My eyes were locked on him; I couldn’t look away. I feared that the moment I did, he’d disappear forever, that I’d never see him again.
That this nightmare indeed was my reality.
Everything besides him was a blur. I only noticed other things moving inches from my eyes. I saw a figure emerging from my periphery, waving a hand in front of me, yet I never tore my gaze away.
“What’s wrong with her?” I heard a familiar voice… Was it Amestele, the leader of the Aetherions?
“We… Lost many along the way,” Lionel said, his voice all warped. “We haven’t been able to come to terms with it yet…”
“The Demon?” Amestele snorted dismissively.
My eyes flared, fire igniting my entire body as they flinched around me. Her careless voice, her unbothered stance—we had gone through hell and she wonderedwhywe were damaged?
“I wouldn’t provoke her in her current state,” Ashley threatened beside me. “No matter what she decides, we’re on her side. If you taunt her into mass slaughter, that’s on you.”
“What? She simply broke down?” Amestele asked uninterested, not taking Ashley’s warning to heart.
“She’s… processing,” Nate chimed in, his voice concerned.
“We’ll take it from here,” Amestele waved off. “With the Demon King gone, the demons will be confused, we should strike now.”
“Agreed,” another voice added.
Izera, the leader of the Ashen Corps. She stepped up towards Jaden and Nate, her gaze on Malakai. “I guess he deserves a proper funeral at least…”
“What?” I stammered and everyone froze.
Izera and Amestele turned to me, the others barely breathed as they watched me. Fire licked my skin, light pulsating from my very skin. Red thin threads swirled around my wrist, growing weaker by the moment. “A what?”
“What isthat?” Amestele asked, her eyes narrowing on the blood magic swirling around me.
“A funeral,” Izera repeated, ignoring the Aetherion leader. “He was a First Lieutenant, and he helped slay the Demon King. That calls for a well-deserved send-off, does it not?”
My eyes finally slid to Izera’s and she flinched when mine met hers.
“He’sjustresting.”
Her face turned pale, as my flames climbed higher in the air, threatening.
“We’ll continue this later, for now it would be better if you gave us some quiet,” Lionel commanded and Izera took a faltering step back.
Amestele stared amazed at me. “Why don’t we send her? She looks like she’d be able to tear the whole world down right now. She even hashispower.”
“Because if we do, she wouldn’t stop with the demons,” Nate snapped, earning himself a couple of glares. “Do you even care for what she’s going through?”
Amestele’s jaw tensed for a brief second. “We’ve all lost loved ones, this is no different.”
“And yet,” I said, digging my glare into her. “Youstayed here, like a coward, sending both your men and the Ashen Corps to do the fighting.”
“You were supposed to join along with your troops with only a day’s delay…” Eve reminded her. “They arrived three days later, almost too late andyouweren’t there.”
“They stumbled upon trouble that delayed them, how am I supposed to foresee that?” Amestele asked accusingly. “Besides, we can’t send all leaders at once, there would’ve been none left to manage things if the mission went south.”
There it was.
The raw lust for power yet again. Had we learned nothing in all these years? There would always be people like her, with greed for more, and the question was, how long before she leaned into dabbling with demons to claim that power? How long before a new powerful force would tear its way into our realm? They all would’ve dismissed it now, denied it, but I saw it, clearer than ever before.
It was only a matter of desperation and greed before the kind of being that lurked on the other side of that call answered.
