Authors: Jordan Mendez
Velkire
parried my sword, creating an opening as he swiftly kicked me in the gut,
sending me onto my back with my blade still in hand. Velkire raised his sword
up to attack again, this time his grin was back. “Their lives ended because of
that fire, just as your brother’s will because of yours!”
Sparks
flew off our blades as they made contact, the force nearly shoving me into the
floor. Velkire twisted his blade around mine, and flung it away. His murderous
grey eyes danced with malice as he pointed his sword down at me. The black
blade seemed to growl almost, as if the thought of my blood running across its
steel gave it great joy. I could only look up at him, and beg with my entire
soul for a miracle.
“May
your soul burn in hell for all eternity,” Velkire hissed, brought his blade
down on me.
~
Cuts
and bruises, flesh wounds and possible permanent burns across the torso—the new
assortment of injuries Vaze had acquired while fighting the demon Raven were
endless, but the number of injuries the demon sustained was zero. Vaze had
contributed more than his fair share of killing blows to the creature, but it
kept coming back being healed by the demonic fire. For possibly the fiftieth
time, Vaze swiped his sword across the demon’s throat midair, severing its
windpipe. The demon fell to the ground with a loud thump, but just as soon it
was back in the air with red eyes focused only on Vaze, intent on killing him.
The
cold wind stung Vaze’s burn as it boiled his bare stomach, and the chill to the
rest of his skin did no help at all. At one point in the battle, the demon had
almost cut into his torso with her claws, but only succeeded in tearing his
shirt as he zipped away.
Vaze
had tried every possible method he could think of to kill the demon, but none
on his mental list had succeeded. His sword felt heavy in his hand as he flapped
his wings, almost as if it had grown heavier every time it made contact with
the demon.
Vaze
stopped in his place, flapping gently to keep aloft. He waited for the demon,
but she did not attack. There was no sign of her, not even the clumsy flapping
of her wings. It was quiet, much too quiet. And that was when Vaze realized the
demon was playing with him.
Melancholic
laughter bounced off the towers and through the court yard below, making it
seem as if it were coming from all directions. Vaze looked from side to side
with his peripheral vision, but not moving enough to let the demon know of his
distress. He would not let her have the satisfaction.
“Silly
Vaze,” her voice echoed, making it seem as if she were right next to him, yet
at the same time at the farthest reaches of the castle. “You’ve more than found
out that you cannot kill me by now.” A tip of a claw lightly grazed Vaze’s bare
shoulder from behind, and without hesitation Vaze swiped his sword. It caught
only air.
“There
is only one thing that can kill me, but so many that can kill you,” the demon
sung in a million different directions. Vaze couldn’t hide his nervousness
anymore. He began to look around, searching for the demon with his sword held
defensively. The minute he turned he was staring into scarlet red eyes, only an
inch away from his own.
“Like
this.” There was no time to react. The demon grabbed him and together they
descended at dangerous speeds. Their path of destruction was towards the
smallest throne room window in the shape of an ever burning sun, erected over
the other three large windows to signify the Healer over the three ancient
ruling kingdoms of the past. Vaze never thought he would see the tribute, and
especially not in his last moments.
Vaze’s
wings disappeared, and with one final attempt he stabbed the demon through her
stomach. The demon smiled a toothy grin before coughing up blood and going
limp. Even though the demon’s wings were not forcing the two through the air,
they were still on a collision course with death—or at least Vaze was.
As
a last ditch effort, Vaze used the only solution that came to mind: pray like
crazy.
~
One
thing happened in the instant that my life flashed before my eyes that I
absolutely owed my survival to. I personally hated flashy things, but I
couldn’t help but love when Vaze made a ‘flashy’ appearance. And by flashy, I
mean busting through a window.
The
sound of shattering glass snapped me out of my trance as Vaze and a dead demon
busted through the small window above the three larger windows, sending a
shower of deadly diamond like glass into the air. The shards of glass looked
more like water falling from the sky by the way they twinkled, but by a quick
guess one could tell there were large lethal pieces among them.
