Chapter 37: The End of Despair
Castle Velthomer, The Dukedom of Velthomer, Jugdral
Grann. Year 776
The drawer of the jewelry box slid open with a soft creak. Dozens of priceless accessories from earrings to necklaces to bracelets were stored inside, each piece glittering silver or gold beneath the room's soft candlelight. Certainly, a collection of jewelry fit only for an empress.
Jewelry that had once belonged to Seliph's mother.
Seliph sorted through the box with a gentle hand, careful not to disturb the arrangement more than necessary. Not because he was worried about someone noticing the box had been tampered with—he planned to be long gone by that point—but because there was a chance his mother had been the one to organize the jewelry, and he didn't want to make a mess of her careful work.
After a little more digging, his fingers bumped into a circlet hidden behind the rest of the jewelry. Its band was silver and perfectly smooth, detailed only with a single, small ruby set in its center. Seliph pulled it out of the box and lifted it to the candlelight, inspecting the circlet's silver edge, the band's simple design, the ruby's fine cut.
How surreal it was, to be holding something that Deirdre, too, had once held, had once worn, had once treasured…
"Is this the one we're looking for, Julia?"
Julia lifted her gaze from the jewelry box in her lap. As soon as her eyes landed on the silver circlet in Seliph's hand, her entire face brightened and she shot up to her feet, nearly spilling her box's contents all over the floor.
"Yes, that's it!" she said, muffling her excitement behind her hands. "Mother's special circlet, I'm sure of it. She rarely went anywhere without it."
Seliph flipped it around once, twice, then brushed his thumb along the length of the band. The slightest of smiles caught the corner of his mouth. Mother's special circlet…
"Lewyn said it's been made into a key, but…" Julia took the circlet into her possession and examined its edges, just as Seliph had. "I don't see a mechanism here that resembles anything of the sort."
"I'm sure he will show us how to use it once we've returned to his side," Seliph said, pulling down both his and Julia's visors. "For now, let's focus on regrouping with Ashe and Felix, and work on getting out of—"
Bam!
Something heavy struck the castle, sending harsh tremors rippling across the room. The distant thud of a stone structure collapsing in on itself echoed through the air and rumbled against Seliph's ears, making his breath hitch, his chest tighten, his muscles tense. Julia gasped and lurched toward him on unsteady feet, curling herself around his arm before she lost her balance completely.
"They're…they're…" Julia's grip on him tightened as she struggled to speak. "Th-they're here…"
Seliph didn't need to ask who "they" were. The terror in her voice, the quivering in her lip, told him everything he needed to know.
Once the tremors began to subside, Seliph's eyes snapped to the window. He scanned the fields, the forests, the dark horizon line for any sign of the castle's attackers, for catapults, for anything, but the rain was too heavy and the shadows too thick for him to make out anything useful.
All except for a few quick flashes of red light shining through the storm.
Then came the unmistakable stench of a burning sky, the harsh whistle of heavy projectiles hurtling through the air, and—
A flaming meteor blasted straight through the window.
Seliph dove on top of Julia as it sailed a hair's breadth away from the top of his helmet, shielding her from the sharp spray of glass, stone, and fire. The meteor crashed through the bedroom door and tore through the hallway beyond, bringing the castle's tremors back in full force. A rush of rain blew through the broken window, dousing the carpet with water and shards of glass before the meteor's fire trail could catch.
Seliph scrambled off the ground. As carefully as his panicked blood would allow, he tugged Julia up by her arms and helped her find her footing atop the trembling floor.
"Are you okay?" he asked, his voice thick and scratchy against the tightness of his throat.
Julia gulped and nodded, clutching the circlet to her chest in a white-knuckled grip. "I-I've still got it," she mumbled, as if in a daze. "I…I won't let it go. Not for anything."
That was not what Seliph had asked her about, but the fact that she was able to speak and stand on her own was answer enough for him.
"Come on," he whispered, ushering her through the gap in the bedroom wall that used to hold a door, stepping carefully around the stone wreckage cluttered around their feet. "We need to—"
"Run!"
Ashe and Felix skidded around the corner and came barreling down the hallway. A small treasure chest rattled in the crook of Ashe's arm with every hurried stride, and an open gash split Felix's cheek, leaking a heavy stream of blood down his chin and neck. His visor had been ripped clean off its hinges, his helmet distorted with harsh dents and thick cracks, as if someone had tried bludgeoning his face.
Seliph tried reaching out a hand to slow them down. "Hey, what's—"
"No time!" Felix snapped. He snatched a handful of Seliph's tunic as he whizzed by, yanking both him and Julia into motion. "He's stronger than the boar with that damned sword!"
He? Seliph wanted to ask, but he was too focused on trying to match Felix's quick steps and avoid tripping over the hallway's debris to give voice to any questions. Even if he had tried, he doubted Felix would have provided an answer—he seemed too addled by fear and adrenaline to speak more than he already had.
Only once Seliph had caught up to their fleeing allies did he notice that Felix's sword, drawn and held in a death grip at his side, was marred with cracks, too. Just like his helmet.
"Get—back—here!"
A furious voice boomed at their backs, hissing louder than the rainwater rushing through the gaps of the ceiling. Harsh, pounding footsteps echoed across every corner of the residential chamber, tearing down the hall after them like a bloodthirsty beast hunting its prey.
Ashe reached the staircase first. He rammed his shoulder into the door, shoving himself through the gap so hard and fast he almost went flying face-first down the steps.
"What have you…done to her?!"
Felix pushed Julia into the stairwell next, then Seliph, as the voice, the footsteps, the palpable rage stalked closer and closer and closer and—
"The handles!" Seliph gasped through panted breaths. "Lock the doors! Jam the handles!"
Ashe ripped his bow off his back with his free hand and shoved it through the space between the upturned handles, forming a makeshift door hatch, then worked the locks closed. Julia scrambled to do the same, unsheathing her imperial short sword and sliding it in between the handles, the bow, and the thick metal doors.
"Where is…my wife?! My son?!"
The doors jolted as their pursuer slammed against them from the other side, over and over and over again. The wooden curve of the bow splintered and cracked with every strike; the door hinges groaned and strained as the pressure forced on them pushed them to their limit, threatening to break at any moment.
"Sleep!" Julia tried to cast, but the spell did nothing to calm the enraged presence thrashing the doors.
Another slam, another splinter, another groan of metal. "Where—are—they?!"
"That's not going to hold him for long!" Ashe readjusted his grip on the treasure chest. "Come on, we need to get outside to your friend!"
"R-right…" Julia stammered through hard, stuttering breaths, washing a healing spell from her staff over Felix's head injury.
"You took…everything!"
Another harsh slam jostled the doors to the upper floor, echoing down the entire length of the staircase. The sharp, metallic scratch of metal digging into metal grated painfully against their ears as they hurried down the steps.
"You DASTARD!"
When they reached the bottom of the stairwell, Seliph found the doors to the outer halls hanging crooked off their frame, each metallic face bent at sharp, awkward angles, each corner jammed deep into the stone floor and blocked by heavy rubble on the other side. Ashe tried ramming his shoulder into the broken doors to force the way open, but they refused to budge.
Felix ran in beside him and pushed on the doors with all his strength, working with his friend to wedge open a thin gap for Julia's slight figure to squeeze and escape through.
But not large enough for anyone else. Not yet.
"DAMN—"
Another harsh bang from their pursuer rocked the floor above them, showering dust and debris over their heads. Seliph threw his weight against the doors once Julia was through, shoving, straining, pushing his Baldr blood to its limit. Julia's frantic footsteps scrambled around the other side, clearing away whatever rubble she could from the doorway.
