Gray’s blood boiled with rage when he realized what was before him. A golden barrier. The nexus swirled. His power was back. Vera’s spell must have fallen when the sword cut. Vera hadn’t noticed. Her eyes were still fixed to the billowing dust. As she turned, he dropped the barrier.
“It seems I should dispatch of you and assume my true form before any others try to ruin my plans. Sorry, my love.” Vera raised her unscathed arm. Gray gripped the nexus so tight it hurt, and her eyes widened. “You hold your power again? Interesting, but it will be of no use against my pet.” Beneath her hand, a mist appeared, taking the form of the wolf.
The creature quickly took in its surroundings and bowed its head. “Mistress,” it growled. Gray noticed the wolf looked different. A red tint coated its thick fur, and its eyes were a roiling black, just like Vera’s.
“Drefah, I have something for you,” she said coolly, and waved in Gray’s direction. The wolf’s massive head swiveled. It eyed Gray and its lips peeled back, revealing gruesome fangs. His wrist throbbed with the memory of his last encounter. Gray readied threads of air when Vera spoke, “Drefah is made of my magic now. Which means, dear brother, he cannot be harmed by your power,” she said and turned to the wolf. “Make it quick.”
The wolf snarled, stalking forward. “You were taken from me last time…” it growled, eyes glinting, “I had only a taste before that fool verg interrupted, but not this time!” Drefah leapt, and Gray thrust out a glowing shield. The wolf crashed through, its wide jaws snapping. Instinctively, he dove. Teeth clamped upon his boot and he drove his heel into the wolf’s muzzle. The beast held on, snarling. He gave another sharp kick and the beast released its grip. He searched for something to defend himself, but saw only stone and the cavernous drop behind him.
The wolf growled, “Time to die!” And it leapt again.
Clutching the sputtering nexus, he formed rapid orbs of air, flinging them out—each ricocheted off the beast as if the creature’s red fur were stone. Its huge paws pinned him to the ground, knocking the air from his lungs. The jaws lanced out, snapping in his ear, and he gripped the wolf’s fur, holding it back. He tried to throw the beast, but the wolf was too heavy. Gray ducked his head as the fangs grazed his cheek. Through the torrent of snapping teeth and fur, he felt the cliff’s sharp edge against his back. As the wolf’s jaws raced towards his neck, he fused his limbs with the wind. Teeth gripped his throat at the same time as he shoved his knees into the beast’s torso and pressed with a fierce cry. With the power of the wind, he threw the wolf. Its dark eyes widened as it dropped over the cliff’s ledge and beyond.
A red mist formed and the air hissed. “Die!” Vera screamed. The air suddenly burned, and agony filled him. A voice cried his name, barely heard through the rush of pain. A blast of green collided against Vera’s dark aura. She threw up her arm and the green blast dissipated like a stale wind. She twisted.
Maris stood at the other end of the platform, his clothes tattered and breath ragged. “Seems I got here just in time,” the Ronin shouted. “Where’s that fool Kail? He said he would be here by now.”
As the words left his mouth, Kail appeared slashing at Vera’s head with a fierce cry. Vera’s black limbs caught the blade and raced for Kail. The Ronin leapt back, skidding across the stone.
Unfazed, Kail rose, brushing dust from his clothes, “I’m here you blind moron.”
“Where have you been?” Maris growled, “You left before me!”
“While you were frolicking around, I was saving the boy’s girlfriend on the edge of the Gates,” Kail answered coldly.
“And? What took you so long?” Maris questioned.
Kail’s voice darkened, “An unfortunate surprise. The Kage were there,” he called in return. “We barely made it.” Maris nodded somberly, the wind whipping at him. Kail turned to Gray, “Don’t worry boy, the rogue and the girl are safe with your friends. But not for long. The dark army is swarming in quick from all sides.”
Gray watched the whole exchange. The two men were talking to one another as if they were discussing the weather! Not as if they were fighting a nightmare, one that had cast aside their powers as a mere trifle. But as the two Ronin’s cloaks wavered in the wind, they looked the very image of legends.
