“Where’s Kindren?” Aully shouted, still pressed against his back.
“Right behind us,” Ceredon called out over his shoulder. “With your mother.”
“And where are we going?”
“Home.” He couldn’t say where they’d find it, but he knew that’s where they were going.
CHAPTER 50
Velixar lay on his side, his blood leaking away as Ashhur towered above. Scarlet drops caught fire on the god’s shimmering blade. He couldn’t begin to interpret Ashhur’s stare. Was it anger? Regret? Or detachment, the curiosity of one who’d stepped on a strange insect?
All around them, those who had been fighting for Dezrel’s soul gawked.
“You,” Velixar gasped, and despite his grievous wound he tried crawling toward his former god. If only his power had been stronger. If only he hadn’t pushed his limits, if only his human body weren’t so pathetically weak. “You won’t. . ”
The ruins of the castle shifted, followed by the boom of heavy footsteps that shook the ground. Ashhur looked away and lifted his sword. Velixar heard Ashhur sigh, and he knew Karak had finally emerged from the wreckage.
“You should not have come,” said Karak.
Ashhur’s mouth twitched, the faintest hint of a smile on his face.
“You knew I would,” Ashhur said. “This conflict must end.”
It was pandemonium as those who had been battling in the gods’ names fled.
Karak was just beyond Velixar’s sight, and he turned his head to look. His god wore his brilliant armor; his short, dark hair was blown back by a breeze, and he held his fiery blade in both hands. His armor was stained with soot and clay, and a grim smile played across his face, eagerness in his eyes that burned greater than his sword. This battle, Velixar realized, both had been yearning to revisit since their fight in Haven ended in a draw. Damn the followers and armies and supplies and movements. There would be no retreat this time. Their blades were drawn, their power naked. Here they would fight until one of them would forever die.
Velixar’s fingers pressed against the blood-soaked cobbles, and he begged for strength. Only the magic of the ancient beast within him kept him alive, kept his rent body together, kept the blood pumping through severed veins. The pendant that had singed his chest pulsed with energy. It was agony, and took great concentration, but he would not die. Not yet. Before he passed, he would see a victor. The damn world owed him that much.
“What happened to the paradise we were to create?” Karak asked as he braced his back leg for a lunge. “What happened to the perfection we swore would blossom? We watched worlds burn. Ours was to be different. Ours was to be better. How did our creations fail us so?”
Ashhur settled low, readying his blade, preparing for the charge.
“They never failed us,” he said. “Not as much as we failed them, as you failed them.”
Karak’s smile spread full, and it was a look Velixar hardly recognized. His god seemed. . crazed. Feverish. “You are right,” his deity said. “We gave them their free will. Knowing their imperfections. Knowing their sin. Every murder, every blasphemy, it is on our heads. It is our failure, our greatest failure, and once your body breaks before me, I will sweep across this land correcting it.”
Ashhur looked horrified.
“You would strip them of their will? Their choices? Their very souls? This conflict was your doing, not theirs.”
The fire on Karak’s blade burned all the greater.
“You still don’t understand?” he asked. “Life is chaos. Creation is stubborn and wild. There is only one way to obtain true order. Only one way to obtain true justice, yet you are too blind to see it. Emptiness, my brother. Pure, quiet, blissful emptiness. We were doomed the moment we stepped foot on this land and sought to create anything other than monuments to ourselves. Proud gods are we, but we must be prouder still. We must cast off these inferior beings, cast off our need for their love, our yearning for them to live and grow and understand things they will never truly comprehend. They will only know suffering, misery, and confusion before they succumb to their graves. You cannot cast dirt to the stars and expect it to understand the vastness, and that is all these humans are, the dust beneath our feet. Let me help you before it is too late. Before these wretched things, by their very existence, result in the death of a god.”
Velixar was in too much agony to understand it, his god’s words flowing over him like a frozen wind, their meaning horrifying yet so simple, so frighteningly believable, just like the vision of a burning, peaceful world Karak had shown him. Looking to Ashhur, he thought there was no way another perfect being could hear and not agree. What counter could Karak’s brother offer? What wisdom could he refute it with? The god stood still as a statue before the ruins of the castle as Karak waited for an answer. And when it came, it came with tears in Ashhur’s eyes.
“No,” he said, his deep voice but a whisper.
“Why?” Karak asked, not hiding his frustration and disappointment.
“Because I love them. And I will die to save them.”
Ashhur leapt forward. Velixar craned his neck to watch, his dying breaths stolen away. Ashhur’s sword swung, Karak blocked, and at their connection the very ground shook from the shock wave, further toppling the castle’s ruins. The massive throng of terrified onlookers shrieked. A mindless roar rumbled from Karak’s throat as he pushed back, muscles bulging, the world beneath him breaking from the strain. At last Ashhur relented, only to swing again. Sword striking, sword blocking, each became a blur, light and fire twirling, mixing. A chunk of the wall still standing was crushed beneath the might of their struggle. Suddenly it was a display Velixar no longer felt worthy to witness, and casting his eyes to the bloodstained cobbles beneath him he crawled, dragging his lower half behind him. He cried out in pain as he lurched over the remnants of one of the onyx lions that had guarded the castle portcullis. He had to be closer. What power he had left, he wished to give to his god. No matter what, Ashhur could not win. Not after all he, Velixar, had given. . all he’d lost.
As Velixar crawled, his ears ringing from the awesome noise, he felt magic begin to grow around him. It was low at first, a tingle, but soon it seemed the very air was saturated by some ethereal presence. Velixar didn’t know what it was, but it made him afraid, and he crawled faster. His intestines threatened to burst out of him entirely with each movement, but he used the power within him to keep his flesh together, to hold on just a little bit longer. The gods were so close now, and a glance showed them deadlocked, their movements mirrored. No attack went unforeseen; no feint succeeded; every thrust was parried away.
“Karak,” Velixar groaned-another inch crawled. He was nearly deaf now from the riotous clash of the gods’ ethereal blades. Even the screaming host of humanity fell away. It seemed impossible that two weapons could make such a cacophony, but each connection between them was like the collision of worlds.
They had to see it, didn’t they? See how the air was turning a shade of green, how dark clouds swirled above them like the heart of a tornado? His terror grew. So thick with magic now, multicolored sparks shimmering in and out of existence everywhere he looked. Something, or someone, was coming.
Crawl! He flung himself forward onto the remnants of the castle courtyard, strewn with rubble, without fear of the conflict, but only the deep innate sense he felt that somehow time was running out. The battling gods were close now, mere feet away. The dust vibrated before him; he saw a foot, and then he reached out. Just as he touched Karak’s heel, he heard a sound that shook through his body. It was like a crack of thunder, only greater, so much greater, and it carried the power of a goddess.