Coming out of the portal, Vespera leads them to where she sees the rubble indicating there’s a hole in the wall. It’s one large enough that they’ll be able to slip through with no problem and can see from a distance when they need to get out.
Zye glances over at Vespera as he stands beside it. His fingers find purchase on the diamond clasped to the coat and activates it. Something he only knows for sure happens because of the shimmer it produces.
Vespera steps up and glances inside. “Left, straight, fourth door.”
Nodding, Zye follows her through. “Easy enough.”
“Just be quiet,” Aster hisses from behind them both.
Inside of the stone hallway, Zye’s eyes trail after the direction Vespera gestures. They head to the left in a straight line. Vespera guides them and takes the corner first. As Zye is about to follow her, the second door down the corridor begins to open.
Zye sucks in a breath as well as the curse that tries to leave his lips. Grabbing Vespera’s shoulder, he yanks her back while trying to flourish the coat around her as best he can. It’s in a vain hope that it’ll mask her presence as well. Or at least hide her.
A second passes before the sound of metal dragging over stone echoes down to where they idle. Zye glances back at Aster while pushing Vespera to him. “Go back out the hole. Wait for me to lead her around the other way.”
Aster’s gaze hardens at the suggestion. “No, I told him—”
“Yes. Not without Ren. I can lose her with this, go.”
Vespera pats his arm. The stern expression on her face softens when she turns away from him. She pushes Aster back toward the way they came in. He follows after them in hopes of blocking any sight of them when he hears her sword tap against the stone.
“I see we have a rat problem. Why can’t I sense you?”
Zye swivels back around with a smirk. “Nice to see you again. Another time maybe.”
Before Ayre can send out any magic, Zye is sprinting down the other hallway. He doesn’t bother with trying to be quiet. The slap of his shoes on the stone thunders around him as he realizes he’s only slightly screwed.
The corridor is straight and long. There’s nothing until it turns to the left. Every door along the wall is shut save for one near the end. The only salvation is that there’s no one else around. Only the woman that’s gaining distance on him.
He can feel her presence even better than before. It’s a cold weight on the center of his back that presses into him. Her footfalls themselves are too light to hear. There’s not a sound that comes from behind him as he tries to figure out what to do about this.
The hole is far away from him now.
His eyes lock on the door that’s been left ajar. His speed hardly slows as he nearly passes it by. Grabbing the door frame, he uses the momentum to sling himself inside and into the dark and empty room.
A quick glance tells him there’s no one in here save for a small cot of hay and cloth on the floor. It’s all he has time for before Ayre is at the threshold with her sword gripped tight. She blocks him in with ease as he turns to face her.
Zye knows he has to buy them enough time to find Ren and get out. Even a few seconds can make a difference here. It’s why he shrugs his shoulders and raises his hands in defeat.
“If you’re so strong, why even bother with Soren? Wouldn’t doing this on your own be better?”
Ayre scoffs at him, a harsh ‘tch’ that’s as cold as the ice covering her hand and the hilt she grips. “Those with similar ideals will always gather. Apart from that, all of you Infernals and Celestials will continue to crush us to keep us down if we don’t stand up.”
For a moment, he can’t help but stare. He had not expected her to speak. She seems like more of the action-first type of person. Not that he minds. It’s an opportunity if nothing else.
“That’s not what they want at all. They’re trying to help.”
“No. They aren’t. They keep their status quo, never swaying. They don’t care about the souls they’re sworn to protect.” She raises her blade, pointing it at him. “Did they care about you?”
He’s not here to play her mind games. He can’t afford to give her too many openings. Not when he knows why he’s here and what’s at stake.
The lack of an answer has Ayre stepping forward. She lifts her blade into a wide swing.
One that Zye backs away from and into a rift he conjures behind himself. The exit has him behind her, a smirk on his countenance. An expression that’s immediately wiped from his face as she hurls herself at him. The glint of her sword doesn’t threaten him until he tries to spin away from her and run.
Her grip digs into the coat, yanking him back toward her. Bracing one foot against the stone, Zye summons his sword from a rift to her right. It stabs out toward her quickly enough that she has to release her hold on him.
Zye puts a few steps between them. Not that it does anything to wipe the anger from her eyes. She glares at him as she knocks the sword he summoned away. It dissipates before it can clatter to the ground.
“I will slay you as I will them. Then Soren and I can fix this mess.”
“Are you sure? I’d say there’s still time for you to say sorry and maybe I’ll forgive you. Put in a good word for ya with the others.”
Her shoulders straighten as she stares him down. “Would you forgive me if I slew a human? A living breathing soul?”
A chill races up his spine. It takes everything he has not to react to it. He may not be as good as Jace at reading people and their bluffs, but Ayre, he knows is dead serious. Her words are the very chains that anchor her to her cause.
