She had failed.
She had failed to protect her baby by killing the Enemy, and she had failed to end her life to keep the world safe. Her worst nightmare had come to pass and there was no way she could keep it from consuming those that she loved as well. Kicking and screaming, they had taken her away from Celene and Melia, whose fate preyed heavily upon her mind particularly when she knew what Syphia had planned for them.
The horror of what they were enduring because of her was more than Arianne could stand and it made her wail inwardly with anguish each time she thought of it. This was the very outcome she had feared the most when she had allowed Celene to embark upon this journey with her, that Celene’s life would be forfeit because of her. Not only was Celene’s life endangered, she had brought another into this and now Melia too would die because of her.
And as much as it shamed Arianne, that was not even the worst of it.
The worst of it was that at this moment, she was surrounded by Berserkers and shape shifters awaiting the arrival of their mistress to begin the ceremony that would rip the soul from her unborn son’s body. The shape shifters no longer looked like the snow creatures that had ambushed her, Celene and Melia in the canyons of Maelog’s Tears. Even though their bodies were shaped like men, they were blank templates waiting to be rewritten and they carried out Syphia’s ritual chanting the words with mouths that had no lips or teeth.
And there was nothing Arianne could do to stop it. Not even to take her life and his.
She had prayed that if all hope was lost, if her efforts to stop the Enemy had failed utterly, there would still be the chance of saving Avalyne by taking her own life. However, because of Syphia’s deception as Keira, the Primordial Queen was prepared for this. Her shape shifters had ensured that once Arianne was under their power, she was given no opportunity to cheat Mael of his new vessel.
Trapped on a slab of rock in what was once the main courtyard in the city of Sanhael, Arianne’s hands and feet were bound as the shape shifters prepared her for the ritual. Above her, she could see nothing of the moon, but it did not matter. The magic that would destroy her son did not require the moon’s power to come into being, it simply needed her.
They had torn open her dress, leaving her belly exposed for all to see. Strange writings were scrawled upon her fair skin in blood—the language was that of the Shadow Realm where the most potent dark magic came. She squirmed desperately as they placed the fouls words upon her skin and marked her forehead with strange concoctions that reeked of blood, paying as much attention to her as a painter would to the empty canvas. She was but the vassal of their future master, and while she was not to be hurt, she was not the most important player in this ceremony. Her babe was.
‘Please!’ she begged them, knowing it was pointless because they were servants to their mistress’s will. ‘Don’t do this! He is an innocent! Don’t take his life before he even begins it!’
‘Do not weep, little mother,’ Syphia’s voice spoke over her.
Arianne raised her head and looked into the face of her enemy. The sight of her made her scream in naked horror.
No longer required to maintain the guise of Keira Furnsby for anyone’s benefit, the Primordial Queen stood over Arianne in her true form. Having discarded Keira’s clothes, she appeared even less human than when she revealed herself to them in the canyons. She seemed even taller than before as she towered over Arianne as she stood by the altar. Her skin was now entirely devoid of its human pallor, resembling a mottled greenish hide that made Arianne think of something that was at home in a marsh or bog. Her living hair was no longer russet but instead the black of burnt wood. She looked down at Arianne with a neck that was long like the body of snake, moving of its own accord.
What made it all the worse was that her face still bore some similarity to Keira Furnsby.
‘Do not weep for him, Arianne,‘ Syphia said, her elongated neck bringing her head right alongside of Arianne’s so that she could whisper in elf Queen’s ear. ‘He will be the master of all. I will make him a god and together we will rule Avalyne as we was meant to be. If you were not so averse to this whole idea, I would even let you raise him. After all, I am a mother, I know what it is like to be separated from one’s children.’
‘He will not be my son!’ Arianne screamed back at her defiantly. ‘He will be a monster! I have seen the vision of his reign upon Avalyne and it is a rule bathed in blood! I won’t let you destroy his soul and desecrate his body!’ She turned away after that declaration, unable to keep looking at the profane sight of the woman who had been her friend these past seven years.
‘There is very little you can do to prevent it,’ Syphia retorted, a hint of disappointment on her voice as she raised her head up. She supposed she could not have expected anything else from the Queen who was incapable of anything but an impotent gesture of defiance. ‘I had hoped that you could be reasonable. In truth, I did enjoy the camaraderie I shared with you, Celene and even Melia. It was very different, and I had hoped I could salvage it despite this necessary unpleasantness.’
