Rosinanti: Rise of the Dragon Lord (Rosinanti Series Book 3) Page 40

  Tearing his hand from his brother’s arm, Michael undid his restraints, pulled a mallet from his tool belt, and charged at the general from behind. Zouka turned at the last moment, driving a knee into Michael’s midsection that splintered ribs and sent the mechanic flying back and skidding to a shaking stop along the floor. Michael could feel sticky liquid billowing in his throat and vomited a pool of blood. He watched helplessly as Zouka easily plucked Deana from her seat. The young healer flailed her arms and screamed. She called out both of their names as the Gorram slung her over one shoulder and absconded with her from the room, leaving the Duzel brothers alone and forgotten.

  A fresh string of explosions ripped along the side of the ship, and Michael knew their journey had come to an end. As the ship lurched toward the unforgiving ground, the mechanic slid along the floor of the bridge. He managed to reach out with one weakening arm to catch the base of Mitchell’s pilot seat. Michael reached up with his other hand and clamped it down in the sweat and blood-soaked palm of his brother. Mitchell gently squeezed his brother’s shaking fingers, showing some life was still left within him.

  The ground rose up to meet them, and The Heart of Casid smashed into it with a deafening crash.

  The last Skirlack body thumped onto the ground as Nahzarro’s whip reeled back subsequent to carving a blackened gash along its wide neck. This marked the last sentry that stood guard outside of the entrance to Aleksandra’s fortress.

  “Is it just me, or was this a little too easy?” Maura asked.

  A knot tightened in Nevick’s chest. “It’s not that,” he said, shaking his head. “The guards are for show. What does someone with that much power need a guard for?”

  Grim realization flashed across the eyes of his companions. Maura and Nahzarro had met Aleksandra previously, but they had never gone blow for blow with her before. Nevick had, and the memory still haunted him.

  This meek, seemingly harmless, tiny woman, almost frail in appearance. But when she struck… Nevick would never forget the world-ending strength in every casual smack of the empress’s fists.

  “What was it like?” Nahzarro asked, breaking through the uncomfortable silence with a shuddering, naked dread.

  Nevick wouldn’t lie to the king. “I’ve never felt so helpless in my life,” he admitted as he craned his neck up to look at the foreboding, black structure. “As fast as you think you are, she’s faster. As strong as you think you are, she’s stronger. It was like fighting the sun.”

  “Well, that’s uplifting as we’re about to try this,” Maura said with a dramatic roll of her eyes.

  “Should we wait for Valentean?” Nahzarro asked, fear quaking his voice.

  Nevick saw the wisdom in the Grassani ruler’s hesitancy, but they could not just sit around and wait for Valentean to ride in and save the day. As he was about to answer, a burst of blue and red lightning exploded out through the balcony, screeching unmolested into the open sky.

  “We can’t wait,” Maura said, taking the words right from Nevick’s mouth. “Seraphina is up there fighting, and I’m not letting her fight alone for another minute.”

  Nahzarro nodded, and Nevick’s jaw clenched. It was time to face his fears and engage in the battle of a lifetime.

  “Nevick, you shouldn’t go,” Nahzarro blurted out.

  The big man nearly did a double take. “What?” Nevick snorted, almost offended.

  “Yes, I’m equally confused by this,” Maura said with a raised eyebrow. “He’s the strongest one here!”

  “Exactly,” Nahzarro replied. “Which is why he needs to destroy The Eye while we keep the princess distracted.”

  Nevick raised his gaze up to the sky, just barely able to distinguish the red, pulsating glow that flared to life impossibly high overhead. Could he truly send his friends off on a suicide mission without his strength and prowess? “I don’t like the idea of splitting up,” Nevick said slowly, looking from Nahzarro to Maura with hesitancy darkening his stare.

  “Nahzarro is right,” Maura relented a moment later. “It’s the only way to make sure The Eye is destroyed. We don’t know when Valentean will get here, so we have to make sure she’s cut off from that power or everyone is dead.”

