22 – Aury’s Pain

A stone the size of a fist smashed into Aury’s wing. Agony shot straight through the joint, crawled up his spine, and bloomed at the base of his neck.

“This pain is nothing,” he muttered to the empty air.

The space within his core where the Mistress lived had gone silent. His halo lost its clean edge, the perfect golden circle blurring at the rim like a candle flame caught in a downpour.

He clawed at the air, his primary feathers straining against the gale. Resisting the sheer force his Mistress had infused into the tempest was impossible; her power had literally held a mountain aloft.

He beat his wings with every ounce of strength he had. It was a useless effort. One second the suffocating dark of the cavern enclosed him, illuminated only by the dimming halo above his head, and the next the vortex spat him out into open air.

He drifted over the forest canopy, a crisp blue false sky stretching mockingly above.

His fingers flexed. They moved slowly, clumsily, as if the atmosphere had suddenly thickened into syrup. The cold. It has to be the cold.

Along the length of his sword, the holy runes sparked back to life.

Why did my runes betray me? Is it my faith? Am I unworthy? The silent questions twisted like a frozen blade in his stomach.

The dark, scattered shapes of the armored gnomes littered the forest floor below. Their weighted suits had anchored them against the worst of the blast, preventing the gale from throwing them into the deep woods.

“No. It was something they did,” he grunted.

He adjusted his grip on the hilt. “She is too magnanimous. She saved even these heretics. I am going to kill every last one of them.”

Aury snapped his wings tight against his back. He plummeted toward the earth, descending as fast and lethal as an iron bolt thrown by a siege ballista.

The impact split the loam, sending a massive spray of dirt, shattered stone, and pine needles into the air. He rose slowly from the center of the fresh crater in front of the survivors. “Pitiful heretics.”

They were still crawling through the mud, tangled in their own limbs, unable to find their footing.

“Stand and fight me,” Aury said. His hand pressed hard against his breastplate, searching for the warm, familiar resonance of Celestine. Nothing. The emptiness was terrifying.

A few of the armored gnomes groaned, their plating clanking dully against the damp dirt. Fewer still actually moved. Only one was upright, on one knee: the leader, his unhelmeted face a mask of thick, matted grey fur. A dark trickle of blood stained the bridge of his nose, disappearing into the coarse hair of his snout.

The engineer’s joints shrieked under the dead weight of his powered armor as he hauled himself up. With a harsh grunt, he stood. He gripped his tool with two thick, calloused hands.

Aury leveled his sword, the edge of the blade blooming with a sudden, righteous light. “You shall die today.”

The moment the threat left his lips, a heavy pull tugged violently at his soul. The Master Engineer’s wrench was calling to the magic. The holy runes etched into the steel began to sputter at the tip, their divine energy fizzling out as it drained into the grease-stained tool like water through cracked stone.

“That cursed instrument. It eats the very light of the Heavens.”

Aury’s grip tightened until the leather wrap on the hilt creaked. Even stripped of his magic, his steel was sharp. His resolve was absolute.

“Why?” The Master Engineer’s voice cracked through the forest air like thunder on a cloudless day.

He spat on the ground, his eyes burning with a volatile mix of exhaustion and genuine, bewildered fury. “Why do you serve her? Why does a celestial being, a creature of the upper spheres, bend the knee to that demon?”

Aury didn’t flinch. He adjusted his stance, his weight shifting cleanly onto the balls of his feet as he measured the distance.

He calls her a demon. He sees the sun and calls it darkness.

“You speak of things you cannot comprehend, heretic,” Aury replied, his voice dropping to a low, menacing register.

He jumped forward, a single, violent snap of his wings launching him across the clearing.

The familiar brought his sword down in a punishing vertical arc. When the steel met the gnome’s iron tool, the holy runes had vanished from the blade.

The wrench, however, instantly ignited, blazing with a jagged, stolen light that hissed against the damp air.

“My name’s Kit Kikkity, not heretic, and I can see you’ve been enthralled!” Kit shouted through clenched teeth.

The internal gears of his mechanized armor let out a high-pitched whine, straining violently to provide the mechanical strength necessary to hold the block.

He forced the wrench upward, shoving Aury back with a harsh metallic groan. “Wake up, I say! Don’t you see she’s a monster?”

Aury said nothing. He slid his blade along the length of the wrench with a piercing screech of friction. A shower of sparks rained onto Kit’s face, forcing the gnome to blink.

Seizing the microsecond advantage, Aury sidestepped and swung wide. The blade carved a full circle, cutting into the gnome’s flank, slicing through the plating and tearing into the muscle inside.

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Kit grunted, the sound wet and raw with sudden agony.

Shock vibrated up Aury’s forearm as the steel met resistance. The blade had cut through force and edge; if the runes had still been ablaze, the gnome would have been cut in half on the spot.

Without the runes, the armor holds. I’ll have to push harder.

A normal human would’ve collapsed to the ground, but the gnome merely stumbled, shaking off the shock in two steps.

“Wake up, lad,” Kit barked, spitting a mouthful of red foam into the grass. “She’s using you, I say.”

“I’m awake, fool,” Aury hissed, his wings flaring wide to anchor his balance against the loam. “I say you’re the one blinded by rage and false idols. The one you call a monster isn’t her.”

Kit’s fist flashed forward, driven by mechanical muscles. Aury pivoted to evade the blow, but his ankle buckled entirely under his weight, the joint buckling against the turf. His body was fading fast.

Not now. Move, body. Move.

The metallic fist crashed directly into his cheekbone, the raw mechanical force throwing the angel off his feet and sending him spinning violently through the air.

He hit the ground several meters back, landing squarely on top of a gnome who had just managed to struggle up to his knees. The impact flattened the poor wretch back into the dirt once again with a muffled wheeze.