‘Unpleasantness?’ Arianne swung her head to look at the Primordial in disbelief.
Syphia ignored her outrage and continued speaking as if she were dealing patiently with a petulant child. ‘Perhaps we will discuss the matter again once Mael is inside of you. We will have more time to talk then, since you will be remaining here until he is born. If you should die, I shall return your son to Carleon and he will take his place by his father’s side.’
‘NEVER!’ Arianne reacted immediately, the outrage twisting her insides into knots. ‘His father is no fool! He will know the truth.’
‘Perhaps he will, but you and I both know Dare would never kill his own son,’ Syphia returned with a smug smile. ‘You might have the fortitude to do the deed, but not him. He is too good and kind a soul for such a thing. He could never willingly harm a child, especially one that you gave him. Even if he thinks that Mael soul is in his son, there will always be a part of him that would believe the child is salvageable, and that will stay his hand.’
‘You are wrong!’ Arianne countered vehemently, but even as she spat the words at Syphia, she knew the Primordial Queen was right. This was what Arianne had feared too. That if she failed, Dare would never be able to kill the child, and if he could that it would destroy him.
‘I think you know that I am right,’ Syphia retorted triumphantly, seeing the realisation in her eyes. ‘I think you feared this above all else that Dare would not only be unable to kill the child, but that he might even try to stop you from doing it. If I did not think so, I would have killed him myself before he became King.’
‘This will not succeed!’ Arianne spat in impotent fury. ‘You cannot watch me every second for the next five months. If you destroy my son before he is born, I will ensure that your Mael will never know life in his skin! I will kill myself before I let you blight Avalyne with his evil again!’
‘You talk bravely,’ the Primordial laughed, ‘but you will not know a moment alone until that child is freed from your body, and if I must, I will tear you open myself to acquire him when it is safe to do so. You will not harm my future King.’ With that, Syphia turned to her minion and said simply, ‘begin.’
‘No!’ Arianne screamed in despair as the shape shifters came to her once more and began chanting the words that would begin the dark ritual and the transmogrification of her son into Mael. She tried desperately to break free, but she was trapped, completely and utterly. Not even the Sword of Antion that lay on a stone bench not far from where she lay could help her. It might as well have been ten thousand leagues away.
‘Please! Don’t harm my baby!’ she sobbed as she struggled, trying to ignore the chanting taking place around her.
Suddenly, a sharp stabbing pain filled her body with such intensity that all she could do was scream as it pierced through her skin and ignited all her nerve endings with fire. Her scream tore through the air, like a knife cutting the air. Her knees tried to pull up, to brace herself against the pain spreading out from her womb to the rest of her. The chanting grew louder but Arianne no longer noticed it. Above her, Syphia’s eyes gleamed in triumph.
‘He is coming!’ Syphia exclaimed. ‘Maelog is coming from the void!’
As she finished that sentence, Arianne felt another agonizing spasm of pain that forced the air from her lungs in another pitched scream. Her hands gripped the ropes that bound her wrist, pulling on them as the pain become more than she could stand. She knew what was happening, she could feel the terror of her babe inside of her and felt her heart shatter because she could do nothing to help either of them. Each scream of pain uttered engendered the rejoicing of the Berserkers in attendance of the ceremony.
Blood started seeping out of her nose as she screamed. They continued their damned chanting in her ears as they invoked dark powers to force Mael into her body. With the rising fervour of their words her pain increased, until all she could hear were her own screams, half mired in agony, half begging for the life of her child. Desperate pleas that earned no compassion from those watching because their purpose was being served already. Her child meant nothing to them.
‘ARIANNE!’
She stopped screaming immediately, forgetting the pain as she turned her head and saw Dare at the far end of the courtyard. He was staring at her across the sea of Berserkers and shifters, his face a mask of horror when he saw what was happening to her. Gods, it was him. It was really him! She had been ready to give up, ready to believe all was lost, but that moment of weakness was over. She would fight with all her strength to save her baby because there was now hope!
‘ALASADARE!’ she screamed desperately. ‘HELP US!’
