5.
The smiling golden eyes of Lora filled Jin's vision, the setting sun setting her auburn hair ablaze, her white tunic a stark contrast against her dark iron pauldrons, as her gentle hand entwined his.
No, a part of Jin was screaming, deep within him. I can't watch this. Not again. Don't make me live it again, Architect have mercy, spare me this cruelty. But the voice faded, dim memories of a dark future faded, as his heart roared with happiness as Lora smiled at him. A nightmare howled at him, a fading set of memories of an awful, endless reality without her, but then they were gone, the despair only making him feel an odd sense of relief at seeing her before him.
"It's been a long path, Jin," Lora murmured to him, pulling him into a hug, leaning her head against his chest. She was warm, so warm. "But we'll always have each other's backs, right?"
They were currently standing on the Titan Spessia, a Titan larger than an island but smaller than a continent of rolling green fields and large, gnarled trees whose roots formed caverns dotting the landscape, not unlike Gormott. It was the location of the evacuated refugees from Torna, after the Tornan Titan had been destroyed in the final battle between Mythra and Malos. They had been transported there by a contingent of Ardainian airships, the last support from beyond the grave that Hugo had offered from his Empire. It still felt strange to think of the young Ardainian Emperor as dead. Jin had thought Mor Ardain might be angry, that it might invite retaliation, but the Clockwork Empire had accepted his death with grace. He had apparently not been the first Emperor to die on the front lines.
He felt Lora tremble slightly against him, and he wrapped his arms around her. His driver always kept a smile on her face, but he knew, he could feel through the bond, just how much the Aegis War had broken her. The whole journey had been an endless litany of tragedies for her. She had found her mother, after so many years spent searching – in a fresh grave in Gormott, only just having missed her opportunity to reunite with her. And then there was the destruction wrought by Mythra, wild, mad Mythra, Mythra who burned entire cities in hellish light, joy in her heart, declaring that all she did was righteous justice. Lora had sobbed into Jin's arms one night, so confused, so sick, after seeing Mythra's exterminations – how, she asked, how could the Daughter of the Architect himself be so cruel? Did the Architect hate them so?
They had made their friends, along the way, true. Noble, young Hugo, newly ascended Emperor of Mor Ardain, and his doting blades, Brighid and Aegaeon. Mikhail, the child they had rescued from the smouldering ruins of a town – a town not destroyed by Mythra, but rather bandits taking advantage of the chaos, and Milton, the young Gormotti that had been the one to break Mikhail out of his traumatized shell. And, of course, Addam, driver of the Aegis, Minoth, and...Malos, Son of the Architect, their countermeasure against Mythra.
Malos. During their final battle with Mythra, the Son and the Daughter of the Architect had risen into the sky, in artifices of the Architect's design, doing battle with each other, battle that tore the very land apart. Malos had bled darkness into the sky, blotting out the sun, as he struck Mythra down, great snakes of dark flame pouring from his artifice, carving deep, fatal wounds into Torna, as Addam howled and howled for mercy, Malos processing his power through his driver, amplifying it, drawing upon it until he was Death itself stained into the sky.
It had cost them so much. Hugo had died in the battle, struck down by dark flame as Malos unmade reality itself in his rage to destroy Mythra. Milton, too, had died, they learned later, as Auresco, the Tornan capital, where they thought the children would have been safe, was torn apart in the battle as well. Addam...was a skeletal shell of himself, last Jin and Lora had seen him. They did not think he would last very long, Malos having drained something vital, some essence from him during the last battle, something that none of Haze's healing could restore. And Malos himself...after descending from the sky, after tumbling out of his artifice, he had looked...damaged. He kept flickering in and out of existence – one moment the man they had traveled with, one moment a pillar of dark flame, one moment a shadow, until finally he retreated back into his core. But on his face was written cruel triumph. A triumph that broke Jin's heart. He had loved Malos. Thought he understood him, Son of the Architect though he might be. Malos had, during their journey, been hard to reach, but Jin...had thought he had. He admired the Aegis' dedication to truth, no matter how painful. His sense of duty. And he had thought Malos had cared about him as well, as oddly as he might have shown it. But….no, Malos never had. Malos had never given a damn. Malos would have unmade him, unmade Lora, in a heartbeat, if he thought it would give him victory.
So all their friends, all their companions they had gathered along their journey, were now dead, or suffering a lingering death – many of them at the hands of Malos himself. All except for Mikhail. Who had had to watch his only friend, Milton, die during the Aegis' battle as well. Jin worried about the small boy, who had just begun to open up to Milton, only to immediately lose his new friend, after having his family taken from him as well. They had held a small funeral for Milton, but Mikhail had been expressionless, emotionless throughout the whole thing. Jin had found him after the funeral, off by himself, at the edge of a forest, laughing and crying at the same time. "I don't know why I'm laughing," the small boy had told Jin. "I don't know why I'm crying. It doesn't matter. None of it really matters."
Jin worried about the toll taken on the young boy. But most of all, he worried about his driver, about the wound he could feel in her, the sad stain on her spirit the war had put there, her spirit which had once burned bright with endless hope for the world. He hoped that stain would recede, some day. He was worried it never would.
They were here now on Addam's last request. The Driver of the Aegis, a Tornan prince, had spoken cryptically about preventing the use of the Aegis in warfare ever again, even as his body broke down and withered, as he walked only with the use of a cane despite his young age. He had requested that Lora, Jin and Haze accompany the Tornan refugees, help them make their way to Leftheria, the island Archipelago open to all, to be their new home.
Jin and Lora had agreed, and things had gone smoothly with the assistance of the Ardainian Empire, who had stopped at Spessia only to recuperate, refuel and gather supplies, but….ever since they had stopped at the Titan, something felt….off. Jin didn't know if it was his instincts going haywire, but...he couldn't shake the feeling of being...stalked, almost. Some sick dread in the pit of his stomach. It had grown worse, over the past few days, in fact.
Lora felt him tensing against her, and she pulled back, still smiling up at him. "Jin, you're as stiff as a board," she laughed. "What is it? Wh-"
And then suddenly she was cut off by the roar of an explosion, followed by the angry crackle of gunfire – only growing louder and louder as more guns opened up. Lora paled, her eyes growing wide. "That's...that's coming from the refugee camp," she whispered.
Wordlessly, they sprinted back in the direction of the camp, more explosions shaking the ground around them, sending birds screeching from their perches in the trees. That sense of doom Jin had only grew as the got closer and closer to the camp, until…
They crested the top of a hill, overlooking the refugee camp, and Lora cried out in a wordless, strangled yell of horror.
The refugee camp was in flames, and the Ardainian airships that had transported them here lay in burning ruin, great egg-shaped slags of melted iron belching black smoke into the sky. Refugees, Tornan soldiers, and even the normally disciplined Ardainian soldiers ran about in panic, fighting an enemy that seemed to strike from everywhere at once.
Jin narrowed his eyes. The attacking soldiers….they were Indoline. Merciless warrior-monks in faceless white armor, great draconic beasts of war carrying artillery on their back, striking down refugee and soldier alike, without mercy. There were already so many bodies, and they seemed to be everywhere in the camp, cutting off most avenues of retreat – except the direction from which Jin and Lora had come.
They rushed forward towards the battle, down to where an Ardainian commander was roaring orders at his troops, forming an organized line of defense towards the rear of the camp. As they got closer, they were able to hear the orders he shouted from behind his black gas mask. "TO ME," he roared, even as he raised a rifle to his shoulder to fire at the enemy. "TO ME! EVACUATE AND RETREAT! ALL TO ME!"
"Retreat?" Lora gasped as they reached him, struggling to keep her footing as another explosion shook the ground around them, barely making herself heard over the screams of the dying. "Retreat, how could you retreat?! These people, they need us-"
"My duty is to save who we can," the Ardainian commander snapped at her. "I don't know who leads the enemy, but they got us good. Smart enough to take out all our radios before we could hail for help. We are all going to die unless we retreat and reorganize now-" he spun around as a great wave of screams rose from the camp. A wave of refugees had begun to make their way towards the organized Ardainians at the back of the camp, only for another group of Indoline warriors to reveal themselves from the forest, intercepting them, gunning them down en masse. His hand fell limply to his side. "We might all die anyway," he murmured. "I think that's what they want. I think they're here to exterminate, not capture."
