“Kirin,” she whispered, eyeing the sword, “you would harm me?”
“Now,” he ordered. Emotions raged inside him as the hurt on her beautiful face made his stomach twist in knots.
Vera’s voice rose over the cries of the dragons—in that slim moment, Gray grasped the nexus and wove threads of wind and light, a spell that would decipher the truth in her cadence:
“The Arbiter seeks the final gate,
Where lies the golden grate—
Yet if walls of stone fall, all will crumble,
To death and misery.
Unless he who is destined,
Conquers the soul of the sword
And turns the blade its rightful hue,
Only then are legends slew.”
He listened to the air’s vibrations. Her words were true. Vera brushed aside the blade and strode closer to stand face to face. Suddenly she gripped his hands that held the blade. Tremors of black forked across her face, crawling beneath her skin like slithering worms. He tried to pull away, but her grip was like steel. “Only you can do this, Kirin. I am here for you. I swear it.” Her legs buckled as she fell to her hands and knees. He released the threads of wind and light. Every word she spoke was the truth; he confirmed listening to the strands as they faded in the air.
He knelt and touched her shoulder. “I’m sorry, but I needed to know.” He rose to his feet, knowing what he had to do, though he needed to hear one more thing. “If I do this, the Ronin will die… that is what the prophecy means, doesn’t it?”
Vera rose to her feet, gathering herself, “Yes. The Ronin will die when you thrust the blade into the stone, but so will the Kage, Kirin, along with all the evil that they possess. You know what is at stake. You must finish this.”
Gray approached the keyhole. His arms like lead weights, he lifted the blade. Morrowil’s edge gleamed as its tip hovered. His heart pounded so loud it thudded in his ears while the wind of the heights lashed him.
Vera cried over the shrieks of dragons, “Do it now, Kirin!”
When he opened his eyes, wind swirled around him. Upon the sword, black veins streaked and coated his arms. No, he whispered. The darkness.
A vision filled him.
A king sat in a vast throne with a dark crown upon his head. In his hand, he gripped the pommel of a familiar-looking blade. Morrowil. Darkness coursed over the king’s limbs and coiled around the sword. At his side, stood a woman with black hair and violet eyes. Vera. Upon the throne, the dark king raised his head. Gray gasped, staring at his own reflection. He opened his eyes. Cold gripped his heart. He saw his limbs wreathed in black. He fought it, railing against the dark power growing inside him when he realized… This is who I am. There is no use fighting it anymore. As if letting go of the branch before a fall, he breathed the darkness in, struggling no more. Power and euphoria flowed through his veins.
He lost himself.
Distantly, he felt warmth upon his skin. The sun. He heard Kail’s voice, ‘You must only change the blade in the light…’ He tried to glimpse the sun, but the darkness pressed in from all sides, suffocating. A fleck of gold glinted in his vision amid a field of black. He clenched his eyes and he reached out for it. The sun’s light warmed his hand. He gripped it. Light poured through him and he cried out. The nexus burst free. The darkness in the sword shrieked and recoiled. A golden blaze transformed Morrowil, absorbing the inky black. Still, the blade descended towards the keyhole of stone.
Then all of it was lost as pain filled him. His nails scraped something cold and hard. Stone. A metallic taste ran across his tongue. Slowly, he opened his eyes. He lay on the stone altar. He turned and saw the sword. Relief flooded him. It was paces away, still gold and glowing as bright as a hundred suns. He tried to get up, but more pain wracked his limbs.
Her voice sounded in his ear, falsely sweet, “Oh, Kirin, you disappoint me. You saw the image of what you could have been, did you not? How could you possibly deny it?”
He shook his head, dark spots floating before his eyes. “I saw only darkness and death,” he said in a harsh tone.
“Power,” Vera corrected. “Imagine, Kirin, more power than the Kage and the Ronin combined! Can you not see it? It’s the power to rival all of the Lost Kingdoms, and bring the world to its knees!” Gray slowly rose to his feet as he wiped the blood from his mouth. “Join me, Kirin. Join me and all will kneel before us. Together, nothing can stand in our way!” And Vera offered her hand.