The entire courtyard burst into pandemonium as the Berserkers scattered to meet the intruders. Through her tears, Arianne saw Dare drawing out his sword and decapitating the first Berserker that confronted him without thinking twice. With Narthaine in one grip and an accompanying dagger in the other, she watched him fight his way through the Berserkers closing in on him with skill and ruthless efficiency.
Arianne had never seen him in battle but she doubted that she would forget it. He was magnificent in his fury. He moved far swifter than any warrior, man or elf, a perfect engine of limbs that moved with skill and coordination. He laid waste to Berserkers that came at him with their brutish weapons, stopping their blows with Narthaine before thrusting the dagger into their bodies to end the threat of them once and for all.
Another came at him from the right and Dare dropped low enough to avoid the swing that would have taken his head off before turning around and stabbing his dagger deep into the creature’s leg. The Berserker howled in pain before Dare completed their battle by running him through with his sword. Throwing his fist back, he stopped the Berserker coming at him from behind in its tracks, causing the creature to stagger slightly before Dare spun around and sliced open the Berserker’s throat with his dagger.
‘Finish it!’ Syphia shouted at one of her shape shifter minions, reminding Arianne that the ritual was not ended simply interrupted because Dare had arrived.
‘No!’ she wailed, refusing to allow this terrible thing to happen—not when they were so close to salvation.
The shape shifters resumed their chanting and Arianne felt that same terrible pain coursing through her, cutting short any protestations she might have about the ceremony. She threw her head back and uttered another blood curdling scream of exquisite agony as the invasive spirit entered her body.
The panic that ripped through Dare when he heard her scream was a sensation like nothing he had ever known. It made him forget everything around him, filled him with a cold rage that made the Berserkers seem inconsequential. Putting everything he had into reaching her, Dare cut a swathe of blood and bone through the obstacles preventing him from reaching his wife.
‘Aeron! Help Arianne!’ he shouted at the same time.
No sooner than he had said those words than an arrow sliced through the air and ended the shape shifter’s chanting just as Arianne’s scream diminished into guttural cries of agony. Blood spurted from the shape shifter’s neck as he landed hard on the floor. Another arrow flew over her head and struck the other shape shifters participating in the ritual. The accuracy and swiftness of the delivery could only be the skill of one person.
The pain stopped long enough for Arianne to regain some of her senses, and as the aftershocks of pain subsided, she craned her neck to see Aeron renewing his assault of arrows upon Syphia’s minions from the other side of the courtyard. At his side was Melia, and together they made a formidable team as they killed off the shape shifters conducting Syphia’s ritual one by one.
******
In the midst of all this fighting was Tully Furnsby.
The imperative for the others had been to save Arianne, and while Tully was equal to the task, he had another reason for reaching the Queen. Where Arianne was, he would find Syphia.
Even after everything Celene had told him about Syphia’s deception, Tully still could not believe that the woman he had shared the past seven years of marriage with was a phantom. He knew that he had to see her for himself for it to become real for him. At present, it felt like a nightmare from which he could not awaken, the same one he had experienced since he returned to the farm all those years ago and found Keira’s broken body after the Disciples were done with her.
He moved through the melee, ignored by Berserkers and shape shifters like an unnoticed shadow, because that was exactly how he felt. His insides had been scooped out and what was left was hollow and intangible as he moved through the courtyard, beyond the arrows and blades flying, beyond the blood and screams, beyond his friends or the creatures they battled. All he saw was the thing that had pretended to be his wife.
‘Keira!’ he called out when he was near enough, and her head mounted on that serpentine neck swung in his direction. He had no idea what he intended to accomplish by this confrontation, but he knew he had to see her. Before this all came to a terrible, brutal end, he had to understand why she had done this to him.
The Queen Primordial stared at him for a moment, as if he were some nuisance she had forgotten, and her face revealed something familiar, something he had grown accustomed to seeing these last seven years. Puzzlement. There were times when she had looked at him as if she had no idea what he was on about and Tully had explained away her confusion as the result of the desert burrowers on her brain. It was only logical that she experienced some disorientation after the poison her set her mind on fire.
Now he understood the real reason for it. Her puzzlement was because it was all new to her, because it had all been part of a role she was playing.
