The End of the Second Age

"Move your bread."

Sederous looked down.

Then at Tiamel.

Then back at the bread resting on the western edge of the campaign map.

"No."

Tiamel stared.

Sederous tore off another piece.

"You have an entire table."

"My army is underneath your breakfast."

"Then they are well provisioned."

Hannarial lowered her head.

Hansall saw her shoulders shaking.

Tiamel saw too.

"Hannarial."

The young Icetear immediately straightened.

"Your Majesty."

"Are you laughing?"

"No."

Sederous looked at her.

"Terrible liar."

"I am not."

"Your ears moved."

"They did not."

"Elf ears reveal dishonesty."

Hansall said, "That is not remotely true."

Sederous looked offended.

"Then I've been misinforming Humans for a century."

Herafel Duskfall did not look up from her intelligence reports.

"That explains several diplomatic incidents."

Revendrinn murmured from the darkest corner of the chamber:

"Only several?"

And for a little while...

the war outside did not exist.

Hansall remembered that.

Gods, he remembered it.

Because they thought they had Cainan beaten.

Two great battles.

Two victories.

The old Human king's armies had buckled.

His southern kingdom had begun collapsing inward.

The road toward his capital finally lay open.

Godrian Greyhide stood over the map, one broad hand planted upon the route south.

"Three days."

Sinodess shook his head.

"Two."

"Three."

"Two."

Godrian glared.

"The road alone takes three."

Sinbad smiled.

"The road does."

Silence.

Hansall slowly looked at him.

"What did you build?"

"A boat."

"No."

"You haven't seen it."

"I don't need to."

"You are remarkably hostile toward innovation."

"The last thing you called innovation exploded."

"Only the rear half."

Hannarial's shoulders moved again.

Hansall pointed at her without looking.

"Stop encouraging him."

"I didn't say anything."

"Your face did."

She attempted solemnity.

It lasted approximately two seconds.

That room...

that stupid room...

would become one of the places Hansall missed most.

Because outside it, the Second Age was already tearing itself apart.

Humanity had fractured after Adamas.

Godrian preserved the central kingdom and guarded the children of Abel as though doing so

might preserve some part of Adamas himself.

Sinodess took free spirits and fearful refugees toward the coasts, befriended Tylons and Moon

Elves and eventually named himself King of the Seas, largely because nobody possessed either

the patience or naval strength to explain why he could not.

Human kingdoms multiplied.

Morraine fostered magic.

Lorthur rejected it.

Others built sovereignties around their own beliefs.

Humanity was no longer one people politically.

Perhaps it never truly had been.

And in the south...

Cainan had built his answer to fear.

Hatred.

He gathered Humans terrified that the younger race would vanish beneath Elves, Fae, Beastkin

and Gods-Blood.

He taught them that terror was wisdom.

Then that difference was danger.

Then that domination was defence.

Eventually...

that cruelty was survival.

He attacked Fae settlements.

Beast territories.

Took prisoners.

Enslaved those who could not escape.

And the Gods-Blood quietly rewarded him for it.

They protected his borders.

Traded with him.

Whispered into his court.

Until Cainan, who had once despised every race for possessing blood different from his own,

became a vassal of beings who believed their superior blood gave them the right to rule the

world.

Hansall remembered telling Herafel that irony had become unbearable.

Her reply had been:

"That implies it was previously tolerable."

Fair.

There was one crime Hansall did not know about then.

One ignorance he would spend centuries wishing he could travel backward and strangle himself

for.

Allani Whitewing.

His niece.

Missing after the Cataclysm.

Hansall had searched.

Others had searched.

No body.

No soul-trace.

No reliable witness.

Eventually...

missing became presumed dead.

It was easier than hope.

That was the lie people told themselves.

Allani had not died.

Not then.

Cainan had taken her.

His own kin by marriage and history.

An Elf who had once eaten at Hansall's tables and laughed beneath Whitegrove trees became

property inside Cainan's kingdom.

He forced a union upon her.

A daughter came from it.

Anthurian.

And for several years...

Allani managed to keep one small piece of softness alive inside that child.

Hansall would learn later that she sang to her.

Quietly.

Songs from the High Elf forests.

Never loudly enough for guards to hear.

She taught Anthurian Elven words.

The names of trees she had never seen.

Stars hidden beyond southern smoke.

She told her daughter that somewhere beyond the walls there existed a people who would not

call her impure.

Perhaps Allani believed Hansall would come.

Perhaps that was the cruelest part.

He never did.

He did not know.

Caligula eventually learned Allani was more useful as an example than as a prisoner.

The Gods-Blood had begun encouraging forced breeding between captured races, selecting

bloodlines as though people were animals in royal kennels.

Allani resisted.

Not dramatically.

Not foolishly.

Constant little acts.

Refusing names.

Refusing obedience.

Teaching Anthurian things she was forbidden to know.

Reminding the girl that Cainan's ownership was invented.

The sort of rebellion tyrants hate most because it occurs inside the mind.

So they punished her through Anthurian.

Then Anthurian through her.

Caligula understood cruelty intimately.

He did not execute Allani privately.

That would have ended her suffering too quickly.

They dragged mother and daughter into one of Heaven's Throat's gladiatorial courtyards.

Anthurian was still young.

Old enough to understand.

Young enough that understanding destroyed something permanent.

They chained Allani where her daughter could see her.

Cainan was there.

That detail Hansall would never forgive.

Allani's captors demanded that she declare Anthurian Gods-Blood property.

She refused.

They struck her.

Asked again.

She refused.

They broke fingers.

Asked again.

She spat blood onto the stones.

So Caligula changed the question.

He told Anthurian that each time her mother refused...

the punishment would worsen.

Allani understood immediately.

She began screaming at her daughter not to answer them.

Anthurian begged her to stop.

Not because she wanted her mother broken.

Because she wanted her alive.

That distinction meant nothing to Caligula.

Hours passed.

By the end, Allani could barely raise her head.

