ALESSANDRO’S final breaths sputtered out in ragged, wet gasps. Salty, coppery bitterness tingled on his tongue. Burning filled his lungs. Each laborious breath was harder than the last. He knew it was over, and there was no point fighting it. His mind refused to give up, but his body was broken. He tried to sit up, his strength failed. He slumped into the rigid support of his crushed armor. Stinging smoke snaked past his visor and the burning in his lungs grew worse. He sagged against the cracked steps at the foot of his molten throne, gasping for air.

The cold stone drank his living warmth as it fled his body. Shivering wracked his muscles; shock settled in. His failing vision blurred into an opaque gray blob. He fought to raise his arm to shove at his dented helmet.

This can’t be happening. Not yet. Too much is at stake.

He needed more time. He dug underneath the metal encasing his head, searching for the strip of leather holding it in place.

"Let me," a deep resonating voice said. A familiar voice. The voice of his killer, his enemy.

Strong hands lifted him to a sitting position. Flickering torchlight filled Alessandro’s vision as his helmet came off. His world came into focus. Poisonous tendrils of smoke groped the ceiling, hunting oxygen for the fires consuming the castle. A burn-scarred face, framed with cloud-white hair, stared down at him with despairing eyes.

"Weiss," he said, the word threatening to hang in his blood-filled mouth. He squeezed his eyes shut against the pain gripping his chest. Dark blood flowed from his nostrils.

"Conserve your strength," Weiss said, supporting Alessandro’s head as he eased him from the steps to the floor.

"I’m not sure that matters anymore," he said.

"It matters," Weiss said, dropping Alessandro’s battered helmet. "I wish it had never come to this."

"Me too," Alessandro said. "I know you had your reasons."

Weiss shook his head, "It’s not that simple."

"It never is," Alessandro said.

"I couldn’t let you go through with it. Armain wouldn’t have survived again. It would have ended everyone, everything."

Alessandro coughed and blood splattered down his chin. He shifted his eyes and again looked into Weiss’ somber face. His mind raced. He wanted more time, needed more time.

"Things are not what they seem," he said. His lungs threatened to choke shut. "People are not always what they seem."

"So you’ve said," Weiss said.

Alessandro tried to sit up, but the room lurched and spun out of control. Light sparkled in his vision and ringing filled his ears. Weiss was there to catch him as he fell back to the floor.

"Remember when we were kids?" Alessandro asked. He closed his eyes, his neck relaxed, and his head lolled to one side.

"Yes," Weiss said. He gripped his dying brother on the shoulder. "I remember."

Alessandro’s eyes rolled open at the sound of Weiss’ voice.

"Right after father died," he continued.

"I do. Yes."

"Before everything started, we made a promise. Do you remember?"

Alessandro convulsed in a violent wracking cough. Foamy blood collected at the corners of his mouth. Weiss eased him onto his side.

"Yes," Weiss said, looking at the blood-spattered floor.

"Remember the promise," Alessandro said and touched Weiss’ face. He spoke again; clear, forceful and with conviction. His hand tingled as he pushed the last glimmer of his will through it and into Weiss. "Remember."

Weiss staggered against the touch and his face grimaced. He shook his head and stared down at his brother.

"I remember," Weiss said with a slight stutter.

"You know to be honest," Weiss said touching his forehead and wiping sweat from his brow with the back of his thumb, "I didn’t think I could win."

Tension eased from Alessandro’s muscles and darkness cascaded across his senses. He made a noise like a man drowning in a shallow puddle, but managed a weak smile as the light faded from his eyes.

"Me either."

Weiss smiled and shook his head. He already missed his brother. Years of war failed to prepare him for this day. The day of his victory. Alessandro was the last of his adoptive family and he couldn’t imagine the coming years without him.

He removed his heavy gauntlet. Deep rivulets of melted skin, frozen in time, covered his right hand. He brushed Alessandro’s lifeless eyes closed with a gentle pass of his palm.

Weiss stood and worked the glossy black glove onto his hand. He curled his fingers and straightened them several times. Though healed, the tendons remained tight. The smell of his flesh cooking in his armor remained vivid in his memory. He looked back to his brother’s empty, broken body. Alessandro won that cold day on the plains of Southern Relornia five years ago. Weiss was bigger, stronger and faster, but his brother’s command of the Aspects was legend. Even among the line of Wardens. By all rights, Weiss shouldn’t be here standing here.

