“Arim, it’s okay —” Lexa tried, but I cut her off.
“It’s not okay.”
She didn’t seem to understand. I’d been one breath away from death and then she’d reappeared to save me. I might have lost her in that demon hell. I might have died, separating us until she joined me in the Next.
But now she was here, and she put herself in deliberate danger confronting a possessed Aellei, one already powerful before the demons had entered him. That hazard was not only to herself but also to the precious bundle she carried inside her.
I spoke to his demons, trying to be calm and controlled. “Remove yourselves from the Aellei. He’s your host no longer. Take the rotting Dark Lord. The evil in his soul is one that can feed you for an eternity.”
Sava dumped the body over his shoulder to the ground and walked to Sin Garu, studying him intently. I allowed myself a brief glance at the ground and swore when I saw the unmoving frame of Brother Giles, my lone informant in the Church of Illumination. The young man had a bad case of hero worship, and I had used it to learn what I could about the Church. Too little, too late, apparently.
Seeming to sense my concern, Lexa looked from me to Giles and kneeled by the young man’s side. She placed a hand on his forehead. Moments later, Giles groaned.
“I’ll take the Dark Lord,” Sava declared in a horrific cacophony, causing everyone around him to cringe. “Him and the white one.”
White one?
Chapter 37
Arim
“No.” Lexa stood, and again I put myself between her and our present danger. “Sava’s not yours to keep.”
“He’s not,” Alandra said from the periphery, stepping forward.
Aerolus and the other Storm Lords stepped forward as well, their elemental energy throbbing with power. Tanselm seemed to feed off their emotions, for the land shuddered with energy.
“Finally.” I made use of the magic that had once been mine to manipulate. I hadn’t felt such pure power in hundreds of years. Not since Lexa had left my life. Staring at Sava, I looked inside him, seeking the forces I needed to deal with.
A true Light Bringer might not have been able to mark the demons in Sava, but I tapped the Dark center of my being. Using the Light that was Tanselm, I easily saw the bevy of demons fighting for supremacy in Sava’s body. Recalling my own bout with a possession spell, I began chanting, pleased when Aerolus, a powerful Wind Mage, joined me. And then Alandra lent her considerable magic.
It didn’t take long for the demons in Sava to release him. A large black cloud with green threads poured from his mouth, and he dropped to the ground in a heap. The cloud hovered before streaking over to Sin Garu, waiting for the bubble of power around him to disperse.
I stepped away from the others and absorbed the surrounding energy. I called on Tanselm, on the Storm Lords, on my love for Lexa, and with a beam of pure Light released the shield around the Dark Lord and stared at the decaying form of my worst enemy.
The paralysis broke from Sin Garu long enough to showcase his terror. While he shrieked with horror, the noxious demon cloud entered his mouth, filling him and enlarging his body until he stood as a giant, taller than the trees.
The demons screamed with him, a loud boom of terror, joy, and amusement that shook the area in a violent tremble of earth. The body bulged, forms lunging for freedom but unable to leave Sin Garu’s body.
“No. Not like this. Don’t do this to me. Not to me.” He glared at me through eyes blazing green with demon fire, his body a mass of pustules and blood, bursting at the seams of his opening sores and wounds.
I released all the power gathered in me to destroy the physical form of this creature that should not be. And when Lexa put her hand on my shoulder, joining in my power, we released a beam of pure Light, Dark, and Shadow into Sin Garu.
“Not happen to me. Not to meeeee…” he shrieked before he lit up like a Djinn burning in truth but without the black flame surrounding his body. One giant mass of blazing energy in the form of a man clawed at itself in a fire so great and pure even I had to turn away.
Power suffused every pore in my body, and the extreme rush made me giddy.
“Mother of Dark,” Lexa exclaimed with the others as Sin Garu exploded in a shower of sparks and golden dust that floated away on a warm breath of wind, and the echo of demon laughter faded in a puff of green mist.
Sudden silence fell over the gathering, and it took a moment for it to sink in.
Sin Garu was dead. The threat over Tanselm for so many years had been vanquished. Faustus, Ravyn, and the deceased Storm Lords had been avenged. The Netharat, or what remained of them, would be rounded up and dealt with. The future we’d all prayed would come to pass finally lay in reach for all of us, Light and Dark alike.
Lexa was the first to move. She tended to Sava while several others looked after Brother Giles and those nearby on the battleground, needing aid.
After laying hands on Sava, Lexa nodded to Alandra and several nearby Aellei, who took him in their midst. “He’ll need rest, but he seems fine, physically at least.” She glanced back up at me and frowned.
“What’s wrong?” I felt as if I was floating just outside of my body. I was suddenly ravenous, needing to fill the void slowly eating away at me. A backlash of energy was all I could think.
