112: WHAT IS OWED

(Janel’s story)

Janel met Xaltorath’s swing with her sword. Despite her strength, she almost didn’t manage to block the blow. “If anyone sees a shield around here, let me know!” she shouted back over her shoulder, but she didn’t expect anything from it.

***THIS IS FUN, BUT I’M NOT HERE FOR YOU.***

Xaltorath began backing away.

“Now don’t be like that,” Janel said. “I’ll start to think you don’t really love me.”

“No!” Thurvishar yelled out. He ran forward.

Janel didn’t have to take her eyes off Xaltorath to see the problem. The man who’d come in with Relos Var, the one no one had bothered to introduce. He had a small shield with the Quuros crown inscribed on it and a wand in his free hand. He fired beams of light from the wand, and everything those beams touched died. The small buckler emitted a much larger opalescent shield, which he used to block attacks. He seemed capable, but the demons were targeting him. A great many demons.

“Who is that?” Janel asked to the side.

“Grizzst,” Senera answer.

“Holy—” Janel shook her head and returned her attention to Xaltorath and Relos Var. She was fighting on a field with actual gods. Perhaps this wasn’t the right time to be overwhelmed by a famous wizard’s presence.

Galava appeared some distance away from Relos Var, presumably to fill in the gap left by Thaena’s absence. She attacked Var with a cresting emerald wave while plants and flowers and every green thing tried to tangle his feet.

Behind Var, a truly staggering number of demons rushed Grizzst, too many for him to block with the shield. One of them did something: that deadly wand sailed through the air to land in the mud close to where Relos Var and Galava fought.

“Throw him back the wand!” Thurvishar screamed, this time at Relos Var. He used Wildheart to pull up flowers and vines to try to grab it, but Galava gave him a dry look and withered every one.

Var could have just picked up the damn wand and tossed it. Or used it to destroy enough demons to give Grizzst a chance to regroup. Something.

Senera targeted demons herself, but there were so many. Every demon had to be on the field.

Var held out his hand; the wand snapped into it.

“Throw it!” Thurvishar called out one more time.

Var aimed the wand—

—and hit Galava, who doubled over in pain.¹ She raised her eyes, taking in Relos Var with clenched teeth. “Damn you,” she said. “I’m not that easy to kill.”

Thurvishar rose up stone blocks, made them liquid, tried to use it crush and trap the demons. Janel summoned a roaring, spinning column of fire—normally too much temptation for any demon, but not this time. Not against the wizard who had gaeshed them for a thousand years.

Xaltorath paid no attention to that fight. What did she care what happened to Grizzst? He hadn’t gaeshed her, after all.

A horrible noise crackled as the energy field protecting Grizzst broke apart. Then a yowling mass of demons buried the wizard, and he was lost from sight.

Thurvishar looked anguished. He continued fighting demons with a ferocity unlike his normal methodical spellcasting. They began to scatter.

Janel glanced up from her own slaughter in time to see Xaltorath summon a glowing red glass bar resembling Khored’s sword—

No, that was Khored’s sword—

***AREN’T YOU?*** Xaltorath stepped up behind Galava and impaled her through the back. The wound didn’t just bleed—it immediately began to burn, blackening the edges in a widening arc. A melting line of rainbow energy moved up Galava’s body at the same time, a magical assault.

Xaltorath had absorbed Immortals. Now it used that power to kill another.

“No!” Janel couldn’t stop her fighting to close with Xaltorath, no matter how much she wanted to.

Xaltorath made a pulling motion with a hand and ripped Galava’s souls free from her body. She let the Goddess of Life’s corpse fall to the ground. The demon queen grinned spitefully and turned to Relos Var, who looked shocked, as if even he couldn’t believe what had just happened.

As Xaltorath raised her sword to strike again, a whirling glow of rainbow energy spun around her, twisted in the air, and formed into Tya. She looked down at Galava’s body, horrified.

“Mother, look out!” Janel called out.

