A pounding headache drifted Lucy awake, but as she tried to open one eye against the pain the spinning room around her forced them back down.
Wait, what room is this? Lucy panicked as both eyes shot open. Through the pain, she focused on the light blue shimmer beneath her. The ground was cold to her touch but not like ice, though it almost had the exact appearance of it. Instead, the stone comprising everything Lucy could see was cold like a mirror and polished to reflect a harsh light back at her that was near unbearable for someone more than likely suffering a concussion. Despite the ache it brought, Lucy forced herself to look up where she saw the same stone surrounding her in every direction and hundreds of feet up like she was in the center of a frozen volcano.
"Nice of you to finally wake up for us."
Lucy looked forward with still blurry vision as she tried to make out where the voice came from.
"Do try your best to stay awake," Brickwood said, squatting down next to Lucy while her vision finally focused. And in a low voice that only she could hear and slicker than the stone she laid on, whispered, "It'll be so much more entertaining if you do."
Lucy made to stand, but a weight more than just herself kept her down. She looked to see thick metal chains clasped around her wrists attached to a latch in the floor.
Lucy stared hate into her professor's eyes as she got to her knees but wasn't strong enough to lift her arms as she had to rest the heaviness of the cuffs on the ground.
"Does that look mean you have finally come to realize what's happening?" Brickwood asked, smiling at her attempt to appear threatening in such a sorry state. "The end we have all been preparing you for?"
We? Lucy thought, her stomach lurching with her rising gaze. Straight black lines started to form in the walls as her eyes focused. Then those blurry lines turned into human figures of men and women staring down from hundreds of hollowed-out alcoves carved into the cave walls, like the box seats of opera houses. Lucy concentrated and saw the closest person in one of these alcoves was the headmistress. She looked around more and saw Punditwood, Opperwood, Enzelwood. Her panic grew as the familiar faces did. Conclavemen and women, she had met in Attwood. Orenza, Rowland, Wilham.
Cecil.
Luke.
Pecilia.
Freya.
Jasper.
"What's happening?" Lucy thought in her mind but spoke aloud as she peered up at the faces of nearly everyone she knew.
"Of course, you still don't know." Brickwood scuffed, circling behind to take hold of her chains. "You never were smart enough to figure it out." He yanked them far above her head, forcing Lucy to her feet before letting them thud back to the ground, almost pulling Lucy's arms out of her sockets with them. As unsteady as she was, Lucy managed to stand, but her hands hung low, and her head bent down as she used all her strength to keep the weight of the shackles from pulling her back onto her knees. "But maybe with some help, you could."
When Lucy was finally able to lift her head up enough to see Brickwood move aside, she came face to face with,
"Algernon," Lucy gasped loud enough for it to echo off the stone walls to be repeated into the ears of every man and woman in attendance.
Algernon looked at Lucy but didn't make any movements. His black eyes reflected only what was in front of him, like the cold polished crystal of the cave. Lucy recoiled upon meeting those eyes and seeing nothing in them.
"Are you not going to greet her, cousin?" Brickwood asked, thoroughly enjoying the tragic reunion.
Algernon stared back. Not giving in to the taunt. Not giving into anything he was feeling.
Lucy felt her heart tearing with how little emotion Algernon showed but forced her attention back to Brickwood. "What happened to Jared?"
Brickwood laughed at the bark to her tone. "That's what you want to ask? Really?"
Lucy stayed quiet, staring him down. He chuckled again.
"Would you like to see him?" Brickwood asked, snapping back to the excessively friendly guise of a professor he usually modeled around her. He gestured a hand towards an alcove above and behind Lucy. She turned to see Jared gagged and beaten in the same chains holding him down with two guards positioned to either side.
"Jared!" Lucy made to run to him, instinctively releasing destruction magic to free herself. Her chains, in turn, discharge a bone-cracking bolt of electricity. Lucy cried out as she fell back to the ground, nearly breaking her knees as they crashed against the stone floor.
