The corpse disintegrates, its hands falling off of me and crumpling like burned paper on the ground just from his touch. The others hiss and whine, their ear-splitting voices spreading through the night, but there’s no stopping Xerxes now. He walks after them, not even making an effort to get them. He grabs random creatures on his way, and they disintegrate under his touch, dissipating like dust in the wind.
Nazarean meows at my feet, reminding me that I should follow in Xerxes’ tracks. I pick him up, feeling safer and somehow saner with him at my chest, and hurry after Xerxes towards the chapel.
The chapel itself seems to react differently to this new version of Xerxes, as if it recognizes his energy, and it welcomes it. As the creatures crawl back into their graves, Xerxes advances towards the chapel. But despite his new-found strength, the gash in his shoulder doesn’t heal. On the contrary, it starts to bleed again, the blood dark and thick as tar.
His shadows extend to Nazarean and me, enveloping us both like veils of shadow, protecting us. I lean to the side watching the chapel rise like a mausoleum in front of us. The entrance is barred, and the tips of the chapel’s gothic windows pierce the sky like spears.
But as he walks up the cracked steps covered in moss, the bars bend of their own accord. It takes me a few moments to understand they are giving in to Xerxes’ dark power, recognizing it as something of its own. I hold Nazarean closer. I need to keep him safe, this place has already taken a toll on him, and I won’t risk losing him.
Once inside the chapel, Xerxes turns to me.
Power and darkness mingle in his purple eyes that seem the eyes of death itself with the dark shadows around them.
“This is a sacred place, where all the worlds converge,” Xerxes says, his voice deep and vibrant like that of a god speaking from the bowels of the Underworld. “But unlike other such places, cosmic chaos is also connected to it.” His eyes move down to Nazarean. “Nazarean agreed to help us and track down the energy of the Firestone, but I think we should reconsider that. The energy here.” He looks up to the vaulted ceiling that’s so high I don’t see where it ends, it just fades in the darkness above us. “It’s different from what I expected. Samael is close. Too close.”
Nazarean leaps from my arms and heads to something that looks like a well in the center of the mausoleum, surrounded by high pillars. He jumps on the edge. The well echoes back every sound, even that of Nazarean’s breath, and it’s an echo that makes my hair stand on end. It sounds...alive.
“Something’s in there,” I whisper. Xerxes nods, eyes fixed on Nazarean. He approaches, and leans in over the well.
“The Firestone,” I breathe. “It’s in there as well. I can feel its energy. The same energy that I felt coming from you the first time we met.”
“Don’t get any closer,” Xerxes warns. “Only I should get in there, alone.”
“No,” I react, scurrying over to him despite his protest. “If the Firestone is in this well, it won’t just be sitting around waiting for you to take it.”
Nazarean meows, trying to keep it low so that the echo won’t respond, but the well reflects the sound back to us. I can only hope whatever is down there doesn’t understand Nazarean like I do.
“There’s a circle of evil around the stone,” I translate for Xerxes. “Same as the dead. It’s—”
Xerxes inhales sharply, his eyes closed, his face over the well. He opens his eyes, hissing.
“Wraiths of chaos. Like the ones who hid the stone in the first place.”
“Wraiths,” I breathe. “But you’ve dealt with the likes of them before, haven’t you?”
“Yes, but Apophis learned from that experience.” He peers inside the well. I take a step closer in an effort to keep him back, as if there were any universe in which he’d need my help. “I sense a ring around the Firestone through which cosmic chaos brings in new Wraiths. There could be a whole army of them and then some.”
Nazearean walks along the edge to Xerxes.
“Nazarean senses great dark power underneath the ring, too. Like it can draw on infinite amounts of it.”
Xerxes keeps peering into the well, while anguish wrings around my heart. If he doesn’t get to the Firestone there’s no way he can rebuild his core, and if he goes in there after it, he might not stand a chance against those creatures.
“There’s no way we can do this,” I whisper, my heart sinking, grief engulfing me like a dark sea. “We came all this way for nothing. Everything we did, it was for nothing.” There are tears in the back of my throat. I look at Xerxes, the man I fell in love with. Yes, I’m in love with him, unconditionally, and I’m done denying it. In the face of despair the experience is sharp and undeniable.
I search for alternative solutions in my mind. I could keep replenishing his tanks the way I did the first time, couldn’t I? He’d just be way too dependent on me, and it will never be the same as with the Firestone, but I would always be at his side. If I have to sacrifice my entire life and hide in caves with him, living in a realm that resembles Hell itself, then I’ll do it. It would be a prison to me, but I’d be with him.
“I could withstand their attacks long enough to take the Firestone,” he says, interrupting my frenetic thoughts. “There’s a chance that I’ll make it out of there alive, but it’s a long shot.”
“Xerxes, there’s an inexhaustible source of Wraiths down there.”
“Yes. I’ll have to withstand their attacks long enough to take the Firestone, then I’ll have to be faster than them to get out. Then we destroy this.” He looks at the well, touching it as if to assess its stability or what it’s made of. We can both sense its protective magic. “This stone is imbued with powerful magic that can keep the Wraiths down. As soon as I’m out of there, we have to destroy it, and the opening will seal itself.” A shadow falls over his eyes. “If I don’t make it out though, and you hear their wails too close, you have to destroy the well with me still inside.”
“What, no!”
“Cerys.” He takes my face in his big warm hands. He looks deep into my eyes, and I swear I can see my future in his, my heart jolting. “Remember, this is a portal that binds all realms, including cosmic chaos, which is why it’s more dangerous than all the others. The best we can do for the realms is to shut it down, which is what we should do, no matter what.”
I understand what he’s saying and why, and I understand that we must do it. I’m all for protecting the realms in the form they are now, but I’m not ready to let him go. My fingers splay over his iron chest as I push myself into him.
“I’m not ready to lose you, Xerxes.” My eyes fill with tears, and his sparkle in a way that makes him look alive again.
“Cerys,” he whispers, putting his big hands on my waist, holding me close, the heat of his body enwrapping me. “I know I said I would never change my ways, and that we shouldn’t be together, but after what happened today I... I don’t think I’ll be able to live without you. If this endeavor tonight doesn’t kill me, your absence will. I’ve come to realize there’s no going back to who I was before I met you.”