“You’re mad,” he whispered. Vera’s once beautiful features were now a sick perversion. Patches of flayed skin marred her face, exposing bone and sinew. Still her violet eyes glowed. “It is a tainted power,” he said, voice rising in fury, “You wish to control it, but it will only control you, Vera. You will be a puppet, just like you were a puppet for the Kage.”
Vera gave a wrathful cry. “Only a fool would deny such power!” she screamed, thrusting a hand and red lightning shot forth from her fingers. He dove but he was too slow. Pain lanced through him. When his vision cleared, he gripped the stone, breathing heavily. He saw the hem of Vera’s dress as her voice filled his head, seething with fury, “The prophecy promised you all that you could ever want, Kirin! Instead, you had to walk the Knife’s Edge. A pity too, I thought you were more clever than most. Seems I was wrong.”
He knew he had only a slim moment, but if he could catch her off guard… I have to try. In a flash, he grabbed for the nexus, leapt to his feet and lashed out, all in one fluid motion. Just as he reached his feet, pain filled his mind, sharp and blinding. His cry changed to a bloody scream. He clenched his eyes and gripped his head in both hands, trying to stop the pain. A hand clutched a rough fistful of his hair, pulling him up.
“Open your eyes!” Vera shouted and the pain spiked. He gasped, looking into her eyes as he tried to catch his breath through the agony. “I know you can still hear me, Kirin, so listen closely. Your power is now mine. I have burned it from your body and replaced it with a dark spell that will continue to burn inside you. Eventually it will consume you, and you will die.”
His skull burned with every word. He tried to form words, but nothing came out. He held a single thought—Vera’s throat. Through the torrent of pain, his eyes narrowed. He thrust out his hand and gripped her slender neck. But as he squeezed, pain burst in his mind, cutting like a jagged saw and his fingers slipped from her cold skin.
Vera smiled grotesquely. “I can see your thoughts, Kirin. I always could. The same reason I knew you would want to uncover your past. You’ve always wanted to understand everything.” Then she laughed, it was loud and mocking. “And the bitter irony, my love, is that you’ve never really changed.”
“Let me go,” he said through clenched teeth. The pain was too much. He thought his mind would break as his vision turned black. “Please…” The pain stopped at last and he gasped. Before him, the wind raged. His vision spun as he looked down upon the cavernous drop, gripping the stone’s edge.
“See? That was all you had to say.” She spoke over the rising wind, “Now watch closely Kirin, for you are about to witness the birth of my true power.” Reaching for the blade, she gripped it and gasped loudly. A blast of air flew over him and when he looked back, darkness shrouded the landing. The air crackled as Vera’s body shuddered, lifting into the air. Suddenly, blood and flesh knit together over her exposed bone, as if her arm had never been harmed. The flayed skin on her face turned smooth once more. Dread filled Gray as an ethereal darkness took form, enveloping her limbs. Black tendrils unfurled from her back, extending high into the air like dark wings.
At the far end of the stone landing, he saw a flicker of movement. Hope bloomed, but Vera’s screams drew his attention back. The sun was eclipsed by her hellish form, but his eyes were riveted on the sword in her hands. Morrowil burned black. Gray rose and with each step the wind grew stronger, buffeting him and threatening to lift him from the ground. At last, he stopped paces away.
Vera opened her eyes that were now orbs of black. “Why hello, Kirin.” Her voice was altered, darker and throatier.
He fought his desire to run. “So it was all a lie?” he yelled over the wind, “Even those memories you showed me?”
Vera laughed coldly, “You always believed what you wanted to, Kirin.”
“So then none of it was true,” he confirmed, holding his ground, watching the tendrils upon her back, twist and turn, brushing past his shoulder as if playing with him. He twitched but didn’t move, dreading their touch.
“No,” she replied. “The memories were quite real, I merely twisted them to get what I wanted, and apparently what you wanted as well,” she smiled seductively. The dark tendril brushed his cheek, burning.
“Tell me the truth!” He shouted. “If I’m to die, there’s no harm in that. What were we?”