"Tsk. Tsk." Brickwood clicked his tongue as Lucy's shoulders twitched with the last bits of electricity leaving her body. "No need to make this any more painful than need be." He bent down and cupped her chin in his long slim fingers, forcing her pretty face to look up into his green eyes. In sudden rash rage, Lucy tried to use magic to free herself again, but again a bolt recoiled and dragged out a cry that tore Lucy's throat raw. "Unless of course, that is your preference."
Brickwood faced away from Lucy and up to his old friend. Even mouth gagged, he could hear the fury of betrayal screamed by Jared's eyes. He grinned and though he didn't say it out loud, Jared could hear clearly what was said behind that smile. I promise I'll keep her safe, Solace had sworn six months ago. Until she was back in your care. Brickwood's smile split across his face as he reveled in the look of Jared's betrayal that was proof of his success. Jared would surely hate him for it, but when he came to find out the full extent of how he himself helped damn his precious little sister to her fate, he would hate himself even more.
Lucy's eyes trained on Brickwood in absolute malice once enough of the electricity passed through and she could move again.
In retaliation, the professor shot magic into her chains. Lucy barely swallowed her cries this time as a single tear leaked from each eye.
Brickwood glanced at Algernon. Like a trained soldier he remained quiet, staring indifferently at Lucy, as everyone else stared intently at him for a reaction. And while his veil of coolness may have been fooling the audience Brickwood knew the agonizing battle taking place within him.
With pain breaking her voice, Lucy managed to say, "Let him go."
"Sure." Solace smiled, seizing the chance to make things more theatrical. "If you answer my question correctly. Why are you here?"
"I.." Lucy trailed off before gazing up to the nobles and her classmates. She knew she had never been fully accepted by them. That most had never wanted her at the school, but she'd thought she changed their minds, or at least some of them. She looked at Luke, Freya, Jasper, Pecilia, to the people she thought had finally accepted her. In them, she saw all her favorite memories, the most treasured time of her life, and the friends she had always longed for, and now they looked down at her the same as everyone else.
But why? What had she done wrong, or what could she have done right? What was it that still wasn't enough? What could explain the hate they held for her?
Every logical conclusion was contested by the drastically different emotions Lucy felt, as chaos overcame her mind.
Had it all really been fake? This entire time? Lucy looked at Algernon standing before her, emotionless and silent. And why? She wondered. Why would anyone be so cruel?
After a while, when it became evident Lucy had no answer, Brickwood spoke again.
"Would you like a hint?" He asked but made sure to hold eye contact with his cousin as he carefully articulated every word. "What does someone as low as yourself possibly have to offer us?"
Lucy stayed quiet, wishing to all the gods his insult didn't hurt as much as it did.
Brickwood waited for an answer, only because it was amusing to play with her knowing she had none.
"Do I need to reword it for you?" He asked, keeping eye contact with Algernon and challenging him to rise to her defense and show the audience how he truly felt, ensuring Lucy's fate once and for all. "What made putting up with someone as degrading and pitiful as yourself possibly worth tainting ourselves with by your presence?" Brickwood wanted so badly to break her spirit with Algernon forced to stand there and watch him do it. And after years of built-up resentment towards his younger cousin, it was the most rewarding of twisted gratification he had yet experienced.
Lucy continued desperately searching her mind for any answer that made sense, but it only brought back her migraine. She tried to close her eyes, but it didn't block enough of the light making her headache unbearable. She opened them again, and the only thing she could stand to look at, the only thing that stopped the throbbing pain by blocking all the glaring bright light and inner chaos was the abyssal darkness of Algernon's eyes. Lucy stared into them as she searched desperately for the answer in his eyes or in her own thoughts, but nothing came from either.
"I don't understand." She ultimately confessed, her gaze never leaving Algernon.
Brickwood's smile sharpened.
"At least tell her why you're going to kill her!" Pecilia spoke from her front-row seats that her father had been sure to secure. She shot daggers down at them, but most lethally upon Algernon. "Have enough decency to do at least that."
Algernon's already clenched jaw, fastened tighter.
"Kill her?" Freya repeated from across the room, her voice reverberating against the walls. "No, he would never!"
"Of course, he would!" Jasper spoke up next with his hands clasped into fists from the massive fury he felt witnessing his friend shackled to the ground like an animal. "Because it was all just an act. You never loved her!" Jasper looked at Algernon with levels of derision Lucy had never seen him capable of before. "So, what's the point in killing her!"
