The Forsaken Hero

Silver light rolled over us in wave after wave, annihilating everything in its path. The blast tore through the physical realm and the weave of fate alike. Long, jagged fissures opened in fate, spilling the cold and darkness of oblivion into Enusia.

My wards cracked and fell away. I screamed as the power scoured the flesh from my bones, turning blood and clothing to dust. Scarcely had oblivion begun to claim me when the warmth of my What Once Was Shall Come Again restored my fate.

Only for the next wave to kill me again.

Three times I perished, and three times I was brought back. After the third, the blast had weakened enough for Adaptive Resistance to consume its mana. I curled into a ball, still screaming, dimly aware of Fable sheltering me from the worst of the winds. Through our bond, I knew even he had died at least once.

At last, the roar faded, and the burning mana ebbed. I rocked back and forth, hugging myself as tears ran down my cheeks. I didn’t like dying. I didn’t like it at all. It was so cold and lonely, and so far from Luke.

Someone was patting my shoulder. A voice reached me through the haze. ”Xiviyah! Xiviyah, get up!”

Slowly, I raised my head and blinked away the tears. Verity’s silver eyes met mine. She looked terrified.

”What happened?” I mumbled, clutching my horn as she pulled me to my feet. My whole body hurt, as though I’d been dipped in lava and scoured with sand.

”I’m not sure. He just...exploded,” Verity said. Her voice trembled, and her gaze kept straying past me. Something was very wrong.

Fable growled, lashing his tail and stirring little whirlwinds through the ash. There were no streets left to speak of. Every building within a mile had been ground to dust, every mortal caught in the blast slain. Farther out, smoke and fire hid the ruins, but not a single tower remained standing.

The Fatesworn materialized one by one like stars appearing in the twilight. They stared about in shocked silence, hardly daring to move. The few remnants scattered among them looked equally afraid, though I sensed a deeper fear in them. They knew what this meant, and that terrified me. What could make the immortal remnants, heroes of countless worlds and wars, look like that?

I turned, and understood.

Above the place where Fate and Arantius had fought, a black rift yawned open. Tall and jagged, it looked as though a blade had slashed through the fabric of reality. Thin tendrils of darkness spread from its edges like a spider’s web. Wherever they touched, the world unraveled. Ash vanished, stone crumbled into nothing, and charred corpses slipped into oblivion.

A shudder ran down my spine and through my tail. It was like Haven all over again, before I’d managed to pull it back together. Fate hadn’t merely destroyed the city. He’d torn apart the threads that held it in existence, and now Enusia was being drawn into the void.

I summoned my staff and staggered forward, leaning on Verity for support. Fable prowled after us, growling. Beneath the anger simmering in his soul, I felt his fear. He knew as well as I did what this meant for our world.

A sharp tingle pierced my soul, stopping me midstep. I tightened my grip on Verity and my staff, searching the ruins for whatever had set off the warning. Then I saw it. A speck of silver glimmered in the heart of the rift. It grew brighter, swelling until the outline of a man stood within the darkness.

”No,” I whispered, my tail going rigid. ”It’s not possible.”

But the Oracle of Eternity left no room for doubt. The mana radiating from him was impossibly pure. I felt ashamed just standing before it, as though my presence alone could taint it. His power filled the air, pressing against my chest and soul until I could scarcely think, let alone draw on my aura. Whatever awe I felt drowned beneath a rising, primal fear.

”What is that?” Verity asked. She shrank in on herself, the light of her silvery form growing dim. She edged behind me just as I tried to hide behind her. We ended up huddled behind Fable, who faced the figure with his hackles raised.

The being emerged from the rift and surveyed the ruins. He reminded me of a remnant, but his light was too intense to make out any features. Only the shape of a man remained, wrought in pure silver.

”Tremble, mortals, and rejoice, for this day you have laid eyes upon a god.”

His voice rolled across the city, shaking the ground beneath my feet. He turned toward me. I couldn’t see his eyes, but I felt his gaze settle on me, and my breath caught.

”I shall be denied my inheritance no longer.”

Fate. Not an avatar or a vessel bearing a fraction of his power. The god himself.

He drifted toward me, never touching the ground, yet black cracks spread through the world with every movement. Enusia strained to suppress him as it did the arbiters and avatars. It wasn’t enough. An entire realm could not bear the weight of a divine soul.

”It’s not possible,” I whispered. ”The Covenant...Fate promised no god could descend.”

”No god would descend,” a small voice reminded me. None of them would be mad enough to risk destroying a world simply by appearing within it.

But we’d made him that desperate. We’d driven a god to descend in his true body.

”Yes, it’s rather impressive, isn’t it?” Fate asked. His attention sharpened, and I bit my lip. I’d remembered too late that my mind was an open book.

I glanced over my shoulder, desperately searching for the goddess or any of the other remnants. There was no one. Even Arantius’s form had been destroyed in the blast, though I could still feel him within Haven, recovering. There had been no flesh or blood to kill, but he couldn’t return to Enusia yet. And even if he could, I didn’t dare call him before this. Any of them. What could I ask them to do against a god but die?

”Fate, there’s no need for this. This world has done nothing wrong,” I said, backing away even though I knew it was futile.

The god laughed, cold and cruel. ”This world has already fallen to the demons. Even in your naivety, you should see that. It was what you fought for, after all. There’s little left for me to glean from it, save one thing.”

He raised a hand, and a silver sword appeared, its pommel hovering above his palm. A careless gesture sent it toward me. He didn’t even bother taking hold of it.

The sword wasn’t fast. I could follow every inch of its approach. But I could see no path out of its way, no future in which it failed to reach me. It drew upon the laws of fate themselves, leaving a thin black line where its tip severed the threads.

Fable lunged, swiping at it with a massive paw. The blade never swerved, yet somehow his claws missed. Verity darted forward, catching it with her sword. Silver sparks flew, and she was hurled aside.

I didn’t try to run. My wards parted beneath its point, unraveling before it had even passed through them. I lowered my head and whispered an apology to Luke. I’d thought breaking into ninth level had made death meaningless. I’d been wrong.

No mortal magic would deny a god his prey.

A black hand closed around the hilt.

The sword stopped inches from my chest. I stared as my shadow rose, twisting into a figure as dark as Fate was bright. Its edges frayed and broke apart, then drew together again, as though it could barely hold its shape.

My skin crawled. It felt wrong in a way Fate didn’t. He was powerful, impossibly so, but he belonged within the weave. He existed.

This thing shouldn’t.

It turned its head toward me. A golden chain hung around its neck, bearing an amulet with the image of an angel. Against the shifting darkness, it was the only thing with clear edges. The only thing that looked real.

Then I met its eyes.

They glowed red, but what I saw reflected within them was myself. Not as I was now, but as I’d been when I first came to Enusia. A small, broken girl with nothing left to hope for or believe in.

In her eyes, I saw another girl. Rachel. She lay in a street in a world without magic, without hope, a needle slipping from her twitching fingers. And in her eyes was an old woman, gray-eyed and wise, in a world of magic I didn’t recognize. Within hers, another woman, in another world without magic. On and on, one life reflected in the eyes of the last.

The story of my soul, stretching back beyond anything I could comprehend.

I gasped and tore my gaze away. But I couldn’t help looking back. This time, there were no reflections. Only two blazing red eyes, watching me. I knew those eyes.

My voice trembled. ”Fyren?”