Chapter 40 #3
Crown of the Abyssal Tyrant gave him the strength to resist the weakness that threatened to undo him.
No pain, never any pain, but a lassitude akin to death, the allure of weakness, the desire to cease struggling: these he contested with his Crown, and bolstered by his Form, he remained kneeling and upright.
When at last the blast faded away, Harald raised his head.
Everybody was down.
Brianna lay, barely visible, some several hundred yards away upon the ground. The bronze flames had been extinguished so that her massive form was easily picked out.
Vic. Nessa. Kársek. Sam.
All lay still.
His Servitors were banished.
The Starfire Bastion gone.
No longer did holy silver rain fall upon them.
And above, slowly, gently, Eclavistra floated down.
Heart pounding, Harald rose to his feet. His shadowed blades hewed at her flesh, which reknit itself almost as quickly as it was undone.
Why wasn’t she crushing him with her will?
That’s when he understood.
With the Covenant undone yet again, he could sense Eclavistra directly through their bond.
Even as the Well of Starless Dominion continued to inhale her power at a torrential rate, the amount pouring into him was diminishing.
She’d expended much of her remaining reserves in that total blast.
Her reservoir was now emptying out.
Eclavistra, the arch demon, was finally being drained dry.
She alighted gently on the hilltop, staggered, then caught herself and raised her chin to stare at him with her pure white eyes.
Harald willed the darkness to cease consuming her, and the blades faded away.
But his power continued to grow.
He felt his dominion extending outward all around them.
The abyss was singing not only in his blood but in the very air.
All was pitch dark. The sky was an absolute field of nethervoid.
The sum total of all her stolen essence burned within his Cosmos, mostly purified by Sam, but with enough raw, virulent power left with her taint that he felt his instincts turn sadistic.
His desire to control the arch demon utterly was nearly impossible to deny.
“How?” Eclavistra sounded weary beyond belief. “How did a band of mortals do this?”
The Crown of the Abyssal Tyrant had swollen out wide so that it was a great corona that ebbed and surged above his head. All within the stone valley was his. He felt his authority close around the demon queen like her own had clamped him not long ago.
Void shards collected about her like a constellation of death, but his will kept them at bay. The air was so frigid that his breath became visible, and frost began to crackle across the stone, forming flowers of ice and patterns of chill beauty.
“How?” Eclavistra shook her head in dumb wonder. “I… I have resisted the ploys of Silenthros and Vorakhar and the others for centuries. How did you all… how did you bring this to pass?”
Harald strode closer. What little power remained to her was being rapidly consumed, the Well grown so monstrous that he felt he could drain the very sun of its heat.
Eclavistra turned to regard him, and her eyes widened. “You.”
The Form of the Black Throne made him feel lethal beyond measure. Crown of the Abyssal Tyrant made his authority absolute. Abyssal Imperium had rendered the stone vale into his own private dominion.
But it was the Well that truly outshone the others. Right until the last ounce of her power passed through their conduit, and she fell to her knees.
Harald stopped before her.
Oh, but he understood now the desire to torment.
The words she’d spoken to Sam felt all too reasonable.
To end any foe quickly was a waste, for victory—true victory—lay in crushing their spirit, not their body.
Anybody could drive a knife. It took an artist, a king, a lover, a devil, to break a proud soul and have it willingly kneel.
Harald cupped Eclavistra’s chin and tilted her head back.
She smiled.
“So, my plan worked.” She said the words with simple happiness. “Better than I could have hoped. Better than I even planned for. Hello, Harald. I see you. My child.”
“No,” whispered Harald, and his voice echoed with ancient authority. “You’re mistaken.”
She went to reply, but he willed her to be silent, and her mouth snapped shut.
“You see,” he said, “it is you who are mine. And will be mine for eternity.”
And he willed the black blades to consume her.
They filled the air, swarmed about her pale form, and cut her to ribbons.
The Well drank deep as she was torn asunder, and in moments she was undone.
Her soul sought to flee, but the Well, ever greedy, reached out and ensnared her.
Had his Cosmos not been so swollen with power, so cavernous with stolen might, then the presence that appeared there would have surely ruptured it, fragmenting it into shards.
But he encompassed the presence, absorbed its allegiance, and as the torn remains of the demon queen fell to pieces upon the rock, he called her forth.
Eclavistra appeared beside him, her skin and raiment painted the deepest of midnight hues, and with a bold smile she inclined her horned head.
“What would you have me do, Master?”