Yet when they asked one final time whether her daughter belonged to Cainan and the

Gods-Blood...

Allani looked at Anthurian.

And said:

"She belongs to herself."

They killed her for it.

In front of her daughter.

Then forced Anthurian to remain beside the body until morning.

No blanket.

No water.

No permission to touch her mother.

She sat close enough to see Allani's hand on the stone...

but the chain around her neck was short enough that she could not reach it.

That was the education Caligula gave her.

Love makes you weak.

Resistance gets those you love killed.

Power decides what is true.

By dawn Anthurian Whitewing was gone.

Whatever stood when the guards came for her began, eventually, calling herself Bloodwing.

Hansall learned all of this years too late.

And when he did...

there were moments he hated Cainan so violently that hatred itself seemed insufficient.

The Mortal Rebellion Alliance nearly destroyed Cainan anyway.

Godrian.

Sinodess.

The Elu Lords.

Beast Kings.

Human sovereigns who had finally understood that Cainan's hatred would consume Humanity

too.

And Abel's children.

Anniesta.

Raastali.

Gilgamesh.

Hansall had watched Abel grow.

Then buried him.

Watching his children become warriors was one of those experiences that made immortality feel

less like a gift and more like an elaborate punishment devised by someone with artistic talent.

Raastali especially resembled his father when he smiled.

Not physically.

Something worse.

The trust.

Abel had smiled at Hansall as though the world remained basically decent despite

overwhelming evidence.

Raastali had inherited that stupidity.

Hansall adored him for it.

The Alliance beat Cainan twice.

Then prepared to finish him.

And the Gods-Blood struck their exposed flank.

Fresh armies crashed into exhausted ones.

Lines dissolved.

Beastkin died beside Humans.

Elven banners vanished beneath mud.

The siege failed.

Cainan's kingdom was absorbed beneath Gods-Blood protection.

The south hardened.

The Gods-Blood grew bolder.

Then came their proposal.

A Tournament of Domination.

Nine champions.

Nine champions.

Single combat.

Witnessed by the Divines.

If the Gods-Blood won...

all Mortal nations would submit.

If the Alliance won...

the Gods-Blood would accept peace.

A monstrous wager.

Also, after the Alliance's recent losses...

possibly their best chance.

Hansall remembered the council.

Not the arguments.

One moment.

Hannarial stood against the wall.

Young.

Blue-black armour.

Pale hair.

Watching legends decide history.

Hansall suddenly asked:

"What do you think?"

She stared.

"Me?"

Sederous looked toward the wall.

"No. Apparently the masonry has been promoted."

Hannarial glared at him.

Hansall hid a smile.

"What do you think?"

She studied the Tournament terms.

"They're afraid."

Godrian frowned.

"They have the advantage."

"Exactly."

Hannarial pointed toward the parchment.

"If they believed that advantage guaranteed victory, they would continue the war."

Herafel looked up.

Hannarial noticed and became slightly more nervous.

"But they want nine duels."

"Public ones."

"Before the Divines."

"Because certainty is part of the performance."

Tiamel folded her arms.

"So?"

Hannarial swallowed.

"So they need everyone to watch them win."

Hansall asked:

"And if we accept?"

Her eyes hardened.

"Then arrogance might make them show us things they would hide in war."

Herafel smiled.

Tiny.

Approval.

Young Hannarial saw it.

Tried very hard not to look proud.

Hansall remembered thinking:

There is something there.

Years later, Hannarial would become a name armies feared.

At that moment she was simply a young officer trying not to beam because Herafel Duskfall

liked her answer.

Memory preserved strange things.

The Alliance champions were chosen.

Hansall Whitegrove.

Tiamel, Queen of the Elu-Dragar.

Prince Raastali.

Prince Gilgamesh.

Lord Godrian Greyhide.

King Sinodess.

King Koschei.

Sederous Lionheart.

And the Grey King.

The Gods-Blood presented theirs.

Caligula.

Cavendish Crowley.

Valkryie, Lady of War.

Vishraa, Lord of the Asuras.

Anthurian Bloodwing.

And four beings wielding fragments of apocalyptic power.

Conquest.

War.

Famine.

Death.

The Four Horsemen.

Nobody yet understood exactly what those titles meant.

They would.

When Hansall remembered the Tournament, he almost never remembered the opening

ceremony.

He remembered a buckle.

Raastali's shoulder buckle.

Loose.

"Hold still."

Raastali sighed.

"Uncle."

"Hold still."

"I'm not twelve."

"You were easier at twelve."

"I bit you."

"Exactly. Predictable."

Raastali smiled while Hansall tightened the gold-and-blue armour around his shoulder.

The prince was beautiful that morning.

Long fair hair.

Young face.

Sword at his hip.

Nothing about him looked ready to become a memory.

That offended Hansall in hindsight.

Death should have the courtesy to mark its intended victims.

A shadow.

A smell.

Anything.

Instead people often looked completely alive just before ceasing to be so.

Raastali glanced toward the arena entrance.

"Crowley doesn't carry a weapon."

"That means he considers something else his weapon."

"Magic."

"Probably."

Raastali nodded.

Then looked at Hansall.

"You look worried."

"I always look worried."

"You look more worried."

Hansall finished the buckle.

His fingers remained there.

On Raastali's shoulder.

"Come back."

Raastali smiled.

"Obviously."

"Raastali."

The smile softened.

He understood.

"I'll come back."

Hansall let him go.

Centuries later...

he would still remember the warmth of that shoulder beneath his hand.

Crowley entered beneath dark robes.

No sword.

No armour worth naming.

Staff.

Hood.

A face half concealed.

Raastali entered to cheers.

Crowley entered to silence.

The bell sounded.

Raastali was better.

That became apparent almost immediately.

He cut through spells.

Closed distance.

Forced Crowley backward.

The Mortal gallery began roaring.

Gilgamesh stood.

Godrian slapped the railing.

Sinbad shouted something anatomically implausible about where Crowley should place his staff.

Even Hansall smiled.

Raastali advanced.

