Cool, soothing, and life-giving, like water to a man dying of thirst, Ofeera’s power flowed into Luthien and restored him. But any semblance of calm he might have felt evaporated the moment his eyes caught sight of his brother standing some distance away, smiling smugly at the horrors he had wrought. Breaker was not in too bad of a shape, having methodically dispatched several of the undead elves his brother had raised. Hazuriel and his companions were not faring nearly as well. Several of them had already fallen under the mindless onslaught of the undead, unwilling to fire at their loved ones, while the other desperately plucked at their bows to keep their dead kin at bay.
Growling deep in his throat, the young knight’s healed hand tightened around the pommel of his sword.
“Luthien, please…” Ofeera’s voice beseeched him breathlessly.
“Please what?!” he demanded as he snatched his arm away from her clinging hands. “Look at what he has wrought!”
The knight’s harsh rebuke made Ofeera draw back. She had seen the dead and knew that she had to act. Yet, the sight of Lucien, her beloved, stole her strength and resolve. She could not strike out against him; she could not even find the voice to pray and return these defile bodies back to the earth. The fierce battle all around her, the screams and shouts of her companions and the surviving high elves, she saw it all and heard it all. But it wasn’t real to her, as if she wasn’t really here and was just looking on.
A shadow suddenly interposed itself between her and her view of Lucien. She saw a flash of silver and a body fell to the ground. “Lady Ofeera, get up or you are going to die!”
She looked up, unable to really comprehend what was being said to her. Hands grabbed her by the way and non too gently hoisted her up to her feet. She got a glimpse of gray skin and two-colored eyes. “Breaker?”
The gray elf said something that was guttural and harsh in his language, pushed her to the side, and swung his curved blades. Another high elf ghoul fell to the ground, its head severed from its body. Unable to help herself, Ofeera looked down. It was a young elven woman, whose leaf-green eyes stared up unblinkingly at her.
“Merciful…merciful Abihayil…” the young healer whispered. Someone was breathing too quickly, drawing desperate, ragged breaths. After a moment, she realized that it was her, that darkness hovered at the edges of her vision and her heart pounded frantically against her chest. She sank to the ground with Luthien’s roar resounding in her years.
The young knight charged towards his brother again, his eyes blazing fiercely. Elven ghouls came forward to block his way, but without slowing down, Luthien called upon the Eternal Father for strength and blasted them with His holy fire. The golden flames leaped from ghoul to ghoul, reducing their bodies to ashes in a matter of moments.
“Well, it would seem like a congratulations is in order, my dear brother,” Lucien arched an eyebrow and smiled. “You have become a paladin. Father and mother must be so proud.”
Luthien snarled in response, swinging his sword at his hated brother. It connected with a fiercely glowing shield and rebounded as another body appeared between him and his target. The young knight had only a moment to react as a bolt of arcane energy shot towards him. But this time, he was not taken completely by surprise. The holy flame roared to life in front of his, and the arcane bolt was swallowed up by it as if it never existed.
“Get out of my way!” the young knight yelled as he swung his sword again, this time at the black-robed mage from the Dark Empire. The mage held up what looked to be a metal staff to block the blow, although Luthien struck hard enough to send the man stumbling a few steps backwards with a grunt.
“Oh my, how kind of you to assist me,” Lucien chuckled. The vile prince seemed more than happy to step aside and watch the show from the sidelines.
The Rising Sun mage and Lucien exchanged several more blows, with the young knight shouting his frustration with each attack. So powerful were his strikes that each sparks flew with each blow. The enemy mage’s staff had to have been enchanted in some way or it would have been severed in two.
Although the Dark Empire was know for its battle mages equally well versed in martial arts and arcane arts, and this one was clearly no stranger to wielding his staff in hand-to-hand combat, he could not match Luthien’s ferocity. After a few more exchanges that forced him back several more steps, the man jumped back, pointed his finger at the knight and began muttering under his breath.
“You whose lips that utter naught but wickedness and deceit, in the name of the Uncrowned King, be silent and speak no more!” Luthien shouted as he made a cutting motion with his sword.