Lora put a hand to her mouth, struggling to keep herself from being sick at the horrific violence. "Architect," she whispered raggedly. "Oh, Architect, why, they're unarmed, why-"
"Lora?" It was Haze, pushing her way through the chaos and the soldiers, the refugees streaming past them, her face painted with ash, Mikhail at her side, her staff gripped tightly in her hand. "Lora, Jin, oh, thank the Architect, you're alright!"
More refugees ran screaming past them, and the Ardainian commander cursed at them as they did. "AROUND THE FLANK, you civilian fools! Don't run straight at us, give us a chance to shoot at your pursuers! DAMN IT! I-"
Jin stepped forward, just in time to strike down the monk that had been pursuing the fleeing refugees, who had raised a staff to crush the cursing commander's head. The commander gave him a silent nod of appreciation, then pointed out across the field. "Open fire," he snarled.
The machine guns of the Ardainians roared to life, and across the camp, scores of the enemy fell, quickly retreating. "That should save some lives," the commander muttered.
"Jin," Lora whispered at his side, pointing across the chaos and carnage of the refugee camp. "Look. Look there. Is that….?"
Jin's sharp eyes followed to where Lora was pointing. There, among the monks, stood a tall, lithe Indoline man. He stood out among them – where they wore white armor, faces hidden behind helms, he wore a regalia of black and gold, loose, flowing cloth, a long headwrap fluttering behind him, adorned with a pair of long, curving draconic horns. Instead of a stave, he carried a long, thin saber, slightly curved at the tip, and in his other hand he carried a brightly burning torch, which he calmly touched to tents as he passed, lighting them aflame. Jin recognized this as the dress of Indoline battle commanders. But this was no ordinary battle commander, Jin realized, as the man turned. He'd recognize those eyes anywhere, though he had only ever seen them from a distance. Those weighing, judging eyes, eyes that now carried death within them, that even from across the battlefield, even when not directed at him, felt like they hammered you like a boulder, crushing you.
"That's….Amalthus," Lora whispered in wonder.
As if he had heard her, Amalthus glanced up across the battlefield, in her direction. Lora could swear he was staring directly at her, and she quailed beneath his gaze. He considered them, and the Ardainian line of defense, for a moment. Then he motioned behind him, and a great draconic beast carrying a wicked looking artillery gun upon its back slowly began to turn towards them.
There was a loud crack of gunfire from beside them, and a small puff of dirt exploded to the side of Amalthus. He glanced down at this with this interest, and Jin looked to his side. The Ardainian commander cursed under his breath, quickly reloading the large sniper rifle he had bought up to his shoulder. "Lucky devil," he snarled. "How the hell did I miss?"
"Commander, they're bringing artillery to bear!" one of the soldiers shouted, panic in his voice.
"I see it, I see it. If you've got a gun with a range, shoot at the bastard in black. That's the commander, he-"
"No-sir, not from the front, from-"
Jin's head snapped up sharply, and he glanced to the forests. Flanking them, from the sides, were more of those draconic beasts, leveling the artillery guns on their backs straight at the Ardainian line while their attention had been elsewhere.
"Oh, Architect," he heard one of the refugees sob as the guns roared to life.
"HAZE!" Jin shouted, projecting an ether shield alongside her, trying as hard as he could to shield the Ardainians, and the world erupted into hell around them.
Great gouts of flame, the earth cracking beneath them, showering dirt, and then Jin and Haze could no longer hold on. Their ether shield shattered, and the screams of horror were drowned out by the roar of explosions, and the earth disintegrated beneath Jin's feet, and he was sent flying-
The next thing he knew, Lora was at his side, begging him to get up, sobbing, her face covered in ash and dirt and blood, bright eyes stark against the grime. He looked around him, his ears ringing, at the broken earth, at the shattered bodies, as he struggled to his feet. There was Haze, carrying Mikhail in her arms, and...
The Ardainian commander was still alive, limping heavily, but still alive, rallying his men. "RETREAT," he roared at those who still stood, soldier and refugee alike. "RETREAT! NOW!"
"But..." Lora gasped, "There's still so many refugees back there-"
The Ardainian commander grabbed her roughly and spun her around, pointing out across the battlefield. There, advancing on them, was a legion of Indoline monks, no longer being driven back by gunfire after the artillery strikes. And there, at their head, sword held low and to his side, black garb fluttering in the breeze, eyes piercing them even through the smoke and fire, was Amalthus, and it was as if every step he took shook the world.
"There's nothing we can do," the Ardainian commander snapped. "If you want to save a life, grab one of the poor souls that already ran past us."
Lora clenched her fists, squeezing her eyes shut. Jin could feel, through the ether bond, through all the horror she felt, the flame of defiance burning within her. The outrage, the anger, burned within him as well. But he couldn't let her give in to that, not now. Amalthus had come to exterminate, and had come with enough force that there was no hope in fighting, not now. "Lora," he said, grabbing her hand. "We can't fight now. If we leave, we may find another way to escape, may save a few of the refugees, or...something. But standing our ground right now is death."
Lora opened her eyes, to look into his, and….there was something in them that hadn't been there before. This was breaking her, Jin realized. If they survived, there would be a wound in Lora now that would never heal. All the horror they had seen fighting Mythra, only now to have the remnant of Torna crushed beneath the cruelty of humans. "Alright," she whispered.
And so they fled, the Ardainians occasionally pausing to turn and return fire, fled into the darkness and shadows of the woods of Spessia, helping those refugees they could along the way, trying to ignore the screams and pleading of those who cried out for help, who lay broken but not quite dead upon the artillery-shattered ground.
As they fled, a voice rang out that chilled them to the bone. It was Amalthus, his voice projected by some means.
"I am not without mercy," his voice rang out after them. "Lay down your weapons and surrender, and you will be given a swift, painless death."
His voice carried no note of threat, no cruelty, no malice. Just utter certainty.
The next 48 hours were a long blur, an endless nightmare.
As they streamed into the woods, Jin, Lora and Haze did their best to keep the fleeing refugees and retreating Ardainian soldiers together, running as fast as they could, running until their lungs burned, between the fleeing bands of men, women and children, herding them together into one larger group. Jin thought that, when they began, they must have had close to a thousand altogether, a few hundred soldiers, the rest refugees.
They never had a chance to get a true count, because they were not given a single moment's respite.
Amalthus and his men pursued them into the woods, and though the refugees could outrun the artillery guns, they could not be made to move fast enough to outrun them. And the Indoline seized on this with utter mercilessness.
No pause, no quarter was ever given, night or day. Indoline monks melted out from the shadows, whirling staves in their hands, gunfire erupted from the woods as they ran, and it seemed that not five minutes would go by that someone was not killed.
It was torture, everyone mad with fear, with hunger, with the constant, looming fear of death, with the dread of knowing they were only ever moments away from another attack that would certainly kill some of them, leaving a steady trail of the fallen, the cries of children who had seen their parents die before them, the howls of lovers torn from each other, mad with loss.
And through it all, there was Amalthus. He did not join in every attack, but he was there often enough for Jin to realize that he must be going without sleep, as well. Even when he was not there on the field, it was almost as if you could feel his eyes upon you from the shadows of the forest. And every attack Amalthus led was always particularly vicious, resulting in more deaths than the rest. They learned to recognize when Amalthus was leading an attack from the fact that the refugees would scream with greater horror when they saw the black-robed Indoline advancing down on them.
The Ardainians fought nobly, and Jin, Lora and Haze ran themselves ragged, running back and forth, responding to every attack. Jin badly wanted to catch Amalthus on the field. He held little hope, but he thought that perhaps if he managed to strike down their leader, he might win them some respite. But Amalthus would strike like a shadow, quick and devastating, and always be gone by the time they arrived, leaving nothing but death in his wake.
And it went on and on, two long, maddening, horrific days and nights, until finally, Lora broke.
She had been pushing herself so hard, doing her damndest to save as many as she could – and not just pushing herself physically, Jin knew. But mentally, and emotionally. Trying as hard as she could to hold on to some shred of hope.