As she brought her head within inches of his, he saw her lips pull back into a cruel smile once her surprised had withered. His stomach clenched in disgust at the sight of her, at the lovely face he’d looked into, now cut with serrated teeth and eyes that were more insect than human staring back at him. Her hair swam about her like eels swirling about in dark water and he recoiled when strands of it, caressed his shoulder.
‘My husband,’ she said the word like a taunt. ‘How nice to see you.’
‘Where is my wife’s body?’ Tully demanded, ignoring her words. He had trouble looking into her face but forced himself to do so because he needed his answers. ‘Where did you leave her?’
‘Is that really so important?’ she asked, amused by the request.
‘It is to me,’ he bit back. ‘I want my wife to at least have a burial. She deserves that after what you took from her.’
‘What I took from her?’ Syphia snorted, staring at him with narrowed eyes. ‘I did not kill her and I certainly did not put her at risk to be killed by Balfure’s servants. You did that,’ she pointed out, drawing blood by the accusation.
Tully blinked, trying to force away the anguish at knowing she was right. He had been the reason for Keira’s torture, and now it seemed her death. ‘That may be so,’ he said quietly, refusing to give this beast any more amusement then she already had at his expense. ‘But I want to know where you left her so that she can be mourned at least.’
‘Then you shall be disappointed,’ she replied, her smile widening with cruelty. ‘I tossed her bloodied carcass somewhere in the wood. I buried her in the Green, but I could not be certain if I had put her into the ground deep enough. There was so much blood, and any animal with a nose for meat could have found her.’
Tully swallowed thickly and his eyes moistened in grief. His poor Keira. How he had failed her. ‘Was all of it a game to you?’ he whispered softly, uncertain that she would have heard him over the sound of clanging weapons.
‘It was not all terrible,’ the serpent hair stroked his cheek and he tried not to flinch. ‘I must admit that there were moments when I rather enjoyed playing the housewife. You certainly saw no difference in the bedroom. You know,’ she said with smile and her face seemed to shift, her features taking on Keira’s with more detail once more, ‘you can have her back.’
Tully’s eyes flew open and he stared at her. ‘What do you mean?’
Even as he asked, he knew. He supposed he should have expected this particular carrot to be dangled before his face. Why not? She had violated every other part of him. Why not this too?
‘Swear allegiance to me and you can have her back again,’ Syphia explained, her hair drawing her closer to him, like arms embracing him. ‘I can be her again. I can take on any shape that I please and if it pleases you, I can be Keira. We can even live in the Green. You and I can raise our baby,’ she gestured to Arianne who was struggling against the ropes that held her tied to the altar, fighting the shape shifters restraining her. ‘Wouldn’t you like that Tully? I can give you so many children that we’d be the envy of everyone in the Green.’
‘And what would I have to do?’ Tully asked, his tone flat and lifeless. ‘What would I have to do to make all this happen?’
‘Kill him.’ She gestured to Dare who was fighting his way through the Berserkers. ‘Kill him and watch him die, as you should have done when he turned up on your doorstep seven years ago. Give him to his fate, the one you thwarted by giving him refuge. You exchanged his life for Keira’s. Why do you give him your allegiance when he was the one who brought the Disciples down on Keira?’
More tears ran down his cheeks, because he would have done so many thing differently that night if he had known the price he would have to pay for his act of charity. He wiped his eyes with his sleeve and stared into her face. ‘Because he is my friend and he didn’t kill Keira. I did.’
Without another word, Tully pulled out the blade hidden in his sleeve and slashed Syphia across the face.
The Queen Primordial uttered a scream of pain as she reeled back, her cheek marred by a deep cut that spilled dark blood over her chin. When she lunged down at him again, her eyes were blazing with red fury and her mouth had widened like the maw of a gaping abyss. The teeth had come into view again, sharp and jagged.
Tully closed his eyes and let the end come.
******
Tamsyn had been fighting alongside of Kyou and Dare, using his sword to dispatch the seemingly endless number of Berserkers converging on them, when he saw through the sea of fighting bodies, the sight of Tully Furnsby standing before Syphia. The mage had lost track of the young farmer and cursed himself for his distraction. Realising the need to get through quickly, he finally used his magic powers and flung the Berserker coming at him aside. He had not fought a Primordial since the war with Mael and had been reserving his strength to combat Syphia. However, now that he saw the farmer of the Green confronting his wife, he cursed his foolishness at not seeing this eventuality.
