29. Chapter Twenty-Nine #2
Charmaine’s fire raged near the cages where the remaining humans were kept.
William cared for them, looking over his shoulder once to catch Nicholas’ eyes.
He was fearful and determined. Nicholas didn’t want to let him down and, perhaps, deep, deep down, he wanted to be more than the monstrous shade others made him out to be.
He attacked the closest disciple that had her claws dug into one of the unfortunate patients used in the ritual.
She kept chanting even as he snapped her neck.
When she dropped, the strings connected to the mortal’s chest didn’t dissipate.
They flickered momentarily, but the disciples continued their chanting, including those battling against Henry, Evera, and Arden.
He took the mortal by the waist and tugged.
The strings flickered in and out. The skin along his chest pulled, threatening to rip him apart, but one last struggle from Nicholas had the strings snapping.
The man dropped into his arms. Across the lake, a portal came into being, little more than a thin white cut in the world.
They truly were opening a portal, and he wondered if this led to the plane of monsters or somewhere worse.
Two disciples nearby released their captives.
Their ritual had left the mortals utterly defenseless, stuck, becoming the fuel for a portal.
The disciples stood together, calling upon the mountain to summon a rockslide.
The boulders tumbled toward William and his patients.
A wall of roots erupting from the soil cut him off.
Snarling, he tore those roots to shreds, the power within him so turbulent he had no trouble sending the pieces flying at the disciples and calling upon the avalanche.
The rocks hovered midair, leaving William and his patients shocked beneath its shadow.
Nicholas sent those rocks flying at the disciples.
The disciples summoned roots to create a shield. Smirking, he pressed the rocks all around them, forcing the pieces to compress more and more around the shield until the disciples within shrieked. With a sickening crunch, he crushed them.
The lake rippled. The water washed over the edge in growing waves, then a force sent him to the ground.
He recognized that power, Fearworn’s, the same he had used against them in the forest during the war.
Through the chaos, the disciples shrieked higher and higher.
The ritual—it was ending, he felt it, as if the world itself cried at what was being done.
He rose against it, pressing and pressing, the power converging at the point of his back to ram into the phantom force.
Then it all shattered, and he leapt to find the portal sparked to life, brilliant in its blinding white hue.
The mortals screamed, their pain so palpable he felt it, like someone tore him limb from limb.
Blood seeped from their orifices and their skin shriveled as if their insides had gone to mush.
Seven disciples remained. He leapt for three on the farther side of the lake, leaving the remaining four to his companions.
The beasts scattered, and he commanded the soil to dissolve into quicksand.
The disciples sank, their claws ripping through the murk.
Two escaped while the last couldn’t overcome his commands and sank to their demise.
One mortal dropped, heaving for breath along the lake shore.
Without so many of the disciples’ chanting, the strings connecting to the portal withered.
Evera and Arden killed two more disciples, leading to another mortal dropping.
Nicholas surged after the disciples nearest him, taking their lightning as if it was his own.
He morphed the power into a beast rising above his head to snap its jaws, then sent it hurtling forward.
The disciple became little more than a smoldering corpse.
The remaining disciple met Nicholas in battle with a whip of fire.
He dodged the crackling whip that sent the grass up in flames.
Those flames licked his fingertips, becoming an extended part of his form.
He raised them higher into a wave that cast the cave in orange light.
The disciple surged backwards, unable to escape the destruction.
The fire scorched through him, his shriek dying out with the flames that left plumes of smoke rising high.
The last of the mortals dropped, the strings dissipating entirely.
Most of them weren’t moving. Their milky white eyes were blank, and bodies were little more than gray husks.
The portal flickered in and out of existence.
He felt its energy waning, little more than a line of sparks that would soon snuff out.
They won, in a manner. Lives were spared, some were lost, and deep in the lake, Fearworn slept.
Nicholas dared not touch the water. Fearworn would defend himself and, before that, they should get the surviving mortals far from the shoreline.
He lugged one of the breathing mortals onto his back to trek around the lake.
Evera brought another, both of them laying the mortals near the surviving five huddled by the cliff side.
None spoke, the fear palpable in their eyes, so overtaken by what they went through that they were speechless.
He preferred that. He wasn’t in the mood to be answering questions.
William took to checking every body, even if all knew it was pointless.
Nicholas followed, always a step behind, watching as he settled his fingers against each throat.
They came to save his patients, and he had to face the reality that more were lost than spared.
Nicholas wasn’t bothered by that. He cared about William, the way his eyes darkened and took on that same hue from the war when he tried so hard to close himself off.
Then that darkness shivered after he took an elderly woman with a soft face into his arms. There, he sobbed and closed her eyes.
Nicholas stood nearby, uncertain of what to do. He wanted to take William into his arms, ask why he cared so much. They survived, and that was what mattered. They had more work to do, to finish Fearworn off before he could do worse.
“William, there are those left who need you,” Henry said in a calming voice he envied.
He didn’t have brothers to guide or protect him, though he was glad William did, that maybe he could let someone else take the lead from time to time because he wouldn’t always be what William needed.
Being okay with the thought shocked him.
“For what it’s worth, saving some is better than none, isn’t it?” Arden muttered. A poor attempt at help, which Evera whispered, but William nodded.
“I appreciate the help you’ve all given. I…” William paled. He dropped the woman, barely made it onto his feet when Nicholas felt them; claws piercing his waist. “Nicholas!”
Fearworn’s decaying teeth remained strong.
They tore into his shoulder and then there was pain, a shrieking agony as his body went cold.
Fearworn yanked him toward the lake. William reached for his hand, the most he could do as he felt life leave his body.
The last he saw was William’s terrified expression before he and Fearworn plunged into shadows.