Chapter Sixty-Three: ‘Of advancing borders...’

News of the princes’ deaths broke, followed by reports of superpowered assassins and terrorists, and followed again by the revelation of Luther’s incarceration.

David was still confused, still unsure what to make of everything. The game had literally changed overnight--perhaps even for the better. It was an unsavory thought, given three of his brothers had been killed, weighing heavily on his heart, but at the same time, they had been traitors and, yes, obstacles to Atreya’s recovery. And already, the power of the Crown was beginning to fall upon his head.

Only, it wasn’t so easy as that.

He didn’t yet know whether he had real power or not. Abolish could still return at anytime and force him to do whatever insane thing they desired, so as much as he wanted to address the nation and give an honest speech about the tumult behind everything, he knew it would have to wait.

So David took his time to “grieve.” He needed it, anyway.

Hunched over in his chair with his head in his hands, David just tried to think. What was the most pressing concern? The biggest problem? Figuring that out took him a while.

The potential outbreak of war. That was the biggest. And this news of royal death could have a profound impact on it. Atreya’s relationship with Rendon was tenuous at best, what with all the talk of increased tension every day, thanks to Abolish’s propaganda.

It was rather depressing to contemplate, but enough people had already repeated Abolish’s lie and thereby transformed it into truth.

David tried to focus on what could be done. He had a whole room full of advisers in front of him, but he’d drifted from their conversation a while ago.

“Your Majesty, are you listening?” someone was saying.

David opened his eyes but did not look up.

“Perhaps we should reconvene later,” said someone else, “after you are rested.”

“No,” said David, and not in the light tone that they had perhaps come to expect of him. He’d never spent very much time at all with most of these people, and here they were, giving him contradictory counsel, likely just trying to cover all their bases. He wasn’t yet sure how many of them he wanted to dismiss, but the number was growing. “Continue. I will listen and ignore as I please, but you will not stop talking. Understood?”

“Yes, sir.”

“We have to consider how Rendon might react to this news,” said someone else, a middle-aged woman and duchess of the House Vollier. “They could well see this as a moment of vulnerability and mount an assault. We should strike first.”

David tried not to roll his eyes. She almost had a point. Rendon was as unpredictable as Abolish right now. It was why he had not gone to them for help, not tried to inform them of a rebel faction that might attack them today. He didn’t need to give Rendon a reason to move in and occupy Atreyan land in order to eliminate said rebel faction. Not only would that escalate matters, but it would also give Rendon an immense advantage in the event of full-scale war. So David could understand the woman’s concern there, but he was most certainly not going to attack a foreign nation purely out of fear.

“Don’t be absurd!” said someone else, an elderly fellow and baron of the House Belgrant. “We should be working with Rendon to prevent war from even occurring! They will be looking to see where our soon-to-be king stands on the matter, which is why His Majesty should waste no time in assuring them that he will sue for peace!”

Ah, the Belgrants. The idyllic, unremarkable house that skyrocketed to power because of a freak political storm. Four years hadn’t done much to stave off their reputation for being simple and uninformed.

David would have liked to agree with the man, of course, but even assuming the Rendon Parliament to be of benevolent intentions, there was still the very possible threat of Abolish having its claws in Rendon as well. Hector had mentioned such a suspicion in one of his texts--words passed along from Helen.

David wished he knew where his sister was right now. He wondered how she would handle this situation, because to him, it seemed like there was nothing he could reasonably do except wait until he heard from either Hector or Abolish.

The advisers were arguing again. These were the people Helen had for counsel? No wonder she’d nearly been assassinated.

“I don’t care!” said the baron from earlier. “I am right! And all of you are wrong! Which is why I sent word to Rendon an hour ago!”

The entire room turned to look at the man, then at David.

At least David knew which person he wanted to dismiss first.

-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-

Harper had to keep a close eye on the Queen. Her power was the least developed, which put her in the most danger. Moreover, she’d had something of an unlucky draw in terms of servant abilities. Calcium transfiguration, she’d gotten; and while it was far from useless, transfiguration was notoriously difficult to master, generally requiring the most study and practice. It was little wonder why most transfiguration users only figured out one or two different ways to use their power and just stuck with that.