“Why would you do that? We can’t get involved with the living.”
“Wouldn’t you agree that terrible people exist everywhere? I’m sure you met plenty in your own world. The kind that choke the life out of the innocent and bathe in their blood and tears.” Ayre takes another step forward. “We have a unique disposition to stop this. To right the wrongs and allow people to live in peace before they die. Wouldn’t you agree? As someone left to die on the ground like myself?”
He knows now isn’t the time to read into her words. Not when he knows she won’t back down. Regardless, he sends a mental message to Vespera telling them to hurry. He can’t keep her busy for much longer.
“The world isn’t perfect, no place is.”
“Meaning you would stand idle while defenseless children, creatures, and people die when they don’t have to?”
“That’s not my say. I don’t have the ability—”
“It is!” Ayre shouts while stomping two steps forward, her blade swiping at him as she closes the distance. “You hold a piece of that coveted power. You could reduce an empire to its knees and you would hesitate?”
Zye conjures his sword into his grasp to block the swing down at him. The metal clangs and grinds against each other as he tries to push back against the strength she leans into hers.
“I was told there’s a balance. We can’t intervene. If you take one life, someone else will suffer. Their soul could suffer.”
“Then they shouldn’t have committed any atrocities in the first place!”
The mask covering half of her face may obscure her mouth. But it can’t hide the fury that burns in her brown eyes. Her grip tightens as ice runs down the length of her blade. It crawls from her sword to his and he knows he can’t win this tug-of-war.
Zye shoves at her blade and tries to retreat. As he does, she pushes harder, enough to make his wrist sting as he struggles not to drop his weapon. Mentally, he’s cursing himself.
Ilista taught him better than to be the first to give in.
The only thing he can think of is to bring it back in to try and stab toward Ayre.
It gives Ayre the opening she needs to grab his wrist. She yanks him forward, lets go, and then slams the palm of her hand on his chest. The sheer force behind it has Zye seeing stars as he’s shoved against the wall. A hiss slips from his clenched teeth when his head is the last part to hit back on the stone.
Zye tries hard to keep his focus on his sword, anything to not let it blip back out of existence. And yet as the pain sears through his concentration, it fades away, leaving him grasping at air.
His gaze flicks up to where the glint of her sword is coming for him again. Sidestepping into a rift he hurries to create, Zye stumbles out far to the left of her. Except she’s not stopping and he can’t either. He dodges another slash by retreating into one that takes him to her right.
A game of back and forth as he slowly draws her further and further away from the fork in the road. The only silver lining is that the pain in his head is beginning to slip away, his magic focusing more on healing himself.
Hopping out of another rift, Ayre spins back to him with her sword now clutched in both hands. “A fool. You’re another bloody fool!”
Zye waits. He’s patient as she runs forward. At the last second, he takes a few steps back to allow a rift above him to activate. His sword stabs down from it, cutting down the back of her shoulder as she continues.
The sound of his sword clattering to the ground echoes around them as he has another in his hands. Zye lifts it in time to block the next swing. Using his height and throwing his weight behind it, he shoves against where their swords are joined.
Ayre continues to glare him down as she hops back a step and readjusts her grip. The look in her eyes has him wishing he could get through to her. Something about it makes him think she’s in pain and must be if she’s following Soren.
Intimidating she may be, she’s still no less human than he is.
Zye takes another step back, anything to keep the distance between them. “What you two did to Kerse wasn’t any better. Or any of these people. You’re killing them by not letting them cleanse. They’ll be no different than Nether.”
“Lies! It’s the only way we can get strong enough to stand up against you tyrants!”
He refuses to look away from her gaze. Even as she moves forward, he shifts backward. “Don’t you have anyone you’d actually fight for? Would they want you to lower yourself into death again based on what one person claims?”
Ayre stops mid-step. Her eyes glance down at the ice that melts off her sword faster than she can keep it freezing. The grip on her magic is waning. They both know it. Zye can see it from the way those blue glowing veins crawl along the skin he can see.
She doesn’t have long before it could be too late.
Taking the opening, Zye dismisses his sword in hopes that she’ll calm down. Not that he expects it. The sudden temperature change reassures him that won’t be the case. He hadn’t noticed the layer of ice extending from her foot, to his, and past him. All to allow a thin wall of ice behind him as well as behind her.
Not that he’s trapped with her in the slightest.
The magic tingles across his fingertips and up his arms as he tries to extend his reach to the end of the corridor. All the way back to where the hole in the wall is— at least, as close as he can get. He waits, patiently, for Ayre to take that first step forward.
As she does, her feet go right through the floor and into a rift he conjures there. He counts his blessings that she didn’t see it or notice it was there only that she comes out from the ceiling on the other side of the wall behind him.
