Legends of the War (War of the Magi Book 3) Page 11

  Tetra leaned back, processing everything she had just read. Had Garo really come that close to unleashing the worst of Iblis onto the world? Had her own capture led to that?

  Perhaps Garo’s meditations had led him to some false places. That certainly seemed possible, if not likely.

  But in the deepest parts of her soul, the parts that she only noticed if she paid particular attention to them, she knew that at the very least, elements of truth seeded Garo’s words. When she’d killed Indica, she hadn’t had anything stand out to her… but now that she thought about it, something did feel slightly off.

  And now Artemia planned on slaughtering Bahamut.

  Maybe Artemia stood no chance at all. She had no hordes of men behind her, not ones that would stand up to Bahamut in any meaningful way. But she had the monsters of Ragnor, and however improbable, that could only mean that she had slaughtered Ragnor. If she could do that, with her new allies, she might very well defeat the king of kings. What that would do to the world…

  It would allow the battle between Chrystos and Iblis to spill over into the physical world once more. The spiritual realm would remain a war zone, and it would move into Hydor.

  They needed to stop her. Anyone living who could fight needed to stop Artemia.

  Then, a second thought came to mind. Tetra knew who would assume the mantle now that Garo had perished. She had seen the power of the next chosen one with her own eyes.

  But did the fact that Tetra had married Garo and become one with him block the next chosen one from receiving their powers?

  It made her sense of duty for her next mission that much stronger and much more final.

  She had more to read. She knew that. It would take her hours, if not days, to read all of Garo’s entries.

  It would take her perhaps only minutes, though, to accomplish her next test. She would have to entrust Yeva and the chosen one with the journals of Garo.

  Tetra looked outside. The sun had just begun to set. By the time she got Yeva to safety and she wormed her way through the palace, darkness would have fully descended.

  It was time.

  “Yeva,” Tetra whispered. “I’m going to go finish what I came here to do. I want you to find safety here. Someone needs to live. You wanted to read Garo’s journals. I want you to do so as well now. But that means you can’t come with me. If I don’t return, please find Zelda. You two must stop Artemia, no matter what.”

  Yeva pursed her lips and snorted, as if trying to expel any counters or thoughts of refusal. The young girl had experienced too much for her age, but she handled it about as well as anyone could, even if Tetra feared she, not Zelda, had taken on her bitter, angry personality too well.

  “I swore I would come and help you defeat the empire,” Yeva said. “But I understand what you mean. If you fail, Tetra, I’m going to try and kill him myself. Remember, my parents died at his hand. I will make sure he perishes whether you succeed or not.”

  “Good,” Tetra said. “The emperor dies tonight if I have my way. Unfortunately, though, for as long as Artemia lives, what the empire stands for does not. Our mission doesn’t end here. It simply reaches its penultimate point. For it to reach a victorious conclusion, you must continue to fight. Will you?”

  Yeva nodded without any hesitation.

  “For as long as our war continues,” she said. “I will fight.”

  CHAPTER 8: RUFUS

  I’ve lost my empire.

  I’m such a fool. I should have known Artemia would pull a move like that.

  No. Instead, I just assumed as a woman she would never pull that off. I should’ve known.

  She is not a woman. She is like a demon. A demon that has ruined everything I have worked for!

  Rufus Syrast sat in his throne room, trying to salvage the experience of commanding his soldiers, his son, and his people. Whatever time he had left sitting in that chair, it looked a lot more limited than when he’d woken up this morning. That foul guild master and her… her… beasts had demonstrated to him a power he never thought possible. Even in his worst nightmares, with the magi causing chaos and mayhem, he’d never anticipated anything remotely close to this.

  Now, he’d lose his throne to a woman. A woman! He felt like an immense failure. Since childhood, his father had told him how ashamed he was that he was not a true Syrast. He said he’d go to the grave begging that Rufus or his descendents didn’t destroy the Syrast Empire. Rufus had sworn his reign would bring the greatest prosperity that any Syrast had overseen. He swore he would accomplish what his father had not.