Protecting her in the middle of the fight should have been easy for him. Objectively, he was clearly stronger than all of the Abolishers present. But one of the opponents still posed a problem--Conall Learen, a man of imposing stature, easily the tallest of the group. By now, it was apparent that Conall’s power was materialization, and his element was a highly reflective metal--aluminum, Darsihm posited.

While Conall couldn’t completely stop Harper’s soul-enhanced beams of light, he could still provide rather solid protection from them--protection which he extended to the other Abolishers. And that was the real problem.

Darsihm passed the obvious instructions on to Mehlsanz and Garovel. ‘Take that one out,’ he said, motioning to Conall, ‘and Harper will be able to annihilate the others.’

Harper pooled his concentration and threw his hand into the air. From it, an immense beacon of light poured out, illuminating the ruined forest in front of him and casting giant, moving white lasers across the dirt, gouging out trenches as they all convened toward the aluminum shelter around Andres and Desmond. The beams left smoldering trails in the aluminum but still bounced off into the forest, cutting through trees and igniting them. Not the most desirable outcome, but Harper just needed to keep Andres and Desmond pinned down for a few moments.

Hector coated the Queen’s arms in metal as she closed in on Conall. Conall raised an aluminum wall for himself, and even with its soul-enhancements, the full might of the Queen’s punches left enormous dents in the shimmering metal. And all the while, an iron meteor formed high above Conall and begun its descent.

And as the meteor neared the ground, the Queen retreated out of its way. However, it stopped in mid-air before ever reaching Conall.

And that’s when Karkash reappeared, tearing the iron meteor into electrified chunks, swirling them around the battlefield while Hector rushed to annihilate them all again.

The tide of battle shifted.

Hector was suddenly very busy diverting lightning strikes with iron spires, which allowed Conall to help Desmond and Andres draw closer to Harper. Nola was back up as well, and soon, so would Tessa be, and her power was still unknown.

Harper had to keep them all at bay while the others worked on eliminating at least one before the enemy regrouped fully. He tried to shoot Karkash out of the sky again, but the Vaelish man saw it coming this time and surged through the air at the last moment, avoiding the beam completely.

And though it missed, the attack on Karkash bought Hector a bit of time. A dozen iron pillars shot up around the trio, providing brief refuge from lightning while Karkash went to work removing them.

A mound of yellow crystal flew toward Harper, and he had to spare a laser to destroy it before being flattened. An aluminum coating tried to slow the movement of his arms, but Harper tore through without losing a beat and sent a two-handed blast of light toward Conall’s shelter. The laser hit aluminum, reflecting off but still toppling the metal anyway.

Conall was left briefly vulnerable, and Harper wanted to take advantage, but then Andres and Desmond were both there in his face while Nola came up from behind.

Judging from the way she’d melted Hector’s foot into the ground earlier, Nola’s power was certainly integration type, though Darsihm didn’t yet have more details for him. Hector had yanked himself free a while ago and discovered the foot to have become stone--having not just displaced the ground it had sunken into but actually merging with it.

On its own, Nola’s power would not be immensely threatening to Harper, but here and now, supported by her comrades, if she managed to touch him and disable just one of his limbs, however briefly, it would spell trouble indeed. Thankfully, though, the Queen intercepted her, leaving Harper to only worry about Desmond, Andres, and Conall.

It was time to change tactics. His enemies knew they couldn’t touch him from a distance, so now they were trying to surround him and attack at close range.

That was absolutely fine with Harper. They would find that his soul power was more than up to the challenge.

Yellow crystals gathered around him, trying to hold him down while Desmond closed in with a flaming fist.

Harper merely waited and let them think he was trapped. Then he reached out through the crystals, shattering them like they weren’t even there, and grabbed Desmond by the arm and neck. White light brimmed around the edges of Harper’s palm and exploded forth, taking Desmond’s head off in an instant.

As he tossed Desmond’s corpse aside, Harper was already turning to receive Andres, but the other man was suddenly reluctant, perhaps deterred by the sight of his comrade’s quick death.

