I would always remember the taste of that first breath.
Mortals exist with limited senses. They smell and taste and hear only what is immediate, and they can't sense the essence of a place, the memories that grant a location a unique, distinguishing flavor. Humans walked into an abandoned prison and saw the bars, the decay—but when I walked into the same prison, I tasted the anger, the fear, the desperation. I relived the sorrow of a man locked too long in the dark, forgetting the touch of the rain or the feel of the sun. I saw the fights, the uprisings, the brutality, and the cruelty.
Where humans only saw a rock, I saw what began an nation.
My first inhalation brought the immediate taste of chalk and dirt to my tongue, but beyond that waited the memories of a thousand different mages who'd once walked this hall, a thousand different men all claiming brotherhood beneath a single banner raised in the spirit of revolution. The scent of their blood magic was a permanent stain upon this place's history.
Then I could taste the terror, the pain, and I knew the manor was not the same as I had left it.
Hunger assaulted my middle as agony tore into my leg. My features struggled between human and Absolian, teeth like tiny javelins against the inside of my lips, my eyes opening to nothing but darkness. I was under the roof, or a section of it at least, and my body was trapped below a steel beam, a near literal ton of debris, and part of a wall. Breathing in disintegrated insulation and concrete dust, I forced my energy toward my busted arm and waited.
It healed. The convalescence was sluggish and unfamiliar, but I'd done it. I'd healed my arm. I was myself again.
Then the hunger came, an inevitable sledgehammer to my middle that'd gone too long without attention. The Seat of Pride didn't have energy, and my soul was newly reformed, stripped of the mortal mana that had infused it and was now left as vulnerable as new skin in direct sunlight. My soul felt swollen in a way I couldn't identify, warmer than it should have been, but I paid it little attention. I was famished.
My left leg was crushed under the end of the beam, and I used my arms to lift—cursing and swearing incessantly as my limbs became reacquainted with my original strength. Mortal muscles and ligaments burned as otherworldly energy reknit my nerves and reoriented my senses. Breath held, I kicked with my good leg, and threw the roof off myself.
Emerging into the foyer once more, I sucked dusty air into my lungs and coughed, my limbs struck with an unpleasant, needling sensation as crushed bone and torn flesh fused. My fingers curled into the roof's edge as I lifted myself upright, fingertips leaving depressions in the shingles, and I finally saw what had gone so wrong.
I should have known Aurelius wouldn't be kept at bay for long.
My Absolian brother—spotless in spite of the unsettled haze of grime lingering in the room—was threatening the witches, looming above the cornered women with his wings spread wide for dramatic effect. Stavros was on the ground with a hand over her face, as if Aurelius had struck her, and Saule was crouched over Sara and Voronin.
Sara wasn't moving.
Mages littered the anterior of the room, either unconscious or dead, I didn't know. There was one boy standing on weakening legs with a rippling distortion between himself and Aurelius. Cage was on the ground as well with blood on his face, but the old mage caught my eye and grinned.
Aurelius turned to see me stand. His brow lowered and pulled at the perfect alignment of his otherworldly features. "You. You have the most peculiar habit of appearing wherever I go in this realm. You are a strange phantom."
I kept my eyes off of the witches and off of Cage, who was quickly scribbling runes upon the floor in his own blood. "You're either going home or into the ground, brother."
Aurelius' lips came together in a hard line and thin filigrees of light traced the inside of his veins. I breathed in all the essence excited by the raging magic ensconcing the syndicate's lair, and the temperature plummeted, webs of frost capturing dust motes mid-motion.
It wasn't enough.
The Absolian swayed, a dancer falling easily into a practiced routine. "You will not interfere."
I avoided two of his slashing arcs of released power, but the third struck my chest and sent me crashing into the rubble. I rolled to my feet with efficient grace and avoided the fourth blow, though it crackled only inches from my face.
He still hadn't moved away from the witches. My interaction with Absolians had been limited as a Sin, but my brother fought as I remembered most of them did, with a lazy adaptability, preferring to push and contour the energies of this world to their whims rather than utilize their own. It meant Aurelius would be able to tear me to pieces without ever stepping from the witches and my shadeborn.
Green fire rolled from the room's edge and Aurelius flicked his fingers without looking at the coming attack. The fire retreated to its originator and set the young mage aflame. He burned for but a moment before the flames reduced him to a puff of ash.
"What is your aim here?" I demanded of the winged creature. "This cannot be the whim of your wretched King. Does he not preach continually of your need to protect the ignorant masses of this realm? To never lay bare the blood of a mortal? You've been killing them in droves with Sethan's children!"
"Sethan?" The Absolian's brow rose. "Is he the one responsible for this new gift of mine? Hmm. I am surprised he yet lives...too."
"He doesn't." My lip curled and my shoulders cracked as I rolled them. Shadow spilled from the foyer's corners and from the torn ceiling. It appeared as though the clouds above were bleeding black ink. "I killed him."