  He didn’t have much to go on. But he had pulled off something his father didn’t. He had eradicated the magi. And it barely matters.

  Rufus could also take solace in the fact that not his father, not the first Syrast, and not the greatest Syrast—himself—could have fought what Artemia brought to his throne room. She had all the power, and no one could deny it upon witnessing it. And as she had more, no army could fight her.

  Of course, that didn’t stop him from hearing his father’s harsh critique in his mind, a cold and constant reminder that Rufus would never do enough, never be good enough, and never expand the empire enough. “Enough” didn’t exist in his father’s vocabulary.

  He had hoped that the eradication of the magi would become his defining accomplishment, both for the good of the empire and for his own personal reasons, but Artemia’s appearance rendered that moot. Maybe he really did need the magi. Perhaps they could have defeated Artemia’s monsters.

  No! No! He’d rather leave nothing behind than to give the bloody magi an inch. If he had to burn the empire to the ground to avoid giving it to Artemia or the magi, well, all things had to end at some point. Better to burn with pride than slowly crumble under shame. A shame he felt—

  He heard a short cry outside his doors, followed by a body slumping to the ground. Footsteps approached the door, pausing to open it.

  Rufus sighed. Someone had come to assassinate him. Frankly, he almost didn’t mind. His son, gone. His control over the empire, gone. His name, gone. Someone needed to give him the sweet release of death. Someone needed to take over this sinking ship. Someone needed to act as the puppet to Artemia.

  The door opened. Rufus, with a grunt, stood to face his challenger. Someone in robes. Magi. I guess I haven’t killed you all. I will now.

  “You have guts walking straight into here, witch,” he snorted. “But guts won’t save you when I kill you.”

  “In a way, you would do us a favor.”

  The voice sounded like that of an older woman’s, like his mother’s. But it also sounded very familiar.

  The woman removed the hood from her face. It looked like a grandmother’s, but it, too, had familiar features. A name came to mind that made absolutely no sense, but no matter who else he considered, Rufus kept circling back to that name.

  “Kara,” he said, more confused than anything else. “How—”

  “I have let go of my denial of the past and my hope for the present,” she said. “I no longer go by the false name Kara. I go by the name your ancestors knew me as. Tetra.”

  Rufus’ eyes widened. The wife of the mage who had never died and then mysteriously disappeared. The single greatest thorn in the side of the empire. I have accomplished even less than I thought. Why?!?

  “You live?”

  “Of course I do,” Tetra said. “You may take some small solace in the fact, before you die, that your attack on Dabira killed Garo. It killed many magi. Not all, as you can see.”

  Perhaps, Rufus thought, the death of Garo would become his defining legacy. He’d defeated the greatest enemy of the empire.

  But such a victory felt so shallow with the rise of Artemia. The defeat of an enemy of a great name mattered little when an enemy of a great power arose in its place.

  “It also resulted in the death of all but one guard. I also killed your son. But I don’t think you care about that, you scum.”

  You. Killed. My. Son?!?
How dare you think I not care!

  “You—”

  “I have but one thing left in this world,” Tetra continued, ignoring Rufus’ anger. “I have no family. I have no friends. You killed them all. I have no place to live. I have no possessions but what I wear and what I hold in my pocket.”

  “Indica,” Rufus growled.

  “Yes, and it is what led me to this place,” Tetra said. “All I have left, all that keeps me alive, is to see you die before my eyes.”

  “Hah!” Rufus said, laughing to deflect her words. “You want to see me die before your eyes. As if you will kill me. I will kill you for what you did to my son!”

  But she remained silent, staring at him with terrifyingly predatory eyes.

  It didn’t surprise Rufus to hear her say that she would kill him. As Kara, she’d never felt shy about expressing her desire to see him dead.

  But the intensity of her hatred and the single-mindedness that shined in Tetra’s eyes sent an uncontrolled shiver through the emperor. He’d never seen anyone, not even Kara, so resolute on seeing him dead.

