The Forsaken Hero

But even as Korra spoke, a chill ran down my spine. A new thread of mana bloomed, a deep, hollow void that pulsed with malice. It didn’t feel like Connor, nor any of the other Risen. Nor did it come from the battle.

Luke felt it as soon as I did, stiffening against me. ”Damn it! Someone’s going for the shard!”

I yelped as he suddenly dove, accelerating toward the city. The world flipped, my stomach somersaulting as we plummeted. It was so fast, so sudden, I hadn’t time to prepare myself, my scream trailing after us. My wards protected me from the wind, which, with the speed we were going, would have stripped my flesh from my bones, but the air rushed by my lungs, refusing to be swallowed. The whiplash was jarring, leaving a brutal ache in my neck and joints.

”Luke!” Korra shouted, following after us with Gayron. ”Careful! She’s fragile!”

Luke levelled out as we entered the city, zipping between precarious leaning structures and breaking through shockwaves. His heart beat against my breast, quick and erratic, his grip on me painfully tight. Fear? Anger? Excitement? All I could do was cling to him, my thoughts a jumbled mess.

We landed on the street outside the ruined cathedral, the air choked with dust and ashes. I gasped for air as Luke let me down, staggering, my head still spinning.

Korra was at my side in an instant, grabbing me with a glare at Luke. But the apostle was gone, leaving a blur as he rushed into the cathedral.

”Damn him,” she muttered, holding me up to look at me.

My tail twitched weakly as I rose on my tiptoes, trying ot keep contact with the ground. ”I’m fine. Just follow him.”

Gayron and Fyren landed a heartbeat later, and together, we rushed through the gates. I recognized the place immediately as the location I’d conversed with Connor some time ago, where he’d seen my soul form. That vision seemed so far away now. Nothing had ended up like I thought it would. Had it even happened in his mind? Or had that version of him been from a future that hadn’t come to pass? Based on his actions, I was beginning to think so. Connor didn’t seem like he’d given up. Not like he had in the vision.

The central chapel was dark and shadowy, the shard refusing to glow. Luke was motionless in the entry, staring at a dark figure standing before the shard. A figure was all I could call it. It was tall and slender, without garb and completely featureless. Like a shadow cast by the setting sun had taken dimension and form. Its hand was outstretched, resting on the shard, absorbing its power. Its aura was suppressed, but its infernal soul emanated peak eighth-level power.

”Who are you?” Luke demanded, raising his sword. ”How dare you claim what is mine. What emperor do you serve?”

The being didn’t answer, bathing in the exorbitant mana coming off the shard. Luke grit his teeth, gathering his mana, but a sharp, discordant crack, like the tole of a broken bell, split the air. Black lines spiderwebbed across the shard as it broke apart, dissolving into nothingness. The demon turned, its aura now crackling with power, seeming on the verge of collapse. The only features on its face were empty red eyes, glowing with malice.

”I know who you are.” Its voice seemed to come from everywhere, rasping like midnight wind through winter branches. I couldn’t tell who it was speaking to, who it fixed on. ”What you’ve done. What you’ve become. What I can become.”

Luke advanced, his aura spiking. ”You’ll die for that, demon. That power wasn’t yours to take.”

”Then you should have taken it.” This time, it was definitely addressing Luke. But then its eyes slid to me, and a chill crawled down my tail. ”But you wasted your time playing with your pet. Her soul is tantalizing, yet you haven’t even tasted her. How mortal.” It spat the words like a curse, before its voice softened, gentle almost. ”I’m going to take everything from you, like you tried to take from me. Your vengeance, your horde, your power...your pet. Most especially her.”

Before Luke could respond, or any of us could respond, a vertical pool of inky black swirled open behind it. A gate. It lifted its head, gazing behind me.

”You should have stayed dead, old one.”

I followed his gaze, finding Fyren looming behind us, his face unreadable even for an infernal expression. But his soul was calm, his claws hanging loosely at his sides.

Luke lunged forward, but the demon stepped into the gate, his haunting chuckle lingering in the air. Luke brought his blade down, growling as he struck at him, sundering the gate in two. The blow carried on behind, filled with his anger, obliterating what remained of the cathedral and several blocks of the city beyond. But when the dust settled, only Luke remained, chest heaving, eyes smoldering. His aura lashed around him, obliterating the residual mana of the gate.

