Chapter 42: Imagined Will

Note: Thanks to WRC 264 for beta reading this!

Princess Ava

I twitched on the ground. The jaws of the feyhound were shattered, the right leg bent and twisted. The stone wall crumbled. Our souls shuddered inside the proxy. I felt the damage to the feyhound’s body. Our connection wavered, grew tenuous. Aingeal’s control over her spirits flickered as, for a moment, we were almost thrown back to our real bodies.

Shevoin stood over us, his magic surging at us.

Aingeal grasped her spirits in time to fend off most of it, but the life magic assaulted the wicker body. It twisted my proxy, shaping the wood. The more damage he did, the less chance I had to control it. Fire burst around us, seeking to devour us.

“No!” Aingeal growled, purple energy dancing around us, her will acting on the spirits.

I had to let us go. I had to return us to our real bodies. If the proxy was destroyed while we were still in it, the headaches would leave us both disabled. Aingeal could still fight in her regular body. I tried to pull us away.

Aingeal’s will held us in place.

“No, we have to abandon it!” my soul shouted.

“Gods damned bastard!” roared Aingeal, her will throwing spirits, but his magic battered them aside. Wood creaked. The proxy’s legs twisted together, the head unraveling. We were about to lose it. “Cernere’s black fingers, I’ll kill him!”

“We have to—”

A massive surge of constructive energy burst behind me. It washed across my soul. I felt it pulsing, begging to be used to fix, to repair, to strengthen something crafted. Something woven. Like the feyhound.

Carsina used my hammer on ... on Sven.

I seized that power. My soul grabbed a portion and drew it into the feyhound. The power of my ancestor, Krab, spilled through my spirit and into Aingeal. She gasped, both our essences quivering together while the power surged through the feyhound, restoring the limbs, strengthening the body.

“Yes!” Aingeal shouted.

She wove her spirits. She fashioned them into a construct. I realized that was how the faerie’s powers worked, what she was doing to the spirits. They were ... part of the great machine of our planet. My eyes widened in realization. They were all the different forces Krab had layered into the world when the Gods created it. They allowed this vast machine to function. Everything from the weight that held us to the ground to the esoteric channels that allowed magic in all its various forms functioned because of these spirits. They were the power of the rumbling earth. The force of erupting volcanoes. The mighty storms and powerful winds.

They were all part of a vast mechanism that used these spirits.

And Aingeal repurposed them. She crafted something new out of them. The power I absorbed affected what she created.

I supercharged her magic.

The beam of purple lanced out from us as I controlled our repaired body. We rose. The mage wrenched up a barrier of adamant stone. I could feel his magic manipulating that same machinery, changing the alignment of the minute particles in the stone into a stronger matrix. Something that should withstand our attack.

But so much more force went into it. It was like I gave Aingeal a longer leverage, a greater fulcrum with which to move her force. Her spirits slammed into the barrier. The enhanced matrix shattered beneath her greater power.

I caught a brief glimpse of shock on Shevoin’s face before Aingeal burned a hole through his chest.

Kora Falk

“No, no, no!” I screamed, staring at Ealaín’s crushed body. No one could survive that blow, not even a demigoddess. Her innards squeezed out around the Paragon’s thick fist.

My hand squeezed so tight about the amulet. The faceted gems bit into my flesh as I glared at the Paragon. She broke through my will. It wasn’t strong enough to chain her. I snarled now, anger bursting inside of me. A great rage burned through my soul.

“You killed her!”

The Paragon grinned at me and then took a step towards me. Another. Her fists flinched. Greta roared, swinging at the Paragon from the side. The monstrous, mongrel thing threw out a punch, crashing into Greta’s chest. Only a last moment spray of water blunted the blow. She fell back in a clatter.

“Hand over my Father’s amulet, and no more of your family need die today,” the Paragon said, lumbering up the hill at me.

“You will submit!” I screamed, throwing my will at her. “You will kneel. You will fall to your knees and beg for my forgiveness!

“And never receive it!”

The soul of the Biomancer responded to my commands. It filled me with his will. I threw it at the Paragon with my words. They struck her. She grunted, shaking her head. Her steps slowed. Her muscles, many cut by Ealaín and Greta’s attacks, flexed. Blood sheeted down her body but did little to slow her down. My will hardly stopped her.

She lumbered forward like she waded through thick tar. I was affecting her, but it wasn’t enough. I seized that grief at Ealaín’s death, that anger, and threw it into my words. I wrenched at the Biomancer’s soul, drawing on his foul ego to chain his greatest creation.

“Surrender! Submit! Kneel!”

“You! Are! Not! Father!” she bellowed, her body slowed. She struggled to take her next step.

“But I have his soul!” The gem beat in my grip. My hand grew slick, blood pouring out of me, coating it. The ruby quivered. Scarlet flared through my finger. “You are my slave! My beast! Submit to my yoke!”

She froze. Her entire body trembled. Every muscle bulged, veins pressing against her skin. Her deformed face contorted. She roared. The ground trembled. Then she took a step forward, ripping through the bonds of my will.

How could I stop her? She was so immense. She had such a towering ego, such a powerful devotion to the Biomancer. Her eyes locked on my hand, on the ruby. She craved it more than anything. She fought through the pain of defiance and took another step towards me.

Sven Falk

“I will eat your sister,” growled the foul thing as my knife ricocheted from the beetle. “I will spill open her soft belly and root around in her. She smells pregnant ... I’ll eat your child.”

“You putrid sack of Las’s shit!” I bellowed and slammed the dagger down again. It bounced off. “You will not touch a single hair on any one of my women!”

“Greta has such big tits. I bet they will taste divine. I always wanted to play with them. I should have enjoyed her when fucking Ava!”

I channeled all the power flowing into me from the hammer. It was such a titanic force. It wreathed my limbs, supercharging my muscles. I honed the tip of the dagger into the sharpest point ever. The shadows flowed to my will.

“And Ava ... My daughter...” He licked his lips. “How divine she shall taste. Maybe I’ll fuck her one last time before I devour her flesh.”

Wordless fury bellowed from me. My vision narrowed to a pinprick focused on that Las-damned beetle.

My knife arced down. He laughed. It crashed into the beetle. The sharp tip scored across the carapace and...

Caught in the joint where it merged into his thorax. The blade dug in an inch.

Prince Meinard spasmed. His mandibles clicked. Then his clawed hands lunged at me as I dug my dagger in deeper. Ichor spurted around my blade. To my right, Nathalie screamed, her flaming blade hissed through the air, her firm titties jiggling. She slashed into his left arm, knocking it back before it stabbed into me. Diamond flashed on my left. Carsina slammed the hammer into the other hand, smashing back the bastard’s clawed fingers, protecting me.