"YOU—"
The ear-splitting screech of metal grinding against stone trembled through the entire stairwell. Whether the sound had come from the doors above them or the doors in front of them, Seliph couldn't tell. All he could focus on was bending his knees, pushing himself against the warped metal, opening the gap just a little bit more, putting everything he had into one. Last. Push!
"ARVIS!"
The doors groaned and stuttered open. Seliph stumbled forward into the hallway gasping for breath, sweat sticking to his forehead, his neck, the tunic on his back. But he kept his feet moving, because he knew—they all knew—that they could not afford a single moment of rest.
"Come on, this way!" Julia grabbed Seliph's wrist and started down the hall. "If we hurry back the way we came, we should be able to—"
"DEIRDRE!"
The sound of doors flying off their hinges and slamming into a stone wall—the sound of an animal tearing through its cage—crashed through the top of the stairwell. Seliph didn't wait for the violent footsteps to descend the staircase, to renew their hunt. Didn't acknowledge the furious screaming or the reference to his mother's name.
He just started running.
Running alongside the others, faster than he had ever run before. Weaving around piles of rubble, splashing through puddles of rainwater leaking through the cracked ceiling, crunching over shards of broken glass and fallen stone.
Only once they reached the end of the hallway did Seliph dare to spare a glance behind him.
A mistake. A terrible, horrible, blood-curdling mistake.
Because the figure he saw emerging from the stairwell was no animal, no demon, no monster. It was a man, a phantom, wreathed in flickering, purple shadows and blanketed in blistering burns. A distant memory once marked by joy, comfort, and love, now twisted by death, rage, and blood.
Their eyes locked together through the visor of Seliph's helmet. Horror and anguish gripped Seliph's chest, because now he knew the terrible truth. The menace pursuing them was not simply an "invisible soldier," nor some random warrior summoned to fight for the army of the dead…
It was his father.
Sigurd's lifeless eyes flashed. His charred fingers tightened around the hilt of Tyrfing, and with a hard thrust forward, he pointed the tip of the holy blade directly at their backs.
"SELIPH!"
Seliph fled around the corner and refused to look back again.
He ran. And ran. And ran. Even as meteors blasted through the walls and pelted him with sharp sprays of stone and glass and rain, even as the castle groaned and cracked, threatening to collapse over their heads, he ran. Only slowing to shield Julia from flying debris, always being the first to dive straight into the castle's chaos to ensure the way forward was safe for her and their newfound allies, suffering whatever dangers necessary to bring them closer to escape.
Because no matter what, he needed to protect them, protect the chest secured in Ashe's arms, protect the circlet clutched in Julia's fist.
(Because there was nothing more terrifying than being caught by the twisted, grotesque shadow of his father)
"This way!" Julia's voice was a high-pitched wheeze. Her chest heaved with heavy breaths and her knees had begun to shake from exhaustion, but she continued to charge forward, to keep pace with everyone else. "D-down the stairs ahead, then right, and we'll reach the entrance hall—"
"I think not."
The moment Seliph turned the corner, a rough hand snatched his arm and yanked him so hard that his feet went flying out from under him. Sharp pain shot up his spine as his back was slammed into the floor, as shards of glass and jagged stone sliced into his skin. An armored boot stomped on his chest and pinned him to the ground before he could try to recover, stealing what little air Seliph had left in his lungs.
"No!" he heard Julia cry out. Then, the rattle of metal as she threw her helmet to the floor. "Stop! I command you to stop! Don't hurt—ah!"
The harsh crack of a hand meeting flesh cut through the chaos of the hallway. Julia gasped and collapsed to the ground, cradling her cheek and holding back tears.
"Julia!"
White-hot fury surged through Seliph's blood. Blindly, he seized the boot grinding him into the floor and, with a burst of unbridled strength, shoved the soldier off his chest and flung him into the wall.
He rolled up to his feet, hand on the hilt of his blade—
"Don't even think about it, whelp."
A woman with a tight, vicious smile stood over Julia, the fires of Bolganone brewing in the palm of her hand. Dozens of heavily armored soldiers lined the halls at the woman's back, shields raised and lances poised to strike at her command. Four of them had Ashe and Felix pinned to the ground. Both men struggled and strained against their hold, but they were too tired, too out of breath, to put up much of a fight.
Neither could do a thing as the last of their weapons were confiscated, as the chest containing the Book of Naga was ripped from Ashe's arms.
"It seems we have caught the rats Azelle dragged into the castle," the woman said. Her sharp grin turned onto Julia, stretching wide across her wrinkled face. "Consorting with rebel scum and petty criminals, princess? Such a shame. Your poor father will be devastated to hear it."
"Lady Hilda, please!" Julia propped herself up on her elbow, her voice a desperate plea. A red welt swelled on the edge of her cheek. "We can't stay here! It's not safe with the meteors and the—the—"
"Ah, yes. The meteors." Hilda clicked her tongue, her eyes roaming over the debris littering the hall and the rain blowing in through the broken windows, before locking onto Seliph himself. "I assume this was your doing. Some sort of twisted retribution for Belhalla, hm? You must think yourself so clever, catching us off guard by so brazenly attacking us in our own territory."
Seliph swallowed a dry, strangled breath. He darted a nervous glance behind him (no one there—yet), then back to Hilda and her soldiers. Stuck between the empire and the enraged spirit of his father. Everyone but him subdued. Exhaustion quickly overtaking his momentary burst of strength. What was he supposed to do? What was he supposed to do?
Words. Try words. "I'm not—"
"Don't play dumb with me, Seliph," Hilda hissed. "I know who you are, and I know you're behind this. Order your mages to cease their spellcasting and surrender yourself to the empire—right here, right now. If you refuse…"
Hilda hovered her flaming hand over Julia's head. The fire slithering between her fingers flared with searing heat, threatening to singe the roots of Julia's pale hair.
"I fear our dear princess will suffer more than just a slap to the face." Hilda's crooked smile tightened, pinching with cruelty. "Or should I say, your dearsister? You seem to care about her very much, as any loving brother should."
Julia glanced up to her, pleading, "Hilda, please—"
"Shut up." Hilda narrowed her eyes at Seliph. "Well? Are you going to be a good boy and put an end to this ridiculous farce?"
"I can't put an end to anything! I didn't order this attack!" Seliph ripped off his helmet, hoping his face could better express his sincerity. "It's the army of the dead! They've infiltrated the castle, and if we don't get out of here right now—"
"Do you take me for a fool? Azelle already tried—and failed—to feed me that ridiculous lie." Hilda's fingers twitched, and embers from her fire spell fell upon Julia's swelling cheek. Julia pressed a hand to her mouth to keep herself from crying out. "One last chance. Order your troops to stand down, and—"
The screams of a dying man shattered the rest of her words into silence.
Seliph froze. Julia's wet eyes bulged, filling with absolute terror. Even Hilda's proud, menacing stance faltered, the flames of her fire flickering with her unease. No one moved. No one blinked. No one breathed.
The screaming weakened into wet, choked gurgles, then…
"After all… you've taken… from me…"
A set of familiar footsteps, approaching from somewhere behind Seliph. Growing louder, and louder, and louder, until…
"…By the gods…" Hilda breathed out. She took a step back, eyes wide in a rare moment of fear, all traces of haughty arrogance gone. Her fire spell disappeared into harmless embers.
Seliph didn't want to look. He didn't want to see it, not again. He just wanted this nightmare to end.
And yet, he turned around all the same.
His father's shadow walked slowly, purposefully, around the corner, clutching a bloodied imperial helmet in his fist. Thick streams of blood dripped off Tyrfing's blade, painting the stone floor red. His scorched, blackened boots dragged a muddy trail of dirt, water, and blood behind him. Blood stained the burned edges of his cape, clung to the singed strands of his hair, seeped into the rough, mottled burn scars marring his flickering skin. So much blood, and none of it his.
Ghosts did not bleed.