Of course he’d confront her, Tamsyn told himself. After seven years, what else could he do?
However, his realisation came to late, because he saw Syphia open her jaws. Tamsyn knew what was coming even before she expelled a deadly column of green fire from her throat that consumed Tully where he stood. The farmer did not even scream, but the jet of heat created a roar that caught everyone’s attention as they saw one of their number disintegrate before their eyes. Flesh, blood and bone vanished in an instant, and there was nothing left by the charred remains on the courtyard floor.
Time seemed to freeze as every member of the Circle stared.
Dare’s reaction was an anguished cry of rage, which he used to swing his blade against the neck of a Berserker, taking its head clean off its shoulder. The head spun in the air twice before hitting the floor with a sickly squelch. Meanwhile, Aeron and Melia renewed their attack on the shifters around Arianne, firing arrows and bolts, one after each other to ensure that there was no opportunity to resume the ritual to resurrect Mael. He saw Celene and Ronen making their way across the floor, trying to reach Arianne as Dare had been while Kyou guarded the King’s back.
Which left Syphia to him.
Tamsyn thought of Tully—the young farmer who had stepped outside of his isolated world to give Carleon its King, when it was most likely they would lose him before he had even the chance to fight Balfure. Tully deserved better than to lose his wife, not just once but twice in a single lifetime. He had deserved better than to become Syphia’s final victim, because after his death, Tamsyn was not allowing another to die at her hands.
Allowing emotion to guide his actions for the first time in too long, Tamsyn raised his staff and delivered a blast of power at Syphia. The staff glowed with amber light before exploding outward, moving across the air like a fireball and striking her dead centre. The force of it flung her backwards, lifting her off her clawed feet away from Arianne and the altar upon which she was trapped.
Syphia’s enormous bulk crushed the wall upon which she had landed. The construction groaned at the impact, and when the Primordial was able to move again, streams of loosened mortar rained down upon her from the ceiling. Large fragments came away with her body as she pulled herself free. As she shook away her disorientation, she sought out the source of the attack with thunderous rage.
‘WHO DARES?’ she screamed, glaring at her opponents and discovering quickly that she faced a mage. She scuttled forward on her six legs, meeting the approaching wizard half way.
‘It matters not,’ Tamsyn declared, hurling another volley of magic at her. ‘Your time is at an end just the same!’
Syphia reacted by picking up a broken piece of column and hurling it at the oncoming blast. The amber orb of power exploded the thick marble construction, sending chunks of rock and dust in all directions. Her legs bowed slightly as she jumped, closing the distance between herself and the wizard until they were only a few feet apart.
‘I suppose not, child of Enphilim,’ she retorted, and opened her mouth breathe another jet of greenish flame from her mouth.
Tamsyn leapt out of the way, but the green flame turned the Berserker behind him to ash as completely as Tully had met his end.
******
With the shape shifters restraining her being felled by Aeron and Melia’s arrows and bolts, Arianne had succeeded in working one of her wrists free after her constant struggles. Strapped to the altar and unable to defend herself, she knew that if she did not free herself of this predicament, Dare and the others would die trying to reach her. She needed to remove herself as a liability so that they could ably defend themselves against Syphia and her minions.
Once her hand was free, she was able to move just a little more and was able to reach at shape shifter who had collapsed on top of her altar after one of Aeron’s arrows had killed it. Straining as far as she was able to reach, the Queen of Carleon felt the ropes digging into her wrists, cutting into her wrist and tearing her flesh. Gritting her teeth, she ignored the pain as her fingers extended outward as far as she could manage it, until they finally made contact with the fletching and gripped its feathers as tightly as she could.
Pulling it free of the body it was imbedded, she ignored the revulsion at the blood that spattered against her cheek when she used the sharp edge of the arrow to cut through the rope binding her other wrist. Arianne worked as quickly as she could, aware that while Tamsyn kept Syphia busy, she had a window of opportunity to escape. Once her wrists were free, she sat up and began working on her feet.
