CHAPTER

33

Kael drained the last of his prism forming a constant line of light protecting a wide, shallow lake. The shadow retreated as if wounded, appearing thin and frail while it slowly regrew in size from the teeming mass of darkness climbing over Center’s edge. Kael reopened the wound on his hand, popped the compartment of his gauntlet open, and pressed the light prism against it to refresh it once again.

“How the hell does Bree do this all the time?” Kael wondered aloud as he felt his energy wane, his strength flowing into the prism to banish the cloudy haze and the multitude of cracks. Gasping for air, he pulled it away and then jammed it into the compartment. Turning the knob to activate the gauntlet, he spun to the shadow for another series of blasts only to discover the shadow wasn’t there. It receded from the lake surface, swam through the tightly packed homes, and vanished into the dying trees of the forest.

Baffled, Kael lifted into the air in search of a better vantage spot. Had the shadowborn been defeated? So far it appeared that way. He flew higher and higher, the land becoming a vague green-and-blue shape below. There he followed the retreating darkness with his eyes. It flowed from all directions back toward a single focal point, and Kael felt his stomach tighten. He’d seen this before, with both the fireborn giant and the conglomeration of stoneborn and stormborn. Whatever the crawling darkness would become, he feared its form.

Not a sound marked the shadowborn’s rise. Kael watched him lift above the forest on two long legs, his humanoid body stretching out his arms to push himself up from the ground. The sheer size baffled him. L’adim had to be four hundred feet tall, if not taller. His form seemed to consist entirely of condensed shadow. He bore no eyes, no mouth, no markings at all to mar the perfect sheen of black. Each step crushed buildings and trees. A lake of darkness swirled beneath his feet, spreading sickness and death wherever he walked.

Kael wondered who could stand against such a thing. Was this it, then? Was this the demon who swallowed the world? He thought of the destruction the cannons waged upon Weshern, each blast now seeming so insignificant compared to swirling legs of shadow carrying L’adim across Center at a terrifying rate. The demon’s direction never changed, stepping across lake and grass and city and crushing them all beneath his gait. Kael traced the path to the obvious end: the fortress of Heavenstone.

Seraphim and knights filled Center’s skylines, and every one flew to outrace L’adim to his destination. They would mass together before the shadowborn reached it, giving their final stand against the darkness. Kael flicked his throttle and soared over the land, desperately praying that their combined forces would be enough.

Kael remembered his friend Loramere telling him to land a safe distance from Heavenstone lest he be attacked. It’d seemed good advice then, but now he flew right over its twin barrier walls without any fear. There were no nations anymore, no wars and alliances. There was but one enemy, and he marched toward them in a monstrous visage more suited to a nightmare. Kael looked for the familiar black jackets of Weshern and found them grouped together in a hover along the fortress’s western side. Their number was painfully smaller than it had been at the start of the day.

“How’re we doing?” Kael asked as he hovered to Clara’s side. Few others looked ready to chat, and he couldn’t deny the relief he felt seeing her still alive and well.

“Like shit,” Saul said, dropping down a dozen feet to float even with them. “How’s Bree?”

“She was fine last I saw her,” Kael said. He looked to the shadowborn’s steady passage toward them. “Actually, I think that’s her now.”

A silver-winged Seraph flew directly ahead of L’adim, a little speck of brightness amid the solid dark. Kael lifted his shield and let it shimmer with light several times to draw her attention. Her direction shifted slightly, her mad speed lessening over the next minute as she pulled up alongside them. Sweat dripped down her face. Her eyes were bloodshot.

“Are you all right?” Kael asked.

“I saw him,” Bree said. “I spoke with him. L’adim is in the heart of that monstrosity. He’s in there, and that means we can kill him.”

“You say as if that’ll be easy,” Saul said, and he cracked a grin. “But I guess slaying a world destroying demon would just be another notch on your belt.”

She appeared in no mood for any attempts at humor. Her wide eyes looked to the shadowborn, and her body shivered underneath her black jacket.

“God, I hope so.”

