The Torn Guardian (16 page)

“Agreed,” Adira says, and she opens a portal. We try to push Justin through, but he struggles enough to where we think he might accidently wind up somewhere else if we get him in. Time is running against us, so I tell Adira to bring his sister here. If he sees her alive and well, maybe he will go back willingly.

She runs into and pops back out with a very confused Isabella and slightly less confused Kenley. Isabella’s confusion is immediately replaced with pure joy as she sees her brother is still alive. When Justin sees his sister, he hugs her. Isabella reassures him that we are good; there were false assumptions made all around. Justin seems shocked at first when we tell him his uncle is corrupted and the reason why all of this is happening, but he believes us after Isabella assures him we are not lying.

Even so, he refuses to go into the portal. If devilins are attacking his city, he needs to be on the lines with his men and women. Isabella’s face loses all of its color. She does not want the one person she still cares about to go into battle, but Justin insists. He and his troops can hold the army of enemies off while we eliminate his uncle.

It was a good decision not to kill Justin. On top of him not being evil, he also has vital information as his uncle is not where we planned on him being. His uncle went to the monument for fallen soldiers they are currently building at the southern entrance of the city. When he asked why, his uncle would not say, only stating it was important.

“Of course, he isn’t here. That would make this far too easy,” Grace groans.

To be fair though, we haven’t had it easy since this started, so I don't know why Grace expected it to be different during the final stretch. I thank Justin for his help as Kenley states he will go back with the queen and keep her under his protection.

The queen is showing a mixture of emotions. She clearly does not want to leave us behind, especially her brother, but she knows she cannot actually do anything to help. It catches me off guard when Grace comforts her, stating this country needs her to stay alive. Of course Grace cannot just leave it at that and states that Isabella and her brother are about the only decent human beings left in it.

Isabella looks like she is about to respond, but her brother beats her to it. Justin tells Grace to watch his soldiers on the battlefield. She might learn something about honor.

That makes Grace smile, and we wish Justin well as he sprints to where his troops are to get them out in the field in time to hopefully save the civilians caught in the chaos. With one last nod from Kenley and Isabella, they disappear back into the portal. Adira says the monument should not be too far from here. She makes a portal above herself, and we wind up on the roof of the palace.

I can see this “monument” from here, and I cannot help but sigh. Either these citizens are dumb or very gullible. It is not a monument. It is a temple to darkness, and that is very obvious. How anyone thinks this is a monument for those that have fallen is beyond me. Though I guess the large columns with bones and skulls carved into the stone can be interpreted as death. Still a monument is supposed to show honor and express gratitude, not make people want to run away in fear.

“These people are morons,” Grace speaks my thoughts aloud when she spies the temple as well.

The temple is not complete, so we are interfering with Sir David’s plans ahead of schedule. Hopefully we are not too late to catch him. As long as he can maintain control over the devilins, the world will be lost to the rampaging, dark creatures.

When we get to the unfinished temple on top of the rocky hill, we are greeted not by Sir David, but Sethos’ voice. He addresses Grace directly and states she should have returned to Elsen when she had the chance, maybe then it would not be in ruins. Black mist swarms around us and forms crumbled buildings. The three of us watch the horror unfold as countless innocent civilians and soldiers in Elsen are slaughtered unable to do anything about it. Grace’s jaw clenches and her hands squeeze tightly around her scythe. When the mist has cleared, I can see her eyes temporarily flash red, and I am afraid we are going to lose her.

Back towards the city, terrified screams and gunfire can be heard. Oriare is about to face the same fate as Elsen unless the three of us can stop it. To make matters more urgent, devilins have begun to flank us and are coming from behind. Adira and I run into the temple, but Grace is still standing with her head bowed. We try to get her to follow us in, but she refuses.

Instead she orders us to keep going, while she runs in the opposite direction to help Justin and his men instead. Without one of us, they will most likely die. I admit this is true but shout after her we will probably need her as well. Sethos will undoubtedly be getting desperate with only one follower remaining.