“You truly don’t remember any of it, do you? A shame and our parents loved you so. You could do no wrong in their eyes.” She neared, tendrils writhing in the air, as she whispered into his ear, “Brother…”
“No, I don’t believe you,” he said, stepping back.
“Oh, but it’s true, dear brother,” Vera said with a sinister light in her eyes. “Morrowil listens to only you and I. How is that possible? There is only one answer. The same blood flows through our veins.”
He shook his head, “You’re lying!”
“Then look and see the truth for yourself,” she said and raised her hand, eyes flashing and images scoured his mind. Light flickered from the small candle. It sat on the corner of the straw bed, dimly lighting the small room around Kirin. There was no furniture—only four barren walls of clay. Kirin’s stomach gnawed in hunger. He lay in the crook of Vera’s arm. He was tired, but a thought shot through his consciousness. “When I get bigger, I will protect you,” he vowed, eyes opening and closing. “I know you will. Now sleep, dear brother,” Vera said, brushing his hair from his eyes and Kirin found sleep.
He opened his eyes slowly, eyeing Vera.
A predatory smile creased her lips. “A pleasant vision, is it not?”
“If I believed it.”
Vera approached, dark tendrils writhing in the air, “Then let me enlighten you, for I still remember clearly. The Citadel adopted us, but the Kingdom of Fire, and home of the Reavers, is not an orphanage and outsiders are forbidden, so why would they take in two wayward children?
His eyes narrowed, “Tell me.”
“It was because of our parents.”
Fists tightening in anger, he strode forward, snatching her collar. Darkness seethed around his fists. “What do you know of them?” he asked roughly.
Vera didn’t react. “They were robbed from us, Kirin… just as this world has stolen all else. We have only each other, now.” He retreated and fell to his knees, gripping his head in his hands, and railing against her words. Vera continued, “We do not belong of this world. We owe it nothing! Join me, brother.”
Gray raised his head. He watched the tendrils that floated in the air, moving around her wraithlike form. He held her burning stare. His jaw clenched. He knew what would happen if he denied her. But to join her would be a fate worse than death. With a steady breath he stood, “I am nothing like you, Vera. And no matter what you are to me, I would never join your cause of death and mayhem.”
She sneered, “You always were the favored child. How predictable that you would choose the righteous path and die because of it.”
In the corner of his sight there was a flash of a gray cloak, just enough for him to see, but out of Vera’s vision. He had only to stall her. “If we are truly brother and sister, then why kill me?” he asked as he circled Vera.
“It’s simple. What you see now is but a taste of my true power,” she said and the thought made his blood run cold. “In the forgotten tomes of the Citadel, I discovered a passage in the Book of Prophecy. It told of a power to merge Morrowil and its wielder into one force—one infinite power. I tried once, long ago in the Citadel, and failed. It nearly cost me everything. Only later did I realize that I had to destroy all parts of my humanity to attain the sword. As you are my brother, you are the one thing that stands in my way. The last part of a human past.” She grinned wickedly as dark tendrils grazed him.
The gray cloak flashed again in his vision. “Then what are you waiting for?”
“So eager to die?” she said and approached the altar. “Before I watch the life fade from your eyes, I want you to witness as I bring Farhaven to its knees!” She cried out and thrust Morrowil down, into the stone, when there was a sound like roaring wind. A sword whipped through the air slicing Vera’s arm at the elbow. Morrowil and her arm dropped to the ground with a thud. The flying blade suddenly vanished as if it were made of air.
Kail stood at the end of the platform, motionless. His gray cloak wavered in the wind and Gray’s heart hammered in triumph.
Vera faced the Ronin and seethed, “You…” With Morrowil severed from her grip, he expected the darkness to wither and fade. Instead, the fury in her eyes intensified. The black tendrils lifted into the air as if feeding off her rage.
Fear shot through him. “Kail!” he shouted.
Vera screamed as forks of black lightning shot from her fingertips, racing towards the Ronin. The lightning struck, sending shards of stone and dust into the air, and Gray shielded his eyes from the blast. When the sound ended, he peered through a haze of gold. Where Kail once stood was a billowing cloud of dust and stone. “A short lived victory,” she sneered.