Chương 105: The King Who Burns Himself Away

The elves' first mistake was sealing the gates of Caelith-Thorn. The second was believing that would slow Zayn down. The runes of the quarantine post all lit up at once, from the ground to the bells without clappers. A white barrier descended around the circular courtyard, trapping guards, mages, princess, and calamity inside the same ring. Maëlin raised her sword.

"No one moves!" Zayn slowly turned his half-mask toward her. In his left hand, the scythe had appeared whole. The dark shaft. The black skull. The sockets filled with smoke. The blade emerging from the skull like a nightmare's smile.

"Bad order." Maëlin clenched her teeth.

"The capital is on alert. You are not going anywhere." Zayn looked at the extinguished spiritual basin. The image of the warped king still seemed imprinted in the air. Aelthir. The king of the elves. A soul beyond anything Zayn had encountered since his summoning. A power that had made the spirits scream through a simple projection. And Elvarin Soreth was there. The name that had sold the dead. The name that had given his hatred a direction.

The name that had just driven a demonic thorn into the king of his own people. Zayn stepped forward. The runes on the ground reacted. A white pressure slammed down onto his shoulders. He felt his flesh tighten, his marks burn, Gluttony twist beneath his tongue, Envy pulse at his collarbone, Wrath tighten around his forearm like a heated chain. Then the scythe laughed.

"A cage." Zayn raised the blade.

"No." He struck. The white barrier did not break. It screamed. The impact threw the seal mages against the walls. One of them vomited blood. The bells without clappers began ringing by themselves, a clear, panicked sound, almost childlike. Elyra cried out,"Stop!" Zayn struck a second time. The black smoke around the blade condensed. The dark aura stolen from the beastmen slid along the edge, filthy, heavy, alive. It still was not a true aura.

It was a profaned breath, channeled through a weapon that took pleasure in distorting the legacies of others. The barrier cracked. Maëlin charged. Her stone spirits formed two massive arms around her, striking with enough force to shatter an ancient tree. Zayn pivoted. He could have killed her. He chose not to. Not out of kindness. Because Elyra was watching. And the princess still needed to remain useful. He struck with the shaft. The black skull of the scythe slammed into Maëlin's breastplate.

The stone spirits absorbed the blow, but the black smoke entered their cracks. Maëlin was thrown to her knees. Zayn passed beside her.

"Stay whole," he said.

"Your princess will need someone to disobey." Elyra stepped in front of him. Lumeï was trembling against her shoulder, almost extinguished.

"If you go to the palace like this, the guards will attack you all at once."

"Yes."

"Civilians will die."

"Maybe."

"My father is not himself." Zayn stopped. The scythe tilted its skull toward the princess.

"No one is ever 'themselves' once the rope holding them back is cut." Elyra stared at the weapon, then at Zayn.

"Help me stop him." Silence. Every elf in the courtyard seemed to hear madness in that sentence. Zayn too. Then he smiled.

"You're asking me to help your father?"

"I'm asking you to reach Elvarin. My father stands between you and him. If you charge in without thinking, you'll die before you get your answers."

"You think he can kill me?" Elyra answered without hesitation:"Yes." The courtyard went cold. Zayn looked at her for a long moment. Then he let out a low laugh.

"At last, someone polite." He raised the scythe toward the cracked barrier.

"Then show me the shortest road to the palace."

"And if I refuse?"

"Then I'll take the loudest road." Elyra closed her eyes for a second. When she opened them again, something had changed in her face. Not the fear. The decision.

"Arelion!" On the gallery, the coastal captain straightened.

"Princess?"

"Open the relay routes. All of them."

"That is forbidden without a royal order."

"The king is under demonic corruption." Arelion remained motionless. Elyra went on, harder:"And I am his daughter." Silence bent. Arelion lowered his bow.

"Yes, Princess." Zayn looked at Elyra.

"Crucial," the scythe murmured.

"What?" she asked. The weapon laughed.

"Nothing. Not yet." The barrier gave way. Zayn walked out of Caelith-Thorn with the princess of the elves ahead of him, a wounded guard behind him, and an entire kingdom beginning to understand that the worst night in its recent history had not come from the sea. It had come from the palace. This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience. The relay routes of Aelvaris were not roads. They were ancient oaths engraved into space.