Crowley raised one hand.

Spoke.

And the world changed.

The air tore.

Hansall knew portals.

Fae crossings.

Soul passages.

Primeval ruptures.

This was none of them.

Something black pushed through.

Claws first.

Then horns.

Then a face constructed incorrectly enough that the mind resisted identifying it.

Another followed.

Then another.

The entire arena fell silent.

Gods-Blood included.

Crowley smiled.

Raastali stopped.

"What..."

The first demon lunged.

Raastali cut its head off.

Black blood struck white stone.

The second seized his cloak.

Raastali tore free and ran it through.

The Mortal audience found its voice again.

"DISQUALIFY HIM!"

"Tournament law permits familiars," Crowley said.

Hansall was already standing.

"THOSE ARE NOT FAMILIARS."

Crowley looked toward him.

Even from across the arena Hansall could see the smile beneath that hood.

"Tools, then."

Hansall's blood went cold.

More portals opened.

Raastali fought.

Gods, he fought.

He killed one.

Two.

Three.

Lost a shoulder plate.

Blood appeared along his thigh.

Still moved.

Another demon caught his sword arm.

He severed its wrist.

A second struck him from behind.

Raastali fell.

Got up.

Gilgamesh screamed:

"RAASTALI!"

Raastali looked toward his brother.

Just once.

That cost him.

Something caught his ankle.

Another took his arm.

Hansall reached the Tournament barrier.

White energy snapped beneath his palm.

"STOP THE MATCH."

Nothing.

He struck it.

The ward threw him backward.

Tiamel caught him.

"STOP IT!"

Raastali screamed.

One demon pulled one direction.

Another pulled the other.

Hansall saw the shoulder he had adjusted that morning dislocate.

Then tear.

Gilgamesh made a sound Hansall had heard only once before.

Evalon.

At Abel's funeral.

The sound a person makes before grief understands how to become grief.

Raastali disappeared beneath them.

Crowley watched.

Calmly.

The demons tore Abel's youngest son apart.

Not killed.

Apart.

The screaming stopped before the tearing did.

That somehow made it worse.

When the creatures finally withdrew...

Raastali was no longer recognisable as a person.

Gold armour.

Blue cloth.

Blood.

Pieces.

One hand lay near the edge of the arena.

Hansall stared at it.

For some reason...

that was what memory kept.

The hand.

Young.

Fingers curled.

The victory sigil ignited.

GODS-BLOOD.

Crowley bowed.

Hansall stood motionless.

Revendrinn came beside him.

"Don't."

Hansall spoke very quietly.

"Move."

"No."

"Revendrinn."

"Not like this."

Hansall turned.

His oldest friend's face contained the same murder.

That helped.

"We kill him later," Revendrinn said.

Hansall looked toward Crowley.

Crowley smiled.

"Later," Hansall whispered.

Gilgamesh entered the arena after the wards fell.

Nobody stopped him.

He walked toward what remained.

Then stopped.

"Raastali?"

As though perhaps someone might answer.

Hansall went down.

Gilgamesh did not cry.

That frightened Hansall.

He knelt.

Saw the hand.

Picked it up.

Then finally broke.

Hansall caught him.

Gilgamesh pressed his brother's severed hand against his forehead and screamed into

Hansall's chest.

The arena that had been built to celebrate Gods-Blood superiority listened.

No one cheered.

Not even most of the Gods-Blood.

Crowley had won.

And somehow...

everyone had become smaller for watching it.

Godrian volunteered before Raastali's remains were fully gathered.

Hansall found him beneath the arena.

The old Human lord was fastening his gauntlets.

"No."

Godrian did not look up.

"Move."

"You're angry."

"Astute."

"Godrian."

Now he looked.

His beard had gone almost entirely grey.

His eyes had not.

"I promised Adamas."

Hansall stopped.

Godrian pulled the final strap tight.

"After Abel died."

His voice shook.

"I told him I would protect the children."

Hansall said nothing.

"Raastali was under my protection."

"Raastali was a grown prince who entered willingly."

"That changes nothing."

"It changes everything."

Godrian stood.

"I failed him."

Hansall almost laughed because the sentence was so familiar.

He had said the same after Abel.

Perhaps guilt was hereditary even when blood wasn't.

Hansall stepped closer.

"Then don't honour him by dying stupidly."

Godrian stared.

"Don't ask me not to be angry."

"I wasn't going to."

"Good."

"I'm asking you to control it."

A long silence.

Then Godrian nodded.

"That I can do."

Hansall reached toward his shoulder.

Stopped.

The memory of Raastali's buckle was too fresh.

Godrian noticed.

Neither mentioned it.

Conquest entered mounted.

Golden bow.

Golden armour.

Pale horse.

Godrian attacked like a man trying to beat grief to death.

And initially...

he succeeded.

He smashed Conquest from the saddle.

Crushed armour.

Broke the Horseman's guard.

The Mortal galleries rose.

Godrian struck again.

Again.

"FOR THE BOY!"

Conquest crashed across stone.

Godrian advanced.

Hansall felt hope.

That was the mistake.

Hope had become dangerous inside that arena.

Conquest smiled through blood.

Then placed one hand upon the horse.

Light erupted.

Horse and rider twisted together.

Bones changed.

Armour expanded.

A man's torso rose from the body of a massive war-steed.

Centaur.

But enormous.

Golden.

Apocalyptic.

The bow grew with him.

Godrian looked up.

"You have got to be joking."

Sinbad whispered beside Hansall:

"I like him."

Hansall did not.

Conquest drew.

The first arrow struck Godrian's shield.

The second shattered it.

Then the sky became gold.

Hundreds.

Perhaps thousands.

Godrian ran.

Arrows followed.

One pierced his thigh.

Another shoulder.

One punched through his side.

Then another.

Then another.

His armour became a forest of shafts.

Still...

Godrian moved forward.

That was Godrian.

The world could tell him he had lost.

Godrian considered this advisory.

He dragged himself beneath the storm.

Reached Conquest.

