Page 178 of Of Empires and Dust

“I’m fine,” Rist lied. He hated lying in any capacity. But lying to Neera was worse somehow. He had omitted things to her before, like when Garramon had given him the Essence vessel and he’d not told her, but he’d never outright lied. He wasn’t fine. The smell of the Alamant’s burning eyes still lingered in his nostrils, the image of the man impaled on the stone clung to his mind’s eye, and the sound of the snapping neckcrackedover and over in his ears.

With all the death he’d seen in the last two years, all the blood, and loss, and darkness, he’d only taken two human lives. The two Lorian soldiers he’d killed when trying to flee Camylin. And even then he’d not known what he’d been doing, he’d been terrified, scrambling for his life, barely able to move. This wasdifferent though. The ease with which he had killed these people shook him. They were not Uraks or Bloodmarked or ferocious monstrosities trying to tear him limb from limb. They were people, people fighting for their home. People who were nothing but fodder to the Spark. Even the Alamants. Rist had forever been curious as to just what an Alamant could do, how weak their grasp on the Spark truly was. Now he knew. Together, in groups, they could cause mayhem. But alone, they were akin to children running with knives, just as likely to kill themselves as others.

And then he remembered what they had done, the lives they had destroyed so mindlessly, the innocent people they had targeted, and his sympathy withered.

Magnus approached from the street, covered in blood head to toe, flames still blazing at his back. Behind him, the last of the rebels were being cut down as they ran. There would be no prisoners that night, of that Rist was sure.

“You two all right?” Magnus’s chest rose and fell as he drew heavy breaths. He wiped at the blood on his face, only succeeding in smearing it further.

Rist gave him a sharp nod, pulling away from Neera.

“I still can’t figure out why.” Magnus scanned the bodies around Rist and Neera, his gaze lingering on the Alamant with burnt-out eyes. He raised an eyebrow at Rist, asking a wordless question, to which Rist responded with another nod.

“There must have been hundreds of Alamants together,” he said, looking back at the destruction in the street and the walls, the raging flames and charred, broken corpses. “I’ve never seen them cause this kind of damage.”

As Magnus spoke, a shiver ran down Rist’s spine and he inhaled sharply.

Both Magnus and Neera snapped their gazes to him.

“Fuck.” Magnus sighed. “What is it now?—”

A shockwave of the Spark swept through the air, tangled with Essence, followed swiftly by the sound of an enormous explosion. Rist watched in horror as the ground shook and clouds of fire burst from the walls of the High Tower, chunks of stone soaring through the air to crash down into the city. Another explosion and a section of bridges and walkways near the base erupted in flames.

“They drew us out,” Magnus said, his jaw slack and eyes wide. “They fucking drew us out.” He pushed Rist forward, then Neera, turning and roaring, “To the tower! To the tower!”

As Rist,Neera, and Magnus sprinted towards the tower, the thrum of the Spark in the air grew so powerful it felt only moments away from stopping his heart. It was like entering the city for the first time all over again, but somehow this was even greater, like the air itself was alive.

Magnus and Neera could feel it too, he could see it in their eyes. With each step, each vibration through his legs, that sensation grew and grew. He had felt the power of the Alamants by the walls. There was no way in the gods this was them. Even if there were thousands, they couldn’t wield raw power like this.

Flames raged across the tower, black smoke billowing into a cloudless sky, horns roaring. The tower’s base came into view as Rist and the others turned onto the main thoroughfare. The gates were already open, a host of Praetorians standing in the street outside.

“Why haven’t they gone in?” Neera shouted, panting.

Garramon and a clutch of other Battlemages emerged from a side street, their hands and faces marred with blood and soot. He grabbed Rist by the shoulder, his voice wracked with worry. “You’re all right?”

Rist nodded sharply, words escaping him.

“Garramon, the tower.” Magnus tilted his head towards the flaming tower and broke into a run once more.

Rist, Neera, and Garramon followed, along with the other Battlemages.

As Rist ran, he could hear nothing but the roar of the Spark, the edges of his vision blurring to a dull haze, every hair on his body standing on end. He flicked through the pages ofDruids, a Magic Lost, whispering the words as quickly as his lips would allow, trying to find calm within the chaos. But when he stepped through the gates, everything faded into a sudden stillness amidst the storm.

The air was crisp and sharp, each breath like taking ice into his lungs. And for some reason, there was no sound, not even the whistle of the wind. Just silence.

Before him, Fane Mortem stood in the central courtyard at the foot of the tower, his black and red robes billowing as though he stood amidst hurricane winds. Five of the Chosen in their gleaming silver plate, crimson níthrals in their fists, stood about him in a circle. Threads of each element swirled around the emperor, pulsing, power sweeping from him in waves. Fane’s eyes were closed, and bodies were piled about him. Screams echoed in the night as Fane’s threads of Air pulled rebels from the tower’s windows, their bodies bursting into clouds of bone and gore as they hit the stone.

Alamants charged from the archways in the tower’s base, their eyes igniting with white light as soon as they set foot in the courtyard, threads of Spirit searing their veins.

Fragments of debris and shards of shattered bone whirred, slicing through anything that moved, threads of Fire setting flesh alight. Hundreds of threads layered over each other, twisting and turning, coiling like snakes. It was a symphony of death, a horrific, terrible work of art Rist hoped would never be painted again. Awe inspiring and gut churning, both.

The sheer display of raw power just didn’t seem real. How could any one soul wield such immense power?

As the bodies piled around him, bone and blood painting the stone, smoke drifting from burnt-out eye sockets, the emperor stood at the centre of it all with his eyes closed, hands outstretched, expression unchanging.

Whichever rebels were fortunate enough to evade the emperor’s power were cut down in a heartbeat by the Chosen, crimson blades cleaving bone as an axe would a branch.

When the final bodies hit the stone and the thrum of the Spark settled, sound once again returned to Rist’s ears, but there was nothing more than snapping flames and hushed whispers, bells and horns fading into the night.

---