The elves did not teleport bodies the way human mages sometimes tried to with unstable circles. They asked the territory to remember a shorter path. Tree to tree. Root to root. Wind to wind. Each relay required a pact, a guide, and permission. Elyra forced all three. The first relay tore them away from the dead coast and cast them into a forest of white pines. Zayn felt his stomach turn, his marks burn, his unfinished wings scrape beneath the skin of his back.

The second carried them beneath an arch of roots where lesser spirits fled the moment they saw him. The third opened onto a hill overlooking Sylvarune. Zayn finally saw the elven capital. A vast city suspended between white stone and giant trees. Silver bridges linked living terraces. Luminous rivers flowed high above before spilling down in silent waterfalls. Gardens floated around slender towers. Spirits moved between the buildings like visible thoughts.

At the center, the royal palace stood beneath the shadow of the Great Tree. Not built against it. Built around respect for it. It was not a fortress in the human sense. It was a pact turned into architecture. And that pact was bleeding. Golden lightning ran through the branches. Cutting winds slashed the upper bridges. Enormous roots burst from the ground to crush entire pavilions. Suspended torrents fell upward before exploding into slicing rain. The king had already left the Chamber of Broken Pacts.

He was ravaging his own palace. Elyra brought a hand to her mouth.

"Father…" Zayn was not looking at the destruction. He was looking at the pressure. It was everywhere. The king's soul was spilling into the air like an enraged sea. And then, for the first time in a long while, the system appeared without him killing anything. [Power analysis impossible to stabilize.] [Target: Aelthir Vael-Sylvar.] [State: spiritual overload / external corruption / berserk.] [Progressive bodily deterioration detected.] Zayn stayed still. The scythe, meanwhile, burst into laughter.

"Oh." The smoke in the black skull's sockets thickened.

"That one is not a crumb." Elyra did not see the window. But she saw Zayn's smile.

"Do not kill him." He looked at her.

"You are starting this negotiation very badly."

"He is the victim of the artifact."

"The Mist-Fangs were victims too." Elyra took the sentence without flinching. She did not answer. Good choice. Zayn continued:"Where is Elvarin?" Arelion, who had arrived with them through the last relay, pointed toward the lower palace.

"The Chamber of Broken Pacts. Or what remains of it." Zayn looked at the destruction.

"So your father stands between us." Elyra said,"Yes." The scythe clicked its teeth.

"At last, an interesting road." The first clash came on the Bridge of Moons. Zayn was advancing toward the palace, with Elyra and the elves behind him, when the sky above them tore open. Aelthir fell. Not like a man. Like a star that had forgotten it was supposed to be distant. He struck the white bridge at the center, and the entire structure cracked for dozens of meters. The elven guards were thrown to the ground. Spirit lanterns exploded. Lumeï gave a sharp cry and almost vanished into Elyra's hair.

The king rose slowly. He was magnificent. And horrifying. His white hair floated without wind. His eyes were entirely golden. His skin already bore red cracks along his neck, jaw, wrists. Around him, his spirits whirled like a court become a storm. Golden flame blackened at the edges. Moon-water boiling. Pale breeze transformed into invisible blades. Ancient roots entering and leaving his flesh like living chains. Each step made the city tremble. Each breath damaged his own body. The system pulsed again.

[Estimated Soul Strength: 214.] [Deterioration ongoing.] Aelthir lifted his eyes. He did not look at his daughter. Not at the guards. Not at the city. He looked at Zayn. As if the Thorn of Unreason had found, in the whole island, the most obvious threat. The oldest one. The most intolerable. Elyra shouted,"Father!" Aelthir did not answer. His arm moved. The wind struck. Zayn had no time to dodge. He raised the scythe. The invisible blade slammed into the dark aura around the black skull. The black smoke exploded.

Zayn was hurled backward, blasted through a stone arch, and rolled for twenty meters. His collarbone burned. His forearm screamed. His ribs cracked. The scythe laughed again.