  Nevick cursed. They were right. As much as he hated the idea of sending the two of them off toward certain death…it couldn’t be avoided. “Fine,” he said, his jaw tight as the warrior of Casid fought to maintain his emotions. “Just make sure you give that witch a shot for me.” Maura nodded, and Nahzarro folded his arms over his chest, clearly deep in thought.

  Nevick and Maura made eye contact, a solemn moment of acceptance passing between the two friends, knowing they were likely to never see one another again. The girl rushed forward, wrapping her arms around his waist and burying her head in his broad chest. Nevick’s strong arms wrapped around Maura and pulled her close. He closed his eyes and silently cursed Aleksandra, The Faithful, and the Skirlack for all they had taken and all they would take before this night was finished.

  Maura broke the embrace after a moment and stepped away, casually wiping a long tear from the corner of her eye. Nevick looked over at Nahzarro, arms folded as he stared off in stoic thought.

  He’s coming to terms with the possibility of death, Nevick realized. He shook the newly crowned king from his reverie by laying a strong hand upon his shoulder.

  “Hey,” Nevick said, giving Nahzarro one of his strongest looks, “we’re all going to need one devil of a feast back at your castle when this is over. All of us.”

  Nahzarro’s eyes smiled sadly though his mouth remained flat and joyless. “I’ll save you a seat, mate,” he replied, nodding with a tip of his hat. Nevick stepped back and gazed up at the harsh black stone of Aleksandra’s floating fortress. He glanced back at his allies once more and flashed them a half-smile before his face hardened to rock. He leapt into the air, his hands sinking into the stone surface of the castle as though it were loose mud. Then, with not a glance back, Nevick began to climb.

  A blue circle of order surrounded Seraphina as the flames of chaos fed upon the Dreamscape. She remained unscathed by its fury, but she had no idea how long such defenses would hold out. She could no longer see Aleksandra through the flaming conflagration that engulfed the entirety of creation.

  But something else was forming in the fire. The flames were contorting, becoming figures bathed in blaze. Shapes, places, people formed out of the red and orange heat.

  She saw Aleksandra, very young, standing before her mother, insistently trying to say something. Her mother’s hand lashed out, smacking the princess along the mouth before roughly tossing her through the throne room doors, out into the foyer beyond.

  “Look what I can do, Momma,” the sad flaming child whispered as a small button floated from her palm into the air.

  The blaze crashed together once more like wild, burning waves and reformed to show the princess, slightly older, maybe five or six, much as she had appeared initially in the Dreamscape, sitting with Sophie. Aleksandra sat along the handmaiden’s hip, snuggled up as Sophie extended an arm around her. It was such a tender and loving moment, one that Seraphina knew could have never come from their mother.

  “And the Goddess’s flames ignited the air of light and burned the land of darkness to ash,” Sophie said, rocking back and forth with the pint-sized princess. Aleksandra looked up at her with wonder and awe. “Then do you know what happened?”

  The young girl’s face contorted in anger. “Then, the Harbinger…”

  “Yes, dear girl,” Sophie continued, stroking Aleksandra’s hair as the girl leaned her head against her faithful handmaiden’s side. “Then the Harbinger arrived and spread her poisonous fluid throughout the world, beating back the loving flames of the Goddess and weakening the entirety of Terra.”

  As the inferno collapsed upon them, swallowing the scene, Seraphina’s eyes remained locked upon those of her sister. There was an intense glower, a stoic hatred bubbling there in her gaze as the story of Aqu
a’s ancient victory over Ignis was told. Seraphina stared at that look of utter hatred until it had fully vanished within the flames.

  As the fire spread once more, Aleksandra was older, maybe twelve or thirteen now. She stood in the forest outside of Kackritta City. Sophie was present, beaming with pride, as were several robed, hooded figures who surrounded the princess in a vast circle. At the head of their company stood Aurax.

  “Aleksandra Kackritta, blessed ancestor of the holy Bakamaya, do you on this day knowingly take unto yourself the essence of our most High and Holy Mother? Will you walk the path of fire and burn the world itself if need be to make way for her flames of purifying ecstasy?”

  “Yes,” Aleksandra said, her young face stoic and strong. She was fully focused and transfixed upon Aurax’s hateful, yellow eyes, unblinking in her steadfast faith.

