When it was over, he stumbled back up the steps to the council chamber.

  He left behind the smoking, scattered remains of the two creatures who had dared to take his blood.

  Beneath his feet he left a trail of blood from his open arm-socket. He dared not look at it. He could dimly feel the pain of the wound the creatures had carved into him as a dull ache in his side – the benefit of focusing one’s healing energies into a single place on the body.

  But his mana reserves were approaching 0. And his vision was growing hazier and hazier by the moment.

  When he finally made his way back to the council chamber, he found the two Hybrid councilmen still bickering with each other, his Petrification having now progressed up to their necks.

  “…so when you said that combat was never your forte…”

  “I am meaning thisss.”

  “I told you we should’ve gassed this place.”

  “Palace mussst be habitable! Bessssidesss, you know the Archon tells me that ussssing gasss on enemiessss issss committing ‘war crime’.”

  “Never thought I’d see the day when a ratman made an argument from morality.”

  “Thisss issss not ssssoley my fault, anyway. You are mage. You couldn’t at leassst launch one ssssingle sssspell againssst him?”

  “I’m a maker. Not a breaker. It’s in the name – Geomancer.”

  “Sssemanticsss…” Fraxx sighed. “They will be the death of me.”

  “Or he will.”

  When they finally noticed that Raxel had re-emerged before them, Cormyr looked towards the end of the room and projected his voice:

  “We are sorry, my Lady!” he shouted. “But we must once again entreat you to fly from this tower! The rest of our forces are on the way and shall deal with this hopeless cretin.”

  Raxel fixed the cat-man with scorn, resisting the urge to melt the fur and flesh of the beast only due to the fact he needed his last drops of mana to deal the final blow against this place.

  When the voice of the ‘Lady’ in the throne room then spoke, he knew he’d made the right choice.

  “No. I won’t run.”

  The end of the room dissolved like melting white chocolate before them all.

  And he saw her.

  Raxel did not gasp. Instead he calmly walked past both the petrified hybrids, limping wearily, feeling every drop of blood that spilled from his lacerated limb.

  Every fiber of his being told him that he could stop here and still have his name etched in history as the only warrior who had made it this far.

  But the stronger part of his mind told him that he didn’t come here to lose. Not now. Not when his eyes were finally looking into those of his target’s.

  He stumbled through what was once Lysandus’ throne room – the place where he’d lost everything.

  And sitting upon the grey-black throne was a tiny Hopla infant.

  He stumbled once as he approached, blood pumping in his ears. He could feel the tremendous psychic strength nestled between those ears. The strength that had commanded the fiendish Chimera outside, and that had inspired the rat and the Salamandrike to fight with such ferocity – knowing his every move.

  The fact that a mere Hybrid child could command such power was insulting to everything he stood for as a mage. The fact she sat where his King and Viscount once did only added insult to the injury.

  “How did you know I was here?” she asked him.

  He eyed her, staring daggers of death as he stumbled forward and almost fell.

  “I’m not here to talk with you, abomination,” he breathed. “I’m here to kill you.”

  “Will that make you happy?”

  The question perturbed him. And the fact that the little demon asked him this without showing a single sign of fear stayed his hand momentarily.

  “I stopped feeling anything a long, long time ago.”

  His vision swam and he dropped to a knee, trying to steady himself as best he could. Already he could feel his last reserves of mana dwindling away with the effort of trying to quell his aching wound. He had just enough strength to rise and refocus on the girl.

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  And what he saw drew a mad sense of fury from him: the girl was looking at him with pity.

  His one remaining arm lashed out and gripped air. His fingers clenched, and the girl’s throat closed up. She thrashed in the throne, completely in his power.

  “L-little Lady!” Fraxx called before Raxel’s Petrification covered his mouth.

  Raxel felt her life ebb away in his hands. His spell was nothing more than a simple [Air Vice] – something even the Greycloak Neophytes knew of. But it would suffice. The child would die, and then he could finally be free.

  “You…lie.”

  Her words were choked from her sputtering mouth. He ignored them.

  And yet, they came again – this time with much more clarity:

  You lie.

  The voice of the girl penetrated his mind. It felt like a pair of serrated talons were scraping across the soft tissue of his brain.

  You hurt.

  He withdrew his hand and gripped his skull. The power from this girl was even more potent than his sources had informed him.

  You feel pain. You feel sad.

  He grit his teeth and launched himself at her – trying desperately to end the voice that was slowly dominating him. For a girl of that age to wield such power was unnatural. Unthinkable.

  He got his hand around her throat and squeezed, watching her eyes bulge and her hands fly to grab his.

  If this was the future the Archon envisioned, he’d slay it before it corrupted this entire world. He’d –

  “Let her go!”