“Fools!” Vera raged. Her form and voice shook the ground and trembled the air. “Watch the boy you love die before your eyes!” She turned and four tendrils of darkness flew towards Gray before he could react. Both men disappeared in a flash. An arm wrapped around his waist, and Gray blinked. He opened his eyes and he now stood behind Vera. Her back and wraithlike limbs, seethed in darkness.
“Thanks,” he said shakily, eyeing the Ronin.
“Don’t mention it,” Maris replied. All three watched as Vera slowly twisted. The living darkness that surrounded her swelling until the tendrils now eclipsed the sun and sky. A green blaze roared and engulfed Maris’ sword. “Be ready to move,” the Ronin said.
Gray saw Kail. The man’s gray hair fell to the sides of his face, and the remainder was pulled back into a thick braid. His exposed forearms coiled as he held his sword in a white-knuckled grip. “Leave her to us.”
Vera turned to face them, cackling manically. Judging by her size, her power was growing by the second. How is that possible? Dread churned his stomach when he realized he knew the power she possessed better than anyone. Or at least Kirin did. He pulled at the memories. Black tendrils impossibly quick… Forgha’s bloody cries… Then at last…Ren’s wide-eyes of surprise. Pain and guilt swept through him again, but he pushed it aside and spoke, “Watch for the black limbs. They are quicker than the eye and cannot be cut by your swords. If your weapon is touched, toss it aside or else it will consume your blade and then turn to your flesh.”
“You’ve faced this before?” Maris shouted over the wind.
“Once.”
“Why didn’t you say so until now?”
“I had forgotten.”
Maris seemed to read what was unsaid, but there was no time to say more. As Vera’s cackle ended, all eight tendrils shuddered, ready to strike.
“Move now!” Gray bellowed.
The limbs raced towards them and they dove. He ducked and rolled, dodging the limbs as Kail and Maris blinked in and out of existence, slipping between the lightning-quick tendrils. Suddenly, a dark tether gripped his boot. He cried out and wind swirled at his left. Maris was at his side, ducking beneath a black limb. Two more tendrils reached for Maris and he thrust out an arm. “Watch out!” The Ronin, with no time to dodge, cut the tendrils with his sword, and the darkness latched onto Maris’ blade.
The darkness dragged him along the ground, while slithering up his foot. He lunged for his boot, untying it quickly. Two more limbs flew towards him. He rolled to his left and right, and they smashed into the ground, sending chunks of stone flying. In the corner of his eye, he glimpsed Kail. The man flashed in and out, evading some of the tendrils with his speed and sending the rest veering with blasts of wind.
From the corner of his vision he saw Maris cut the last tendril with his sword, then immediately drop the blade to the ground before the darkness reached his flesh. Gray panicked as the tendrils touched his calf. With a blast of green from Maris, the darkness shirked and he yanked the boot free, throwing it away.
The air parted again, and he cried out, “Maris!” Two more limbs flew, too fast. Gray flung his arms out and shields of flowing golden light materialized. The tendrils crashed against them shattering.
Vera screamed in fury and another six tendrils exploded Gray’s shield and rammed into Maris.
He cried out as the Ronin was blown back and over the edge.
Kail suddenly vanished.
Vera retracted her tendrils, absorbing them back into her form. “Like flies, hard to swat but easy to kill it seems.”
Gray rose, filled with rage.
“Come at me Kirin, if you dare,” she beckoned.
He let the rage consume him as he delved into his mind. Suddenly there was peace. Just as he had conquered the sword, and taken it in, he channeled his anger, funneling it all into the nexus. He didn’t need Morrowil. It was already part of him. He charged. The tendrils waited for him, rising into the air. At the peak of his cry, threads appeared before his mind’s eye. They curled through his fingers and summoned to life a blade of light—it filled his hands, not white like Kail’s, but golden and bright.
Vera’s eyes flashed wide in surprise.
The black tendrils raced towards him, and he raised his sword of light, the tendrils ricocheting and crashing to the stone. Vera screamed with rage and another four shot out in their place, twice as quick. The sword blazed in his hands, and the darkness shriveled.
