Chương 125: Those Who Remain

The Forges of Vhur kept striking long after Drakhar's death. Boom. Boom. Boom. The rhythm rolled down from the stands, crashed against the mountain walls, passed through the hanging chains, and vibrated beneath Zayn's feet. It was not a celebration. It was not mourning. It was Vhur acknowledging that a battle had taken place and that the forge had kept the victor alive. Nothing more. Nothing tender. Nothing clean. Zayn limped across the arena.

His body was holding together only because several horrors inside him were refusing to let go at the same time. The regeneration stolen from Voragna was closing his wounds with painful slowness. His right palm, marked by Avarice, remained split open to the wrist, the black lines visible in the flesh like a symbol carved too deep. His left arm was still smoking after the unstable fusion of the Fang of Vhur with his Wrath. And something in his veins was burning. Not metaphorically.

The piece of Drakhar's core he had bitten during the fight had not simply dissolved. Gluttony had read it. Then kept it. Then copied it badly. The first wave of heat came as he passed near Elvarin's body. Zayn stopped. His veins lit up beneath his skin, red and blazing, like tiny lines of lava. A violent pain climbed from his stomach to his throat. His blood seemed to start boiling. His black wings spread out on reflex. Their edges caught fire. Not with clean, noble flames.

With red embers running along the membranes, licking the black bones, burning his own flesh in the process. Zayn gritted his teeth. The fused scythe vibrated in his hand.

"Oh. That's new." Elyra hurried toward him.

"Zayn?" He lifted a hand to stop her.

"Don't touch." His voice was rough. The heat surged higher. The burning veins spread into his neck, then his jaw. Beneath the reforged half-mask, his skin reddened and split in several places. Voragna's regeneration answered at once, sealing what burned, closing what opened. Burning. Repair. Burning. Repair. His body had become a short war between two dead Generals. Elyra understood.

"Drakhar's core..." Zayn gave a strangled laugh.

"Bad meal." The scythe snickered.

"Excellent meal. Bad stomach." The system appeared. [Flesh Assimilation: partial property acquired.] [Forge Blood unstable.] [Effect: thermal blood activation in combat, increased offensive heat.] [Warning: body incompatible with Drakhar's heat.] [Internal damage partially compensated by organic regeneration.] Zayn read the window. Then he smiled. The pain was atrocious. But useful. Again. Always. He closed his left fist. A red flame ran over his knuckles. The skin burned. Regeneration covered it.

"Interesting," he murmured. Elyra stared at him in horror.

"You are literally burning yourself alive." Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

"Not alive all at once."

"That is not better."

"It's more precise." She found nothing to say to that. The warriors of Vhur, meanwhile, watched in silence. Some seemed impressed. Others furious. Others almost respectful. They saw Drakhar's heat in another being's veins. Not a clean succession. Not a recognized inheritance. A seizure. Zayn crossed the final steps to the anvil. Elvarin's body still hung off the side, hollowed out, broken, useless now. Elyra stopped behind him. For a while, neither of them spoke. Then Zayn said, "He's dead."

"Yes."

"Is your father avenged?" She did not answer. Zayn turned his face slightly toward her.

"The man who sold the elven dead is dead. The one who used him here is dead. The one who kept the fragments is dead. Why are you still walking behind me?" Elyra remained still. Around them, the hammers of Vhur kept going. Boom. Boom. Boom. She looked at Elvarin. Then Drakhar. Then Zayn.

"I saw my father become a calamity." Zayn did not move. She continued, more quietly, "I saw a good king become something that attacked his own daughter because a foreign command stole the meaning of his protection." Lumeï, perched on her shoulder, remained silent. Elyra raised her eyes to Zayn.

"And the one who stopped my father from sinking completely... was you." He gave a small laugh.

"Bad reading of the story."

"Maybe." She took a step toward him despite the heat still flowing through his veins.

"But I would like the one who kept my father from becoming a calamity not to become one himself." Zayn looked at her for a long time. His smile returned. Faint. Cruel by habit.

"You are very bad at choosing salvageable causes."

"I'm starting to realize that."

"I'm not your father."

"No."

"I'm not good."

"I know."

"I'm going to keep going."

"I know that too." The fused scythe murmured, "She's stubborn. I almost like it." Elyra looked at the weapon.

"And I still don't like you."

"That will come. Or you'll die first. Both are possible." Zayn turned his eyes toward the arena exit. Toward the west. Toward Ghelkar. Toward Cassiel. The mark in his right palm pulsed.

"Cassiel sold Elvarin." Elyra nodded.

"Yes."

"Drakhar killed him."

"Yes."

"Voragna used him."

"Yes."

"And every time, someone thought they could move what was supposed to end up in my hand." Elyra did not answer immediately. Then she said, "That's exactly why I'm staying." Zayn turned his head. She held his gaze.

"Because you're no longer talking only about revenge. You're talking as if everything you touch should belong to you because it was denied to you once." Zayn's right palm burned. Avarice did not like that sentence. Or liked it too much. He took one step toward Elyra. The heat in his veins intensified. Lumeï tensed. Elyra did not back away. Zayn asked softly, "You think you can stop that?" She answered, "No." Silence fell. Even the scythe fell quiet.

Elyra continued, "But maybe I can be there when you still have one second of hesitation left." Zayn studied her. One second. Then two. At last, he gave a small laugh.