While
I was only hit with small pieces that caused minor cuts, Velkire had the
misfortune of a larger shard sticking itself into his shoulder, staining his
silver tunic red. With a grunt of pain Velkire grasped his shoulder with his
free hand. Another shard embedded itself into his sword hand, causing him to
involuntarily drop his saber. Velkire’s black sword clattered to the ground and
our eyes met. The expression in our eyes matched.
Velkire
gazed at me in disbelief, and I looked straight on back with the same amount of
shock. Our minds were in sync, and our thoughts were the same. Our second long
glance told everything: the tides had turned. The flick of my wrist changed
everything.
Never
before had my fire roared so loudly, burned so brightly, or seared as hot as it
did then. Velkire’s cries of agony mixed in with the crackling flames. The fire
devoured him until his figure only a black silhouette writhing around in pain,
crawling and wriggling as he tried to free himself. The whole throne room was
illuminated with blinding light, leaving no shadow for anything to hide in. It
would have been a beautiful sight to see, but my entire being was concentrated
into my fire.
Destroying
his body would not be enough.
I could remember my
instructions clearly.
His body can be replaced and remade. To kill Velkire,
you need to burn his very soul to ash.
My fire howled in delight as the
words chimed through my mind, as if they were born for the sole purpose of
killing Velkire. Nothing else had my attention besides the burning body of
Velkire. I didn’t realize how much I would regret that.
“Scarlet!”
the voice croaked over the roaring flames. I knew the voice well. It was the
same voice I had heard practically since I was old enough to walk. It was Al’s.
My eyes darted to the center of the throne room, where my mind could scarcely
comprehend what I was seeing.
Alastair
stood holding a frightened Al restrained by his neck with one arm while the
other was bearing a sword at his side. I recognized the cursed blade almost
immediately: Alma Ladron. Alastair’s head was turned at an angle where I could
not see his face, but Al’s was as plain as day. It was bloody and bruised, and
looking at me horrified. Al reached out to me with a trembling hand, and the
whole world seemed to slow down as I stared into his wide eyes.
I
saw his mouth move to scream my name, but I could not hear him. The raging
flames killing Velkire forced warmth into me, but I felt like ice.
It
couldn’t have lasted more than five seconds, but it felt like an eternity.
Alastair took Alma Ladron and ran it through Al’s lower back. There was a gut
wrenching sound as the blade ripped through him. The white blade turned red
with Al’s blood, but his eyes did not leave mine. My fire sizzled out of
existence, leaving a charred unrecognizable body. Al’s outstretched arm fell slowly,
his entire body relaxing with a slow exhale. I heard my own cry, but it seemed
very far away as if it were only an echo traveling across mountains. I knew he
couldn’t hear me.
Time
sped up as Alastair withdrew the sword from my brother making a wet slipping noise
as it exited. Al’s body slumped over in Alastair’s grip, and Alastair tossed
him over his shoulder. Sudden rage building up inside me, I scrambled to my
feet, sprinting straight for Alastair. I screamed every foul name and insult I
could possibly think of, but Alastair only stared at the ground. I rose up a
shaky hand, a ball of fire igniting in my palm.
With
a cry consisting of shock, rage and agony, I sent the deadly ball of flame
sailing for Alastair’s head. In the last moment, Alastair looked up, and I had
a momentary glance of his face before my flames exploded into a white hot
display. I could only make out one emotion on his face: remorse. I didn’t care.
I wanted compensation. I wanted revenge. I wanted him dead.
Tears
seared my eyes as I watched Alastair dodge my fire, disappearing before I could
throw another ball of exploding flame. Through the corner of my eye, I could
see him reappear next to the charred corpse of Velkire with my dead brother
still slumped over his shoulder.
Before
I could set him aflame, Alastair raised the bloody Alma Ladron over his head,
and brought it down on the corpse. The moment the blade made contact Velkire’s
body burst into a pile of ash. Alastair disappeared once again, but he did not
return.
“Alastair,
you coward!” I screamed at the top of my lungs. My face was wet with tears, and
my heart clenched in the pain of loss and hatred. “Come back and fight me,
traitor!”