Zye waves over his shoulder before running forward into another rift. This one takes him to where he needs to go. He’s not as close as he would like and picks up speed, pushing himself to go faster. Sword gone, Zye grabs at the corner as he skids around it.
All as the sheets of ice hit the ground.
She’s coming and he knows he’s on borrowed time. Pinching one eye shut, he focuses on Aster and prays the message sends.
“Please tell me you two are out.”
“We may have a slight problem. Come down the hallway we went. I lured some tainted ones away to take care of. Vespera is with Ren waiting for you.”
“Dumbasses. Why didn’t they just leave?” he grumbles to himself.
A chill races up his spine and he can only react. The nearest room he slips into is the one she had come out of originally and presses himself against the wall. Trying to push more power into the jewel only has him slicing through the pad of his thumb.
Even so, it seems to work as he hears someone running by the door. The footfalls are light and almost silent. The cold sensation that goes with them gives Ayre away. Zye wipes his thumb over his shirt while he waits, hoping to give her enough time to move.
Reaching out to Vespera, he hopes they’ve moved. “Ayre is on her way.”
“Are you close? Come here to—”
The fact that her reply cuts out fills Zye with more anxiety than he’s prepared for. Shoving away from the wall, he rushes out of the room. He doesn’t bother with trying to be quiet. There’s a pinch of fear in the back of his mind that demands he go faster no matter how loud his footfalls are or if Ayre is still close by waiting for him.
Zye darts into the room littered with rubble and splintered wood that used to make up a table. If he had to guess, it looks to be a large dining hall. It would be if there weren’t holes in the ceiling and one of the walls leading to an exit is missing entirely.
Immediately he can see Vespera in the middle of the room standing with one foot propped on a piece of stone. Ayre is closest to where Zye has come from with Ren on the other side of Vespera. From the other two directions are two tainted Stars pincering her further. A mace is in the hand of one and the other has a bow and arrow trained on her.
Despite that, they look far more Nether than human. The only difference is that they’re deathly pale. As if any and all color has been sapped from them. Their eyes are the same blue the Nether have, masking what their normal eye color normally is.
Zye’s gaze meets with Vespera’s before he steps in the opposite direction of Ayre. He’s heading straight for the Star with the mace. “Over here, jackasses!”
Everyone turns to him aside from Vespera. She deflects an arrow that’s shot at her while Zye knocks into the Star nearest him. It sends the man sprawling on the floor so that he can race over to Vespera. He’s already opening a portal as he gets there.
“We’ll split and leave, got it?” he says with a huff.
“I’m not leaving until you’re out. I promised, Cal.”
“Dammit. Fine, back to where we started from.”
Recalling his sword into his hand, Zye makes eye contact with Ayre first while he lets his escape fizzle out. The smirk on his face has her falling into a defensive stance. One she needs to dodge and knock away the sword that slings down from a portal above her head.
Vespera is already moving. She dashes toward the other Star, weaving past the next arrow fired at her. She parries any attempt of an attack before swiftly slicing at his arms.
Zye pays them no mind while she dashes away from the first one that falls to take out the other. He’s far too busy keeping Ayre distracted and wasting plenty of magic to do so.
Ayre steps out of the way of one that comes from her side and another from behind her. She spots the one below her at the last second and jumps back, forcing her to put further distance between her and them.
Setting up a few more to keep her busy, Zye spins on his heel and runs to Ren. The brunet can barely blink before Zye is yanking him toward a portal he opens. He turns Ren around and shoves him into it first.
Zye doesn’t dare step through until he knows Vespera is standing up and slipping through one of her own. Of course, he’s very pleased that when he does come out the first thing he sees is the skyline they were greeted with upon arriving.
Right before he trips and falls, kneeling over Ren’s legs. Zye is quick to sit up and move over him, slapping a hand over the mouth that goes to open.
“Do me one favor and don’t say a word until I know she isn’t following us.”
He hopes that the coat is masking Ren even if it’s only a little. Not that it helps when Aster and Vespera appear on either side of him. He looks up to see Aster shaking his head, hands on his hips.
“That was a mess. Quick thinking.”
“Can you get in touch with Orion and figure out what’s happening?” asks Zye while standing up. When he does, he extends his hand down to Ren. “And you, don’t even think of screwing us over now that you’re out.”
Ren takes the help, allowing Zye to pull him up to his feet. Once he has, Ren begins to dust himself off and adjust many of the tools he keeps on him under the coat. “You don’t, but I can assure you I feel far safer with you lot. On that note, when do I get your blood?”
A sigh slips from Zye as he glances to Aster. He’s hoping Aster will interrupt with news. When he doesn’t, Zye turns to Ren. “When Soren is cleansed or the others get here. Whichever happens first.”
