Chapter 46 #2
Vorith flows across the battlefield like wind given form, appearing behind enemy lines to strike before dissolving back into invisibility.
Her speed lets her travel faster than human eyes can follow, each materialization marked by another Authority soldier collapsing with shock frozen on their face.
Nyassa controls the western approach with water that bends to laws she writes in the moment. Rain becomes ice as it falls. Moisture drawn from the very air blinds enemies at crucial moments. Her power moves like deadly choreography, beautiful and terrible in equal measure.
Authority soldiers fight with the fury of cornered animals who understand their cage is closing. They've formed defensive squares bristling with spears, creating islands of resistance that our people are focused on breaking.
At the center of the largest formation stands Commander Drayeth.
Fresh dents mark his breastplate where weapons have found their mark but haven’t penetrated deep enough to wound him.
His sword drips with blood that could belong to any of the bodies scattered nearby, and his voice carries across the courtyard despite the surrounding din, rallying troops who must know they're fighting a losing battle.
“Hold your positions! The High Commander's orders stand!”
The irony might be tragic if it weren't so futile. His High Commander lies dead in shadow's embrace, carried by the brother who ended his reign.
“I should be down there,” Varam says weakly. He's leaning against the wall, his face still pale, but his eyes track the battle with professional interest.
“You should be resting. When I healed Sacha, his shadows helped. You didn’t have that, so I had to draw on your strength.” The healing cost Varam as much as it cost me. His recovery will take time, and pushing himself now could undo everything I've done.
“We end this now.” Sacha’s voice is crisp, his eyes on the chaos below.
He sets me down carefully, then steps forward until he stands at the ledge's edge, and the shadows still cradling his brother's body move with him.
The sunlight catches on the bloodstains on his clothes, the exhaustion etched into his features, but his bearing is unmistakably regal.
This is the High Prince of Meridian, not the man who killed his brother.
“See me.” Although he doesn’t shout, his voice reaches every single person below us.
One by one people turn. A Veinwarden points upward. More faces turn toward our position. The sound of clashing weapons begins to fade as the battle slows, then stops entirely. Everyone—friend and foe alike—stares up at us.
Sacha raises his arms, and the shadows holding Sereven rise with them, displaying the body of the Authority High Commander.
Authority soldiers see their leader’s lifeless form. Our people see their High Prince.
“Your High Commander is dead. Your chain of command has been broken. Lay down your weapons, or Blackvault will be your tomb.”
Commander Drayeth’s face drains of color as he stares up at him. His expression cycles through disbelief, horror, and finally desperate rage. For several heartbeats he stands completely motionless, as though he’s struggling to process information that contradicts everything he believes.
“High Commander Sereven cannot be defeated. He commands the Authority of law itself. He serves the greater order that will not be denied!”
But even as denial pours from his lips, Authority soldiers around him begin abandoning their positions. Spears clatter against the ground. Helmets roll away from heads bowed in defeat. Hands rise in the universal gesture of surrender.
Drayeth watches his command fall apart and makes the choice of a fanatic confronted with the death of everything he believes.
Rather than accept the evidence in front of his eyes, he raises his sword above his head and charges across the courtyard toward our position, attacking his own soldiers as he moves.
“Traitors! Cowards! Stand and fight for the Authority! Stand and fight for order!”
His blade cuts down the nearest soldier, a young man who had just begun to kneel.
Blood sprays across the stones as Drayeth continues his mad charge, striking at anyone within reach.
His own people scatter before him, no longer Authority soldiers but terrified individuals trying to escape a madman's blade.
He makes it perhaps twenty steps before they stop running from him. A crossbow bolt takes him in the shoulder, spinning him around. Another catches him in the chest. A third finds his throat.
He’s cut down by his own soldiers.
Nobody moves, and silence settles across the entire courtyard. I find myself holding my breath, waiting to see what will happen next. The only sounds are the distant crackle of dying fires and the soft moans of the wounded.
And then the soldiers all drop to their knees, heads bowed.
Through our bond, I feel a change in Sacha. The grief is still there, and always will be, but purpose flows through him as well now. He’s changing before my eyes. From weapon to leader, from a man who could kill his brother to one that will heal a realm fractured by decades of hatred.
“Secure the prisoners. They fought under orders from the Authority. We will treat them better than they would have treated us.” His voice carries across the courtyard, and the soldiers don’t resist as our people move among them, taking their weapons and securing their hands with hastily torn material from clothes.
The war is over.
I feel it through every fiber of my being. The summons that brought me to this world, the fear that shaped every day since I arrived, the war that cost so many lives and demanded so much sacrifice … it’s over. Really, truly over. The knowledge leaves me lightheaded and strangely empty.
What do we do now? What comes after a lifetime of fighting?
“What happens now?”
Sacha looks at his brother’s face, then across the courtyard where enemies kneel in surrender, and friends tend their wounded.
His expression carries an exhaustion that reaches far beyond the physical.
It’s a bone deep weariness that comes from reaching the end of a road traveled through darkness for longer than anyone should ever have had to experience.
“Now? Now we discover whether we understand ruling with compassion better than they understood ruling with fear.”