An arc of blinding white light speared through the sky and pierced the Rising Sun Mage before he could complete whatever incantation he had tried to complete. The man’s body quavered like a leaf in the wind, and without so much as a gasp of objection, he collapsed to the ground. The metal staff he had wielded was turned to ashes, and pale white smoke rose from the man’s still form.
Breathing heavily, Luthien turned to his brother yet again, a grim expression on his face.
“Hmm, now that, my dear little brother, is a bit frightening,” Lucien’s eyes narrowed dangerously.
Seeing his comrade fall, Dao spun around, intending to give aide. Azarielle, who had been battling him without the use of her arcane gift, took this moment of distraction to slam her foot into his stomach. Unprepared for this, Dao sprawled backwards, landing in an undignified heap on the ground.
“How can my lady side herself with one who would steal a mage’s arcane gift?!” Dao coughed, as he struggled to his feet.
“You mean Luthien over there? I think the only thing he did was cast out whatever abyssal fiend, whatever yaoguai was living inside Ting’s body. That same thing probably sucked out his arcane power as well, so actually, you should probably thank Luthien. A couple of more years of this and Ting would be an empty husk not much different than these ghouls,” Azarielle replied. “Now tell me something, Dao, how can you abide to serve a fiend like the Luminous Consort? I was under the impression that you weren’t too fond of her.”
“I serve His Highness, the Prince Yue,” the mage replied, getting back to his feet.
“And Yue is her unthinking slave,” Azarielle tilted her head, her golden eyes flashing. “Unlike Lan, you don’t have a sister that would never leave Yue. And unlike Bi Xiang, you aren’t a sociopathic murderer. The only thing holding you to him is your misplaced loyalty. He’s not a deity – he’s a servant of the Abyssal One Luxuria. Stop deluding yourself.”
“My lady, all that I have I owe His Highness,” Dao replied. “Though your servant is not worthy, he knows that he needs to repay a life debt to Prince Yue! So please do not resist any longer. Your ladyship is exhausted, else she would have unleashed her power upon me, am I not right?”
“All that you have your owe the Eternal Father,” Azarielle said. “Your life debt is to the Uncrowned King.”
“I do not know of these foreign deities, my lady.” Dao shook his head. “I know only of the Empire and the Prince Yue.”
Azarielle shook her head, “Deity, singular. Unfortunately, this isn’t really the time for a conversation about the purpose and meaning of life. I really, really need for you to get out of my way.”
“You do not have the strength to stop me at this moment, my lady.”
In response, Azarielle flicked her wrist, dropping a wand into her hand. “It’s all in the preparation, Dao.” She pointed the wand at the Rising Sun mage and spoke a single word of command. The tip of the wand smoldered like an ember, growing brighter and brighter until Dao had to look away. He had just enough time to summon a shield before a blast of power smashed into him full force. The shield he had created could not withstand the fearsome power unleashed by the wand, but it did give him the time he needed to teleport out of harm’s way.
Azarielle did not have time to lament her near miss as Dao instantly launched into an attack of his own. A web of glowing green-yellow energy shot out from his hand. She could read the power Signature of the attack well enough to guess that its intent was sap her of her power and stun her into unconsciousness. Since Yue’s command to Dao had, apparently, been to capture her alive, he would not unleash the worst of his powers. Still, she knew how powerful Dao was, and she had no intentions of getting hit by anything he threw at her.
Holding her short sword out in front of her, Azarielle spoke a short command of her own, grimacing as she felt a jolt of pain that warned her of power overuse. The runes along her short sword flared to life, glowing bright blue. Standing her ground, she swung her sword at the energy web. There was a loud boom, like a clasp of thunder as the she cut tore through Dao’s arcane weavings and web exploded into a harmless shower of lights.
She unleashed her second blast with her wand the same time that Dao unleashed an energy blast of his own. The power of Azarielle’s wand proved to be greater, and Dao was sent flying backwards despite having shielded himself.