Xaltorath changed targets. As she swung at the Goddess of Magic, Tya gave Xaltorath a contemptuous look and caught the edge of the glass sword between thumb and forefinger, stopping it cold. The sword shuddered and started to disintegrate, until Xaltorath dropped it and stepped away.

“You’re not Khored,” Tya said, “don’t get ideas.”

“We have to kill her,” Janel called out. “She’s taken Galava’s souls!”

Xaltorath gave Janel a pout, as if this was some sort of betrayal. The demon stepped backward, away from Tya and Relos Var. ***NEXT TIME, THEN.***

The demon queen vanished.

Janel ground her teeth and returned to killing the other demons. Tya helped. It wasn’t what she wanted to do. She wanted to scream at Relos Var, and scream at Senera, and most of all scream at herself.

Janel should’ve let Relos Var die. She should have killed him herself when she had the chance. If Var hadn’t ignored Grizzst in order to injure Galava …

And then, all at once, the demons vanished. She stood panting for breath on a twisted, nightmare battlefield, next to Galava’s dead body. Where Grizzst’s corpse should have been was … blood. And a broken buckler strapped to a ragged, severed arm. The demons had eaten everything else.

Fighting continued in the distance, the trees shaking, explosions lighting up the sky.

Khored and Ompher, in all likelihood. There was no one else left.

Tya turned to face Relos Var, her face awash with complex emotions, but mostly rage. She raised her hand, magic swirling around it, even as Relos Var mirrored her movements, wand raised high. He glanced at the wand and then dropped it—apparently deciding it was useless against this enemy.

“Senera,” Relos Var said, not looking away from the Goddess of Magic. “It’s time to go.”

Senera’s gaze flickered over to Thurvishar and then back to Relos Var. Just a second’s hesitation.

“Yes, my lord,” Senera said. She began opening a portal.

Thurvishar ground his teeth and looked away.

“It’s over,” Relos Var said softly, “don’t you think, Irisia?” He wrapped his voice around Tya’s real name like the softest velvet.

“Not yet,” Tya said, “not even slightly over.”

“True,” Relos Var agreed, “but I think there’s been enough killing for one day. Even for me, losing Rol’amar’s been a bit much.” He dropped the name with all the skill of a perfectly placed knife sliding across a vein.

Tya’s eyes widened. “What?”

Janel hid her confusion, but Thurvishar must have understood better, because he cursed out loud.

“What’s happened to Rolan?” Tya demanded.

“They didn’t tell you about our son?” Relos Var began slowly walking backward, toward Senera. “Your ‘hero’ Kihrin killed him. Perhaps forever. In any event, the only person who knows how to bring him back, how to restore his mind is…” He shrugged. “… me.”

Rol’amar. Janel’s stomach flipped. She hadn’t realized … how would she ever have realized that the dragon who’d killed Therin was her … gods … her brother.

“He’s lying,” Thurvishar growled.

“Just go,” Tya said.

“No! He can’t just leave!” Janel screamed at Relos Var. “You owe me that much, Revas!” She used his real name without thinking, without considering what it betrayed.

Relos Var stopped and turned back. He gazed at Janel fondly. “I wish you could’ve been there to see the look on my face when Senera told me who you used to be. It’s a name I haven’t heard in a long time. It’s good to have you back, C’indrol.”

“That’s a dead person’s name,” Janel said numbly. She felt her mother come up to her, wrap an arm around her shoulder, hold her close. And she wanted nothing more than to return that embrace, but not … now.

“Yes,” Var said. “I suppose so. But so’s Revas, in a way. We’re done here.”

“Of course you’re done here,” Janel said. “You got exactly what you wanted. Again.”

Relos Var raised his hands in a “What can you do?” gesture as Senera opened a portal behind him. If any barrier roses had ever protected this area of the Kirpis, they’d been long since destroyed.

“I always do, my dear,” Relos Var assured her. “I always do.” He spared a glance at Thurvishar, who studied him, eyes narrowed, expression hateful. Relos Var nodded once at his grandson.

Then he and Senera walked through the portal and closed it behind them.