The world seemed to all but unravel around him.
All his plans, all his machinations, his months and months of careful plotting and maneuvering to bring him to this moment… all of it undone in a single, mind numbing instant.
It was as if the painfully taut cord this clandestine meeting had been precariously balancing upon as they bickered and threatened had finally just
snapped beneath the weight of their unchecked ire. In the stomach churning freefall that followed, it was every man for himself, for there was a bloodlust in the air both natural and arcane that had seized hold of all but the most stout of mind. The lines had been broken, the tenuous peace shattered, and now Elias could see naught but the madness that ensued. Ally turned on ally, solider against solider, kinsman against kinsman, and all was without structure or semblance of order.
It was, in a word, chaos…
As Elias rushed headlong into the fray, the grim determination etched into his scarred face belied the joyous revelation soothing his nerves, for he knew this was where he thrived.
This was where he belonged.
There was a thunderous eruption of flame and wind as two reimancer’s clashed at the center of the bedlam. Elias struck out, his fist striking open air just as his cloaked opponent did the same. Though they were far apart and their blows could never reach the other, where flesh ended, djed raced to make up the distance. The inferno flared, racing forth from the paladin’s hands as the black clad commander surged forward into the heat unflinching. A great gust of wind was unleashed as the fires grew too close for comfort, catching the flames and pushing them aside before they had a chance to sear skin from bone.
Elias hadn’t failed to notice the Paladin sizing him up when this had all started, squaring off against petty officer as the res ignited within his grasp. Perhaps he had some past grievance with the Caldera, or had just not liked the way the pale mage spoke as was often the case, but more than likely it seemed as if Radcliff’s magic had put him on this course regardless of his concession. Whatever the reason he had chosen to challenge Elias, it was irrelevant at this point. The swordsman just needed to get to Shiress, and in that moment he knew that this nameless foe standing before him now was the greatest obstacle in his path. An obstacle that had to be removed.
He charged without a word, his pace never once faltering since his feet had left the ground, and in response the fire answered his brazen advance. A burning gout of res-born flame belched forward, and once more the Caldera turned it aside with his gust. Like a ravosalaman’s oar through the water his wind sliced through the attack, sending it cascading off in another direction as he pushed forward undaunted. Elias was not foolish enough to take the flames head on, nor did his pace allow him the time to conjure up a source of water to be used against the heat, so instead the reimancer relied on his wits, guiding the flame’s fury elsewhere and using his wind reimancy as a funnel, not a wall. Frustration set in for his enemy, and the Paladin struck again, and again the fires rose, and again they were thwarted.
The pair quickly earned themselves a wide berth from all those around them as their magical bout only intensified. Both men lashed at each other as if embroiled in a dire fist fight, their blows heralded not by the crunch and crush of steel and bone, but by the elements enslaved to their whim. Elias imagined it must have looked like a bizarre and deadly dance to anyone watching, the way each reimancer reacted in tandem to his opponents movements, with fire and wind thrashing all about as each step drew Elias nearer and nearer until at last, either because of the single-mindedness of the hypnotism that enthralled him, or sheer overconfidence, the pale sorcerer found himself within arm’s reach of his enemy.
The Paladin reared back, shaken as the scarred soldier burst through his last attempt to scour him from this earth and hurtled towards him. The man tried to move, to escape and regain some distance, but a hand shot out too fast to avoid, violently latching unto to his face with a deathly grip. A flash of light followed, the paladin tensed and spasmed, every muscle in his body going rigid at the same time as a hollow scream died within Elias’s grasp. He went limp and crumbled into a smoldering heap a tick later, rendered unconscious by the surge of lightning still crackling between his opponent’s fingertips.
Whoever he was, he would live to fight and serve his god another day, but the same could not be said for all of them.
All around him the stryfer surveyed the fight unfolding with growing dread. With each tick that passed more blood was being senselessly spilled, more lives being wantonly lost, and all at the behest of one man…
“
Radcliff.”