How can I have beaten you? You?

He looked around the smoky throne room. Soldiers in dull breastplates stood guard at each exit, hands on their sword hilts.

"Captain," Weiss said. Captain Harwick was younger than Weiss—though it was rare to find someone that even approached his one-hundred and fifty years—taller and filled with ambition. He crossed the room with confident strides and stopped at attention in front of Weiss.

"Majesty," Harwick said.

"Summon a Priest of Rites. Have the body prepared for interment and load him into my wagon."

"This dog, Sire?" Captain Harwick asked and spat at the ground. "Leaving him to rot seems more fitting."

Weiss whirled on him, anger cracked face and his eyes burned with cold fire. His scarred face twisted into a visage unrestrained by temper.

His will slammed into Harwick’s body.

Harwick withered as his life energy flowed out in a faint blue haze. His body flexed and arched as he fell to his knees.

Weiss’ pulse quickened and his skin flushed with warmth as the absorbed Harwick’s life. The Captain gurgled and pawed at his face and chest and collapsed with a loud crash to the hard stone floor. Weiss released him.

The remaining soldiers stood still, at attention, taking care to make no noise.

"Do not speak ill of my brother again," Weiss said, in a deadly tremor.

Harwick groped his way forward and struggled to his feet. He trembled but stood tall and straight, regaining some of his composure.

"You men," he pointed to two soldiers from the group, "fetch burial wrappings and the Priest."

Weiss studied him for several long heartbeats, his anger subsiding. Harwick shook on weak legs and looked down.

"Anything further, Sire?" He asked, head still bowed.

"Gather the men. Secure the perimeter."

"Sire," Harwick nodded and turned to address the men gathered there. "Muster in the courtyard."

Weiss watched a moment longer as Harwick and the soldiers left the throne room.

The Priest and two soldiers assigned to assist him hurried in and waited for instructions.

"Prepare him for a long journey," Weiss said as he walked away. He had no desire to watch the Priest prepare Alessandro’s body. He didn’t share the priest’s beliefs, but the ancient Rites would be the best way to preserve Alessandro for the long journey home.

Weiss took long strides from the smoky throne room into the adjoining library. A wall of heat met him at the entrance and brought chills to his flesh.

Books and furniture filled the room, burning with unnatural fire. Black streaks marked the tan-colored stone walls, and they glimmered red from intense heat. Beneath the acrid smoke of burning wood and paper, there was a faint almost flowery scent.

Banefire.

He remembered the hopelessness and pain when the hellish substance scorched his body.

Weiss waved his hand in a slow swirl and pulled the heat to himself. His black armor shimmered red and a thin blanket of frost formed in the room.

He paced the room, shifting through the few books that survived the flames. Alessandro loved books. His collection contained the most complete culmination of knowledge and literature to survive the Writhing. The tomes gathered here were unique, irreplaceable. One of many precious and irreplaceable things destroyed by senseless war.

Weiss shook his head and pressed his lips into thin line. He balled his fists, digging gauntleted fingers into the palms. He snapped his hands open and released the intense heat, incinerating the remaining books and parchment. Thick ash floated and swirled in the roiling heat. He slipped on his helmet, shielding his face from the radiating heat.

"Why," Weiss said, "did you force my hand?"

"Majesty," Weiss turned to face the nervous young priest, "The body is prepared, as you requested."

"Very well," Weiss said. "Have him placed in my wagon. Send word to Miladda that I have need of her."

The priest hurried from the room. Weiss resented the weakness in the people who served him. Fear motivated them. The war earned him a reputation as a cruel and ruthless warlord. The death of the Warden protector of Relornia at his hand wasn’t likely to change that image. Still, he envied the respect and love that filled Alessandro’s followers.

Weiss left the ruined library and crossed the throne room to the main hall. He glanced back to the spot where Alessandro had fallen. He saw the molten remains of the golden throne and the cracked stone floor. Evidence of the massive Aspect energy they had released upon each other. He fought back a pang of regret. Part of him wanted Alessandro to win. He didn’t want to face a life without his brother; the last living member of his family. He would just have to find a way to live with his victory.