"You dare… threaten… my son?" Sigurd spoke through a low, seething growl, one that rivaled the storm's rumbling thunder. "My wife?!"
"Father, stop!" Seliph backed away from Sigurd's approach, hand trembling over the hilt of his sword. "Please!"
Sigurd did not stop. He crushed the helmet in his fist into scraps and tossed it aside, stalking closer. Seliph's heels bumped into Julia—she sat paralyzed in her position on the ground, circlet pressed to her chest, lips parted around a silent scream.
"Seliph… Deirdre…" Another wet, bloody step forward. "I will… save you… from him…"
"What are you lot standing around for?!" Hilda snapped at the soldiers behind her, jabbing her finger at Sigurd's shadow. "Kill him! Kill him now!"
Spurred on by their lady's command—and, likely, the chance to distinguish themselves by felling Jugdral's most legendary knight—the soldiers charged in a clamor of steel and war cries, descending on Sigurd all at once.
Sigurd's charred lips peeled back into a snarl.
"Get… out… of my… WAY!"
He raised the bloodied Tyrfing and rushed forward to meet them, bringing his divine blade down on them without a shred of mercy.
"No! Stop!" Seliph tried to rein the soldiers back, but none would listen to him. "He has a holy weapon! You can't—"
Sharp nails snatched a handful of Seliph's hair and yanked him back into Hilda's clutches. He grabbed at her wrist, moving to wrench himself free of the aging woman's hold, but he froze as he felt her fingers begin to simmer with a dangerous heat.
"You're coming with me," she hissed into his ear. Her grip on his hair twisted, threatening to rip out a chunk of his scalp. "Resist, and I'll make you watch as I burn your sister's eyes out. I would hate to kill the Imperial Princess, but you—the face of the rebellion—are far too valuable an asset to let slip through my fingers."
Seliph was rendered absolutely speechless. His father's vengeful spirit was trying to kill them all, she and her own soldiers included, and she was concerned about politics?!
"Come along, princess," Hilda said, dragging Julia up by her hair, too. "Don't make me follow through on my promise."
The metallic shrill of Tyrfing carving through armor plate cut through the corridor. The panicked shouts and screams of the soldiers hung heavy over their heads, but Hilda simply turned her back on them and made for the exit with her captives in tow.
"M-milady?" One of the soldiers pinning Felix and Ashe to the ground gulped. "What about us? Th-the rest of our men?"
Hilda scoffed dismissively. "Just cover my escape for as long as you can. The empire thanks you for your loyal service."
"You selfish old hag!" Felix spat from his place on the floor. "They can't beat him! You're leaving all your men to—"
"To die?" Hilda rolled her eyes. "They're soldiers—dying is their job. I will ensure their noble sacrifices are not in vain by using these two"—she dug her fingers painfully into Seliph's scalp—"to avenge the death of my son and further the empire's glory."
Seliph almost punched Hilda right then and there, but with Julia trapped in her vicious grasp, he forced his hand to still. Impulsiveness would do him no favors. He needed to wait for Hilda to drop her guard, to find the right moment to escape the mad woman's clutches and his father's destructive rage.
He eyed the Bolganone tome, alight in red and gold, firmly fastened to her hip.
"Oh, and kill those insolent peasants, if you would." Hilda nodded down at Felix and Ashe before hurrying away from the fighting, dragging Seliph and Julia along with her. "And make sure the one who referred to me as old hag suffers before he—"
A ball of fire flew at Hilda's face from the shadows of the hallway. Hilda jerked her head back, narrowly dodging the deadly flame as it seared across the edge of her cheek. A harsh gasp seethed through her teeth, and her fingers loosened, just slightly, around Seliph's hair.
Seliph did not waste the opportunity.
He snapped his head back and bashed her nose with the back of his skull, breaking the bone with a satisfying crunch. Hilda reeled, screaming and sputtering as blood gushed down her face, flailing for her tome. Seliph was faster. He pulled Julia to safety, snagged the flaming tome off Hilda's hip, and threw it into the nearest puddle of rainwater.
Ensuring its pages could never be used to cast even a wisp of fire ever again.
"Y-you little—!"
Hilda swiped wildly at the air with her claw-like nails, aiming for Julia but cutting only air with each stroke. Julia quickly tugged her Sleep staff off her back, clenching her trembling fists around its base in a tight, white-knuckled grip.
Hilda's face flashed with hot fury, teeth bared and bloodied. "You think you can put me to sleep with that little stick? My resistance against such asinine magic tricks is too—"
Julia swung the staff as hard as she could and struck Hilda in the stomach. Wheezing, Hilda doubled over and crumpled to her knees, clutching her gut and coughing up bloody spittle.
Her coughing devolved into a furious screech as another ball of fire from the shadows caught her side. The flames ate through her dress and scorched the skin beneath black, but the rain blowing in through the broken windows doused the fire before any fatal damage could be done.
"You're lucky my aim is still a bit rusty." Azelle stepped out from the shadows, shaking the dying embers of his spell from his hand. "That one was supposed to kill you."
"Uncle Azelle!" Tears sprang from Julia's eyes. "Y-you're okay!"
"Relatively speaking," Azelle muttered, wiping the sweat from his brow. To Seliph, Azelle looked far from "okay"—his face was several shades too pale, dried blood clogged up his nose, and he flinched every time the red magic of a Meteor spell flashed through the storm—but they had little time to dwell on it.
"Less talking, more running!" Felix hurried past them, making for the end of the corridor with Ashe and the Book of Naga's treasure chest trailing close behind.
Seliph blinked after them. "How did you—"
"They let us go and ran." Ashe huffed and adjusted his hold on the box, shooting Hilda a quick, quiet glare. "So callously disparaging your soldiers and treating them as nothing more than expendable fodder doesn't exactly inspire loyalty."
Hilda spat at their feet, glowering at Seliph through the blood and her broken nose. Pitifully, she grasped at her burned side and struggled to rise off her knees, though her sharp eyes never once lost their edge.
Just beyond her back, on the far side of the hall, a flash of golden steel cut through the last of the soldiers brave enough—or, rather, foolish enough—to raise their weapons against Tyrfing and the Holy Knight of Chalphy.
"Seliph… Deirdre…" Sigurd's dark, raspy echo drifted through the chamber. "Where are … you… going…?"
Seliph spun around, chest tightening, and urged Julia and Azelle faster down the hall.
Somehow, Azelle's pallid face lost even more of its color. "Th-that's—that's—"
"Don't think about it and keep moving!" Julia grabbed Azelle's hand and clutched the circlet in the other, tugging him along with her hurried steps. "We're almost out! Just a little farther, Uncle!"
Seliph turned to follow—
Hilda slipped a knife from her boot and stabbed Seliph straight through the thigh.
"Never leave a job unfinished," she hissed, twisting the knife in deep and shoving him to the ground.
Someone screamed his name as he tumbled to the floor, but the pain searing through his leg was too agonizing for him to put a name to the voice. He muffled his cries behind clenched teeth and clumsily went for his sword, but Hilda kicked it from his hands before he could even attempt to swing it.
"You're not going anywhere, boy," Hilda spat. "Not after Melgen. Not after what you did to my son!"
Hilda ripped the knife from Seliph's thigh and slashed the back of his calf. Black spots clouded his vision as the blade tore through skin and muscle, cutting down to the bone, and this time, he couldn't stop the cry of pain that followed.
"Oh, Sigurd!" Hilda's fingers dug into Seliph's hair again, yanking his head back and forcing him up to one knee. Her grin was angry and red and unnaturally wide. "Look at who I've found for you!"
Sigurd kicked the corpse of the final soldier aside and snapped his head around, staring at them with soulless, pink eyes.