Finally,
it seemed my body couldn’t take it anymore. My knees failed beneath me, and I
fell grasping my sides. Laying there on the ground, I wept. Even in the end,
life had succeeded in destroying my world. My brother was dead. Nothing else
mattered. My one reason for pursuing this quest was to keep my brothers safe,
and I had let one die. My whole world was falling apart within me, and as if
reacting to my heart the earth began to shake.
The
ground shook furiously beneath me, causing me to flail even though I was
already crumpled in a ball. A deafening rumble shot my ears, the sound being
caught between a roar of a large animal and the high tide of a raging ocean.
The chandelier above shook madly, swaying to and fro as its crystals clanked
together like hail against a steel roof. The light from the candles had gone
out, and other the blue glow of the sphere cages the room was dark.
For
one who had never experienced or had even heard of an earthquake, the ground
suddenly becoming unstable below your feet can be quite terrifying, even
horrific. Until that point in time, I had experienced nothing like it, and it horrified.
I
tried desperately to get to my feet, to rid myself of that feeling of
helplessness, but every time I managed to I only fell back down. In addition,
every time I tried, the shaking only got worse, until finally it seemed that
some part of the castle just couldn’t take it anymore. The curtains covering
the windows fell, and a loud crash finally caught my attention, long enough to
witness just about every article of glass in the room to break. The four blue
spheres at the corners of the rooms shattered, sending out a spray of beautiful
glowing blue sparks. It would have been an amazing sight to gaze at, if only I
were not in the range of the large glass windows behind the throne.
The
three over hanging windows exploded in perfect unison, and in a world that was
shaking and crumbling, the falling shards had a definite direction: me. That
would be twice that day shattering glass had been given the decision to grant me
life or death. Struggling to stand as the ground yearned for me to fall, I
could only imagine that the first time the glass had meant to kill me, and this
time its whim was to fulfill its first desire. My feet moved to run, but the
ground demolished my chances of escape by hurtling me to my knees, making
absolutely sure I could not get away. Was this really how the world worked? Did
my killing Velkire mean that I would have to die as well? I could only ponder
these things while looking up at the glass that was cascading down towards me
like a deadly waterfall.
“Scarlet!”
I heard it only a second before I felt it. Pain flooded into my back as I was
tackled from behind, causing me to fly forward with my perpetrator to the foot
of the throne. Warm arms held me tightly and large shadows enveloped our bodies
into a shaky darkness. I struggled to wriggle my body around against the thrashing
ground and the body pressing me to the floor, until finally I could see the icy
blue eyes of the boy who had saved my life by risking his own yet again.
“Just
hold on tight to me alright?” Vaze managed to say as his teeth clenched
together. I could hear the glass bouncing off of his wings, but could tell that
some larger pieces managed to stick themselves in. I just stared at him, unable
to wrap my mind around everything. Al was dead. That was all that my conscious
mind could comprehend, other than the fact that it was my fault.
“Vaze…”
The restless ground grew even more violent, and in fear I held onto Vaze with
all the might my trembling body could muster. Vaze held onto me tightly with
one arm, and the other he struggled to keep our bodies flat on the ground. I
couldn’t help myself from begging the earth to have mercy and I felt all too
much like a small helpless child in the hands of an unforgiving God. It only
lasted about fifteen seconds, but that next instant in my life was one I’d
never forget.
The
entire time, the moon’s light had illuminated the throne room, and its light
was shaky and wavering, but it was enough to see by. However, in the blink of
an eye, all went black. I couldn’t tell the difference between when my eyes
were closed and when they were open other than the stinging need to blink. My
curiosity overwhelming my fear, I strained my neck to look towards the broken
windows.
“No
Scarlet!” Vaze grabbed my head and shoved it back to his body, making it
impossible for me to see. “There’s no telling what could happen if you look!
Just keep your eyes shut!” Heading Vaze’s warning, I buried my face in his
shoulder, eyes closed tight. I didn’t know why I cared. It seemed as if my
emotions had shut off and my body was controlling itself.
