Kastori Devastations (The Kastori Chronicles Book 2) (11 page)

“Crystil,” he whispered.

She didn’t want to face him. Partially out of anger. But partly because she didn’t want to connect with him, allowing herself to get hurt as she was.

But when he said her name a second time, in a more gentle tone, she begrudgingly turned to him.

“I’m so sorry, Crystil. I… I was stupid. I thought you would hate us for being Kastori. I know what the magicologists did to you, and I didn’t want you to believe that we were like them. We should have realized that though Kastori and magicologists are the same blood, they aren’t the same people. But we wanted the simple route, and we lied to you. That’s on me, Crystil. If you’re going to hate someone, hate me. But don’t hate Celeste. I pushed it. I’m the one who suggested it and encouraged it. I may suck as a person, but Celeste has always been real. If she lies, it’s because I told her to.”

I don’t hate you. I don’t hate Celeste. I’ll defend you both with pride. But I want to like and trust you both with pride.

“Listen, we don’t have time. I just wanted you to hear this from me, because…”

His voice trailed off. The unspoken words were as blatant to Crystil as Cyrus’ normal cocky attitude.

“Anyways,” he finally said. “Typhos will be here any minute. We need you, Crystil, desperately.”

Crystil knew Cyrus wasn’t lying—
he does want me to the point of seeing it as a need—
but he was still wrong.

“Cyrus, I appreciate the apology, and we’ll work on it,” she said as she crossed her arms. “But this is a battle I cannot win. I have no technology. The enemy will quickly sniff out my guns and kill me. I don’t want to run, but if I go into battle, then I’ll just be a roadblock for you trying to get to Typhos and his minions.”

“I think you forget how potent the Nakar 17 was in battle,” Cyrus said with a wink.

“Against an enemy that had bigger aviants to swat down,” Crystil noted. “Thanks, Cyrus, but I’ll just sit out this one.”

Cyrus sighed, and a cocky smile came over his face, which, to her surprise, Crystil reacted to by smiling back.

“Fine, but then we’re going to play a game of role reversal. I’m going to bodyguard you and help get you to the peak of Mount Ardor. Maybe when we get there, Erda can find a way to infuse you with magic.”

No no no no no.

Crystil did, however, stand up and accept Cyrus’ offer for support.

“Let’s find Celeste. She can teleport us to the peak with Erda.”

Crystil agreed and led the way out.
It’s a start. It’s progress.

She hopped down from the hallway to the grass.

She rose and saw Erda’s golden tent on fire.

18

Please be quick, Cyrus. Don’t take more than a couple of minutes. I have a bad feeling about this.

Though she promised herself not to communicate telepathically in Crystil’s presence, Celeste warned Cyrus as he disappeared from view. She whirled around and found Erda on the other side of the tent. Her head was bowed, her eyes glistened and her body shook.

“Erda!” Celeste said, placing a gentle hand on her arm. “Are you OK? Do you want me to do anything?”

Erda barely turned her head.

“Erda, come on, we have to keep trying to persuade them.”

“I’ve sent out two warnings since, Celeste. No one is interested. The people are tired of fighting, and would rather die if Typhos came than to prepare for another war. In a sense, I can’t blame them. I’m tired of fighting Typhos as well. I’m sick of facing the mistakes I’ve made.”

What mistakes?

“I will keep going. I, however, cannot persuade my people beyond what I’ve done, or I am no better than Typhos.”

“No,” Celeste said, forcefully pushing back. “That’s not true at all, Erda. Typhos uses his powers to goad people to kill. We’re trying to save a colony here. If we don’t bring anyone, then we’re the only survivors.”

Erda sighed and looked at Celeste with resigned eyes.

“You may do what you wish, Celeste, but I will be teleporting soon, without the people.”

Celeste bit her lip, the better to avoid saying anything accusatory. She tried to put out an urgent warning and even made it an order instead of a suggestion.

But no one responded, let alone defy her, and she knew if the people had chosen passivity over defiance, she could not win. She might force them to Mount Ardor, but then they would go right back into the balicae’s teeth.

“What happens on Ardor?” Celeste asked, resigned and emotional over the inevitable fate of the Kastori.

“The mountain has the highest concentration of magic I know of in the universe. We will become intertwined with the magic, and combine the two great swords up there with the magic. You and Cyrus will train, meditate and become more powerful. I will meditate as well.”

“Crystil?”

“She can stay there safely, but the only thing she could use is a sword, and she wouldn’t be able to enhance it with magic.”

Better than nothing. We can give her a role.

“And when would we come down?”

Erda said nothing. Celeste hated the lack of an answer.
The people will die, and we won’t come until the rising ashes and smoke have vanished.

“Prepare to teleport near the peak of Mount Ardor.”

Celeste, with a heavy heart, agreed to do so, as she closed her eyes and felt the submerged feeling starting at her feet.

But she thought about the way Erda had said the command—more like a running child might speak, rather than a rational, fighting adult. This was not just a flight for her life, Celeste realized, but from something very dangerous and raw.

Her mistakes. What happened? What did she experience?

“Erda, why are you really running away? What happened all those years ago?”

Before Erda could even open her mouth, Celeste felt a sharp heat singe the back of her neck. She dashed forward and turned around to see their tents go up in flames.

“He has come.”

19

The portal showed the grassy area between about a dozen tents. On the perimeter of the portal, flashes of other sectors on Anatolus appeared. Some showed Mount Ardor. Some previewed the oceans. A few displayed the base of the mountain ranges, but a couple caught the eye of Typhos.

