Chapter 64 Farron
Farron
Yes.
Yes!
YES!
The voice in my head is laughing. No, I’m laughing. It doesn’t matter.
We are one.
He’d asked me a single question as I lay there quivering, caught in a net. Watching as my loved ones were pushed back, beaten, on the brink of death.
What would you give?
I gave the same answer as last time he asked.
Everything.
I swell upward, incinerating the electrified net around me. Fire blazes up my body, but this is an entirely new experience. These flames won’t warm a hearth or cook a meal. These flames will turn my enemies’ bones to ash.
Everything in my vision is green. It’s a strange color. Nothing you’d see in a forest or meadow. It’s not fresh-grown things or even that of a sickly man’s face. This color wasn’t born in the Vale. It hasn’t existed here long.
But if that’s what it takes to destroy those who threaten my family, I will create a bonfire so bright, all the realms will dance around it and worship us.
Everyone has stopped moving. They’re looking at me curiously, as if they don’t quite know what to make of me. At the far end of the bridge, I see the Son staring with eyes like liquid night.
“Farron, no.”
My lip curls. Weak. That’s what he wants me to be. Perhaps he’s jealous of my power. I can practically smell his fear.
I thought I could do this by myself, and I was proven wrong. That madman Perth Quellos demonstrated just how weak I am on my own. When I stepped into the pool Below, I took this power to protect those I love. With the stars as my witness, I will use it.
I take a step, and power radiates within me. My limbs don’t feel like my own anymore; I am flame, flickering and blazing. Every thought is engulfed in the torrent.
In front of me, I see the net thrower. A woman, her skin the color of sage. Her horns carve over her head and through her long hair.
“Stay back,” she snarls, all the maniacal joy gone.
I have no time for her. This is about one person and one person alone.
I pulse my fingers, testing how well these flames answer to my command. They come easily, like old friends, hungry for my attention. Good.
With a snap of my wrist, a whip made of green flame cracks outward.
Flames shaped like clawed hands writhe along it.
The underfae woman screams as it snaps right over her face.
The flaming hands leap onto her body, tearing with their blazing claws.
I’m laughing again, so loud it almost drowns out her sweet cries.
I take a deep inhale. The smell of sizzling hair and burning fabric graces my nose.
She’s down on her knees now, wriggling in the dirt, trying to put out the flames.
I hit her only on one side; half her face is charred flesh, the skin drooping downward like candle wax.
Her hair has burned away, leaving her horn scorched.
That’s dealt with.
I cast a glance at the others who would threaten my family. Faustrius. His eyes are wide, body trembling. His sword nearly falls from his hands.
I have no time for him either. I throw out my hand, a cyclone of fire whipping outward. There’s a woman’s scream and a flash of gold in the corner of my peripheral vision, but I don’t bother to look.
This is about the one person who needs to die.
Far down the bridge, I see Sira.
There, the voice purrs in my mind. Kill her, but not the boy.
My lip curls in a sneer. No.
What?
I don’t have time for Sira or to argue with this demanding presence. This is about one person and one person only.
Perth Quellos will die this day. At all costs.
He’s standing in the middle of the bridge, Keldarion trapped in ice before him.
“Farron! Free me!” Kel screams.
I walk past. The Winter blood can wait.
Quellos takes a step back, but he is at the very edge of the bridge. Below him is only bubbling lava. If he was smart, he’d jump in now and save himself the pain.
“Farron, stop! Stay with us!” a woman’s voice. Rosalina.
I glance over my shoulder, frustrated about the plea for my attention.
She’s standing near the passageway we entered from.
Dayton, Ezryn, and an unconscious Kairyn—or what used to be Kairyn—are tangled in her golden briars.
A second later, Cas appears in his own purple thorns.
At my feet, Kel is wrapped in vines and tugged across the bridge toward them.
I turn back to Quellos. Don’t they understand? This is how I protect them.
