“Do you know why you still stand on this mountain, and the others have been swept from off its face?” Tempest advanced through the field of the dead, surrounded by the again-lifeless zombies. She barely even seemed to glance at Bonnie, though she was still there, her wrists and ankles bound by thick cords.
She shouldn't be able to see all this magic. This disbelief should've unraveled those zombies. They still fought.
That last, strongest protection against the mages Bonnie fought had finally failed her. After battling magic for so long, she finally believed it. Just in time to get murdered.
“My armor,” Lyra said, stepping between the spellcaster and the fallen artifact. It still lay in the dirt behind her, occasionally arcing with electrical energy. If any of those reached back and hit her, they might overpower her healing and kill her instantly. Or maybe they would just throw her off the mountain like they had Akiko. “It isn't a kind of magic you could dispel. You can try all night if you want, it will still protect me.
My friends have powerful magic. They're not helpless. They survived. With the raging storm overhead, the darkness and clouds, there was no way for Lyra to know otherwise one way or the other. It would be better to believe they lived. She clung to that belief, because the alternative was to crumble into despair.
“The key thrums with power. Pick it up, and I'll explain what to do. You can end this.”
She glanced back at the key—a dozen feet away from her now. If she went for it, she might reach it—but Tempest could get to any number of fallen guns in that time. Most of them were still loaded. Changeling armor was good, but none of it covered her head. Lyra couldn't heal a gunshot after her brains got smeared onto the mountain.
Tempest laughed. She didn't go for a gun, just kept walking towards her, slow and confident. Both hands remained outstretched—empty and relaxed. Lyra knew that look well, now fresh from personal experience. Tempest already had a spell in mind, poised to cast. She was just waiting for the perfect opportunity to use it.
Like turning my back on her.
Besides, jumping for the artifact would mean looking away from Bonnie. Her girlfriend might be bound, squirming against the rope, but her eyes were still open and alert in the rain. There was recognition there, filled with a kind of pain Lyra needed no magic to describe.
“No, Pentacle. You aren't like those others—the ones who dragged you out here. I see it in that fae vestment on your shoulders, and that echo whispering into your ear. Don't you understand?”
She shook her head vigorously. For every step the woman took forward, Lyra backed up, slowly moving towards the artifact. If Tempest wanted to count on the mountain slope to throw her, she would soon see otherwise. She might not be a cat right now, but her reflexes weren't much worse. “You're surrounded by dead. You're a murderer.”
More laughter, filled with bitterness. “Please. Don't waste our time by claiming you haven't killed when you needed to. I know a killer when I see one. If you wanted to scurry off with those woodland creatures, you could have.”
She had no answer to that. Maybe there's something I can use on Bonnie. If I can get those ropes off her, she can shoot this lunatic. Would she shoot Lyra while she was at it? She hadn't last time.
“No, Pentacle. I spared you because I see what you really are. You see the world like I do—opportunities. It isn't about sides, it's about what you can take. Listen to that shade, traffic with the fae, take the blood of a vampire, what's the difference? That makes you useful.”
Shade?
She held up one hand, almost in the same position as Tempest—neutral, ready to cast. There was one difference of course—Lyra didn't have a clue what she could use to strike down such a dangerous target. But if the Seer didn't realize...
“If the Kindred tried to give me their blood again, I'd plant a willow in their heart and fill their rotten veins with its roots.” She clenched her hand into a fist. “Whatever you're trying to say, forget it. Get into your truck, and drive away from here. You go your way, I go mine.”
“Or, a counter-offer. The Pentacle is shattered. Those mortals did a fine job assisting in the hunt. Those who have not yet been captured soon will be. Canterlot will not be tainted by their presence again. You could join them, or you could make alternate arrangements.”
She held out her hand, expectant. “Give me the artifact. In exchange, I will accept you as my apprentice. We will not hold your past... association... against you. Many of us were once blinded by the Oracles’ lies, and the zombified corpse of their city. The Storm King will forgive your transgressions, and grant you new purpose. You may even meet him tonight.”
“The Oracles’ lies?” Capper poked out from around her ankles, hissing up at the mage. He didn't speak with human language, he never did—this was animal fury, deep and primal. “Pretenders lord over creation from stolen thrones, wielding scepters covered in truths they refuse to read. Creation rots under their feet, the Abyss worms into every thread of the Tapestry, and they do nothing!”
Their attacker eyed the two of them, though there was no sign of comprehension on her face. Only a general sense of anger and frustration, impatience. Lyra knew that look—this was someone running out of time. Like Akiko, she needed to work the artifact tonight. And more time for the others to get back to me. They're powerful mages, one attack isn't going to kill them.
“I will ask another way. Many with loyalty to the Pentacle have been so thoroughly inducted by their brainwashing and propaganda that logic alone will never work. I'll show you tonight where your loyalty is due: to the true lords of creation. Kneel.”