"Yes. Yes. He is real." Zayn got back to his feet, spitting blood.

"Too loud." Aelthir was already in front of him. Impossibly fast. The golden flame around the king became a spear. Zayn forced out his wings. They burst from his back in a black pain, wider than before, still torn, still imperfect. They did not make him fly. They threw him sideways. The spear of flame struck the ground. The bridge melted. Zayn passed beneath the impact and slashed. The scythe struck the king's flank. The blade barely cut. A barrier of moon-water stopped it, then threw it back.

Zayn felt his left arm nearly wrench completely out of its socket. Aelthir struck with his fist. Not a technique. Not a blade. A raw blow, reinforced by several ancient spirits. Zayn blocked with the shaft of the scythe. The black skull screamed. The shaft bent. Zayn went over the edge of the bridge and fell into the void. Elyra cried out. The scythe whispered,"Wings." Zayn's back tore further. The wings beat. Once. Twice. Badly. The royal wind tried to cut them apart. He lost black feathers, skin, blood.

But he rose. Not up to the bridge. Up to the side of the structure. He drove the scythe into the white stone, hung there, then hauled himself up with a soft laugh.

"I understand why you put walls between him and me." Aelthir turned. His cracks were spreading. A red line appeared on his forehead. [Estimated Soul Strength: 207.] [Bodily deterioration: accelerated by overload.] Zayn saw the window. He smiled.

"You're burning yourself away." The king did not answer. Or perhaps whatever remained of the king could no longer answer. Aelthir raised both hands. The roots of the Great Tree answered. The whole bridge rose. White roots burst beneath Zayn, around him, behind him, like living pillars trying to crush him. He jumped. The wings beat. A root pierced his thigh. Another caught him in the flank. A third closed around his throat. He bit down. Not on the root. On the flesh of his own arm, where Wrath burned too fiercely.

Blood filled his mouth. Gluttony screamed, frustrated at having no foreign flesh close enough. The scythe spoke:"You cannot eat him yet." Zayn clenched his teeth.

"Then we wear him down."

"How?" He looked at the king's cracks. That deterioration. That immense power slowly destroying its own vessel. An idea was born. A weariness. A black thought. Everything ends by rotting. The roots tightened. His bones creaked. Aelthir advanced toward him, ever more cracked, ever more powerful, ever closer to collapse. Elyra was running across the broken bridge, Maëlin trying to stop her.

"Father! Stop!" The king finally turned a golden gaze toward her. For a fraction of a second, something human returned. Not enough. The pale breeze around him became a blade. It shot toward Elyra. Zayn saw the trajectory. He could have let it happen. The princess died. The elves lost their royal daughter. The king shattered further. Elvarin might remain exposed in the chaos. The scythe whispered,"Let it." Zayn moved. Not to save Elyra. That was what he told himself. He moved because she was his road to Elvarin.

Because she had given the name. Because she still had doors to open. He threw himself in front of the wind-blade. It split his chest open from shoulder to ribs. Blood burst out. Elyra fell behind him. Zayn remained standing. Barely. The scythe was silent. Then it laughed softly.

"Liar." Zayn spat blood.

"Shut up." Aelthir looked at him. The king tilted his head slightly. As if, through the madness, his body recognized a contradiction. Zayn raised the scythe.

"You want to protect?" He advanced despite the wound.

"Then protect better." He struck. This time, he did not aim for the king's body. He aimed for the cracks. The blade of the scythe slid over the water barrier, rebounded off the flame, was deflected by the wind. But the black skull spat dark smoke directly into a red crack in Aelthir's arm. The king stepped back. For the first time. Not gravely wounded. But disrupted. The black smoke could not rival his soul. It could only stain what was already broken. Aelthir let out a cry. Not a cry of pain. A cry of overload.

[Estimated Soul Strength: 201.] Zayn smiled.

"There." The scythe understood.

"The cracks."

"Yes."

"We do not cut him."

"Not yet." The black skull opened its sockets wide.

