– K Á R A –
"I've done everything you've ever asked of me." I told the god calmly. "I've done everything. Now you can tell me where Tayah Ashrive is. It is all I ask of you." I murmured at the tall cloak of shadow and power.
"You know why you are here. You know I cannot, Stormbringer." The voices carried over the air to my home in emptiness.
I grit my teeth and raised my eyes to the god. Displaying my true rage would do nothing for me. But the reason to my being was somewhere down there while I remained up here. It was not something I would ever accept. I measured a breath before speaking.
"You should also know I do not care for my own life. Only that it is spent by her side. Where I belong."
"She is safe." Odin said softly.
"I can't know that–not on the mortal realm." I murmured, rising from a knee and staring past to the horizon of mountains beyond my balcony. "Not if Anselle and Revna live."
"What do you ask?" The voices spoke simply.
"I ask to return to the mortal realm. To track down the one that has caused this and put an end to it quickly." I said emotionless. "She has nothing to hide behind now–I will go through anyone that tries to stop me."
"You sound much more like your former self... only much further from it."
I looked back to the God. "She has changed me so completely that I cannot return to what I was. When I end the immortals responsible I will find her, Odin." I said with no room for negotiation.
The god tucked arms behind the blackness and nodded slowly.
"I expected no less. But you know the cost now."
I shook my head with a humourless laugh. "You are all seeing–all knowing. Your time in the realms is unrivalled. Yet you cannot still see what this woman means to me."
The god tilted a dark head at me and drew a ball of pure white energy between us. It flashed many times before taking the shape of the face of the very woman I loved. I stared intently. It changed to that of her on the ground with an arrow through her arm staring up as I came crashing into her world. My chest ached painfully. Then it morphed into that of her many more times. Times I had not seen. Her staring at my back on a horse, my form when I fought, a secret smirk when I insulted her mortals–
"Please stop." I whispered.
"You say I do not see. But I see more than you could ever know, Stormbringer. I know well what you are to each other. But I also know the cause and effect if the fate came to be when you were with her again. If you were truly killed."
"So, find another. You have plenty of Valkyries–" I began in a rush only to have an arm raised and the light change once again to show that of war and fire. Bodies and chaos.
"Perhaps I could find another that fights unparalleled. But none have my elemental running through their life blood like you do. You know this. It changes the outcome of every variable."
I stared at the disaster cast in the light. It went against my being. We were the immortals sent down to keep balance in the world and not let it fall to this... I had kept it safe for so long. Instead of the new argument I sought with the god I whispered the words differently.
"Show me her again."
The images in the light changed from disaster to that of Tayah. Her green mortal eyes staring at me in awe. Her scowls when I drew a sword against her to train. Her laughter when Kaden pushed me too far–
"Call on me when you wish to depart to the mortal realm. I will not stop you from achieving your original purpose on it." The voices spoke deeply before the black cloak vanished into the air, leaving me with many moments of the woman I loved flashing before my eyes.
A sandy beach before a fire. Pirates had surrounded the shores in the night and the firelight cast a golden glow on her skin. But she had not slept that night. She had instead watched me. I had tucked my hood over my eyes and briefly slept but I had not felt her stare on me that night. Or when she had rolled closer in the sand to just a few inches before me.
I watched intently as she had pulled a piece of my blonde hair from my face and leant her head on her elbow.
I wished I had woken. I wished I had taken the time to say the words sooner. That I had captured her face in my hands and told her I loved her long before that moment. We wouldn't speak the words until long after that distant shore but I wished I had the time to say it again.
So much lost time.
The image finally darkened until it changed into that of something very familiar. The night that divided us. I frowned as I watched two immortals stand before her and begin there attack. I watched while I crashed brightly before them in a bolt of lightening. Then I watched as Anselle darkened Tayah's eyes and took control of her. But I also now saw what didn't happen. What should have happened. It was much worse than hearing Odin say it.
I watched Tayah drive my own dagger through my heart and the horror on her face when she realised. I watched myself die. I watched the way it destroyed her in a moment and the fire that wrapped itself around us in a size I had never witnessed.
I clenched my fist and glared ahead.
"Stop." I spoke down the empty hall. But the god heard. The light vanished and I turned my back on it. I turned for the weapons on my wall and to my gleaming armour.