Grabbed the Centaur's armour.

Raised his weapon.

Conquest abandoned the bow.

Two long golden blades appeared in his hands.

Hansall stood.

Godrian saw them.

Too late.

The first blade entered from one side.

The second from the other.

They crossed inside him.

Conquest pulled.

Godrian Greyhide...

the man who had protected Adamas's kingdom...

who had guarded Abel's children...

who had watched Humanity fracture and refused to abandon it...

was cut in two.

The upper half struck the stone first.

Hansall remembered the sound.

A wet impact.

Then silence.

Two rounds.

Two Mortal dead.

Gods-Blood: two.

Alliance: none.

Sinbad stood.

Hansall caught his arm.

"No."

Sinbad looked at Godrian's body.

"My friend."

"Sinbad."

"My fight."

"This isn't vengeance."

Sinbad's expression went strangely calm.

"No."

He drew his sword.

"Vengeance is emotional."

Then touched the strange weapon hanging at his hip.

"This is engineering."

Hansall stared.

Sinbad smiled.

There he was.

Somehow.

Even now.

"I've been waiting years to use this."

Hansall closed his eyes.

"That sentence has never reassured me."

War transformed before the duel properly began.

Horse and rider fused.

But not into anything graceful.

Bones swelled.

The body rose upright.

A monstrous bull-like torso emerged, broad as a siege gate.

Huge clawed limbs.

A leonine-manticore bulk.

Horns.

A blazing mane streaming behind its skull as though someone had crowned a Minotaur with a

wildfire.

When War roared, flame rolled through his teeth.

Sinbad stared upward.

Then toward Hansall.

Hansall shrugged.

Sinbad shouted across the arena:

"Helpful!"

War charged.

The impact sent Sinbad through a stone column.

Nobody laughed.

War was stronger than Conquest.

Possibly stronger than all of them.

Every missed blow cratered the arena.

His burning mane left fire behind him.

His fists could have broken fortress gates.

Sinbad became something between warrior and prey.

Run.

Roll.

Cut.

Move.

Barely.

War caught him once.

Sinbad flew.

Hit stone.

Did not rise immediately.

Hansall's chest tightened.

Not again.

Please.

Not again.

War approached.

The Gods-Blood stands began chanting.

Sinbad moved.

Slowly.

One knee.

Then upright.

Blood ran from his mouth.

War roared.

Sinbad looked toward Godrian's empty seat.

Then Raastali's.

Something changed.

His eyes turned white.

Hansall froze.

Tiamel leaned closer.

"Is that..."

"I don't know."

It resembled Vaen.

Not fully.

A flicker.

Some instinctive alignment Sinbad had never been taught.

War attacked.

Sinbad vanished from the path.

War turned.

Too late.

A cut opened along his side.

Again.

War missed.

Another cut.

Again.

Again.

The enormous transformation had made War powerful.

It had also made him predictable.

Sinbad understood.

And once Sinbad understood a mechanism...

God help the mechanism.

War's body accumulated wounds.

Small.

Then deeper.

The blazing mane began flickering.

Sinbad stepped backward.

Dropped his sword.

War laughed.

The Gods-Blood laughed with him.

Sinbad reached to his hip.

Hansall saw the flintlock.

"Oh no."

Hannarial looked at him.

"What?"

"That thing."

"What is it?"

"A terrible idea."

Sinbad cocked it.

Hansall sighed.

"A very loud terrible idea."

War charged.

Sinbad raised the pistol.

One weapon.

One bullet.

The only firearm of its kind in the Age.

The projectile had been forged from enchanted Fae ore because apparently Sinbad did not

believe ordinary blasphemy was sufficiently ambitious.

War came closer.

Twenty paces.

Fifteen.

Ten.

Sinbad waited.

Five.

Fire erupted from the barrel.

The sound struck the arena like thunder.

War's head snapped backward.

For one heartbeat...

the enormous creature remained standing.

Then blood ran from the hole through its skull.

Its blazing mane extinguished.

The transformed body collapsed.

Stone shook.

Silence.

No one understood.

Sinbad looked at the smoking weapon.

Then blew across the barrel.

"Well."

He looked toward Hansall.

"That worked."

The Mortal gallery did not erupt immediately.

That was what Hansall remembered.

They stared.

Because after Raastali...

after Godrian...

some part of them had already begun believing the Gods-Blood were correct.

Perhaps these beings were above them.

Perhaps resistance had been pride.

Perhaps this tournament was simply a more efficient execution.

Then War's corpse remained dead.

Not rising.

Not transforming.

Dead.

Sinbad walked over.

Placed one boot against the monstrous head.

Raised his sword.

And screamed:

"THEY BLEED!"

Something broke open.

The sound that followed was enormous.

Humans.

Elves.

Beastkin.

Tylons.

Elu-Dues.

People who had spent years retreating suddenly screaming from their lungs.

Hannarial struck the railing with both hands.

Sederous grabbed Revendrinn around the shoulders.

Revendrinn looked personally offended by affection.

Tiamel roared.

Hansall laughed.

Not dignified.

Not kingly.

He laughed until tears entered his eyes.

One.

They had one.

Godrian was still dead.

Raastali was still dead.

Nothing had been repaired.

But for the first time...

death had crossed the arena in the other direction.

The Gods-Blood could be killed.

The impossible had a corpse.

Vishraa bowed before the bell.

Hansall returned it.

The Asura stood magnificent beneath the arena sun.

Gold armour.

Multiple arms.

Blades in several hands.

Magic gathering within others.

No mockery.

No sadism.

No Crowley.

That alone made him strange among the champions Hansall had encountered.

"If I win," Vishraa said, "I will petition for mercy."

Hansall almost laughed.

"For us?"

"For everyone."

That stopped him.

Vishraa looked toward the Gods-Blood gallery.

"Enslavement is dishonour."

"And yet you fight for those practising it."

"Yes."

The honesty irritated Hansall less than an excuse would have.

"Why?"

