breathed. "But perhaps I can free them."

"Free them from what?" Barinten demanded. "From the only home they've ever known? The world is cruel, Rafa of Galthena-"

"Not so cruel as you," Rafa whispered. "As the man who burned Galthena."

Ah. Things were much worse than he'd realized. Well then.

He lowered his gun a few inches and pulled the trigger. She had started moving as soon as he had, but fast as she was she was not faster than a bullet or his hand. And perhaps she was careless: after all, she knew how little she had to fear from most bullets.

Most bullets. But not this bullet, carefully forged and enchanted just for her, which cleaved straight through the flesh of her upper thigh. She screamed, and sank down to the rooftop clutching at the wound.

"Now, now, Rafa, your pain tolerance should be higher than that!" Barinten exclaimed. "The things I've done to you should make a bullet pale in comparison. And the things I will do to you will make those other pains a fond memory."

The hate was gone in her eyes. It was all fear now. Fear and pain. Good. That was how she should look at him. How everyone should look at him.

"You bring this on yourself, you know," he growled, stalking closer to her as she crawled away from him. "Every time, without fail, you bring this on yourself. When we began our little exercises, I was only conditioning you, Rafa. You were the one who defied me. You were the one who showed me how thorough your conditioning must be to make sure you would serve properly. And now you defy even those lessons?" He shook his head. He intended for it to come across as sad, as pitying, but he felt the franticness of it in his neck, too fast, too angry, too much adrenaline coursing through him, the throbbing in his hand blinding him with pain.

In his castle. So much had gone wrong in his castle. In the seat of his power. His place. His.

"I should not be surprised." Another frantic shake, and Barinten had rarely felt this kind of rage, alloying inside him into something titanic, volcanic, and he was not much of a mage but he felt at this moment he could have ignited an inferno to rival Elidibus himself. "You were born of such stubborn stock." He made a sound like a laugh. "The towering arrogance of your village...of your parents...!"

Rafa's head snapped up again. There was still pain and fear in her eyes, but also a trace of anger. Barinten felt his own rage redouble at the sight of it, a wallop of fury so intense he was almost drunk with it. He wanted to smash a bullet between those two eyes, so they wept with blood.

No. No, if he did that, her pain would be over.

"Foolish child born from foolish blood!" he spat, taking another step towards her. His anger, pain, and fear had melded into overwhelming heat: he felt the Pisces Stone against his boot, rolling away from him, and cared nothing for it before the need to remind Rafa of her place. "If your parents had served, they would still be alive. If your village had served, it would still be standing. If you had served..." Another not-laugh, hot as lava in his throat. "Oh, but you will serve. You, and all your children. You are mine, Rafa. I will make you understand that if I have to carve my name into your bones."

"And what about me?"

Barinten was surprised at how quickly his anger faltered. He turned his head slowly, stopped when he saw the sword hovering by his side. On the opposite end of the roof, Malak of Galthena watched him with a calm, level gaze.

"Malak-" Barinten began, his eyes flickering between his protege and the sword hovering beside him.

"I spent so long," Malak said, walking slowly towards them. "Trying my best to serve you. To help the Hand serve you. To quell my doubts when I disagreed with you. To convince her her nightmares weren't real. Telling myself the Beoulve was lying, when he said..." He trailed off. "But it's all true. What you did to Galthena. What you did to her."

If Barinten's anger had faltered quickly, it restored itself just as fast: a sudden ignition, blazing in the pit of his belly, making his eyes throb with rage the way his hand still throbbed with pain. And none of that masked the streak of black, ugly fear rotting inside of him. "Ungrateful brats, the lot of you!" he snarled, but he took a trembling step backwards. "Stand aside!"

Malak shook his head. "No," Malak said. "Never again." He had reached Rafa's side. "Everything you are. Everything you've done. I would have died for you, and you...I cannot..." There were tears in his voice, like a child. That's all he was, a stupid, shortsighted child, all both of them were, his stupid servants who needed to be reminded of their place-

"Run away, Grand Duke," Malak said. "Run away, and find out how long you can stand without us." He looked away from Barinten, hunching next to his sister. "Rafa, I'm so-"

Barinten pulled the trigger. The gunshot thundered across the rooftop. Malak blinked down at the blood blossoming in his chest, blinked back up at Barinten. A moment later, and a cold thrust of pain buried itself in Barinten's shoulder: he screamed as the gun tumbled from numb fingers, fumbled blindly for the sword Malak had stabbed into him.

"You dare you dare you dare-"

He wasn't even aware he was speaking, just turning rage-clouded eyes on Malak, now fallen into his sister's lap as she stared at him with disbelief, her mouth moving soundlessly. Killed him and now he would kill her, too, burn the children of Galthena for their defiance the way he had burned their parents, burn them all if they would not submit, if they would not be his-

"Here you are."

Barinten's head swiveled towards the new voice. A blonde woman stood on the same end of the roof that Malak had emerged from, wearing loose leggings and a simple strap of dark blue fabric across her breasts, an unsheathed katana at her side.

"Who-" he began.

Movement, just from behind him. He turned, too late, as the other woman caught him by the throat. She was the mirror image of the other woman, save that the band of fabric across her breasts was dark red.

She pulled the sword from his shoulder in a wrenching twist of agony, spraying his own blood across his face: as Barinten started to scream, she twisted, and flung him across her shoulder. He hit the edge of the roof, rolled with a clattering clang across the gutters, and tumbled out into open air.

Now he was screaming in earnest, staring down at the ruins of his castle: at the fires licking its fringes, at the bloody corpses in the yard, at the smoldering ruins where his personal apartment had once stood. He kept screaming as his hand and his shoulder throbbed, as the air whistled by his ears, as the ground came closer and closer and closer.

He hit the muddy ground below, and his legs snapped like kindling. The sheer, stunning weight of the pain blacked out his thoughts, but only for a minute. He woke up when he started to drown, filthy water clogging his nose and throat, and flailed to consciousness once more, choking and gasping. He had landed in a drainage ditch behind the castle proper, half-full from yesterday's pounding rain, its sides slick with moisture. His legs were broken, so he could not stand. One arm had no fingers, and the other a long, ragged tear across the deltoid where the sword had stabbed him and then been ripped out. And Grand Duke Gerith Barinten had never been a strong man.

He tried to crawl out of the ditch. Desperate, agonized, weeping, he tried.

It would be another two days before he died.