A tall woman with fiery red hair flew to the center of the gathered Seraphim forces of all islands and loosed several bolts of lightning directly into the air to summon them closer. Their little group of four followed Clara’s lead to join in.

“I am Knight Master Allison,” she said once they gathered. A twist of her waist set her to gently spinning to face them all. “On behalf of my knights I thank you for coming to join us in this dire hour.”

She pointed to L’adim in the distance.

“That fucking thing needs to die. Our theotechs will assemble across Heavenstone’s rooftops with the last of our cannons. Our knight giants will be the front line along the ground, backing up our soldiers. I don’t know how they’ll face against the shadowborn but we must try. As for you all, I ask that you join my knights in protecting the cannons. We need every bit of firepower we can muster if we’re to defeat the damned demon. Can you do that for me, Seraphim?”

Scattered calls of agreement from squadron leaders answered her. She nodded as if pleased.

“I don’t know the fate of our worlds,” she said. “But I know that it is still within our hands. Fight like hell, my brethren. All of humanity depends upon it.”

There were no triumphant choruses, no raised fists and boastful shouting, only tired, grim calls of agreement. Bree, Kael, Clara, and Saul broke off into their own formation of four, one squad of dozens hovering in the air before Heavenstone. The knights took up positions between the two long defensive walls, protecting the near one hundred red-robed theotechs readying defenses on the ground. Cannons rumbled among them, each one turning its aim toward L’adim. A flood of soldiers rushed out the open gates of Heavenstone, several hundred taking up positions in lines ten deep. All in all, it was an impressive defensive display, but the final pieces were yet to arrive.

Stone crumbled from the mountain behind Heavenstone to reveal long tunnels dug into the rock. Platforms floated out from them, each one carried by two dozen ferrymen. Kael watched them drift into position in front of Heavenstone, their occupants slowly shimmering to life. They were the knight giants, humanoid in shape but tremendous in size. Kael could not see wherever the pilot was inside it, though most likely they sat in the machine’s heavily armored chest. Its armored plates were thick steel grafted with silver. Their heads were shaped like pre-Ascension armored helmets. Long, slanted eyes shimmered with thin pieces of embedded light elements. All nine swung gilded swords longer than any knight was tall. Their left hands ended not in fists but in cannons similar to the one that had been grafted on his father. Kael had seen only one knight giant in battle, but even its brief display had been incredible. Imagining all nine …

He looked to the approaching shadowborn. Yes, all nine might be impressive, but how would they fare against the monstrosity coming for them?

The platforms landed among the ground soldiers. The nine exited their platforms, their footfalls sinking into the earth with each heavy step. They lumbered forward to form the initial line of defense. Their swords swung through the air, a brilliant white light blazing from the four prisms linked together to form their hilts. A myriad of colors shone from the barrels of their cannons and wafted like smoke to the heavens. L’adim marched on, his hunched form taking up the entire sky. He showed no fear of the defenders readied against him.

This is it, Kael thought. The best we have. If this isn’t enough, then only a miracle from God can save us.

The knight giants raised their arm cannons. The war machines atop the walls readied their elements. Knight Master Allison swept across the battlefield, her golden wings passing mere inches from the giants’ raised arms. She screamed the same line again and again, readying them to fire.

“We are the blade! We are the blade! We are the blade!”

As she passed the last mechanical knight, with the great lake of shadow rolling ahead of L’adim’s footfalls about to reach their line, Allison pulled into the heavens and screamed at the very top of her lungs, her drawn sword thrusting into the air to give the signal.

“What is holy must never break!”

The arms of the knight giants rocked from the explosions. Cannons fired one after another, singing a great chorus of destruction. Knights and Seraphim added their own elements to the barrage, thin beams among enormous blasts. Kael held back his light, unsure of its strength at such a distance. With bated breath he watched the massive barrage approach L’adim.

The shadowborn welcomed it with open arms. The liquid darkness froze in spools larger than rivers. Stone pounded through the darkness, tearing at L’adim’s physical presence. The fire swarmed him, consuming great chunks at its touch before flaming out. Lightning crackled across his form, its golden light fighting the deep dark of the shadowborn’s essence. The great lake of shadow at its feet swirled up its legs, reinforcing the parts of L’adim that thinned or burned from the attack. For a brief moment Kael dared believe they stood a chance.

