Music is Lilium from Elfen Lied, covered by the Grissini Project. Play it!
******
I'm immediately thrown into agony.
Fight it, I tell myself. Fight it!
The darkness presses heavily against my mind, seeking to gain control over it. This presence is not just dark—it's cold. The cold of death sweeping across a battlefield. I recognise it all too well. It slams wave after wave of terror into me, as though trying to intimidate me into submission.
But a Champion of Pst. Bronicus never surrenders.
I release a roar of defiance against the darkness.
The presence suddenly pulls away.
I blink, refocusing my vision. Diomedes is right before me, keeling over the snow. My sword is in my hand, its blade gleaming red.
Despite the wound I had inflicted upon him unknowingly, Diomedes grins. "Certainly didn't predict this," he wheezes. He points a finger at me. I freeze. "I'll give you this before I go: that wound can only be healed if you return to the Cave of Three Souls."
Then he drops face first onto the ground, blood leaking onto whiteness.
That's when the shadow that had been controlling my arm withdraws its grip on me.
My fingers immediately release the sword.
The presence is gone from my mind. But I can still feel traces of it pulsing beneath my skin. The numbness that had come with the Champion's State is gone.
My Champion's State.
Right on cue, the backlash comes for me.
My mind, broken enough as it is, receives further blows from the backlash. Abrupt exhaustion punches my head; it feels as though every single bit of energy is being drained from me. Even thinking itself is tiring.
"Hubert," a woman's voice barely reaches me. The woman stands in front of me, blocking my view of Diomedes. She's tall, broad-shouldered, bundled up in layers of fur. Her amber eyes lock with mine; they look like they're trying to convey some sort of message. Her heavily-tattooed face looks haggard. "Stay with us now. Kendra has to perform the final passing to banish Diomedes's soul. Then we can finally rest."
Kendra... Of course, Kendra. She's standing right above Diomedes's corpse now, both arms raised, a small knife with an obsidian blade clutched in one hand; the other empty, palm facing downwards.
She closes her eyes. Murmurs something beneath her breath. Something that doesn't sound like any language of this world. At least, a language not of this era. Energy hums in the air.
It feels like an eternity before she's done doing...whatever it is she was doing.
When she reopens her gaze to the world, they look unusually dark. As though she'd just taken a glimpse into the Seventh Hell itself. "I'd start a fire to cremate his corpse," she says, "but I doubt that we'll hold out long enough in this blizzard. Even with Luise's help."
The golden-eyed Ravurkian woman nods, a weary set to her shoulders. "I'm almost drained. Pinning Diomedes down for Hubert to land that blow took too much energy," she says. "I'm barely keeping this barrier up now, so I'd really appreciate if you all could dispose of him as soon as possible."
"I could start the fire," a broad-shouldered man pipes up. I don't know why, but his skin is fairly sizzling with power.
An image of the man unleashing fire upon the world flashes across my mind. I have a feeling that I have known this man for years. In fact, I feel like I should know everyone here. If only I can remember...
YOU ARE READING
Legacy (Daughter of War #2)
Fantasy**ON HOLD INDEFINITELY** It's been two years since the great battle in the shrine. However, as Perinus strives to recover from its losses, shadows continue to grow throughout the land... A dangerous sickness is spreading throughout the country--one...