She and Jin had responded to an attack at the rear of the group, along with some of the Ardainians, leaving Haze at the front, where she was busily healing the wounded from yet another attack. They had only just arrived at the scene – only to witness corpses, and Indoline monks flashing white armor fleeing into the woods – when another great cry of horror went up from the front of the group, where they had just left Haze. They could tell, from the sound of the screams, that Amalthus was there.
They sprinted, as fast as they could, to respond to this new attack, Jin cursing himself for not being fast enough, past the refugees crowding past them in fear.
But by the time they arrived, it was too late.
They found Haze, sitting among the silent, still bodies of what must have been close to two dozen refugees, her face buried in her knees, sobbing heavily.
"Haze," Lora began, gently, reaching out to grasp her blade's shoulder.
Haze looked up at Lora, and Jin flinched. He had never seen Haze look so devastated. "I couldn't stop him," she wept. "He's just a man, why couldn't I stop him? He just looked at me, and I was so afraid, it was like I could barely move-"
Jin shook his head. There was no point in asking who 'He' was. They already knew. "Haze, it's not your fault," he began.
But Haze just shook her head. "He...he took Mikhail," she cried, burying her face in her hands. "He took him, and I couldn't stop him. And he smiled. He saw how afraid I was and smiled." Haze balled her fists, and for the first time Jin ever saw, disgust and fury washed over her normally serene features. "I hate him."
Jin wanted to comfort her. But, he could feel through his ether bond, something was happening with Lora. Something inside her had simply...snapped. Broken.
Her hands were shaking, and she stumbled a few steps, looking around as if lost, confused. She opened her mouth as if to speak, and then shook her head, tears streaming down her face. She took another step, and Jin rushed forward to catch her as she almost fell. "I….I just don't get it," she murmured, as Jin's arms wrapped around her. "This can't go on. Why doesn't he just end us? Why not just kill us all now?" Suddenly, her arms were wrapped around Jin tightly. "Oh Jin," she whispered. "There was so much more I wanted to say to you."
Jin felt an icy, hollow rage burn in his heart. He felt it, too. Haze's fury. Her hate. He hated Amalthus for having broken Lora like this. He hated with an intensity for hate that he hadn't known he had. "Stop that," he whispered into Lora's hair. And then he broke out of her embrace, and helped Haze to her feet. "Stop. We may have our backs up against the wall, but as long as we live and fight, there's hope. The Ardainians were supposed to rendezvous with resupply lines here in a week. When they arrive here and find their forces attacked, Amalthus will have to answer to all the might and fury of Mor Ardain."
"A week," Lora laughed, hoarsely. "A week of this." She shivered as Jin lay a hand against her face, then reached up to grab it. "You know your hands are always so cold," she murmured.
"We can do this," Jin replied. "I know we can. We can make it through this. I'll protect you. Haze will protect you. We'll always have each other's backs. Right?"
Lora looked up at him, then over to Haze, who stood next to her, face still grim. The wound in her did not heal. But she gave a small smile. "Right," she said. "Right. No matter how dark it gets. We...we can do this."
But Jin could feel the doubt in her heart.
And on his next attack, as if he had heard Lora's question and was answering, Amalthus struck to end them.
They were passing through a lightly wooded area, between a pair of craggy hills, in the dark of night. The sparse cover gave them some reprieve, or so they thought – the Indoline could not use the cover of trees to hide, to launch attacks and then flee.
But as they were winding their way through the hills, Jin kept his eyes on the treelines cresting both hills. There were torches winking there. Amalthus and his men still followed.
And then, suddenly, he realized that there were too many lights to simply be torches. And he realized, just too late, what Amalthus was planning.
Indoline monks appeared from between the trees, pushing their load before them. With a low rumble, they sent dozens of heavy, flaming logs bouncing down the hill, and some great balls of flaming leaves, packed tightly and held together with twine, sprinting down themselves behind them, a great stream of white pouring down the hill, hundreds of them -
"WATCH OUT," Jin screamed, but it was all he had time to do.
The flaming logs and balls of flame crashed into the mass of the refugees, cutting them off from the Ardainians at the head of the group, separating them from their protectors. And only moments later, the monks were upon them. Jin's eyes widened in horror. Some...some tried to flee. Others tried to fight. But many more...many more simply gave up. They looked with hollow eyes at the monks coming down to slaughter them, and simply sat down, or laid down, waiting for death.
"Oh, Architect, no, no, no," Lora cried, as the screams began to echo through the night. "No, NO-"
Gunfire erupted through the night as the Ardainians, or what was left of them, opened fire. Many of them had long since run out of ammo, and rushed forward with rifles fixed with bayonets. But the Ardainian commander, who had managed to live thus far, simply took one grim look at the hundreds of monks pouring down the slopes and shook his head. "They're dead," he said simply. "Grab the refugees still with us. GRAB THE ONES YOU CAN, YOU CURS, it's a hopeless battle! Grab the ones you can and follow me!"
"You can't mean to just let them die!" Lora snapped at him. "Architect, let's at least die fighting!"
"I mean," the Ardainian commander roared at her, "To live, and to save those I can!" He pointed to a small cave entrance perhaps fifty yards ahead. "We've got maps of these cave systems! Better ones than the Indoline! Get as many as you can to that damn cave, and we may just yet live to fight another day, fool girl! DO IT!"
The flaming logs and debris now formed a barrier in the middle of their path, and on their side were perhaps fifty refugees, some reaching over the barrier, crying out for friends and loved ones on the other side as they were slaughtered, others fleeing even as Indoline monks crawled their way over the barrier, disregarding the flames that licked at their armor.
Jin, Lora and Haze rushed forward with the charging Ardainians, fighting back the monks who crawled over the barrier, pulling weeping refugees off it, even those who wanted to stay and die with the ones they lost, falling back, falling ever back as the monks eventually pushed their way past the barrier, falling back towards the caves.
"Go!" Jin shouted at Haze and Lora, his sword a flashing, silver streak of steel as the monks pushed forward in a wave of white and whirling staves. "Make sure the refugees make it into the caves!"
"Jin..." Lora looked at him with wide eyes, Haze's staff whirling in her hands, fending off the blows raining down upon her.
"I can hold off here a little bit. I'll join you. Go, and make sure that we can save as many as we can." Jin's eyes flicked back towards the monks rushing toward him. How mad they were. They seemed to have no fear of death. They pushed forward, no matter how many of them fell before his blade.
Lora nodded, trusting him, and ran back towards the cave entrance with Haze, running with the fleeing, weeping refugees, running towards that yawning, pitch-black entrance, striking down the monks that attempted to pursue them. She paused by the entrance, waving refugees into that darkness, watching it swallow them whole, as the Ardainians formed a line by the entrance, bayonets lined and at the ready, directed by their commander, who held in his hands a wicked bearded axe, striking down the monks who made their way past Jin with a roar.
Refugee after refugee, man, woman and child, disappeared into the darkness of the cave entrance, faces frightened, streaked with tears. Lora watched the last of them be swallowed up, and then turned around to signal to the Ardainians that they could make their retreat. But an odd sound stopped her, an odd sound echoing from somewhere within the cave, even over the din of battle. She turned back, peering into that darkness, if only for a moment, straining her ears to listen.
Something gleamed in the dark. And then her hand fell limply to her side as despair and horror roiled through her.
"Oh, no, no, no, Architect, please, no," Haze whispered beside her.
Melting out of that darkness, like a shadow, like a demon, his sword dripping bright red blood, was Amalthus, flanked by a group of monks, their staves similarly wet. Amalthus took in the battle before him, barely even registering Lora, before nodding to one of the monks at his side, carrying a torch. The monk casually tossed the torch back back into the cave, and with a sudden blast of heat, the cave was a roaring inferno.
Lora felt sick. She had shepherded the refugees towards their deaths. Everything….everything seemed so slow now. As if it was all a dream. She watched the monks fan out from Amalthus, fan out to join the battle, to surround the Ardainians and what was left of the Tornans.