My
thoughts weren’t on track, but my hearing was. At that moment, I wished I was
deaf. Out of the darkness came noises one could scarcely imagine, even in the
most vivid of nightmares. Cries of horror, agony and death threatened to drive me
insane. It was hard to tell if the cries were human or not, but I could easily recognize
the cries for help were from struggling living beings, begging for a savior.
Screeching came from all around, as if Vaze and I were surrounded by an army of
shadows, only mixed with unknown creatures that were much worse. Against my
skin I felt a burning sensation, and immediately a scorching thirst slashed my
throat as if it were made of sandpaper as I took desperate breaths. Then, in
the blinding darkness behind my eyelids, the world burst into light with flame.
My eyes were still shut tight, but in the depths of my mind I felt an intruder.
My suspicions confirmed themselves when a dark shadowy figure arose from the
flames.
“
Child,
you who rival me with the power of the blessed flames, why do you travel so
close to my dominion?
” The voice was like that of a throaty beast, and
as the figure talked Hell’s Fire spewed from its mouth. I did not answer. “
You
attempted to kill my child, but you have failed. Just as I am not trapped in
the depths of Hell, neither is his soul. He shall return, hungry for revenge as
a starving jackal hungers for flesh. Beware child, for even your God cannot
save you from my son’s wrath accompanied by my own. Leave this place, or I
shall kill you before you can see the light of morning.
” Finally my
eyes could no longer take keeping shut any longer. My eyes flew open and stared
unwaveringly ahead. Glaring back at me were two dark, bloodshot eyes quickly
retreating into the darkness. As I stared, the strength in my body dissipated.
Those eyes hid more than they would let on at first glance. Inside those eyes, I
could clearly see generation after generation of trapped souls burning alive in
agony. I could see Hell itself.
As
if blinking, the world went dark once again, but I was absolutely positive I
had kept my eyes wide open. The ground beneath me ceased its violent outburst
and returned to its normal dormant state, but my body shook like a leaf in a
tornado. I couldn’t process what I had just seen. Only one real string of
events went through my mind: Velkire was not dead, I had failed, and my brother
had lost his life because of me. The darkness faded, and the black walls of the
castle turned grey as the sun rose outside the broken windows. The sound of
chirping birds wafted into the throne room faintly, and the ocean noises from
before was long gone. Wherever we had been before, we weren’t there anymore. It
was as if the entire castle had transported somewhere new.
Vaze’s
wings disappeared in a faint golden light, and the shards of glass that had
stuck into his wings dropped to the ground, still bearing Vaze’s blood. I
glanced at them. They could have easily killed me. Vaze sat up, and held me by
my arms so that his blue eyes looked straight into my own. I stared at him
blankly.
His
lips moved to form my name, and his face was full of worry, but I could not
hear him. My vision blurred with tears, and was fuzzy as I became lightheaded.
My chest was heavy, and my consciousness was fading rapidly. With a pained
breath I choked out the name of the one person I needed to see, “Al…”
Everything
faded into black, my body lost its weight as I passed out.
~
One
month was how long it took. One month was how long it took for the rebels to
reach us, with Moraj teleported back to its original land before it underwent
the Convergence. It was one month before I had found the words to speak again,
and one month for everything to process in my mind.
Vaze
had told me what had happened since I had been taken away by Velkire, and he
told me how the demon Raven, Enzio, and Alastair had fled the kingdom, and
evidently with no one to keep Moraj held in place at Death’s Kingdom, it had
undergone a sort of ‘reverse’ Convergence. He had told me all this as I was
recovering, in which I was silent to everything, hardly even acknowledging that
I had been listening.
In
the month I was recovering, I had made a huge leap in my reading and my
writing. I clung to the book Alastair had read to me as if it were a part of my
body, and with it I had built off of the reading lessons Alastair gave me and
began to read it myself. Gidian, Yuki, and Siren had tried times to get me to
talk while I was reading, but only Kyra had the idea to get me to write on
strips of paper as responses. At first it was ugly and crooked letters with
many misspelled words, but eventually I was able to write clearly, mostly by
practicing writing down ‘leave me alone’ on the piece of paper often. Seth had
been the most shocked at my reading and writing when we were reunited again,
but not even he had much to say due to the first message I wrote to them, which
had only three letters: Al is dead.
