...
The world beyond Kairen collapsed. Rock shouted at rock as the cave mouth gave way, one final, absolute bellow engulfing the reverberations of his friends' flight. Choking dust fell, heavy and stifling, coating the dark cavern with a smothering gray dusk. The only light left was the faint, throbbing blue of the broken crystal shard still clutched at his belt.
He was alone. Completely.
The air thickened, heavy with sulfur, ozone, and something else. something wet, metallic, and hungry. His pulse thudded against his ribs, a desperate rhythm against the newfound, endless quiet. He heard it louder than his own hoarse breathing.
Thump-thump. Thump-thump.
A deep, guttural laughter slid from the darker shadow. It was not laughter; it was hunger.
Shapes started to pull away from the crushing darkness. Not shadows, but creatures forged of shadow and malice. At first a score, then increasing numbers. Hellhounds, their bodies little more than suggestions, black flame trailing from jaws that yawned full of needle teeth, crackling as it struck the stone floor. Razorclaws, extending spindly, chitinous legs ending in obsidian needles, their compound eyes burning like evil sparks in the dusty air. They clattered with a stiff, jerky walk, claws scraping, scorching paths across the rock.
Human," it croaked, the voice sounding like grinding stone. Its voice insinuated itself directly into Kairen's mind, hard and bitter. "The mountain has walled up your tomb.
Kairen clutched the hilt of his sword – the practice blade, strong steel but nothing special. Its edge shone dimly in the crystal's light, a feeble sliver against the advancing darkness. His knuckles were white as stone. He pressed his breath steady, fighting down the tide of panic rising. Vikram… Lia… Dain… Ilya… Kaelan… He remembered their faces, remembered Lia's sacrifice. He would not die here. Not after that.
My tomb?" Kairen spat back, shocked at the firmness in his own voice. He pulled himself to his feet, legs low, sword at the ready. "Then let's see who gets buried first."
They didn't wait. They charged.
The cavern exploded into a whirlwind of violence. Black forms turned to blurs, claws bashed sparks off the stone walls, teeth snapped inches from his face. Kairen acted on pure instinct, all those years of ceaseless, infuriating drills suddenly snapping into focus. Parry, dodge, thrust. He felt numb, observing his body in action with a speed he did not know he had.
A Hellhound charged, jaws open, expelling black fire. Kairen twisted, sword blinding in a close arc, cutting through the monster's neck. It collapsed into greasy smoke and a burst of embers before it touched the floor. Another claw scored his back – he turned, kicking out, the shock flashing up his leg as the Razorclaw crashed into the wall, dazed for a moment. He didn't delay, thrusting his sword through its throbbing thorax. Black ichor sprayed, hot and acidic, scalding his skin where it struck.
He yanked the blade free, dodged a lashing tail studded like a scorpion's stinger, struck upward, cutting through a scythe-like arm. The demon screamed, a ringing shriek that vibrated in his teeth.
Desperate hope flared for an instant, wild and uncontrolled. I can do this.
But the laughter recurred, this time deeper, resonating from crevices widening in the earth. More of them arrived. Hulking giants with hides like shattered obsidian, Ghouls scuttling on fours, their tongues hanging, spilling corrosive spit. The circle closed.
The air became thick, oppressive, heavy with their shared hatred. A claw raked his side, ripping through tunic and muscle. Pain flashed, searing hot and sharp. He staggered, parrying a bludgeoning blow from a hulking brute, the force rocking his arm almost out of socket. His sword quivered, a resounding crack webbing down the blade from hilt to tip.
No…
A trunk-thick tail swiped his legs out from beneath him. He fell hard, the wind knocked from his lungs. Searing pain flashed across his already bruised ribs. His sword skittered away, the crack splitting apart.
He gazed up, panting. The circle was complete. Glowing eyes stared at him, full of hungry hunger.
So that is it, the thought flashed, cold and terminal. After all. again.
He shoved himself onto one knee, grasping the battered sword, the hilt slick with his blood. It shook uncontrollably in his hand. The demons slowed, circling, enjoying the kill. Their low growls were close to purrs of anticipation.
