SPY
The world was on fire as I soared, flames of scarlet and orange and gold devouring the skies as the sun slowly disappeared.
Higher higher higher...
There had been no sound past the rattling of my winds-such mighty, powerful wings-as I shot so high the air became thin. So high no demon, king or peasant, could see nor sense me through magic. So high it felt like I could touch the edges of these skies, could reach the Thrones beyond them.
Utter silence and stillness. Nothing but winds and clouds.
The sun almost sat, and I counted the seconds, here far above a rough piece of land a good third an hour of soaring away from the capital. Above where Blake and Lysithea and all the crowds were.
Darkness seeped from around me in a halo and in a shroud, swaying and shifting with every movement, obeying to every whisper of a thought. Nightweaver-I grinned.
And fell through the skies.
The winds were shard of glasses ripping at my skin, their howling a hymn in my ears. In my blood. My wings spread and I became an eagle darting towards its prey, my magic catching every word spoken far below me, my eyes all-seeing with a terrifying clarity.
Faster. Harder. The winds screamed louder, and I shifted, my wings angled , my body already prepared to land.
The lands started taking shape, the crowds, the king and queen nothing but specs that grew the lower I fell.
"She disqualifies by sunset.''
I dove faster, magnificent artwork of shadows and muscles spreading wide and angled behind my back until my wings seemed to devour the skies. My limbs shifted, and each gasp, each cheer that echoed as I neared land was music to my ears.
Faster.
The twin thrones seemed smaller than what they'd been inside the hall, and outstretched, the bone-wings no longer folded.
Faster faster faster.
Roars rumbled, fingers and claws pointed at me, whistles were lost amongst the words, amongst the cheers, the loud wave of voices as I landed.
The thrones were firm beneath my feet, a heavy weight that didn't falter as I stood, foot on each apex, overlooking the crowd, the yards, the very queen and king.
A moment of silence stretched, then. A moment were all eyes were pinned on the Cohar standing atop the thrones. Atop the ruling Armedeses. Blake and Lysithea were unmoving through it all, heads and crowns high and unflinching. Yet Lysithea's aura was a trashing fire perhaps as mighty as the one resting beneath Leon's skin.
Night-kissed winds swayed around me, a lick of my very own magic spreading through the darkening skies, around the thousands of watchers spread all across twelve, massive spirals of stairs and seats-each a semi-circular, layered structure that became wider the higher it went. The thrones were standing lone and proud, facing the fighting area straight.
I gave two heartbeats-two heartbeats to let the crowds swallow me whole with their eyes-before I descended. A lazy, carefree descent, almost like allowing my body to drop, landing with a feline grace in a crouch.
The fighting arena was nothing short of impressive, the very magic holding it in place at least was. A piece of earth pulled from the very ground, massive rocks poking from the bottom-side, hovering in nothing but air and magic. And a deadly fall down, profiting of the cliff-like nature of the lands, the arena lifted so high it met the thrones resting on this cliff. The seats and stairs were built on nothing but air-one of the elementals Apocalys stole and built through ages.
"Disqualify me, when my two days are not over yet?"
I turned then, to stare at the Armedeses who ruled this continent. At the king, who eyed me with a ferocity that could wreck worlds. Who eyed the healed flesh, the sealed bones, the unbroken warrior who had come piercing through the skies.
I allowed them all to see it, the power radiating from me. The one forging my bones. Allowed them to see it, to worship it, to be fooled with it. It was the very sword hovering above their necks.
I saw the whispers of claws peaking beneath his fingernails, the tightening of his grip on the bloodstone he carried. It wasn't bigger than an apple. And at last, King Blake Armedes lifted his free hand, his eyes meeting mine, unwavering, unflinching.
The crowd went mute at the gesture, demons and beasts and monsters silenced so terribly I could hear the crackling of the fires that birthed in the pits spread every few steps. It was enough of a signal.
The silence had remained, even after Clair appeared in the arena, stepping out of a darkness as black and supple as her suit. Tailored to perfection, the seams hiding the weapons utterly invisible. A suit forged for more than just a battle. For a war.
My wings unfurled, ready to carry me to the arena, when the king voiced, "No wings allowed during the fight, Cohar.''
I did not bother turning fully to face him, only staring over a shoulder, "Bold of you, Prince, to think I would stain them against some guard of yours."