  He turned abruptly, his Arcane Shield activating as a reaction against a blast of fire that had just been launched at his back. He gripped the girl by his arm, squeezing her neck till he felt her kick against him, before his dull vision showed him who had come.

  They were here. All of them.

  The bulky Chimera he’d watched die downstairs had crashed through the doorway completely unscathed – its wounds having knit themselves together in the time it took Raxel to get here. Beside it stood the Salamandrike and rat – both scorched but alive – and surrounding them were the Hybrid forces he’d lost most of his men to, commanded by the Dixit and the traitor Druid.

  They all stood there watching him, each one ready to blast him to pieces.

  It was as though he'd accomplished nothing at all.

  And that’s when he made a decision: he wasn’t going to give them the satisfaction. They’d taken his men, they’d denied them even the chance to die an honorable death, and they’d denied them the simple completion of their duty that every son of Krea was due.

  And so he wasn’t going to die. Not here.

  So when the growling Chimera stepped forward, he flashed a sick, bloody smile at them all.

  “Don’t bother,” he said, indicating the struggling Hopla in his hands. “She’s set to blow. All I need do…is give the command.”

  The ridiculousness of the words didn’t even faze him. He felt the child abruptly stop struggling, wondered if he’d snapped her neck already, but then blinked through the haze to see the faces of all the damned Hybrids he’d pushed through to get this far.

  “This is where…where it happened,” he snarled, knowing he was dying already. “This is where…we lost…everything.”

  He ignored the shouts of the Dixit. The threatening growl of the Chimera, and the squeals of the two he’d managed to Petrify.

  His mind was now focused on one thing alone: escape. And the kid was his ticket out.

  “Don’t follow me,” he said. “I catch any of you tailing us and…and she dies.”

  They could tell he was weak. Their kind could smell it – just like he could smell the blood of his comrades on their filthy, lice-ridden bodies.

  “I…no,” he whispered – though he couldn’t even be sure if he spoke the words or just thought them. “No, I – I won’t die here. It – it won’t end. It won’t end – like this.”

  He saw the human traitor – the druid – take a step forward.

  And that meant he was done talking.

  With the last reserves of mana he had remaining, he sent a fireball trailing towards the congregation and then shot for the window, smashing through the restored stained-glass and activating his [Levitation] combined with an [Ignis] and an [Invisibility] incantation. The result was a rocket-propelled escape that took him trailing through the twilit skies towards anywhere but where he was. He willed his body forward, concentrating all mana to his feet and the gouts of hidden flames that were propelling him. He might have heard shouts behind – he might have sensed a few attacks that came flying his way.

  But he ignored them. If any actually managed to land a hit, he ignored the pain, too.

  As he flew, he tried to keep from falling unconscious. He tried to keep from letting go of the girl. He tried to understand his next plan of action – he had what he came for. He had her, literally, in the palms of his hands. He’d known he’d die here – that he’d make the ultimate sacrifice and yet, no, no he wasn’t going to die.

  Because you’re afraid, aren’t you?

  Disbelief clawed at his consciousness. Black lines began to creep at the edges of his vision.

  “S-silence.”

  He watched the world spin past him, eyes looking for a hiding place. Looking for a way out –

  So what is your plan, now?

  He grit his teeth as he felt the last of his mana stutter within his frame.

  Just a little longer, he told himself. Just a little -

  And then what? They will find you. They will be here soon.

  “Be silent, churl!”

  I know what it’s like to be afraid.

  He couldn’t take it. Her look. Her voice. The strength behind her psychosomatic suggestions – that was all bad enough. But more egregious was the fact that she felt sorry for him. This pitiable, evil little creature.

  That was the insult Raxel couldn’t bear.

  He’d let them hurt him. He’d let them kill his comrades. He’d let them ravage this whole continent.

  But he wouldn’t let one of them dare to pity him.

  He growled at the girl and squeezed her neck within his good arm tighter, hearing her gasp and flail, her little legs flailing about behind him, kicking him and knocking him off kilter so that he almost slammed into the Sentinel Sea.

  …why do you – want - to kill us? she asked him. She must have asked him that question at least six times before his mind started to blank out completely.

  His mind dulled while hers, even as he was crushing her head within his arm, only got more and more potent

  You don’t need to do this.

  “GET OUT OF MY MIND!”

  He bellowed his fury at her and she seized her moment. As he twisted in the air, ready to toss her into the sea, trigger the Implosion and be done with her, she reached out with all the strength she had in her Thamaturgical toolset. And Raxel found that the command word simply wouldn’t cross his lips.

  “Abomination!” he yelped, clawing at her ears as they swerved in the air, spinning wildly, now completely losing control.

  She screamed, focused her mind, tried to halt their inevitable descent but it was in vain. Both of them went plunging towards the earth beyond Sentinel Port as Raxel’s spells finally wore off.

  The world vanished in a haze of mud, grit, and total darkness.