The Beginning After The End

rom my body, and cast it into the void…

 

 

 

Then it was gone.
In place of the raw, tearing pain I felt a sense of freshness and calm, like I’d just stepped out of a cool shower on a hot summer’s day.

 

 

 

I opened my eyes.
My mental cleansing had been so complete that for just a moment I forgot what was happening around me.

 

 

 

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‘Arthur!’

 

 

 

It took a moment for Regis’s voice to sink through my foggy confusion.
Was it coming from the past, present, or future? I felt as though time itself was meaningless, and wondered vaguely if this was how the trapped ascenders felt within their mirrors.

 

 

 

The trapped ascenders…The thought nagged at me.
I had seen them in the vision of the future…or was that the present now? And then there was the Vritra-blooded ascender, Mythelias…He had escaped—or he would escape? I couldn’t tell the difference.   

 

 

 

The room shook as, across the fountain from me, Kalon released his voltaic energy spell, the arcing energy striking Mythelias from several angles at once, nearly burning Riah’s body to a cinder and imprinting jagged, fiery afterimages into my retina.

 

 

 

I blinked rapidly, a creeping feeling that I should be doing something clawing through the confusion.

 

 

 

Kalon leapt at Mythelias, attempting to use the aftermath of his catastrophic attack to drive his burning spear down into the Vritra-blooded ascender’s heart.
At the same moment, Haedrig cut low, aiming to take Mythelias’s leg off at the knee.

 

 

 

He was ready for them.

 

 

 

The flesh around his knee bubbled outward then hardened, trapping Haedrig’s sword in a knot of gnarled black tissue.
In Mythelias’s hands, Ezra’s spear swung with the force of a battering ram, catching Kalon in the air and batting him aside like a bug.

 

 

 

A jolt of adrenaline hit me like a lightning bolt as I watched Kalon fly sideways, strike the frame of one of the mirrors, and spin out into the void.
He was gone.

 

 

 

Riah’s face sneered at Haedrig.
“As if you lesser scum could truly fight back against me.” The words slithered out between her stiff, blackened lips, sounding entirely unlike Riah.
“You can’t even understand the honor I give you.
In my time, only the greatest warriors died by my hand…”

 

 

 

‘Arthur!’ Regis screamed again in my head.
He was inside me, I realized.
I could feel his debilitated presence, his mind, his wild panic.
And I could feel the Destruction rune raging like a wildfire, begging to be unleashed and burning away the last of my confusion and uncertainty.

 

 

 

Before me, Mythelias casually reached down toward Haedrig, who tried to throw himself backwards but slipped in blood and hit the ground with a grunt.
To his credit, the veteran ascender seemed calm even in the face of certain death.

 

 

 

As the bloated, puffy white fingers reached toward my friend, I raised my own hand and summoned the violet flame.
Mythelias’s head snapped around as he sensed my power, and with astonishing speed he cocked the spear back and launched it like a missile aimed straight at my throat.

 

 

 

The spear seemed to slow until it looked as if it were hanging suspended in the air.
Riah’s dead face was twisted into a hateful snarl, as still as a painting.
Haedrig lay on his back at Mythelias’s feet, one arm up to ward off the blow that had been diverted toward me.

 

 

 

Without meaning to look for them, I saw the network of aetheric vibrations between Mythelias and me; all I had to do was focus on them and activate my rune, and I was able to pass through the vibrations with God Step, appearing between Haedrig and Mythelias, the power of Destruction still held in my hand.

 

 

 

The world lurched into motion again, and I watched as the spear flew into the distance.
Mythelias’s eyes widened in surprise, still focused on where I had been just a moment ago, before twisting around with the speed of a razor grimalkin, his hand thrusting toward me like the tip of a poisoned dagger.

 

 

 

But it wasn’t fast enough.

 

 

 

“Burn,” I commanded, and the hungry flames leapt from my fist in a fan of pure violet destruction fueled by my aether.

 

 

 

Destruction engulfed Riah’s body, flinging Mythelias screaming onto his back.
He rolled and beat at the flames, and his power caused a hard, black shell to start forming all around the body.

 

 

 

Even as he burned, he screamed out, “I am the Mythelias Dresdium—son of the Sovereigns—and I—refuse—to—”

 

 

 

“Die,” I said coldly.

 

 

 

The purple fire consumed the scabrous black lumps and the pale dead flesh alike, destroying the body faster than Mythelias’s ability could regenerate it.

 

 

 

As I watched the body of the kind girl—the girl who brought sweets on an ascent instead of rations—disintegrate, I felt only the flush of power, the knowledge that, with Destruction at my command, I could defeat anything.
Even Agrona wouldn’t be able to fight back against this kind of raw destructive force.

 

 

 

Destruction fed until not even ash remained, but when Riah’s body was gone, Destruction remained.
I felt the power pull at me, eager for more.

 

 

 

I clenched my fists and ground my teeth as I tried to snuff out the remaining flames, which had spread to the stone floor and were quickly eating through it, along with most of my aether reserves.

 

 

 

A gout of the violet fire erupted from my right hand, boiling away the water within the fountain and setting two of the broken benches aflame.
All around me, purple embers floated through the air, and anything they touched caught fire.

 

 

 

It was beautiful.

 

 

 

Then a spark landed on Haedrig’s leg.

 

 

 

He would burn, I knew, like everything else.
Kalon, Ezra, Riah, Ada…Haedrig.
They were all collateral damage, but their lives had been the price I had to pay to make it this far.

 

 

 

No! That was wrong, I knew.
That’s Destruction talking, not me!

 

 

 

I saw again the future I’d witnessed in the dodecahedron: the hall of mirrors destroyed, nothing but ash remaining of my companions.
That was what would happen if I couldn’t control Destruction.
In the end, it would consume everything.
Even me.

 

 

 

Feeling control slipping away from me, knowing that Haedrig would be incinerated in moments if I didn’t do something, I shouted for Regis.

 

 

 

We have to exhaust our aether reserves.
All of it! Gauntlet Form! Now!

 

 

 

Regis didn’t hesitate.
When he was in my right hand, I held it out, pointing through one of the many broken mirrors and away from Haedrig, who was shouting my name, pleading for help.

 

 

 

With Regis in my hand to draw my aether, I turned Destruction in that direction and pushed.
Purple fire boiled out of me like an inferno, spilling out into the darkness where there was nothing for it to consume.

 

 

 

More and more of the destructive energy streamed from me.
I burned it all, every last breath of aether in my body.
And when I was as dry and empty as a sun bleached skull, the last of the fire flickered and died, no longer able to draw from Regis’s rune.

 

 

 

My head whipped around, but I let out a sigh of relief when I saw Haedrig back on his feet, his armor scorched but otherwise looking unburned.

 

 

 

Then my knees buckled, and the world went dark.