I try to run after her and tell her how stupid an idea it is, but Adira anticipated this and stops me by grabbing my arm, pulling me towards the temple's doors as she sends reassurances Grace will be fine. The two of us can kill Sir David, and if not, she can go find Grace using the claw and come back while I hold whatever awaits us off. It is an awful plan, but it is all we can do right now. Grace runs rather quickly when she is determined, and the devilins are on our tails.

We rush into the temple doors and close them. Adira then places her hand on the door, and the tree symbol appears over it.

“What did you do?” I ask.

“I sealed it,” Adira says, and the flowers and wall leafage planted around the temple stretches over the doors. The doors forcibly push open a bit, but not enough to let devilins inside. Regardless, we should work quickly here. The seal will not last for long.

It is not difficult to find Sir David. The temple is straightforward enough with only one entrance to the grand main hall, and even if it was not, all Adira and I have to do is follow the maniacal laughter. Once we enter the door, it is evident the Sir David standing before us is not the same as one at the party. His skin is blacker than a starless night sky, and shows the same red cracks Sethos has. This is what a being looks like when it succumbs to the darkness and allows it to take over. Grace is either lucky or was subliminally strong enough to withstand it because Sir David is significantly madder than she had been. Adira and I are not facing a corrupt politician; we are facing a deranged killer.

Although I'm sure Sir David would have loved to go into some grand speech about why he is doing this, my first shot is fired before he can utter a word. Adira is keen on this strategy as well and charges forth. Neither of us care to hear what he has to say because we both already know what must be done. He is a slippery bastard though. My arrow is only able to graze him as he narrowly escapes by jumping out of the way.

He sends large blasts of darkness my way one right after the other, and if I was not so engrossed with avoiding them, I would have awed at how impressive his power is. They have an explosive kick to them when they collide with another surface, which I discover the hard way by not getting far enough away from one of them. It nearly sends me crashing into the wall.

Thankfully, Adira catches me, but I still wince in pain as I set my feet down on the ground. The dark energy that connected with my leg burned and seared off my first layer of skin. As I look up to search for the madman, I realize so long as I have ears I will be able to find him. His is standing upside down on top of the ceiling laughing at the pain he caused.

He sticks his tongue to taunt me, but that isn’t what irks me. What irks me, or rather disgusts me, is how far from a human he has become. His tongue is a foot long and splits into a two like a serpent’s at its tip. He continues his hysteria as he thrusts more dark energy balls our way. If Sir David had any humanity in him before, it was entirely gone by the time we arrived. I dodge successfully thanks to Adira, but we cannot keep this up. We need to go on the offensive but do not know how. Without Grace to flank the other side, this has become noticeably more difficult. This would have been the toughest fight thus far for the three of us, but it is only Adira and me.

I ask Adira to force him into my light arrows. He is too evasive for me to consistently pelt, but my light energy is the only thing that appears to damage him in this state. She agrees and we set out again. This time Adira is the support, and I am the main attack. Even with this new strategy we are struggling. Sir David is weaving around columns, benches, and piles of rubble making it next to impossible to line up shots; however, I’m beginning to understand his limits and so is Adira.

He can only move so far away in a certain period of time, but Adira can move just about anywhere within sight. When I release an arrow going at a certain angle, he instantly moves out the way in a predictable manner. Because of this, both Adira and I anticipate his movements and adjust accordingly.

I fire an arrow, angling it from the left to make the creature formerly known as Sir David jump right. Adira pops up behind him and pushes him towards me. He did not have any time to adjust, so I land a direct hit. He hurls backwards unable to control himself and would have fallen in a pile of the stone and debris if Adira did not appear behind him again. She pushes him once more into my shot, and after another direct hit, he can no longer move. I do not need Adira's help any further. I shower his body with arrows. After my final one strikes him, he lands in the pile of debris causing dust and small rocks to scatter and cloud the area.

I breathe a momentary sigh of relief but quickly realize this is far from over. Despite not being able to see him, I can feel he is very much still alive.

