Blade(Part 4): Midnight

Prologue

Dawn broke, revealing the carnage in the streets of Noglidas. Blood filled every seam between the bricks of the streets, with no clear sign of whose blood it really was. The bloodshed in the night was endless, but the Colonial League won. They won Noglidas, they won the colonies, and they won their freedom. That was only with the help of their unexpected allies in King Matthias Karvine of Aetherian, and Queen Azia of Skaola, though. A Skaolan Queen coming to help the League, though, was hardly a joyous sight to them. For Dameon, it couldn't have been more of a relieving sight, since he had always thought that all Skaolan royalty and nobility were hateful, tyrannical, and capricious monsters. In a single night, Azia proved him wrong. He noticed that the surviving soldiers of the League were giving the Queen looks of hatred and untrust as she passed by them. They still thought what Dameon had thought for his entire life. Shala and Xyhra couldn't help other than to notice that same thing, as well.

"This could be troublesome," Xyhra suddenly said.

"Yeah," Dameon agreed. "But we just won this war. Shouldn't they be putting the fact that they had help aside? In fact, shouldn't they be thankful for it? I am."

"They should be," Xyhra answered. "But are blinded by their hatred, and what happened to them in the past."

"The past for them was pretty awful, Xyhra," Shala reminded. "You can't expect them to just let go of it."

"I don't," Xyhra sighed, looking to Dameon. "It makes us who we are, and defines who we choose to be."

"I know," said Dameon.

"Dameon," Xyhra hissed. "There is something you must know. I know that you have won this city, and that thousands have died already, but this war still is not over."

"What?" Dameon gasped. "What more do we have to do? How many more people have to die?"

"Dameon," Shala asserted, with a hand on Dameon's shoulder. "Just listen to her." Dameon then looked to his mother with anger. Two straight years of bloodshed and death, she was asking for more sacrifice?

"What the hell could be so important that more people have to give their lives for?" he demanded.

"I don't know whether you will believe me or not," Xyhra admitted. "Shala, Alexius, and Zabaia found me in a prison on Spark and freed me, and then that Spark's reactor was disabled."

"Then there shouldn't be..."

"Just listen," Xyhra hissed. "There are a dozen Spark installations in Zenartha's crust, and since the one below Eleus was shut down unexpectedly, the rest are prepared to be fired remotely."

"They're superweapons, Dameon," Shala reminded. She then cupped his face in her hands and said, "If Aziz succeeds, humanity, the epsilon, the draconians, every living thing on this planet..." Nothing more was needed. He knew exactly what would happen if every Spark was fired.

"Aziz will kill us all," he finished. "So, what do we do, now?"

"We must travel to Ember," Xyhra answered. "But your point does raise a question. Can we convince the Colonial League to give more of its soldiers' lives?"