"We help him break." Aelthir roared. The whole city answered. The Bridge of Moons collapsed. They all fell. Zayn. Elyra. Maëlin. Arelion. The guards. The broken fragments of bridge. And the king. But Aelthir did not fall for long. The wind caught him. The water bore him. The roots offered him a path through the air. He descended like a crowned catastrophe. Zayn, meanwhile, fell like a body still refusing to become a corpse. His wings beat. Once. They tore. Twice. They almost folded in on themselves. Three times.

He slammed into a lower terrace, rolled, tore through a suspended garden, and crashed into an elven statue that exploded under the impact. Elyra was caught by Lumeï and a panicked breeze. Maëlin by her stone spirits. Arelion by Shaël. Zayn rose alone. His chest wound was bleeding too much. His left arm hung badly. His thigh was torn open. His Soul Strength had not increased. Not yet. He had not killed. He had not absorbed. But something in him was changing. Not through gain. Through exhaustion.

Rage had carried him across the beastman continent. Hunger had given him bodies. Envy had stolen him souls. But against the king, none of that was enough. Aelthir was too high. Even broken. Even mad. Even burning himself away. He was too high. The scythe whispered,"Then wait for him to fall." Zayn looked up. The king was descending toward him. Cracked. Burning. Magnificent. Dying slowly beneath too much power. Wait. The word entered Zayn. Not as patience. Not as strategy. As active surrender.

Let the other wear himself out. Let the world rot beneath the weight of its own strength. Stop saving. Stop running. Stop striking harder. Just remain there. And watch time do what the blade still could not. A coldness slid down the back of his neck. Then between his shoulder blades. Then lower. All along his spine. Zayn froze. —I'm sick of this; I just want everything to stop... Black fissures appeared beneath his skin, invisible under his clothes, but he felt them opening vertebra by vertebra.

Not burning like Wrath. Not hungry like Gluttony. Not greedy like Envy. Slow. Deep. Tired. The system appeared. [Extreme existential condition detected.] [Wrath without resolution.] [Vengeance insufficient.] [Purpose decomposed.] Zayn saw the Mist-Fangs again. He saw Narek falling. He saw Brakka dead. Korr on his knees. The villages burning. The red weeks. The sea. Elvarin. The mad king. Everything he had done to get here.

And in the depths of his soul, a sentence was born, more terrible than his hatred: Even if I find the guilty one, nothing will come back. The black fissures ran all the way down to the base of his spine. [Sin recognized.] [SLOTH.] The world around Zayn slowed. No. Not slowed. Aged. The broken statue behind him gained more cracks. The leaves of the suspended garden yellowed in seconds. A puddle of blood on the stone darkened, dried, then turned to dust around the edges. Zayn inhaled. The pain remained.

But it felt distant. As if even his own body had become something he was watching decay with indifference. The scythe no longer laughed.

"Oh," it murmured. Aelthir arrived. Fist raised. Flame, water, wind, roots, all concentrated into a single blow. Zayn did not move. Elyra shouted his name. The king struck. Zayn simply raised his right hand. Not the scythe. His hand. The air around his fingers blurred. The king's blow reached the zone. And something happened. Aelthir's cracked skin split further. The red lines along his arm spread to the shoulder. The golden flame around him lost a shade. The moon-water clouded.

A root dried out for a few centimeters. The impact still hurled Zayn backward. He crashed through the floor of the garden, shattered a fountain, spat blood, and stayed on the ground one second too long. But Aelthir stepped back too. His arm was trembling. [Estimated Soul Strength: 193.] [Deterioration accelerated locally.] Zayn slowly pushed himself up. The mark of Sloth now ran the full length of his spine, invisible to others, but present like a second skeleton. He smiled. Not with joy. Not with pure rage.

With a monstrous weariness.

"You see," he said to the king. His voice was calm. Almost empty.

"Even kings end up decaying." The scythe finally found its laughter again. Lower. More respectful. And more uneasy too.

"Fourth." Elyra, from the wreckage of the lower bridge, stared at Zayn in horror. Not because he had gained a new power. Because for one second, around him, the royal garden had stopped being alive. It had become old. Aelthir roared. The berserk madness took over again. But now his body was no longer fighting only the Thorn. It was fighting Zayn. And time itself had just chosen a crueler way to pass. The fight was only just beginning.