"You're betting on very little."

"Yes."

"That's stupid."

"Probably." He moved past her.

"Fine. Keep walking." She closed her eyes briefly. Not in relief. Not really. Just in the exhaustion of having earned the right to stay near a catastrophe that had just allowed her not to run. At the top of the Forges, the warriors of Vhur opened the gates. No one knelt. Zayn would not have liked that. They simply formed two rows, weapons lowered, eyes fixed. At the end of the passage, an old war-demon was waiting for him. Her face was covered in scars. One of her arms was missing.

She wore plain red armor, and in her remaining hand she held an iron tablet.

"Drakhar is dead," she said. Zayn stopped in front of her.

"Yes."

"Vhur belongs to no one until a new master takes it."

"I don't want it." She smiled.

"No one wants Vhur. You either endure it or earn it." She held out the iron tablet to him. Elyra tensed.

"What is that?" The old demon replied, "A war route. Drakhar had it prepared in case the candidate survived." Zayn took the tablet. Red lines lit up across its surface. A simplified map of the demon continent appeared. Vhur in the north. Ghelkar in the west. Nhaless in the northwest. The dead lands of Morvessa in the southwest. Lyséa's domain in the east. Vaelthor's citadels in the northeast. The Black Throne at the center. A red line ran from Vhur to Ghelkar.

The old demon said, "He said that if you won, you would want to make the one who sold the bait pay." Zayn smiled.

"He learned fast for a dead man."

"Drakhar was never slow. Only direct." Then she looked at Elyra.

"Elven princess, you should know the roads are about to close. Voragna dead, Drakhar dead... the others will stop sending only flowers and invitations." Elyra answered, "I assumed as much." The old demon looked at Zayn.

"Cassiel will not face you in an arena."

"I know."

"Seryth will sell your shadow before you see her face."

"She can try."

"Morvessa will wait until you are too tired to raise the scythe." Zayn gave a low laugh.

"Too late. I'm already tired." The old demon did not smile.

"Then she will be dangerous." She paused.

"Lyséa will do nothing like the others." The scythe muttered, "Mysterious. Useless. Classic." The old demon ignored it.

"And Vaelthor..." Her gaze hardened.

"Vaelthor will come when he decides your existence insults the summit of the world too much." Zayn looked toward the northeast on the tablet. The white citadels. Pride. Not yet. He could feel it. Vaelthor's road was not the next one. He first had to take back from those who had taken. Ghelkar. Cassiel. The mark of Avarice pulsed again.

"West," he said. Elyra nodded.

"Ghelkar." The old war-demon stepped aside.

"Then leave before some of our warriors decide that avenging Drakhar is a good way to honor him." Zayn looked at the rows of soldiers. Several were already tightening their grips on their weapons. He smiled.

"They can wait their turn." They left Vhur by the Chain Road. A red road suspended between mountains, where the winds still carried the hot ash of the forges. The sky was low. Distant flames stained the clouds like an open wound. Zayn walked ahead. His black wings remained partly spread, their edges sometimes crossed by red sparks. Each time his blood grew too hot, a faint smoke rose from his wounds. Elyra followed him. Not too close. Not too far.

She had learned the exact distance at which she neither seemed to be fleeing him nor offered his flames an excuse to touch her. After an hour, Zayn spoke without turning around.

"You should have taken Elvarin's body." Elyra lowered her eyes.

"Why?"

"For your kingdom. For the trial. For the grave. For all the things clean people do with corpses when they want to pretend the end means something." She was silent. Then she answered, "No." He turned his head slightly.

"No?"

"He sold the dead. He delivered ours to demons. He broke my father." Her voice was calm. But not soft.

"I'm not bringing his body back so he can be given the weight of official mourning." Zayn smiled.

"There." She frowned.

"There what?"

"The bad methods." Elyra did not answer. Lumeï murmured, "I don't like that he's right."

"Neither do I," she said. Zayn gave a small laugh. Then his body convulsed. The heat returned. Stronger. He nearly dropped to one knee. His veins ignited beneath his skin. His wings caught fire along the edges, scattering sparks into the wind. His left arm, the one marked by Wrath and reinforced by the Fang of Vhur, became covered in red lines. Elyra moved toward him despite herself.

"Zayn!" He drove the scythe into the ground.

"Stay... behind." The heat surged higher. This time, it did not remain passive. It wanted out. Zayn raised his left arm toward a boulder at the edge of the road. He clenched his fist. Forge blood surged through his arm. The pain was so violent that his vision blurred. He struck. A burst of red flame exploded from his fist. The boulder shattered, melted at the edges. Zayn remained still. Then he let out a low, almost disbelieving laugh.

"Useful." His burned skin immediately began repairing itself. Slowly. Painfully. Elyra looked at him in horror.

"You call that useful?"

"It destroyed the rock."

"Your arm too." He looked at his smoking arm.

"It comes back."

"Until the day it doesn't." Zayn resumed walking.

"Then that day, I'll hit with the other one." The fused scythe sighed.

"This is why we do not practice medicine." Elyra stayed still for a few seconds. Then she took up the road behind him again. Toward the west. Toward Ghelkar. Toward Cassiel. Toward the General who had not driven his fist into Elvarin, but had sold the moment when someone else would. And in Zayn's right palm, the mark of Avarice kept burning, as if it already recognized the next thing it had to take back.