The Last Goddess

  ***

   

  Kastrius directed another torrent of energy at his sister, and once again she managed to deflect it aside. This time, however, she immediately collapsed to all fours, and he knew she wouldn’t be getting up again. She had no business even being alive at this point; he doubted a single other mage in Esharia could have weathered his assault without Flensing themselves to death.

  But of course, that was her folly. She could have easily defeated him by now if she’d wanted to. He couldn’t understand it—why would his sister suddenly start to care about some trite Edehan dogma? She had always been a thinker. Their mother had punished her numerous times for slandering the faith back when they were children. Was it the loss of her memory somehow? Was it the experiences she’d endured as Veltar’s unwitting puppet?

  In a different place and time, he might have felt pity for her. He had never hated Tryss nearly as much as their insufferable mother. As a young boy, he had even respected his sister, though naturally he had never admitted as much. She had always been the “good sibling,” the one everyone pinned their hopes and expectations on. When she’d done everything she could to turn away from that life and embrace the academy instead, he’d been proud of her.

  But apparently, it had all been a waste. She wasn’t the independent scholar he had envisioned; she was just another simpering Edehan apologist. And now she was going to die for it.

  “We could have been invincible, you know,” he murmured as he stood over her. He could see the glowing latticework of her veins crawling all the way up her neck to her cheeks. Blood dripped from her nose and many other small lesions across her body.

  “You have to stop,” she whispered, her breathing erratic and staggered. “Please…”

  “I really wish you had died before,” he told her. “I could have written a very flattering legacy for you in the history books. Now you get to be remembered the same way as mother—a fool.”

  Kastrius touched the Fane again, stepping through the gaping window opened by his Consecration. Its power coursed through his entire body, and he drove a final crackling current of raw Fane energy straight down into Tryss. She reeled backwards, but somehow she inexplicably turned it aside. Sparks flashed in all directions, searing the nearby stage and even scorching the buildings at the edge of the plaza. Kastrius roared and poured every last ounce of power he could muster into the spell. The ground at his feet cracked and rumbled before turning to ash. 

  Finally Tryss screamed and her defenses buckled. A deafening pop shook the plaza, and the explosion hurled both of them backwards. As he hit the ground and grunted, he saw her body streak through the air and smash into the scaffolding some thirty yards away. The wood buckled and collapsed around her.

  He caught his breath and stood, knocking the dirt from his armor. Everywhere he looked he saw death. Even the corpses on the stage had now been rendered to dust.

  Kastrius smiled as he spun his gaze to the Assembly. His invincible army of Faceless had butchered the foreign guards upon the steps and was now making its way up to the Assembly chambers to deal with the diplomats and representatives themselves.

  For the first time in his life, he was more than the Empress’s prodigal son. He was no longer an impotent prince trapped within a tower, nor was he the weakest member in a revolutionary triumvirate. He was the Emperor of the most powerful nation in the world, and total victory was only moments away.

  And it was everything he had hoped it would be.