My
remaining three brothers had had the grace not to cry in front of me when we
saw each other again, but I knew they had because of the red puffiness of their
eyes when they attended the funeral the next day. It was there I had said the
first words I had since Al’s death.
At
the funeral, every rebel was in attendance. No one cried, but instead all
shared the same look of stone hard remorse. There was only one gravestone, set
up in the courtyard (which was now bearing flower buds among the dead plants) before
the dry cracked fountain. It was made from pure white stone, signifying the
highest respect for the one it had been meant to bear. It was not his short
name that he had went by his entire life, but the full name of his that I had
learned while fighting Velkire: Alphonse Lucelles. Below his name was written a
tribute to him in small elegant letters:
Al,
the boy with the heart of gold, may he forever be treasured by the Healer
.
I
stared at the grave in utter disdain. My eyes were dry, and my heart was filled
with disgust. The grave was empty. My brother was not in it. His body was where
ever Alastair and Enzio were. I had no idea why, but it was. I would never be
content with just this. I had to see him to be satisfied. I dropped a scarlet
red rose on his grave when it came my turn and I made a promise to myself,
swearing it on Al’s grave when it actually held his body.
“I’m
not going to abandon you Al,” I hissed quietly, so that no one could hear. “I
will find your body, and I’ll slaughter the one who did this to you.”
Before
the red flower dropped onto the ground before Al’s grave, I was storming off
back towards the castle walls. The clouds over head were heavy with rain, and
it was expected to fall before noon. The valley Moraj resided in was possibly a
day or two’s trip back to the port town, and that was only if one went nonstop.
There was no way I could sneak back there all by myself, not with the mountains
in my way. No, I would need a pair of wings to get there in the time I needed.
But Vaze was out of the question. He’d be too quick to catch on. I needed
someone a little bit slower.
The
funeral lasted about a half hour more, but I didn’t stick around for it. I was
already back at my room, packing a sack with everything I’d need, or couldn’t
bear to part with. My mother’s bracelet clinked lightly as it hit my sword (the
same one from my fight with Velkire) as it retreated into the sheath I found
for it. I had yet to successfully remove the wretched silver trinket, but I had
decided that cutting off my wrist would be too over the top. With a slight
twinge, I stuffed the book of horror stories Alastair had read to me into my
sack. With it was two daggers, a loaf of bread, a light blanket, and a water
pouch. I figured I didn’t need too much food, since I could hunt for myself and
in more desperate (or lazy) situations I could just steal food. I had found
clothing that would suit my needs: a tunic, a jacket, trousers, and a pair of
boots. It was a nice change from dresses, and I would not regret dressing as a
male.
I
jumped as a faint knock rapped against my door, but I calmed down, realizing I
had nothing to fear. I had already asked my brother’s master to meet me at my
room. He was not a very regal man, like I had previously thought, and instead
was rather spacy. He seemed to be about five or six years older than Kyra,
which puzzled me, since he was also the same person who was supposedly my
father’s best friend. He had had to have been at least four years younger than I
was then when he helped my father and mother fight Enzio when Moraj was
attacked, which only added to the respect of his power I had. And yet, I knew I
could manipulate this man to suit my purposes. I knew I would feel guilty about
it later, but I decided it was for a just cause.
“You
needed me, Scarlet?” Gidian said as he poked his head through the door. I slung
the sack over my shoulder and faced him, trying to put on my best distressed
face. It wasn’t completely made up, but honestly I was more ready to skewer
someone than cry. Gidian’s face filled with sympathy none the less.
“I
want to go see my brother’s parents,” I replied, straining my voice to match my
face. “They were in the port town that you and the rest were at before you all
stormed into Moraj. They’re dead now, but I want to put a rose at their graves,
like I did with Al’s.”