Prince of Time

Chapter Forty-Nine - The Art of Revenge

Tobiah stood up straight, propelled by the power behind him, borrowing the strength he needed. With herculean effort, he threw the tide of darkness back. The pressing death was rejected and returned, by simple laws of motion, to the one who had sent it.

  Finem was bowled off his feet, slamming against the ground. The scream that issued from his mouth was far from human, full of metal and fury. Tobiah stood gasping, soaked in sweat, limbs gelatinous.

“How dare you?” Finem spat, climbing up and coughing blood from his mouth. “How could you?”

By way of answer, Tobiah hit him with a million years’ worth of time in one second. Finem screamed, back arching. He fell back against the stone, chest heaving, rolling over to vomit. There was too much blood, his eyes red and streaming, his neck muscles taut.

  He started to speak but Tobiah hit him again. His screams echoed and rebounded. Tobiah kept the mental punches coming, borrowing energy, borrowing control. His face contorted in hatred while Finem crawled and choked and cried out in pain.

  He wanted to make him pay. He wanted to make him pay for every moment of fear, every instant of pain, every single second of weakness. Finem had to pay for all of it, for every failure, for every humiliation. Every. Last. One.

 The strength trailing behind him was growing weaker. He turned for a split second, not long enough to lose control of Finem but long enough to see the rest crumpled on the floor, unconscious.

  With great reluctance, he let the stolen strength go. It snapped away from him, leaving him weak and drained and staggering. He swallowed hard, choking back the bile. He felt broken and unclean, contaminated.

 With shaking fingers, he picked up his sword from the ground and advanced. Finem was cowering against a wall, still beautiful but beaten and broken, a shattered remnant. Blood dribbled from the corner of his mouth and he had eyes like a trapped fox.

“Going to torture me?” Finem croaked. “Imprison me in time for all eternity? Tear me limb from limb? Feed me black magic until it consumes me?”

“No,” Tobiah raised his sword. “I’m going to kill you like a mortal.”

He leant closer, his voice lowered.

“Because guess what, Finem?” he smiled like the devil himself. “You’re just a man.”

Finem screamed in rage as Tobiah brought the death blow down.

“No! Don’t!”

Ane staggered towards them, pale-faced but determined. Tobiah halted the stroke and looked back at her impatiently.

“I’m not sparing him.”

“Let me,” Ane pried the sword from his fingers. “Please.”

Her hand shook, her face contorted with rage.

“You want to be a killer?” Finem asked, hoarsely.

“You made me a killer,” Ane answered. “This is for Origen.”

Her heart snapped and shattered and reformed, new and cracked, in the time it took to cleave Finem’s head from his shoulders.

 The sword slipped from Ane’s fingers, clattering against the floor. She dropped to her knees, arms around herself as if she was trying to hold something in, not crying but somewhere pale and painful beyond.

“Are you alright?” Tobiah asked haltingly, the words unfamiliar and uncomfortable.

Ane gave him a tearful smile. “Somebody dead just died again. Somebody I loved more than anything else in the world.”