The shield warriors, conjured as they were, seem immune, but Sharess raised a hand to protect her eyes even as she shifted into a gleaming steel form.
No time.
Scorio summoned his flaming form, and the painful heat immediately abated. If anything it empowered him, and he rose up, ecstatic, feeling terribly alive as he oriented on Bravurn’s Shroud.
Only for Sharess to blast through him in the form of a great spindle, splitting him into a mass of flaming curlicues as she slammed into the far wall, sinking halfway into the clay before pulling out and reforming into her steel self.
Scorio reformed easily, unhurt, and considered simply flying through the remaining four shield warriors.
But they weren’t the threat.
So he inhaled his flames, filled his chest deep, his wings beating powerfully in the superheated air, and then Bravurn’s Shroud split apart to reveal the unharmed Blood Baron.
Who stood, Ferula raised, and loosed a beam of black energy at Scorio, who panicked and exhaled even as he lunged to the side. The beam punched through the ebon fire to slam into Scorio’s shoulder as he sought desperately to dodge.
There was no pain.
It simply incinerated a neat hole just below the clavicle and to the side of the shoulder joint itself. Though the bolt passed clean through, its effect wasn’t so simple; its very energy sought to permeate Scorio, to warp him, and in doing so, slay him.
Scorio screamed as he roared forth his flame, head whipping from side to side as black fire washed over Bravurn and Sharess. His Heart throbbed, his body fought, his very spirit keened as the Blood Baron’s Ferula sought to quench it.
But no.
He would not be undone.
Against the Ferula’s attempt at nullity he asserted himself.
He was Scorio, the Scourer, Lord of Nagaran, Master of the Black Tower.
He slammed into the wall, knocking a bookcase over so that it fell into the ruin below, spilling tomes as it went. His body burned, his spirit was torn at.
“No,” rasped Scorio, his flames extinguishing. His talons tore briefly at the wall and then he crashed to the ground.
Bravurn loomed above him, Ferula trained at Scorio’s head. “How are you still alive? Tenacious. But you cannot survive a direct hit.”
The Nightmare Lady appeared directly behind him, but her tail attack slammed down upon Bravurn’s Shroud. The blow was so tremendous that bright cracks radiated out from the point of impact. Bravurn turned about to glance askance at the Nightmare Lady, one eyebrow raised.
Then Sharess slammed into the Dread Blaze, knocking her clear off her feet so that they both hit the wall and broke through it.
“Honestly,” said Bravurn, turning back to Scorio. “What is it with you two? Ridiculous.”
Scorio’s entire body was clenched, trapped in one deep spasm. He wanted to lunge up, smack away the Ferula, but it was all he could do to gasp, to glare at the Blood Baron.
Who pressed the point of his Ferula against Scorio’s brow and smiled coldly. “Poor, stupid Scorio. Asking your stupid questions and attempting the impossible. You die here. And you thought you’d match yourself against us.”
A scream rent the air. A scream not of pain, but of outrage.
Bravurn flicked a glance toward the broken wall before an ocean of lava burst through it. A veritable wave washed away the remnants of the wall, flooded the suite, and turned everything orange and red.
Bravurn only had time to curse and envelop himself in his Shroud before the lava washed over them both. Scorio screamed as he was engulfed. He tumbled, his scales, his horns, his wings burning, but to Scorio’s shock the pain not only burst him free of the Ferula’s assault, loosening his limbs and returning his control, but it unlocked something else within him.
Awoke a deeper knowledge.
His immediate urge was to embrace his flaming body, to transform himself into something beyond the agony of the lava’s caress.
But he resisted that instinct.
Instead he allowed the lava to slam him against the ceiling, pin him there, then push him through as the ceiling broke into fragments. Up he slammed, molten rock against his scales, his armor plating, hissing where his talons cut through it, flowing into his mouth where he screamed silently.
Fire.
Lava.
Pain.
Terrible, terrific heat.
Why did this feel like home?
It was killing him, immolating him alive.
A moving pyre.
But somehow, against all odds, it was home.
Fire.
He was flame.
This was what he’d been journeying toward ever since he’d awoken in the Gauntlet.
Not lava, exactly, but this heat. Where all that couldn’t withstand it became ash.
But he wasn’t a creature of magma. His weren’t the powers of the blazeborn.
He was something else, something that was kin, but adjacent, above, superior, mightier, infinitely more dangerous.
A creature of black scale and horn. Of burning fire and beating wings. A monster out of legend.
Scorio, Bringer of Ash and Darkness.
To become a Pyre Lord he had to integrate all his elements into one final understanding of what and who he was.
Bringer of Ash and Darkness.
In each of his previous trials he’d seen himself grow. At first emerging as a man driven by his heart, by his passions, then revealing himself to be a leader, one who stepped forward when another might fade into the shadows. He’d seen himself seize bloody justice over chances at pragmatic alliances, and at the last, in that final, harrowing vision, he’d seen himself seated alone, willing to embrace chaos, to be dynamic, reactive, instead of opting for organized, calculated, measured means.
He was a creature of instinct and fire, of passion. Who led by example and by word, not one who skulked and hid.
He was a leader, a monster, a destroyer.
Tumbling, curling up into a ball, the last of his scales disintegrating, Scorio felt a scream rise within him, a scream torn forth by his frustration, his pain, his refusal to ever submit.
What was he?
Who was he?
A destroyer.
But one who destroyed for a cause.
Who burned down worlds in pursuit of justice.
Of the truth.
Lost within currents of fire, Scorio finally understood, opened his eyes, and engaged the Pyre Lord mana technique.
Chapter 53
Scorio flew over the countryside.
Plumes of smoke arose, punctuation marks of violence. The smell of blackened wood, of verdant forest, of ash. His body ached from his wounds, but they were slight, almost pleasurable.
They reminded him he was alive.
His shadow flowed over copses, over fallow fields. It rippled over blackened villages. Over mass graves. Animals fled his approach, but no men.
This was a land for the dead, after all.
The currents buoyed him. His wings cupped and shaped the air, allowed him to glide as if he need never land again. On and on he flew, at peace, watching the countryside unfurl before him.
Three weeks had passed since the grand battle against the king. Three weeks since they’d nearly lost. He’d cut his way through the honor guard and reached the King’s Scepter. Wounded, broken, mutilated in spirit, he’d found himself unable, at the very last, to cut her down.
Weeping, laughing, he’d fallen to his knees before her and bowed his head, admitting defeat.
“Scorio.” Such a world of heartbreak in her voice. “It didn’t have to come to this. There were other paths we could have walked. Other worlds we could have fashioned.”
“So you thought.” Black blood had flown from him, from his many wounds, but he felt no pain. Nothing compared to the agony of his heart. “But there was only this one road for me.”
“And now it ends.” She’d stepped up before him, cupped his chin, and reached back to pull free the slender knife which he’d gifted her from her crown of hair, which tumbled down over one shoulder, dark as the night. “My brave Scorio. My poor hero. My broken man.”