Chapter 63 Sariel
SARIEL
A fter his silver shield broke and the last of the radiant fire washed across the protectorate forces, Sariel fled.
The army he commanded shouted confused orders, and all the world was breaking, and yet Sariel hid.
A multistory home was near the entrance to Bridgetop, and within its second floor, inside a cramped little closet, Sariel cowered, Redemption cradled against his chest.
“Isabelle,” he whispered as his skin burned.
His body was weak and his muscles sluggish, but it was nothing compared to the sensations striking through him.
That fire… it was radiance. Pure, untainted radiance, of a scale he had never experienced in all his lifetimes.
If he and his siblings were stars, then he had bathed within the heart of the sun.
In the dark, he looked to his shaking hand.
His exposed skin bubbled and broke. Underneath, he saw shades of gold, then feathers, and then stone.
Creation magic sought to remake him, change him, without focus, without reason.
He felt memories of the past try to tear free and become tangible.
Other times, he felt a desire to become something new, beautiful and monstrous.
Each time, he forced the crackling waves of radiance away, reminding himself of who he was.
I am Sariel, ever-living child of Kaus. I am no creature, no beast, no monster.
It was a confession he might have once denied, or made begrudgingly, but now he clung to it with all his heart.
I am HUMAN.
At last the sensations passed, and he felt himself again. He slumped against the wall and worked to control his breathing. All the while, his mind raced, seeking answers for things he could not begin to comprehend.
“What did you do, Eder?” he whispered, and then felt a pang in his chest.
For it to work, it takes a sacrifice. Someone whose blood is blessed with radiance.
“You killed her. How could you? And for what? For this?”
He could hear the screams outside, and he did not wish to imagine the changes being wrought upon the populace of Racliffe. If creation’s fire had threatened to unmake him, what hope had others unaccustomed to its gift?
At last, he could hide no longer. He stood and opened the closet door.
A man and woman lay dead on the floor, slain by his hand.
They’d been writhing together when he entered, their mouths open and locked in pain.
The change had overtaken their corpses even after death.
They were both composed of bark, their legs merged like tangled roots, their upper halves pale wood and coated with vines and flowers.
Sap leaked from where he’d cut their throats.
“I can’t,” he muttered, turning away. “I can’t.”
The floor was soft beneath him, the wood turning to black earth.
Grass was sprouting from the walls. At a window rimmed with vines, he looked out upon Bridgetop.
An army of nameless swarming things marched out from it, led by a woman with beautiful gold hair and a curling scorpion tail.
Sariel watched them go, and he hoped that whoever commanded the remnants of the protectorate army was quick enough to get the soldiers out of Racliffe while there was still a chance at survival.
When the monstrous army had passed, Sariel climbed out the window, dropped to the street, and crossed the narrow path through Bridgetop.
It was remarkably empty, with most everyone having fled beneath.
The noises coming from below were enough to chill Sariel’s spine.
But it was not all empty. Two pained voices cried out from an open window to steal his attention.
Within writhed both one man and three, for protruding from his waist were two additional bodies. They flailed about like newborns, crying out wordlessly and wrestling for control of the shared flesh of their legs. Sariel stared at them in horror, realizing what he looked upon.
The past lives. The two additional bodies were the man’s past lives, split from his soul and remade in the flesh.
A scaled lioness burst from the next house, its face that of a human woman.
She turned, saw Sariel, and lunged at him, her eyes wild and unthinking.
Pure, frightened instinct. Sariel sidestepped the attack and slashed with his sword, opening the beastly body from chest to crotch.
The lioness collapsed, but the threat was not yet past.
The scales crawled from the corpse. No, not scales, but white leeches, fat, living marble with teeth. Sariel clenched a fist and summoned his fire.
“Begone from me,” he said, and lashed the street with blue flame. It roared with power, and the leeches curled and writhed in their deaths. Sariel watched, unable to deny what he felt. His mastery of radiance was growing, and why wouldn’t it? Radiance permeated the very air.