One showed Pagus in a tent, talking to two other Kastori.

The other showed Erda, speaking to a young girl behind a golden tent.

“Go!” he commanded. “You know what to do.”

The two guardians with gray stripes running across their robes went first, and within seconds, Typhos could see the first flames engulf the tents. Though he could only see and not hear the action on Anatolus, he could sense the cries of sudden terror. He smiled as he foresaw the devastation of his former world, a world full of heartache and pain he was finally ready to be rid of.

My parents. My friends. Calypsius. Anatolus, it is time to die.

The two white-striped guardians went next, and they began using their secondary powers to either destroy the area or bind the Kastori so the other two guardians could kill them. Carticus waited for Typhos’ approval, and the self-proclaimed god gave a simple nod of the head, allowing Carticus to proceed and use his power to paralyze the enemies.

Typhos, alone in his temple, prepared to leap through the portal. But through the mask, his gaze flickered toward the two images he kept seeing: the ones of Erda and Pagus in a state of panic, which had soon turned to the two of them into a state of fighting.

You know what to do, Typhos. Kill Pagus. Capture Erda.

Even after all that you’ve been through with them. Even with what they mean to you.

His grip softened for a second, his head bowed, and he quickly thought about one of them.

Pagus. This is what it comes to, huh. Never swore I would… you get a chance.

Erda…

Thinking her name ignited all of the hatred in his mind as he swung the blade out of the sheath. He bellowed with a loud cry and ran through the portal to the sight of flames everywhere. Not a single tent stood untouched. Many of the tents, and many of the Kastori, had already burned to ashes. A few of the Kastori lay on the ground dead. Others struggled in a fight they could not possibly win.

Where is she?

Typhos glanced around and did not see the older woman anywhere. Nor, for that matter, did he see the human or the two mysterious Kastori he did not recognize from before.

“My Lord,” Carticus said, running up to him and bowing. Typhos, annoyed, made his hand white from gripping his sword, but thought better of killing his own man in frustration. “We have one of the Kastori captives. He said to bring him before you, and that you would know what to do.”

Typhos nodded, and Carticus used his spell to bring a man in black robes forward with one of the other white magic guardians behind him. Typhos looked down and came face to face with his first test.

20

Typhos looked down at Pagus, who had an angry scowl and, much to the surprise of Typhos, tears in his eyes.

Even more surprising was that such a sight stirred a strong sense of sympathy from Typhos.

“Is this what it comes down to, Typhos?” Pagus asked, his voice strong despite the tears. “Is this what you do to try and get away from the pain?”

Typhos could not muster any anger to fight back. Despite the throngs of screams and agonized terror around him, he could not focus on anything other than the man in front of him.

“Are the good years we had together worth nothing to you? The times we spent pranking each other, supporting each other going after cute girls, picking each other up after your heartache… does none of that mean anything to you?”

I shouldn’t be feeling this. I should just kill him.

You know what he was. Your best friend. Your greatest ally until you committed the greatest sin to him. And yet he still never fought you. Never has. Not even now.

Typhos dropped his left knee to the ground, his arms folded across his right knee as he looked at the aged face of Pagus. Fighting Calypsius had clearly aged him, as Pagus looked nothing like the energetic, playful boy Typhos knew in magic classes. He sported weary eyes, crow’s feet that extended far beyond his eyelids and faded hair.

Pagus looked like his murdered father.

“It means more to me than I care to admit,”
he telepathically communicated to Pagus.
“I have never been able to bring myself to kill you, even when you refused to support me.”

“But you can kill everyone else here, many of whom never fought against you. Some have. But you burn the entire place down, thinking it will somehow help you recover from the death of your parents.”

“And do you have a better suggestion?”

Pagus knew exactly where the eye of Typhos was and stared.

“No, Typhos. You will have this pain with you for as long as you live, whether you kill all of us or none of us. You will have to find a way to live with it.”

No…

Typhos stood up, his leg trembling as he did. He had suspected that might be the case, but he didn’t want to hear it.
What does Pagus know? He only lost his father at an age when he could understand.

“I live with my father’s death at your hand every day,”
Pagus communicated.
“Every day, I think about the fact that you killed my father. And every day, a part of me wants to find you and kill you. But after the early days, I knew that wouldn’t make a difference. I would just have to accept it. And now I see you here, Typhos, and I don’t hate you. I feel sad for you. You could have saved us all. You could have been the savior. And instead, you are annihilating our race.”

It’s true. What could have been…

It’s too late now.

Typhos held his sword out, placing it at the neck of Pagus. Pagus looked at Typhos with fiercely defiant eyes.

“Go ahead. Kill me like you killed my father. I’ll be resting in peace while you’ll be living in agony. It won’t make a difference.”

He gulped, as Typhos let him continue to talk.

“But it won’t change how good we had it as kids, Typhos. Today you will kill us all, I know that. I just hope tomorrow or some day down the line, you can let go, live with the pain, and not inflict it on others.”

Typhos held his sword tight and brought it up over his shoulder. But he flashed back to the conversations the two of them had every night, after dinner, on the hill that their parents and a few other Kastori families lived at. They would laugh. They would gossip. They would hug each other and say they loved each other.

I… I cannot.

But…

Typhos turned away and took a few steps back.

“My Lord?” Carticus said.

Typhos paused, turned his head, and looked down at the man on his knees. Typhos could not bring himself to kill his best friend.

But he could not show any mercy.