"Because one does not repair one's people by abandoning them to their worst men."

Hansall studied him.

"Solomon?"

Vishraa's eyes changed.

"He was once my friend."

"Was?"

"Yes."

Hansall heard grief there.

The bell rang.

They moved.

The duel became almost beautiful.

Vishraa was extraordinary.

Several blades.

Several attack lines simultaneously.

Hansall turned aside one strike while ducking another.

Countered.

Vishraa blocked.

Fire passed between them.

White light answered.

And somehow...

between impacts...

conversation continued.

"Solomon is changing," Vishraa said.

Steel met steel.

"How?"

"Power has become his only argument."

Hansall pivoted beneath a blade.

"Crowley."

"Encourages him."

"Caligula?"

"Needs no encouragement."

Hansall struck.

Vishraa caught the blade between two weapons.

"Cainan?"

Vishraa's expression darkened.

Hansall saw it.

"What?"

"Perhaps..."

Vishraa drove him backward.

"...not during combat."

Hansall pushed free.

"Now."

A pause.

Then:

"Breeding."

Hansall stopped.

Vishraa almost struck him.

Pulled the blow.

"What did you say?"

The arena disappeared.

"Captured races."

Vishraa's voice became ashamed.

"Cainan and Caligula force unions. They seek stronger descendants."

Hansall's fingers went cold.

"Elves?"

"Yes."

"Names."

"I know few."

"Names."

Vishraa hesitated.

"One was Whitewing."

Hansall could not breathe.

"Say that again."

"An Elf princess. Taken years ago."

Allani.

No.

The thought arrived before reason could resist it.

"Where is she?"

Vishraa's face told him.

Hansall's voice cracked.

"Where."

"Dead."

The word entered more cleanly than any blade.

Hansall stared.

"How?"

Vishraa told him.

Not every detail.

Enough.

The courtyard.

The chains.

Anthurian watching.

Allani refusing to call her own daughter property.

Cainan attending.

Caligula ordering the punishment extended because Anthurian kept crying.

The final words.

She belongs to herself.

The body left within sight of the child until morning.

Hansall's world narrowed.

Vishraa continued:

"The daughter survived."

Hansall looked at him.

"Anthurian."

"Yes."

Something inside Hansall went very still.

He turned his head.

The Gods-Blood gallery.

Cainan sat there.

Older.

Withered.

Pale hair thinning.

The first Human son of Adamas.

Abel's murderer.

Allani's tormentor.

Father of the child whose life he had made into a prison.

Cainan met Hansall's eyes.

Then smiled.

Hansall nearly left the arena.

Not from fear.

To climb the gallery and strangle him.

Bare hands.

No sword.

No king.

No treaty.

Just fingers around the throat until Adamas's firstborn finally stopped poisoning everything his

father had loved.

Vishraa spoke.

"Hansall."

The use of his name reached him.

Hansall turned.

Vishraa had lowered his weapons.

"I'm sorry."

Hansall looked at this honourable man fighting for dishonourable kings.

"So am I."

Vishraa understood.

He raised every weapon.

"Then let us finish properly."

Hansall raised his sword.

"Yes."

They both prepared everything.

Vishraa's arms spread.

Fire gathered.

Not flame.

A sun.

It grew above him.

Ten feet.

Twenty.

An enormous sphere of compressed fire forming over the arena.

Heat struck the stands.

Wards screamed.

People recoiled.

The fireball became so large its colours whitened toward the centre.

Vishraa's face tightened under the strain.

Hansall lowered his body.

White light appeared around him.

Vaen State.

Faith of the Path.

The noise of the arena vanished.

No Cainan.

No Caligula.

No Allani.

No rage.

Path.

Only path.

Vishraa screamed and released the sun.

Hansall moved.

The fire bomb descended.

Too late.

A line of white passed through Vishraa.

Hansall appeared behind him.

For a fraction of a second...

nothing happened.

Vishraa looked surprised.

Then smiled.

The giant fireball lost cohesion above them.

Flame spread harmlessly against the upper ward.

Vishraa's body separated.

Clean.

Two halves.

Hansall caught one before it struck the ground.

Vishraa looked at him.

Still conscious.

Barely.

Hansall held him.

"You were the most honourable Gods-Blood I ever met."

Vishraa managed a whisper.

"Then..."

Blood.

"...make sure I am not the last."

His eyes closed.

Hansall remained kneeling beside him long after the victory sigil ignited.

Two to two.

Hansall had won.

Yet all he could think about was a little girl sitting one arm's length from her mother's hand...

unable to reach it.

Tiamel found Hansall beneath the arena afterward.

No mask.

Hands braced against a basin.

He had vomited.

He hated that she saw.

Tiamel ignored the indignity.

Good family did that.

"Allani?"

Hansall nodded.

Tiamel's face broke.

She had known her.

Everyone had.

Hansall whispered:

"I stopped looking."

Tiamel's eyes hardened immediately.

"No."

"I stopped."

"Because every trace ended."

"I should have..."

"Hansall."

"She waited for us."

"You do not know that."

"She taught Anthurian about home."

His voice broke.

"She thought someone would come."

Tiamel crossed the room.

Caught his face between her hands.

"Listen to me."

Hansall tried to look away.

She didn't let him.

"You are not powerful enough for every tragedy to become your personal failure."

Hansall laughed bitterly.

"Comforting."

"It isn't meant to be."

Her thumbs rested beside old scars.

"Responsibility and vanity look surprisingly alike when grief gets involved."

Hansall stared at her.

Tiamel's eyes filled.

"Allani was wronged."

"Yes."

"Anthurian was wronged."

"Yes."

"Cainan did it."

"Yes."

"Caligula did it."

"Yes."

"Not you."

Hansall closed his eyes.

Tiamel pulled him against her.

He let her.

For a moment he was not High King.

She was not Dragon Queen.

Just uncle and niece.

Family grieving someone they had failed to find.

Then the horn sounded.

Tiamel sighed against his shoulder.

"My turn."

Hansall held her tighter.