"…Seliph…"
"That's right. Seliph." Hilda dragged a long, sharp nail down Seliph's face. Sigurd growled as the nail drew blood from his cheek. "You came back all the way from the afterlife to see your sweet little boy again, didn't you?"
Seliph scrunched up his eyes, doing whatever he could to block out the excruciating pain pulsing through him. With a wild swing of his arm, he smashed his elbow into Hilda's hip, a last-ditch effort to escape. Her leg momentarily buckled, and she sucked in a pained gasp, but her grip on him only tightened. He raised his arm for another hit, to try to shove her off—
He froze as the cold press of steel, slick with his own blood, came to rest against his throat.
"Hilda, stop!" Out of the corner of his eye, Seliph saw Julia running back for him with her healing staff in hand. The others were not far behind. "Don't do this! Please!"
"One step closer from any of you," Hilda snarled at both the living and the dead, "and I'll slit his gods-damned throat!"
Julia choked on a strangled sob. Seliph tried to shake his head at her—a silent plea to leave, get to safety—but he could barely move his neck without cutting himself on the blade.
"Seliph…" Sigurd's growl crackled like fracturing ice. "You… hurt… him…!"
"And I'll do much worse if you don't do exactly as I say!" Hilda pressed the knife harder into Seliph's throat. "You're going to stand right there and let me walk out of here without—"
"You…" Sigurd leveled his bloodied sword at Hilda and stepped over the bodies of the soldiers he had slain. "Made… Deirdre… cry…!"
Seliph's head spun, his vision blurred, making it difficult to keep track of the blood-soaked image of his father stalking toward them. Part of him was relieved (I don't have to see him like that anymore) but the other part was completely, utterly, absolutely terrified, knowing exactly what the symptoms meant (I'm bleeding out—I'm dying—they're going to kill me).
"Stay back!" Hilda snapped. "You think I won't do it?!"
"You… serve…Arvis… you hurt… my family…!" Sigurd growled. "You're. Next."
The hand holding the knife began to tremble. "You—you—I said stay back!"
"Sigurd, stop!" Azelle pushed Julia and the others behind him, conjuring a whirl of swirling flames from the pages of his tome. Ready—but clearly reluctant—to fight his old friend. "You're going to get your son killed! Just stop!"
Sigurd came to a sudden halt, jerking back like a spooked horse. He hissed at Azelle through his teeth, a threatening, bone-chilling sound, but he stayed rooted in place.
"Th-that's better," Hilda said, the tremble in her voice betraying her fright. "Now just stay where you are and—"
"Tailtiu."
Both Hilda and Azelle flinched at the dead woman's name. Hilda took a staggered step back toward the broken window, dragging Seliph and the knife along with her, and said, "What about her? That waste of space has nothing to do with—"
A pair of slender, flickering arms reached through the rain and grabbed Hilda's head. Hissing sparks gathered along the fingers clamped around Hilda's face, a surge of heat swelled in the air, and—
Boom!
A pulse of thunder magic blasted through Hilda's head.
The knife clattered at Seliph's knees. The hand in his hair went limp and fell away. Hilda's body crumpled to the floor behind him, twitching once, twice, then never moved again.
Gagging on the stench of charred flesh and smoke, Seliph tried to scramble up to his feet, to get away from the horrid sight, but his leg refused to hold his weight.
"Seliph!"
Julia was at his side in an instant, weaving white magic over his leg and choking back tears. Ashe dropped down next to her and uncapped a vial of some sweet-scented liquid for Seliph to drink. Warmth flooded Seliph's body, alleviating some of the pain. The torn flesh of his calf and thigh slowly began to stitch together, but not nearly fast enough.
"A-Azelle!" Julia cried out, pushing her healing staff to its limit. Ashe worked open another vulnerary, his last, with shaky hands. "Uncle Azelle, I need—he needs—"
Azelle wasn't listening. He stared at the broken window as if in a trance, eyes bulging so wide they nearly rolled out of their sockets. His fire spell crackled against his stuttered breath.
"…Gods, no…"
A feminine figure crawled through the window and out of the rain. Her skin, littered with bruises and scars, flared with the same dark energy enveloping Sigurd's body, and her hair, purple and matted in thick clumps, sagged in a loose ponytail down her back.
"T-Tal…?"
"What are… you… doing… Azelle?" The woman's eyes slowly opened, lifeless and pink. "You want… to hurt… me… too?" She hugged herself, trailing her crooked fingers over the scars scattered across her arms. "Like… Hilda did…?"
"What? No—I—" The fire in Azelle's hands flickered out. "I would never—"
Sigurd charged him.
In the blink of an eye, Sigurd crossed from his end of the hall to theirs and swung for Azelle's neck. Felix jumped between them before it could connect, catching the edge of Tyrfing with the flat of his sword. The blade cracked, Felix's arms shook under the force of the blow, but he dug his heels into the stone and held his ground. A blue-patterned symbol flashed against the darkness hanging over his head.
"Fire!" Felix grunted. With a short burst of inhuman strength, he knocked the phantom back a few paces. "Cast more fire, now!"
Azelle waved a trembling hand over his tome and stammered out an incantation. The flames of his magic flared back to life, swirling over the pages, between his fingers, and when he thrust his palm forward to release it—
A bolt of Tailtiu's thunder magic struck Azelle's chest. He wheezed and stumbled back, throwing the spell off course toward the ceiling instead of at its intended target. The flames caught the edges of the red drapes and house banners strung over the vaulted beams, quickly eating away at the threads and their fastenings.
"Attacking your… friends…?" Tailtiu rasped. "Just like… your brother… just like… Arvis."
"Arvis… Arvis…!" Sigurd growled. "You DASTARD!"
Sigurd lurched forward. Azelle, gasping and gripping the electric burn scorched into his chest, shakily raised his spellcasting hand, just as Felix readied his blade to defend them all from the dead man's ferocity.
But before Sigurd moved even a few steps, the blazing drapes and banners overhead dropped from the ceiling in a fiery cascade of crumpled fabric. The flames were not particularly hot or tall, but as soon as they landed on the stone between their feet…
Sigurd screeched. A shrill, ear-splitting screech loud enough to reach every corner of the castle, harsh enough to shatter the glass of any windows that had managed to survive the storm's barrage of magical meteors. A wail of distress so palpable and suffocating, Seliph nearly choked on his own breath.
Father…what have they done to you?
Sigurd threw himself several feet away from the fire in a single, desperate bound, hissing at the short wall of flames. Tailtiu hissed along with him, but she did not shrink back from its heat. Instead, she stepped straight through the fire, sparks alighting at her fingertips as another bout of thunder magic brewed in her hands.
But her sights were no longer set on Azelle and his fire tome, nor Felix and his blade. No, Seliph realized with horror, she was aiming past them.
For Julia.
Gritting his teeth, Seliph grabbed Julia's arm and yanked her into his chest, rolling over glass and shards of stone to escape the lightning's searing path. A sharp surge of pain shot through his leg at the loss of her healing magic, at all the jagged edges slicing into his wounds, but he pushed through it all to keep Julia safe. He curled himself around her as their rolling slowed, bracing to take whatever magic the phantom might try to throw at his sister next.
"Tailtiu, stop!"
Azelle tackled her to the ground before she could attack anyone else. He pinned her arms over her head and knocked her tome away, temporarily robbing her of her spellcasting. Felix readied his sword and stepped forward to aid him, but Azelle stopped him with a sharp shake of his head.
"Get Seliph and Julia out of here!" Azelle shouted over his shoulder, struggling to keep the writhing phantom restrained. "I'll hold them off for you as long as I can!"
"What?!" Julia wriggled out of Seliph's arms and shot up to her feet. Seliph followed, albeit with much more difficulty. "We can't just leave you—"
"You have to!"