But though her head roiled with fear and the horror, the sickness of what had just been done, she wouldn't let it end like this. With a cry she took up Haze's staff, striking down one of the monks that approached her, with a cry, she dashed forward towards Amalthus, that shadow framed by flame, who still stood, sword in hand, looking out over the battle, rushing forward with Haze at her side, screaming wordless outrage.
And then Amalthus turned his gaze toward her, and Lora froze in her tracks, her shout dying in her throat.
The despair, the horror in his eyes was so great it nearly felt as if it were going to force her to her knees. It was too much, too great, more like the grief of a god than anything human, a howling darkness roaring out from his soul, muting everything, even the sounds of battle, drowning her, drowning the world.
Dimly, she was aware that he was speaking, speaking to her. "Lora," Amalthus said, his voice radiating almost irresistible command, and she shivered to hear her name in his mouth, shivered to think that he might know who she was. "Where is Addam? Where is Malos?"
She struggled to speak, to answer against the horror, against the end of everything she ever knew. "They….they aren't here," she forced out. "They….Amalthus, why?" Suddenly, she could not stop the tears flowing down her face. "Why? Oh, Architect, why did you do this?"
Amalthus considered her for a long moment, flames roaring behind him, black smoke stretching up to stain the sky. "History is cruel," he murmured quietly. "And men crueler still. Perhaps that cruelty is a necessity. Perhaps the horror, the revulsion we feel for it, is simply the protest of the weak against the powerful as they shape the world as they see fit." He paused, contemplating her for a moment. "I'm so sorry for this," he whispered. "Truly, I am. It was not my..." He paused once more, looking inward, and then steeled himself. "No," he said quietly. "It is my choice."
And then he raised his sword, still red with wet blood. And Lora saw it in his eyes. Like the stars themselves aligning. Like the inevitability of the tide, as surely as gravity would pull a stone in the air toward earth.
Amalthus decided that she was going to die.
She dimly heard Haze scream beside her as Amalthus bore down upon her, his every footstep seeming like it shook the world, as those eyes, those hypnotic eyes filled her vision, all the grief, all the madness and horror in them. It shouldn't be like this, she thought, through a fog, as she struggled to raise Haze's staff. Amalthus was...just a man. She was a driver. A damn good one. She had fought against Mythra, daughter of the Architect herself, and held her own. Amalthus was without a blade, just a man, a man alone, why should she be so afraid…?
Amalthus paused, for only a moment, as he drew close to her, and then with a flash of red and silver, his bloody sword lashed out.
It was so strange. Amalthus was certainly skilled. Disciplined, relentless. But more than anything, fighting him felt like the world itself wanted Lora to die. Like she had already been erased from existence, like she was intruding upon a reality where she simply no longer belonged. She struggled to raise her staff, struggled to divert his blows, and all the while the world around her fell away, sank away into fog and darkness, Amalthus filling the world, becoming the world, reality slowly becoming nothing but her and this man, who wanted her dead with the will of a god, who would force reality upon her.
His blade snaked past her defenses, inflicting stinging cuts, one, two, five, a dozen. Haze was beside her, healing her, screaming something, screaming that she should run, when suddenly Amalthus pinned her with his gaze, and Haze fell to her knees, no, did not fall, she knelt, as if giving fealty to a King, weeping, trembling, struggling in vain to get to her feet.
Each strike from Amalthus was like a hammer now, causing her staff to ring in her hands until her arms were numb, not merely a physical hammer, but like a blow from the world itself. She should not be here, she did not belong in this reality anymore. This was Amalthus' world, and he wanted her dead, and so she should be, and the very fact that she was standing was wrong. She felt wrong. Like a rock that floated up into the air, like a cloud that fell down from the sky and shattered like glass, there was just something unreal, something that shouldn't be about the fact that she was still alive. She….it was almost as if she could hear music. Hear a strange, lilting, tune, sorrowful, almost...as if the world itself were music, and Amalthus danced gracefully to it, the writer and conductor, and she was nothing but a wrong note. He burned, burned like the sun with some fire, some awful and magnificent will, and she knew, looking at him, battling him, that he was more, simply more than she was.
Still, she struggled, struggled against reality, with all her might, to block his blows, moving as fast as she could force her tired body to move, her arms burning. And then…
Then…
Suddenly, between blows, for the scarcest of moments, the corner of Amalthus' mouth turned up in a small smile. A bitter smile.
And she knew that it was over.
Jin looked around as yet another monk dropped before him, hearing the shouts of the panicked Ardainians behind him, sensing, deep in the pit of his stomach, that something had gone horribly wrong.
There. The cave that they had planned to evacuate through. It was a roaring inferno, black smoke billowing out of it. And flanking out from it were another group of Indoline monks. They had been in the caves the whole time, and were now surrounding the Ardainians who had been providing cover for the refugees. Architect. The refugees. If the Indoline had been in the caves, what had happened-
But all thoughts of that, any rational thought at all, was driven from Jin's mind when he saw Lora dueling Amalthus. Flagging badly against him, covered in small cuts, Haze...Haze, for some reason, knelt, no, not simply knelt, she prostrated herself, head against the dirt, trembling as if trying to resist. His eyes widened as Amalthus struck precisely against Lora, and she just barely managed to divert his blow.
Jin cried out, running towards her. He didn't care about the battle. He didn't care what they were going to do to escape this. He just knew. If he didn't get to her now….
It was as if the world was slowed down, as if he struggled through frozen time to reach Lora. As if every single detail of the moment were spelled out in exquisite detail to him. As he ran forward, he could see the Ardainians falling beneath the whirling staves of the Indoline monks. He could see the Ardainian commander, his mask off now, revealing a red-faced man with a long, drooping mustache, howling with mad laughter as he swung a bearded axe at the monks who surrounded him, screaming that he was Robert Nelson of the Clockwork Empire and he was going to show them how an Ardainian died.
But most of all, he could see Lora. See the fear on her face. And Amalthus. The death in his eyes. The blood on his blade. Lora's blood.
And then, he saw the smile on Amalthus' face. He saw Lora falter. He saw the opening she left in her defenses. He saw Amalthus see it. He saw the stroke of his blade. He knew. He knew what was coming, and he felt a scream rip from his throat. Oh Architect, if only he were faster, he could stop it, no, no, no NO NO NO-
But there was nothing that could be done.
With a single, precise thrust, Amalthus slid his blade through Lora's chest.
Haze's staff clattered to the ground. And for a moment, it seemed as if the world was frozen like that. For a moment that lasted an eternity. The world was nothing but Lora, impaled upon Amalthus' sword, her eyes turning up towards the Indoline demon, full of something almost like wonder, like sadness, like regret and forgiveness, a thousand futures dying with her, and Amalthus, a stain, a blasphemy in black and gold, the roaring flames of hell itself behind him, and Jin, screaming, uselessly, unable to protect his driver. A moment that lasted forever.
And then Amalthus was wrenching his sword from Lora's chest as she crumpled at his feet, an arc of blood glittering in the air, bringing it up to block as Jin bought his sword down upon him with a cry of anguish and loss.
The two stared at each other for a moment, Jin's mind howling fury even as he felt Lora slowly dying, staring at this demon, this devil, this horror before him, his blade even now red with Lora's blood.
Amalthus contemplated him for a moment, the flames behind him crackling. And then...it was almost as if Jin could feel the hell oozing from this man, seeping into his mind, pouring like filth out of Amalthus, like a sewer, like an overflowing grave, staining the world, staining him. "Kneel," Amalthus said, his voice swallowing the world, pressing down on Jin, like a mountain, pain roaring through his limbs as he struggled to stay on his feet.
But though his blood burned in his veins, Jin stood, and with a strangled yell, summoned the ether he had available to him, channeling it into an icy blast of wind that slammed into Amalthus.
Amalthus' eyes widened for a moment, in shock, as he was sent hurtling backwards, frost forming on his clothes, his skin. But Jin almost choked in despair. That cold was enough to drive the life from a man, but Amalthus – he almost immediately began struggling to his feet, frozen skin cracking and bleeding. And the look in his eyes. He did not like being defied, oh no. His eyes promised an eternity of pain.
Jin glanced around him. The Ardainians were all but finished. The refugees, all dead. And the monks were closing in on him now. And Lora. Lora lay gasping, bleeding her life out into the dirt.
