Sarain woke Winston and told him that there was somewhere she needed to go. He chose to come along, but didn’t understand how or why she knew to go to this place. They were on the road for a short while, driving in silence with Sarain still not ready to share how she knew where to go. They brought weapons, and all Sarain managed to tell Winston was that there would be a battle.
He worried about her fighting so soon again, her wounds had not yet completely healed. He also noticed that when he would try to touch her that she started moving away again. He hoped that this was only temporary - a side effect of her focusing on her mission.
After a while of driving on the interstate, Sarain finally pulled over to the shoulder of the road. She got out of the car and Winston followed. He looked around confused; they were out in the middle of nowhere. Nothing was around for miles. Sarain grabbed her sword from the car, without a word, and then began walking into the field she had parked next to. Winston did as she did, and trailed behind her.
He wondered what could be going through her mind, while her face gave no expression to hint at what she was feeling. What had he gotten himself into?
They hiked through marsh and overgrown brush. They trekked for nearly an hour before Sarain finally stopped in the center of an open field. She looked up at the sky, it was a beautiful cool starry night, and so much different from how she remembered the place from the last time she was there. The field was empty now; no huts, no livestock, no bodies to be seen around. It looked peaceful, like nothing horrible had ever happened there. But when Sarain took a deep breath, she could feel the earth screaming. The memory was still there, like a scar that would never heal.
A rumbling noise grew with the wind, and Winston started to look around with uncertainty. He didn’t know why they were there, but even he could sense that something was coming. Sarain stared on into the field, waiting for the arrival, undisturbed. Before them a mass of blue flame emerged, the blaze exploded into a dance, and it flickered both high and wide. Winston jumped back, surprised, but Sarain did not budge.
Soon the flames lessened and figures could be seen standing in the fire. Winston stared in amazement, he had never seen such magic done before, but Sarain had. Out of the fire the beings stepped out. All were large, but one specially was massive. Sarain and Winston both recognized his intense yellow eyes: Sephor. He was accompanied by three of his strongest, best demons. Winston recognized them too, he hadn’t seen them too often, but knew that Sephor only called upon them when he needed a particularly demanding task taken care of. This was not going to be a simple match, and Winston doubted his ability to hold up against even just one of these beasts.
Sarain glared up at Sephor, who held back his men from attacking her. He looked down upon her like she was just a child and said, “I knew you would remember eventually, that we met before.”
“Is that why you were so persistent on getting me out of the way?” Sarain asked him.
“Well at first you were just a nuisance,” Sephor said in his booming voice, “I didn’t suspect who you really were until I took this off the boy.” He held up Sarain’s ankh, she had given it to Kit, and never thought to look for it on his body once he was dead. The ankh didn’t appear to bother Sephor; he was too powerful to be fazed by the trinket, something that only worked on lesser demons.
He gazed down at her and continued to explain, “I remembered seeing it on a very powerful girl one night many years ago. And since I knew the intruder was a woman, I had to see if it was really you.”
“And that’s why you wanted me alive so badly,” Sarain concurred, understanding his plan.
“Yes, you would be the perfect piece to my collection. The only one strong enough to lead my army,” Sephor told her.
“Your army is gone now,” Sarain stated with a sense of conceit.
“You took them like I took your clan,” Sephor remarked, pointing out the irony.
Winston listened as they conversed; now getting a better sense of why Sarain was the way she was. He felt bad for ever having pushed her limits; he had no idea what she had been through, or what she had come from. It explained how she had grown to be so strong, how she knew to do things that other humans could not. He held even more respect for her now, knowing what she had survived.
Sephor continued on addressing Sarain by saying, “I knew you were powerful, but what I didn’t expect were your charms…working on my men.” He looked over at Winston, who stared back at him. “He was one of my best. Really, you should have seen him at his work. He could get humans to do and give up anything, especially the women,” Sephor turned to Winston and asked him, “Was she worth it? Leaving your seat of power. Does she taste as sweet as she looks?”
Sarain cringed at the thought of Sephor seeing her that way, but wasn’t surprised with him being a complete monster all around. She was growing tired of his chattering; there was only one thing she wanted to know. She stepped up to Sephor, looking him in his yellow eyes, and asked, “Was all this just so that you could dominate over people?”
“Of course, I wanted more power; I was tired of having to hide in the shadows. I wanted people to openly fear me,” Sephor said in his deep uncaring voice, then remarked, “But that’s not what you really wanted to ask.”
He was right, Sarain had held back what she truly wanted to know, and with a deep breath, she finally brought herself to say it, “Why did you attack my clan; what was it that you were trying to tell my grandfather?”
Sephor nodded, and then smiled and said, “Yes, that’s it. And that’s what has been fueling you all these years, hasn’t it? But I don’t have an answer for you.”
Sarain became outraged, thinking, all this chatter and he holds back now. “Why not?!” she demanded.
“Because I didn’t lead that attack, I was just a knight following his king’s order,” Sephor simply replied.
Sarain’s heart began to break; she thought she was so close to the end only to learn that there was still someone else responsible for her clan’s destruction. Sephor may have been the one to physically kill her grandfather, Orran, and others, but someone else brought him there. And she so badly needed to know who and why.
She felt her body growing hot, and with an exchange of looks they both knew there would be no more talking. The other beasts lunged toward Winston, leaving Sephor alone to take on Sarain. Winston raised his sword knowing that this would be his true test to see if he was worthy to fight by Sarain’s side. She looked up at Sephor’s burning eyes, and let her inner blaze help wield her blade. She swung her sword at him, using more force than she had ever used before. It came down with incredible speed and might, but suddenly stopped short.
She hadn’t stopped herself, something unforeseen had stopped her. Sephor had grabbed her arm, holding the sword. He had moved at a speed that wasn’t even visible, much like he did the night of her clan’s massacre. Sarain’s body felt engulfed in flames. He was faster than her, and she couldn’t keep up. He smiled down at her, knowing that she would lose. That smugness, that look Sarain hated was in his eyes. He didn’t even see her as a threat.
The fire took over, and once again, Sarain was screaming. With her free arm she let go of her blade, knowing that Sephor had made the mistake of only grabbing one of her arms. She thrust her fist forward at his chest. His gray skin was like stone, but she broke through. Her fingers rushed through his insides, searching through the surprisingly cold muck. She felt it, his heart, like a rock, and grasped down onto it. Sephor roared in agony, he hadn’t seen it coming; he had thought his hide was too strong for her to penetrate, but he had mistaken her for the girl she had once been. Maybe then she hadn’t been ready to take him on, but now she fought on a new level, one that had surpassed Sephor.
The other beasts stopped to see their master destroyed, an error that gave Winston time to chop off the first one’s head. By the time the second one turned back around, Winston’s sword was already rushing toward it.
Sarain stared up at the fallen beast, his grip on her arm had already released, and the fire was fading from his eyes. He slumped down as she pulled back her arm. Sephor’s eyes glazed over as he watched Sarain holding his heart. It was black, and didn’t look human. He had always wondered whether it too had changed like his face. He couldn’t even remember what his face had looked like before. Or what color his eyes had been. Had they been blue?
Sephor’s head hit the ground, as well as the third beast’s who had been charging Winston. He was dead, and Sarain stood there staring down at him. She tossed his heart aside; there was nothing left there for her to do. She picked up her ankh that now lay next to Sephor’s body, and pocketed it. She was glad to have it back.
Winston approached her, slowly, and asked, “Is it over?”
She still looked down at Sephor, thinking, no, it wasn’t, but instead she answered, “For now.”
He put his arm around her and they walked back to the car, with Sarain all the while thinking that she never wanted to come back to this place again.