Mumbles arose from the spectators as they talked amongst themselves about what it could mean if Jasper spoke the truth, while Lucy was still failing to piece together as to how anything related to her.
"There's no time to debate, we have to act now!" Yelled Pecilia's father as his daughter averted her head in shame. "The other countries are preparing for war as we speak! Already do they have enough artifacts to match our own. Not to mention a vessel of the gods is working amongst them!" His eyes searched the room for support of which he found much of.
"We do not know that!" Punditwood shouted over the whispered debates as one of the few people brave enough to voice their opposition. "We do not know anything of this vessel at the ball, not his intentions nor where his loyalty lies!" Some murmurs of agreement sprouted about the room to Brickwood's chagrin.
"Exactly we do not know." The headmistress spoke next as the crowd quieted to listen. "But even if we did know we'd be powerless to his whim. If he so chose to massacre us all we couldn't even hope to delay him by a few minutes so our children may escape. The power that resides in that one man could mean destruction for our entire world. Unless someone else can acquire the power to stand against him." She halted her speech to look down at Algernon, where the rest of the room also turned too. Algernon stared back, knowing the conclusion they were all drawing closer too. They would make him kill her, to fulfill a prophecy that might not even be true. And though Algernon was so much, he was not yet a murderer, despite what everyone here wanted him to be, despite what they had been training him to be all his life. "Unless Algernon can rise as a vessel of the gods."
Lucy gaped at Algernon, thinking surely what she was hearing couldn't be true, that he would never...
"What you're speaking of is murder!" Punditwood proclaimed, staring down the headmistress.
"That will save us all from death, the headmistress replied with no anger returned. "It won't be the sacrifice of one when it comes to war, it will be of you, and your sons and daughters, countless numbers of them dead amongst seas of Emorian blood."
Wilham turned to his brothers and little sisters who held tightly onto his hands as they watched the scene.
Orenza looked at her older siblings, who no doubt would be cast into war as graduates of Attwood.
Cecil and Luke looked to each other, knowing the heinous and endless atrocities that would be asked of them as artifact users if war was to come.
"Unless we can convince the other countries against war," the headmistress said as rationally as in any of her crowd addresses. "If they see Algernon as a vessel none of them would ever dare challenge us." Silvia glanced down at the young and pitiful Lucy. But no matter how rueful the sight, she had made her decision long ago.
Some of the nobles bit back what they would have liked to say, as they were too afraid to speak against the majority, or too afraid of the headmistress's fearmongering. No one felt this struggle more than Enzelwood who wished more than anything he'd been able to dismay this ending like he had been trying to ever since Lucy first arrived in his class.
Lucy felt her lungs and stomach fill with boiling acid as she recalled Luke hinting at just that on the day of the fall tourney, and to that crazy woman at the ball who looked at her with such sympathy. She stared at everyone surrounding her. They had all known, everyone had known all along but her. Then she looked to Algernon, feeling as if she was going to throw up her destroyed heart when she realized his true intentions.
"We all came here knowing what needed to be done," Brickwood said, breaking the silence fallen upon the gathered. "We've known for a long time now."
Brickwood's eyes returned to Algernon, as did all the rest.
"A boy born to the black of night," Brickwood recited, as the words sent a blast of cold deep into Lucy's spine. A burrowed part of her brain started to tingle like she was recalling a far-off memory forgotten but one that never left her.
Jared's eyes burst wide open in panic as he screamed against his gag, knowing what irreversible damage hearing this would do to Lucy.
"The love he has for a girl of light," Brickwood repeated the prophecy as some of the men and women started to chant with him. And somehow Lucy knew the words too, even before they were spoken.
Jared raged against his restraints, trying to draw away Lucy's attention, but she was too far gone, having gone stone-cold into cationic shock as her brain began opening to the memories sown away inside.
"Together the fruit they bore ensures the rise of a new lord." More in the crowd vocalized with Brickwood; and Lucy could have chanted along with them, though she didn't know how or why those words were planted so firmly in her mind.
