Chapter 20 #2
I reached out with my free hand not currently holding Undead Domination steady and stroked her glacial scales. “Taking off to a safe haven, just leaving this one battlefield, isn’t the solution. You’re a tactical genius like Vax, you must see it as well, sweetheart.”
She made a disgruntled dragon sound, not liking me calling that out one bit.
I smiled and nuzzled against her for a moment.
“Through all this madness, through everything else, this thing between the four of us has given me so much joy, breathed life into me in a way—ironic, yes? Maybe. It’s given me a place when the rest of the world was screaming at me.
Thank you for giving that to me. It means more than I can even explain right now—especially on a battlefield.
And I’m sorry, little dragon. I’m so sorry to do this under these circumstances, but…
I love you. I love you so much, Evira.” I stepped back.
“I’ll take care of this. I’ll fix it. Tell the others. ”
“Very good boy indeed.”
I jolted at the sound of that voice, and spun to see Ruxnoth had just teleported in.
“You did this!” I yelled.
“This was fated. You just failed to accept that. Now you have no choice.”
I growled and started for him.
His hand shot out, wrapping around my throat.
“Calm yourself,” he rumbled, squeezing hard enough that I not only spluttered, but lost my hold on Undead Domination, and those I’d been holding dropped onto the grass, freed.
Immediately, they burst back into battle and headed for Evira.
I roared as it drove her away from me, as she cried out when they burned and hit her with blast after blast.
“Stop… this,” I rasped to Ruxnoth. “You have… the power.”
“Yes, I certainly do. But I also can’t waste that when Sanctus needs me to conserve it. Unless, of course, you are now ready to assist.”
“You just… heard what… I said… to Evira.”
“And yet you can understand my need to confirm with the way you have been recently.”
“Yes. I’ll… go. Now. Just… spare them.”
“Excellent. Then there is only one thing left to see to before I bring you to where you really belong.”
“One… thing?”
He loosened his grip, but instead of an answer coming, he flinched as green power radiated out everywhere in a rush, knocking out magic every which way.
Then Ryker Morgan materialized, palms live with that special defensive power of his that could cut through the magic of others.
Ruxnoth’s remained, though. And while Ryker had been known to impact Celestial power too, it was the gray tint enveloping Ruxnoth that made it impossible. It was the same thing preventing him from being able to cut out the amber glow radiating off me. Necromantic power. Death magic.
“Cease!” he called out over the battlefield. “These are unauthorized acts! Stand down immediately!”
Eruptions of power appeared all around the area, and then dozens of Guardian Movement members materialized as well.
The combination of Ryker’s magic knockout and so many Guardians arriving had Temperance teleporting away. The Guardian members went after them, and Ryker turned to deal with the even more dire situation that had come out of all of that.
“Celestial beings are not gods here,” he told Ruxnoth.
“That is their mistake.”
“Release him.”
“I second that,” another familiar voice rumbled.
Really. Fucking. Dangerously.
He’d used all the chaos as a cover to come in here, and as Ruxnoth shifted his weight, moving to the side so he could see both powerful beings at the same time, I took in my dad now standing there, crimson magic live and raging.
“Sylas, careful,” Ryker warned.
“That’s quite the ask, Ry. An egomaniacal psychopath has his hands on my son, is causing him pain, has created this fucking mess right here, and he’s compromised everything for Winter. And yet, I should be the careful one?”
“Dad… don’t,” I croaked as Ruxnoth tightened his grip around my throat again. “I’ve got… this.”
“All right, of course. You’ve got it.” He looked over at Ryker. “And of course you’re right, I should be careful, calm the fuck down. Why not, right?”
What was… he snuffed his magic out and dropped his hands.
Ryker eyed him, but I thought I saw something exchanged between them, some look so slight it was barely perceptible, maybe a barely-there hand signal too.
