The gods had finally returned and their towers flared with magic once more, though it seemed to me that they were still greatly weakened. Reconstruction of the city advanced at a pace only gods could maintain, but many streets were still choked with rubble.
Cillian Hastorum now sat at the huge desk in front of me, haggard and sleep-deprived and partially hidden behind piles of paper and stacks of scrolls. Despite all the power and prestige, I did not envy the enormity of her new role. Administration and scrollwork had ever been my bane – I was a creature of conflict. Such dry detail bored me half to death. Or I had been that way once. Now I craved quieter moments away from people’s pity, of being one with nature.
Underneath the steel mask my cheek ached and the softest of tunics rubbed against my shoulders like rope and grit with every movement. Phantom searing burns flitted across what was left of my skin. Nothing more to be done, the healers of the Halcyon Order had said. The pain was relentless and exhausting and I prayed for it to end. There was no more need to endure it, no great cause required to be fought.
Cillian too bore wounds, self-inflicted scars from when Abrax-Masud demanded she claw out her own eyes. It was only thanks to Walker’s intervention that she could still see. She pinched the bridge of her nose and squeezed her eyes shut for a moment, willing the stress headache to leave her. “I am sorry it has taken so long to see you in person. I have read the reports of course, but I would like to hear it for myself. How did Edrin Walker die?”
I felt a twinge of loss. Odd, that. He was a fool… and yet if things had been different… “He died well. He died a hero.”
A smile flickered across Cillian’s lips, quickly vanishing. “Who would have thought it of him. Of all the people in this city I think we alone suspected he could be greater than he was. A shame it cost him his life to realise it himself.”
I cleared my throat, “We confronted the Scarrabus queen and its tyrant host. I could do nothing, it was all Walker. He spoke to us, and all Setharis rose behind him. Ah, if only you could have been by his side in that final moment, Cillian. He glowed as golden and proud as any god as he threw off the other tyrant’s yoke. Did you see that from the wall?”
Cillian nodded, eyes dropping to study her desk as she chewed on her lower lip. “Sadly even that was not enough to survive an ancient Escharric tyrant and a Scarrabus queen.”
“He already knew he could not possibly win, I think. The look in his eyes said it all.” I chuckled, making Cillian look up, curious. “It’s not in the formal report, but in that final moment he grinned at me. You know the one – when the sneaky bastard comes up with a dirty trick. When he knows more than you do and is so fuah, that is, smug about it.”
Cillian snorted. “Oh yes, I know the one only too well.” “They tried to enslave him. I watched the Scarrabus queen seize him by the throat. Then, just for a moment, peace overcame him.”
“Peace?” Cillian repeated. “Exactly like he did with the traitor god, Nathair, he let them win. This time he trapped them all inside his own body and sacrificed himself to save all of us – I don’t think that option could ever have occurred to such selfish creatures as they were. With his last shreds of willpower he held up the wards and…” I struggled to get the words out from a throat gone dry.
“And then he died,” Cillian whispered. “And dragged them down into oblivion with him.”
We were silent for a long time.
Cillian drummed ink-stained fingers on the desk. “How certain are you that you witnessed the death of the enemy tyrant? They possess such a devious magic, and we only found a finger.”
“I am certain,” she replied. “They were locked within Walker’s body and had no opportunity to affect me before the end, or they would have. He managed to destroy them in body and mind. We would not be having this discussion were it otherwise.”
Cillian sighed and nodded. “What now for you? I have so many tasks needing done. There will be great need for a knight of your prowess in the coming days. You are a hero to the people you know.”
I shook my head. “I am done.” My voice rasped, hard and harsh even to my own ears.
“I could order you to stay,” Cillian replied. “But I know you would just ignore it. A little of Edrin Walker seems to have rubbed off on you. Sometimes I think the Arcanum could use a little more of that. Still, you have sacrificed enough, Evangeline.” The Archmagus grimaced, and forced out her next words, dripping with pity: “I know you suffer greatly from your wounds, and I know that will never change. If you wished, I would end it quickly and without pain?”
I considered it, feeling little emotion about dying. It would be a relief from the relentless pain. She could do it in an instant – burst my heart and stop my blood. “No,” I answered, surprising myself a little. “I would not ask that of you. There are still mighty daemons lurking in the hinterlands. I shall venture out alone, find these remnants, kill them, and eventually die at their claws. I will go down fighting.”
Cillian rose, came around the desk and put her arms around me. I stiffened, but then just put up with it. “May the gods go with you, Magus Evangeline Avernus.”
I snorted and eyed the mass of scrollwork on her desk. “I think you need their attention more than I do. I have all that I need.”
With that I left the Archmagus and the Arcanum behind and descended from the Old Town into the Crescent. I stopped and looked back up at my home for the last time. The gods’ towers were lit and their temples glowed with renewed life. The war was over and the world was safe. Setharis would rebuild. I was no longer needed. I could finally rest.
I did not consider saying farewell to my parents, even with their newfound desire to reconcile now that I was thought a hero. Funny that.
I set off to obtain a mount and supplies. I would set forth for one last glorious fight. Peace could wait. Filled with resolve, I turned my back on the Old Town and visited the supply stores and stables. While a boy saddled my horse, I watched the people passing by on the street. For a moment it seemed like the old Setharis, if you didn’t look down to witness the devastation of the Docklands. Even here in Sethgate, the richest area of the Crescent, the clothing was old and patched, and weapons worn on every hip. The jugglers, illusionists and wandering bards were mostly gone from the street corners, replaced by weapon carts and sword masters touting for business, offering training for sons and daughters at reasonable prices, promising spectacular results.
I stiffened, noting a face I had been seeing entirely too often over the previous weeks, too regularly to be mere coincidence now that it occurred to me. I had felt eyes upon me but until now I had not managed to locate the watcher. She was very good indeed if it had taken me this long to notice such close scrutiny.
The woman smiled and nodded a greeting, then crossed the street towards me. There was something oddly familiar about the way she moved…
She was young, pretty and dark skinned, and up close I realised that she was known to me through the memories Edrin Walker had shared before the end. I looked to her hand, noting the distinctive callouses and small scars from weapon-work, and then imagined her wearing a mask. “Layla,” I said. A vague protective emotion washed over me, the ghostly memories of Walker.
“Hello Eva,” she said. “He said you would know me without the mask if I came too close.”
A moment of confusion, and quickly quashed hope. I did see the sneaky bastard die, after all. There was no faking that or the recognisable fragments of his body scattered across mud and grass. Even Dissever had broken into jagged shards upon his demise.