Chapter 20 #2
I felt her press at my mind, but I didn’t let her in.
“I’ll kill you,” I said, biting out every word as I gathered my strength.
“No, you’ll kill tens of thousands before this is over,” she said. “But you won’t kill me.”
My gaze roamed over her body, searching madly for any hint of red on her skin, but there was none. “No,” I whispered.
She prodded my mind again, and a small part of me wanted to see what she was trying to show me. I needed to see it, to find the loophole that would show me how she was wrong. I’d learned by now that visions didn’t turn out the way we anticipated, so I needed to see this for myself.
I opened my mind shield a crack, and images of the vision I’d seen the day in the temple flooded my head, but this time, I saw things I hadn’t before.
A ball of fire rose into the air before bursting into a shape I couldn’t make out.
As I’d seen before, the army of symbionts stretched out over acres of battlefield, but this time I saw them charge.
They crashed into our own troops and chaos reigned as soldiers fought desperately against the creatures, trying not to be injured, trying not to be turned.
Then I saw myself as I rose above them over the battlefield, darkness at my back.
My eyes glowed red as shadows loomed behind me, and I felt myself draw on a terrible power that stirred inside me.
It awoke, stretched, then unleashed itself on the symbionts until each crumpled where it stood.
The oozing substance of the creatures leaked from the men and women, citizens of Thasia and Rowe alike, as their bodies lay in puddles of blue as far as I could see. Unmoving. Dead.
“No!” I screamed. “I wouldn’t…” But the words lacked conviction.
“You would if it was the only way to defeat my army,” Magdalene said, and there was an almost manic glee in her tone. “You, Cyra. You’re my ultimate tool to rid the world of excess mortals.”
“No!” I screamed again as my power pulsed, sending a shockwave across the field.
A weight dropped onto my shoulder, and I turned to see the little demoni with the odd blink crouched there. It hissed at Magdalene, and she recoiled away from it.
That’s when I knew what I had to do.
I felt the power of the Nemesis gather around me as the temperature dropped and the sky darkened, much like it had so many months ago in Gendris when Bressen had called the demoni to aid him during the coup.
At least I assumed it was the power of the Nemesis. It was like nothing I’d felt before, and Magdalene’s eyes widened in fear.
“What are you doing?” she asked, her voice slightly hysterical.
I didn’t answer but continued to let the power fill me. The little demoni shifted on my shoulder, and I sensed the creature’s excitement as black smoke swirled around my feet and a commotion rose within it.
I was calling the wrath, and they were obeying.
I felt the icy chill of the smoke as it curled around me, but it didn’t burn me as it had in Gendris when I’d tried to get to Bressen.
The power coursing through me was like a beast awakening, like death stretching its wings, and I wondered if this was what Bressen experienced when he called the wrath.
I caught Magdalene’s gaze as I readied to send the demoni straight at her, and I reveled in her terror as she stumbled backward, nearly tripping and falling.
I took a step toward her.
Bressen had spared Glenora. He’d sent her to Revenmyer rather than letting the demoni tear her apart, but Magdalene wouldn’t be so lucky. I wouldn’t be so merciful. I saw that the way to keep from killing thousands in the future was to kill one person now.
The creature on my shoulder tensed as it prepared to launch itself at Magdalene as soon as its brethren emerged from the smoke. They were almost here, and a thrill surged up my body as I sensed my victory.
That’s when Magdalene turned and ran.
Bressen
“Get back through the portal!” Magdalene’s voice echoed around the field as I tried to stand, and I heard true terror in it.
Next to me, Sandrian was already on his feet. He hesitated only a second before he turned and ran back toward the portal. I lunged forward on my knees to grab his ankle, but I missed and ended up on my stomach. Fighting through pain and dizziness, I pushed myself up again.
The fog had started to clear so I could see partially across the field now.
The bodies of symbionts littered the ground, and the gargoyles were scattered across the area as they fought the last remaining creatures.
I made out Maziren’s small form still fighting as well, and I scanned the field desperately for Cyra.
My heart lurched in relief when I found her off to the side.
The vestiges of some kind of black smoke curled at her feet as they mingled with the dissipating white mist.
Ahead, Sandrian raced for a new portal Magdalene had drawn on this side of the rift in the earth. She’d somehow closed the other one.
I pushed myself to my feet and scanned the field. Aidan was running for the portal as well, and one desperate thought filled my mind. We couldn’t let Morland escape with Aidan’s body.
I picked up my sword and was about to run for the portal when Talyn appeared next to me. I felt something snap onto my wrist, and I looked down in confusion.
She’d put a caronium cuff on me. “What the-”
I grunted as her fist slammed into my gut and the sword was pulled from my hand.
“I’m so sorry, Lord Bressen,” she said a second before the world turned upside down.
Tandem Read: Clash of Stone and Steel (Bk 3), Chapters 34-35