He...didn't know what to do. There was a part of him, a part of him that said, with an utter certainty, that it was hopeless. That it was over. That Lora was gone. But he denied that part of him, and, sheathing his blade, quickly scooped her up into his arms, cradling her head against his chest. And….
And then he ran. Into the cave.
"Jin! PLEASE!"
He looked back. It was Haze. The last he ever saw her. Still kneeling, still prostrate, in the dirt, reaching out towards him, pleading, her face awash with tears, wide-eyed with horror. Even as he looked, a black boot slammed down on the back of her head, pushing her face into the mud, and standing above her, eyes blazing hell, Amalthus raised a rifle and aimed it at him.
And Jin dove into the cave as gunfire ricocheted around him, blasting back the intense flames with ice and wind, hurtling toward the darkness, through the rock, through the charred corpses, whispering to Lora, whispering lies, telling her they would be alright, that they would make it out of this, that-
And suddenly, deep in the caves, the echoing cries of pursuing monks still audible, he collapsed. Gasping, he set Lora down gently, and looked down at himself. He was….alight with flickering ether sparks. He was beginning to fade.
"Jin," Lora whispered meekly, smiling up at him, tears falling from her eyes. "Oh Jin. My hero. My beautiful. I'm so sorry that it had to end like this. I love you so, I love you so."
"No," Jin whispered miserably, rushing to her side. Her white tunic was now stained scarlet. She held his hand, reaching up with the other to lay it, trembling, alongside his face.
"I could never tell you how much I loved you," she said quietly. "There was so much, so much I thought about saying, so much I wanted to try to tell you, if only...we could find the time...I could find the right words...hah. It seems I never will."
"Lora, no. We'll...we'll get you out of here. We can find healing...we..."
Lora shook her head gently. "Jin. I'm so sorry to do this to you. But...you'll be alright. You and Haze...when I die...you'll go back into your cores...and..." suddenly, she gasped out a sob, shaking. "You'll forget me. Oh, Architect. You'll never even know I existed."
"I won't! I..." Jin's voice broke, his heart burning in his chest. "I don't want to forget you." Desperation, grief made his voice ragged and broken.
"I'm sorry," Lora said, her eyes beginning to lose their light, fogging over. "I'm sorry. I thought I was ready for this. But I can't bear it, I can't bear it. I could face death, but oh, the thought of you forgetting me, it's like one heart is being torn in two..."
Jin was silent, feeling her hand grow weaker in his. His mind turned back, back to a book he had found, not long ago. "There is a way," he said quietly, holding her trembling hand against his face. "A way for us to be together."
And he leaned forward, whispering into her ear. Lora's eyes widened with shock for a moment, the dim spark in them flickering on the edge of going out. But finally, she slowly smiled, closing her eyes and nodding.
An explosion of red light, a torrent of floating ether motes, a howling, something roaring, beating within him, coursing through him, something foreign and alien and strange, but Architect, it held...it held so much power.So much it burned, so much it felt like it might tear him apart, like he was fighting, struggling to merely keep himself from being torn apart, atom by atom.
But eventually, struggling with all his might, he managed to keep the power roaring through him under control. It was not gone – it was never gone – but unlike a river that threatened to sweep him away, it was now….channeled...coarsing, through him. Violent, destructive, and he didn't know if he'd be able to keep it under control forever. But it no longer threatened to tear him apart.
And when it was done, Jin looked down. At Lora's sad, quiet corpse.
He...didn't know what he was expecting. There was a part of him that hoped that the Flesh Eater ritual would truly make Lora a part of him. That he'd hear her sweet voice in his head. That, in some way, she would actually live on within him. But…
But no. There was nothing. Nothing but silence within him. He would have his memory of her. But that was all. Just the memory. Lora's light was gone from the world forever. Snuffed out. Murdered. Murdered by….
Hate he didn't know he was capable of gripped him. A black, dark hate, a fury beyond anything he had ever felt, so strong it almost drove him blind. Amalthus. Amalthus had done this.
"THERE HE IS!"
Jin glanced up, his head pounding with fury. There, just having turned the corner, a group of the white-clad Indoline monks, they-
Before he knew it, he was among them, roaring fury, howling a broken scream, cutting them apart, the power within him gripping him. He moved faster than he ever thought was possible. It was as if all he needed was to wish to be somewhere, and he was there. The Indoline monks moved as if in slow motion compared to his speed, utterly unable to defend themselves against his blade as he cut them to pieces, tearing through the cave, killing all that he came across, no mercy left within him.
He didn't yet have good control of his newfound power. He overshot, often, slamming painfully into the rock walls of the cave, but he didn't need to fight with grace with this sort of speed. Monks fell before him, by the dozens, scores, hundreds, as he raced towards the entrance of the cave. He had to find him. He had to kill Amalthus. Such a nightmare, such a devil, a demon, could not be suffered to live. Someone who robbed the world of Lora's light didn't deserve to stain the world with his existence.
He found his way back towards the cave entrance, and raced towards it; as soon as he stepped foot into the light, he was showered by an endless hail of bullets. He put up an ether shield, cursing, as gunfire poured endlessly down upon him. There, across the field littered with the dead, stained with the bodies left behind by Amalthus' crimes, was a large platoon of monks all armed with rifles. And marching towards him, flanking him from the left and right, yet more, hundreds, perhaps thousands, wielding staves.
But he didn't care about that. Among the monks wielding guns, shooting at him, he could see a dark shadow.
He flickered forward.
He was among the monks with staves now, dancing among them, faster than any of them could hope to react, blood arcing through the air. He barely paid attention to them. His eyes strained across the field. Yes, that dark shadow amongst the monks...it was him. Amalthus.
He flickered again.
He was closer now, but still among the hordes of staff-wielding monks. But close enough for Jin's eagle eyes to see Amalthus more clearly. The man, no, the devil, was considering him thoughtfully. As Jin watched, Amalthus bent down to pick something up.
He flickered yet again.
Closer now, so close, almost through the staff-wielding monks, almost, only a couple hundred feet between him and Amalthus now, and-
He paused.
Amalthus...had something small and struggling in his arms. He had...oh Architect. He had Mikhail. As Jin watched in horror, Amalthus held the boy against him, calmly reached to his belt, and unsheathed a dagger, placing it against Mikhail's neck. He pinned Jin with a meaningful stare, and even from this distance, the message was clear. One step closer, and he would cut the boy's throat.
Jin stopped, shaking with fury. And when he did, Amalthus motioned quickly to a monk standing beside him, holding a large rifle. And suddenly Jin's vision exploded with stars as the rifle roared, a sniper's shot, the bullet striking him directly in the core crystal in his forehead.
He staggered backward, blind, clutching his forehead, and suddenly whirling staves were slamming into him, battering his body, relentless, a downpour of brutal pain-
He roared with fury, lashing out, striking down the monks, and finally, glared with icy hatred consuming him out across the field at Amalthus. Could he...could he get there and prevent the man from cutting Mikhail's throat? He wasn't sure. And a part of him, a dark voice inside him, whispered that it didn't matter. Let Mikhail die. It was a terrible price, but it would be worth it for revenge, worth it to see this murderer, this stain, this filth, wiped from existence, worth it to cleave Amalthus' head from his shoulders, worth it, anything would be worth it-
But there was a quieter, gentler part of him now. Maybe it was Lora. Maybe, in some way, in some quiet, subtle way, she did live on him. Not truly her, but a memory of her. An echo. And this part of him told him to let go. That it would not be worth it to risk Mikhail's life. That revenge would not be worth it, and he wouldn't be able to live with himself.
And so, despite the hate howling in him, threatening to drive him mad, Jin had fled.
Fled back across the field. Back into the caves, to pick up Lora's body. Deeper and deeper into the caves, faster than any monks could pursue, further and further, miles, dozens of miles, traveled in minutes, exploring, until he had found another exit, an exit onto one of the beaches of Spessia.
And there, he had laid Lora's body down on the sands, beneath the pale moonlight. It seemed hard to believe that not that far away, not that long ago, she had still been alive. She looked so peaceful.
And then, in this silence, the first silence from the constant threat of battle, war and death for days, it hit him. It truly sank in.