L’adim’s retaliation was swift and terrible. His legs crumpled to the ground. Rivers of shadow burst from his knees, flowing with otherworldly speed between the two defensive walls. The knight giants turned their aim to the ground. Elements slammed the approaching waves, hardening it with ice, splashing it back with stone, and setting it alight with flame. The defense left Bree in awe, but the raw amount of shadow dwarfed their incredible display. The shadow hardened, shaping into sharp claws lunging upward. The soldiers lifted their shields and thrust with their spears. It did nothing. It changed nothing. The claws ripped through their lines, tearing men apart like they were made of paper. Only the knight giants withstood. Their swords cleaved the air, smashing the shadow, cracking it like ice.

L’adim’s two arms became four, then eight. Each one thrashed a different direction. Each finger elongated, a thousand spears launching at the remaining knights and Seraphs. Kael flung up a wall of ice just to watch it shatter. He kicked his wings into full speed and weaved higher into the air, desperately hoping the other three might follow. Sometimes he dodged, sometimes not, his survival relying more on dumb luck than any skill. His meager beam of light felt worthless compared to the destruction erupting about him. His shield was but a plaything. Saul vanished somewhere amid the chaos, and Kael spared only a moment’s concentration to pray for his safety.

The shadowborn lifted its foot and took another lumbering step. Light prisms flared within the mechanical joints of the knight giants as they closed the distance. Their cannons ripped into the shadowborn’s knees. Their swords slashed across its shins. The shadow broke, the shadow retreated, the shadow returned. Spikes shot from L’adim’s legs without reason or sense. Every inch of the demon was a threat. The pieces twisted and turned like tendrils, wrapping about the knight giants’ arms and legs. Metal shrieked and twisted. The ancient machinery broke, just another worthless toy before the swallower of worlds.

Another barrage from the cannons blasted the shadowborn. The Seraphim were joining the knights in another attack run. Kael flew among them, taking bitter satisfaction at the cavern his light carved into L’adim’s form. The shadowborn rocked backward, more and more of the sprawling river below him lifting to reinforce the damaged parts of his being. His arms crossed over his blank face, enduring another barrage. His legs churned. He pushed into the space between the two defensive walls, leaving a wide field of death behind. Kael thought he might attack the walls but instead he crouched closer, his entire body sinking deeper into the earth. The shadow’s outer layer of skin bubbled, breaking, loosening.

L’adim rose to his full height, and his shadow blasted out of him as a billowing fog. It spread like a dome, widening in all directions, even into the sky. It would retract for a brief moment before pulsing outward hundreds of yards farther. Kael shot heavenward, Bree and Clara at his heels. Knights and Seraphim fled every which way in complete panic. Kael remembered the sickening feeling of L’adim’s presence back in the throne room, and he knew what tore at the hundreds in the sky as they weaved and hovered in wild directions. Every pleasant thought corrupted. Every dream and hope filled with sickness. He pushed his wings harder, outracing the fog. Bree and Clara lagged farther and farther behind, unable to keep up with his blood-blessed wings. Kael continually glanced their way, terror clawing at his throat. The fog was near, so near.

One last pulse before the shadow retreated back into L’adim’s form. Bree escaped. Clara did not. The shadow washed over her from head to toe. Immediately her wings went dark. She let out a soft cry before pitching forward, her body going limp.

“Clara!” Kael screamed. He turned about and dove for her. His wings easily closed the distance, and he wrapped his arms about her before she could fall. He saw her face, saw her closed eyes, and begged for fate not to make him suffer so. She was alive. She had to be alive. He held her with his right arm, his left taking her wrist and thumbing her throttle back on. Just a gentle glow, enough to slow their descent as Kael guided them to the ground away from the battle. They landed in the field of grass just off the road leading into Heavenstone. Bodies of dead Seraphim lay all about, slaughtered by L’adim’s initial assault. Kael hated putting Clara among them, but there wasn’t much choice.