As she said it, the crushing weight of authority pressed down on Lyra. She knew this feeling—Ventus had wielded something similar. In his presence, it was almost impossible for her to disobey a command. But how could Tempest wield it? Lyra owed her nothing, and didn't drink her blood!
Her legs wobbled, her whole body shaking at the joints.
“Submit.” Tempest spoke in a higher tongue that time. Not a spell exactly, though it carried some of the same weight. Behind her, the flash of lightning formed into a figure, towering larger than all creation. A twisted outline in high robes, though her eyes saw as much inhuman as she did of human shapes. Like white fur, bestial limbs, exaggerated sharp teeth, and a wickedly pointed crown.
The shape loomed overhead, behind Tempest. “Authority. Dominion. Obedience.” She saw it—a mighty throne, a castle of onyx spires upon an impossible peak. Lightning crashed down endlessly, a storm without beginning or end, that would scour all resistance from the planet. Such a small creature as herself could only obey or be utterly erased.
Her hands moved, twisting behind her towards the artifact. Her fingers settled around it, though she never gave the command.
“Obey. Your. King.” Tempest chanted, over and over. “Authority. Dominion. Sovereignty.”
She casts like a child.
Was that Capper's thoughts, or her own memory? Either way—the connection was instant. It was exactly like Akiko's first lesson. Atlantean was an effective tool—but wielded like driving a nail with a book of priceless poetry.
She held up the artifact in both hands. Energy arced from it, scorching burns into her skin, before sloughing off the surface of her elven armor and into the ground. Without that, picking it up with her fingers might be lethal.
As it was, she still shook with agonizing pain, burning at the touch of this artifact. It might not be charged yet—but it was close.
Tempest closed one hand on it, overlapping hers. “Relinquish. Submission.”
Her fingers started to loosen.
Lyra was somewhere else. She was younger, smaller, stupider. Addicted, obedient, loyal. Even then, she could resist. Human will was not so easily broken. She looked up into Tempest's face, and the looming presence of the storm god. Lightning froze there in the sky, the outline of a malignant presence—an imposter on an ancient throne. Stolen power, stolen wisdom, stolen authority. She owed him nothing.
She might not know Tempest's spell—but she didn't have to cast like other mages if she didn't want to. “Truth does not compel,” she said, in her own Atlantean. She wasn't really talking to the Seer, even if she was the one looming over her. Another listened, from his distant throne. “Truth is its own advocate. It survives interrogation, scrutiny, and deception.”
“Obey,” Tempest chanted, louder. “Kneel before the throne. Helpless before the throne. Supplicate before the throne.” The mountainside transformed around them with every word—like a Nimbus, but overwhelmingly powerful, suppressing every sense. Stone floors replaced the mud, broken trucks and fallen zombies all vanished. A palace formed around them, with a towering throne as its centerpiece. Upon the black marble, that odious figure became increasingly real—not just an outline of energy anymore, but solid. White fur from a beard so long it cascaded over his whole body. Metal armor, streaked with blue across the breastplate. Worst of all, that crown, sharpened to bloody points.
His eyes were on Lyra—or at least the artifact in her fingers. He extended one hand, as large as a passenger van, open towards her. This king had the power to protect her, maybe to answer her questions.
Like the ladder itself, he would tear down the path behind him. Fewer would follow her, and even fewer after.
Energy arced from the artifact in her fingers. Though it was Lyra's flesh it burned, that light arced towards Tempest, then curved around her. Almost as though the artifact itself rebelled. I'm not the one she's trying to convince, she realized. If Tempest could force her, she already would have. She was just the mage standing in the way.
Lyra could bow to him. She could've bowed to Ventus too, and thrown her life against VALKYRIE like the other ghouls. She hadn't, even if it meant her life. She wouldn't start now. “Flames erupt from the great lighthouse, calling to the souls of all who see. They defy the lie, they cast off darkness. They stand, take up the lower lights. They shine without shadow. They burn without smoke. They mend where others have torn.”
When she spoke, Tempest shouted louder, trying to overpower her. She chanted the same empty words, with all the will and purpose of one who knelt before the throne. The artifact wasn't listening to her.
The dark palace vanished, replaced with a sprawling forest of vibrant trees, towering animals, and a fortress of stone. Light radiated from behind her, cast by a figure she couldn't see in an aurora of pink, purple, and green. She had seen that light before, when she signed her name.
A hoof touched her shoulder, filling her with strength. The artifact stopped burning her fingers, which settled comfortably around it. Not just an artifact anymore—this was a diadem, worn by an ancient emperor. She was not its owner—but it would yield itself to one who walked the same path. “Begone, servant of the lie,” she whispered. Not a spell exactly—but it worked like one.
Lightning flashed, thunder rolled, and Tempest screamed, tumbling backward through the air. In an instant the storm had swallowed her, leaving Lyra alone on the mountain. Except, of course, for Bonnie.