"But only in the death of light can there be true darkness." Almost the entire crowd was now chiming along with Brickwood as the words resonated in Lucy's head, spoken by the people here and again by the voices of people in her past, all overlapping in one resonating multi-layered voice in her mind.
"And allow the rising of his one true highness." The crowd finished all together like one practiced and repeated prayer they had been evoking for years.
And Lucy fell to her knees.
A rush of revelation overwhelmed her as painful memory after painful memory ripped itself from the deepest part of her brain. Like stitches being torn from flesh, the past forced itself back to the front of her mind and with it came unbearable excruciating pain. It stopped her breathing and made her eyes water as she felt like her entire being was collapsing in on itself, as the reality she had existed in for the last ten years was shattered by memories of the life she had before, the ones that had been sealed away by the mind sower.
Jared cried against his gag, seeing the exact moment the barrier in Lucy's mind snapped. All he could do was watch in horror as the memories he'd been trying to protect her from utterly destroyed her once again.
Lucy pressed her forehead into the cuffs as hard as she could as if she could stop the madness. But it was like trying to hold back a tidal wave with just her hands. Tears were streaming down her face as the image of her father stood before her, looking down at her like she was absolute vermin. Memories from when she was as young as six when she was stolen out of her bed by men that trapped her like an animal and stored her away in the back of a wagon, tying her hands behind her back with a rope splintering her childish thin skin, and blood gushing from her mouth from when they hit her as she tried to scream. Other men, with big powerful shining weapons, murdering her kidnappers. Being dyed red in the blood of the ones who had taken her and then taken back to her parents just to be thrown back into the dark prison of her room where she was left alone for days on end. Another memory of when she tried to reach out to her mother's back, only for her father to seize her hand and fling it aside with enough force to send her tumbling to the ground. His cold gray eyes stared down at her as he told her never to so much as look at her mother again, saying she was no longer going to be a mother to a child that was killing her when she was destined to die anyway.
And Lucy recalled the final time she saw her mom. She was eight and her mother was in bed staring at her with blank questioning eyes, before saying the last words she had ever spoken to her daughter. Who are you?
Lucy looked down at her reflection in the floor with a new kind of intensity, as she broke from the inside. The person she thought she was, and the one in these memories fought for dominance, and it forced an entirely new person, all at once, and all happening inside her mind. And through all this chaos all she could hear was her mother's voice. Who are you? The abandoned neglected eight-year-old little girl wanted to tell her mother that she was her daughter. Who are you? The person she had been right before her memories had come back wanted to ask the woman who she was and why she looked so familiar. Who are you?
Lucy gaped at her reflection. This is me? She asked herself as all she saw were the gray reflections of eyes that she couldn't tell were her own, her father's, or a complete stranger's. This has always been me?
Solace looked over his cousin. Algernon's jaw clenched as the only display of emotion on him but it was more than enough for Solace to see he was right all along. Algernon cared for her. He couldn't show it for it would only tie her to the prophecy more, but it would prevent him from killing her. But Brickwood didn't necessarily need to convince Algernon to kill her when he could give Lucy a reason to try and kill him instead.
"Do you finally understand your place now?" Brickwood asked loud and pronounced for their audience to hear. "There truly is nothing more pathetic than someone who doesn't know where they stand." Solace continued as painful memories flowed endlessly into Lucy along with his tirade.
"Trying desperately to be a part of those who are naturally above them, like a flea that sucks a lion's blood and suddenly thinks it's the head of the pride." Brickwood stepped behind Lucy and crouched down next to her, speaking into her ear so only she could hear but making sure the only person in her line of sight was Algernon. "Well, no matter how much of Algernon's noble fluids go inside of you, you would never be anything to us." Brickwood watched as the words sent Lucy's shoulder slumping towards the ground, and he smiled.
"He never loved you. How could he?"
"He was too embarrassed to even be seen with you in public. That's why we took such liberties to hide your shameful escapades." Memories of Lucy's time with Algernon came to her and became just as painful as the ones ripped from her past. "Luckily no one ever had to find out about something as shameful an act as it is to lower oneself to be with you." He said, needing to break her, but that had already happened with her memories hollowing her out, and now he only had to fill her back up with rage.