Lora was gone. He would never hear her voice again. She would never smile again, never lighten his heart with her beautiful laugh, never again twine her hand in his, she would never be there again to do the thousand small things she did that made Jin happy, that made him think this world was beautiful and good. She was gone, a hole ripped in him, unfathomably large, impossibly large, until he felt like was nothing but a ragged, torn hole, and this corpse, this sad empty shell, was all that he had left of her. That, and the memories, the memories of a thousand moments now forever out of reach, a short lifetime worth of love now stained black with loss, of hopes and dreams for a future now bitter dust, filling his mind, no refuge anywhere, his every single thought and memory a note of grief. And it overhwhelmed him, maddening, he collpased to his knees by her corpse, calling out in vain a name he knew would never again be answered, and the grief and despair rose in him until he thought it would stop his heart, until it would break him, and he wept though weeping wouldn't be enough, it would never be enough, and he thought, surely, this must be hell-
6.
Jin woke with a start, screaming, his body weakened with the sheer weight of emotion. Oh, to see Lora again, if only in a dream, to raise him to the heights of happiness, only to thrust him back to the absolute horror of losing her once more, to be reminded of that day, it racked and ravaged him, made him feel as if he had been beaten half to death. He toppled out of his bed, his head against the cool metal of the floor, struggling to breathe, drawing ragged breaths, trying to soothe his mind to stillness even as it reverberated with the magnitude of her loss, made all the more deep by the fact that the part of Lora that lay within him showed him parts of that day through her memory. He could feel the love she had for him shining like a star. Feel her last thoughts before she slipped into darkness forever. Her last thoughts of him.
Finally, the nightmare washed away, draining out of him, leaving him feeling empty, hollow, wasted. With weak and shaking limbs, he struggled to his bed, and sat on the edge of it, head in his hands.
He thought back to the aftermath of the horror of that day. Time had become so fuzzy. He didn't know how long he had sat by Lora's side on that beach. But eventually he had carried her to the cloud sea, embracing her, and frozen himself in a solid block of ice with her, toppling into the foggy currents, not caring where he ended up.
He didn't know how long he had drifted like that, either. It may have been months, for all he knew. Laying still, in that cold tomb kept frozen by his power, holding Lara against him, her body preserved by the ice, pretending that she lived still. But eventually, he had become aware that the gentle rocking of the Cloud Sea had stopped, and had found himself on a sunny beach of Leftheria, utterly abandoned.
He had unfrozen himself, and Lora. For a long time, he had considered giving her a burial. But he couldn't, simply couldn't bring himself to put her in the ground. He thought if he had to lower her down into the cold earth he might simply go mad. But watching her rot, he might have gone madder still.
So he had found a cave in Leftheria, journeyed to its darkest depths, where none would dare venture, and frozen her body in a solid block of ice, preserving her. Such was his power that it would never melt.
He had stayed in that cave….he didn't know how long. Probably years. Sitting there, in the dark, with her frozen body. He did not stay there all the time. Occasionally, he found himself able to tear his eyes away from her, to go venture out into Leftheria. Being away from her was even a relief, in a way. When he wasn't looking at her, he could pretend that she was still alive, that he was just merely out an errand and he would see her again when he returned. So seductive was the idea that sometimes he found himself forgetting that she was dead, only to collapse with fresh despair when he remembered. He knew he was going mad with grief, but he didn't know how to stop it.
Sometimes, when he had not been overwhelmed with grief, he thought of revenge. Of hunting Amalthus down, making him pay, making him suffer for what he had done. But he learned, on one of his trips to a Leftherian village, that Amalathus had ascended to the throne of the Praetorium. There was a time when there were whispers, hushed tales, of a violent coup, of blood in the streets of Indoline. Tales of Indoline forces being recalled from around the world. He had watched as an Indoline priest who administered to a small Leftherian fishing village quietly, dutifully packed up to return to the Praetorium under the new Praetor's recall orders. The man had never returned. Instead, a new priest was sent out. One who cheerfully denied any tales of violence in the Praetorium.
There were other whispers as well. Of Amalthus, quietly, slowly extending his reach across Alrest. Taking advantage of the vacuum of power left by the destruction of Coeia and Torna, and the Ardainian empire still reeling from the death of their emperor. Of him setting up a regulatory body within the Praetorium, one that all blades must be registered with. And darker whispers spread by his priests, of the horrific evil of a type of blade called a "Flesh Eater", one with a blue crystal mottled red by sin.
What could he do…? He could try to journey to the Praetorium to assassinate Amalthus. His new powers would certainly help. But...even more than the armies of the Praetorium, he feared Amalthus. He somehow doubted the man would be so simple to assassinate. And if he fell in his attempt, all of Lora's memories would die with him, the ice sustaining her would thaw, and...no. It was unthinkable. But even more than that, he feared the memory of what Amalthus had said to him on the battlefield. When he had told Jin to kneel. How….strong the urge to obey him had been. The only thing worse than death would be to be forced into obedience to Amalthus. He still didn't understand what it was that had caused that feeling…
But still, he knew, even if he didn't try to kill Amalthus, he couldn't live like this. Sitting in the dark, cold cave, staying forever by Lora's corpse, only venturing out occasionally. He knew it was driving him mad.
And so he had begun to venture out further and further from her, leaving the cave behind sealed with a solid wall of ice, venturing out from Leftheria, traveling across the world, though he always returned to her in the end. He didn't know what he was looking for. He had no plans for his life. He just wanted something, anything, to drag him out of the darkness that filled his head. A darkness that made the world seem thin, hollow, that threatened to crush him every waking moment of every single day. He journeyed through wilderness, through cities, through farms and countryside, deep beneath the earth and to the highest mountains, the darkest forests, thinking that there must be somewhere, anywhere that he might escape the memories, the horrors, the sorrows. He was hunted, sometimes...Amalthus had arranged a quiet army that he sent forth across the world, tracking down flesh eaters. His powers had always made easy prey of them when they had tried to hunt him. And he was approached, sometimes, by other flesh eaters, finding him in the quiet, secret parts of the world, whispering to him of the need to stick together, the need for blades and flesh eaters to band together against the drivers they were shackled to. Jin had always sent them away. He simply did not feel as they did. He had never hated his driver. He had never considered what he had with Lora a shackle. He had loved her. Jin had thought, years later, had he not been so deep in the darkness, he might have joined with them, to fight against Amalthus. But his every thought during those years had been a thick fog. And by the time it was over, they were gone. All of them dead in shadow, in the cold and the dark.
He had never been able to escape it. Never the slightest bit of relief from the memories. Not until he had met Pyra.
Jin finally dragged himself away from his bedroom, out into the dark hallways of the Marsanes. And he tried. He tried not to go where he inevitably knew he would, after a dream like that. He knew it wouldn't be good for him. He knew it would kill him, over and over and over again. But he couldn't help it.
He stepped into the control room, where Lora's body hung suspended in a block of ice.
His eyes were so instantly upon her from the moment that he entered, that it took him a while to realize someone else was there. Mikhail. Watching him from the shadows, his arms crossed, leaning back against a wall, a small smirk on his face.
Mikhail. The child that Amalthus had captured. When Jin had found him, years later...when he heard what Amalthus had done to him...a fresh wave of guilt had gripped him. How selfish he had been to spend those decades in a funk, while Mikhail had been living through his own horror at the hands of the new Praetor. It was no wonder that Mikhail was so empty inside. He had lost everything, again and again and again. Of all the crew, he seemed the least disturbed by the loss of his blade. Even Patroka had shown some grief. Mikhail...simply didn't care. No, more than that. Part of Mikhail thought it was funny. Mikhail, perhaps even more than Mythra, saw the great howling darkness in the world. And he had decided the only way to live with it was to laugh at it. He could seem callous, even cruel sometimes. When he had first seen that Jin kept Lora alive in that block of ice, he had even gone so far as to mock him. But Jin had just absorbed his abuse in silence. If there was anyone living who deserved to take shots at him, it was Mikhail.
"Figured you might come here," the blade eater smirked, his brilliant blue eyes flashing. "You're nothing if not predictable when it comes to this pretty little ice cube."