He didn't reply, not even after I had leaped to where Clair await, not after my wings vanished and Yenes announced from the front of the closest swirl of stairs, his voice echoing loud and clear, "Last battle of the tournament.''
Vague bone-drums echoed faintly with a constant beat, and some cheers went up and down, bets being placed, heavy pouches with jiggling coins at stake.
''The winner will be announced First Female.'' Yenes stood from his seat, his armor like a setting sun as the fire trashing in the braziers both next and on the level above him spilled their light over him. It was so bright, so powerful it could not have been normal fire, and yet it did not hum, did nothing to alarm my own powers.
Clair's dark eyes met mine, and they gleamed with a wickedness so terrifying it was almost as what I'd seen in Blake. She, too, was a warrior assessing her prey, but there was only one winner.
Yenes's voice reverberated again around us, slowly fading as the drums grew louder. "For the title she still holds,'' the Dark Lord extended a hand, "may the First Female chose her weapons first.''
Clair grinned, and disappeared. I remained there, alone in a place covered with so much blood. So many had died these two days, the strongest rendered to nothing by the hands of my court. By the heirs of Death who sat on the level right above where Yenes and his son were, their grins, their gleaming, sharp eyes conveying enough.
They had their first lick of revenge, they had brought some of the finest, deadliest guards down. And I knew none would stop here, not them, not Liam who sat alongside, not the spies we had dispersed here and there.
The last true force Cantelot-and the whole of Ardoria-could rely on.
And so I waited for minutes that seemed to stretch like lifetimes, well aware of the king's eyes, of the weight of his stares, the building, silent flare of his magic.
His time would come, too. Painful and vicious once his kingdom fell at my hands, once my powers destroyed his lands.
The First Female appeared in the same way she'd done the first time, some weapons strapped at her waist, over her back. And some were hidden beneath the fabric of her cloth, needing but a flick to sprint out.
"Chose your weapons, Cohar.''
The crowds waited, and so did the General, anticipating the darkness to come and sweep me over to the arsenal.
But it did not.
Instead, claws surged from my fingers, long and sharp and deadly pieces of steel that could tear flesh and muscles and bones with the whisper of a touch. The crowds roared as mightily as they had done during the trial, and the numbers now were so much greater. All who had heard of the returning Windreapers had come to see it true, to witness their mightiness in a battle against the most redoubtable of fighters.
I took a step closer, magic exploding behind me, stretching all around us, sweeping over the arena, the cliff, the seats, hissing, obeying. I made more and more pour out, letting it remain dispersed as I eyed the entire place.
I met Yenes's eyes. "For the titles I hold,'' I declared, voice carried to every single witness as I rounded the arena, eying the faces, the keen attention."For I am Elayda of the Windreapers, the Cohar, the Daughter of Death, the Mother of Darkness, the Queen of Chaos,''-I met Blake's black eyes-''the Unbroken.'' His face disclosed no reaction and yet I could almost feel the magic prickling beneath his skin, could almost see him leaning in his seat. "I choose how the fighting arena looks like.''
The magic erupted then, swallowing the world with another sort of darkness. The fires went out, the stars entirely gone. For a moment, it was like the darkness before creation. Like a realm shattered to nonexistence.
And then the earths reformed, burnt soil still warm beneath my feet, the crater in its middle made of sharp, jagged rocks.
Blake did lean forward in his seat, then, aura stretching, thoughts running. It was Dearcious staring at that crater, at the spot from where the real Elayda had first crawled from and into the world, the first she-demon, born mature in the forest where Dearcious had burned. Where he'd stripped from his ardorian flesh.
Fire shot up in columns around us, dispersing and illuminating in a way that could only be seen as random. But it was not. Every column stretching from the ground and up to the skies, it recreated a scenery. It recreated a fighting yard between the trees in an academy standing still millennia.
Clair did not see it, nor did Blake, or any of their spies who had been within our walls, who shared rooms with my people, who ate from our food. There wasn't much to stir that memory back, but it was a continuing of a fight left unfinished where wooden swords became steel. Where sweat turned to blood, where the end was not a professor's word but nothing other than death.
And Sédil, from so far across, could see that. The woman who had been my rock and my sister when I first stepped in a world that I did not know. She saw it, perhaps could almost see the sun blaring, the magic lashing, the fury on Clair's face.
The magic at last settled. And the First Female lunged.
