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CHAPTER FIFTY THREE

T he explosion had hurled me away to land on the rocky ground with Vesper and her dark-haired companion, leaving us bruised and dazed as we gathered our senses on the smoking battlefield.

I could no longer feel Kaiser’s claws in me, the relief at being free from him enough to bring a smile to my lips.

I tried to sense whether the soul-tie was broken, wondering if there was a chance that explosion had killed him, but I couldn’t be sure.

As Vesper righted herself beside me, three Avanis warriors rushed at us as one, and I blasted them with serrated ice shards while Vesper sent them tumbling away on a powerful wind.

I shared a glance with her. How easily we had just worked together again.

There was something so effortless about her company, despite everything I knew about her and who she was.

If we’d been born on the same side of this war, perhaps we could have been friends.

Bastian stalked closer to the Sky Witch. “Those are my people,” he barked at her.

“And they were pointing swords at us,” she tossed back. “Face it, Bastian, you’re dressed as a Flamebringer and keeping the company of a Cascadian and me – they aren’t looking to be your friends right now.”

He grumbled a curse but said no more, breaking into a run with us as Vesper and I led a path to the west.

“This is the man you claimed was on his way to rescue you?” I asked Vesper.

“Yes.”

“He’s a Stonebreaker.”

“Yes.”

“That’s it? You’re not going to offer me any more explanation than that?” I demanded as Vesper threw a hand out and blasted a group of Pyros soldiers away from us on a violent gust of wind.

“A Skyforger, a Raincarver and a Stonebreaker cross a battlefield together,” Bastian mused, his voice a low growl and his eyes flashing with amusement which I had trouble feeling. “I believe we’re missing a punchline here.”

“You’re the punchline,” Vesper deadpanned and he chuckled darkly.

“Can we trust him?” I hissed to her, keeping my eye on the man who looked at least a little unhinged.

“Likely not,” she said which wasn’t reassuring at all and I made sure to keep her between me and him as we ran on.

We were closing in on the canal where Cascadian warriors were meeting with the dwindling lines of Flamebringers, my people working with the Skyforgers to cut through their ranks.

It made my skin prickle to witness, but then again, I was fighting alongside a Skyforger myself.

Still, this alliance was a clear tactic to overrun Cinder Vale and if what Kaiser had said was true, they were here, at least in part, for me.

I glanced at Vesper. She hadn’t spoken a word about me being the Void and I had the feeling she still didn’t know, which could only be a good thing so far as I was concerned. This tentative alliance between us surely didn’t need to be tested by that knowledge.

“That power the Fury forced you to use on me, what was it?” Vesper demanded and blood pounded in my ears.

“An Order gift,” I said quickly. She had come to save me. She’d kept her word in trying to kill Kaiser. But naming myself the Void felt as good as handing myself to Stormfell. She would surely claim me as their weapon if she knew the truth, alliance or not.

“I read about your Order, there was no mention of such a thing,” she said and I felt her eyes drilling into the side of my head.

The ground splintered around us as four Stonebreaker Centaurs charged at us, and I had to be thankful for the distraction even when their hands raised to cast magic and wield the earth.

Vesper stumbled on the shifting rock and I caught her arm, creating a bridge of ice for us to run onto while the man she named Bastian whirled to intercept two Flamebringers from behind.

Up on the bridge, Vesper and I cast powerful strikes at the Centaurs, two of my ice blades finding homes in their hearts while Vesper stole the air from the lungs of the others and left them collapsing to the ground.

We descended the bridge and Bastian raced after us once his kills were done, but we soon met with the backs of a line of Pyros warriors.

My heart thundered, the chaos of war setting my veins alight with adrenaline. There was no sense or order to this, no lines being held or clear divides between one side of this fight and another. Everywhere I looked enemies surrounded us and it was hard to keep track of where we were heading.

Ahead, a row of Pyros soldiers were being forced toward us by a row of Monolrion Bear shifters from Cascada, their sharp teeth ripping into the Flamebringers, tearing off limbs and shattering bone with swipes of their massive paws. The true carnage of battle was painted before me in blood and bone.

Vesper looked to the sky island hanging above us, determination making her jaw flex and I followed her gaze to that hulking mass of land, my throat tight with hatred.

I was reminded all too sharply of the Sky Witch’s true home.

Up there, she and I could never be allies.

And as I looked to Cascada’s forces beyond the field of bloodshed and to the warships and their flags of Typhon, I sensed our truths pulling us apart.

I wasn’t sure what my heart wanted. Aside from glory and revenge, freedom was the deepest thing I wished for. In a place where I belonged, where I was wanted.

Two of the Monolrion bears broke through the Flamebringers and lunged for Bastian.

He engaged them with ferocity, countering the swipes of their mighty paws with his sword, clearly needing no aid from us at all as he savagely floored the first then fell into a magical fight with the next and as Bastian tore the ground apart, I wheeled toward Vesper.