Vera’s scream heightened, and more tendrils and lightning shot forth. The darkness vanished but the lightning arced around the sword and collided and agony sent him to his knees. As he fell, he unleashed a final cry throwing the blade of light. It crashed into Vera and slammed her to the ground. Morrowil, thrown from Vera’s grip, clattered across the stone, and he watched its dark glow swiftly fade. Vera writhed upon the stone pinned beneath the blade of light.
Gray stood, knees threatening to buckle, but he pushed forward. Vera’s cries grew louder as he drew close. He reached her, and she turned to face him.
Her eyes fixed him, filled with fury. “How?” she seethed. “How did you? I was the most powerful! I traded everything for it, and still…” she struggled to free herself. Bony hands grasping at the blade that protruded from her shoulder. “I should have killed you when I had the chance. It seems I am still too human.”
Gray watched as the power fled from her, the tendrils shriveling. What remained was her slender form, no longer perfectly beautiful—now just a woman, broken and pinned. “You were the arrogant one in the end, Vera.” He summoned another blade of light with the last vestiges of his power.
Vera’s eyes went wide. “Kirin, you wouldn’t slay the one you loved, would you? Your own sister?”
Slowly, he dropped his arm. “No. You already killed the person I cared for a long time ago,” he said. He released the nexus, knowing he wouldn’t be able to gather it again. As the golden blade dimmed from his hands, a sneer flashed across Vera’s face. A tendril of darkness, hidden behind her back flew towards him. Every muscle in his body tensed as he tried to summon the nexus. It failed him. Drained of all energy, he could only watch.
In the last moment, white eddies of air swirled and a sword appeared.
Kail stood above Vera’s head. Her eyes flashed. Before the tendrils struck, the sword lashed through the air and pierced her heart. She gasped and the tendril of darkness froze, inches from his face. The evil light in Vera’s eyes dimmed, and then was gone altogether. Her eyes glazed and the darkness dissolved.
“Maris…” he followed Kail’s gaze. Paces away, the Ronin lay on his back, motionless. His clothes and cloak were now burnt in the areas where the black tendrils had touched him, exposing raw red skin. Breathlessly, he fell in at the man’s side, and looked back to Kail.
“I caught him just as he hit the ground. He seemed to survive the fall but the darkness still had him. Only when you threw your sword of light did it vanish from him. We were too late.”
Gray looked back down to Maris. His breath came fast and hard, and he tried to slow it. He clenched his eyes to stop the tears from flowing.
Kail knelt. “Mourn for the dead later. Now we must save the living.”
“How?” he whispered hoarsely.
“Now you must do what you were meant to do,” Kail looked into his eyes, and then glanced to the stone altar. Morrowil was paces away from the altar beside Vera’s corpse.
“No,” he pleaded, looking up. “If I do that, you will all die.”
“No matter the consequence, you must.”
“I can’t!”
Kail grabbed Gray’s collar and faced him, eye to eye. “Listen closely, Gray. Long ago, before you were born, Morrowil turned on me.” His gaze hardened with each word, the past swirling in his eyes, “When I realized the darkness inside me, I fled. For that I was called Traitor, but there was no time to explain to the others. The blade burning, I crossed the Gates. I left Morrowil in the desert city of Farbs for it to fall in the hands of the one foretold.” Kail’s grip tightened on his collar. “Gray, you are the prophesied true wielder of Morrowil, and the next leader of the Ronin.”
The words overwhelmed him. “And as their prophesized leader, I am to kill the Ronin?”
“We are tied to the blades, just as the Kage are. For them to die, so must we,” Kail answered.
Gray pulled away, emotions churning. “Is there no other way?”
“You must finish this. If you do not, those you love, and all others will perish. The Kage will not be stopped by any force now but the blade.” In that moment he realized the Ronin was not giving his life—Kail had already done that long ago. Instead, he was merely seeing that act to completion. If he did not do what Kail requested, all that the Ronin had already given was a waste.
Slowly, he picked up the sword and approached the altar—its runes glowed fiercely in the dawning light. The sounds of the dragon’s screeches were muted as the wind tangled his hair and clothes. Heart pounding, he looked to Kail and lifted the blade high into the sky. Light filled him just like before, and Morrowil flared a blinding gold. In the corner of his vision he saw Kail’s eyes close, peacefully.