– K Á R A –
I felt the pulse of power in the mountains again. Old and so familiar. I had been aware of it ever since we drifted under the shadows of the black rock. As soon as my boots had touched the stone I knew another set of eyes watched. The question was when they would act.
I carefully pulled my arms away from Tayah's bare warmth. I watched her sleeping face a moment longer. The beautiful lines and shape of her completely at peace under the cloth and furs. I pulled my heavy cloak back over her skin as I removed myself. Her steady breathing continued in the low light of early morning.
I silently pulled on my clothing and picked up Thanatos from the corner onto my back. Ducking out of the coarse tent flap I was met with a sea of white mist and frost. The cold far too extreme to be natural.
I ripped my gleaming armour off the rocky ground and threw it over my shoulders before securing my spear to my back. I closed my eyes and let my senses run out of myself. The power felt ancient around us now. Yet so very similar... Not quite a God but something just as rare. Similar to my own.
My boots crunched in the frozen earth as I walked through the heavy mists of our camp. The campfire remains didn't even smoke.
There was the deathly silence of deep winter, yet it was not winter. No animal could be heard for miles. No drifting of the breeze that should always be present in the mountain ranges. I walked on sensing it wrap around me and thicken. Like a crisp set of claws digging in deeper. The power pulled me forward to a clearing in the trees. Calm and desolate.
A figure in gleaming white and silver stood across the frozen plain of rock.
The mists rolled off the immortal like a second skin. I tasted the power in the air and tilted my head as I flexed my armoured fingers.
"What would a Valkyrie of origin be doing so far from Odin's side?" I murmured across the frozen plain–perhaps it was a meadow in summer.
The bright gleaming armour shifted and paced forward fluidly like a god. The energy was heavy between us. Like a constant colliding force of give and take. Every inch of my being was awakened and feeling the spike of challenge rise between us. Two ancients on different ends of power. But I had not seen another original for hundreds of years...
I shifted my stance ready to draw on the powers of the relic and my spear.
The heavily armoured demi-god paused a few metres back and tilted the helmet that gleamed and dripped a bottomless power–I realised in shock that I knew its markings. Felt the energy signature.
"I could ask Odin's offspring the same." The smooth female voice drifted back emotionless.
"You could remove that helmet so I know which original I speak with." I retorted, keeping my hands relaxed at my sides but ready for a blink of change.
A dark chuckle rang under the gleaming silver helmet.
"You mean you do not remember me, Stormbringer? Truly the realms have changed but you have not." The immortal drew a gleaming armoured hand up and the mists wrapped themselves over her like a sheet of fine silk before melting back into the earth. "So focused on your tasks."
I ignored the humour inching into her tone. "Since there were five of us once... I know only two others in existence." I stated flatly, feeling storm clouds pull in from the sky above us in response to my growing reaction to the threat.
The immortal tilted the helm up to the skies before shaking her head and ripping it away entirely. Of course it was her. Stark white hair tumbled past her shoulders in waves and her sharply cut features looked upon me with a new level of indifference. The features of one with too much time in her life and a curiosity of realms that had died long ago.
"The White Paladin." I stated emotionless. "–with the helm of Athena no less." I drawled, glancing at the shimmering helmet tucked under her arm.
"I see you have a relic of your own." She told me, strolling leisurely closer. "I have to wonder if you became any better at using it. You were hardly the reason Ares fell." She added in the same bored tone.
There was no point in humouring her jabs. She was formidable in our war against the gods there was no denying–but her arrogance led to other flaws that became easily exploited. We lost two Valkyries of origin for that very reason...
Long ago, we would jest over our powers. Who could exceed who in a battle of sheer will alone in Valhalla. Who would hunt down the finest relic and hone their skills past any other. Then the gods fell and the war took its toll. There were no more jokes to be made between the remaining three of us. Odin divided us on different paths for good reason.
I met those burning eyes with the same bottomless energy I held and spoke in a measured voice.
"What are you doing here?"
A dark smile tugged at the corner of her full lips. She paced slowly before me with her hands tucked behind her back and the wicked swords still strapped to her back. The ground froze beneath her boots wherever she paced. An extravagant and unnecessary use of Poseidon's power.
"I will do you the honour of speaking plainly as you once did. You took something that belonged to me. Now I wish to return that gesture."
Thunder rumbled heavily above us and the white haired original smirked wider, glancing at the darkening skies.
"I do not remember stealing from you. I have not witnessed you since–" I began.