The name came as a curse upon his lips, and already Elias was moving through the turmoil, searching for the bastard’s insufferably groomed face amidst the chaotic throngs. He had underestimated the Lark’s abilities. He thought him some mild dabbler of magic, a mere amateur at the art, but this… this was on another level even Elias struggled to come to grips with. Of course, it wouldn't have taken much to light the spark to this powder keg in the first place, but the noble had outplayed them all in the end. Now if Elias looked to cull this cancer the slaver had unleashed, he would have to root it out from the sourc-
Something whizzed by his ear suddenly, thudding into the dirt inches from his feet. The soldier glared down at it and grimaced. A bolt. He had almost forgotten about the crossbowmen. With an irritated and disinterested wave of his hand, the stryfer summoned his res to the forefront, which in turn summoned the wind to his beck and call once more. Without the fire wielding Paladin there to preoccupy him any longer, Elias’s abilities went unchecked, and it took little effort to direct a powerful gale at the high emplacements where the snipers had perched themselves. Four more cries were lost amidst the din of battle and bloodshed as the mage stalked the field, his eyes sharp and seeking for his next victim.
Amidst the tumult and the clamor, Elias pushed and shoved his way through, dispatching both mind slaved peons and all too cognizant soldiers alike with relative ease. In the end however, it was a familiar flash of brindled red fur that finally drew his attention to the target he sought. Rook! He followed the wolf as it bounded and leaped across the battlefield until at last the Kelvic's wrath descended upon one he recognized.
That was when he saw her -his dear healer- the woman who’d saved his miserable life and filled it with more than just duty and the pretense of piety, but actual passion and a peace he had never known before. The same woman who now plunged Elias’s dagger deep into the gut of her master, a sinister smile upon her sweetened lips as Radcliff gasped and stuttered.
As the blade twisted and Rook’s bite sunk ever deeper, the stryfer propelled himself forward with a powerful burst of the flux, reaching their side at last, and just in time to intercept Barin as he and his troops came marching forward to rescue their kin. Elias could tell immediately that Radcliff’s magic had faded with the ‘unexpected reunion’ between he, his slave and her bondmate, but that didn’t mean its effects were anywhere close to subsiding. A fight as fierce as this didn’t just end because the reason it started became muddled and unclear, especially when the ones at conflict had every reason to keep that conflict alive, regardless of a hypnotic suggestion or not.
He had to act fast, and he had to do so decisively.
The mage raised his arms to the dark skies above, and once more at his summoning, the winds began to stir. Res flowed from his body in waves, inciting the air around him, Shiress, and Rook until at last the trio stood at the eye of a furious hurricane. The winds howled and raged against everything and everyone, only growing strong and stronger with each passing moment. Barin halted in his step, raising a hand against the buffeting squall now threatening to topple him from his feet. He was not the only one. The fighting had all but stopped as Lark and Caldera alike turned to bear witness to this gathering maelstrom at the center of their war.
The cyclone spiraled higher and higher, towering over their heads as fear and doubt began to replace bloodlust and fury. Now there was naught more important than the storm and the threat it posed. Now, it was time to end this.
Elias closed his fists, and with a roar lost to the wind, slammed them into the earth.
The tempest collapsed in on itself, exploding outwards in a terrible force that washed over the entire forest like a tidal wave. Every man whose footing was not secured was thrown from their feet as the winds coursed through the chaos, pushing and jostling soldiers and thugs alike with unnatural tenacity. A very definable line was being drawn down the middle of the battle, separating both sides with the windstorm becoming an impassable buffer.
When at last the mistral subsided and a calm returned to the garden, the fighting was done… or so Elias prayed. Even now as the men began to pick themselves up and gather their senses, he could see more than a few reaching for their weapons once more, readying themselves to further the bloodshed that had merely been postponed.
“
ENOUGH!” Came a loud and harrowing command that rumbled over the entire garden, but it was not Elias’s voice that carried it. “
Stand down! I said. Stand. Down!” Morgan bellowed, and his men, despite the weariness and hysteria, began to heed his demand. Such was the conviction of his words that even the Caldera’s entourage obeyed, until at last both sides no longer waged a mindless war, but had now reformed their uneasy battle lines and looked about each more perplexed and apprehensive than ever.
The dead numbered on both sides, as well as a plenitude of injured whose wails and groans were for a while the only sounds that marred the vile silence that had followed the ceasefire.
Elias looked to Morgan, studying the boisterous man, hoping to gleam some sense of what his next action would be, but the Paladin’s forlorn gaze lie only on his fallen cousin. “
What are you doing, Morgan?!” Barin hissed, hand still tight around his mighty battle axe, but the other Stryfer raised a commanding hand that silenced him in an instant. “
It is done.” Morgan mumbled somberly as he knelt down and gathered up Radcliff’s unmoving body in his arms. Blood had begun to pool around the Lark's head where he had fallen at Shiress's feet. It seeped from his lips like crimson serpents and had drenched his fine silken ware until it ran as red as the wine in his cup. As the bloodied heir was lifted from the ground, Elias noticed the slaver blink, then watched in alarm as his bloodshot eyes slowly fixated themselves upon the Zeltivan slave girl.
