Chapter 49: Throne of the Fallen Host

  Kalvaxus

  Kalvaxus looked up.

  The sky above him split open as Vaelkar's black flame burst downward, a tidal sweep of death meant to erase everything beneath it. For a heartbeat he simply watched its descent, studying the way it devoured light, the way it warped the air as it fell toward him and the child.

  An instant before it struck, scripts of gold flared across his skin.

  Guide me, Time.

  The sigils folded inward. His body dissolved with them.

  A breath later, the place he had stood was swallowed whole as Vaelkar's wave crashed down.

  An instant later, Kalvaxus reformed in the sky, heaving as the world caught up to him. He hovered a short distance from the shattered city, golden script flickering over his body before breaking apart into fine motes that drifted down like falling dust.

  Even pulling his body back to a prior moment in time had cost far more Essence than expected.

  A prickling sting drew his gaze to his hand. Deep violet cracks spidered along his finger, each line pulsing with a foreign rhythm. Gold motes gathered around the fractures, trying to erase the intruding primordial essence, yet even Time struggled to scour it away.

  His thoughts flicked back to the moment he had halted Aeor's strike.

  Just how pure is this child's command of his Aspect?

  Kalvaxus lowered his hand and turned his eyes toward the distant ruins of Aurel'Tharan.

  Vaelkar's black fire rolled outward in a sweeping tide, consuming stone, air, and anything still living in its path. From afar, he could make out the frantic movements of those who survived the initial collapse: the Solenar girl conjuring flame-born spirits to lift the wounded skyward, talons of riders carving narrow escape corridors through the swelling tide of the dead.

  It was a valiant display.

  And utterly insufficient. The fire surged faster than their escape, poised to consume them in mere moments.

  Without warning, the tide of black flame halted.

  A different fire surged from the center, hungrier, deeper, its violet sheen devouring the darkness as both powers collided in the ruin's core.

  Kalvaxus's eyes narrowed as a lone point of purple burst out of the flames and rose toward the undead host.

  "Show me what you've got, kid," he murmured.

  Aeor Calder

  Violet flame clung to Aeor's body as he rose, carrying him through the scorched air. This time the fire did not surge with wild hunger. It shaped itself around him with purpose, layering into scaled plates of primeval Death, each edge glowing white where the power strained against its own intensity.

  Mist spilled from his form in steady waves, trailing behind him like a shifting veil. Aeor lifted his left hand and released a sweeping arc of death. It carved through three dead avians diving toward him, their forms unraveling into drifting ash before they could even fall.

  He climbed higher, weaving through the swarm. Undead avians of every shape and size wheeled around him: broken wings, hollow eyes, bone jutting where feathers once grew. Aeor slipped past them in a rising spiral, sending precise volleys of essence into anything that crossed his path. Each creature he struck simply dissolved, reduced to dust that scattered in the wind of his ascent.

  The sky above churned with the dead, but the Scion carved a clean path through them, a rising streak of violet cutting toward the heart of the legion.

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  Without warning, Vaelkar's massive claw tore across the sky. The swipe shredded the air itself, scattering several of the dead in its path as the wyrmkin struck toward Aeor with no regard for its own legion.

  Aeor banked hard, narrowly avoiding the blow. The wind trailing behind the claw slammed into him a heartbeat later, spinning him off balance. He was not the only one caught in it. Dozens of undead avians were hurled aside, tumbling through the air in chaotic spirals.

  Aeor righted himself first.

  He forced his ascent back into line and drove upward with renewed force, angling straight toward the exposed ribs beneath Vaelkar's throat. Death gathered along his lance in a dense, pulsing sheath as he closed the remaining distance.

  With a sharp cry, Aeor drove the weapon into the ancient bone.

  Primeval death surged through the lance in a single violent burst, and the impact sent a spiderweb of cracks racing across Vaelkar's rib.

  Vaelkar answered with a roar that split the sky.

  A pulse of death blasted outward from the wyrmkin, a crushing wave that washed over everything nearby. Aeor staggered beneath the force, his scaled armor shuddering as its vibrant sheen dulled under the assault. His grip on the lance did not loosen. He forced more of his essence through the weapon, driving the violet fire deeper into the ancient bone.

  A sudden blur streaked toward him.

  One of the dead dragons lunged with impossible speed, crimson eyes burning like coals. Aeor tore one hand free and hurled a sweeping arc of death toward it. The strike hit full-force, and for a heartbeat the creature faltered, its body trembling as if it might finally collapse.

  Then the crimson light flared.

  The dragon surged forward in a burst of stolen essence.

  Aeor tried to twist away, but too late. Its jaws clamped down on his armor and torso, shattering plates of violet scale. Pain ripped through him as a gush of blood burst from his chest and spilled from his mouth. The force of the impact wrenched him sideways, tearing him away from the lance still lodged in Vaelkar's ribs.