All the pieces came smashing together, everything Brickwood was telling her, Lucy knew was the truth. From the dance lessons in the classroom or the night in the greenhouse to staying with him at his family's house, it had all been done in secret. Hidden from the nobles so he didn't have to be seen so shamefully with her. It was all true in Lucy's splintering mind.
Algernon wanted to scream at his cousin to shut up, but he couldn't defend or protect Lucy, held back by the corner he painted himself into.
Solace could see how close Lucy was to the edge. All she needed was the last push. "You were never anything to them, not me, not him, nothing but an end to a means. Nothing."
Nothing, the word reverberated in the back of Lucy's mind like Brickwood's voice reflected off the stone walls. She looked up at Algernon silently standing before her. To the one person, she had thought she had truly meant something to, the same person who now stared at her like she was a complete stranger. I never mattered, no one ever cared.
"There was never a life for you amongst us." Brickwood continued. "But at least you may have something to offer with your death." He raised his hand, and a giant crystalized stalagmite broke from the ceiling at his command, cracking above Lucy's head and hurling toward her.
Lucy heard the muffled screams of Jared as it crashed down and she closed her eyes expecting to die quickly but instead heard the noises of it shattering above her.
When Lucy opened her eyes, the stalagmite was blown apart in a cloud of dust as it collided with a veil of destruction magic. It created a cloud of glitter above her that wafted over the entirety of the cave, settling fine dust on everyone in attendance.
Algernon had his hand outstretched and pointed above Lucy. "Enough Solace," he said with all demanding authority as a new kind of silence befell them.
"You forget your place." Algernon's voice commanded unwavering compliance, so much so that nearly everyone in the room held their breath, too afraid of the noise their breathing would make.
Algernon wore the expression of someone ready to kill, and Brickwood smiled back at it.
"By all means," he said, stepping aside for his cousin to take center stage. "Your fate is waiting for you."
Algernon looked at Lucy as he gathered his emotions back under control, before lifting his hands to the chains on Lucy's arms, making them unfasten.
"Algernon," Lucy called. His name echoed off the walls as she could just summon the last bits of courage to beg for the answer, she was so terrified to hear. "Is it true?"
Algernon stared at Lucy with black eyes. The same black eyes as when he had bandaged up her swollen feet. The black eyes that held hers when they danced together in perfect beautiful unity. The eyes that looked down at hers when they made love late into the night and comforted her through the pains and unknowns of falling in love for the first and only time in her life. Eyes that made her feel more meaningful in six months than she had felt in her entire life.
"Yes," Algernon said, with empty black eyes. "It's true."
The words ripped through Lucy's heart and made her vision bleed red. She raised her hands in blind rage as a bolt of chaotic primal energy shot from her stronger than anything she had ever summoned.
It came so fast and in the blink of an eye that if it was anyone else other than Algernon they would have died, but in the last tenth of a second Algernon deflected it and the ball of light ricocheted off to blow a crater into the cave wall.
Lucy was angry, so angry, not only with him but angry with her entire life, how she was lied to, led on, used, abused, all of it. Most of all she was angry with herself for being so stupid as to let someone in who was only playing her a fool. To fall for all the lies and sweet moments that meant nothing to him. Lucy's magic, surged by her anger, became more powerful than anything she was capable of before and seared out of her in a huge gaping blast of light.
Algernon met it with dark magic, having to seriously fight against it to prevent Lucy from killing him.
Brickwood gaped upon them overcoming with glee. Now all that needed to happen was for Algernon to kill the girl. And a plan 14 years in the making would finally come to fruition.
Algernon gritted his teeth as Lucy's magic was a tough thing to stand against. It was chaotic and in its rawest primeval form, making it as dangerous to face as it was for Lucy to control as her hands burned from the inside out and the smell of singeing flesh filled the air.
"Stop it!" Freya yelled with tears streaming. She created steps in the cave wall with her magic, running down to them. "Don't kill her!"
Someone shot a ball of energy at Freya to stop her intervening, nearly decapitating her.
"Freya!" Her father yelled, spotting Councilman Row's fingers still seeping dark energy. He fired back a surge of light energy at the man as Freya's family assembled to her defense.
