Chapter 24
KHAELOR
The very bones of Venn Manor shriek.
It is a literal, agonizing howl tearing through the masonry as Vanguard siege engines pulverize the ward-stones in the grand vestibule. The heavy, anchoring gold light threaded through the walls, chokes and dies, drowning the corridors in the sickening, necrotic violet of my own starving curse.
"They have breached the threshold." The words drag from my throat, a rusted rasp against the ringing quiet of the bedchamber. I don’t look at the woman standing a few paces away.
I cannot look at her without the monster chained in my marrow thrashing against my ribs, screaming for her blood.
"To unleash the manor's wrath and slaughter this invasion, we must reach the heart-stone deep in the catacombs. We must feed the wards ourselves."
I turn, my broadsword gripped so tightly my knuckles bleach white against the dark leather wrapping. I step over the splintered remains of the oak door and into the upper corridor.
The atmosphere is a suffocating shroud. Thick, acrid smoke rolls across the ceiling, carrying the distinct, sour stench of copper—the scent of null-iron magic. The Vanguard is inside the house.
The Purna follows me. Her boots are silent on the salt-rimed marble, but her presence drags against me. Meriya. She is still her despite her being Purna.
I force the connection away, burying the agonizing devotion I feel for her beneath a suffocating layer of ice. She is the architect of this ruin. She is the enemy. I must repeat it until I believe it. I ignore her.
We reach the top of the spiraling servant’s stairwell. The descent is pitched in absolute darkness, the lumen-orbs shattered by the concussive blasts.
I smell them before I see them.
Three Vanguard enforcers are ascending the narrow stone steps, their heavy dark-steel armor scraping against the walls. They carry null-iron halberds, the anti-magic metal humming with a suppressive frequency that instantly makes the black-gold ichor beneath my skin burn.
I do not hesitate. I cannot unleash a full, untethered shockwave of my necrotic rot in this confined space without collapsing the entire stairwell and crushing us both. It requires absolute, agonizing precision.
I step past the curve of the wall, dropping directly into their path.
The lead enforcer thrusts his halberd upward. I parry the heavy strike with my broadsword, the steel ringing a deafening clash. As the weapons bind, I slide my empty, left hand forward, bypassing the shaft of his weapon, and press my bare palm directly against the center of his breastplate.
I unleash a concentrated surge of absolute decay.
The dark-steel armor does not bend; it instantly liquefies into a glowing, hissing slag. The enforcer’s scream is cut short as the corrosive magic burns straight through his chest cavity. I rip my hand back, kicking his collapsing form down the stairs into his comrades.
The remaining two scramble over the molten ruin of their leader. They do not aim for me. They see the small, unarmored human lingering in the shadows behind my shoulder, and their priority shifts. They want the anchor.
One enforcer lunges past my guard, his short-sword arcing directly toward Purna’s throat.
A spike of pure, unadulterated terror pierces my sternum. The feral instinct to protect her violently overrides my hatred. I pivot, bringing my broadsword around to sever the threat, but I am a split second too late.
Mireya does not scream. She ducks the sweeping blade, her hand darting out to snatch a discarded dagger from the fallen enforcer on the steps. She thrusts the weapon upward, driving the steel into the unprotected gap of the second attacker's thigh armor.
The Dark Elf roars in pain, his momentum faltering. He backhands her with his heavy gauntlet, sending her crashing against the raw stone wall.
The sight of her striking the masonry shears the last thread of my control. I close the distance, driving my bare hand around the enforcer's throat. The rot blooms instantly, turning his flesh to ash before he can draw another breath. He crumbles into dust upon the stairs.
I turn to her. She is pushing herself up from the stone, a thin line of blood weeping from her split lip, her fingers sparking with uncontrolled, erratic flares of violet and gold magic.
"Drop the steel," I snarl, the words a jagged, punishing edge. I step over the ash, looming over her, masking the crippling terror in my chest with pure, venomous authority. "You are untrained. You are a liability. Do not pretend to be a soldier on my floorboards."
She looks up at me, the dark eyes fierce and bruised. "I stopped him."
"You nearly died," I counter, my voice dropping to a lethal whisper. "And if you die before I permit it, this entire estate detonates. Stay behind me, Purna. Try to remember you are the plague, not the cure."