  Aeor braced his hands against the dragon's fangs and pushed. Muscles strained, teeth gritted, death surged down his arms as he forced the jaws apart. Bone cracked. With a final wrench, he dislocated the dragon's jaw and tore himself free.

  He drove a punch into its skull.

  The air snapped from the impact, sending the undead dragon spiraling down toward the ruins below.

  Aeor turned to surge forward again, but chains slammed into place before him, rattling with ancient force. He looked up and met Zorvaketh's crimson gaze behind the lattice of bindings. More dead converged from every angle, wings beating, jaws snapping.

  Aeor released a pulse of death outward, the same disruptive shroud he had used on Erith. The nearest thralls faltered, narrow openings appearing between them. He slipped through, violet essence knitting his torn flesh in his wake.

  But he was not the only force that refused to yield.

  The dead kept coming, wave after wave, claw after claw, pouring over him faster than he could cut them down. Aeor burned his essence to hold them back, fighting against a tide that refused to break. Every motion mattered, every shift, every turn, until he made one too sharply.

  A single mistake in a sky full of predators.

  The opening lasted less than a breath, but it was enough for Zorvaketh. One of the Empyrean Wyrmkin's chains tore through the gap like a striking serpent, wrapping around Aeor's chest before he could twist free. The links clamped tight, locking him mid-flight.

  A volley of attacks followed, beams, claws, shards of corrupted essence, forcing him to throw up a dome of violet death around himself. The barrier absorbed the first barrage, then the next, but fractures spidered across its surface before it finally shattered. The remaining force crashed into his armor.

  Gritting his teeth, Aeor pulled against the chains, pouring strength into his arms. The links groaned and split by inches, but far too slowly.

  Another dragon barreled toward him, jaws yawning wide. Aeor tensed to counter, but something far worse cut across his vision.

  Vaelkar's massive tail hurled through the crimson sky.

  It swept toward him in a single merciless swing, crushing Vaelkar's own dead in its wake. Aeor had evaded the claw earlier. Now there was nowhere to go. The chain locked him in place.

  At the last moment, he braced, gathering every shred of essence he could into his arms.

  The impact hit like a falling mountain.

  A thunderous boom ripped through the sky as the tail collided with him. Aeor was flung downward with impossible speed, the world blurring into streaks of red and black before he slammed into the ruined earth, sending a towering plume of dust billowing into the air.

  Silence fell over Aurel'Tharan.

  The dead froze where they stood. Even those still pressing against the retreating forces halted mid-stride, crimson eyes drawn toward the rising plume of dust where Aeor had fallen.

  Then a voice split the sky.

  Ancient. Corrupted. Guttural.

  "Is this all thy death can offer?"

  Vaelkar's words rolled across the city like a judgment, thick with malice and contempt.

  For a long moment, nothing answered.

  The dust began to settle, drifting away from a vast crater gouged into the earth. At its center stood a lone figure, swaying, bloodied, barely upright, but still on his feet.

  Aeor's essence armor lay in ruins. Only a few jagged plates clung stubbornly to his frame, their violet light reduced to a dull, wavering ember. Blood traced steady lines down his arms and ribs, dripping from limp hands that trembled with each ragged breath. He should not have been standing.

  Yet he did.

  "Silence, thrall," Aeor said.

  The words scraped out of him, raw, broken, barely audible.

  But Vaelkar's furious snarl made the mountains quake, as if that whisper had struck the dead god harder than any blade.

  "You do not command death," Aeor said.

  His voice shifted, fracturing and deepening. A tone that did not belong to mortals. Or even to kings.

  "I do. I am death."

  Aeor drew one more breath, tasting ash, blood, and the remnants of a world falling apart, and released it in a roar that split the sky.

  Primeval death erupted from him.

  It exploded outward in a blazing violet shockwave, tearing across the broken streets and rising through the sky like a second dawn.

  Every corpse, every scrap of crimson light suffusing Vaelkar's host, was drowned beneath the surge.

  Whispers from the Archives crashed into his mind. Verdicts, warnings, truths he had once clung to.

  He ignored them.

  He did not need the Archives to tell him what he was.

  The crimson in the dead's eyes flickered once, as if startled, then guttered out entirely. Those on the ground collapsed like marionettes with their strings cut. Those in the sky plummeted in a rain of broken wings and hollow bones. Only Vaelkar held firm, his enraged roar ripping through the ruin as countless thralls around him spasmed, caught between two warring masters.

  "Rise," Aeor said.

  The word hit the battlefield like a verdict.

  Crimson died.

  Violet ignited.

  In a single breath, the falling dead snapped to a halt mid-plunge, wings flaring wide as they seized the air again. On the ground, corpses jerked upright in unison, heads tilting back as if waking from a thousand-year sleep. A tide of violet eyes blazed across the ruins, no longer enthralled to Vaelkar, but burning with a primeval fury aimed squarely at their former god.

  "Die," Aeor whispered.

  And the dead turned on Vaelkar.

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