“So, that’s the power of the great Azariel Gwenevar,” a soft voice spoke suddenly from behind her, causing her to start.
She spun around and spotted Lucien standing a few feet away, a smile curving his lips that didn’t reach his eyes. “It’s nicely horrifying, I must say. I wonder how he would have compared with the great lady Elucielle.”
Not wanting to exchange any meaningless banter with the dangerous prince, Azarielle opened her mouth as if she intended to say something, but instead, she pointed her want at Lucien and spoke the words to unleash what remained of its pent up power in one devastating attack.
But even as she hoped to catch Lucien unawares, she was caught unawares. She felt a shock race up the arm that held a hand, not enough to seriously wound her, but enough to stun, and the wand slipped through her suddenly nerveless fingers. Azarielle hopped back a step, expecting to see a revived Dao.
Instead, she saw Theredoniel, standing a few feet aware, a grimly determined expression upon his gaunt face. In one hand, her friend held what appeared to be a long metal box used to store chests. In his other hand, he held a long, metal battle staff topped with a amber-colored jewel at one end and tapering off to a sharp point on the other end.
“My dear Theredoniel, you have certainly been taking your time!” Lucien exclaimed.
“My dear Theredoniel, you have a lot of explaining to do,” mimicking Lucien’t tone of voice, Azarielle said, taking a few steps to the side and turning her body so that she was able to keep both Lucien and Therdoniel in her line of sight.
“Azarielle, stay out of this, please,” the elf spoke to his friend in High Elven, his usually melodious voice sounding hoarse as if he had had screamed his throat raw.
“Theredoniel, where is Eowyna?” Ofeera asked from where she knelt, the sight of her brother-in-law shaking her from her shock.
Theredoniel’s face twisted in a grimace of pain and in a choked voice, he replied, “I am sorry Ofeera, she’s… she’s sick.”
Ofeera opened her mouth to ask more, but before she could get a word out, Lucien spoke up, gesturing with his hand, “Now, now dear Theredoniel, it is not nice to keep your wife all to yourself. It is quite clear that her loving sister has been worried. My darling Ofeera, your beautiful sister is here.”
Lucien snapped his hand once, and a figure that walked slowly out from behind a tall tree. She had the same golden hair and fair skin as her Ofeera, but in death, Eowyna’s once graceful stride had been reduced to a slow, halting gait. Ofeera’s, whose heart had leaped in joy when she first caught sight of her beloved sister, slowly started to think as her brain tried to accept the truth that her senses were telling her.
What she beheld was her sister’s corpse, beautifully restored to be sure, but a corpse nonetheless. Those eyes that had once gazed upon her with fond teasing were empty. No soul lived within that empty husk and it moved only because of Lucien’s terrible power. Ofeera opened her mouth to speak, but the only sound that escaped was a whimper.
“May Abihayil have mercy,” Azarielle’s eyes glittered with unshed tears. “Theredoniel, what happened?”
“She’s… she’s just sick. But I will make her well again. And then, it will be like it was before…”
“You idiot,” Azarielle responded. Though Theredoniel had not offered her any useful information, she had seen enough to know what had happened. A sudden surge of power as hot as burning flame suddenly coursed through her, and her vision blurred for just a moment. Then, taking a deep breath, she flexed her fingers, calling the wand back into her hand and aimed it at Lucien again.
“Azarielle, please don’t,” Theredoniel said, his finger pointed at his friend. “You aren’t in the best shape right now. And, I… I don’t want to fight you.”
“Theredoniel, Eowyna is dead.”
The words, spoken in High Elven by one of his dearest friends, and with a finality that defied argument, struck the young elf with the force lightning bolt. Theredoniel opened his mouth to deny these words, to tell Azarielle that she was mistaken, and that he would seek to make her well again. Instead, what came out were the words of an attack, spat with all his anger and hatred towards the Eternal Father that had taken his wife away.
His body lit up my streaks of lightning as if it were the stormy sky. Lightning snaked up and down his body and lanced forth from his eyes, his mouth and his finger tips.