And then, the Mark seared.
It wasn't the burns-happy warmth of fear or shame. This was torture. A blazing, blinding flame roared between the shoulder blades, beneath the rent fabric of his shirt. It was like molten metal splashing right onto his spine. He screamed, bending double, clutching at whatever was left of his chest.
Not now… please, not now…
But the burning didn't cease. It grew more intense. A soft, impossible blue light started to seep from the ruptured seal, tracing the concealed wing shape on his skin. It beat – thump-thump – a heartbeat not his own, slow and low, mimicking the wild one in his chest. Then a second beat emerged, then a third, faster, stronger.
The atmosphere in the cavern thickened, charged. The earth started shaking, pebbles rising ever so slightly, swirling in mid-air. The blue glow burned more intensely, pouring down his arms, etching patterns like star maps on his skin.
The demons held back, snarling deep, uncertain.
Kairen gasped, drawing in air that tasted like raw energy. The heat was no longer pain; it was power. Raw, unbridled, ancient power surging through him, overwhelming him. The fissured seal creaked, lines of blue light spider-webbing across his back. He felt as though something gigantic, imprisoned for millennia, was finally shattering its bonds.
The blue light erupted outward.
Not a soft glow, but a shockwave. It struck the closest demons, sending them crashing back, screaming as the cold flame scorched their dark hides. Kairen stood, although he did not recall standing. His own eyes shone with the same pale blue radiance. The world was sharp, too-real, colored in sapphire.
He raised his broken sword. The metal deferred. It melted in his palm, blue light devouring the steel, then reconstituted – no longer a mere blade, but a sword composed of firmer starlight and darkness, singing with frigid power. Every blow now deposited pale trails of azure light suspended in air, like suspended lightning.
The demons bellowed, fear giving way to wrath, and advanced as a single mass.
He greeted them.
It wasn't a battle. It was a slaughter. He was quicker than thought, quicker than their vision could follow. A blue streak slicing through the shadows. One blink – he crossed the cavern. A flash – and three Hellhounds exploded into dissipating blue powder. He whirled, sword singing, cutting through limbs that disintegrated before they struck the ground. He disappeared, reappeared above them, plummeting down like a star, the impact shattering stone and demon both.
Gore sprayed – black ichor, torn shadow-flesh, shattered bone – but the blue light ate it all up, leaving naught but dying azure embers. He was a tempest of ordered, merciless death. A Razorclaw charged; he didn't step aside, merely lifted a hand. A wall of crackling blue energy burst, reducing the creature in mid-air to a smoldering ruin. Another spat black acid; he chopped the air, the blade dividing the stream in twain, the acid harmlessly eating into the walls behind him.
But with each blow, each impossible gesture, the fire increased. The force was wild, wonderful, a terror. It wasn't his; he was simply the channel, the vessel overflowing. Hold on to it, a faraway part of his brain shouted, but the sound of the Essence overwhelmed it.
The ground split again. Raw energy flowed out of the fissures. Wind screamed through invisible tunnels, bearing whispers that weren't his own mind. His clothing started to smolder at the fringes, not due to heat, but due to the raw energy emanating off him.
The rest of the demons – dozens now – scurried back, reforming by a black alcove at the end of the desecrated cavern. Fear emanated from them.
And from the darkest shadow at the back of the alcove, it came.
Bigger than the others, an arachnid monstrosity of spindly, chitinous legs and a thumping, membranous mass. Dozens of multifaceted eyes flashed with cold, insect-like cruelty. The Brood-Watcher. It hadn't battled. It had observed.
It cocked its head, a sickening clicking echoed out. Its voice slid into Kairen's mind, dry and very old, flavored with a terrifying amusement.
"Such bravery," it breathed in his head. "Such a brilliant, delicate spark. It's almost a pity…"
It hesitated, enjoying the idea. "To pilfer it."
Kairen stood motionless, the blue glow that encircled him shuddering. The voice grated against his mind.
"You saved nobody, little hero," the Brood-Watcher went on, its horrific vertical maw contorting. "They flee, yes. But they flee to their deaths. This island is but the first wave. Your friends… Lia, was it not? So promising… she will suffer magnificently before she dies."