Realising the most crucial part of her plan was attempting an escape, Syphia shouted at her minions. ‘Capture the Queen! Do not allow her to escape!’
Arianne freed her feet just as she saw a number of Berserkers running in her direction. She rolled off the table and took refuge beneath the marble altar, hoping to remain hidden long enough to make good her escape. Across the courtyard she saw Dare was still battling shape shifters, and for a brief second, his eyes drifted to her and he realised she was trapped.
‘Arianne is pinned!’ he shouted to anyone who could hear.
Melia, who had taken up position along a partially collapsed staircase at the far end of the courtyard with Aeron, heard the King’s call, and her eyes darted immediately to where Arianne was hiding under the altar, surrounded by Berserkers. Everyone else was engaged with opponents of their own and were in no position to reach the Queen. Celene, Ronen, Kyou and Dare were cutting down Berserkers and shape shifters while Tamsyn did battle with Syphia herself. If the Berserkers were to reach Arianne, Melia had no doubt that she would be taken from here until Syphia could retrieve her again.
‘Arianne!’ Melia called out, hoping that the Queen could her through all this noise.
Arianne’s eyes widened and Melia saw her searching for the source of her name. A few seconds later, their gazes met and Melia knew that Arianne was listening.
‘Be prepared to run!’ Melia instructed, and raised her crossbow so that Arianne would understand what she intended.
When Arianne nodded in answer, Melia turned to Aeron and exhaled a deep breath. ‘Are you as good with that thing as they say?’ she asked, knowing full well he was. His reputation as an archer had no equal anywhere in Avalyne.
‘I am reasonably proficient,’ Aeron replied, pulling two arrows from his bow and taking aim at the Berserkers. ‘Are you?’ He cast a sidelong glance at her with a brow raised.
‘I did not shoot you, did I?’ Melia replied sweetly, and did the same with her crossbow.
‘I will take that as a yes,’ he replied.
‘Good.’ She almost smiled and then spoke in a more serious tone. ‘We need to clear her a path out of there.’
‘Agreed,’ Aeron nodded. ‘You take the left and I will take the right.’
‘I follow your lead, Prince,’ Melia answered, and raised her crossbow to take aim.
Working in tandem, they rained down a deadly barrage on the Berserkers near the altar, each arrow striking their mark, one after the other. The foul creatures fell to the ground like flies, their corpses joining the already numerous bodies on the ground.
Suddenly realising her efforts to secure her prisoner were being compromised by the two archers, Syphia blasted another wave of heat at Tamsyn before turning her head in their direction and glaring at them. Aeron saw her jaws widened and guessed what was coming at them a split second before she expelled her deadly breath.
‘Look out!’ he cried out as a blast of flame came rushing at them.
Melia looked up in time to feel Aeron’ arms around her waist, pulling her off the edge of the staircase as the ball of green fire came surging towards them. They both crashed heavily onto the ground, their fall broken by the dead bodies beneath them. There was little time to recover from their near escape, however, because Syphia was hurling more flame at them. Once more, Aeron grabbed her and they were running for cover, barely avoiding the cascading waves of burning bile that not only set the ground on fire but with it any Berserkers in the vicinity.
‘I think we upset her,’ Melia said, breathing hard as they took refuge behind a column.
‘Arrows do that,’ Aeron remarked wryly.
‘Thank you,’ Melia swallowed thickly, seeing the flames burning in the place where they had been. ‘I do not think I would have moved fast enough to escape.’
‘Does that mean that you have finally decided to accept the aid of the Prince of Halas?’ he asked, scanning the area to see if Syphia was resuming her attack.
‘I am considering it,’ she replied. ‘If we survive this, I will make proper recompense. For now, did Arianne escape?’
Aeron stole a glance past the column and saw that Arianne was no longer cowering under the stone altar. She was hurrying towards Dare, but the danger was far from over.
‘Yes,’ he nodded. ‘But Syphia’s attention does not linger too far from her,’ he replied, seeing the creature seeking out the Queen again. However, instead of pursuing Arianne, Syphia had a new target to fix her attention upon.
The King.
*******
Celene, like Dare and the others, had been attempting to reach Arianne when the onslaught of Berserkers and shape shifters derailed that pl