"Is there something you wanted to talk to me about, Mikhail?" Jin asked softly.
"Uh, yeah," Mikhail answered, raising an eyebrow as if it were obvious. "I'm bored. Sick of waiting around. Tired of Mythra...Pyra...whoever, holding us up."
Jin was quiet for a long moment. "You know what happened," he said, finally. "She's..."
"So she learned the hard way the price of stopping Mor Ardain. So a bunch of people died." Mikhail shrugged lackadaisically. "So what? I swear, it's like you guys forget our mission sometimes."
"You...You know the difference. They suffered. They left behind loved ones who suffer because they-"
"So let's make sure their suffering is short," Mikhail said quietly, and then something seemed to snap within him. His eyes grew wild, large, howling with a thirst for annihilation. "And let's GO. Let's GO, Jin, let's DO IT. Let's END this joke, this fucking farce, let's do it already. The longer we sit around on our asses, the longer people suffer from their losses, right? I feel like I'm the only one on this crew actually ready for the end. COME ON. Is this what you want?" He gestured towards Lora, wildly, a ragged laugh erupting from his throat. "An eternity of this? A forever of the sick jokes this world plays on you? You want to stare at your damn dead driver and pray some miracle brings her back? I don't get you, Jin! I don't understand any of you. So what if some people suffer a bit on the way out? Suffering happens. At least it would be temporary! Let's END IT, END IT, END IT! It doesn't matter! None of it matters!"
Jin watched Mikhail's mad rage impassively. "It does matter," he replied, still muted, quiet, once Mikhail had finished ranting. "And we can't do anything without Malos. We can't get to the world tree without him."
"So let's go get him," snapped Mikhail. "Akhos may still be a sad sack over Obrona, but he can still track ether signatures with the Marsanes equipment. You know he's alone right now, right? At least there are no other blades around him...no better time than now to scoop him up."
"There's still the matter of Ophion...and he nearly killed Mythra. He nearly killed Crossette, he nearly killed me. I don't even know if we could take him right now-"
"You're afraid? Is that it?" Mikhail laughed hoarsely. "Fine. I'll do it. I'll go get him alone-"
"No!" Jin shouted, his clenched fist shaking by his side. "Mik, no. He'll kill you."
"So what! I'll die later too, anyway. Isn't that the plan?" Mikhail laughed as Jin shook once more, glancing again towards Lora. "Oh, is that it?" he said softly. "You wanna...protect me? Some last clinging to some toothless promise you and Lora made to each other, all those years ago? Well, don't worry about it. You never could protect me, could you?"
Jin marveled at how perceptive the blade eater was. There was nothing he could say to that. He just stood there, knowing how he had failed Mikhail, knowing all that was done to him, and saying nothing.
"Oh, cheer up, Jin! It was a joke." Mikhail smirked at him. "Not the part about going after Malos, though. I'm going." Mikhail waved an idle hand before Jin could say anything. "Whatever you want to say to stop me, don't bother. I do not care. I really do not." The blade eater shrugged, then strolled slowly out of the control room. He paused at the entrance, looking over his shoulder. "You should talk to her. When...if...I return, I want to be able to get this over with as quickly as possible. No more moping around from her."
7.
Jin sighed as he stared out over the deck of the Marsanes, out toward the Cloud Sea.
The large airship was currently sitting in the waves, the gentle lapping of the Cloud Sea, quiet, dead. They were in a mostly unpatrolled area of the great roiling fog. Well...mostly unpatrolled, now. Not so long ago, Ardainian warships would have regularly plied their way across this sea. All gone, now. The great Clockwork Empire sunk forever, and no longer would her black iron warships ply the seas.
He flinched, as with a great, hellish roar, a beam of light shot up into the sky, originating from a small titan island perhaps a thousand yards out. This was followed by pulsing, throbbing waves of flame, following up the beam of light, setting the very sky itself on fire, until the horizon was full of horrific firestorms and red clouds.
Mythra...Pyra….when she had rejoined them, after battling Malos, had been quiet at first. Refusing to speak, refusing to answer their questions about what had happened. She had simply sat, quietly, in the Monoceros, as they pulled away from Temperantia. But Jin...Jin had known something was wrong. He could feel it, almost so strong that he could physically see them, thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of ether cords writhing into her, pouring into her, weaving a pattern far beyond his understanding. She had never seemed so alien as she did then, a reminder that no matter what else she might be, she was Daughter of the Architect, living goddess, designed by his will to contain more power, and who knows what else, than any living blade.
And soon, Mythra had doubled over, her head in her hands, and begun to wail. An almost inhuman sound, an insanity of grief tearing from her throat. "What have I done?" she repeated to herself, over and over. And then, with a howl, with a burst of flame that warped the walls of the Monoceros and nearly burned a hole through the ship, Mythra was Pyra again. But Pyra as Jin had never seen her. He had thought of Pyra as….the calmer version of Mythra. The part of Mythra too scarred by her past to ever again truly embrace violence or anger. But Pyra, now, glowed with hellish flame, wreathed by it, it poured from her eyes, her mouth, as if she was living flame itself, and she had screamed at Jin, her rage roaring through her, her very act of speaking raising the temperature of the entire ship to almost intolerable levels, "Why?! Why did you let me do it?! Why didn't you stop me?! Why didn't you kill me?!"
And then her form had twisted, and the world groaned around her, almost as if reality itself were breaking. She flickered back and forth between her form as Mythra, and her form as Pyra, long golden hair burning away in flame, eyes shifting rapidly from red to gold, screaming at herself, screaming between the two of them, and with each transformation, energy and flame poured off from her, until it was almost certain that if this continued, she would sink the ship.
Jin had grabbed her, shouting at her to stop, even as her twisting form burned his hands and seared his flesh. She had slowed, then, stopping in her form as Pyra, flinging her arms around him, sobbing apologies for having hurt him, but even her embrace was scalding hot flame, even her breath on his cheek raised blisters in Jin's flesh.
Seeing this, Pyra had staggered away from him, releasing him, limping through the halls of the Monoceros, out onto its deck. Out into the flame-kissed sky, to the great expanse of the Cloud Sea, still awash with the orange light of the burning Ardainian Titan sinking beneath it. And she had seen this, seen the destruction, the death wrought by Mythra, and howled in agony, glowing brighter, white-hot, until she was a pillar of flame instead of a woman, her form barely visible in the flames, and then simply not visible, flame now instead of the Aegis, instead of a blade, and now her howl was the roar of the wind as her brightly-burning flames sucked oxygen out of the air, and her pillar of flame grew higher and higher, stretching towards the heavens; the Monoceros had been thrown about like a bath toy in the tempest her flame summoned, until suddenly, the flames coiled, twirled entirely into the sky, disappearing in thick black smoke, and Pyra had simply been gone, leaving nothing but a warped, red-hot slag of melted metal scarring the Monoceros' deck.
It had, however, not been difficult to find her. The smoke-stained sky glowed with her flame, like a vein of lava running through it, and through the Cloud sea they had followed, until she touched down on a small island-sized Titan, isolated in the middle of the sea, and ever since flames and lances of light had howled out from the island, with such intensity and ferocity that Jin had demanded that the Marsanes be bought to the location, because he didn't know whether she might shatter the Monoceros in her divine rage.
"You...can't be thinking of going out there, can you?"
Jin glanced down. There, at his side, was Patroka. For once, all cruelty had drained out of her face. She looked...haggard. Scared. More than the others, Patroka had seemed horrified about what was done to Mor Ardain. Jin was not surprised by this. Akhos had an honest streak of cruelty in him. Mikhail...no longer had the capability to care. But Patroka's cruelty, her sneering, had always been a shallow thing. Something she had adapted to intimidate others. Since the day of Mor Ardain's destruction, she had been pale, quiet. Staring with wide, shocked eyes at everything. Wondering, Jin knew, just how much blood and suffering was on her hands. "How is Rhys?" he asked in return, ignoring her question.