She laughed softly.

"I need those ribs."

"Withdraw."

"No."

"Tiamel."

She stepped back.

"Hansall."

"No."

"If I withdraw, they receive the round."

"I don't care."

She smiled.

"I do."

"Tiamel."

She opened her wings.

Dark armour around her body.

Gold-red draconic details catching light.

"I'll come back."

Hansall stared.

That sentence.

Raastali.

Tiamel saw the reaction.

Her expression softened.

She touched his cheek.

"I'll come back."

Hansall hated promises from that day forward.

Famine entered.

Tiamel activated Vaen immediately.

White light crossed her armour.

The Horseman charged.

Tiamel moved.

One stroke.

So fast most of the audience never saw it.

Famine stopped.

The body separated at the waist.

The Mortal stands erupted.

Hansall's heart jumped.

Done.

Then the severed halves began moving.

Tiamel turned.

"Oh."

Flesh convulsed.

Expanded.

Bones erupted outward.

The Horseman's upper half split.

One neck became three.

Then five.

Then more.

The lower body grew monstrous beneath it.

Scales.

Claws.

A mountain of serpentine flesh.

Famine transformed into a Hydra so enormous its heads rose almost level with the lower

galleries.

The Mortal cheering died.

Tiamel looked upward.

One Hydra head screamed.

Another struck.

She launched into the air.

Teeth closed beneath her.

Missed.

Another head breathed rot.

Tiamel folded one wing.

Spun.

Cut through a neck.

Two heads grew where one had fallen.

She looked at them.

"Oh, that's irritating."

Hansall almost laughed despite everything.

The Hydra filled the arena.

Tiamel climbed.

Higher.

Higher.

The creature followed, necks twisting upward.

All heads opened.

Hansall realised what she was doing.

"Tiamel..."

She flew directly above it.

Vaen burned around her.

Then colour began gathering between her hands.

Red.

Gold.

Blue.

Green.

Violet.

White.

Dragon fires from ancient bloodlines folding together.

The sphere grew.

And grew.

A multicoloured star above the arena.

The Hydra roared upward.

Tiamel looked very small above it.

Then smiled.

"Eat."

She threw the sun down.

All colours became one.

The impact swallowed the Hydra.

Every head.

Every neck.

Every regenerating piece.

Fire hit the arena floor and rose again in a column.

The wards turned opaque beneath the force.

Hansall shielded his eyes.

The roar continued.

Then stopped.

When the light faded...

there was no Hydra.

Only a vast circle of glass where stone had melted.

Ash drifted downward.

Tiamel descended through it.

Wings spread.

Dragon Queen.

Unburned.

She landed.

Looked toward Hansall.

Raised one eyebrow.

Three to two.

Hansall laughed.

Tiamel bowed dramatically.

He would remember that expression until the day she died.

Especially then.

Koschei died honourably.

That did not make it easier.

Valkryie was perhaps the second Gods-Blood champion Hansall respected.

She fought cleanly.

No cruelty.

No humiliation.

Koschei gave her a good battle.

For a time.

But he was proud.

Too proud.

He relied on strength to repair mistakes technique should have prevented.

Valkryie learned him.

Then killed him.

One clean decapitation.

No spectacle.

Afterward she bowed to his body.

Hansall bowed his head too.

There was a strange dignity to it.

Teela did not see dignity.

She saw her father without a head.

That was all.

Four deaths now.

Raastali.

Godrian.

Koschei.

Vishraa on the other side.

War.

Famine.

The arena had become less like a tournament with every round.

By then...

everyone understood.

They were watching nations trade loved ones.

Sederous was supposed to fight.

Teela took his place.

Grief made her reckless.

She entered the arena demanding Valkryie return.

Valkryie refused.

Teela attacked her from behind.

Hansall rose.

"TEELA!"

She never reached her.

Black armour appeared between them.

Blade struck spear.

Teela flew backward.

The woman who had intercepted her turned.

Blood mask.

Dark crown.

Long dark armour fitted around a body trained by gladiatorial war.

Anthurian Bloodwing.

Hansall saw her properly for the first time.

And hated the world.

Because Allani was there.

Around the eyes.

The line of her cheek.

Small things.

Enough.

His niece survived inside the face of the woman Caligula had turned into a weapon.

Hansall whispered:

"Allani."

Hannarial heard.

She looked at him.

Then Anthurian.

"That's her?"

Hansall could only nod.

Valkryie said:

"This is not your bout."

Anthurian stared at Teela.

"I accept."

Officials protested.

Sederous came running from beneath the stands.

"No!"

Teela stood.

"Good."

Sederous reached the barrier.

"TEELA!"

She ignored him.

The challenge was accepted.

Round Seven began.

Hansall knew within one minute.

This was murder.

Teela was trained.

Anthurian was made.

There was a difference.

Teela attacked with the confidence of a princess praised for loving weapons.

Anthurian defended with the instincts of someone who had learned as a child that failure meant

pain.

She disarmed Teela.

Could have ended it.

Didn't.

Cut her.

Waited.

Teela attacked again.

Another cut.

Wait.

Again.

Hansall looked toward Caligula.

The king was smiling.

His stomach turned.

Anthurian wasn't merely winning.

She was performing.

For him.

Ten minutes.

Teela understood.

The anger left her.

Then pride.

Then everything except fear.

She tried to surrender.

"Surr..."

Anthurian struck.

Teela's jaw broke.

The word became blood.

Then Anthurian cut out her tongue.

Hannarial turned away.

Hansall did not.

Sederous struck the barrier so hard both hands opened.

"TEELA!"

The girl collapsed.

Tried crawling.

Anthurian followed.

Slowly.

Hansall watched his grand-niece cut pieces from another father's daughter.

And the worst part...

the part that would haunt him...

was that sometimes Anthurian looked toward Caligula afterward.

Checking.

Was that enough?

Was he pleased?

Each time he smiled...

she continued.

They had trained love into obedience.

Approval into violence.

Hansall despised her actions.