“He’s very persistent,” Adira huffs as she appears right next to me.

I agree and warn her to keep her guard up. The air in here is heavier, and the maniacal laughter that had been occurring the entire time has ceased. In one powerful swoosh all of the dust and small rocks are blown into our faces, forcing us to shield our eyes as debris bombards us. When everything settles down, we see the greatest problem imaginable emerge—Sethos. Sir David’s legs are holding his body off the floor, but his back is completely parallel to the floor. Sethos is emerging from his stomach as Sir David’s wails of agony fill the hall.

From the looks of it, Sethos is not going to be as powerful as he was in his own world. He is still large, but not the towering monstrosity I saw. However, this does not mean he is going to be a pushover. The degree of darkness I sense within him is much stronger than what Adira and I were just fighting, and he is only going to grow stronger as his darkness overruns this world and turns it mad with complete and utter chaos.

Before Sethos can fully emerge I unleash arrow after arrow at him. Adira quickly departs through a portal to find Grace. The people of Saphira are going to have to hold out on their own because we need her here. My arrows are hitting, but I’ve seen toddlers leave bigger bruises and scrapes. The arrows are having almost no effect at all, and Sethos is almost out.

When he takes his last step out of the dead Sir David, he casts the corpse aside with no thought. I’m still alone. Neither Grace nor Adira have appeared, and I kind of really need them to. Sethos chuckles nastily as he steps forward. He mocks me, calling my attempt to prevent him from overtaking the world of Nilohm cute. To further patronize me he orders his abominable servants pounding on the door to wreck the city and turn it into dust. He does not need them here because he can handle me easily on his own. I fire an arrow at him in response, but it does nothing. Grace and Adira need to show up within the next few seconds, or I am dead.

I back away and continue to shoot arrows even though I know it is pointless as he moves closer and closer. I hit the wall, and Sethos takes aim. A gigantic dark blast launches at his mouth, and I am only fast enough to dodge the most devastating part of it. The aftershock hits me all over my entire body, and I soar backwards hitting a column. The darkness lingers on my skin for a while afterwards. It feels like thousands of tiny needles are pricking me all over, but that is not the worst part. The worst part is the pain in my chest. I am unable to fight the tears, and they mix into the blood streaming down my face.

“Lux!” Adira yells when she sees me. Sethos sees I’m still alive and is attempting to end it. I cannot move; I can barely breathe. Adira jumps in front of me and picks me up, so we can move behind a column out of Sethos’ sight.

The worst part isn’t the pain despite my heart feeling as though it is being slowly torn apart. It is what the pain means. I gave everything I could to avoid this, but the pain is unmistakable. And since Adira is here, it must be her. Grace is dead.

Grace’s death is just as bad as Jo’s. My heart feels as though it is being ripped, then sewn back together with a whole new piece. That’s at least how I picture it happening since that is how Oran explained it. The harsh impact of her loss on my mind and body is at least on par with Jo, possibly even more. However, unlike when Jo died, there is no time to mourn.

“One down,” Sethos antagonizes, “Two more to go.” He hurls himself at us. Adira opens a portal, and we vanish to hide behind another column. Hopefully we can have a little bit of time to regain our composure. Every second will help because neither of us are in any shape or form to attack.

Grace is gone. Damn it! Her power is mine, but I want nothing more than to be rid of it. Her memories are a raw mixture of happiness and despair, but some events truly stood out. For one, that man she killed, the one on Briza who begged her to put a bullet in his skull—he was her brother.

Grace was fighting so hard to protect her home. She continued on with an impossible plan after that. Everything she did was to keep the people of Elsen safe. The memories that stood out after that event were of us—her, Adira, and me. Her fighting with Adira back in the cave, worrying over me when I was unconscious, her desire to help the people of Oriare to feel some degree of usefulness.

She did not want to be a failure, but she did not want to be an idol either. She wanted to save lives. That is why she refused to walk away from the burning city filled with people she could not stand. Her own personal feelings at the time had not mattered. She left because it was the right thing to do.

