Chapter 6 #2
So, she gripped him by the shoulders and spun him around.
..and he suddenly understood why it took magic to defeat the Acolyte’s power.
Because an entire troupe of darksouls had appeared among them, right there at his back.
Like the undead, they emerged from the snow as if they’d been waiting, hiding beneath the thick layers to avoid the sunlight.
They looked frozen, like corpses dug up from the tundra with their monstrous claws tipped in ice, their bared fangs, and their skin, oh gods, their skin...for it shone with black lines that revealed the spoiled power in their blood.
Shadow wolves soared to land among them, an entire pack of winged monsters that rippled as they moved, as if they truly were made of the absence of light.
Nomage soldiers fell in their wake, as the wolves howled and snarled and dove for their throats.
Blood stained the battlefield.
It was a sea of steaming red.
“Magic!” Soraya shouted. “Use your godsdamned magic!”
She thrust out her hands, lips moving in an invocation as she sent a blast of wind barreling into the nomages.
They went sprawling, narrowly avoiding the shadow wolves that had lunged.
..and it was enough that Soraya herself dove forward, borrowed blade and all, and cut the head of the closest wolf clean off.
The sight of her...magnificent.
Fearless.
It was everything Arawn wanted to be.
Everything you are, he reminded himself, for he was Arawn Laroux, Crown Prince of Lordach...
And, like Soraya...he refused to be afraid.
Something exploded behind him.
A blast of dark magic, a darksoul that had shadows for a face, and claws as long as knives where his fingers should have been.
It moved through the sea of soldiers like a wraith.
Mine, Arawn’s magic hissed. His hand curled over his sword as his very veins crackled with Vivorr’s power. As it begged to be unleashed upon the monster before him.
Guide me, Arawn prayed. Show me the way.
And without a second thought...with a prayer on his lips... he could not fail, he must never fail..
Arawn called fire to his sword and dove into the fight.
He lived.
But so many others joined the long list of dead.
Arawn stood beside Soraya in the Citadel’s courtyard, blood still steaming on his sword. He had char marks on his palms, and he smelled like smoke, and deep in his veins...
A weariness slid over his soul in a cold embrace.
He could feel it...the price of using his power. He could feel it in a way he never had before. Like the embers of his own fire had dimmed, and he’d need to sleep for days to bring them back to burning again.
Like magic of its own, a deathly calm had swept over the Expanse as daylight arrived, and the darkness was chased away. The darksouls fled along with it, soaring back to the safety of their hideaway behind the shadowstorm.
Arawn glanced to Soraya.
She had blood splattered across her face, and a gaping cut on her neck. Her cloak was tattered, and she shivered as the icy wind whipped through the courtyard, for her warming runes had long since been shredded by claws and fangs...but she lived.
She lived, and so did he, which meant they had earned their swords.
But first...
They would remember their dead.
There were tears in Soraya’s eyes, but she blinked them away as the King arrived, carrying with him a bundle of swords.
They had not yet been cleaned of the blood that now crusted upon them, for to do so would be to remove the signs of their final fight.
Their bravery, as they fell in war, fighting for the almighty Five.
Arawn stared at those swords, as his father paused in front of the Sacred tree. The ice sparkled on its branches. The sky shifted from black to a winter-kissed pink and blue, as if the storm had subsided...just for this moment.
“Immy, Child of Dhysis,” the King said. It was so quiet, the name echoed across the courtyard. Somewhere behind him, he heard a sob ring out. The king didn’t even flinch as he plunged her sword deep into the snow.
“Loren, Child of Aristra.”
A raven cawed and soared south from the neighboring cliffside, carrying the names of the dead as the king drove in another sword.
“Kelsea, Child of Avane.”
It was followed by muttered prayers, the very same ones that left Arawn’s lips as he asked the gods to guide the fallen home.
The list went on, until six swords joined the others. All of them were seasoned warriors, Knights who’d given their lives to this war...until their final battle.
Such was their way.
And as the snow fell, gathering upon tearstained cheeks and bloodstained hilts...the Sacred prayed. To their gods, and to the gods of the fallen, they sent up whispers of offering as they released their souls, one by one, into the Ehver.
And when it was over...
Arawn stayed.
Until his legs grew weary, and the warming runes on his cloak began to grow dim.
He stayed.
He didn’t realize Soraya was beside him until her hand brushed his. A jolt of fire went through him. He glanced at her only for a moment, enough to see the kohl from her eyes now ran in streaks down her skin.
“Sometimes,” Soraya whispered, so softly he almost didn’t hear it, “I wonder if this is all there is.”
She looked skyward, tipping her chin to the snow as it fell like ashes upon her blood-flecked face.
Arawn shivered. The last of his warming runes winked out. “What do you mean?”
Her breath formed a cloud before her. The wind tugged at the strands of dark hair that had come loose from her braid. She looked small, and weary, her shoulders slumped instead of rolled back the way they were before the war.
And in this moment...she no longer looked like a warrior.
Now, she only looked like a girl. One who would carry today’s battle with her, all the way to the grave.
“We were raised for this,” Soraya said. “Death. Destruction. This gods’ war that has become ours. It was all I ever wanted, to fight in that battle. We’ve earned our swords, Arawn. We survived. And it should feel right.”
She looked at him. Through him, until he swore she was staring at the boy he once was beneath. The one that had questions. Doubts. The one that dared to dream, until he realized it was all just another stronghold. Another way to sin against his gods.
“I imagine it’s normal,” Arawn said, his voice raw and weak. “To feel this way...the first time.”
“Perhaps,” Soraya said. “But do you ever wonder...”
She paused, and fresh tears slid down her face.
He didn’t blame her for them.
They’d killed tonight.
Side by side, they’d taken lives, and even though those lives belonged to darksouls and shadow wolves...even though they were enemies, to the Sacred and to their gods...
Arawn still felt that trembling shudder in his bones when it was all said and done.
The kind that came when a person looked another being in the face and silenced it.
He’d done that. He’d removed a living thing from this world with his own hands. With his own blade.
“Sometimes...I wonder if the gods truly see us at all,” Soraya said. “If they care for us, the people we are beneath our purpose...or if it’s all just a lie.”
They were dangerous thoughts, blasphemous things. Even worse, to say them out loud.
And she seemed to know it, too, because before she could say another word, she turned on her heel and left him alone in the snow.