Page 423 of Of Empires and Dust

“Do it then!” Kallinvar roared, blood trickling from Tallia’s neck as his Soulblade shook in his hand. “Do it and be done!”

Kallinvar’s Sigil ignited in a pulse of burning energy, green light swallowing his vision.

In an instant he stood amidst an ocean of endless silver sand. Around him, towers of crystal jutted into the sky, hundreds of feet wide and twice again as tall.

Achyron stood before him, garbed in that gleaming green plate with blazing sun pauldrons, his features stern and harsh. “After all this time, you would turn your back on me?”

“Turn my back on you?” Kallinvar leaned into his anger. “I have given my life to you!”

“I gave you that life, Voran Thrace. I made you what you are.”

“I made myself, forged my strength in the rivers of blood I spilled in your name. I have given you seven hundred years of service, of undying devotion. When Efialtír bore down on this world, I stood in his path and I did not yield. When my brothers and sisters were slaughtered at the last Blood Moon, I fought with every fibre of this life you gave. Where were you?”

Achyron stared back at Kallinvar, unyielding, his green eyes watching.

“Where were you?” Kallinvar roared. “When Verathin died in your name. Where were you? When Illarin died, when Tarron was pulled into that tear, when Gildrick was murdered, where were you, Achyron?”

“I was fighting the war you cannot see.”

“When we die, do you even care?”

“Of course I care, my child. My love for your world is the only reason you exist.”

“Do you? Truly? Or are we just tools to be worn and tossed away? Weapons to be wielded in a war between gods?”

“The duty of the strong is to protect the weak, Grandmaster Kallinvar.”

“I know my gods damned oaths!” Kallinvar’s rage burned through him. “Pain is the path to strength. I have held more pain than any soul has a right to. I have watched my brothers and sisters die again and again for centuries, and still I do not falter.”

Kallinvar stepped closer to the god. “The duty of the strong is to protect the weak. I have embodied that oath since before I spoke the words.”

“That woman is not ‘the weak’, my child. She is a slave to the god that betrayed us all.”

“She is a child!”

“A child who killed Watcher Gildrick.”

“No decision is straightforward,” Kallinvar said, speaking Achyron’s own words back to him, never straying from the god’s gaze. “Black and white do not exist. We live in a world of ever-shifting grey.”

Achyron stared back at him in silence.

“It ismysoul that will bear the weight of every life I take.Mysoul. Not yours. I will fight for you, as I always have. I will stand against The Shadow, as Ialwayshave. I am a warrior, I amyourwarrior, but I am not your executioner. I will not slaughter a young woman of twenty summers in cold blood. I will not be that man. Because the day I become him is the day I do not deserve to bear this Sigil.” Kallinvar pressed his hand to his chest. “The day I become that man is the day I lose sight of why I’m fighting in the first place. And since the Blood Moon rose, I have come too close to that. So you will have me as I am or kill me now. Strip the Sigil from my chest, and give it to someone you deem worthy.”

Kallinvar clenched his hand into a fist and stared at the warrior god. “I am tired, and I would welcome rest.”

Achyron drew a long breath, his expression still and unreadable, and silence hung between them until at last the god said, “It is not your time.”

Kallinvar’s Sigil pulsed again, the green light flashed across his eyes, and he once more stood in the square in Ardholm, the rain sheeting down over him. His Soulblade was still pressed slightly into the skin of Talia’s neck, green mist drifting from its surface.

Kallinvar recalled his Soulblade and stared down at the young woman. “Sister-Captain Ruon, bring Watcher Tallia to the cells. The rest of you, sleep.”

Kallinvar turned and walked back towards the great temple, ignoring the murmurs that rose about him. His heart galloped like a horse, and his hands shook.

Arden jolted awake in his bed as Kallinvar slammed open the door.

“Grandmaster, what is it?”

“You are to go to your brother. Tell him I need him here. There are five days left before the Blood Moon sets, and we must be ready. Nothing else matters.”

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