There’s a sharp tug on my leg, and I fall to my knees. A golden briar is weaving around me, attempting to pull me away. A growl sounds through my throat, and I slam a flaming hand on the briar. It withers to ash. Rosalina cries out behind me.
She’s hurt. Quellos must have hurt her.
I will protect them from him.
Quellos falls to his buttocks, trying to scramble away from me. “Y-you don’t know what you’re messing with, boy.” He holds up his metal gauntlet and shoots out an icy blast.
My flames eviscerate it with a single swing of my hand.
“How did you get that power?” Sira screeches from her far spot on the bridge. Faustrius has evaded my flames and stands behind her, dragging a near-lifeless Aquila. “You thief! You rotten, tricky bandit! That is not for the likes of you!”
Her voice grates on me. I shoot a cyclone of fire toward her. As it’s about to hit, shadows spring up in the form of a shield, deflecting my blow.
Kill her. Kill her now! the voice inside me rages.
Not until this is done.
Quellos crawls toward her. “Mistress, help me!”
“There’s no one to help you,” I snarl and slam my flaming foot down on his chest. He gasps, clawing at his robes as they begin to burn.
“Listen to me, Quellos. I want you to picture one thing and one thing only as I take the life from you. Picture my mother, Niamh, Princess of Autumn. Picture the blood that spattered from her heart as you pierced her with that lance. Picture her eyes going dim because you stole the life from her.”
“Help me, mistress!” he shrieks.
“You’ve lost, Sira.” Rosalina’s voice is clear and strong. “We’ve stopped the volcano. Your servant, Perth Quellos, is now in our custody. Faustrius, it’s not too late to change the course of your future. Fix Kairyn and—”
Faustrius steps forward and casts a glance into the churning depths. He furrows his brow. “You have only delayed the inevitable. You have but mere days until the mountain wakes.”
“Stop the volcano in exchange for Quellos’s life,” Keldarion says.
How dare he entertain the idea of letting this pathetic man live?
Faustrius shakes his head. “The mountain has tasted fire. There is no force in the Vale that can stop it now.”
“You’re on your own, Perth,” Sira says lowly. Shadows wrap around her, Faustrius, and Aquila until they disappear from view.
But I care not for them or for this mountain of fire.
Fool! You lost her!
The voice in my head is among a chorus of other voices, screaming my name. Begging me to stop.
I would not stop if the fate of the world depended on it. Not until my vengeance has been quenched.
I sink down, my body blanketing him in a phantasmal glow.
“Now, picture her son ripping open your flesh and sending flames skittering along your bones. Picture your blood boiling. Picture my fingers running lines of fire down your skull. Picture this and know that any who wrong Farron, Autumn blood, will meet the same fate.”
“No, please, no, no, no, Noooooo—” Quellos screams as I do exactly what I promised.
One voice cuts through my mind. I recognize it as the Son’s. Do not do this, Farron. You will never be the same.
No, I agree. I will be better.
With a wicked smile on my face, I ignite. Quellos’s agonized cries only make my fire burn brighter.
With each piece of flesh falling away to ash, I swear I can hear my mother crying. She must be so happy that I avenged her.
My flames burn as bright as a bonfire even when there is nothing but charred bones beneath my fingers. I don’t stop until the bones are soot.
Euphoria rushes through me when I finally sit back, letting my flames simmer. I stare at my hands, black with bits of Quellos’s corrupted soul, and laugh.
“It’s done!” I cry. “It’s done!”
I avenged Mother. I saved them. Again, I am powerful enough to choose who lives or dies. There is nothing I cannot do with the Green Flame.
Turning around, I look to the passageway where my family awaits. I smile at them, so excited to hear their celebratory cries.
But no one is celebrating. They stare at me as they might stare upon a stranger.
Except for Dayton. He won’t meet my gaze. He turns away and begins walking back through the passage.
I saved them. I protected them.
And I’ll do it again, whether they understand or not.