He was alive! The mage could scarcely believe it. He’d seen how a wound to the belly like that could leave a man suffering for days before the end, screaming and thrashing as if possessed, but the bite Rook had inflicted upon him had seemed to do more than just leave a scar. Radcliff was unmoving, his body as limp as the deads', yet his mind as apparently alert and aware as ever. It was not a faith the Caldera would have wished on anyone...
else.
Morgan turned to leave, Radcliff held almost lovingly in his arms like a child, but Rad's dark glare never once address his cousin, they lingered only on the the slave who had done this to him. Elias thought he saw the man’s mouth tremble and quiver, as if he was trying to say something, but the words never left his bloodied lips, and only a tear came unbidden from the struggle. Even if he didn't die this night, or any of the nights that followed, Radcliff Lark was done.
Elias turned to Guldo then, snapping his fingers hastily and gesturing to the chest that had all been forgotten in the melee. Before Morgan had a chance to depart, two goons ran after him -nearly sparking another fight in their careless lack of discretion- before dropping the gold at the Paladin’s feet. The man may have had other concerns at that moment, but in the end it was his lord Vernon's will that this money be the salve that healed this bloody rift between them. Elias wasn’t going to forget that, for more than anything he wanted this to be done and over with.
Morgan turned, considering the chest of gold with an unreadable expression that made the pale sorcerer all the more distrustful. After what felt like an eternity of waiting, the giant warrior lifted his pained, somber gaze unto Shiress and Elias who now stood behind her. “
For every man there comes a reckoning.” Morgan croaked morosely. “
A great tallying of all our deeds in this life, no matter how minuscule, no matter how inconsequential. This summation of our souls doesn’t care how kind or innocent or absolved we believe we are, only that in the end it's price be paid in full… my cousin believed himself beyond reproach, beyond judgement,” the Paladin muttered, looking down at the broken man held aloft in his arms, “
but he never understood; it comes for us all in the end... as it will one day come for you.” He sneered scathingly at Shiress and Elias.
The commander stepped forward, a sneer of his own upon his scarred lips. “
Our business -this feud- it is done!” He warned. “
Radcliff made his choice, but that does not change your master's. Take the money. Let this strife die with him.”
Morgan’s reply was to shift his attention to the bloodied dagger in Shiress’s grip. The same dagger Elias had used to challenge him earlier with, the same dagger the slave had plunged into Radcliff’s flesh. “
We all have a price to pay.” The paladin muttered seemingly to himself before he eventually turned and walked away with Radcliff still held listless in his custody. His soldiers parted around him like a black wave, and even Barin fell in line, growling and grumbling all the way until at last, the Larks and their Ebonstryfe lackeys were but a memory.
Like that, it was over.
They’d won…
Elias placed a tentative hand on Shiress’s shoulder. “
I have something I need to show you. Einar-” The stryfer called out, glancing over his shoulder at the grim slayer and nodded.
“
Burn it.”
-------------------------------------------------------------------
He was sure she had questions, thoughts, no doubt a whole myriad of exclamations and incites that demanded to be made given what she’d just been through, yet for whatever reason, Elias denied them all the satisfaction of a captivated audience. Instead, he continued to lead the young healer by the hand through the forest, his pace swift, his motivations hidden. This brief sojourn he had insisted upon left them little time to celebrate their victory, let alone converse. He knew the stifled feeling of course, for he too shared in her thwarted jubilation. There was little more the Caldera wanted right then that to embrace his woman, to take her in his arms and hold her there until the stars faded and the world became all but a memory outside of their surreal entwinement. It would come, in time. They had spent so long apart, what was one more moment in silence going to hurt?
The answer had been more challenging than he imagined.
It wasn’t until they finally broke free of the foliage and laid their eyes on the nearby piers did the soldier speak again. “
Do you remember what I told you, the last time we met?” He asked her calmly. His voice was so low and placid it was as if the battle they had just gone through was a million miles away instead just past those trees behind them. “
Do you remember the words I spoke, the promises I made you?” He held firm to her, guiding her step as they descended the wooden ramparts and made their way to one of the small rowboats his men had used to infiltrate this place.
“
I know there is much you’d like to do and say right now, but there are moments in our lives that come only once.” Hopping into one of the boats, Elias turned to Shiress and grinned. “
Something like this deserves a better view.”