"Captain," Weiss called. Harwick hurried over. His face seemed thinner now and a collection of wrinkles gathered in the corners of his eyes. Gray patches streaked his now thin, black hair. Weiss still tingled with the life-force he drained from the man.

"Have every man not guarding the perimeter gather enough Bane Fire to bring down the castle. Miladda will handle my affairs while I am away."

"Sire," Harwick said. He paused, turned slightly, and then hurried from the hall.

Weiss continued down the main hall leading out into the courtyard. Sooty, black streaks and swatches of blood marked the walls along the way. Acolytes worked in pairs and loaded bodies onto wooden handcarts. They pushed and shoved the cart out of the castle to a place where the bodies could be properly buried and provide some closure to their loved ones. Weiss allowed them their practices and was to some degree sympathetic. After all, he sought the same closure with his brother.

He held no particular religious convictions, but he did not condemn those who did. He believed that gods existed. Long ago they turned their backs on Armain, selfishly leaving the world to die in the aftermath of the Writhing. He had little use for them.

Weiss stepped from the dark humid interior into the cold air and bright morning sun in the courtyard. He winced and tilted his head down, shading his eyes until they adjusted to the light.

His vision cleared to the shapely form of Miladda. Supernatural beauty surrounded her, but it was nearly spoiled by her constant scowling. Black hair framed her pale face and her skin glowed in the early, hazy sun. She wore a green and white dress that flowed around her in a light breeze. The frigid air carried fewer chills than her demeanor.

She stood by his horse and wagon and squinted against the blinding sun.

"Majesty," she said as he approached. Her tone might have suggested sarcasm or malice, but Weiss knew her manner. It was just her way. Though he had to admit that, sometimes, even he had a hard time telling the difference.

"Should you be out in the daylight like this?" Weiss asked.

He pulled his helmet off and held it under his arm. The right side of his face twisted in a roadmap of severe burn scars. His white hair, matted from sweat and the weight of the thick helm, lay tight against his scalp. His skin, as white as his hair, had paled from many long days and nights in his armor.

Miladda regarded him with casual familiarity, unaffected by his shocking appearance.

"I shall manage in honor of your victory, Majesty."

"I need you to do something for me while I am away," Weiss said patting his giant warhorse on the neck. It annoyed him that the wagon detracted from the beast’s natural majesty. He reached into the wagon and checked the ropes securing Alessandro. Satisfied, he turned back to Miladda.

"Away?" Miladda asked. "In your moment of triumph, you are leaving?"

"Yes. I will need you to command in my stead," he said.

"What if the soldiers don’t wish to follow me?" Miladda asked.

"Tell them I may be inclined to summon a new army from the Abyss," Weiss said, "and I may be further inclined to feed that army with the bodies of my current army."

The look on Miladda’s face came as close to shock he had ever seen on her. She tilted her head, puzzled.

"Can you do that, Majesty?" She asked. Weiss did not answer.

"The journey will take me a five months or more. I trust you will be able to handle things."

"I will," Miladda said. She straightened. "My life and loyalty are yours."

Weiss nodded. She had been with him for many years since the hot summer morning when he found her near death, beaten and bloody, on the Great Road between Lindistra and Relornia.

Miladda was born slave. All Blood Hunters were. He found her owners beating and raping her in the dirt on the side of the road one hot summer morning. Slavery sickened him. He tried reason with the men, but was threatened with violence. He offered to purchase her, knowing full well that they would never part with such a valuable family heirloom.

When they refused, he killed the men and removed the indenturing band from her rib, freeing her from a life of servitude. He never learned for why they were punishing her. He wasn’t sure that it mattered.

For years, he suspected she did not know how to be free or understand what it meant. After surviving many generations serving human masters and to suddenly find herself free, without someone to serve, she was lost.

He might have abandoned her in the woods that day, but instead took her in. As an equal. After that, her devotion to him was unquestionable.

"May I ask why, Majesty?" To the casual observer, her range of emotional expression seemed to be limited to various degrees of scowling. Weiss recognized it for what it was. Confusion.

"I have a promise to keep. I have to bury my brother."

Next Chapter: Chapter Two