Ancel’s hands trembled as he squeezed them into fists. Tears trickled down his face and he watched in horror as the shadelings drew close enough to pounce on his parents. He wanted to stop them. He had to stop them.
Inside him, his power burned. Dear Ilumni, help them, he prayed.
The voice screeched.
Charra appeared, slamming into a wraithwolf. The others of the pack stopped and turned toward the new threat. His power forgotten, Ancel ran for his parents. The voice cackled in his head.
Again, something snatched him away.
“Bring them back!” he cried hoarsely.
A hollow boom sounded. Ancel snapped his head around.
Smoke billowed from the winery. Char choked the air. One of the walls blew outward. From the debris strode a man swathed in all black. He dragged Mother’s limp form from the building by one arm.
Power surged into Ancel’s Etchings. He would not allow the man to take Mother again.
Yet, as much as he wanted to, craved to lash out, to release Etien, he did not.
Once more, whatever power controlled what he was seeing took him and deposited him elsewhere.
In silver armor, sword raised above him, he stood in a familiar city.
Jenoah.
The poisoned gods’ attack swept across the world. Not only here in Hydae, but in Denestia also. It was all connected. With one sacrifice, he could save Denestia, even if it meant the evil infecting Hydae, the darkness thrust upon it by Amuni, would still live.
He needed to give of himself.
The Etchings on his weapon and his body joined as one. He called on Prima.
Antonjur.
Power arched across the Planes into the Entosis, black and light at the same time as if a lightning strike marred his vision. It originated from the mountains hidden in the distance where Prima Materium coalesced, fed by the creatures that inhabited it. Something about the darkness in the elements was terribly familiar. But it was nothing that scared him. He embraced what Charra gave him.
The gods’ power struck.
Whisk.
Ancel leaped up onto the highest tower in Randane. Below him, the city churned in flames, ashes, and blood.
The ashes of my people. The blood of my people.
In the main square before the temples dedicated to the gods of Streams, and at the steps leading into the king’s castle, shadelings had Eldanhill’s refugees lined up. Eyes aglow, daemons flicked out strands from their heads while walking on spindly legs like giant insects. The black hair, or whatever it was, ripped into the prisoners. People Ancel knew. Many he considered friends. Some who were family. His people. Those he’d sworn to help protect.
Sela flew from each person as they died.
The daemons screamed. All across the city came matching replies.
A portal twisted open. Some sela flew into it, while the remainder zipped into the dead and living alike. Those alive grew in size and power. The dead, shifted, got to their feet.
Shadelings. Every one of them.
Whisk.
He heard a roar. Through his helm’s visor he saw wave upon wave of shadelings charging across a rolling plain to him. Wraithwolves, darkwraiths, daemons, vasumbrals, other creatures, skittering like spiders, some appearing as if risen from the grave. Their fetid stench reached him even where he stood. He could make out the sweat, spit, and other bodily fluids as they came, worked into a fervor in their bloodlust.
Behind him, he heard a bellowing reply. To his left, Mirza stood, scythe spinning in his hand, Mater glowing from it. Behind him were rank upon rank of soldiers, faces grim against the tidal wave of flesh, fangs, claws, and steel. To his right was Irmina. Daggerpaws by the thousands spread near her along with scores of mountain men. Overhead, eagles wheeled and cried.
She raised one hand. Sparks appeared in the air. Each grew into living, silver, translucent ovals.
Ignoring the onrushing shadelings, he turned to his army. Too many battle standards to count flapped in the breeze. He knew them all. The most prominent represented each type of Matus still residing in Denestia. The Lightstorm, the Waterwall, the Guardian Wall, the Quaking Forest, the Stone, the Searing Fist, the Thirty-two Winds, the Icebound, the Black Halls.
He watched himself as he raised his fist.
Warriors in cloth, skin a deep bronze, stepped forward from the phalanxes. Faces a mask of calm, each one bore a massive two-handed mace slung over their backs. They strode to the front of his army. Muscles bulged in their arms as in unison they freed their weapons from their harnesses and swung.
The earth roiled with the impacts. It rose, a living creature in a massive swath of rubble, dirt, and blocks of stone that tore apart the enemies vanguard.
As sudden as it heaved, the earth subsided, calm and flat as if it had not just raged. To the front of the horde stood a man in black armor, hand on the hilt of a greatsword that punctured the starving ground.
He motioned to Ancel. “Come!” he shouted.
Ancel smiled. If in death he could help save his people, he would gladly give of himself.
Whisk.
Nine netherlings came forward, one by one, to bestow an Etching upon him. With each gift, his power continued to grow. War after war followed, with him leading the Setian to victory. Their enemies lay decimated before them. On the day he gained his last Etching, he broke the last seal on the Kassite.
The gods returned to the world swathed in destruction. The nine netherlings stood before them, matching their strength.
The gods fell.
The world burned.
Whisk.
Irmina sat on the ground in front of the brown, rusted gates. Shadows capered all around her. Tendrils caressed her and the man she cradled in her arms. Tears streamed down her face.
“I cannot save you, my love. I cannot even save myself.” She wailed.
Ancel looked up into her eyes, red rimmed with grief. A cough wracked his body as he squeezed her hand feebly. Life leeching from his body, he was drifting away. He tried to savor the scent of bellflowers from her underneath the sweat, but the only whiff he caught was of death. “Do it,” he whispered.
Sobbing, she lifted him and stumbled to a stone altar before the rusted gates. No, not rust, but brown, mottled, rotted flesh. She laid him on the altar.
A disheveled figure in tattered clothing shuffled over to him. The figure placed a tome by his head.
“Give in and he shall save you. The shade is his to command and so shall it be yours. Beg him, praise him,” a disembodied raspy voice said from the hungry shadows that licked out all around them.
Thoughts of his friends dying, of his parents, and of a world destroyed assailed his senses.
“Give in, and all shall be well again.”
He wanted revenge. Someone would have to pay for the suffering him and his people endured which now clouded his senses. A voice whispered that it was not real to him. A familiar voice but he ignored it. He was in too much pain and seeing Irmina suffer crushed his heart. The images of destruction stood etched into his skin, seared his being. Below him, Irmina knelt, head bowed, waiting patiently.
Etched into my skin. He attempted to draw on his Etchings. Nothing happened. He no longer had them. He didn’t think he ever had them.
No. This wasn’t right. He rolled off the altar.
The creature that was Irmina stood. “Almost,” it whispered, death’s stink even stronger now.
Whisk.
Faster and faster the visions came. Futures and pasts. Wars and rumors of wars. Lands and names changed. Friends and family dying. From each he garnered information. A lie here. A truth there. A picture formed. A mosaic to rival any ever created. In the center of it all, he remained, resolute and steadfast. He did not know where they originated, but at every turn temptations reached out to him. At every turn, he defied them. The visions built to a blinding crescendo, blurring into one.