  “Will you walk through the flames yourself? Will you bathe the land, air, and sea in the purifying blaze?”

  “Yes.”

  Sophie was smiling proudly as only a mother could.

  “And will you topple the Harbinger and eradicate the Shogai once and for all? Will you revel in their defeat? Taste of their blood? Will you, Aleksandra Kackritta, usher in the return of our most High and Holy Mother to reclaim her lost world no matter the cost?”

  Aleksandra’s eyebrows knotted together, and a look of blazing anger and hatred darkened her stare. “Without question, Aurax.”

  There was silence for a moment. Then, Aurax withdrew his arms from his baggy sleeves, and there, hovering in his hand, was a sparking, pulsating ball of red and orange energy. It was twisted. It was evil. It was Ignis. The shard of the chaos spirit flowed like a hovering ball of blood over Aurax’s palm.

  “Then by the authority of the high order of Skirlack, sovereigns of The Faithful, I, Aurax the Ever Seeing, do on this day bestow upon you, Aleksandra Kackritta, the power and authority of the Goddess herself.”

  Aleksandra’s nostrils flared in anticipation as the shard of Ignis leapt from Aurax’s hand and smacked her in the chest.

  The energy vanished as it entered her breastbone, and the princess stumbled back, falling against the bark of a large tree Seraphina did not recognize. She retched momentarily as if she might vomit the spark of chaos back up onto the forest ground.

  Crimson lightning crackled along her fingers and arms. Aleksandra swayed once more, dropped to her knees, and screamed in agony as her eyes came alight with red power for the first time ever. An explosion ripped out from her body, and The Faithful scattered in a blind panic. Only Sophie and Aurax remained in place, gazing in awe as the energy of a goddess bonded with the soul of a young girl.

  As the explosion faded, Aleksandra was standing, her eyes aglow with the now familiar crimson bloodshine of chaos. The tree she had fallen against had warped and changed. Its branches had singed and all of its leaves burned away. It towered above the princess, utterly dead. The entire area surrounding the tree was a darkened, crusted shade of brown. It was as though Aleksandra’s transformative moment had fed on the life of the forest itself. Nothing grew in, on, or around the tree.

  Seraphina gasped. The leafless tree! she realized in a moment of sobering clarity. The place she and Val would sneak off to play. The spot where the Skirlack beast had nearly ended her life. It was the sight of Aleksandra’s transformation into a monster.

  The flames shifted one last time, and Seraphina saw Aleksandra, age sixteen, kneeling by a bedside, gazing with a longing urgency at a still figure lying beneath the covers. It was her. Seraphina’s thirteen-year-old body lay still and cold in the wake of the beast’s attack.

  “What have I done?” Aleksandra sobbed into her hands. “Seraphina, what have I done to you? How could I be so careless? How could I have allowed this to happen? It was…” Her eyes darkened, coming alight with chaos energy. “It was the Shogai! Of course! He takes all from those who remain true to the Goddess’s love. Oh, Seraphina, he will pay for what he has done to you! He will pay with his life!”

  The flames suddenly dissipated, leaving Seraphina standing at the base of the leafless tree. She looked upon the dead, crusted ground with a grimace of dread. This place had been defiled by Aleksandra, Sophie, and Aurax. This place had seen the rise of the greatest evil the world would ever know. This place…the stories it could tell.

  “I was wrong,” said that same childish voice from behind.

  Seraphina whirled around to come face to face once more with the six-year-old child who had once been her sister. “What do you mean?” There was a spark of hope in her voice. Had Aleksandra realized through these visions that she had been deceived?

  “It was not the curse of the Shogai that nearly ended your life on that day. It was the will of the Goddess.”

  Seraphina felt the weight of the world slam down around her. “That’s not true.”

  “Yes, the Goddess foresaw the monster that you would one day become. She set in motion the events of that day. I unknowingly allowed you to flourish, blinded by love.”

  “Aleksandra, I do love you.”

