Bereft: Demise

69 | Of a Black-Winged King

In the darkest caverns of my mind, the shade screamed as it burst into flames.

I fell to my knees as the pain overtook my thoughts and winded through my body in a calamitous wildfire of searing misery. I clutched my skull, not caring if Amoroth kept dragging me, not caring if she simply disappeared and abandoned me to my fate.

Darius. His name rose through the anguish, bringing with it the intrinsic knowledge of my Sin's destruction. Darius.

How had it come to this? How had we failed so empirically?

"Shit," Amoroth panted, her hand clammy against my wrist. I knew he was coming. I knew Envy approached with the slow, cruel consideration of a fox watching a wounded rabbit.

Tap. Tap. Tap. We could hear his footsteps moving through the puddles scattered upon the road. Amoroth was trembling, but she didn't let go of my arm. She held it like a lifeline, like it was only thing she understood and knew how to hold.

I haven't failed him, I cried in my own thoughts, blind to the dreary land as I lingered on my knees and Darius's shade writhed. Not yet. Not yet. I know how to save him.

My fingers curled into the mud, and I felt it squish under my left hand as the bones ached and the nails darkened.

The patter of Balthier's steps ceased. Amoroth's breaths were escaping her in wrenched sobs as she waited and looked in all directions, searching for the blasted Sin. He appeared again from a veil of whispering smoke and attacked. Lust didn't have a chance to protect herself. His blow connected with the side of her jaw and tore her hand from my arm.

She collapsed on the roadside below the bent willows and didn't move.

Balthier kicked me in the ribs before I could even conceive the notion to run. Bones broke with loud, tremulous snaps and the wound inflicted by Envy so many months ago roared with tortuous resolve. The rapid splash of fresh blood splattering onto the mud was precipitated by my broken wail.

My ears rang, and in that empty gong I heard Cage's mellow voice. "It's a beautiful thing, really. They make each other stronger, they make each other...something else."

Envy's strong fingers worked themselves into my hair and wrenched until I was upright, gasping for air.

Not yet, not yet. I quietly begged the starless sky. Not yet. I can save him.

"You hold everything you need to save your contemptible little creature."

My left hand ached and I hid it behind my back.

Balthier's face was too close to my own and his breath highlighted the cold trail of tears weaving over my cheeks.

"I'm going to savor this," he promised, his eyes wild and unfocused with exhaustion and resentment. "I really am." God, how I hated him.

"Once broken, you can never truly be whole again." I remembered Peroth's words. I remembered his kindness, the affection of his laughter, and the zeal of his loyalty to Darius and Amoroth. I recalled my final image of him, slumped and broken beneath the pitted statue of an angel with listlessness glazing his eyes.

My enmity was a boiling cauldron in my middle, demanding release.

Envy's hands were both in my hair, his iron grip preparing to twist or break my thin neck. "I'm going to savor it for all the trouble you caused me, you shameful, ignorant mortal."

The cry exploded from my lips as if was a physical entity capable of flight. Feral with hate, with madness, with heartbreak, I propelled my hand toward Balthier's chest just as I had with Sethan.