“That wasn’t what we—”
“Nope, no. We didn’t discuss when you got your end of the deal. Wait here or go back to Solis with one of them. When I get back, it’s yours.”
“But what if you die? I can’t use it then. I can’t study it and—”
“I don’t care. Aster, word? Everyone is okay, right?”
Aster levels his gaze on Ren, realizing the decision they’re going to have to make. “They could use some help. The Nether are almost cleared out. One of us can always take him back to Noctis and stay with Adrian.”
“Then we go.” Zye is already turning when Ren steps forward and grabs Zye’s wrist. Only for Zye to immediately tug it out of Ren’s grasp. “What?”
“I’ll follow, but only if your coworkers protect me.”
“I don’t have time for this,” he replies with a groan. “Vespera, he’s under your watch.”
“Understood. I’ll keep him in the back line with me.”
Zye nods to Aster who begins to open a portal. The color spirals up from the ground, a mixture of purple and blue with the faintest hints of pink. Aster is at the cusp of it when Ren chimes in once more.
“I do need you all to know something before you go. See, I don’t know if Soren brought his pets with him and I’d rather none of us be around for those.”
Aster half-turns, a glare burning right through Ren at the admission. “The hell does that mean? Shouldn't you have dropped that information a little sooner?”
“The reason why Soren kept me around was because I used other abilities from those I took blood from. Abilities that allowed me to monitor and encourage Nether to fight and absorb each other.”
From beside Zye, Vespera’s eyes widen. She moves a little closer to him with her hands balled into fists at her sides. “What… No. You can’t do that. That’s not how it works.”
“And yet here we are. I can tell you exactly how I coerced them to do it another time. Now, listen carefully. This was to allow him, or even Ayre, to use them. The stronger the Nether you take down, the greater the nasty you take on from them.”
All Zye can hear are Jace’s words. The blessed tools and how Soren still has some. “He has them in his ring…to strength himself,” he mumbles beneath his breath.
“Ding, ding, ding. We have a winner. There are two left. If he lets them out well… I don’t know what they’re particularly capable of or if they’ll follow his orders. It’s a coin flip on whether it’s better if he tries to cleanse them for his own power or not.”
Zye steps up so that he’s toe-to-toe with Ren. “The hell would you do that for?”
Ren doesn’t back down. He tilts his head back with a smile on his face. “To earn favor, kitten. I had to play the part. I told you that. I took Hax’s information and used it to benefit Soren. Even though…well, we can’t absorb that negative energy without corrupting ourselves. Even my bodyguard, the deadly Ayre, isn’t immune. I believe she’s at her limit.”
“Fuck,” he mutters before turning on his heel. Zye’s the first through the portal.
And yet he’s the only one that comes to a standstill on the other side of it.
Aster rushes past him. He drops to his knees beside where Ilista sits on the ground. Blood drips down her leg even while Callua is beside her, trying to staunch the flow. Standing on guard before them are Gray and Yue. Past them, however, there are so many people that Zye doesn’t know.
He doesn’t quite recognize any of them either. Only that Xerxes stands over to the side with his guns drawn. While Xerxes provides cover fire, there’s a woman beside him with dark cat-like ears and a tail that protects him.
To the side, Celeste and Iris work in tandem to finish cleansing the lesser Nether with the group of people here to help. Further ahead is Orion. His strings weave through the Rank Ones that are left. He binds them, damaging where he can, before letting one loose for Kerse or Jace to finish off.
Regardless, they still seem to be neck-deep in problems. Zye can’t imagine how many were here at the start. More than he’s ever seen in one place. Yet he knows it can’t stop him. Striding past Callua, he brushes his hand over her shoulder. A nod to Gray and he breaks into a run.
A rift or two later, his shoes slide across the grass as the final Nether keeping them from Soren falls. As it does, Ayre appears among the five tainted souls blocking their way. She’s the only one who seems to be the least bit coherent further than taking orders. The others seem so lifeless.
Zye knocks his arm against Jace’s. “Go for her. I can handle these with Orion’s help.”
“Are you—”
“Don’t ask,” Kerse chides, “let’s go.”
They wait for the souls to come closer, leaving Ayre in the back. Once the distance is made, Zye creates a rift for them to slip through to get to Ayre. It leaves him with the five enemies eagerly coming for him. They stumble as their feet rush over the grass.
Zye takes a deep breath and brings not one, but two blades into existence. One in each hand. He knows he can handle this. Even more so when he hears Orion in his head.
“Patience. Start at the rear. I’ll keep the others restrained and locate their cores.”
A rift of purple appears behind him. His magic warms his body as he steps into it, reappearing beside the furthest tainted Star in the pack.
One at a time, he tells himself.
ns 15.158.61.51da2