”Damn it,” he growled, shoving the point of his sword into the ground, sinking it deep enough that it could stand on its own. ”Gah! What was I thinking? I should have been here. We should have gone for the shard!”

”Luke...”

I approached him, reaching out and taking his hand. His skin was hard and unforgiving as steel, his muscles coiling with mana. He met my gaze, and I shied back a step. The fire in his eyes was too intense. Too hard.

”It’s alright. It’s just one shard,” I whispered.

His hand tightened, a hairsbreadth from pain. With how much mana flowed through his body, he could crush every bone in my hand without even meaning to. Without, perhaps, even realizing it.

But I drew closer, cupping his cheek with my other hand, forcing him to look at me. Slowly, the light in his eyes died, and his jaw relaxed. I let out an unconscious breath as I saw myself reflected in his violet irises, and knew he saw me.

”I needed you, Luke. We couldn’t have gone for the shard,” I whispered.

”You don’t understand,” he said, a rough edge to his voice. ”That demon plotted all of this. And I walked right into his trap. He knew I’d get distracted, that I’d follow you where you went. That gave him all the time in the world to absorb that shard.”

”But it couldn’t have been much,” Gayron said from behind. ”You yourself know how inefficient it is when you’re already eighth-level. And that demon certainly wasn’t seventh.”

”You couldn’t feel it. You weren’t close enough. But he got all of it. Enough to break into ninth-level,” Luke said, scowling at the empty void where the shard had stood.

”How is that possible? You’ve absorbed like five shards and still haven’t broken through,” Korra said. She looked at me. ”He’s exaggerating, right?”

I shook my head, a lump in my throat. ”He’s right. What we sensed that brought us here wasn’t him beginning to siphon the shard, but the culmination. He must have been here since the battle began. Vulnerable, but there was no one to stop him.”

”And you,” Luke said, rounding on Fyren. ”He knew you,”

Fyren shrugged. ”You speak as if you didn’t recognize him.”

”What? It was a curse demon, but I’ve never seen its like.”

”And you?” Fyren asked, glancing at me.

My face fell, my tail going limp. ”It’s form, I didn’t know, but its soul...Rash’alon. He’s in Enusia again.”

Luke paled, suddenly gripping me tighter. This time, I didn’t mind, leaning against his side.

”That’s impossible. I killed him!”

”Yes, it is quite puzzling,” Fyren said with a dip of his head. ”It’s usually impossible for a demon to return to a mortal realm he’s been slain in. Not through a demon gate, that is.”

”He came by sacrifice the first time,” I said, ”But he looked like he did when he came through the demon gate. And isn’t a demon lord? His soul didn’t feel like an avatar. Not like Incinderus or Zephyriss.”

”And his mana,” Korra said suddenly. ”It reminded me more of Connor’s than Wisp’s.”

”Wisp?” Luke blinked, cocking his head.

I smiled, despite myself. ”The Devoted I asked to protect Sari. He usually remains hidden in her shadow, I think.”

”Everyone’s naming demons now,” he muttered.

My smile faded. ”I don’t know, Korra. I couldn’t tell if he just felt that way because he absorbed the corrupted shard. It was filled with undead mana, remember?”

She shrugged, not looking convinced. ”At least we know who was behind the curses in the Black Mist. That’s one problem solved.”

”Now the only question is why,” Gayron said.

”The shard. It’s obvious, isn’t it?” Luke asked. ”Whatever means he used to get here left him severely weakened. He needed a way to regain his power, and more. He must have traded the magic Connor used for the shard.”

It still didn’t seem right to me, but I had nothing to go on but a feeling. And before I could think it through, R’lissea’s Guardian suddenly appeared in our frame of view through the gaping hole Luke had torn in the cathedral. It staggered across the city, covered in dozens of patches of corrupted stone and vine, shedding rubble like hair. Connor chased after it, a black mote against the soft golden backdrop of my aura.

But R’lissea’s light didn’t fade. She rose above her construct, staff held tightly in both hands. Seven magic circles opened up around her, filling the sky with green mana. She pointed her staff as they resolved, crying in a voice that rang over the city.

”Verdant Confluence!”