“You would refuse even if it meant genocide and the destruction of Bastion?”
“I will not return to you, Imogen. Things cannot be as they were.”
Her eyes narrowed, and Scorio had to fight the urge to crouch. Instead, he listened, frozen, as still as any of the other Great Souls.
“Then you countenance this,” she said, voice raw with anger. “This is on your head, Sol!”
“No.” He extended his hand to the side, and a golden spear materialized in his palm, small flickers of lightning racing up and down its length. “There will be no genocide or destruction, for I shall not allow it.”
“So you would raise your hand against me at last?” Her smile was raw but did nothing to hide the pain in her eyes.
“Perhaps I should have done so before.” A halo appeared behind his head, a radiant golden disc whose shape fluctuated, sending forth and retracting rods of platinum. “Perhaps that was my greatest failing. To have allowed my love to blind me all these years.”
“It need not be like this,” she whispered, tears brimming and running down her cheeks. “We can still be together, Sol. Please. Return to my side. There is nothing we cannot fix together.”
“I’m sorry, Imogen.” His voice had become almost a rasp, his expression stricken. “There is no returning from what you did. But we need not fight. Agree to leave Bastion peacefully with me. We can negotiate terms. We can find a way toward peace.”
“And be without you forever, my love?” Her laughter was broken. “Who will hold the dances in the hall, who will greet the guests by my side, who will joust with the sun? No. That is no life. I shall continue as before, and I pray by the regard you once had for me that you stay your hand.”
And she turned back to the Archspire.
Sol gazed at Imogen with a forlorn, wounded love which then disappeared behind a mask of iron. His jaw clenched, his heavy brow lowered, and then he multiplied.
For a second Scorio thought he was employing Praximar’s power, creating a half-dozen duplicates, but the power didn’t stop. In a matter of seconds, over a hundred reflections of Sol ringed the Archspire and Imogen, each bearing its own halo, each gazing at her with steel determination.
Imogen raised a hand to the Archspire, and Scorio saw that it was trembling violently.
“Don’t do it, my love,” whispered the original Sol. In the hand of each of his reflections, a golden spear appeared, coruscating with wild energy. “Please. I ask one last time.”
“I love you,” said Imogen, tears running freely. “Since I first saw you on our first Gauntlet run. Always and deeply and truly. I’ve always loved you, Sol, in every life, and always will.”
“Don’t,” croaked Sol.
Imogen flared her fingers wide, then thrust her hand full upon the spire.
Chapter 42
A hundred things happened at once. The legion of Sols raised their golden spears as if giving the command for an army to charge, and from the dark clouds overhead flashed down a hundred bolts of golden lightning, all of them angling down to strike at Imogen.
At the same time, every other Great Soul in the room but Scorio leaped to attack the hundred Sols.
The White Queen flared up into her angelic form, wings spread wide, to unleash a blast of white at the original Sol, her own halo flaring.
Grunsch let out a roar as he charged into the wall of Imperators, his form swelling up to massive size, even as Lady Maeve flashed forward in a sweep of searing flame. Havarn caused a score of boulders to rise, each wreathed in green flame, and hurled them forward.
More attacks than Scorio could follow, ranging from Raugr’s fistfuls of crackling energy to Feng sweeping the Imperators with his cone of dust.
It was an explosive, overwhelming moment, but Scorio was snatched away, boiling night sweeping over him. As he fell, however, even he could sense that the attacks had been weaker, underpowered compared to those he’d witnessed before.
But then the floor fell away from under him, and he dropped with a cry into nothingness, to be sucked as if down a wormhole through fluctuating night and emerge on a rooftop on the opposite side of the ruins above the Academy, Imogen by his side.
She stared straight up to where the Academy hung on the far side of the sun-wire, her fists white-knuckled, her own black halo shifting behind her head, her black scepter pressed down the length of her leg.
“I—ah—I mean—” Scorio tried not to stammer, but the darkness yet seethed around him, and he felt the floor slope and change under his feet.
“You wished to witness, old friend?” Gone was the pain and vulnerability. “Then observe. Sol was always partial to this city. The best way to wound him is to destroy it.”
“Or we could—” But he got no further. The legion of Sol’s flew free of the old Academy, and immediately a storm of golden bolts manifested directly above them, striking down with thunderous power.
Darkness swept around Scorio and once more he fell, his stomach pressing itself against his lungs as he stumbled out atop another rooftop. They were halfway across the city now, familiar landmarks rising all around them, people shouting and screaming as they backed away from Imogen and him.
“He never made peace with my being stronger,” said Imogen. She upturned her palm and raised it. “Men. Such fragile egos.”
And around them, the buildings began to change. Shadows bled over walls and rooftops, over balconies and around towers, and the city began to deform, to mutate, to grow. Staircases expanded blindly into the sky, turrets blossomed out of the sides of buildings, rooms open to the sky fruited mindlessly like overflowing bubbles across the blocks around them.
Scorio reached into his robe and clutched futilely at the chalk. He stared in horror as the locals were swept up by the black fog, their expressions turning slack as they turned to race and hurl themselves off the rooftops, falling silently to their deaths below.
Sols sped through the sky toward them, and a score of golden lightning bolts arched out of the sky, splitting the world into bright flashes as they roared down upon where Imogen and Scorio stood.
This time she raised her scepter, and her black sphere sprang into existence. The golden lances slammed into it, driving her down to one knee. Scorio saw cracks appear in the sphere, but these immediately smoothed over.
Again she dragged him into the darkness, and again he fell, a sickening drop that terminated abruptly. They were across the city again, stepping out from a writhing tendril of black fog. Imogen extended her arm and laughed, the sound cracked at its core, as Bastion around them began to change, arches springing up, buildings melting into each other, streets warping below.
But Sol reacted even quicker this time; some thirty of him were in the air above, and at once they hurled golden lances down upon Imogen.
This time she cried out in anger as the bolts near shattered her sphere; she staggered back, clawed hair from her face, and thrust her scepter up on high.
A great black beam leaped forth to slam into one of the Sols’ sphere; it cut straight through, and that Sol disappeared, halo lingering in the air for a few moments after he was gone.
Another thirty lances of golden light flew down at her, and this time she thrust both hands up into the air. Black jets of flame gouted up from the shadow fog to pour over the Sols’ protective spheres, but none of these got through.
Scorio turned to run, but the floor fell out from under his feet again, and they plunged into nothingness, down and down to emerge within a cathedral-like hall, the walls resplendent with ancient paintings, the masses of people within crying out in horror and rearing back until the fog claimed them and they went quiet.
The roof exploded in a golden flash, however, and ten Sols floated down, their faces grim, their halos almost too bright to observe.
“You cannot escape me, Imogen. No matter how quickly you run. Your dominion is circumscribed.”