Every move, every swing of her twin swords lived up to her title. Swift, precise, but they did not meet their end. I dodged, and then I twirled, bending and shifting too fast for that steel to reach me. And yet she did not back down, did not fall low on strength.
This was not the Clair I knew from the Norm. This was a dancer who twirled with steel instead or ribbons of silk. This was a creation that breathed fights and death.
This fight might truly be interesting.
The first sword came aiming for my head, the second for my guts. I evaded. The sharp tips swayed with us, dancing, darting to my face, my back, to where she believed my guards remained low. So fast-we moved so fast I wondered if the crows could actually see how we shifted, how we bent and twirled.
Wondered if they could see how boredom crept in my blood.
The First Female angled her sword, coming straight to my heart. I caught it with my hands, grip tightening so hard it snapped to shards and splinters. The other followed, then the daggers, the whips, the throwing knives dispersed. One by one until she had no weapon left, until it became powers and muscles ruling this fight.
I attacked then. Aimed toward her with a speed she had no time to perceive, a punch to her guts, to her eye. She dodged, magic seeping out with every move. It did not more than scratch me, any cut, any possible wound sealing before blood could even drip down.
She was an elite guardian, a true First Female. And I was queen.
Thunder tore through the night sky, strikes raining down, some falling past, some meeting their aim, leaving already healing skins and muscles.
Clair did not run out of breath yet.
I sneered. "Is this all you have, red-haired?"
Fire surged from the soil, wrapping around my ankles, spreading up my legs, burning my skin. I laughed, reaching for it with one hand as I jumped behind her, the foot she lifted to my guts meeting nothing but air.
I grabbed that fire, pulled it up until it snaked around my forearm. She turned, claws out, fury etched on every feature, burning with every move.
I grabbed her by the neck. It wasn't truly the pain that first second that made her muscles lock up, but the fact that her own magic burned her that made her momentarily loose stability.
That moment cost her. Terribly.
I felt the impact of her body falling on the ground in my bones. I tasted the pain spreading within her as the fire kept burning, her body arching and shrieking despite her will. My punches found their aims, her head snapping from one side to the other, her body unable to move, locked within my legs, each at one side of her abdomen.
Again and again and again until my knuckles were covered with the blood she spat. Until I smelled the burning skin and muscles.
My claws surged back now, sharp steel holding her face in place. And all the plans running in her mind were to no avail. Any movement would have them going deep within her, fairly well ending her here.
I held her face, bloodied and battered, feeling mildly disappointed. Bitter even. Magic roared in my ears, hissing, wailing, begging to be let out. To destroy her again and again. It had been long in this arena, and yet not enough to strain me. Not enough to quench the fire burning in my throat. She didn't deserve to die like this, claws through her head. Such a merciful death.
And so I let her go, her crane hitting the rocks of the crater as I rose, staring as her fingers curled in the dirt, as her body tried to push itself up.
I snarled in distain, pushing a strand of silver hair away. "You are not worth ruining my claws.''
Not even the bone-drums were being played anymore, thousands upon thousands of watcher gone quiet, waiting to see what would happen. What all of this meant.
Clair remained on the ground, growling as her muscles strained to lift her up.
Such a merciful death for all the fear she planted in the Norm. Such a merciful death for all the blood she'd spilled in her life, for all the horrors she planned with her king and queen.
I had turned, had taken a step toward the thrones when I felt her move-felt before I turned to see it. One hand had taken hold of my shoulder, claws piercing it. I knew the other one was coming, knew it aimed at my head, and yet I did not move, nor flinch as it went through my neck.
Deep-her claws had pierced deep. And it hurt. But it was nothing like what Blake had done to me. Nothing I could not heal from. Would have I been another demon, I would most likely have lost all feeling and control in my right arm, would have fallen unconscious at the wounds going from within my neck and up. But as we stood, as her claws remained within my flesh, it stung more than hurt, the pain muffled out with a breath.
Her breaths were warm against my ear. And unsteady. "I am not done with you.''
I remained unmoving, head still high, eyes still on the Armedeses on their thrones as she removed the hand that had pierced my neck only for it to come back, aiming to slit my head off.
A wave of magic shattered those claws, pieces of steel ringing as they fell atop each others.