He also understood where they had built the machinery.

Both truths existed.

Neither softened the other.

The fight stretched toward two hours.

It should have lasted one minute.

Teela eventually could no longer move.

Dark flame gathered around Anthurian's hand.

Black centre.

Red edges.

Hansall whispered:

"Don't."

She could not hear him.

Or perhaps some part of her could.

He never knew.

Anthurian looked toward the Mortal gallery.

For the smallest moment...

her gaze found Hansall.

Something happened.

Recognition?

Curiosity?

Nothing?

Then Caligula applauded once.

Anthurian turned back.

The flame fell.

Teela burned.

Sederous closed his eyes.

Hansall forced his open.

Someone had to witness what happened to her as a person.

Not a score.

Not "Round Seven."

Teela.

Daughter of Koschei.

Foolish.

Spoiled.

Brave.

Grieving.

Afraid.

Dead.

When the fire ended, the Gods-Blood had their fourth victory.

One more...

and the Mortal world would belong to them.

Anthurian removed her blood mask.

Hansall saw Allani's face inside hers.

Then she smiled toward Caligula.

And Hansall finally understood the full cruelty of Allani's death.

They had not merely killed his niece.

They had forced her daughter to spend the rest of her life proving that her mother's final words

were wrong.

She belongs to herself.

Everything Anthurian had become was an argument against that sentence.

Hansall decided then...

whatever else happened...

he would make her hear it again.

Death entered transformed.

Immediately.

That mattered.

The Grey King had done nothing.

He merely walked into the arena.

Grey cloak.

Cowl.

Spear.

Human-looking.

Elven movement.

Leonar-like build.

Unknown.

Death stopped at the opposite gate.

Stared.

Then fused with the steed before the bell.

Hansall leaned forward.

Hannarial noticed.

"What?"

"He's afraid."

"Death?"

"Apparently."

That almost made her smile.

The transformed Horseman was enormous.

Death aura rolled across the arena.

He had not waited to test the Grey King.

No gradual escalation.

Full strength.

Because whatever Death sensed beneath that grey cloak convinced him restraint was suicidal.

The bell rang.

Death attacked.

The Grey King moved.

Not fast.

Calm.

That was stranger.

Every step happened exactly where it needed to.

Death's strikes missed by inches.

Sometimes less.

The Grey King's spear answered.

Once.

Twice.

Death roared.

Vaen State exploded around the Horseman.

Hansall stood.

Elves throughout the arena did the same.

White aura.

Faith of the Path.

Death possessed it.

Then the Grey King sighed.

And activated Vaen too.

Hannarial stared.

"He looks Human."

"I noticed."

"Humans can do that?"

"Gilgamesh hasn't."

"Sinbad almost did."

"Yes."

"Then what is he?"

Hansall watched.

"No idea."

That delighted him more than it should have.

Death laughed.

"I am the strongest of the Four!"

The Grey King regarded him.

"Are you?"

Death charged.

The Grey King's aura changed.

Vaen quieted.

Not vanished.

Deepened.

His grey hair turned white.

Then began to glow.

Not flame.

Not magic in the ordinary sense.

A stillness entered the arena.

Hansall felt it in his bones.

The Grey King's sense of self seemed to disappear from his movement.

No pride.

No fear.

No anger.

Nothing resisting the moment.

"Seren State," he said.

Calm of No-Self.

Death attacked.

The Grey King moved.

One spear.

Hundreds of wounds.

It was almost impossible to follow.

The transformed Horseman's armour shredded.

Limbs opened.

Divine power tore apart beneath perfect spearwork.

Death, who had transformed before the fight because he feared this stranger...

discovered fear had been appropriate.

Seconds later...

the strongest Horseman fell in pieces.

Four to four.

The entire Tournament reduced to one final round.

Hansall stared at the Grey King.

The mysterious warrior looked toward him.

For one moment...

Hansall thought he saw amusement beneath the cowl.

Hannarial whispered:

"Do you think he'll tell us what he is?"

Hansall sat down.

"No."

"Why?"

"Because annoying mysterious people rarely explain themselves."

Revendrinn looked offended.

Hansall ignored him.

Gilgamesh prepared alone.

His brother's mourning cloth was tied around his wrist.

Hansall found him.

Said nothing.

Gilgamesh looked at him.

"You're going to tighten something."

Hansall almost smiled.

"No."

"Good."

A pause.

Then Hansall reached toward his cloak clasp.

Gilgamesh sighed.

"I knew it."

Hansall adjusted it.

Neither spoke about Raastali.

They did not need to.

Gilgamesh looked toward the gate.

"Caligula."

"Yes."

"If I kill him..."

"When."

Gilgamesh looked back.

Hansall's eyes were hard.

"When you kill him."

A faint smile.

Then Gilgamesh asked:

"Do you think Father would be proud?"

Hansall's throat closed.

Abel.

The boy who had followed Elves into hunts.

The man who had refused to hate his brother even while dying from his hand.

Hansall touched Gilgamesh's shoulder.

"He already was."

Gilgamesh looked down.

For a moment...

not True King.

Not champion.

Just someone's son.

Then he breathed.

And entered.

Caligula was magnificent.

Hansall hated that too.

Evil did not always look diseased.

Sometimes it wore gold.

Sometimes it smiled beautifully.

Sometimes it was charismatic enough that broken people mistook possession for love.

Caligula and Gilgamesh fought nearly evenly.

Blade.

Spear.

Magic.

Impact.

Neither yielding.

Caligula taunted him.

"Your brother screamed beautifully."

Gilgamesh attacked harder.

Hansall whispered:

"Control it."

Caligula smiled.

"Your father died because he trusted Elves."

Gilgamesh stopped.

Only for half a heartbeat.

Caligula exploited it.

Dirty feint.

Turn.

Blade.

Gilgamesh's left hand left his body.

Blood sprayed.

The Mortal gallery screamed.

Hansall's heart stopped.

Not again.

Gilgamesh dropped to one knee.

Caligula kicked him down.