Patroka scowled at him, but answered. "He's….doing okay. Crossette is…I still can't...I still don't understand what Malos even did to her. It was like she was being eaten up from the inside." She furrowed her brow, looking down at the ground. Where Malos had stabbed Crossette, a dark flame had spread, slowly, nothing they could do seeming able to stop it, until she had a bizarre….void, in her chest, sucking her in, a great hole of nothing. Its growth seemed unpredictable, some days not growing at all, other days expanding more than it had in a week. Jin still didn't know if they would be able to save her, though its growth seemed to have stalled for now. Sighing, he strolled to the edge of the Marsanes, tossing a winch that began lowering a small motorboat down to the cloud sea.
"Jin!" Patroka shouted, her eyes widening. Across the Cloud Sea, another explosion echoed, another sphere of flame cast everything in terrible orange light. "She's going to kill you! She's lost her mind! Look at that – she's been putting out power like that for weeks. Every single day. She-"
"She won't hurt me," Jin replied quietly. He leapt into the motorboat as it descended toward the Cloud Sea, leaving Patroka shouting her outraged protests on the deck of the Marsanes.
Jin, however, felt his confidence in that statement waning as he piloted the boat towards the small Titan-island. Mushroom clouds erupted from the island, with violent roars, great blasts of heat washed over him, shockwaves sending great plumes of fog spreading out from the island. Pyra...might not mean to hurt him, but in this wild expulsion of power, who was to say that she might not, by mere accident? Jin was powerful – certainly, the most powerful flesh eater who ever lived – but Pyra, Mythra….they were the Daughter of the Architect, after all.
As he got close to the island, he flickered forward from the boat, teleporting to the island shore. It was charred, blackened, the sand turned to glass that crunched beneath his feet. A wave of flame washed towards him, and he flickered again, through it, watching it recede behind him, watching it travel out to burn up in the Cloud Sea.
He continued this, flickering across the island, straining his power, dashing across the ruined, molten, blackened landscape, jagged, melted earth and charred rocks, all plant life scorched from the island, until he reached the center.
And there, sitting in a pit of glowing, molten slag, looking pale, mad, eyes and skin blazing like living flame, was Pyra. She struggled to lift an arm, gritting her teeth with pain; with a scream, power poured forth from her, into a white-hot ball of flame that expanded outward rapidly, quickly growing to nearly the size of a house in diameter, until with a howl of tempest winds and scorching heat, with a flash that burned shadows into stone, it detonated.
Jin summoned an ether shield, and then a thick block of ice, to protect himself from its explosion; gritting his teeth as the ice evaporated, putting all his strength into maintaining his ether shield as flaming chunks of molten earth rained down around him. When the dust had settled, and he let down his ether shield, Pyra had raised her arm to do it yet again.
"Pyra!" he roared, and she dropped her arm suddenly, whipping her head around to look at him with shock and horror. Slowly, the flame burning her skin and eyes died down, until she looked somewhat normal again, and she was struggling to her feet. Trying to run.
Jin flickered forward, catching her by the wrist, and she stopped immediately, feeling incredibly weak in his grasp, shaking, trembling. "How can you...how can you bear to look at me?" she asked, whispering. "I haven't changed. I'm still the same monster I always was. I...I wanted this power out of me, I wanted to burn it out of me, it makes me sick-"
And then she morphed in his arms, a burst of light, and suddenly she whirled, the wild golden eyes of Mythra staring at him, pleadingly. "No! I swear – Jin, I could SEE, I could see all the suffering – all the horror Mor Ardain would cause! I could – a vision, I knew the death they carried with them – only..." and here, Mythra raised her hands to her face and laughed wildly, desperately, madly. "I tried to change the future, but it didn't change! I can feel it, all that death and horror is still coming, but...if not from Mor Ardain now, then who?! What kind of sick joke is this? What kind of sick cruelty is Father weaving? I did it to stop the horror...you have to believe me...but it's going to happen anyway, no matter what, if not Mor Ardain than someone else...I….I killed all those people for nothing." She laughed, a hollow, mad thing, light boiling out of her, whipping wildly into the sky, lashing out across the landscape, tearing at her hair. Ether roiled madly, whipping into her, pouring into her, great cords of it stretching out across the landscape, from sources far away, and she howled, screamed, no, it did not even sound human, it was the grief of the divine, a roar of pain something so far beyond anything Jin could even fathom.
And then in another burst of flame, Mythra was Pyra once more, and she sank to her knees, into the ash and jagged, charred glass. "I told you," she moaned, "I told you it's never worth it, and you wouldn't listen. I..." she shook her head, curled in on herself, and began to weep. "Nothing. Nothing I can say will ever matter. It was done. Another dead nation. Another genocide." She wept bitterly, great racking sobs, and then flinched as Jin sat next to her. "Don't you hate me?" she cried, recoiling. "I'm the same bloody, destructive murderer I was when I helped kill Torna. How can you even bear to be near me?" But then, despite herself, she flung her arms around him, sobbing into his shoulder, crying until her body nearly collasped with the strength of it, for how long, Jin didn't know. "I want to die," she murmured into his ear, between sobs, "Oh, Jin, I just want to die. I can't bear this world. I can't bear the sin wrapped up in me. I want to die." Jin looked up into the sky as she shook and wept in his arms. He tried not to think about what she was saying.
Jin let her weep her bitter tears, until there was none left to cry, and she was silent in his arms. And then he let her stay there, an hour of silence, as the glowing hot ground around them slowly cooled. Finally, he spoke. "You...are not the same," he said softly.
"I am, I am-"
"No." He shook his head. "You didn't have this grief in you during the Aegis War. When you destroyed nations, it was for their sins, not for the harm you thought they might cause in the future."
"What does it matter…? Nations died for nothing all the same."
And if he was being honest...Jin didn't know that it did matter. What would it matter to the countless dead of Mor Ardain, whether they were dead for their past sins or future ones? What did any of it matter? They had blood on their hands all the same.
But Pyra…
She was all he had. Ever since Lora's loss, she was all he had. The only thing he had ever known that had made him feel any sort of connection to anything. The only thing he could cling to in this existence that could tear him away from the endless, racking grief of Lora's loss. Without her, he would have long since lost his mind. Unable to even kill himself, because within him lay the last trace of what Lora once was, and he couldn't bring himself, couldn't dare, to even hurt the shadow of her shadow.
And so he lied. He told her he was certain it mattered. He soothed where he might have condemned. Because while she was the Angel of Death, a harbinger of destruction, the destroyer of his homeland, and genocide, she loved him. And she was all he had.
Her hands twined in his, as he spoke, whispering empty assurances to her. He wondered if she would believe him. She was not stupid, and he had never been good at lying. But she did. She believed him. She told him he was wrong. But she believed that he believed what he was saying. And it was enough, Jin thought, to get her to cling to this world a little while longer. At least for now.
They stayed like that, until the moon rose in the sky, bathing everything in pale light, Pyra finally asleep in his arms, exhausted to the point of near collapse by her expenditure of power.
Jin looked up at that moon, as she slept, breathing softly against him. The same moon that had stared down at him so long ago, when he had mourned Lora. In a way, it still felt like it had only just happened. All of reality, all of time seemed compressed around that one moment when she had left. Almost as if it drew time into it, like a black hole, like the great majority of existence was born up in the moment she had died, drawing him inexorably toward it, towards the memory, again and again and again.
Lora...she would not want him doing what he was doing. He knew that. But she had always been too good, too kind, too loving. She never understood what a prison this world really was. How much of the world's light and good had been snuffed out with her.
He rose to his feet, carrying Pyra in his arms, back out across the ruined island, back towards the boat.
He...understood. He understood Pyra's desire for death. Mikhail's. Akhos, Patroka, all of them. He had it in him too, that part of him that begged for mercy, that begged for relief from the constant, overwhelming, ever-present grief.
But they had a mission. The Architect had crimes to answer for. And Jin would get that audience if he had to drag them all through hell.
Author's Note:
Hello, yep, I am still working on this story, just took a bit of a long break after the 50k word chapter 25. It took me a while to work on this chapter – it is another depressing one – but what happened at the end of Torna was probably the most brutal part of the game, so there was really no avoiding it, and I needed to describe the changes. Amalthus' presence here isn't just to make things more personal for Jin; at some point you will see his side of the story, and how it shaped him into the man he is today.
As always, reviews are appreciated!