Then Dad looked up at Ruxnoth. “So here you are in the flesh. Well, necromantically enhanced flesh. I can feel the protection radiating off you. Fuck, it’s intense.
Lucky you.” He started pacing up and down.
“So, your only ask is to use my son to power your leech-like metaphysical construct? Is that right?”
“Simplistically put,” Ruxnoth responded.
“Hmm. Do you not live up to your revered status after all?” Ruxnoth reached out with his free hand and stroked my jaw.
I saw Dad cringe, hating me being touched, especially like this, by him.
Somehow, and I really didn’t know how, he didn’t react.
“Do you know what I think, Almighty Necromancer?”
“What’s that?” Dad ground out.
“Your son eclipses you in all things. You have been rendered irrelevant. An ego as staggering as yours must burn painfully with struggling to reconcile that reality, no?”
“Yeah, a power-hungry motherfucker like you wouldn’t understand anything like this, so you missing such a key thing here is no surprise. Well, the other key thing being your grip on reality, of course.”
Ruxnoth’s eyes narrowed.
Dad’s narrowed back. “Our love for our son transcends everything.”
Wait… our?
Were they… had they—
In a burst of purple flame, Mom materialized right beside Dad. She thrust a wave of her Dark Fae magic at Evira, Grandpa, and The Shadowed, sweeping them away with teleportation. “She will be well,” I heard her say with a smile at me, of Evira.
And then it all happened so fast.
Dad gave a nod to Ryker.
In the next second, he burst beside Dad and clutched his shoulder.
Dad’s power flamed into being on his palms and he snatched Ruxnoth’s arm in two places, his power burning into him as he channeled Ryker, trying to break the necromantic protection on Ruxnoth.
Then a concealment spell that had been undetectable even from me and Ruxnoth dropped, and I gasped as Vax appeared.
He fired his citrine magic all around Ruxnoth’s boots, and then he was using his Basilisk vibrational resonance to bury Ruxnoth several inches into the earth.
Down, down, down.
As Ruxnoth roared and had to release me in a bid to fight it, Father then materialized right behind him with Kai to his side, clutching Father’s shoulder.
The shocks kept on coming as Kai’s rose-gold magic flamed as he drew on Father, like Dad was doing with Ryker.
Kai’s incantation was a special melding of two anti-Celestial spells I’d heard of before.
Rarities. And they shouldn’t be able to be combined, especially not with the necromantic aspect from Dad’s end. But… that was it… Vax had been with them working on dangerous spellwork. They’d employed his vibrational resonance to fuse it.
Ruxnoth roared as Kai called out, “Zheiren val’kara. Nuriel thaz’en.” Let shadow precede the light.
“Fools!” Ruxnoth snarled.
"Mors omnes tangit," Kai uttered next. That was my dad’s spell, high-level Necromancy against a Celestial being. Death touches all.
I saw the gray film dissolve, then. The necromancers had lost their hold on Ruxnoth, the protection had broken.
At that moment, Kai’s invocation of their joint spell delivered slash after slash across Ruxnoth’s chest, making him bleed.
Kai continued, his voice growing louder and more vehement. “Kael’shara ven’torii. Zhurai ek’tol kai’neth.” Remove the chains of heaven. I am older still.
“Cassius… such a disappointment,” Ruxnoth ground out. “You could have wielded unchecked power. Instead you became one of these lessers.”
“Coming from a madman masquerading as a god, that means nothing at all. And now you’ve touched my son, your death will be spectacular, heathen.”
I stumbled back between Vax and Mom, watching the insane scene before me that I couldn’t reconcile for the life of me.
It took me time to even realize that there was now a film up, hiding what was going on from the rest of campus. Purple, so it had to be Mom’s Dark Fae illusionary magic.
Mom helped Vaxan now he’d driven Ruxnoth’s legs as deep into the earth as was possible without interfering with the spell going on, and she encircled Ruxnoth’s legs with her Wraith frost too, entrenching them there.
