Light of Epertase 01: Legends Reborn (31 page)

Rasi punched Scorne’s metal-covered face again and again. His strikes were violent and relentless. His rage wouldn’t stop until Scorne’s body went limp beneath him. The fight was over. Rasi had won.

Almost.

His straps jolted as if startled. A sudden burst of stinging pain ripped from the back of his skull to his eyes. His vision flashed white.
Cyn!
He’d forgotten about Cyn. He fell to his side. How did she get so close? His straps knocked her away before she could land another blow. She dropped a lead pipe to the floor next to his head. She lifted Scorne into her arms.

Rasi struggled to sit up but tumbled to the side as if drunk.

They were getting away. He needed to stop them, to kill them, but his brain didn’t work. He stumbled against the table but his hand missed and he crashed his shoulder into it. He reached up, gripped the table’s edge, and hoisted himself to his feet.

“Let me up, Rasi,” Alina said, her beaten-down voice void of emotion.

I am here now. You are safe.
His head throbbed and he almost vomited but choked it back.

Again she said, “Let me up. I need to see my father.”

Rasi felt along the bottom of the table until he touched the twisted metal and loosened it. He circled with his hand firmly against the table and freed the other restraints. She wrapped her weak arms around him. “I love you,” she said. Then, to his shock, she insisted again on going to Elijah. He stepped away. She climbed from the table and ran to her bloody, broken father.

“Father? Father? Please don’t die,” she cried and wrapped her arms around his neck. She rocked back and forth with his head against her bosom, weeping. “I love you, Father. Why did you do this? I didn’t want your throne.”

Rasi staggered to her side, his head clearing. He touched her shoulder and whispered in her mind,
I am in no condition to fight. We need to get you to safety.

“I can’t leave his body here.”

He tried to kill you, Alina.

She looked up with tear-filled eyes. “He’s still my father,” she snapped.

Rasi didn’t understand how she could ignore what her father had just done to her. Maybe she was in shock. Or maybe she knew a different man than he’d known and what Elijah had done hadn’t yet soaked in. Whatever it was, he knew one thing – they needed to escape before the symbiots returned with reinforcements and he told her so.

She reluctantly rose to her feet, her tear-filled eyes trained on her father. Her legs shook and she staggered. Rasi caught her.

She struggled with consciousness – her limpness in his arms and fluttering eyelids told him as much.

He battled with his own injuries to cradle her and carry her from the dungeon.

Tevin and his band of mercenaries approached the cave thought to be occupied by Rasi. “Fan out,” he ordered. He played the part well as he drew his sword. “Prepare for battle. Rasi is a hardened soldier and will not be taken easily.”

The suns above were now black as ink. Tevin understood that The Change was inevitable and that he had done Elijah’s work perfectly. The cave was dark and lifeless, just as he had expected. Tevin entered with a torch in the air. A fire pit at the cave’s center was nothing more than cold, gray ashes and rotten meat. Dust and dirt coated every surface. Silk-like insect webs stretched from ceiling to wall, forming curtains throughout the cave.

“Search the cave,” Tevin ordered, finding it difficult to continue the charade. “Come out, criminal,” he shouted, his voice echoing. If Rasi happened to be home, he would have been shocked and more than happy to kill him though that wasn’t why he was there.

He sensed Siver standing close behind. The other soldiers surrounded the two warriors with unsure stares.

“Time for honesty, Tevin,” Siver said. “Why are we here?”

Tevin scanned the soldiers’ shadowy faces while tightening his grip on his sword. He looked down; Siver’s sword was already drawn. He backed out of the semicircle.

“Siver is right,” he confessed. “We have not been searching for Princess Alina.”

Siver’s upper lip curled, revealing a pinch of his front teeth. Brant, seemingly so exhausted only a short time before, moved to block the cave’s mouth.

Tevin continued. “Elijah knew there would be much outcry for Alina to be found. We had to satisfy the masses by hunting for Rasi so his plan could continue. He knew you, Siver. He knew that you would not rest until you found her. That is why he accepted the Queen’s request for you to join me. There is no doubt of your loyalty and we needed you away from the kingdom.”

“What is your end game?” Siver asked with venom in his voice.

“Why, that is simple: for Elijah to remain King, of course. The suns’ very blackness reveals that our prophecy is being fulfilled as we speak. Alina will die so that Elijah may rule.”

Brant cleared his throat before interrupting. “Should I kill him now?” he asked.

Siver lowered a questioning brow and peered over his shoulder at Brant.

Tevin nodded. The other soldiers stepped back with questioning stares to Siver.

Brant raised his sword, not nearly as tired as he had earlier pretended. Like a good warrior, Siver backed toward the wall.

Brant attacked. Siver engaged him in a spark-inducing battle lasting mere moments and ending with Brant’s head on the cave floor. The other men chose their allegiances by crowding behind Siver and blocking any escape Tevin might have had.

Siver grinned. “Kill him,” he said.

The men stepped toward Tevin with murder in their eyes, swords in their grips.

Tevin lifted his sword’s hilt defensively above his shoulder with the blade draped across his chest. They mimicked him as they closed in.

Tevin ground his teeth. He scowled as the men moved nearer. But before they could attack, their advance was halted by a low rumble that filled the cave. Tevin watched in anticipation of what he hoped was about to begin. This was why they were there. This was Elijah’s glory taking hold. Slowly, the rumble built to a thunderous roar like another mountain storm only isolated within the cave. He covered his ears before they could start to bleed from the noise.

