IRON GOD | 2: Empyrean

[26] Valielit

My goddess. My treasure. My prey. Mine. MINE!

She watched Kolo shove something into Ami's half-alive hand and heard her spew out some frantic plea to Xigon. Then she fled, and something deep inside both Magpie and Ami released its stranglehold.

"Valielit is eating me alive."

Strings undone. Valielit's head snapped up, waking with ecstatic fury from a two-hundred-year dream. A happy dream, it had been. But this new feeling, this long-suppressed vitality surging back, was the peak of all experience.

Xigon's voice interrupted her mind's rush. "Valielit is...?"

Oh, he knew far too much.

She threw herself at the tall man, and before he could fully grasp what was happening she dug her fingers under his goggles and into his eyes. That was where almost all his power was. Magpie knew that much.

His spidery hands seized her elbows as she shoved him backwards. They tumbled over Ami and into the wall.

"Magpie, stop!" Ami tried to grab her ankle. "He's going to kill you if you–"

"You'd love that, wouldn't you?" Magpie jeered. "It's what you wanted from him all this time. We both know that."

Xigon's grip tightened and his hands pulsated with thin threads of white light.

Before he could do anything, Valielit slammed his head between the wall and the floor. "No one should have said anything," she spat. "And no one is going to do anything."

Ami shrieked, but Xigon made no sound at all as Vali scored his eyes with her sharp nails, not even as blood dripped down his face like tears, leaving vivid red splotches on the floor — no, he remained as silent and unflinching as a dead thing. His silence irritated her. She knew he could feel it. Why wouldn't he yield?

A dull throb of violet lit his eyes as they filled with blood beneath her fingertips.

"You can't!" She hissed at him. "You can't do anything at all!"

Xigon's jaw clenched. His teeth bared slightly.

"You know why?" Valielit leaned in closer, breathing heavily. "Because you might fancy yourself the Iron God's hand, but I? I am his will."

"And...this." One of his still-glowing hands drifted to clamp down on top of hers. "This is my will."

There was a sound like the world exploding. A searing shear of light and black overtook her vision, but only for an instant. Next thing she knew, she watched herself fall backwards. She watched her left hand come detached from her body and burn up without leaving any ashes. Her left arm disintegrated up to the elbow in a mere fraction of a second.

Valielit's sensation returned in a blaze of unfathomable pain. The pain of part of herself coming completely undone. She lay there shrieking and laughing all at once as she realized what had happened.

Ami stirred next to her.

Xigon crawled to loom over them both, weeping blood without tears. "My will is always done."

Vali scrambled away from him. "Not today!"

His head snapped toward the sound of her movement. Even if he couldn't see, it didn't seem to hinder him as much as she'd hoped it would.

"Hey, what's going on?"

Another voice called from down the hall, followed by a sharp gasp and running footsteps.