Sariel pushed onward. Nothing would stop him from reaching the Tower Majestic. Halfway across the bridge, the buildings turned silver, and from within crawled a six-legged man, his face that of a spider, his arms gold, and his many legs shining bronze. Sariel buried his sword in the thing’s head.
A pair of six-winged women assaulted him next, beautiful and naked, their heads become horses, one white, one black.
Soft white hair covered their bodies, and their legs were now bent backward like the legs of beasts.
Their voices, though, were still distinctly human as they plunged from the air, and they shrieked mindless, frightened cries as they kicked and clawed and sought to tear him apart.
Sariel cut one in half the moment she was near.
From the other he endured a brutal kick to his side, the bruise an acceptable trade-off to drive his sword straight through her chest and out her back.
A pull, and he slammed her to the ground to lie forever still.
Sariel rubbed the injury, hoping against hope no bones were broken.
More creatures assaulted him as he crossed.
More creatures died. Bark and scales and fur parted to Redemption’s dragon-bone blade.
His mind grew numb to the changes. The horrors were beyond comprehension.
All that mattered was reaching the Tower Majestic, and at last, he stood before its gaping maw.
Waiting alone before the entrance stood Aylah, resplendent in her silver platemail.
“I pray this is everything you wanted,” Sariel shouted as he approached. “All this slaughter, this madness, because you couldn’t forgive.”
Aylah drew her sword and held it limply at her side. Something about her stance worried him. She wouldn’t meet his gaze. Where was her defiance?
“Sariel…”
“No,” he said, readying his sword. “You don’t get to feel guilty now, dear sister. You don’t get to plead for forgiveness. Isabelle is dead because of you, and now we live through the horrors of your decision.”
“Isabelle isn’t dead!”
Sariel froze. “But Calluna said…”
At last, Aylah met his gaze. Her eyes were red, and wet with tears.
“It wasn’t Isabelle,” she said. “Faron… Faron gave himself in her place. He’s dead, Sariel. Our brother is forever dead.”
It felt like Sariel’s feet were melded to the hardstone. The world darkened, and his every breath was a struggle. Words tumbled around in his mind, leaving him unable to give voice to his broken thoughts.
“No,” he said, the only thing he could say.
“It is true,” she insisted. “So just… leave, Sariel. Leave us, and let this end as it must. To stop it now would render his sacrifice in vain. I won’t do it, and I won’t let you do it, either. Eder’s dream is now our only hope of ever seeing our brother again.”
At last, Sariel felt himself freed. He imagined the raging fire of radiance sweeping across all of Kaus, of civilizations twisted by creation, and the world ripped asunder and left incomprehensible. It was a fate he would wish upon no one, not even the worst of humanity.
“No,” he repeated, and lifted Redemption. “I’m ending this, Aylah. Make way.”
“Must you fight?” she asked, readying her shield. “Have you not committed enough sins upon Eder?”
“This is no sin.”
He crossed the space between them, his thrust aimed directly for her forehead. She sidestepped as he expected, and he angled his sword during the descent, seeking to cut her at the knees. Her sword batted it aside, the skilled woman also predicting the deviation.
The moment their weapons touched, it seemed something broke between them, and the battle began in earnest. He took the offensive, lashing back and forth with his dragon-bone blade, relying on its sheer length to attack without fear of retaliation.
Redemption carved grooves across her shield, and with every hit on her blade, a bit of metal nicked from the fine edge.
His desperation increased, for he knew his sister’s prowess in battle.
Overwhelming strength and rage were his only advantages, for if he relied purely on skill, victory would be hers.
Yet for all his efforts, he could not break her defenses.
Sweat poured down his neck as he thrust for her abdomen.
His blade struck the center of her shield, scraped across, and then she was upon him, finally closing the distance.
He twisted to avoid her counterthrust, then cried out as her shield smashed his elbow.
He swept his sword sideways, attempting to force her back, or cut through her waist if she refused to block, but she did neither.
Aylah smacked the blade with her forearm, relying on the fine metal of her platemail to absorb the impact.
Redemption cut through it, but the injury was shallow, a bit of blood along her forearm. It was nothing compared to the gash she opened across his side with her sword. Only his sheer speed kept him from being impaled.