Bree landed beside him and shut off her wings.

“Will Clara be all right?” she asked.

Kael knelt over her body, his ear to her chest. Tears ran down his face.

“I think so,” he said. Her heart beat weakly in her chest, but her lungs breathed in and out of their own accord. “She just needs time.”

The shadowborn’s touch was vile and sickening, but Clara had only been overwhelmed for a second. She might still live. Kael wished he could feel more relief, but what did it matter if Clara survived just to fall into the ocean when Center crashed? Already hundreds of miles of Center’s landscape withered and rotted. Everything the shadowborn touched turned to dust, and now he reached for the very heart of humanity’s greatest sanctuary.

It seemed Bree felt that same doom. She stood facing L’adim as the vile thing brought down a dozen knights with a single swipe of his arms. The cannons were yet to resume, the theotechs no doubt suffering as terribly as Clara, if not worse.

“Maybe L’adim is right,” Bree whispered. “Maybe we aren’t special. We’ll vanish from this world, and no animals or angels will weep for our passing.”

Kael rose to a stand. He could barely control his actions. He closed the distance between them with two quick steps and backhanded his sister across the face. Bree clutched her cheek.

“Don’t,” Kael seethed. “We mean more than that. All of us, our lives, our deaths, our pain and suffering and joy, it fucking means something. Maybe to God, maybe to the angels, maybe just to ourselves, but don’t you dare try to tell me that murderous monster was right. We are better than that. Better than him.”

He hated himself for doing it but couldn’t see another way. The terror of losing his sister the same way he lost his father was too much to bear.

“You’re right,” Bree said. A spark of her old fire kindled in her eyes. “So what can we do? It’s just us two, Kael, so what can we possibly do?”

Kael bit his lip. His mind scrambled for ideas, running the battle against L’adim through his mind. The way the shadow recoiled against light and fire. The way any damage against his gargantuan form was quickly erased by a flood of shadow curling up from the veritable lake of it at his feet.

“You said L’adim’s inside that monster somewhere, right?” Kael asked.

“Somewhere,” Bree said. “But we can’t get to him. The shadow always reinforces itself.”

Kael opened the compartment to his gauntlet and stared at the mostly full prism within. Wincing against the pain, he cut into a different part of his hand and allowed his blood to refuel the prism.

“It does reinforce,” Kael said as he popped it back in. “But maybe we just need to attack even harder. I … I’ll do what you do. I’ll let it all out at once, every bit of my light prism. Maybe … maybe it’ll overwhelm him. Maybe we’ll push it all back and find the devil deep inside.”

“You don’t know you can do that,” Bree argued. “And what happens if it doesn’t work? You’ll die.”

“Then I die, damn it,” he shouted back at her. He felt his words growing harsher, more desperate. “How’s that make me different from the thousands of others L’adim has slain today?”

She stared at him, her own mind racing.

“Fine,” she said. “Wait for me, though. I have an idea, too.”

His sister dashed among the bodies, checking their compartments and removing any fire elements she found. Kael checked on Clara as he waited, listening to her breathing as a reminder of all he would sacrifice his life for.

“What are you doing?” Kael asked when Bree slid a third prism into her left palm.

“You’re right,” Bree said, finding two more in a pouch on a dead knight’s belt. “It’s not sustained damage that’ll take L’adim down, but one sudden, overwhelming attack.”

She hurried back to him. His eyes narrowed as she drew her sword in her free hand.

“That’s not your specialty, Kael. It’s mine.”

Flame wreathed her sword. She sliced through the top half of his right wing, curled her blade about, and then did the same to his left. The heavy pieces of metal thudded to the grass. Kael stared at them, momentarily shocked, but he yanked at the buckles of his disabled harness, flailing to remove it so he might don another.

“You don’t have to do this,” he shouted to her.

“I love you, Kael,” she said, her wings flaring to life.

“No, don’t!” he cried. One of his buckles caught and he desperately yanked it again and again. His sister left him. He knew what she planned. He begged her return. He screamed his frustration. His last protest. His horror manifest in a lone word.

“Bree!”