Shocked gasps, whispers, whistles, they flooded the lands, they echoed everywhere, and yet they were vague to my senses. I could only focus on the trembling breaths hitting my back, at the terror I tasted as Clair stared at her ruined claws, could only hear how she tried swallowing it down as the magic broke her fingers, one bone at the time.
"Do you think you can win, Clair?" I stepped forward, a wave of magic pulling the hand still grabbing me away. Another step. And another. I turned then, staring at the pale face beneath all the smeared black blood.
More bones snapped. One by one. Hands, forearms, legs-everything, bit by bit. Shattering her one piece at a time as I stood, hands locked behind my back, my skin already sealed.
She was trembling, swallowing her screams, pushing herself to remain standing.
A First Female...such a shame.
Her body thudded on the ground again, and I could not stop the claws that ripped her flesh to ribbons. Could not stop the growls that tore themselves out of my throat. Guts, chest, limbs, ribs, all of them ruined. Each slash of my claws for a drop of blood spilled in Arelesia. Each punch, each hit, each ferocious wave of magic for the mothers who had wept over a slaughtered son, a captured daughter, a beheaded healer, a fighting husband, siblings burned to death.
I could not hold it back.
The screams on the Fire Festival night, the scared children, she planned for it, too.
I wanted her to feel pain, I wanted her to feel more than that. Perhaps it truly made me a monster, perhaps it gave reasons to all those who feared my name. But I could not stop it.
When it was not physical anymore, when I had pulled back and allowed my magic free, that need did not diminish.
Broken, bloodied, battered, and nothing but my own powers sustaining her life. The darkness carried her, lower limbs hanging numb, head held steady by the powers around her so she could see me, could see my face until she faded away. Not Elayda, no. But the emerald eyes, the fair skin, the black hair, the face she'd seen under the blaring sun in a spring day.
I seeped in her mind, destroying her, wrecking her, owning her. She tried screaming, but her vocal cords had been long since severed. Her face left in shreds, her eyes unseeing if my magic had not kept her sights clear.
Her mind shattered, pieces of her crumbling away. And I wove her in different ways, painted her memories with whatever I desired, with what Téors and I spent long weighing, studying.
A silent scream tore her throat again and again, her head, her hands, her legs trembling. The crowds did not cheer loudly as they did when I had been chained and ruined, did not dare it as they beheld what happened to their First Female, the strongest amongst the strongest, the guard who had maintained her position for years in a row.
I took the steps between us, my powers lifting me until we stood at the same level, until I felt what remained of her breaths blow against my face, until her blood dropped over my clothes.
I had thought I wanted the intimacy of a blade between us when I first landed, thought I wanted her slaughtered with my bare hands, the warmth of her blood warming my bones. But now, I realized a blade could not offer me that intimacy I desired, the one I found in delving deep within her. Into who she was, who she could have been. Holding her all, past and present and future, every second of her life, every memory grinded to dust.
I made her see the trees instead of the columns of fire, made her see the lost girl who had become queen, who had infiltrated her home. Smoke and darkness swirled around her face, going through her mouth, ripping their way out of her skin. I only needed one thought: one thought to make her drown in the pain my father fought for seventeen years, to ruin her the way the people of Taloan were killed. One thought before I ended her whole.
More darkness entered her, her head limp, her body wrecked and in ribbons. More and more and-
"Do not kill her.''
The darkness stopped. The entire spell charming the place seeped back into me, the fire-columns vanishing, the cliff reappearing, the crater gone. But the powers did not let her go as I turned to answer the king.
He was still twirling the bloodstone in one hand, the other laying on the armrest of his throne. "She was First Female,'' his voice was thick and cold, brewed with centuries of darkness, "this death is too pitiful for the title she bore.''
I grinned, every bit of it feral, a smile twin to the one the real Elayda owned. I took a whisper of magic to propel me away from the guard, leaving me in the heart of the arena.
"It indeed is pitiful for Aragon's spy.''
The bloodstone crumbled to dust. The very throne cracked beneath the king's hand as he stood, a swift shadow of darkness mantling him as a second aura. His features had not changed, his eyes still hard, his jaws tensed, his head high. And yet what seeped from him, the way he carried himself unhurriedly as the world trembled with each step, the way he stared at the guard hovering in air behind me-I could only imagine it as how Apocalys eyed our world before unleashing his hell.
I felt the auras quiver, thousands upon thousands of demons reclining in their seats, their shocked gasps barely out of her throats. My eyes remained on the king as my mind still spun within hers, still created, still destroyed with utter silence and stillness.