"Ah, no immortal. No object. You killed an immortal worth much more to me." She frowned a moment considering her words. "–well as much as another immortal can be worth something I suppose. They are nice distractions."
I paused and took a slow breath. "You will have to be specific. I have taken more than one immortal to the Underworld this week–"
She barked a sudden laugh and a mixture of amusement and anger crossed her. The air froze around us quickly. Her eyes glowed more white than silver and she drew the helmet back on her head. The relic hummed with power waiting to be used, while my relic sat deathly still and dark on my back.
"You dare mock my claim to the immortal, Stormbringer?" She murmured in a dark growl. "Sullying Valkyries with such disregard... I gave no indication that I was finished with her."
I bit down the rising rage in me at her disgusting possession of immortals. A twisted notion of ownership like all those with a little too much power had.
"Her name was Astrid." I murmured in a lethal quiet. A snort sounded from the demi-god and I didn't hold back a snarl at her. The thunder echoed my rage above us. A fleeting thought of her showing my immortal such hideous treatment drove my energy singing hotter in my veins. She would never understand what I did. A truth that we were never better than the rest of them... We were always worse.
"She had fallen to corruption by Hades relic. She lost her life so Odin's will could be carried forth." I spoke as clearly as I could, avoiding letting on how my reasoning for ending her was not simply Odin's will–it was saving Tayah Ashrive's life. But the cost of it still haunted my dreams.
"You mean the relic on your back?" She retorted in a mocking drawl. "Play the innocent to another, Stormbringer. You and I have lived long enough to know none are." She growled.
The weather was battling around us now and I heard distant voices start to rise from our camp not too many metres back in the trees. Wind and ice fought across my furred shoulders and drew her white cape back. She snapped her helm in their direction.
"Perhaps I can take something of value from you here..." She mused. "I've heard so much about the little Apprentice."
Lightening cracked in thick vines around my arms and hands. The ice around her sharpened into shards and circled like diamonds in the wind. I'd heard enough of her idle threats and ideas. I had no interest in letting an original anywhere near Tayah for her own amusement.
I drew the spear from my back in one movement. She backed slowly from me and drew more frozen water to her in gusts of heavy snow and ice. The white furs and half cape fluttering out behind her bright armour. The build of power around us was a dangerous thing. The only good thing that came of ancient power battling here was that there were not hundreds of mortals or buildings that could fall because of it.
"You know how this ends. Another immortal does not need to die today."
"You speak true!" She called without concern. "Yet its been so very long since I have really had a chance to fight true power." She growled, twisting behind and ripping the swords off her back before they became spiked with ice. "You can entertain me for a few slithers can you not, Stormbringer!"
It was then that I saw Tayah emerge from the trees across the clearing. Armoured and beautiful but in the wrong place. Her mortals joined her sides with their own weapons and confusion. They were wise to leave the boy back at camp.
"Stay back!" I called, pacing closer to The White Paladin.
"No let them play!" The original sang back, twisting her swords before her and stepping in Tayah's direction.
A thick bolt of lightening crashed before her making her stop. Her gleaming helmet turned to me slowly–as if offended I would dare to wield it at all.
"Why bother with combat when you could gain something instead without expending power!" I called, distracting her from the others that watched on in the growing snow.
"You have my curiosity. What is it I can gain?" She called in an ironic tone.
Without taking my eyes off her I pulled the relic off my back slowly. It hummed in dark insatiable power. Power that was thirsty and consuming. Her body froze and looked intently at the dark shield I held before me. Entranced in its dark ethereal power as we all were.
"You would give up an item of such power for the promise of no combat?" She probed in more amusement. "Your fear of me has pleased me, Stormbringer!"
I measured my anger that rose to the notion. The part of me that wanted to show the immortal exactly how far I had come over the centuries. The reason I had the most powerful and consuming relic in my possession at all. She did not yet realise what the Underworld relics took if the power was not controlled... If the relic rejected the user. Especially one that already wore a relic of her own–
"Come. Let us end this." I said simply.
She strode forward with the confidence and arrogance of one that had truly learnt nothing over the centuries. One that made the fatal flaw of constantly underestimating everything her eyes landed upon.
Tayah made to move nearer as she approached me but I held up a hand. She would need to trust me on this. She stopped and remained at the tree line with her crimson cloak aflame. A small smile cut my lips and I returned my gaze to the original as she arrived before me and stared at the dark relic with hunger.