“Explain this madness,” I demanded, pointing to the brute of a man as he fought with the element of our combined enemy. Surely Vesper didn’t make a habit of befriending people from the lands she was sworn to destroy?

“He’s my prisoner,” she said with a shrug.

“He doesn’t look very imprisoned,” I tossed back.

“Look, are you really going to question my allegiances right now when I’m standing here with you? Regard him as my property and little more. He has no reason to harm you in this moment and is magically sworn not to harm me for the time being either. That’s good enough.”

I glanced at Bastian again and sighed. Whatever the Sky Witch’s intentions were with this man, it was probably the least of my problems right now.

“So what now then?” I asked and she met my gaze, knowing what I was really asking. Were we going to stay together? What really was our plan now that we had come this far?

Vesper glanced at Bastian while he fought then stepped closer to me, a shield of air magic encasing us to keep us safe from attack, at least for the moment.

“If we go after the truth, try to hunt down the keystones and figure out what’s happening to the ley lines together in hopes of stopping that monster from making it to our continent then we’re effectively betraying our homelands. ”

I nodded, taking her hand and our fingers locked together. She felt it too, this bond we had. This strange kindred spirit we shared that should never have been. “Those ley lines, the monster, the Reapers, all of it could end up destroying the world if we do nothing.”

“There are so many things that could destroy the world, kitty cat. And I’ve never been the hero type before.

Do you actually think two enemies could save the world together?

” She asked the question like it was a taunt but there was a want in her grey eyes which made me pause.

Was she truly hoping I might agree to follow this insane path with her?

Did she really think I might be the one to tell her that choosing to follow the mystery which had brought us together to its conclusion would be the right thing to do?

I looked to the Cascadian ships again, the flag of my people, the roar of the ocean sounding out in their battle cries.

“I’ve waited my whole life to fight for Cascada,” I said, my own truth burning within my heart.

If I’d simply been another warrior then maybe I could have run with her into the madness she was suggesting.

Maybe we could have hunted ley lines and keystones and figured out what was lurking beneath Never Keep.

We might have become the type of heroes who never got songs sung for them but perhaps were more worthy of them than those who did.

But…I was the Void. I was the one thing that could end all of this bloodshed for good.

With Cascada in charge then peace could reign at last.

I swallowed, feeling like my answer was going to disappoint her, but what other choice did I have? “No, Sky Witch. I don’t think we could save The Waning Lands together. Not in a world like ours.”

She blinked at the use of her honorific in place of her given name.

I knew I’d used it to re-draw a line between us because that was what had to happen here.

She was the Sky Witch, bane of The Waning Lands, one of the most terrible warriors to ever hail from Stormfell.

And I was Everest Arcadia. The Void. The ender of war.

My destiny was written for me and for all of us.

I would claim victory for Cascada and finish the bloodshed at last. I couldn’t turn my back on that.

Besides, once the Magistrine knew of my power, they would assist in ensuring that monster never stepped into The Waning Lands.

Going home was the answer to everything.

It was the only fate the stars were really offering me.

“So that’s it then?” she asked, disappointment bitter in her tone though I knew she’d never admit to such. “We go our separate ways, stay on the paths we already chose?”

Our fingers clasped a little tighter and I felt Bastian’s eyes burning into us, but I couldn’t look away from Vesper’s roiling grey gaze.

“You have your own destiny to follow. You have your sisters to avenge,” I said, trying to remind her of the oaths she’d sworn and perhaps trying to relinquish myself of the burden of this decision too because it was the only one which made sense in a world such as ours.

Something shuttered in Vesper’s expression, the pain of her loss flickering across her features before stilling to nothing in the icy pool of her gaze.

“I do,” she agreed quietly.

“I think we would have been something in another life,” I said earnestly, feeling like the stars were glinting a little brighter as they watched on too.

“Friends maybe,” Vesper scoffed, but there was a hint of a smile on her lips.

“Fuck it.” I tugged her close, hugging her, and after several seconds of her going stiff in my arms, she returned my embrace.

I wasn’t one for much affection, but she’d gotten under my skin, clawed her way in there somehow.

Since I’d learned she was still alive, I’d been far too happy about that truth to acknowledge what it meant.

We were supposed to be enemies, and the moment we parted, we would return to being so.

But just for a moment in time, maybe we were friends.

I nuzzled her cheek with a low purr and she released a rare laugh as we parted.

“Take care, kitty cat. Don’t die out there.”

“You either, witch,” I said, then our smiles fell and we stepped apart. “When you catch up to Cayde, make him scream a few times for me, okay?”

“I can manage that,” she said darkly.

I turned for Cascada and she turned for Stormfell.

Our choices were made, our destinies set, but I never could have prepared for the pain of that goodbye.