  “Silence!” The child’s voice had changed, now sounding much like the fully grown empress Seraphina had been battling. The little girl’s eyes came alive with red chaos. “What did you think was going to happen here, Seraphina? Did you think you would enter my mind, show me the error of my ways, and I would come around to your evil way of thinking? There is no error in my ways! I am the chosen prophet of the true Mother of our world! I made these choices, sister. Me! No one else!”

  The girl sprang forward impossibly fast, rising into the air and gripping Seraphina by the throat. Seraphina could feel tendrils of chaos entering through her skin, cooking her from the inside. She thrashed in Aleksandra’s powerful grip.

  “You are a fool, Harbinger. Did you truly think you could invade my mind had I not allowed it? I wanted you in here. I wanted you to see what I am, what I can do, how I came to be, and the mistakes I’ve made. But today, I will correct one such error!”

  The red light from the child version of her sister’s eyes scorched Seraphina’s own. Suddenly, she was toppling, the Dreamscape torn away in a harsh fiery blaze. Seraphina fell to the ground, once more in the corporeal world, feeling the soft grass that covered the floor of Aleksandra’s throne room.

  Looking up, she saw her sister also on the ground but rising quickly. Seraphina tried to stand as well, but Aleksandra was too fast. She covered the distance between them instantaneously, grabbing Seraphina by the throat once more.

  “It feels so much more satisfying in the real world, doesn’t it, sister?” Aleksandra hissed into her face, red stare casting a hue along Seraphina’s forehead. The Ice Queen gasped for air, but the empress only increased her grip. Aleksandra’s hand grew hot, and Seraphina could feel the chaos scorching her neck.

  “Perhaps you’d like to die in the same manner as Mother and Father? While I wanted to present your head to your beloved Shogai, I’m sure he could make do with your decapitated body after your cranium explodes!”

  The energy built within Seraphina’s throat, quickly climbing into her head, which throbbed and ached in protest. It increased in power and intensity, and Seraphina knew that these next few breaths would be her last. Then, at the last possible instant, Aleksandra let go, allowing Seraphina to fall to the ground, body alight with relief.

  The empress spun, her movement not even registering to Seraphina. One arm came up to block an incoming yellow burst of energy, which exploded harmlessly against her palm.

  Her other hand rose just as sharply to catch a golden dagger by the handle, just a centimeter from her eyeball. There was something off about the blade as it glowed a pale, pulsating jade.

  Gazing past her sister, Seraphina saw a sight she never believed she would be so relieved to take in. Maura stood, arm still extended from the throw, a second dagger grasped in her other hand. Beside her stood a tall, regal-looking, blond man in a top hat and flowing, purple coat. His arm was also extended, his palm
smoking in the wake of the spell Aleksandra had cancelled out with a mere gesture.

  “Hi, Seraphina,” Maura said, addressing her but staring holes through Aleksandra. “Did you miss me?”

  XXVII: Battle of the Burais

  Valentean’s heart slammed against the inside of his rib cage as he rocketed into the air in pursuit of his brother. With every pulse pounding thump, the flames of chaos that he had been working so hard to pull under control spread through his veins. Flames erupted in the wake of his dramatic ascent, pushing Valentean higher and faster as Kayden and Vahn vanished over the uppermost lip of the circular arena.

  You weren’t fast enough, son, Vahn’s voice echoed through his mind. You were holding yourself back, and now I am going to die. A strangled gurgle of anguish pushed past his clenched teeth as he tried to drown out the voice. He’s unhinged, son. You saw it in his eyes. He is going to kill me, and then he is going to kill Seraphina. The chaos that had so masterfully mimicked the memory of his father’s strong baritone was pushing the weakened walls of Valentean’s heart. The animus warrior could feel his will fading. He was beginning to rationalize giving into the flames, embracing their power if only to stop Kayden. Then he could bring it back under control.

  Don’t be weak, son. You have power. Use it. Embrace it. Give into your anger, and save my life. We just found one another again. I can’t bear losing you once more.

  Valentean cursed as his leap cleared the top of the battle arena. He tucked his body downward, crouching into a spinning ball of fire that smashed into the ground like a comet, spreading orange flames around in a circle of devastation, which surrounded his body. Valentean slowly stood through the conflagration, eyes burning red as he stared at a truly horrifying sight.