Kyler frowned and held his head. There had been a sort of bright flash and Kyler had found himself in a strange, pale world.
"Put down your weapon." A voice without a body urged.
"Absolutely not!" Kyler snapped. "You'll have to kill me before you can take my sword, I will never surrender! You'll find that out soon enough."
"I already knew," The strange, ethereal voice said, "but now, you also know that given the chance, you chose not to repent and turn away from the Darkness. Here, you are free from its influence, but the Darkness inside you is more than enough to condemn you. You choose not to reject it."
"Condemn me? Repent?" Kyler had scoffed. "Of what? Of being healthy, of being whole? You would have me turn away from the one who healed me?"
"You are worse off now than you have ever been," The voice changed directions as it spoke, causing Kyler to spin, to search for it, yet he saw nothing. There was no one but him in this strange place.
"Show yourself!" He demanded, though the weight of the voice was something he'd never experienced. Not even Beast spoke with such authority.
"I have shown myself clearly enough in all I have made." The voice answered. "You have looked without seeing."
"What riddles are you telling?" Kyler blustered, "I won't be fooled, this must be a trick!"
There was quiet for a moment, and the ground below him quaked. The man's resolve wavered for a moment. What if this wasn't a trick? His stepsister had spoken often of the Sorcerer… perhaps… but no! The halflings that Victoria had found, they must have found herbs to induce strange visions. This was not real.
He would not be deterred!
"You will answer for this trickery!" He screamed at the sky.
"You will see justice."
Suddenly, he had found himself back in the throes of battle.
Kyler shook himself loose. Hallucinations in war weren't unheard of, but that was disorienting. He quickly took stock of his surroundings. It seemed no time at all had passed. Shayn looked like he was going into shock as Simone fell, bleeding, to the earth.
He couldn't see much further than that, but things didn't seem quite as dark as they had been before.
Kyler put a hand to his head, and slapped himself lightly.
"What mind games are you playing at? Did your incompetent halflings finally find some herbs worth using in battle?" He snarled.
Shayn seemed oblivious to the words, scrambling over to Simone and putting pressure on her wound as she gasped.
"Answer me!" Kyler's glare could have melted stone.
Shayn continued to ignore his elder brother, frantically whispering to the bleeding woman on the ground.
"Please, Simone, are you all right? I can't tell how deep the wound is, there's so much–so much blood–" His voice broke. "Can you hear me?"
Kyler wanted to smile at his brother's pain, but mostly he felt disgust. Why had he ever wanted his brother and this woman to be together? It was salt in the wound of his loneliness, his unhappiness.
Yet, Shayn's brokenness was loathsome and weak.
Kyler wanted to be rid of it.
"Don't worry, you won't be far behind her in death," He mocked his younger brother.
"I'm glad for that," Shayn didn't even look up from Simone's face.
"Are you, really?" Kyler tilted his head. "What's wrong with you?"
"You said you wanted to kill me on my feet," Shayn grimaced and glanced up at him. "I suppose that's not happening now? You used to be a man of your word."
"Then stand and fight like a man." Kyler sneered.
Simone groaned slightly, and her eyes slid open. "Shayn."
"Don't try to speak, a medic… or a Fae… someone will help you. I'm sure of it," Shayn kissed her forehead and Kyler rolled his eyes.
"Go…" She whispered. "Kyler."
Shayn closed his eyes for a moment, and tears fell from them, splashing into the blood that seeped from her middle. He nodded, once, and lowered her back down.
"Keep pressure, here," He moved her hands, and she nodded weakly.
"What a touching display. Are you going to fight now?" Kyler prodded.
Shayn rose and lifted his sword. There was something new in his eyes. A righteous fury mixed with grief.
The younger took the initiative for once, diving forward and striking several times in rapid succession.
Finally! The fight Kyler had wanted all along! It would be so much more satisfying to beat an opponent that put up at least some kind of challenge!
The brothers clashed in a spar unlike any before. Kyler had been out for blood, for death, the last time, but now it seemed that Shayn had joined him.
"If she dies," Shayn said between rapid strikes that Kyler blocked with some effort, "I don't think I can ever forgive you. Not even after…"
"After what?" Kyler said as he swept his sword downward, causing the other to jump back to avoid being sliced in two.
"Never mind," The younger threw himself back into the fight. "It doesn't matter."
"Nothing matters," The elder brother mocked as he thrust his sword forward, catching Shayn on his arm. There was no cry of pain, only a grunt of determination. It seemed his little brother was growing up at least a little bit.
"Of course you'd think so," Shayn's face darkened. "You've broken Mama's heart, and…"
"And what? Healed? Become stronger? Failed to be the weaker, tag-along cripple you'd gotten used to??" Kyler put together a combination of five strikes, one after another, alternating targets. Head, ribs, head, shin, with a final swipe up the side. Shayn managed to block the first three, but the fourth drove him to the ground, and the fifth nearly took off his sword arm.
Kyler lifted his sword to bring down a killing blow, but Shayn stared beyond his shoulder with a startled look on his face.
"Given up dying on your feet?" The elder paused only a moment, but Shayn did not respond. It infuriated him.
"F-Father?" Shayn stuttered.
"Another stupid trick? This one is far worse than the other," Kyler spat, but Shayn continued staring past him.
It wasn't until a heavy hand fell on his shoulder that the murderous man realized someone else was present. He spun, bringing his blade around to slice off the arm of whoever dared touch him.
A shining white dagger stopped his swing in midair, and the force of the block nearly threw his balance off entirely.
"Kyler." The familiar voice drew Kyler's eyes to the face of the speaker. "What have you done?"
Standing just behind him, clad in pure, white armor, and gleaming from head to toe, stood his father, Ashmayne.
"Father," Kyler rasped. "How…?"
"Your time is done, my son." Ashmayne spoke sadly. "You faced your creator and did not humble yourself nor turn from the wickedness you embraced."
"I– it was a hallucination!" Kyler defended himself. "Shayn must have–you're saying that was real?"
"Father–" Shayn gasped from the ground, holding his wounded arm to staunch the bleeding. "You're alive? A ghost?"
Kyler gasped as his father touched his cheek with the tips of his fingers. The pressure was familiar, yet alien, and flashes of his childhood sparked at the edges of his memory. Not a ghost. Corporeal, here, and yet…
Ashmayne turned to Shayn, and then looked at Simone, who was lying on the ground, barely conscious. His face softened with compassion.
"Take care of her, Son," Ashmayne said to the younger. "Tell everyone I love them. I miss them. I will see them all again… someday, when the Sorcerer ordains."
A dozen questions flitted through Kyler's mind as his father turned back to him with serious, disappointed eyes.
"Are you… taking me with you now??" Kyler asked with alarm. Was his father here to take him to the world of the dead? Is that how death worked?
"No," The warrior answered, and Kyler breathed a sigh of relief. "There can be no Darkness left in this world, nor that one. Those who have been cleansed of Darkness may stay. Those who have refused to reject it must be destroyed."
"Destroyed?" Shayn tried to sit up. He seemed concerned, the hypocrite.
"You were trying to kill me not five minutes ago," Kyler reminded him darkly.
"You were trying to kill me first!" Shayn shot back, but the bickering triggered nostalgia in his eyes as the rage began to ebb, and he turned. "Father, please… can't you fix him, can't he… stay?"
The agony in the youngest man's eyes was obvious, but was it over the dying woman a few feet away from him, or over Kyler's imminent destruction? There was no way to know.
"The choice is not yours, nor mine. It has been known since before time." Ashmayne smiled at his younger son sadly.
Kyler sneered and shrank back as his father took his hand for the last time.