Page 71 of Tear of Destiny

“Do you really think you can defeat me that easily?” His laugh echoes around the room. Then he stands up and merges further with his spirit. They both get bigger, and lights of all colors appear around their bodies. Some of them glow like molten lava, others flash blue, green, or yellow. His eyes are as red as blood, and I suspect that he’s now merged with his spirit to the fullest extent possible.

The attacks come hard and fast. Fire, rain, snow, ice, earth – his attacks all seem to rain down on us at once until I no longer know which way to dodge or how to deflect them. The room shudders, and the air burns, stinging my lungs. Noah and Ayden merge more with their spirits too. Ayden is enveloped in flames and looks like some divine being from another world. By contrast, Noah is dark, with smoke swirling around him as if it’s seeping out of every pore and completely enveloping him. They both hurl attack after attack at their opponent. Their spirits charge and try to get a hold of Nero and Alessandro somehow. But they seem to be untouchable.

Noah and Ayden both pause briefly, breathing heavily.

“This isn’t working,” Ayden concedes. “We need to coordinate our attacks better.”

Noah snorts. He doesn’t seem to like the idea either. But they have no choice. “We need to work together,” Noah grunts, and Ayden nods slowly.

They both charge at Alessandro, driving him around the room, but no matter what they do, they can’t seem to land a deadly strike. Nero lunges at Ayden again and interrupts his onslaught. He raises his hands and forces the key spirit back, butAlessandro is already hurling another attack at him. Ayden just manages to save himself by leaping to the side.

I know what I have to do. I’m certainly no skilled fighter, but they need my help, and there’s no way I’m going to stand on the sidelines and let them protect me. So I close my eyes and merge with Yoru. I probe cautiously, feeling my way toward my limit, with only a vague idea of where it might be. Flames lick out of my hands, and I feel my hair burning. Yoru grows even bigger. I can feel the heat radiating from his fire.

I raise my arms in the air, focus all of my power, and throw them forward. I won’t give up! No matter what happens, this has to end now. The beam of fire pouring out of my hands hurtles at Alessandro. He turns his head toward me in surprise and my attack hits him.

Alessandro raises his hand, opens his mouth in a furious scream, and I can guess that the next attack will be incomparable to anything that happened before. Ayden appears behind him and grabs his arms, gripping them tightly. I can see him fighting the pain that it causes him to hold onto that body, which seems to consist of every single element. Wherever he comes into contact with Alessandro his skins blisters.

“Do it, Noah!” he cries as I continue to attack Alessandro front-on. Together, we manage to force the glowing colors on our opponent’s chest to disappear, and the ordinary skin beneath them is revealed. Now we can hurt him. And Noah doesn’t hesitate. He raises his hand, conjures a spear of smoke, and he’s about to throw it when he sees Nero behind Ayden.

“Shit, watch out!”

Ayden turns slightly. But he can’t defend himself without letting go of Alessandro. So Nero leaps through the air unhindered and bites Ayden in the side.

Snow rushes to his aid and tears the leopard off him. Both spirits tumble across the floor.

“Just do it!” Ayden cries out again.

Noah throws the spear. It hits Alessandro in the center of his chest. There’s a loud crack as it pierces him between the ribs. The lights surrounding our opponent flash faster, and then they all turn jet-black before swirling across the floor and vanishing. Alessandro doesn’t make another sound. He just slumps to the floor, collapses like a lifeless doll. Blood streams from his chest and seeps over the stone. Nero looks at him and then approaches him to say goodbye. He lowers his head and nuzzles his master, as if to check that he’s really gone. A few more moments and the key spirit will be recalled to the Odyss and vanish.

Breathing heavily, I sink to the floor and wrestle with the feelings that suddenly flood through me. Alessandro is dead. The son of Council members, someone I considered a friend. I glance around the room and then look over at Frances, who’s still lying in the corner. Her pale face is turned toward me, almost as if she’s looking at me.

Her lips seem to form the words, “Tess.”

I jump up and run to her. Noah and Ayden follow me. Tears well up in my eyes when I see how seriously injured she is. She slowly reaches out, and Noah takes her hand and grasps it firmly.

Frances breathes, and blood spews out of her mouth.

“I’m sorry,” she croaks. “I had to do it for Jacob. I’m all he has. Our parents disowned him. Nobody ever talked about him again. But I… I was there for him all those years.”

“It’s alright, Frances. We’ll get you out of here and get help.”

She smiles sadly. “What kind of life would I have? It’s over. At least I got to save Jacob. He wanted to live, and that’s the only reason he got mixed up with that Tempes. That Charles.”

My eyes widen when I hear this. “You mean Travis was innocent?”

Frances nods slowly. “He was a friend of Jacob’s. My familymade sure that Travis was convicted instead of Jacob.”

So that’s why Frances has been acting so weird lately. She knew that an innocent man was made a scapegoat for her brother, and even killed in the end.

“Jacob couldn’t get his hands on dying breaths after that. He was being watched. He had nobody but me…” A tear runs down her cheek.

“It’s going to be okay. We’ll find a way, but first we need to get you out of here.” Noah reaches down to lift her up.

At that moment, we hear a hideous howl. Nero is still sitting beside his master’s lifeless body, and now he lifts his head and roars out all of his anguish. He begins to glow, brighter and brighter, and all at once, everything explodes around us. Nero shatters into a thousand pieces, all the elements bursting out of him at once, and glowing green spears of light hurtle through the air. Yoru jumps in front of me, and for a moment, I can’t see anything.

When I open my eyes, I see that Nero is gone. I guess he was altered too much to be able to return to the Odyss in the natural way.

Shocked, I look at Noah, who’s bending over Frances. One of the spears is sticking out of his thigh and slowly dissolving. But he only has eyes for Frances. Another one of these spears of light is protruding from her chest. That fades too, but it doesn’t change the fact that Frances’ eyes look strangely empty. Her mouth is slightly open, and her chest is no longer rising and falling. I stare at her in disbelief. Frances is dead. I feel tears in my eyes. We’ve lost her.

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