Lia's face – white, bleeding, sad-smiling – flashed through his mind.
"And you… you will die here. Alone. For nothing."
"NO!"
The shout wasn't just a word; it was a detonation of raw, unadulterated fury. The blue light burst, incinerating the closest remains of demons. The earth broke apart.
He paid them no mind. Paid no mind to the searing agony. Paid no mind to anything except the monster that had the audacity to pronounce her name.
He charged. A blue comet blazing through the devastated cavern.
The Brood-Watcher spat in disgust, taken aback by the burst. It spread its spear-shapes, four stabbing simultaneously like a black cage.
CLANG! SCREEE! SHINK!
Blue and black sparks erupted. Ichor sprayed as one was hacked off, disintegrating into ash. Kairen screamed at the burning agony as another scored his side, ripping skin. He let out a roar, pouring all remaining drops of the surging power into his blade of light. It glowed hotter, humming savagely, on the verge of ripping itself in two.
He charged at the remaining three limbs straight on.
The blast was a glare. Stone incinerated. Kairen was knocked back, boots punching crevices in the stone, but he stood firm, his side an outpouring of blood. The Brood-Watcher shrieked, blown from its nest, carapace shattered, several eyes exploded, dark liquid seeping.
It fell harshly, hurt, scrabbling, emitting terror.
Kairen had already started moving, sword high, a figure of awful blue retribution.
"Stop!" the demon screamed in his head, its last trick. "Wait! You don't realize! We… we already… have… HER!"
Her? Lia? Ilya? The dream-girl?
Cold, sharp doubt penetrated the flames. For one heartbeat.
The Brood-Watcher charged – not to battle, but to bolt into concealment.
But the reluctance was only a beat. The rage that followed – at the insult, at the deception, at his own frailty – was unyielding.
He was quicker.
He swung the sword.
Not a slash. A detonation. The sword didn't cut; it disassembled. Space warped. The air condensed into liquid light. The psychic howl of the Brood-Watcher ripped through Kairen's mind, shaking his bones, before ending in utter silence as its form began to disintegrate, dissolve, cease to be.
Silence.
A dense, ringing silence.
Kairen was at the center of the ruin, shaking with violent convulsions. The blue light surrounding him throbbed… throbbed… flickered….
And expired.
Power was gone. Torn away, leaving a chill, screaming emptiness.
And the pain assailed him. All of it. Every slash, every scorch, every broken rib, the blazing pain where the claw ripped his side open, the ghostly pain from the excess Essence – all of it hit him together. His light sword disintegrated into harmless sparklets. His body, no longer sustained, collapsed.
His knees went out from under him. He dropped, hand scraping the raw rock. The world spun, graying at the edges. Was this really me? The thought repeated, unanswered. Or something in me?
He was so exhausted. His vision blurred. He saw Lia's face again, pale and still. Did I save them?
Darkness crept in. He fell fully onto the cold, ichor-soaked ground, the impact jarring through his broken body.
And then, as the blackness claimed him, a familiar, agonizing whisper echoed in the void. Clearer this time. Desperate.
"Kairen… help me."
His consciousness fragmented, scattered like dust.
...
...
Blackness. Cold. Numbness. Floating.
Then, a pinprick of light. A sound – dripping water, echoing. A smell – damp earth, moss, something metallic like old coins.
He forced his eyes open. Lead weights scraping against sandpaper.
Faint green light from luminescent moss on a high, rocky ceiling. Smooth, cold rock under him. A cave? Or. something else?
He attempted to sit up. White-hot pain ran through his chest, slamming him back down with a strangled gasp. His body howled, heavy, useless, afire.
Alive. Somehow.
"Where." he rasped, voice raw, shattered. "Did I. die?"
A shadow broke off from the darker darkness. Taller, indistinct in the green glow. A presence, old and serene.
A low laughter replied to him – not mocking or friendly, simply knowing. Resonant, as if it came from the stone.
"Finally," said the voice, deep as thunder under water. "You awoke… Zepherwind.?"