In an instant family was fighting family as everyone took sides on whether to save Lucy or not. Although the vast majority agreed with the sacrifice only a few were willing to fight for it, most rather be passive and say their hands were clean, as dirty as they were.
Jasper used the distraction to scale down the sides of the crystal wall. He managed to reach the ground floor and started on his way towards Algernon, only to be blocked by Wilham who had jumped down in his path.
"Wilham," Jasper warned, stocking his hands full of magic.
"I'm sorry," Wilham sincerely apologized. "But it's the best chance we have." He shot at Jasper. It pained him to stand against his friend and watch Lucy die, but he had his family, and his own self-preservation to think about. So much more on the line to lose than just one friend.
The headmistress raised a hand pointed at Lucy, hoping to injure her so Algernon could finish her quickly and stop things before it got even more out of hand.
Her magic diminished a few feet in front of her as she was struck by Punditwood's attack before her's could land.
Punditwood then turned his attention to Jared, one of his old students, and shot at the men beside him as the other one shot back at him. He was almost hit by the other's attack when Enzelwood's magic knocked the guard unconscious. The two teachers looked at each other and fell into a silent agreement.
They made their way over to Jared, but Opperwood stood in their way. Enzelwood gestured for Punditwood to advance while he held her off.
Luke stood at the sidelines and felt the true fear of not knowing what to do. He clenched his hands, and gritted his teeth, feeling guiltier the longer he did nothing.
Cecil stood next to him as cool and collected as ever, but as he watched Luke start to come undone he stepped into his line of sight, making it so that he wasn't only seeing Lucy and Algernon but also him.
Luke read the subtle warning in Cecil's eyes. He tried to compose himself, but it was all he could do to hold back, which felt like the greatest battle he had never fought.
But Cecil, even as calm as he made himself out to be, was just as tense and unsure as Luke. He just had the experience with these horrors and could stomach letting it happen. Plus, he knew that no matter what Lucy was going to be killed. If not by Algernon, then by the Conclave, who would chase her down and force this exact situation again by torturing her until she begged Algernon to kill her. That kind of life, being hunted like a dog, living with that fear and anxiety, Cecil thought it merciful for her to just die now.
Freya pushed herself back up and descended again, but before she could get too far, Pecilia blocked her path.
"Move Pecilia!" Freya yelled with hands up.
"It's no use, Freya," Pecilia said, trying to reason with the girl. "They'll never stop until she's dead. And you have to stop, or they'll kill you too."
"No!" Freya pulled spears from the crystal stone to use as weapons. She hurled them at Pecilia but they were destroyed. Pecilia shot a blast of dark energy at Freya, flinging her back to the ground.
"Stay down," Pecilia said, holding Freya's hand down to either side of her neck.
"No!" Freya cried, trying to wrestle against Pecilia's strength.
"You don't need to see this!" Pecilia yelled with tears blurring her vision.
Lucy kept attacking Algernon, using up energy reserves she didn't know she had while Algernon wasn't worn out in the slightest. He met all of her attacks with one of his own, no matter how quick and powerful she could summon them. Lucy breathed heavily as he stared back calmly, angering her beyond sanity as she shot again. The dark energy of Algernon's magic swirled in the darkest black, any bystanders had ever seen, while Lucy's own sparked pure white and chaotically as it tried to pierce through the foray. The magic fought for dominance, like lighting and a tornado jostling each other.
Jasper shot at Wilham who dodged the attack and threw another back at him. Jasper had only enough time to pull some of the cave floor up to block the shot partially, but it broke through the thin sheet of stone and knocked him to the ground while knocking all the air out of his lungs.
Enzelwood fought as best as he could, but his days of fighting were long behind him. Opperwood dispatched shards of the crystals at him as he put up his defenses but didn't notice the one coming from behind. She looked at him coldly, as the spear implanted into his back, before pulling it out and leaving a gaping hole.
Lucy knew that chaos had erupted around her, but registered none of it. All her anger focused on Algernon. Her hands glowed and her veins burned with her gathering the most amount of light energy she had ever attempted before to control at once.