As quickly as the thunder began, it abruptly ceased, leaving deafening silence. No wind blew, no birds flapped their wings, there was nothing but the sound of his own heart beating through his chest. No one moved. Tevin closed his eyes. He felt a slight tickle of air against the back of his neck.

It is time.

With a sudden, violent explosion of heat against his back, the air around him sucked from the cave. He planted his feet against the overwhelming force until there was no air left to breathe. He, along with the other men, gasped for oxygen.

He opened his eyes to see panic etched in the faces of his former team. All of the men grabbed at their throats as they stumbled against the cave walls. Tevin told himself that this feeling, this suffocation, would pass – that he only needed to be calm and endure.

He was right. The air, followed closely by an incredible blast of an all-encompassing inferno of flames, burst into the cave as if heaved from a dragon’s snout. Tevin clenched his eyes shut. The flames pounded against his skin, except they didn’t burn. He opened his eyes within the inferno of intoxicating fire. He could somehow see through the flames. Siver and the others fell to their knees with their hands pressed tight against their faces and eyes.

Tevin’s voice was strong and godlike as he screamed over the oven’s roar, “It is done. The Light shall never leave Elijah. I will stand at his side forever.”

“What have you done?” Siver yelled.

The flames tingled beneath Tevin’s flesh. Siver bravely stood up, surrounded by fire.

As quickly as the inferno had come, it sucked from the cave and disappeared into the night sky. Slowly, the cave grew brighter as the black ink drained from the suns, filling the skies with the peaceful orange hue of a new dawn.

Tevin’s blood boiled in his veins. He dropped his sword and stared at his open palms. Something was wrong. His face went flush. The left side of his brain went numb. His tongue swelled until it seemed too fat for his own mouth. As drool trickled from the corner of his lips, he realized he was powerless to prevent it. He made a fist with his right hand, though he had no strength. He tried to lift his weakened fist but was unable to raise it above his waist. He took a step and his right leg dragged along the dirt.

What is wrong with me?

He dropped his chin to his chest. An orange glow emanated from his sternum and through his clothes. The soldiers backed away like they’d seen a god.
And maybe
, he thought,
they had.

“A printheth dieth thith night,” he whispered. The pressure built in his head until it was about to burst.

Blood trickled from his nose.

The mountain rumbled beneath his feet. He peered up at the other soldiers as they staggered and desperately clutched the rim of the cave’s entrance.

The cave walls and floor shook and cracked from what seemed like an end-of-days quake. Blasts of steam vented from the new faults in the ground. Pebbles and rocks and debris lifted and floated toward the men, slowly at first and then with stinging velocity. The mountain cried like a volcano about to erupt. A chunk of the outside path ripped away and disintegrated into the sky.

The dirt and rubble swirled around Tevin. He closed his eyes as it peppered his face.

With pain still ripping through his skull, he half-smiled even as the right side of his face didn’t work. He wondered if this was his end, though something about what was happening didn’t feel like he was dying. Instead, incredibly, he felt powerful. Maybe Elijah’s Light was rewarding him, awakening something special within his soul.

He stared at Siver and, for the first time, saw fear in his face. Despite that fear, Siver charged like the warrior he was. Tevin didn’t know what gave him the idea but he imagined the mountain at his back crumbling and hurling toward his aggressor. A small piece of rock whiffed past his head and tapped Siver between his eyes. Siver froze.

Tevin began to shake. A crash echoed from behind him. Siver leaped forward with a hate-filled cry. Rocks, dirt and chunks of mountain whipped past Tevin’s head just as Siver swung. The rocks and debris slammed against the warrior, sending him spiraling toward the mouth of the cave. Siver tried to get to his feet but tornado-like winds quickly followed the debris.

Brant and his severed head rocketed past the soldiers and out of the cave.

Siver grabbed the leg of one of his men at the cave’s rim and held on with all of his might. Tevin stood, the wind whipping around him like he was a statue planted firmly in the rock floor. One of the other soldiers lost his grip of the jagged rock edge and shot screaming into the abyss from the mouth of the cave.

Tevin dragged his foot forward a step. He lifted his good arm, somehow knowing what to do next. The soldiers begged for their lives as they slid nearer the edge. Siver clawed his way past the soldier he was holding until he had a firm grip of the cave wall. He tried to pull himself to the outside of the mountain’s entrance, and away from Tevin’s wrath, but there was nothing for him to grab onto.

Tevin flicked his wrist, which sent another soldier over the mountain edge. One by one, Tevin effortlessly launched each man from the mountain until none but Siver remained.

Siver pulled himself closer to the cave wall. He begged over the wind’s howl for Tevin to end his new witchcraft, but he might as well plead for the suns to die.

“Face me,” Siver screamed. “Without your devil’s magic.”

Tevin clenched his teeth and stared at the ground. His every muscle seized suddenly and violently. A wave of searing heat stormed past him, slamming against Siver. The warrior wailed as his clothes burned away. His exposed skin blistered and charred until his wails faded and died with his body. With no more life to hold him, his scorched carcass disappeared over the edge.

Tevin scanned the destruction he had caused. A boulder-sized hole in the ceiling allowed cleansing sunslight through and he focused on the suns for a brief moment.

The throbbing in his head calmed. He made a strong fist with his weakened arm.

He felt different.

He
was
different.

He smiled. “I like this.”

And then, he collapsed.