A gust of wind blew through the broken windows, showering spatters of rain across the floor and the short wall of fire keeping Sigurd at bay. Azelle reignited the line of burning drapes with another flare of fire magic, drawing another distressed hiss from the dead man, but the wet fabric would not be able to hold the flames for long.
"You came here to find the Book of Naga and use it to save the world." Azelle said, shoving Tailtiu down again as she attempted to headbutt his chest burn. "If you don't make it out of here with that tome, all of this will have been for nothing! So take whatever time I can buy you, and go!"
"But—there must be something we can—"
"Come on, princess." Felix grabbed Julia's wrist and tugged her down to the end of the corridor before she could finish her protest.
"I'm sorry," Ashe muttered, helping Seliph stand upright on his partially healed leg. The outer wounds had closed for the most part, but his insides still ached with stiffness and pain. "It's terrible, but your friend is right. We can't stay here any longer."
Every part of Seliph's soul screamed at him to find another way. To somehow, someway, rescue Azelle, Julia, and all of those who could still be counted among the living without the need for sacrifice.
But Seliph knew all-too-well that war often demanded difficult, awful, terrible decisions…and, for better or for worse, Azelle had made his choice.
With a stiff limp in his step, Seliph hurried to follow the others out of the chamber, scooping up his discarded sword on his way out. He only looked back once, watching with a heavy heart as Azelle lowered a flaming hand over his dead wife's face, whispering, "I'm sorry, Tal."
"DEIRDRE! SELIPH!" Sigurd's ragged voice boomed behind him. "NO! COME BACK!"
A bright flash of fire illuminated the hallway as Seliph forced himself into a run. He blocked everything out of his mind—the throbbing pain in his leg, his father's horrible screeching, the guilt of leaving an ally behind—and poured all his energy into one, singular focus:
Escape.
Down the hall. Around the corner. Through the next chamber, crunching over stone and glass. Against the rain. Over piles of rubble. Down the last set of stairs.
And, at last, into the entrance hall.
The front doors of the castle had been blasted open by meteors, as had chunks of the wall and most of the windows. Gaping holes in the ceiling invited rush after rush of rain to pour over their heads and drown their ankles in a flood of dirty water and floating debris. The din of steel and battle clamored somewhere beyond the castle walls, but the storm's rain and the night's darkness obscured any skirmishes from their view.
"Lewyn should be waiting for us outside the gates," Seliph panted. "He'll warp us out of here and get us to safety."
"Unless the invisible soldiers have gotten to him, too," Felix muttered under his breath.
Julia just sniffed and hung her head, silent tears dripping off her cheeks into the water at their feet.
"He'll be there," Ashe said, voice firm and hopeful (perhaps forcibly so). "Come on, let's not keep him waiting."
They waded their boots to the front doors where the flood showed signs of thinning. Teeth clenched, Seliph limped behind the others as fast as his injuries would allow. Every step was like walking on daggers, every flex of his knee threatened to topple him, but he pushed through the pain toward the promise of escape, waiting for them just outside the castle gates. So…close…
The water behind Julia rippled.
A slight, silent, momentary ripple, pushing aside the stray debris floating around its ring, as though a tiny pebble had plopped into the shallow depths. Seliph squinted at it…
And his heart jumped into his throat.
Because when the ripple faded and the water settled, the reflection shimmering behind Julia was no longer her own.
"Julia!" he shouted, reaching for his sister's back. "Look out!"
Startled, Julia whirled around just as Sigurd burst through the water's surface, Tyrfing towering over her head. She screamed and raised her healing staff to block the golden blade's vicious swing, to keep herself from being sliced in two. Tyrfing shattered the staff on impact and sent Julia sprawling to the ground, spraying up waves of filthy water around her body.
"Deirdre… my love…" Sigurd rasped. "I will… save you… from him…"
Felix slid in front of Julia, thrusting his steel at Sigurd's throat. Sigurd deflected the strike with ease, batting Felix's sword away with Tyrfing and knocking him into Ashe with a merciless kick to the gut, sending them both flying half-way across the entrance hall. Julia scrambled away, tripping over her feet to distance herself from the tall, menacing figure looming over her.
"Don't… worry…" Sigurd kicked her to the ground then stepped on her chest, trapping her under his heel. "You won't… feel… a thing."
Sigurd raised Tyrfing over Julia's neck. Julia threw her arms over her face, wheezing out a strangled scream for help—
Seliph plunged his sword into Sigurd's back.
Time came to a silent, suffocating standstill. Sigurd glanced down to the blade protruding from his stomach, staggering off Julia's body as Seliph twisted the sword deeper, deeper, and deeper still, driving the hilt up against Sigurd's spine. Purple wisps of dark energy spilled out around the blade's edge, a substitute for lifeblood.
Sigurd slowly tilted his head back, his lifeless eyes settling on Seliph's face. "You would… attack… your own… father…?"
Seliph tightened his grip on the handle.
"You're not my father."
He yanked the sword back with a rough jerk, tearing through as much of Sigurd's mottled skin as he could on the way out. Seliph's injured leg stumbled with the movement, but his voice was unwavering.
"Not anymore."
Sigurd did not so much as wince when the blade left his body. Tendril after tendril of darkness seeped out of the stab wound, a grievous injury that would have any ordinary man falling to his knees in defeat.
But Sigurd had never been an ordinary man. Not in life, not in death.
Sigurd did not fall to his knees, nor cry out in pain, nor curse Seliph for his attempt on his undead life. No, he did something far worse.
He smiled.
"I will… always be… your father."
Sigurd's rough, blistered fingers clamped around Seliph's neck, lifting him clear off the ground, and squeezed. Crushing against Seliph's windpipe, strangling every breath of air out of Seliph's lungs until he turned blue in the face.
"We will be… a family… again…"
Sigurd's boot pressed down on Julia, crushing her ribs just as he crushed Seliph's throat. Seliph clawed and kicked and pounded and wheezed, fighting to break free, fighting to save Julia, even as his lungs threatened to burst and darkness edged at his vision. But nothing he could do loosened the dead man's iron grip.
"Shh…" Sigurd cooed, as if he were simply lulling a child to sleep. "Don't… struggle… it will… be over… soon—"
Something hot grazed Seliph's ear and struck Sigurd square in the face. That terrible, piercing screech of agony shattered the air, and before Seliph could comprehend what was happening Sigurd dropped him into the water and reeled back, violently thrashing his head from side to side.
"You should have stayed in the ground, Sigurd."
Coughing, gasping, and rubbing his neck, Seliph glanced around the entrance hall through half-lidded eyes, searching for the person who had just spoken. Hoping to find that Azelle had made it out of that hallway alive and had come to save them with his fire magic once more…
Instead, he found none other than Emperor Arvis standing behind him, the fires of Valflame blazing in his hands. Ishtar guarded his back with Mjölnir at the ready, the tome's pages crackling with lightning more potent than that of the storm raging just outside the castle walls.
"Father!" Julia cried out. Arvis frowned at the sound of her voice, but he kept his attention solely on the enraged phantom in front of him.
"ARVIS! You DASTARD!" Sigurd screamed and snapped and snarled all at once. "I'LL—KILL—YOU!"
"You're free to try," Arvis said, flexing his hands, "but keep my daughter out of it."
Arvis swept a searing wave of flames at the phantom. Sigurd screeched and dove under the spell into the shallow water, completely disappearing from sight. The flames exploded against the back wall, shaking loose stones and mortar from the unstable ceiling threatening to collapse over their heads.
"Get up."
Still struggling to catch his breath, Seliph tilted his head back just enough to find Arvis staring down at him through a narrowed, sideways glare.
"Stop wasting time sitting uselessly there on the floor," Arvis said. "Ishtar and I will handle him. You focus on getting Julia out of here before this place falls apart." His lips thinned as he scanned the water's surface. "Before he makes another attempt on your lives."