Aurelius was unsure of how to process that information, if it should upset him or if he shouldn't care. I watched the conflicting emotions flit through his stoic expression, then disappear. "A pity. I would have enjoyed hunting him down as well."
The fifth attack came and I adjusted the vibration of the energy before myself, creating a very thin wall of unmoving air between Aurelius and me. His power snarled when it hit the slack molecules, silencing most of the energy, though a tail of crackling sparks curled about the wall and lashed at my skin. The air in my lungs burned and I stumbled, catching my breath as the burst flesh inside my body recovered.
Hunger set stars alight in my vision, blurring Aurelius' outline, and the persistent tug of my Seat's anchor made itself known. I didn't have a host. My need to return to the Realm wasn't immediate, but it was there, pulling at what little strength I retained.
I didn't have the energy to parry his blows for much longer.
I sprinted forward, scattering chunks of drywall and stone in my wake. Aurelius was startled into flight, his great wings coming down in a single beat, throwing the Absolian to the higher balcony before my fist could connect with his jaw. I vaulted after him, air whistling past my ears, but the height of the balcony gave Aurelius a tactical advantage. He swung, and I was sent sprawling into the floor again.
Rolling, I dodged Aurelius' punishing kick as he leapt off the balcony and landed in the foyer again. I pried at my own soul, attempting to squeeze out enough energy to pour fire into my palms—but I simply didn't have the mana. Aurelius took advantage of my distraction and curled talons into the front of my shirt, dragging me nearer.
"What do you know of the High King, truly? What do you know of a King who long abandoned you? He does not speak your name. Does not hear your Voice." Aurelius brought me before his face and I wrapped my hands around his wrists, resisting. His strength was immense. "What would you understand of Iadlim? He with pendulous ire, he of the golden fens, creator and breaker of perfection? What would you understand of those dying vales and gaping skies, a world upon the brink of nightfall, a kingdom soon to taste the truth of that primordial fear, never seeing another dawn?"
I increased my struggles, snarling, and Aurelius flung me from himself with one hand. At impossible speed, I flew across the foyer and broke upon a crooked pillar, the sound of the impact ringing through the empty halls. Half the bones in my body shattered and I sat, limp, as pain sang in my veins and my injuries worked to heal.
I was too weak. Far, far too weak. Even in peak condition, a solo Sin was no true match against an Absolian. I'd been doomed from the start.
Aurelius approached, frowning. He curved his taloned hand as if gripping a whip, but whatever energy the Absolian had been trying to coalesce sputtered and died before it could form. I sensed, then, a paltry blanket of mist sinking through the foyer from the sky, and the mist fixed itself to Aurelius' limbs. It acted to counter his attempts to coax pure energy from the atmosphere.
No matter. He could rip me to bits with his bare hands just as well.
"A great change will soon overcome Absolia, brother, though you will not live to see it. Iadlim's power will wane. He seeks new aspirations, but I will outmaneuver that indolent creature, take what he wills before it becomes his. The black dales below will become my kingdom, and this will be the inception of my ascent! I will become The King Below!"
I understood little of what he meant. As it was, I was barely conscious, and the inanity of my own brother's conceit went beyond pride or arrogance. Fools often made the mistake of thinking the King Below was a lesser creature because he was no longer Absolian, because he was a Fallen. They were misled.
One did not challenge the Baal and his dark empire without expecting to be buried in its soil.
"What was your plan? Lure him to this realm?" I laughed, choking, and spat blood on his shoes. "Did you think he would come himself if his victory wasn't assured? When he has legions at his beck and call, crawling in the darkness that haunts your nightmares? He sits upon his throne and laughs at your attempts, oh brother of mine."
The Absolian roared and I dodged his flying blow, his fist cracking the pillar behind me as I finally—finally—managed to land a punch of my own. Aurelius gasped, something snapped, and I was again flung across the room.
"You are a relic forgotten!" the Absolian raged, his image shaking and shivering as he worked to overload and destroy the magical film that'd settled upon his skin. A bruise was forming on his face. "I am to be a King! I will not become a prisoner to the night!"
So hungry. So weak. I fought to rise again as power glowed in the Absolian's hands and I smelled the sweet aroma of gilded valleys lost to my stolen past. I'm going to lose. I'm going to die, again. Humans loved to say a third time was the charm: perhaps this death would stick.
I sought her out. I sought out the woman who, in such a short amount of time, had upended my entire life. She still lay behind Saule, and the Baba Yaga witch was desperately trying to defend all the downed women, her hands cut and lifted in spell. Tears lined her face because she was terrified. Because she didn't know what else to do.
Neither did I. We hadn't planned for this. We hadn't planned for this annihilation.
Cage was still scrawling his script, motions furious, face pale.
Strands of molten gold enshrined the Absolian's hands and arms, the sounds of the night stolen by his rising power. I met my brother's eyes for a final time. Aurelius looked away.
"Darius, watch out—!"
The power came when Aurelius moved, amber light stealing the world away, and I waited for the end to come one last time.
Too late. Too late. I am always too late.