I stand up not only with my face still wet from tears but with a soul full of a new sense of purpose as well. Grace’s death will not be for nothing. I will not allow the world to fall into Sethos’ endless cycles of chaos.

Adira is still down on her hands and knees sobbing beside me, so I gently tap her shoulder and offer a hand up. When she looks up at me to take my hand, her eyes grow wide. “Lux, your hair,” she whispers.

I know. I felt the change as it happened. My hair has Grace’s signature black streaks running through to its tips, and I’m glad. I want Sethos to recognize this; to remember it when we send him back to oblivion. He will never forget the bringer of darkness’s death.

Grace’s solid black scythe materializes next to me, so I grab it. There is no time to stay out of the line of fire. I touch the orb armalo sitting at the top with my hand and send light energy through it. This is how we will defeat Sethos. The scythe glows a bright white light, revealing our position to our enemy, but I cannot care less. Let him come. He will regret it.

After I give a firm nod to Adira who returns it, we set off on the offensive. Sethos did not anticipate our newfound fire and is clearly taken aback. He attempts to hide it by berating us like we are children and casts several spheres of dark energy our way. Adira and I dodge them all easily. I’m faster and the most agile I have ever been. This is Grace’s skill being used to its highest potential. Sethos might not show it, but deep down I believe he is a little afraid. There might only be two of us against him, but one of us has the full power and blessings of light and death. The other is skilled enough to dodge him and maneuver around without it. We are no longer overmatched. If anything, the fight has turned in our favor.

I smile because for a split second I see it in his eyes. Sethos is afraid he is going to lose. I understand why. He is not powerful enough to fight us yet. By making him appear before Sir David took over the world, we handicapped him. There is not enough darkness here for him to overrun the world’s natural course as long as Adira and I are standing, and it is because of people like Grace and Jo. People who put love, family, and morals above all else; people Sethos failed to taint fully with darkness when it mattered most.

Even though he is afraid, he is not giving up. Sethos storms through columns towards us when he realizes he is not going to be able to fight effectively from a far distance alone. Adira transports us both out of his way to where we are behind him. I clench the scythe, and the magical light energy radiating from it nearly doubles. I slash through his back and leave a long, deep gash running down to his tail. It hurts him a great deal, but I can already tell this is not going to be enough.

The cut is already healing, but it is a slow process. Adira and I should be able to stop him at least temporarily if we can keep injuring him this much consistently. The problem is I don’t know what to do when we do stop him. Sethos’s immortality is proving to be a large obstacle in our plans. Nevertheless, we continue to apply pressure. My newfound strength combined with Adira’s speed is amazingly effective. I will say this about my father, Jenesis, and Mors. They knew what they were doing when they created us.

Sethos charges at us while throwing the dark spheres our way. Adira moves in, and we appear behind him again with the sun’s warmth hitting our backs. The sun has finally begun to rise and is shining on a new temple that is nothing more than a pile of rubble. Only a few broken columns still remain, and the ceiling has completely caved. Good. The last thing Saphira needs is a temple solely dedicated to causing the world’s demise.

I run along Sethos’s back, dragging the scythe all the way through like I am plowing a garden. When I get to his head, I slide it out, flip it, and lacerate him across his face. He roars in agony as his black blood covers the ground, but he isn’t done yet. He breathes blistering black fire out of his mouth, and I cannot escape it. I jump back to give myself some extra space and swirl the scythe around like a fan to form an impromptu light magic shield. However, it does not stop all of it, and my nose is filled with the scent of my burned hair as it singes off.

Adira arrives next to me before Sethos unleashes another stream of fire. She opens a portal, and we appear above him. I cut his neck as I fall out of it, and afterwards it is hanging on to the rest of his body by only few threads of skin and flesh. After waiting briefly to see how he will retaliate, I conclude that for the time being Sethos is paralyzed.