"Y-you…" Seliph staggered and swayed up to unsteady feet. He winced at the raspiness of his voice, at the throbbing ache in his leg, but he hid the pain as best he could—lest it be interpreted as a weakness for Arvis to exploit. "You… saved me…?"
A heavy, strained silence settled between them. Arvis's eyes flicked up to the sky through the holes that had been smashed through the ceiling, then said, "I imagine your mother and your sister would be rather cross with me if I hadn't."
"What—"
"Leave." Arvis turned away from Seliph, curling his flaming hands into fists. "Before I change my mind about letting you go."
Seliph didn't need to be told twice.
Swallowing a shallow breath, Seliph limped his way over to Julia and offered a hand to help her out of the water. Her wrists were bruised and swollen, her posture was bent from the harsh pressure Sigurd had dropped on her chest, but her grip on their mother's circlet was as secured and as tight as ever.
"I've…I've still got it," she whispered.
"And we've got the chest," Ashe added, hobbling toward the front gates with Felix leaning on his shoulder for support. "We'd best hurry—I'm not sure how many more beatings we can take."
In Seliph's case: none at all. Exhaustion and pain clung to his bones, threatening to drag him back down to the flooded floors and drown him. But he promised himself one final push, because waiting on the other side of those gates, in the thick of the rain, was the end to this nightmare.
They just had to reach it.
Seliph took Julia's hand, stood as tall as his body would allow, and followed their friends out into the storm.
"What of my father?" Julia whispered, clinging to Seliph's sleeve as the rain pelted their faces. "And Ishtar? And…and Azelle?"
"If Azelle is alive"—Julia's grip tightened on his arm at the suggestion that he might not be—"then he will find his way back to us, I'm sure of it. As for Ishtar and your father…"
Inside the entrance hall behind them, Sigurd sprang out of the water to strike at Arvis's back but was immediately warded off by another wave of scorching flames. The spell fanned out across the length of the chamber, spinning into a vortex around the phantom's body and trapping him within a blazing ring of flames that burned hotter than the light of the sun. Flames that no storm and no amount of tortured screeching could put out.
"…Arvis is better equipped to fight my father than anyone else in the world," Seliph finished quietly. The words left a bitter taste in his mouth, no matter how true.
"Ishtar! Do it now!" Arvis ordered, backing himself out of the entrance hall as Seliph and Julia hurried through the arch of the castle's front gates, keeping Sigurd sealed within the confines of his spell. "Bring Mjölnir's wrath down upon his head!"
"As His Majesty commands!"
Ishtar threw her arms out wide, absorbing the storm's electric air into her body, pouring all of her holy tome's power into a dark sphere of wild, whirling lightning that lashed out at every corner of the crumbling castle. Her feet levitated off the ground, lightning building and building and building until she held the soul of the storm itself in her hands, then—
"DAMN YOU!"
—she thrust her arms forward just as Arvis slammed his palms together, blasting Sigurd with the full might of both Valflame and Mjölnir all at once.
The entrance hall erupted in a blaze of magic so bright Seliph had to throw an arm over his face to keep his eyes from burning. A roar of thunder that rivaled the voice of the gods shattered the sky, shook the earth, tore through the castle's foundation, exploded through the chamber's ceiling like the stone was naught but paper.
The pure, terrifying power of the holy weapons on full display for all to see.
(A grim reminder of what Seliph and the Liberation Army would be up against, if they survived the undead incursion)
When the fires receded and the tremors finally stilled, all that was left of the entrance hall were smoldering stones and a black circle scorched into the ground where Sigurd had last been standing. Ishtar glided away from the wreckage and floated back down to Arvis's side, not so much as a scratch or burn on either one of them.
But most importantly, there was no sign of Sigurd or any flickering soldiers anywhere in sight. Nothing but smoke and ashes.
"Is…is he gone?" Julia whispered, slowly turning to look over Seliph's shoulder. "Is it over?"
"Not yet, princess."
Seliph spun around, shoulders snapping back. His aching leg wobbled as he slid himself in front of Julia, but he managed to hold his ground, albeit with a slight totter.
He grasped the hilt of his sword, but the moment he spotted Lewyn's familiar green hair his arm fell away to his side. The tension twisting his insides broke into a flood of relief.
"Lewyn!" Julia choked out, stumbling over to her guardian mage. "Thank the gods you're—"
"Open the chest, Julia," Lewyn said. His jaw was stiff, standing out from behind his chin. "We need to secure the Book of Naga."
"I—right now?" Julia blinked at him. "Shouldn't we get out of the storm first? We need to heal our wounds—"
"We're not going anywhere until you have Naga's tome in your hands."
"What? That isn't what we agreed to." Felix pushed himself off Ashe's shoulder, keeping an arm wrapped around his bruised ribs. "You and your mages were supposed to teleport us away as soon as we walked through the castle gates with the chest. We've got the chest, we're at the gates"—he pointed to the Warp staff on Lewyn's back—"so get us out of here."
"There is nowhere in the world I can take you that the Silent Dragon's army won't follow," Lewyn said, voice hurried, "not unless we have Naga's power on our side. If you want to escape here without further injury, then we need to get her tome out of that chest." He waved to the box tucked under Ashe's arm. "Quickly, Julia, before they strike again."
Julia fiddled with the circlet's silver band. "But I… I don't know how to open it…"
"Press the circlet's gemstone into the divot hidden behind the lock," Arvis said from behind them. Seliph nearly jumped out of his skin at the emperor's sudden approach (he hadn't expected Arvis to actually follow them out here, let alone help them unlock the treasure they had stolen from him). "Slide it into place, and the chest's magic will do the rest."
Julia ran her thumb across the red stone and nodded, limping over to Ashe and the box.
Seliph was so focused on watching Julia's feet to make sure she didn't slip on the slick ground—and, admittedly, to avoid any awkward eye contact with Arvis and Ishtar—that he missed a vulnerary being tossed his way. It clinked harmlessly off his chestplate and dropped into the mud.
"Drink it," Arvis said. The remnants of Valflame still wisped around his fingers, even under the heavy rain. "You look terrible."
And whose fault is that? Perhaps if Arvis hadn't murdered Seliph's father all those years ago, hadn't stolen his family's holy weapon, and had kept a better handle on his more sadistic subordinates, they might all be in better shape.
Seliph bit his tongue to keep the bitter thought from slipping out. Instead, he forced out a quiet, curt, "Thanks."
If Arvis had heard him, he didn't acknowledge it.
"With your leave, Your Majesty, I'll gather some of our men and search what remains of the castle for survivors," Ishtar said. "My mother is still inside, as is…" Her eyes swept the area, widening when they could not find the person she was looking for. "As is your brother, it would seem."
Seliph carefully lowered himself down to one knee, scooping up the vulnerary Arvis had tossed him, hiding the grimace on his face. Now didn't seem to be the best time to relay the "bad" news about Hilda, lest Ishtar decide to take her grief out on the messenger.
And Azelle…
"Very well." Arvis shook the last embers of Valflame from his hands. "I will join you in a few minutes, after I ensure Julia is—"
The moment the flames disappeared, a golden blade burst through Arvis's chest.
Blood. Blood spraying across the mud. Blood dripping off the sword sticking out of Arvis's body. Blood staining Arvis's imperial robes and blood trickling out of Arvis's mouth.
"Father!" Julia screamed. Seliph stared in wide-eyed horror, scrambling back on his hands, struggling to get back on his feet.
Sigurd's tall, flickering figure solidified in the rain behind the emperor. The phantom clamped a hand around Arvis's shoulder, leaned down into his ear, and hissed:
"How does… it feel… to be stabbed… in the back…?"