A chill rolled down my spine when Ruxnoth smirked to himself as his blood pooled on the ground.
His eyes flickered unstably with his midnight-blue power.
He was invoking something.
I called out a warning—but it was too late.
He used that warped power of his to transform the blood into what looked like two metal snakes. They slithered around, making Mom and I jump back, and Vax choke in shock.
Then one drove into the frost, another burrowing into the ground.
Digging him out.
Fucking digging him out.
Ryker conjured some green shimmering binds and set about trying to confine Ruxnoth that way.
But in the midst of it, the bastard shot out his hand and wrapped it around Dad’s throat.
“Sylas!” Mom cried.
“Curses,” Father ground out, blinking and clearly struggling as Kai continued to channel him while his incantation continued ferociously.
Dad threw out his own hand and snagged Ruxnoth’s throat too, and he invoked Desiccation Curse. Now the necromantic protection was broken, it turned his skin to a gray tinge, working to desiccate him.
Ruxnoth let out a choked laugh. “Valiant effort. You’ve revealed a great deal. Showed your hand sufficiently.”
What the—
He swung his head toward me. “The one thing left remaining? It’s this, deathborn.”
It happened too fast then.
His magic sparked on his hand.
He broke Ryker’s bindings.
And then the Spiral Thorn materialized in his right hand, he yanked Dad up close, then drove it deep into his chest.
“No!”
That scream of pain and terror, I realized was mine.
As everything came to a standstill in my mind.
As agony tore through me.
As it all fell down.
Dad choked, spluttering up blood.
Ruxnoth smirked. “I have a blood connection to your son, so it will override your necromantic protections against suffering such a mundane death.”
No. No.
“Fuck!” Kai yelled, then turned to Ryker, “Get Ari. Now. Her True Celestial power could—”
“That wound is fatal, fools,” Ruxnoth rumbled. He yanked out the blade, then kicked Dad away, making me scream.
Before he hit the ground, a blur cut across the area, and then Pops was there.
“No,” he cried, catching Dad in his arms and cradling him. “Fuck, no. No, it’s okay, you’ll be okay,” he started uttering frantically.
I went to burst forward, but Vax snatched me back, his insane perception registering a magical bind lashing out from Ruxnoth.
“Winter,” he uttered, stroking my hair, my face, trying to comfort me.
“Go! Get him out of here,” Mom told Vax. “Please, baby boy,” she urged to me directly when I struggled to get to Dad who was bleeding everywhere and choking.
Dying.
He was dying.
Pops was distraught and couldn’t keep it in check, something I was right there with him on, only Vax’s touches grounding me even a little, when even that shouldn’t have been possible.
“Velra,” Pops gasped, staring out at Mom, tears streaming down his face. His gaze flicked to me, and he closed his mouth, then squeezed his eyes shut.
“He’s… is he…” I rasped. “Pops? Is Dad… is…”
“His heart has stopped.”
Father burst forward, while Ryker moved into his place to allow Kai to channel him and continue the spell.
Father skidded to his knees beside Dad and started shocking him with his white power.
Over and over and over.
Nothing… nothing happened.
Pops buried his face in Dad’s shoulder, stroking his unmoving form.
Father stared out at Mom and I, and a sob wrenched from her, as tears filled Father’s eyes.
And I screamed.
I fucking screamed.
Vax held me to him through it.
A roar from Ruxnoth cut into it all.
And then his power surged.
He released a mammoth surge that ripped Kai and Ryker from him, and sent them spinning out across the grounds.
Then he leapt up into the air, his wings materializing. Deep blue shimmering things that still looked like angel wings—despite everything else about him to contrary—that I was seeing for the first time.
His eyes locked on me.
And then he flew toward me, ripped me from Vax, and soared us up into the sky out of their reach, before his magic wrapped around us, teleporting us away.
The last things I heard were broken sobs and wretched screams.
To be continued in UNbrOKEN