Chapter 63 Sariel #2
Fully on the defensive, he retreated, trying to regain the separation required to fully utilize Redemption’s reach.
Aylah refused to give it to him. Her every step was coupled with a quick slash or jab, sometimes even a strike with her shield, so that the frantic waving of his sword was but an inconvenience to her.
Once again he was reminded of the decade she had practiced with Eder.
His skill surpassed any pinnacle humanity might achieve, but against his siblings, Sariel felt slow and incompetent.
Another cut, this across his abdomen. Sariel punched her in the face with his free hand, then kicked her to knock her away. Finally given a moment to breathe, he lifted his sword, its tip aimed for her throat.
“It’s not too late,” he said, as if he were the one winning the fight. “Come with me. Help me stop the tower and save us from Eder’s folly.”
Aylah spat a bit of blood from where his punch had split her lip.
“You were always the greatest fool among us, weren’t you, Sariel? Look around you. There is no going back from this. The sky is torn. The world is judged. You only risk damning yourself.”
Sariel’s grip tightened. Radiance swelled across Redemption’s edge.
“Then let me be damned. I am not leaving without Isabelle.”
He lashed out, a silver blade arcing through the air. Aylah lifted her shield to block, and she cried out in pain as it crumpled inward from the hit. The impact staggered her, and he followed up with a second slash aimed at her neck. Another blade of silver.
“No!”
Brilliant light exploded from Aylah, encasing her armor and shining across her skin.
His attack dissolved into nothing. His sister charged him, her movements bewildering with their speed.
Her shield struck his forehead. The hilt of her sword punched his chest, then his stomach.
Nothing lethal. She did not want him dead, though she could have.
“Do you not feel it?” she asked as he staggered, barely able to hold his weapon as two more punches stole the breath from his lungs.
“It fills the air. It sweeps the land. Whatever we are, whatever we are meant to be, originates from beyond that pierced sky. How can this not be right? How can this not be our truth?”
Her fist struck his mouth, denying him an answer. He dropped to one knee, and before he could move, her sword tucked underneath his chin. She pulled his gaze upward, forcing him to look upon her as she held his life within her grasp.
“Eder’s wisdom must prevail,” she said. “Will you live to see it, or must you die, and discover the world we have made when you reawaken?”
Sariel stared at his sister. Her eyes were blazing silver lights barely touched by the darkness around the irises. Radiance swirled about her skin, sparkling like cold lightning. She was wondrous. She was beautiful. And she was wrong.
“There is no wisdom here,” he whispered. “Only suffering.”
The tip of her sword pierced the tender flesh of his throat, just enough to draw a drop of blood.
“Damn it, Sariel,” she whispered back. “I never wanted this.”
Her arms tensed. Her eyes narrowed. Sariel held his breath, waiting for the killing sting.
A gray-and-white monster slammed into Aylah, six-legged and twin-headed.
Aylah cried out, stumbling off balance as the creature, a coyote, clenched her teeth about Aylah’s face and held on with a feral grip.
She dropped her shield so she might grab the coyote by the throat.
With a wordless cry, Aylah flung the creature aside, blood flowing across them both.
Sariel stabbed Redemption through her biceps, severing the muscles.
As she screamed, he ripped his sword free, looped it about, and then sliced through the armpit of her shield arm, separating tendons and muscles there, too.
She staggered away, her beautiful face marred and her arms hanging limp at her sides, unable to hold her weapons.
She had no words for him, just anger and frustration.
“Leave us,” Sariel said, readying Redemption for one last cut. “Or you die here in the shadow of the tower.”
Aylah retreated a step toward Bridgetop.
“Nothing good awaits you within,” she said.
“I enter nonetheless.”
His sister shook her head and then fled across the broken piece of hardstone.
Once he was sure Aylah was gone, Sariel turned to his unlikely savior. The coyote wobbled unevenly. The fur standing on her neck and back flattened, and she dropped to the ground. Sariel knelt before her, and he gently stroked the top of her true head.
“Thank you, Iris,” he said. “I owe you this life.”
Her tail wagged. Her yellow eyes watered.
She whimpered softly, her every breath appearing labored.
He gently petted her, his bruised and bloodied hands stroking the gray portions of her fur, giving her the affection she deserved.
It gave him time to pause. It allowed him to delay confirming his greatest fears.
At last, Sariel turned his attention to the head hanging limp from her neck. Blood soaked its throat, and its tongue lolled about from its open mouth. Sariel’s stomach sank at the sight, and it took him a moment before he could speak.
“You’re so strong, I know you’re strong,” he told the coyote. “But it’s killing you.”
Iris struggled to stand on her six legs, but they shook beneath her, and she abandoned the attempt halfway. Instead she rested her healthy head on his lap and stared up at him. Sariel’s throat hitched.
“Does it hurt?” he asked her.
She whined.
He closed his eyes, gathered himself.
“I can end it, if you wish.”
When he opened them, she was still on his lap, but her own eyes had closed, and her muscles relaxed. She whimpered with each breath, but the sound was quiet, suppressed.
Sariel lifted Redemption, having to hold it by the flat edge, for it was too long, and she, too close. The tip pressed to the base of her neck, just between two vertebrae. He held it there, not even deep enough to draw a drop of blood.
But how to sink that blade farther? He stared down at Iris, hating himself, hating Kaus, hating every single second of this horrid nightmare world.
Faron was gone. Before him was the last true remnant of his brother, a creature gifted by his radiance.
To kill Iris was to kill what remained of Faron.
To say goodbye to both. To have that blood stain his sword.
Her whining increased, and she shuddered in his lap.
Sariel pushed the sword.
The vertebrae separated; her body jolted and then lay still.
Her head, in his lap.
Sariel’s hand slipped from the blade. The light left Iris’s eyes, as did the radiance, passing away unseen.
Sariel’s teeth clenched, and he buried his face in her fur, wetting it with his tears.
His lips trembled. His jaw ached from the strain.
It wasn’t enough. He could not contain it. Nothing could.
He arched back and screamed to the sky, a wordless, broken, primal cry that tore from him unending, until all breath was gone from his lungs, and still he screamed and screamed.