Blake-Dearcious-was not Aether-blessed, and for all the powers he could ever possess, his mind could never win over mine. For all the strengths he needed to dive into Clair's memories, I was already in and out, scentless, alarm-less.
I remained where I was, still following him with my stares as he reached his former guard, as he held her face in his hand. The sound of shattering bones could be heard for miles from here. Blake Armedes did not let go of Clair's head as he pulled her memories out as smoke from her mouth. Smoke that accumulated, that took shape and color until it was a window and a screen of her memories.
The Ether castle's walls were bright here in night, the memory glowing, making many demons cover their eyes as they stared as the memory unfolding, as Clair laid the plans of Nevora's onslaught before my father.
We had won that battle with blood, with fallen White Troopers and innocents that fought for their families, not because of a spy. They had hit us so terribly hard after the ball, and yet I wanted them to think we were stronger than this. That their attack didn't weaken us.
Yells echoed amongst the crowds, curses and swears and cries of killing her merging together. Blake did not seem to hear them at all as those memories shifted, scenes of Clair walking with me down the long hallways, dressed and marked with the Ardorian crest , scenes of her training me in combat. Every memory aligned with perfection to her free days, to the times she spent away from Amlisha, leaving no place for doubts.
More bones snapped.
The outline of wings and talons hovered above Blake, needing half a thought to materialize-it had needed more than that under the volcano. More time and strength. But now, it almost looked like it rested beneath his skin, like it surged on a whim. It frightened me, that strength he acquired in such a short time.
I weaved more and more memories, left their strings to be pulled out by Dearcious's powers as I swept the crowds with another wave of magic, looking for any demon strong enough to be a potential threat on the final battlefield.
I searched through strength, through minds and sharpness, through the mightiness of their powers. Three bodies came to us, dragged against the hard earth, muscles and bones incapable of shifting or moving. Guards, too, one of them the men with the slit tongue who had pointed his sword at me.
The king killed them before the crowds could lean in forward from their seats. The bounders were gone, shattered, wiped away, leaving not a piece of them in this realm.
The powers that had severed their lives curled around Clair, seeming to look for the best way to end her, for the cruelest one.
"She is mine."
Dearcious gave no indication he heard me, his mind still delving through her.
I growled, the earth fissuring with every word, with every step, "She is mine.''
The memories still playing for all the crowds to see lost their brightness, the golden hallways turning to dark and cold dungeons. He halted then, attention turning to the Witch in White, to his guard next to her, to the demon shackled in the cell they stood next to. I sensed it in my very blood, how his powers reached a raging peak, threatening to destroy the universe we knew as he saw Elayda-his supposed mate-in that dungeon. As he saw his guard not only knowing of her existence, but torturing her as she accompanied the true leader of Eziara.
I was next to him in a dance of shadows, my powers pushing his away with no gentleness, with no intentions to remain invisible. He let go of her, the edges of his wings and talons and claws sinking back within him, only leaving those otherworldly eyes. He stared long as the same memory kept unfolding, not only a Cohar bloodied and battered on the ground, but an entire pack of ruined Windreapers.
I grabbed him by the collar of his shirt, a wave of magic elevating me until there had been little distance between our faces, until I knew he felt my breaths on his skin-I felt his on mine. His mate in many lifetimes before, the one he still believed rightfully his despite Aedis, tortured by a woman who had gone deep into every plan he built, every assault, who had gone with him to the Norm, who had shared his bed, who had done all to earn his approval.
"Mine."
He grabbed me by the elbows, unbothered by the grip tearing at his collar, by the wave of darkness twirling around us with a fury. He stared at the memory and then at me-
"Disperse.'' His word did not need to be repeated twice before the crowds shifted, before guards and powerfully-ranked demons shot through the skies. He turned to his mother, "All of you.''
All-his queen, his guards, my tribe. All of them. They were gone before long, not daring-unable-to face him. Not only King Blake Armedes, but Dearcious reincarnated, a demon who was forged by the powers and the blood of the Convert God.
And we remained there, facing my competitor, the first name checked of a long, long list, three bodies long since dead laying on the ground. Blake loosened his grip, stared at where the crater had been then returned to his throne.
And watched it all, the unleashing of my powers on his former sentinel until dawn almost broke.
Until Clair was dead.