The King Trials 2: Beyond.

~Defeated~

Primus Kelan P.O.V

Growling in satisfaction at the sound of snapping bones, revelling in the blood that sprays across the wall. Pleasant-smelling splashes spill on my hand, warm beads fleck across my cheek. I try to douse the morbid thrill. But I cannot, cycles of lethally honed instinct cause me to rebel against such sensitivity.

I evade assaults, exploiting every vulnerability of their armour, moving fluidly like the wind but with the fierceness of a sundering tempest. I lift my blade overhead, my rage peaking, holding the highest note of a mountain storm before I thunder down a deadly blow. Blood spraying everywhere.

The stubborn bastard. Harrison and a handful of his squadron remain. Now that the sailors and few other of his soldiers have ducked into the tunnel. It's time to depart—a shearing gasp rips my threadbare heart from my chest.

I spin around to see a blade jutting out of Aurora's stomach. She gags, blood spews from her mouth. The blade slides out of her in agonising gradualness, and she plummets to the ground like a fallen star.

A volatile energy surge builds up inside of me like a blazing meteor. My body like a magma chamber with molten rage frothing inside. A cyclone of shadows bursts out of me, whirling wildly, hurling up Emikrollians to flail in the eye of the black vortex sieved with dark purple whorls that only grows. A hundred hollers reverberating all around me. At the apex of the power escalation. I release a bellowing roar and the cyclone explodes out into a rupture. A small-scale apocalypse that destroys every life in radius. Pleasurable pain pulses through me. And black consumes my vision before the gloom recedes.

The hallway is blackened; walls charred to a burnt crisp with heaps upon heaps of dead bodies that overflow both ends. The air perfumed with the singe of scorched flesh. Harrison and the others slink out of the tunnelway to witness the desolation.

Barely regaining control of myself. I rush to her side, her hand pressed into the haemorrhaging wound, applying weak pressure. Mindful of it, I scoop her into my arms, and she grudgingly wraps her arm round my neck, groaning, inhaling sharp breaths continually.

I take off in the tunnel's direction. Harrison gawks, despite the many battles I have fought with him, facing perils. This is the only moment where I have ever seen fear flare in his eyes. His half-distraught soldiers still gape at our surroundings; charred flakes peeling off the walls.

I vanish into the black. Soon Harrison and the others follow suit. The light diminishing until the closed panel expels it completely. We swiftly descend the spiral staircase; a percussion of rushing boots, each jarring step risks widening her wound.

Her scream blisters my brain. She squirms stiffly in my hold, pain wracks her frame, trembling from visceral torment, face distorted by pain.

"What were you thinking?"

Pain roils within her, twisting her features into a sour scowl. She gives me a quick, an angry glance and even for that second. For the first time. I see them in her eyes, her slain family. Flashes of light-hued hair and a plethora of eye colours; eyes that bore certain dread of their deaths—done at my hand. And my horror does not solely come from being the reaper of their lives, but also at how easy it was. How all the deaths I have caused were and are...easy.

"Why did you stay?" Her pain lances through me like a blade that impales us both. "Why gamble your life for a being you loathe?"

She says nothing, her eyelids drooping, despite it all I can feel her hatred spilling from every pore. Once we reach the bottom. I reunite with one of the torchbearers and its firelight shines the way. Harrison and the others in tow as we all speed through the earthen channel.

In the dingy chasm, I can begin to hear a spluttering laugh. I look at Aurora, her head lolls, lost inside in a mania of suffering. "Least I will be free of the ghouls that never cease to haunt." Her words spoken haltingly, her voice taut. She cackles another delirious laugh. Her tired eyes set on me. "Free of the bond that has me beholden to my kin's' killer."

Her breaths stutters, whimpering as she arches upwards, lashed by pain, aggrieved more by her words than her wound. The malignancy that weakens her only plunges her towards an uncoverable pit.

I do not care that she loathes me—regardless of it being her right—I only care that she lives. Whether I have to endure an endless lifetime without her. A future devastated by the past. I do not care that she loathes me, as long as she lives. She must.

Aurora screams a cry when I have to shift her over my shoulder to grant me the mobility to the scale up the ladder. Out of the hatch. Atop, that is where the Captain, his sailors, and the rest of the Avangard soldiers await.

"A dozen hells," Devwar exclaims, lurching towards us. "She's...is she?"

"She will live," I say determinedly. She must. She will. "You need to leave, use your ship and abscond from this place. Take the soldiers with you and flee," I say, moving a deathly-pale Aurora back, her head rested against my bloody chest. Her body slackens, sapped of will.

"What of you? Aurora's wounded, you need to board immediately!"

"No, the Dophan's former shaman lives just beyond the glade and I will get there faster on my own." Harrison and the others scramble out of the hatch behind me. "You need only to leave, conceal yourselves beyond the ridge of Mount Qharie, then circle back for us, you will recover me at the west station near the harbour. Then we must all desert the Pantheon...our High King is fallen; we are all but defeated. Until reinforcements arrive."

Without lingering to hear their reply. I dash into the depths of the forest, running as fast as my legs can carry us, almost in blind desperation. Wind raking through my damp hair, the zephyr of my speed rustles the leaves I pass.

Aurora. Her radiant skin like the colour of warm honey. Now that brilliant amber gold has faded into the colour of a dead sun. Every strand of her hair until the root painted black.

Aurora's alarmingly still. I pat her face softly—cold to my touch. Not even a flick of the eyelids, her head bops back and forth like a slack. Helpless, unable to stem the sluggish pulse of blood draining from her.

"Aurora." Nothing. "Aurora!"