Soon the small craft was carrying them out into the open water, Elias’s reimancy ferrying them along without need of oars or sails. For a moment it reminded the pale swordsman of their first meeting back at the Markets; Fleeing from the assassins who had come to claim their life by just such means, yet he remembers that while he had been focused solely on escape, all the while Shiress had been toiling away over an injured Zeb, a hoodlum wretch who was all but a stranger to her. Even so, Zeltivan had struggled tirelessly to save his life all the same. Since then, the healer had redefined the word ‘selflessness’, but more importantly, had proved to the cold and callous soldier that his heart could still yet beat for another.
Thing would swiftly change course into the unfamiliar as the sorcerer summoned more of his djed to the fold and his arcane antics took on new heights… literally. “Hang on to me.” He whispered as he wrapped his arm around her waist and pulled her to his chest. The raft had begun to shake and rock, the water beneath roiling as if spurred to a life of its own. There a came a sudden and tumultuous ‘gulping’ sound from the lake around them, and in an instant the boat they stood upon began to rise. Lifted from lake Ravok’s surface by an ever surging pillar made of water, the boat and its two occupants were soon ascending towards the night sky at a rather alarming speed. Of course, knowing full well any speed would have been alarming considering their vertical destination, Elias couldn’t have blamed Shiress if she desired to hold unto him a little tighter.
The stryfer smiled.
In fact, he was counting on it.
Before too long their ascent came to a smooth and tranquil stop. They were high above the gardens now, and the city behind them shone with a thousand alchemical lights all blurring into one radiant bonfire of illumination against the night. The pillar of water that had raised them up to this vantage followed in their wake, rushing up to meet them before promptly converging beneath the hull of their raft. There it remained, gently churning and swaying the vessel like the sea, becoming its own little veritable lake in sky, just for the two of them. The waters around them still pulled skywards, though the power behind that pull was used only to hold them aloft. Its effect however, left much of the fringes of the pool weakly grasping towards the stars, the result was a flood of watery tendrils and large droplets lazily dancing against the moon’s shimmering light.
Elias was sure this was the kind of dreamlike tableau that by itself could bring poets to tears and send artists scrambling for their canvases, but it was not the focus of their journey. In truth, the stryfer doubted that even amidst so much, Shiress had not for a moment let her true sights become distracted. For there was another light that beckoned to them, one that symbolized something far too important to ignore. A fire burned in the distance, a growing inferno of cinders and swirling ash heralded by a column of gray and blackish smoke spiraling into the air.
Below, upon the greenery that made up the Botanical’s expansive deck, small dark figures could be seen still milling about as Einar and the rest of Elias’s apprentices finished setting alight the foliage with the arcane talents he had bestowed upon them. One last kick in the teeth for the Lark’s on his behalf. A poignant reminder that this war was done, and should they ever try to reignite its embers, there was nothing he could not take from them if he so willed it.
As the flames grew higher, the soldier’s hold upon shires shifted, moving himself behind her so that his arms rested around her hips and his breath brushed across her ear. He wanted her vision of this -the picture she would keep in her mind from this day forth- to be unobstructed and clear as crystal.
“
Did I not swear to you that it would be by your hands that you’d be free.” His fingers intertwined with the healers, raising them up before her. Still smeared with dirt and the drying blood of her fallen tormenter, the flaking crimson upon her skin shone deftly against the backdrop of the gardens burning in the distance. “
Did I not swear that it would be by yours hands our enemies would crumble. By your hands our destiny would be seized!”
Slowly, lovingly, he spun her around, taking her chin between his fingers as he gazed into depthless emerald eyes. The same eyes he had fallen in love with so many seasons ago. “
The same hands I promised to take in mine as we watched the past burn into ash.” His words were a fervent hum, froth with passion and ferocity, yet at the same time tempered by the contentment of victory and the chill of adoration.
“
Now hear me as I make you this one last promise; You, my love, are free.” His hold upon her tightened. “
From this day until the last, You. Are. Free! Never again will you be made a slave to another. Never again will you accept the tyranny of chains or the sway of false masters. Your path is now your own and this world is laid bare before you.” Elias leaned in, pale lips lingering precariously close to Shiress’s as he breathed his desperate oath. “
And know that I will be at your side as we shape it to our will… together.”
They were as silhouettes against the roar of the inferno, their forms melding into flickering shadows that in turn melded into one another. Inseparable and content, Elias would hold unto Shiress for as long as she held unto to him, and he knew, that they would never be apart again.
Finally…
After so long a time, nothing more stood between them, and nothing more ever would.