It was time to end the worthless immortal that caused all of it. Then it was high time I tracked down the immortal I endlessly loved and to hells with the consequence of any of it.
I didn't care for immortal rules anymore.
* * * * *
I crashed onto the mortal realm in a bolt of light. I rose from the black scorch mark in the rain and took in Vayleron's walls from across the hill.
I didn't waste time masking my speed in the weather. Those sharp enough to see me would think themselves insane. I ran faster than the quickest stallion. The water soaked my clothing but I didn't care for any of it. My focus had never been sharper.
It would be the fastest death I ever served. No talking. No warning.
When I reached the white stone walls I brought light into my hands and sent it into stepping stones against the face. I stepped quickly upon the white power and scaled the wall in less than a few breaths. I sailed over the top and landed into a roll on a tiled roof. Thunder cracked around me and I smiled grimly under my hood.
I kept to the rooftops and quickly found the crippled bell tower and the many mortals that still had carts loading the broken stone away from the site. The scent of power was still potent in the air. My relic. Thanatos. It practically sang to me.
I traced the scent quickly. Not remotely surprised to sense Revna's with it. The dark otherness still tangled with them both. The taste of corrupted and uncontrolled Underworld power. It took a lot not to let it consume the user–not that it mattered to Anselle. The sharp tang of something else stopped me in my tracks and I ground my boots against the tiles harshly.
Blood.
It tangled with the rain but it was still unmistakably immortal.
The scent broke off the path of Anselle and trailed down a darkened alley. I growled under my breath knowing that I had to be sure it led to at least one immortal. They could not both be allowed to live. Thanatos would still be an easy trail to pursue...
I leapt off the roof edge and landed in another quick roll already running again.
The rain made my clothing heavy so I sent a wave of energy through it instantly drying it out. I cast a look down yet another thinned path and smelt the metallic smell of a lot of blood... A hand print slathered the stone near me and I watched its deep, recent crimson before continuing.
It did not take me long. As it would not take long for mortality to claim the one laid before me.
"Revna." I stated into the shadow without feeling.
The dark haired woman slowly rose her head from her slumped position to meet my eyes. They were once again the eyes of the immortal I had known for centuries. But that no longer mattered to me. Not after what she had caused.
"K-ára." She coughed out blood and I really saw her face now.
It was deeply burned down one side and deeply scorched half of her body and clothing in wounds that would never heal shut. Wounds caused by immortal energy.
I almost stumbled back into the wall in shock. But managed to hold onto my resolve. She dragged in a heavy, wet breath.
"I–I need–your energy–" She rasped. "–has taken–too much–"
Instead of the empathy she expected. Instead of her longest friend dropping to her side to save her worthless life. I drew a dagger slowly. She stared in shock and disbelief.
"What–what are you–"
"You really think you deserve life? After what you did." I growled as dark as the night.
She flinched slightly despite the burns and tried to crawl back. But there was no where left to go. It did not surprise me Anselle left her for dead.
"I was–tricked–" She started.
I laughed loudly without humour and she now smelt truly like fear. I flicked the blade between my fingers and dropped into a crouch.
"You were my closest friend. Yet you gave in to the enticing power she promised. The delicious idea of ruling over mortals." I told her quietly.
This made her heart pulse in the only way that told me I was right. Her expression was enough. But it soon turned bitter.
"If that mortal hadn't turned you into a pathetic–"
I didn't have the patience in me to listen to her prepared speech. To any of it. Even thinking of Tayah leaving her lips sent me over the edge completely. I did exactly what I promised. The dagger in my hand shot forward faster than she could blink. It went through her skull cleanly before I ripped it out.
The power glowed brightly in my hand as I watched her slump against the wall–instantly dead.
Her once silver eyes were left open in a plain and unworthy grey. I looked upon her skin more closely. Seeing the way the immortal power had ripped through the Valhalla made clothing like it was nothing... Then I remembered the image Odin had showed me. The vortex of flame Tayah had unleashed after my death.
Unrestrained and raw power.
So Odin had not undone the time around us. Only the time between Tayah and I. If Anselle thought I was truly dead... She would have the surprise of her lifetime.
I wiped my blade against her arm before sheathing it and staring down at the dead Valkyrie. I felt nothing for her. Betrayal was unforgivable. The thunder cracked above me again and I knew it was time to fulfil the final promise I made.
I doubted Anselle would be as weak. But I was ready for any outcome.