Harper prepared a beam of light with one hand and stalked closer to Andres. Predictably, Conall’s aluminum rose to Andres’ defense, so Harper leapt forward and instead of shooting it with light, he bashed through with a soul-strengthened punch.

Andres fled behind more crystal and aluminum walls, and Harper might have given chase if not for the need to keep formation. If the enemies lured him too far away from the Queen, then they’d be able to sacrifice one or two of their pawns to keep him busy while they ganged up on her. He could not let that happen.

He spared a beam of light for Nola, catching her right through the torso and allowing the Queen to send her flying again.

‘On your left,’ warned Darsihm.

Harper saw Tessa there, fully regenerated and bearing down on him. And she’d pulled her hand back behind her, concealing it from view. Harper knew better than to gamble on an unknown power, so he played it safe and merely readied himself. And when Tessa threw her hand forward, Harper saw the air visibly distort along a straight path toward him.

He dove out of the way, rolling onto one knee, and then leveled a beam at her. Aluminum was already there, reflecting it, and then Tessa’s path of destruction broke through from the other side, gunning for him again.

Harper’s strength went to his legs and he fired himself away from the ground, up and over the path.

‘Crystal above you,’ said Darsihm.

Barely even seeing it himself, Harper busted through and sent yellow shards raining down below, along with two more beams of light, one from each hand.

-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-

Hector was getting really sick of having to fight Karkash. And unlike previous times, he had to keep Karkash focused on himself. If he tried to do something clever, it’d probably just result in Karkash going off to fight Harper or the Queen instead--and they both had enough to deal with already.

Expectedly, they’d once again arrived at a stalemate. Hector wanted to attack Conall, but Karkash’s magnetism wouldn’t allow it; Karkash wanted to attack Harper, but Hector’s lightning rods wouldn’t allow it.

Then Karkash stopped attacking and just hovered there in the sky, looking down at Hector’s network of safety towers.

‘What’s he doing?’ said Hector.

‘Not sure,’ said Garovel. ‘Changing tactics, maybe? Be careful.’

Karkash thrust a hand down. Lightning flashed forth and expectedly crashed down on the spire nearest Hector, throwing up dust and cracking the stone beneath it. Already, Hector could tell that this was more power than Karkash had previously bothered expending. The man was focusing on a single lightning rod, and Hector wasn’t quite sure why. Karkash’s other hand moved as well, but a second line of lightning did not project from it.

‘It’s a diversion,’ said Garovel privately. ‘He’s trying to steal a tower behind you while your attention is focused here. It’s the one on the right at about forty-five degrees.’

Hector knew the exact tower the reaper was talking about. He annihilated it without even turning around.

‘You got it,’ Garovel confirmed. ‘Karkash doesn’t look too pleased, though.’

Hector concentrated on reinforcing the still-assailed spire, adding smaller ones around it to absorb some of the run off electricity. It wasn’t actually attached to the ground--none of them were, as that would have required Hector to materialize metal underground. Rather, Hector just made the foundations much broader than the peaks so as to allow greater stability.

Karkash used both hands now, converging two streams of electricity into one giant one, and the sudden additional force made the air tremble. The surge became blindingly bright. Hector couldn’t even open his eyes, but he could still feel the air crackling against his skin, wild sparks that would tear into him the moment he made a mistake.

And Karkash wasn’t letting up. If anything, he seemed to be putting even more into it with each passing second.

‘He’s just trying to overload the towers now,’ said Garovel. ‘Don’t let him.’

‘Easier said than done!’ said Hector.

The sparks only increased, heating up the air to the point that Hector could feel his flesh searing. He tried to raise more spires, to make them taller and more robust, but the lightning was ripping into them as soon as they formed now, stunting their growth, making Hector’s iron accumulate irregularly, if at all.

‘You need more,’ said Garovel, somehow very calm. ‘C’mon, Hector. Do it.’

‘Shit!’ Hector’s muscles all tensed as the surges drew ever closer. He started coating himself in metal just so that the electricity would come for him and not Garovel.

But abruptly, the lightning ceased.

Hector’s eyes were too damaged to see what was happening. They would only need a few seconds to regenerate and restore his vision, but Garovel could still see just fine and so informed him immediately.

‘Roman’s back.’