Page 88 of Scorching the Alien Empire
“Wake up, you stubborn old gas-cloud!” I plead, my voice trembling as I bat away the embers. My hands blister and burn as I press them against his searing runes, but I don’t care. The pain means nothing.
Only he matters.
“Young Dracoth...” His voice is a whisper, barely audible over the crackle of flames. His eyelids flutter open, each movement a struggle. “I failed you... failed Arawnoth... forgive me.” His blistered fingers twitch, reaching weakly for my chest plate.
My stomach twists. “Stop prattling,” I dismiss his words, fearing what they mean, fearing why he’s saying them now. “I’ll take you to a healing pod.” I tear at the remnants of his robes,some of which have fused to his flesh. The stench of burned skin chokes me.
Ignixis lets out a rasping chuckle, the sound quickly warps into a wet, agonizing cough. “You cannot heal... a spent soul. Arawnoth consumes... what was given.”
“No,” I growl, but the truth is already written across his body—an intricate patchwork of boiling suffering stamped in the sacred words. They burn brighter with each passing heartbeat, a dying star on the brink of supernova.
“Your War Chieftain commands you to live!” I roar, desperation twisting into anger, the familiar. But the despair rising within me is something else entirely, a tide I can’t hold back.
I drop to one knee, lifting his frail, burning body into my arms. He feels impossibly light, as if he’s already little more than dying embers.
“You... bow before no one.” Ignixis rasps, his molten hand brushing my cheek. The touch sears my skin, but I don’t flinch. I would endure a thousand burns if it meant keeping his soul from flickering out for just a moment longer.
“A son can bow,” I whisper, my voice breaking. Shameful, scalding tears well in my eyes.
Ignixis exhales weakly, the last of his strength pooling in his gaze. “My son...” His fading emerald eyes glint in the dim purple light. “Etharn... I’m coming, my boy.” His arm rises weakly, reaching for something beyond this world.
Then, his runes flare—blinding white—before his body bursts into flames.
I collapse to my knees, the impact jarring against the marble floor. His burning form crumbles in my arms. The pain of the fire is nothing compared to the one tearing through me.
This can’t be real.He can’t be gone. Not like this. Not so suddenly.
The tighter I hold him, the faster he disintegrates. His body turns to ash, the embers slipping through my fingers, fluttering into the frigid air like black tears.
There is nothing left.
Nothing of his genius, his wit, his love for our people and Arawnoth.
Nothing of the mentor who raised me.
Just dust.
“If only...” I choke out, barely holding back a torrent of shameful tears. “If only I’d known... I would have said the words you deserved to hear.”
The ash in my hands glows faintly, smoke curling upward like a final, mournful sigh. “You were the father I never had, Elder Ignixis.”
My fingers curl into the ash like they can hold him together, like I can force him to stay if I just grip tight enough. I bury my head in the ashes, my shoulders shaking with sobs I can’t control.
This pathetic display shames me. It dishonors my ancestors—a betrayal of everything I’m supposed to be. I hate it! I want to crush it, to stomp it out like the embers of his body.
But the grief is too vast, too consuming.
“Dracoth.” Princesa’s voice cuts through the haze of my sorrow. Her footsteps are soft but deliberate, echoing in the silence. “Look at me.”
I can’t. I won’t. Not like this.
“Look at me!” she commands, her voice sharp and unyielding. Her hands grip my face, forcing my gaze to meet hers. Her mercury eyes blaze with intensity.
“You are the War Chieftain,” she says, her tone leaving no room for argument. “Start acting like it.”
Her words are harsh, merciless. My Goddess of Death—brutal and demanding. She does not tolerate the weak. She does not entertain the broken.
But this time, her words ring hollow.
