He was alone with the goddess.
“Karak,” Velixar wept. “Karak, please, fight her. . fight free!”
Celestia turned to him, and he felt paralyzed with terror. Her eyes bore into him, and it seemed she saw him for the very first time. Pointing a finger toward him, she spoke.
“You were banished. You are again.”
The power of Velixar, the Beast of a Thousand Faces, ripped out of his very essence. No pain ever felt by the man once known as Jacob could compare. He screamed, he writhed, as the ancient power fled him like red curls of smoke, disappearing into the void. It was like losing a hand, only worse-like forgetting how to breathe even as his lungs burned. Yet he could do nothing, only weep, while the stars vanished.
In his chest, he felt his heart beat, just once, before his body spilled apart.
As he lay dying, the clouds above him rumbling, the world returning to his sight, he heard the goddess’s words echo across the land.
I banish you, never to walk my land again. If you would war forever, then let it rage among your creations. Let it be your curse, one they will bear until the breaking of days.
His body convulsed, his vision gone dim, and with ears gone deaf, he heard only silence. Death was coming, death for the ageless First Man. For the briefest moment, he thought perhaps it would be a welcome relief. At least he would war no more. At least he would bear no more burdens for either of the gods. As he felt himself slip away, his only regret was that, in the end, he and his chosen god had lost.
Not yet.
It was a voice he could never forget. Karak’s invisible hands were on him, his power flooding into Jacob’s every particle of being. Skin knit shut where he’d been cut in twain. The strength he’d lost from the demon was replaced by something purer, holier. His body convulsed, but he felt no pain as his sight and hearing returned. Against his chest he felt the emblem of his god burning into his flesh. The pendant glowed like a dying star. Letting out a great cry, he staggered to his feet. Karak’s voice overwhelmed him.
This is the last I have to give, my faithful prophet. The war is not yet done. Be my voice in a world that will soon know only silence. Be my Lion.
Velixar looked down to his hands as he realized what it was he’d become. His heart no longer beat. His lungs drew in no air. When he spoke, his voice was a projection of his will, deep and rumbling.
“Death,” he whispered.
Prophet, said his god.
Velixar looked about, saw the countless men and women who moments ago had been trying to kill each other, now confused and lost, blinking away their blindness from the sudden deluge of light. They didn’t know what to do, how to act. Who would rule them? Who were they to worship? And what of the war, the gods?
They’d need him, Velixar saw, now more than ever. But it could not be here, not as he was, a wretched, scarred body coated with his own blood. He had to recover. He had to grieve. To his left he ran, toward the shadows lingering between two wrecked sections of the wall that had once protected the Castle of the Lion. He leapt into those shadows. Karak’s power flooded him, and he knew the words without thinking. A doorway opened for him; he fled through, and then he was gone.
CHAPTER 51
I banish you, never to walk my land again. If you would war forever, then let it rage among your creations. Let it be your curse, one they will bear until the breaking of days.
Patrick blinked, his vision finally coming back after that sudden flash of brilliant light. The billowing clouds overhead parted, allowing sunlight to once more shine down on the blood-covered square. The ruins of the castle were now devoid of conflict. All it had taken was a single lightning strike, and Ashhur and Karak were gone. Jacob Eveningstar seemed to have vanished as well. In their place were the words of the goddess, echoing through Patrick’s mind as he stood gawking at the scene.
Patrick wiped blood from his forehead. The rush of conflict had all but left him, quivering in his nerve endings like a forgotten memory. He looked to Moira, who appeared just as horrified as he, and snaked his hand into hers. He slid Winterbone into its scabbard. Together they exited the confines of the wrecked stable, wandering out amid the ruin.
“Did you hear it?” Patrick asked. “Celestia’s voice?”
Moira looked over at him and nodded. “I did.” She then gestured to the packed, bloody square. “They all did.”
The people of both Paradise and Neldar shuffled about, their expressions blank. There was sobbing to be heard, and moans, and a few voices whispering urgently, but other than that there was silence. He sought out familiar faces, but it was difficult to distinguish one man from another when their faces were all painted red with blood. The whole time, Moira prattled on about finding Rachida, her voice strained, seemingly on the verge of tears. Patrick’s heart went out to her. Then, someone shouted his name, and he halted in his tracks. Moira stopped as well, turning toward the sound with him.
From out of the stilled swarm marched a dignified soldier Patrick instantly recognized, flanked by four others. The tears that flowed from Preston’s eyes washed the blood from his cheeks. There was an unmoving form draped across his arms, its limbs and neck flaccid. Big and Little Flick, marching behind him, each held a body as well, with Ryann and Joffrey beside them.
Patrick held his ground as they approached. The remaining Turncloaks laid the bodies of their dead onto the bloodied cobbles before him. Patrick stared into the older man’s steely gray eyes as they twitched. There was such deep sorrow there, it broke Patrick’s heart.
He looked down at the three bodies, each caked with blood. Young men all, brave men all. Two were Preston’s sons, Edward and Ragnar. The third was Tristan Valeson. Tristan’s neck was a gory mess of pulverized meat. His eyes were open, growing cloudy in death, staring unblinking at the sky. Patrick knelt down, clutched the young soldier’s fingers with one hand, and closed his eyelids with the other. His heart, already broken from Celestia’s harrowing words, shattered some more.
“I’m sorry, Patrick,” he heard Moira say.
“You will be missed,” he whispered. He leaned over, gave Tristan a kiss on the forehead, and then did the same with Edward and Ragnar.
“They died good deaths,” said Preston. His voice cracked when he said it.
“Was there ever such a thing?” Patrick answered softly.
There were people shuffling around now. Patrick turned away from the corpses of his friends and looked toward the empty ruins of the castle. Kneeling in front of it was a man in heavy plate armor. His head was thrown back toward the heavens. “Release him at once, you bitch!” the man shouted in his anguished voice. “Karak, Karak, fight her! You cannot lose!”
Another soldier walked up to the kneeling man and tried to pull him away. The man turned suddenly, snatching the soldier by the front of his breastplate, and Patrick saw his face. It was the one who guarded Jacob Eveningstar, the soldier with the great horned helm, the marred face, and the dead, milky eye. The man shoved the soldier away, spouting obscenities. His shoulders hitched, and the sound of his sobs mixed with the others. Patrick rolled his neck and rose painfully to his feet. He looked to Moira, who wasn’t paying attention to him. Her eyes were focused on some point in the distance, widened in what could either have been shock or delight.
“I can’t believe it,” she said. The lithe woman took a few steps forward, as if in a dream, before bursting into an all-out sprint. She careened through the maze of corpses and dazed people until she ran headlong into four men who limped through the crowd. “Rodin!” Patrick heard her say as she threw her arms around a bald and strapping, blood-soaked man.