  He knew in that moment he would not escape this room. He would not see another sunrise. At least he wouldn’t see Artemia rule the land, but he knew the best he could hope for was to bring Tetra down with him.

  And so, for that reason, the Syrast Empire had but a few minutes left before it collapsed. What would come next, Rufus wouldn’t wish even upon the homeless magi in the city.

  Slowly, his anger faded. His mask of arrogance fell, replaced by resigned acceptance of the fate of his empire, if not his life.

  “I suppose that to some extent, the end of my reign is inevitable,” Rufus sighed. “All good things must end. But to be honest, if you saw what Artemia has wrought—”

  “I have.”

  “Then you know that what we do here has no meaning. You know that the result of this encounter will simply be a footnote in the life of the survivor.”

  Tetra shook her head vigorously.

  “For all that you’ve done against the magi, for all that you’ve done to me, this encounter means everything,” Tetra said. “You are about to die, Rufus. That will not change. And it’s not Artemia who will kill you, but me. Get that out of your head. But before I do that, I just want to know why. Why did you kill my kind so savagely? Why did you burn a town of innocent children and women down? Why do you hate us so?”

  Rufus laughed. It seemed so obvious from the number of encounters they’d had that they would’ve figured it out by now. Perhaps they had but had pretended not to, the better to hold him up as the embodiment of the enemy.

  Did they not remember the barrier he’d “mysteriously” erected? Did they not notice how he seemingly projected his voice with unnatural force?

  The people of Caia sure didn’t. He’d always lived on edge that someone would figure it out, but no one ever did. Or, like the magi, they just chose not to. No matter what, they loved him, and no one could take that away.

  “For years, my father tried to get his wife pregnant with an heir, but they failed multiple times to have a boy,” he said. “They must have killed about five daughters before my father threatened to kill his wife. She begged him not to, saying he could have a mistress if he wanted to. They pulled a woman named Katherine, a beautiful woman of brown, curly hair, into his home. She became pregnant and gave birth. My mother was not the empress. My mother was Katherine.

  “But then, one day, my father found out the truth. My mother was a mage.”

  He let the words hang in the air. Tetra understood the truth. The look on her face only seemed to enhance the disgust she had for him. If he’d hoped to garner some sympathy, he had failed.

  “For my entire life, I have lived in shame,” Rufus said. “My father mocks me for being of diluted blood. He wondered how the empire would fare under my reign as a half-mage. He never killed me, perhaps tired of trying to have sons. But he would beat me. Abuse me. Taunt me. Do everything you can to break a boy’s spirit without killing him. My mother did not have the same fortune. She died after torture. I never got to talk to her. I don’t even know where she’s buried. I only know her name because my father would mock me with it.”

  Tetra shook her head.

  “Anyone else in the world, I would have pity on them,” Tetra said. “The story is egregious in its horror and sad in its insanity. But you, Rufus, have had an entire lifetime to atone for what your father did. Instead, you perpetuate what he has done.”

  “I do so to prove to my father he was wrong!” Rufus shouted with force that surprised him. But he wouldn’t stop now. “My father said I would fail this empire. He said I would be seen by my descendants as the worst emperor in our history. I set out to prove him wrong. If I could not erase the magi within me, I could erase the magi around me. And you know what, Kara?”

  “Tetra,” she said, but Rufus continued over her.

  “I succeeded. I crushed you. I killed your Shadows of the Empire. I burned Dabira to the ground. I killed Garo.”

  Then he just laughed. He laughed like a drunk who had run out of alcohol and options.

  “And not a moment of it matters, because by the end of the month, Artemia will have become a goddess and we will all worship at her feet or die,” Rufus said. “Perhaps my father was right. Perhaps I am a failure as an emperor. Perhaps I should have seen Artemia’s rise coming. But no matter. I can go to the grave knowing I ended your kind.”

  “You are a sick man,” Tetra said. “A sick man whose illness will spell the end of him. I will not wait as I did at the ceremony. You will die, Rufus!”