"True King?"

He laughed.

"Of what?"

Gilgamesh stared upward.

His face pale.

Blood pouring from the wrist.

Caligula raised his weapon.

Gilgamesh whispered:

"Father."

The sky answered.

Light descended.

Not lightning.

Something solid.

A meteor of white-gold struck the arena.

Stone shattered.

A spear stood inside the crater.

Hansall stopped breathing.

He knew it.

Everyone close to Abel knew it.

Abel.

The Spear of Light.

Forged from Abel's ashes.

Gilgamesh reached with his remaining hand.

Touched it.

White erupted through him.

Vaen State.

The Elves rose.

Again.

But this time Hansall did not feel confusion.

He felt something approaching awe.

Gilgamesh stood.

Blood still falling.

One hand gone.

Father's spear in the other.

Caligula stopped smiling.

Hansall saw Abel.

Not literally.

Something in the stance.

Gilgamesh breathed the way his father had before a hunt.

One slow breath.

Then forward.

Caligula blocked once.

Twice.

Third failed.

Gilgamesh drove him backward.

The fight that had been equal became judgment.

Caligula screamed.

Tried magic.

Gilgamesh broke through it.

Tried retreating.

Gilgamesh followed.

Then the Spear of Abel entered Caligula's chest.

The Depraved King gasped.

Gilgamesh pushed deeper.

Caligula looked toward the Gods-Blood gallery.

Toward Anthurian.

And there...

Hansall saw something painful.

Anthurian loved him.

However monstrous.

However twisted.

Caligula had been the first person after Allani to make her believe she was wanted.

That love had been poisoned from its beginning.

Still love.

Her face broke.

Gilgamesh saw.

He hesitated.

Only slightly.

Then remembered Raastali.

Teela.

The cages.

The wars.

He drove the Spear of Abel through Caligula's heart.

The Gods-Blood king died.

Nothing happened.

For one heartbeat.

Two.

Everyone stared at the arena.

Then the fifth Mortal sigil ignited.

ALLIANCE VICTORY.

Five.

They had five.

The Tournament of Domination was over.

The Mortal world remained free.

The sound was unlike anything Hansall had heard.

Not cheering.

Not merely.

It was centuries of fear leaving millions of bodies at once.

Humans screamed.

Elves cried.

Beastkin roared.

Moon Elves embraced Tylons.

Soldiers climbed barriers.

Kings forgot dignity.

Hannarial grabbed Herafel.

Herafel, terrifying master of intelligence, looked shocked enough that Hannarial immediately

released her.

Then Herafel grabbed her back.

Sederous lifted Revendrinn bodily.

"PUT ME DOWN."

"We won!"

"I HAVE LEGS."

"USE THEM LATER."

Tiamel's roar shook banners from poles.

Sinbad fired his flintlock into the air.

Hansall screamed at him for doing so.

Nobody heard.

Gilgamesh stood in the arena.

One-handed.

Covered in blood.

Holding his father's spear.

And Hansall...

Hansall started crying.

He imagined Adamas.

Evalon.

Abel.

All gone.

He imagined Adamas seeing Humanity refusing tyranny.

Evalon seeing Abel's son standing as a king without needing to dominate anyone to prove it.

Abel seeing Gilgamesh holding what remained of him.

Hansall laughed through tears.

"You should see them."

Tiamel heard.

She took his hand.

Hansall squeezed hers.

"You should see your children, Abel."

Gilgamesh raised the Spear of Light.

The arena shook beneath the celebration.

For one brief, impossible moment...

the dead seemed very near.

Herafel found Hansall during the celebration.

One look at her face.

Joy vanished.

"What?"

"Solomon."

Hansall followed her gaze.

The Gods-Blood royal seats.

Caligula's empty throne.

And beside it...

another.

Solomon had barely attended.

Hansall stared.

"Where is he?"

"We don't know."

Revendrinn joined them.

"We should."

Herafel's jaw tightened.

"Yes."

Hansall looked around.

People celebrating peace.

Gilgamesh alive.

War supposedly ended.

Then toward Solomon's empty throne.

His stomach sank.

Somewhere far south...

while nine champions had been bleeding for the future...

Solomon had been opening Hell.

The Tournament ended with screaming.

Not fear.

Joy.

The sort of joy that comes when people have forgotten what hope feels like and suddenly remember all at once.

Hansall remembered the sound of it more clearly than the banners.

Gilgamesh stood in the arena with Abel's spear in one hand and blood pouring from the place where his other hand had been.

Caligula lay dead.

Five victories.

Five.

That ridiculous little number had saved the Mortal world from submission.

For perhaps an hour, Hansall allowed himself to believe it.

That peace could be counted.

That suffering could end because enough witnesses had watched the terms being satisfied.

That the dead had purchased something permanent.

Raastali.

Godrian.

Koschei.

Teela.

Vishraa.

War.

Famine.

Death.

Caligula.

Nine rounds.

Enough blood.

Surely.

Surely the world had taken enough.

Herafel found him while people were still celebrating.

She did not need to speak.

Hansall saw her face and knew.

"What?"

Herafel looked toward the Gods-Blood gallery.

One throne sat empty.

Not Caligula's.

The other.

"Solomon."

Hansall's stomach tightened.

"Where is he?"

"We don't know."

Revendrinn appeared beside her.

His hood was back on now.

Joy had apparently exhausted his tolerance for sunlight.

"He hasn't been seen since before the final round."

Hansall looked across the arena.

Mortals embracing.

Humans crying against Elven shoulders.

Beastkin roaring songs.

Sinbad loudly explaining to anyone within range that his firearm had personally altered warfare.

Sederous telling him to shut up.

Tiamel laughing.

Hannarial smiling openly beside the older heroes she once could barely speak around.

Hansall looked back at Solomon's empty seat.

The celebration suddenly felt too loud.

"Find him."

Herafel's eyes were already cold.

"I am."

And somewhere far south...

beyond Heaven's Throat...

Solomon was opening Hell.