With our moment to breathe, Adira and I regroup. We discuss the best course of action to take since Sethos is an immortal being, and his power is important to sustaining the balance. We can force him back into his own world, but that it is not really a good solution. One, we have no idea how to do that, and two, if Sethos is left to his own devices again, he will just weasel out. We’d create a time bomb. It might take a decade, a century, or millennium, but he would definitely break out again. We need a solution that allows part of his power to seep through, without physically letting him out.

I look around the wreckage our fighting has caused as we speak and notice something peculiar. The door Adira sealed is still standing tall without any walls around it. It is cracked, and there are a few small holes and craters, but it is still intact. Adira walks up to it and notes some of the dark energy was able to escape during or fighting. My curiosity is peaked, so I go to look at the door myself. She is correct. While the door is together, the cracks and small holes in it allowed some of the darkness from inside the temple to get out.

The idea to seal Sethos away dawns on both of us at the same time. If Adira’s seal was able to keep a door standing after taking all of that, it combined with my light magic should do a fine job holding him. Adira takes off the shadow claw and hidden blade armalos to disconnect them. She hands me the shadow claw and reequips the blade to her wrist.

“Let’s do this quickly while he is still down,” I say.

Sethos is starting to regain his ability to move, but it is too late for him. I draw the claw across his face with as much light power as I can possibly put into it. Sethos struggles to keep himself from being pulled in, but he does not have the strength. Once he is in, Adira places her seal symbol neatly on top of the light magic, and the portal bursts blinding us and knocking us back against the wall.

It is nearly silent; only our short, tired breaths can be heard. I hug Adira out of excited happiness, and although she is taken aback at first, she caves in and hugs me back. Sethos is gone. We actually did it! I’m relieved and happy because it is over. But at the same time, I am sad and worried about the losses and recovery. From the top of the hill, the extensive damage the city of Saphira experienced can be clearly seen as smoke rises into the air accompanied by the scent of death.

I cannot begin to imagine what Elsen or the rest of Oriare looks like. There is no time to dwell on it though because Oran’s voice arises around the two of us. He appears as a large translucent being congratulating us on a job well done.

While Adira takes his congratulations in stride, I am wary. Oran would never manifest his power here without cause, even if he is not actually here. Our light-hearted spirits are dampened when he breaks the news. I must leave Nilohm because my presence is overloading the balance.

“What?” Adira asks. She heard correctly. She simply does not believe it. “Lux just arrived. She cannot leave.”

“Her purpose has been fulfilled,” Oran explains, “Now that Sethos is sealed, the other powers no longer need to be as strong. It is as if one of us were down here personally. That is how powerful she is.”

“Does this mean I must go as well?” Adira questions.

“No,” I reply, “Only I need to leave.” Adira is powerful, but she is not too powerful. The world can still adapt to her quite easily. I, however, am not so lucky. The only one who can take me on and keep me in check is Sethos, and his influence on this world has become greatly restricted.

I understand. I know I must go or the world will be as chaotic had Sethos won. If I don’t, Nilohm may never experience peace again, but I do not want to leave. I liked being down here and thinking for myself. I liked having a choice.

But this is not a choice. There is no room for debate. For the sake of all the nations and their people, I must leave. It is my own sad reality, but at least I finally have some memories of my own. I smile at Adira and tell her it is all right. I thank her for everything and wish her people well. Briza should be all right all things considered, but she should get back to make sure. Things might have changed since Finn delivered the response back from her people.

Oran nods his approval with a face full of empathy. I cannot remember a time when he has ever looked at me like this, but I guess as my father he knows I have never had to do anything like this. For the first time since I came to exist in the Otherworld, I will be walking away and saying goodbye to people I really care about.

I bring Adira in for one more hug and promise to watch out for her. If the world is ever in danger again, I’ll be back.

“Lux,” Adira says as she hugs me back, “I cannot let you.” A searing pain bursts through my chest. I look down, and see the very tip of Adira’s blade. My sister has stabbed me in the heart. I feel betrayed as I fall to my knees coughing blood. She softly speaks her words as she soothes me. “Rest easy sister,” she says as everything around me becomes dark, and my body becomes cold.