The Beast That was Promised ✔

THIRTY-TWO: Victory

Rina couldn't believe her eyes- their eyes. Harudan was dead, had been for some time before they arrived. Nerin was there, kneeling at his side like a dutiful younger brother. He gasped when he saw them, his eyes filled with tears and his hands shaking against his brother's body. "Isiah!" he yelled, but didn't move. "I didn't- I stabbed him, but the King- I had to but I never wanted-"

He'd never wanted him to die. If he was to be believed, he'd stabbed his own brother, but why? A dagger lay nearby and all three of them questioned it, but none could come up with a sensible answer. One thing was for certain, Harudan was dead and gone, no longer a threat to the realm. Vishera was finally safe, but they hadn't been the ones to fix it.

King Ouron, her father, strode forward, pride in his bloody face. "You are the Beast my son told me of, aren't you?" he asked, his voice raspy from injury. "I am King Ouron Nishinaron. I have slain King Harudan. I helped you."

If his face was anything to go by, he hadn't been much help at all. They would have to get the full story off Nerin when he was ready to tell it, but all three of them knew that her father had little part in things. Even so, she healed both her father and Nerin, ignoring their shock and surprise. Watching the pride-filled eyes of the man who raised her, she wanted nothing more than to show him that the Beast wasn't just Isiah. The other two could feel it, but Teremtys had never told them how to separate, maybe they had never expected the three of them to live.

The only thing she could do was wrench herself away from the connection. It didn't hurt, but it felt wrong, as if she were ripping away a part of herself. Emrick and Isiah joined her and the last thing she felt from each of them was their happiness and relief that it was finally all over, they had won. Deep down, there was a sense of dread from Isiah, disgust that he had helped kill one of his Gods, but then they were gone and she was in her own body again.

She had no idea what it looked like to the two other people in the room, but they gaped at the three of them in shock. Her healing power still flowed within her, but she couldn't feel any of the others. They were locked away inside Isiah and Emrick until they decided to join souls again.

"R- Rina?" her father gasped and even though she knew he was a terrible ruler, he was still her father. She ran towards him, one of the few people she had been trying to get back to from the start, and wrapped her arms around him. He held her tightly as she cried, running a hand through her short hair. "My daughter, you're alive."

She let out a sob of relief and exhaustion. Never in her life had she felt so tired, but it was all finally over. She could rest properly for the first time since she had arrived in Ishmar so long ago. "Where's mother?" she asked through her tears. "Is she alright?"

Her father's face dropped and before he got a chance to say anything, a series of screams rang out from outside the throne room. With Isiah and Emrick at her feet, she ran out into the hall. A little Ishini girl struggled in Skyt's arms and when they saw her, they gave her a nod. No, not at her, at what was behind her. There was Benj, on his hands and knees in front of a body wearing far too familiar armour.

"No!" she screamed, her voice cracking. She shoved Emrick out of the way and dropped to the ground next to her brother. Maybe her mother wasn't fully dead, maybe she could still heal her. She pulled on her powers, washing it over her mother, but it didn't grab onto anything. Again and again, she tried, each attempt growing more desperate than the last. "Please, no. Please."

She didn't stop until a hand pressed gently against her shoulder. Isiah looked down at her, a single tear running down his face. "I'm sorry," he said and she knew then that trying again wouldn't do anything except tire her out.

Instead, she hugged Benj, who sobbed into her shoulder like a child as she wept silently. Footsteps thudded behind her but she didn't bother to look Her father dropped to his knees on the other side of her mother and for a long time, none of them said a word, the only noise was the sound of their tears.