“Give it over to Cirian,” Sancha’s whisper called to me. “He’s ready.”
That was impossible. To separate this searing heat from myself would unmake me. It had become one with the pain that coiled deep within myself. If I gave it away….
“I’d have to give him my pain,” I managed through gritted teeth.
“Let it go, Azrael.”
She was asking for the impossible. To go against my very reason for existing. I was the one who bore the weight of pain. I was the one who kept others from the cruelest that this world had to offer. I was the shield for those I loved, and now she would ask that I give it up?
I couldn’t do it.
“No, I can handle it.”
“You cannot. It’s not yours to hold.”
This is what I trained for. This is why I suffered through the tortures of Rudderkin’s gauntlet. I would carry the weight of the world on my back if it meant saving others from it.
“I’m strong enough.”
“I’m not asking you to be. My acolyte has been preparing for this moment his entire life. You cannot carry it for him.”
But if I didn’t carry it… if I didn’t pull my weight, then I was worthless. That much I knew to be true. Life had taught me the lesson over and over again. To ask me to change now…
“Azrael!”
My name cut through the internal noise, drawing me away from the blinding pain. Cirian stood a dozen yards away, blood streaking his sweat-drenched face. Behind him, I could spot Bastien keeping the teeming shadows at bay, but it was clear that they were outmatched.
They were going to die. I was going to die. If I carried on this way, then we would never escape the Cradle. I could not wield this power coiled in my gut, but Cirian could, if he could overcome the pain. The pain that I clung to so desperately.
Reaching out, I gripped the cord that ran between Cirian and me, the heat in my gut reacting to the touch instantly, pressing against my insides in the same direction. All I had to do was release it, and it would flow like a dam breaking.
“He’s ready,” Sancha said once more, her arms giving out as she collapsed onto the ground.
He was. But was I?
Was I ready to let go of my oldest friend?
“No!” A voice shouted from some place far away.
Pain was with me through every moment, big or small. It had shown me the value of carrying it with me, to hold it deep inside where others wouldn’t notice. To take it from the ones I loved because I could carry it far further than they ever could.
I was a beast of burden, and if I was that no longer, what would I be?
The possibilities both frightened and enthralled me.
Grasping the tether with both hands, a decision had to be made.
I chose to let go of the pain.
“Azrael!”
My voice carried over the din of mangled limbs thrashing behind me in the voluminous quagmire of disgusting ichor. Bastien was holding his own—a feat that just a few months ago I would have thought impossible— and I had only a moment to witness what was transpiring across the chamber before the Umbral’s horde of twisted nightmares would overtake us.
Muttering an incantation under my breath, I pinched the wound on my forehead closed, if only to stymie the stream of blood that threatened to blind me. My magic was nearly expended with no end in sight to this madness.
I had brought us to our deaths, here in the heart of the Cradle. How fitting that the holiest of places would become our tomb. It was enough to bring laughter bubbling up inside of me. I would die in the very place that I loved so dearly, along with nearly everyone left on this wretched plane whom I harbored affection for.
“Look out!” Bastien yelled, and I felt the air move strands of my crimson hair as I sidestepped, narrowly avoiding the tendril of darkness that had sought to skewer the back of my head. Ispun on my heels, unleashing another blast of cerulean lightning into the teeming mass. The offending limb shriveled to ash, dusting the ground with a stygian streak.