The harshness of my own words cuts me, but I turn away, refusing to acknowledge the flinch in her posture.
We push through the lower arches, entering the sprawling expanse of the eastern wing. The smoke here is a thick, impenetrable wall. As we cross the threshold of the grand gallery, the air pressure suddenly, violently spikes.
It is a trap.
Two dozen Vanguard enforcers drop from the elevated balconies, landing in a perfect perimeter around us. They do not draw swords. They slam heavy, hexagonal metallic discs onto the marble floor.
Suppression sigils.
The moment the null-iron mechanisms engage, a heavy, invisible dome of anti-magic slams down over the gallery.
The air turns to lead. The black-gold veins on my arms violently recoil, the magic choking in my blood.
The agony is instantaneous—a searing, internal fire as the curse, unable to project outward, begins to feed aggressively on my own internal organs.
I drop to one knee, a ragged gasp tearing from my throat, using the broadsword as a crutch to keep from collapsing entirely.
"Take the anchor!" a Vanguard captain barks, pointing a heavy null-iron blade directly at the Purna.
He lunges.
I force my failing muscles to obey. I throw my body between them, raising my broadsword to deflect the strike. The heavy null-iron blade slides off my guard, but the sheer momentum of his charge carries the weapon forward. The serrated edge of the anti-magic steel slices across my ribs.
The collision of null-iron against my cursed flesh is catastrophic.
A blinding white agony detonates behind my eyes. The curse destabilizes entirely, ripping through my nervous system like shattered glass. I hit the marble floor hard, the broadsword clattering out of reach. The captain raises his blade to finish the execution.
"No!"
Mireya’s scream slams into me akin to a shockwave.
She throws herself in front of me, her bare hands thrust outward.
The raw, untethered magic she has been trying to suppress violently erupts.
A concussive blast of pure, kinetic force slams into the Vanguard captain, lifting his heavy armored form off the ground and throwing him thirty feet across the gallery, shattering a stone pillar on impact.
The remaining enforcers stagger backward, their suppression sigils flickering under the sheer, un-attuned output of her survival instinct.
I push myself up, my hand clutching the bleeding, burning wound at my ribs. I look at her, her chest heaving, her hands smoking with residual power. She saved my life. The witch who ruined me just used her magic to shield my body from the blade.
"Can you stand?" she demands, reaching a hand down to help me.
I ignore her hand, dragging myself up using the wall. "I despise your magic," I grind out through clenched teeth, the lie acidic on my tongue. I cannot thank her. I cannot blur the lines.
She is my arch enemy.
"I know," she answers, the quiet devastation in her tone infinitely heavier than the wound in my side.
"We cannot break this line," I state, surveying the recovering enforcers. My magic is too suppressed to clear the corridor, and her output is too volatile to control. We are cut off from the catacombs.
I grab her arm, dragging her away from the Vanguard formation and toward a set of heavy, unadorned double doors set deep into the alcove of the eastern wall.
The Echo Crystal Vault.
It is not merely an archive for the memories of the dead; it is a panic room built by the suffocating paranoia of my ancestors.
The heavy doors and the internal walls are lined with deep-earth resonating prisms—rare minerals capable of absorbing and nullifying immense arcane and physical trauma for a finite period.
I shove the heavy doors open, throwing her into the freezing, crystalline dark of the vault.
I turn back to the corridor just as the Vanguard surges forward, their halberds raised.
I grip the massive iron rings of the doors and pull them shut with a deafening, metallic slam.
I slide the three heavy deadbolts into place, plunging us into absolute darkness, save for the faint, ghostly luminescence of the memory crystals suspended from the ceiling.
A second later, the first concussive blast of siege magic strikes the outside of the doors.
The crystal walls hum, vibrating intensely as they absorb the kinetic force, but the heavy iron hinges groan in protest. The vault is impregnable, but only until the resonating crystals reach their capacity and shatter.
I lean back against the sealed doors, sliding down the cold metal until I hit the floor, my hand pressing desperately against the bleeding null-iron wound. We are completely trapped, locked in a cage of dead memories, and the clock is rapidly ticking down to zero.