  “That may be, but you are the last of the magi, and you will join me.”

  He rose from his chair just as Tetra blasted a column of fire at him. He cast his barrier spell, and the fire bounced off him, though he could feel its heat from behind the green-hued, translucent barrier.

  Tetra advanced, shooting different spells at him. Ice. Electricity. Wind. Fire. None of it worked. He didn’t have much power, but his barrier spell had much time to develop and it protected him against almost any magi attacks. As one of the most subtle spells, he practiced using it frequently.

  But he didn’t have much in the form of offensive weapons. He had a sword on his throne. He pulled it out as Tetra reached his level. She, too, pulled out a sword. He hoped that her physical appearance would be her undoing, but when she swung her sword, she moved with the agility of a young girl, as if Kara all over again. He tried to keep up, even deflecting her spells as she tried to catch him off guard, but the presence of the sword left him hopeless. He gasped for breath, his physical condition his downfall.

  With one well-placed strike, Tetra cut his arm severely enough that he dropped to the ground in pain, his sword clanging harmlessly against the ground. He barely registered the boot of Tetra smashing him in the face, driving him into the ground and leaving him in a dazed state. Slowly, when he came to his senses, he saw Tetra standing over him, sword raised, her feet on each side of him.

  He had no escape. Tetra had won.

  But he knew, with Artemia, it was a shallow victory. In fact, he could argue he won. He’d accomplished his mission to defeat the magi. If just one remained, so be it. Artemia would wipe her out so quickly she wouldn’t even recognize the guild master.

  “Any last words?” Tetra said, spitting on him as she did.

  “You will never have this land, no matter what you do,” Rufus said as he coughed up blood. He had not felt pain like this since his days as a child. “Artemia will have it, and there’s nothing you can do about it. And if you do somehow defeat her, the land will belong to Bahamut.”

  “And that would set things right.”

  Rufus had no idea what that meant.

  “Let me share some final words with you, Rufus,” Tetra said. As she spoke, she leaned down and tore off Rufus’ royal clothing, leaving him in just his nightdress, an embarrassing undressing of the emperor. She made sure all of his robes had tears in them, ruining clothing
worth hundreds of gold pieces.

  “Let me tell you what it was like to murder your only son. I froze his body. I had a knife and almost stabbed him in the neck, wishing to inflict a merciless, prolonged death upon him. But I didn’t. Why? I almost felt bad. Unlike you, he expressed remorse. He begged for mercy like a little baby. But at least he seemed sincere. I killed him anyways, but his death by my ice was much more merciful than what you will have. His soul may yet stand a chance with Chrystos. But you stand no chance. You will head straight for an eternal torture with Iblis. And the torture will come not from what he does, but from your failures.

  “For you see, I am not the last magi. In fact, I am not even the most powerful magi alive. Perhaps you remember the two young girls who escaped because of your incompetent plan to execute us at the ceremony.”

  They lived? Impossible. They were too young to have made it to Dabira, and even if Tetra had helped them, they couldn’t have survived.

  They just couldn’t! No!

  “They made it out, Rufus. They are the future of the magi. They will ensure our kind survives. Together, we will fight Artemia. We will defeat her. And we will have peace. Yes, you made our lives a terrible, tragic struggle for the last few decades. Your ancestors made our existence a miserable one for centuries. I would even say you made our lives more bloody than any other emperor. But unlike you, I can stand here knowing that no more Syrasts shall rise. Chaos may come, but out of the chaos will come something better than you. Rot in the depths of hell with Iblis, Rufus.”

  Without another word, she plunged the sword down. Rufus convulsed and cried out, having never felt pain like this before. He begged for it to stop. He grew furious and desperate at the stern stare of Kara. Tetra. The witch.

  “Please!” he cried.

  But Tetra did nothing other than stare with her arms crossed, her eyes like daggers upon his own.

  His vision faded. His hearing faded. He tried to hold on to the notion that he’d succeeded.