"Do you truly think I will honour your terms once I have such an artefact?" She murmured with a dark look. "I may want to test the extent of its power on the spares over there." She muttered, jutting her helmet towards the others.
I made sure to keep my face emotionless and shrugged. "Do what you will, but we do not engage after you have the relic."
"That sounds reasonable, Stormbringer. In honesty I had no interest in destroying one of the few originals left on the realms." She stated as she drew her armoured hand forward slowly and paused her fingers before the dark power in awe. The helmet of Athena hummed in response and I took a measured breath.
Then she clenched the rim of the obsidian and I released it as quickly.
Letting the full extent of the undead realm crawl into her hand. She gasped deeply as the black power overtook her eyes easily and battled for dominance inside her own power. Then like a spark to dry wood it sought the bottomless reaches of the power from Athena. I rushed back a number of paces as the snow whipped around her more aggressively and the blackness of power spread up her arm.
"Kára!" Tayah shouted running to meet me in the snow that was quickly at our ankles.
I pushed her back as she came near and ran with her leading to the edge of the trees.
"What in hells is going on!" John roared over the winds.
"Exactly that mortal! Hells!" I called back, pulling a hand over my eyes as light and darkness exploded out from her in waves of a power too endless for a demi-god to contain. "No immortal should ever wield more than one!"
"You gave her another relic?!" Tayah yelled, grabbing my forearm. "Why would you–" Her face froze before she stared back at the growing unstable power. "–it will destroy her!"
"She did not seem to think so." I drawled, glancing back to the battle of power. "Now she will know for certain! I wasn't about to waste time fighting an original!"
Before anyone could respond a scream of a thousand voices cut the air and beams of white and black light cut the sky open above us. The final warning before power became too much–
"Get down!" I snapped, ripping Tayah off her feet and throwing myself over her. I called in all of my power in a bubble of crackling energy around us as the snow storm of lights exploded out behind us in a shockwave. The trees were ripped bare around us and the snow was blown clear once more. The men shouted something beneath us as the power ripped past and finally dropped out like a light.
I called my power back and slowly pulled myself off Tayah.
She looked at me in shock before looking around us. Everything in the immediate vicinity was almost destroyed. Everything but the rock.
"Yanu!" Kaden suddenly realised.
"Fear not mortal. The power is intense but it would burn out quickly past the trees. The camp shouldn't be affected but for the winds–"
"I need to check–John man come help find the boy." He insisted, getting to his feet quickly and pulling John with him.
Tayah shook her head checking the surroundings again before staring past to the space where The White Paladin had been. "The relics." She murmured, pushing to her feet.
I joined her and walked swiftly back to the centre of the chaos.
"She destroyed herself trying to control it?" Tayah asked in disbelief as she stared at the scorched earth and rock around the middle.
"Immortals can search their whole existences without coming across a relic. To see another was too enticing." I replied quietly. She cut me another disbelieving look before reaching the centre and crouching down before the pile of black ash and snow.
"Stop." I said before she could reach her hand in. She paused immediately and I dropped down beside her. I blew the debris away with winds and unearthed the dark shield of Thanatos. It winked up to me in untold power with not a scratch upon it. As it had been since the beginning.
I picked it off the ground and felt the rush of uncontrolled power race up my hand. I closed my eyes and bent it to my will. Letting the blackness roll through me and pushing it back into the dark circle. With it contained once more I opened my eyes and found Tayah staring.
"That's not normal is it. It never has been like the rest." She blurted.
I dropped her a small nod before strapping it securely over my back. "It's power is to consume and devour. It will turn your own strength against you as easily as it can manipulate the mind of another. But if controlled and dominated, it is the most formidable weapon an immortal could wield. That is why I was so surprised you survived contact with it before you were a Valkyrie, Tayah. And why I want to teach you to use it." I finished, meeting her wide eyes.
"I am not you." She whispered, still in shock.
I smiled and dropped my eyes back to the ground. She followed and saw the gleaming helmet that remained. The Helm of Athena.
"Nor do I want you to be." I answered, "–but in the mean time you can pick that up and bring it back to camp. It's about time you had your own relic." I murmured with a smirk, getting back to my feet and beginning to walk back across the plain. "I won't need to hold back so much!" I called over my shoulder.
"Kára!"
I kept smiling while I walked back to the camp. Tayah made an exasperated sound behind me before I heard her pick up the gleaming relic and rush to catch up.