Sigurd slid Tyrfing out of Arvis's back and shoved him away. Arvis could do nothing but stagger and fall to the mud, weakly grasping at the river of blood flowing down his chest.
"J…Jul…ia…" he choked out.
"Arvis! No!" Ishtar hurled a bolt of lightning at the phantom, shouting through clenched teeth, "How did you—how are you still—"
Sigurd deflected the blast of thunder magic with Tyrfing's edge, slicing the lightning in two with a single stroke.
"What is dead… cannot be slain… again."
With sparks hissing along the edge of his bloodied blade, Sigurd stepped over Arvis's crumbling body, kicked away the Valflame tome, and stalked toward them once more.
"Seliph… Deirdre… I have come… to save you…"
"Julia!" Lewyn snapped. "The Book of Naga! Now!"
"I—I'm—" Julia stammered through panicked breaths, through hot tears, both her and Ashe fiddling with the circlet and the chest's lock with trembling fingers. "We're trying—almost—almost—"
"Give… them… back…" Sigurd growled, fixing his soulless gaze on Seliph and Julia. "Give… my… family… BACK!"
"Stay away from them!"
Ishtar threw bolt after bolt of thunder magic, Lewyn threw sharp slices of wind, but without fire, nothing could slow the phantom's sinister approach. Some spells were knocked away by Tyrfing's blade, some grazed Sigurd's body and peeled back his blistered skin, but nothing hurt him. Nothing they did stopped him from charging forward, nothing they did distracted him from his obsessive focus on—
Seliph's eyes widened as the epiphany struck.
Distract him.
"F-Father! Help me!" Seliph cried out, dragging himself as far away from Julia as he could manage, and hobbled up onto his injured leg. He let a pained whimper escape his throat, let the tears that had been building during this horrible nightmare flow down his cheeks. "It hurts! I need you, Father—help me!"
Sigurd's head snapped to the side, feet skidding to a stop across the mud. "Seliph…"
"Over here! Help!" Seliph forced his voice into a panicked wail (though it wasn't that difficult to pull off, given how fast his heart was racing). "Father, please! Help me!"
Sigurd hesitated, stepping forward toward Julia then back to the side toward Seliph. His dead eyes darted between the two, as if he were struggling to decide who he should "save" first. The moment only lasted for a few seconds.
But that few seconds was all they needed.
Click.
The treasure chest popped open, revealing a golden tome shining within. Swallowing a shuddery breath, Julia reached her hands inside to claim it…
And the world exploded with light.
Pure, radiant light seared across the sky, banishing the storm clouds and the darkness of the night. Golden fire burst from the ground around Julia's feet, spiraling around her legs, her arms, her eyes, unfurling into a set of massive wings that eclipsed the shadows of the crumbling castle behind her. The flames crawled higher and higher into the sky, threading together to stitch the image of a Divine Dragon over Julia's head.
"NAGA!" Sigurd's enraged cry carried the distorted reverb of a voice distinct from his own, a dark voice Seliph did not recognize.
Julia thrust her arms around her levitating tome. The dragon snapped open its maw and roared in time with her movements, casting hundreds of blazing beams of light in all directions around Julia from its divine breath. One stabbed Sigurd through the chest, sending the phantom flying and screeching across the muddy field; others sought out the red flashes of magic hiding away in the forests, putting a swift and final end to the meteorfall raining over Castle Velthomer.
The golden flames flared, sweeping down in a fiery spiral around Julia's body. Spinning faster and faster, growing brighter and brighter, until Julia began to fade from Seliph's sight.
He heard Julia's soft voice gasping, "No, wait—!"
Then—
A flash of Naga's divine light blew him off his feet and consumed his senses completely.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
In the far east of Jugdral in the Kingdom of Leonster, a thunderous roar rumbled through the air.
Startled, Leif pulled back on the reins of his war horse. His eyes snapped up to the sky, mouth falling agape as the image of a golden dragon was burned into the distant clouds. His horse snorted and stomped its hooves, just as unnerved as Leif was at the sight and sound of a mystical dragon blotting out a piece of the western sky.
If he had his maps right in his head, then those clouds, that dragon…they were sitting over Belhalla, or Velthomer, perhaps? Gods, what was the empire up to now?
Shaking his head, Leif resituated himself in his saddle and combed his fingers through his steed's mane, soothing it with a kind but firm hand. Bloom's forces would be on his doorstep soon, after all, and the last thing he needed was to be riding a spooked horse into battle.
But the horse would not settle, and neither could he. There was a heat prickling across his skin that felt like…a warning? A plea for aid? He hadn't the faintest idea what it was supposed to mean.
All he knew was that something was terribly wrong.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Two manakete princesses—one young, one grown, both worlds apart—opened their eyes at a familiar roar rumbling in their ears. The vigor of their brethren filled their souls, a warm, nostalgic presence pulled on their hearts.
Together, they whispered:
"Mother."
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
When the golden dragon faded and Seliph's eyes fluttered back open, Julia was gone.
Panicked, he shot up out of the mud, spitting out rainwater and shoving his wet bangs out of his face. His injured leg buckled with the sudden movement, but he didn't care. He needed to find Julia. He needed to find his sister. Where had she—
"She will be safe," Lewyn said. "For now, at least."
"What happened?" Seliph asked, shuffling over to Lewyn with an awkward limp. "Where did she go?" He blinked around the field, just now noticing that Felix and Ashe were missing, too. The only person left with them was Ishtar, kneeling next to the emperor's body with her head hanging heavy in her hands.
Seliph's stomach twisted into knots. Arvis had been his sworn enemy, the person who had ruined his life, the reason Jugdral had deteriorated into such a horrible place for so many people…
And yet, for reasons he would take to the grave, Arvis had also saved Seliph's life. Saved all of their lives.
Seliph wasn't sure how he was supposed to feel about that.
"Where did they go?" Seliph asked again, averting his gaze from the emperor's body. Giving Ishtar some space to mourn.
Lewyn sighed. "I don't know."
"Then we need to go find—"
"We have to trust that Naga will protect them." Lewyn gestured to something behind Seliph with a short nod. "Besides, our work here is not yet finished."
The knots tightened into dread. Almost against his will, Seliph's head turned to glance over his shoulder, to confirm what his heart had feared.
Sigurd. Bent over the ground on one knee, head lolling from side to side, a gaping hole burned through his chest from Naga's light attack, but still, somehow, alive.
In the loosest sense of the word.
"What is Naga planning?" When Sigurd spoke, it was not with his own voice. Rather, his voice had been overtaken completely by the dark echo that had emerged during Naga's awakening. "Where has she whisked her vessel off to now?"
Lewyn took a few daring steps closer to the kneeling phantom, keeping out of his immediate reach. Seliph was too afraid, and too exhausted, to follow.
"Am I speaking with Sigurd?" Lewyn asked. "Or the monster hiding behind his face?"
A dry, mirthless chuckle tumbled out of the phantom's throat.
"Monster, am I?" Sigurd craned his neck back to meet Lewyn's stare head-on, his dull gaze sharpening. "I could say the same of you…Forseti."
Lewyn's expression remained neutral, unchanged, but Seliph's eyebrows shot up to his hairline.
Forseti?
"The man you possess is dead as well, is he not? Slain by the same treachery that killed Sigurd so many years ago." The phantom waved a hand over the hole in his chest, commanding the rain to weave around the wound and mend the mangled flesh. "You have kept Lewyn trapped within his own mind, unable to pass on in peace, all so you can make a puppet of his flesh and meddle in human affairs. I, at least, afford my chosen champions a small measure of autonomy."
"Sigurd would never raise a weapon against his own son," Lewyn said, "and yet, you've forced him to attack and terrorize the boy and his sister. Doesn't sound like autonomy to me."