Algernon could see Lucy was creating a light synthesis, which meant it would be the fastest and most deadly attack she had sent yet. He readied the only thing that could counter it. A mass of thickly compressed dark magic the exact size of her own.
He was carefully watching Lucy, knowing if he didn't respond with his counterattack at the exact millisecond of her release her attack would hit first and kill him. And he was still trying to buy time to think of a way out of this, one where Lucy lived but didn't live hunted by these monsters. The only way he could do that was to convince them that he didn't care about her, that she wasn't the girl in the prophecy, and that she wasn't the only thing in the entire world that mattered to him.
The ball of energy hummed in Lucy's palm as it charged and swelled to a size far greater than anything Lucy thought she could ever have made. Algernon retaliated with an equally powerful blast of dark magic just as strong and deadly.
"Lucy!" Jared yelled.
And through all the other noise she had drowned out, Lucy's brother's voice made it to her.
Jared had just managed to get free with the help of Punditwood and immediately scaled the walls down to his sister.
Brickwood looked up and lifted a hand to his old friend's back, how annoying, he thought, but easily fixable.
Lucy's palms glowed white as they released her attack. Algernon's hand glowed black as he released his.
And the second he did, he would have given everything to take it back.
As Algernon had expected his attack to meet and crash with Lucy's own.
He had expected it to meet in the middle and create the energy void that came when great amounts of light energy crashed into dark energy.
But he didn't expect Lucy to redirect her attack at the last second, so it veered to save her brother from being killed by Solace's magic.
And he didn't expect his lethal blast of dark magic to head straight toward Lucy in all of its force and power without anything to stop it.
Lucy saw her magic just barley block the attack Brickwood aimed at her brother, saving his life, thank the gods, she thought, just as Algernon's magic reached her.
"No!" Jared yelled as the mass of Lucy's body rocketed through the air until she collided with the crystal cave wall in a bone-breaking thud.
Pecilia had Freya still pinned to the ground but looked behind her when she heard the shot to see Lucy crashing to the ground. All her strength evaporated and Freya got up without any more resistance.
Lucy laid unmoving with her white dress and hair spread out behind her. If Pecilia hadn't just seen her get thrown across the room like a rag doll she could almost fool herself into thinking she was asleep until she saw Lucy's blonde hair and white dress slowly dyed red in a pool of her own blood. She prepared for this day to come, but not as hard as she tried to stop it, and seeing Lucy's sacrifice in person could compare nothing to the horrors she'd imagined.
The tears in Pecilia's eyes blocked some of her vision but she was still able to see Algernon frozen in place, watching where Lucy had landed yards away and gaping as if he couldn't process what he was seeing.
"No!" Jared screamed as he reached his sister to feel no signs of life but the warmness of her blood spilling onto him.
Freya tried to rush to her friend, but Jasper grabbed her into his arms.
Stomach bile burned Luke's lungs as he choked it down.
Even Cecil, with all the horrors he had seen, wished he had looked away.
Algernon's field of vision shifted as everything around him slowed to a dreamscape speed, because surly this was all just a nightmare. One of those dreams where he had no control of his actions. But as he saw Lucy's brother try to hold her limp body and her head fall lifelessly back, he realized,
I killed her.
Upon processing what he had done, energy unlike anything Algernon had ever felt overtook him and started to geyser out in the most powerful display of magic any onlooker had ever laid witness too.
Brickwood smiled triumphantly as Algernon's dark energy, blacker than any moonless night, exploded through the ceiling of the cave with the force and width of a waterfall to send everyone watching staggering back in fear.
The stream of dark energy kept pouring farther into the sky, enough for the nearest cities to take notice as the stars and moon were suddenly blocked from view as if a black cloak was thrown across the nightsky.
Loy watched from the bow of Marve's ship from where they had just started to sail away from Emora. His chest sank as his artifact rapidly vibrates, and realized what must have just happened, something that hadn't happened for a thousand years.
Lucy felt her entire being go cold as her eyes drifted close. She recalled the conversation she had with Algernon months ago, that if she wanted to live in this world, it wasn't enough to have a cold heart, she couldn't have one at all. Her eyes started to close with Algernon's tall dark figure being the last visible thing in her field of blurry vision. He was right, she thought before everything went black.