"Sigurd wants to protect his family from the horrors of this world," the phantom countered. "I am helping him, and all those who have suffered under the wheel of Chaos, do just that. I am giving humanity, both living and dead, the happiness they have so long been denied because of wretched dragons like us. Blessing them by making their dreamsa reality."
"Madness truly has taken root in your mind."
"Perhaps." The phantom rose to his feet. "But I recognize myself for what I am: a monster, destined for nothing but degeneration, destruction, and death." He tilted his head, drawing his hand down the flat of Tyrfing's blade. "That is what all dragons are. You, me, even your 'Virtuous Naga'…we are nothing more than monsters to be vanquished. All that I do is recompense for the pain and tragedy dragons have inflicted—or will inflict—on this world and the next. Eventually, you will all come to see that."
Lewyn narrowed his eyes, and the wind kicked up behind him. "Not if we stop you first."
"Are you referring to Naga's silly little riddle?" The phantom snapped. "No amount of lions or puppets or whomever she is searching for can stop us. Naga's power is nothing against the combined might of the Order Goddess and the Silent Dragon."
"Then why are you so desperately hunting her vessel?" Lewyn asked, his tone taking on a mocking edge. "It seems to me like you're getting a bit frustrated. Perhaps because you can't actually figure out what her plan is?"
The phantom growled, shoulders tensing into a dangerous coil. "Today is the day you perish, Forseti. Naga's little vessel will be soon to follow." He stuck Tyrfing's tip into the ground, leaned on its hilt, and hissed, "Prepare to join the rest of our brethren in death's cold embrace."
The phantom went slack for a sudden moment, head hanging low and limbs twitching, as though his soul had been sucked from his body…or rather, the soul of whomever had been speaking through him.
"Seliph," Lewyn whispered through a low, hurried breath. "Take Ishtar and get out of here."
"What?" Seliph's tongue sat dull and heavy in his mouth, making it difficult to form words. "Was that… was he…?" He furrowed his brows at Lewyn—or the dragon pretending to be Lewyn. "Are you really…?"
"Go, Seliph," Lewyn urged. "I'll keep Sigurd busy for as long as I can. The Silent Dragon wants to kill me more than he wants to kill either of you, so if you make your escape now, before Sigurd's twisted soul awakens again and sees you here—"
"I'm not going anywhere," Ishtar said, standing up from her crouch. The emperor's blood stained her black gloves red. "I don't have any idea of what's happening, but if this is the creature responsible for Julius's disappearance…" Her frown turned sharp and angry. "For my prince, for His Majesty, for my family, I will stand here and fight alongside you until my dying breath."
Lewyn shook his head. "You can't beat him— "
"But we can help you distract him," Seliph said. His leg throbbed in protest at the idea, and his chest tightened with dread, but he swallowed the pain and the heartache. "The longer we keep him focused on us here, the less time he has to go after Julia or anyone else he might seek to harm. I can help you keep his attention."
"Even if it costs you your life?" Lewyn asked. "If the Liberation Army were to lose its leader—"
"There won't be a Liberation Army for much longer if I allow my father's ghost to run free with a holy weapon in his hands," Seliph said. "There's a bigger threat than the empire now. It won't be good for anyone if this 'Silent Dragon' gets what he wants, so I'm staying here, too. No matter what."
"This is why I tried to dissuade you from coming here in the first place," Lewyn muttered under his breath. "You're too much of a damned hero for your own good. But if this is your choice…fine."
Lewyn placed a hand on Seliph's shoulder, then the other on Ishtar's. Seliph quickly downed the vulnerary Arvis had given him, taking all the healing magic he could get before treading the dangerous path ahead of him.
"…Seliph…" The phantom spoke with Sigurd's raspy voice once again. His twitching and head lolling came to a slow stop. "Seliph… I will… save you… from…" Dead eyes locked onto Lewyn. "From the… dragon…"
"If you want your son back, Sigurd," Lewyn said. "You're going to have to catch him first."
Sigurd's pink eyes sharpened. "You—"
The Warp staff hanging off Lewyn's back flashed, sweeping Lewyn, Ishtar, and Seliph up in a flash of white magic and teleporting them hundreds of feet away from Sigurd. Far out of his range, but still within his line of sight.
"SELIPH!"
Ishtar opened her tome, summoning sparks of thunder magic as Sigurd charged after them. Seliph clenched his fists around his sword, steeling himself for the long night of chase ahead, praying that this would keep Julia safe.
A breath in to calm his heart, a breath out to banish his exhaustion and his fear, then…
"Come and get me, Father."
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
—
Castle Altea, The Kingdom of Altea, Archanea
Arch. Year 609
Julia shut the Book of Naga with a trembling hand.
The golden flames around her fell into ashes at her feet, blowing away in the midday breeze. The sun was warm on her rain-slicked skin, but Julia had never felt so cold.
Her father… her brother… her guardian… her uncle… her friends… her very world…
She had left them all behind. Why?! She had opened this stupid tome to save them all, not abandon them in their time of greatest need!
The scion who bears my soul for a price.
Julia gritted her teeth, glaring down at the book in her hands. She wanted to rip out its pages, stomp on its spine, kick it into the closest river and watch it drown.
No power was worth such a terrible toll.
"Princess?" Ashe's voice beside her was soft, gentle. "Are you…are you okay?"
She turned to stare at him with dull, wet eyes.
"Is that a serious question?" Felix muttered. "Of course she's not okay. None of us are."
Ashe dropped the now-empty treasure chest and folded his arms. "I'm just trying to—"
"Oh, hey! You're back!"
Up on the ramparts of the castle at their backs, a woman with a crimson ponytail waved down to them.
"Let's see: we've got Sneak-Thief, Door-Breaker, and…" the woman squinted at Julia, tapping her forefinger on her chin, "some random chick? Sheesh, you guys look terrible. Where's the rest of your motley crew?"
Julia fell to her knees and broke down into tears.
Character Bios:
Forseti: Manakete
—Wind God of Silesse and member of the Divine Dragon tribe. An irritating, selfish brat who can't keep his nose out from where it doesn't belong. One of the dragons who descended on Jugdral during the Miracle of Darna and granted the Twelve Crusaders a divine wind tome sharing his namesake (how egotistical of him) to defeat the first Loptrian Empire. Since then, he has stubbornly insisted on meddling in human affairs, even going so far as to hide himself within one of Belhalla's fallen to do so.
—Relations: Patron of Crusader Ced (deceased). Inhabitant of Lewyn (deceased, technically).
Leif: Prince
—Prince of Leonster. A driven, sometimes reckless young man fighting to liberate the Munster District from imperial occupation. Leading his own revolution in the Thracian peninsula alongside Seliph's Liberation Army in the mainland, he was able to reclaim Leonster from the conspirators who had murdered his parents in the Aed Massacre, and now vows to bring those who wronged his family to justice.
—Relations: Son of Quan and Ethlyn (both deceased). Brother of Altena. Cousin of Seliph. Nephew of Sigurd (deceased). Ward of Finn.
Tailtiu: Mage Fighter
—Former Lady of FrIege. An upbeat, rather blunt Woman who joIned with Sigurd's army after serving as a bodyguard to FatHer Claud. After beIng labeled a traitor for her COnnection to both her father, Reptor, and SigUrd's army after the BattLe of Belhalla, House Friege took her and her DaugHter cAptiVE, where ShE EveNTually died from years of torture inflicted on HEr by Hilda. But now that she has brought her abuser to justice, she can finally rest in peace under My prOtectioN.
—RELAtionS: DaughTer of Reptor (deceased). Mother of TIne and Arthur. Wife of Azelle. Sister of BlooM and Ethnia. Aunt of Ishtar and IshtorE (deceased).
This chapter really kicked my ass. No more 12k chapters from me for a good long while.
Next chapter: A meeting between old friends (and an autograph).