Chapter 49 - Broken Branch (Patreon)

Edwin loomed over Elaine. The square around them was caked with dust and debris. Canvas awnings sagged in the stillness; a shutter clicked on a rusted hinge, then clicked again.

Anger pinched his features, and disgust, at himself and at Elaine, sat heavy in his jaw. He knew he should have killed Elaine after her first attempt on Yen’s life, but her similarities to his past self blinded him to her nature. He assumed she would react as he did, given a second chance. But he was wrong, and now a boy was dead.

 Somewhere nearby, a loose sign creaked on its hinges; a fly worried the rim of a knocked‑over cup. The whole town seemed to be holding its breath, waiting to learn whether the moment would break toward mercy or toward another casualty.

Initially, Edwin was glad it was a human and not Yen who’d died, but judging from Yen’s reaction, he knew the human that was killed was the source of her love and emotions. The realization tasted bitter, metallic, like he had bitten his own tongue.

In only a few moments, Yen’s feelings would fade, and she’d become emotionless like he had. Since she didn’t love Edwin, and likely never would, Edwin’s curse wouldn’t flicker over to her, replacing the one she had before. There was nothing Edwin could do. He could only watch, afraid of the possibility that Yen would become a a Synborn due to the grief. That possibility lived like a cold knot under his ribs.

Out of the corner of his eye, Edwin watched Yen as she leaned over the dead human’s body. The iron‑sweet smell of blood had already soaked into the dust, darkening it; a thin halo of gnats bobbed in the bright air. The boy’s hair matted with sweat at the temple. A smear of dirt crossed his cheek as if someone had tried to wake him. The adventurers he’d seen running with Prince Christopher followed too, skidding across the cobbles and landing beside the body. One in particular, who bore a resemblance to the slain boy, began to break down emotionally, shoulders caving, breath scraping out like a rasp.

Edwin felt a pang in his heart for the strangers he never bothered knowing.

Before him, Elaine lay on the ground. The burnt‑meat stink from Yen’s inflicted brands clung to her hair and the charred edges of her clothes. When Elaine breathed, it sounded like cloth being torn underwater. She had cuts and gashes all over her body, her clothes were destroyed, her face was crushed, her left eye was gone, and her breathing was shallow. But the mana in her horns was reacting. The physical wounds were beginning to stitch together, albeit slowly. Beads of seared flesh pearled and split. Thin threads of steam stitched up from her wounds and vanished on the breeze. Her fingers twitched against the stone as if searching for a handhold, as if some part of her believed she could climb back into innocence.

Edwin’s attendants—Willow Evershade the Dryad, Chiya Tydeya the Naiad, Free Skyborn the Sylph, and Nala Vorrkhan the Theriad—circled them, keeping everyone at bay. Their shoes planted with the same measured stance, skirts and coats ghosting in the light wind, eyes bright as cut glass. They were all powerful warriors from their bloodlines. Even though they were maids most of the time, Edwin didn’t have better guards than them. Even Elaine would struggle to defeat one of them, let alone all four at once. Combined, they easily had the power necessary to destroy a small city.

All four had their weapons ready. They bore spears and stood at four corners with their backs to Edwin while he loomed over Elaine. The spearheads hummed faintly with mana, heat rippling in the air above the steel.

Elaine, conscious but in pain, looked up at Edwin, her love. She didn’t want him to see her this way, yet she craved his attention so much that the tiny thought was overwhelmed by the immense desire she had for him in her heart. Her mouth tried to form a smile and failed. The ash on her cheek cracked.

“M-My Lord.” She forced herself to her knees before Edwin and looked up. The effort made a wet sound in her throat. Black flesh flaked off her arm and leg.

Edwin knelt to be eye level with her. Disappointment filled his face. “What have you done?”

Elaine knew there would be consequences for her actions. She’d killed a human in broad daylight and tried to kill Yen, a fellow Primordial, for no justifiable reason outside of self‑serving motives. It would mean nothing for her to lie in a situation like that.

“I tried to save you from yourself,” she said. “With her gone, you would no longer… be looking elsewhere.” The words came out soft; an apology wrapped around a blade.

Edwin’s jaw clenched. “What gave you the justification to do that of your own volition?”

“Because you never would have done it yourself.”

“For many reasons other than my emotional state.” Edwin stood up. “She is from the Ancient One’s direct bloodline, and while her father was a human, Primordial blood is pure. It mattered little in what made her who she is.” His shadow lengthened over Elaine. His attendants subtly shifted to look at Elaine, closing the distance between themselves and her, encircling Elaine like vultures.

“Yet she’s lived with humans her entire life. She may as well be one of them,” protested Elaine.

“That is not for you to decide,” hissed Edwin. “She is young. Barely twenty. A blink in our lifespan. The rest of her life could be spent in Paradise, and—”

A giant surge of energy blew up behind Edwin.

Shadows snapped flat to the ground. Laundry lines twanged. Birds erupted from the eaves in a roar of wings. Broken boards and debris were sent spiraling. The sky went bright. Heatless white light washed the square as if the sun had dropped behind him. Particles of red, blue, and yellow danced within, while other colors floated around the outskirts of the beam. The smell of ozone prickled the nose. Dust grains glittered like ground glass as they lifted and hung.

Edwin turned to see Yen radiating pure mana into the air. The pressure nudged faintly at the eardrums like altitude, a high thin keening at the edge of hearing. Those around her had scrambled away, even bringing the dead boy’s body a safe distance, as she spewed power into the sky. A ripple moved through the small surrounding crowd as people unconsciously stared at the phenomenon.

Stories said pillars marked a new Chosen. It had been decades. Very few people alive that day had ever seen one before.

Yet on the Human Continent, in a small town called Sandy Branch, a new Chosen had arrived.

And it was Yen.

Yen’s eyes were alight with power. Her skin reflected the column as if lacquered. Her hair and clothes were being pulled upward, as if the sky were trying to claim her. Her mouth was open, and there was no sign of consciousness on her face. Beyond the feeling of power, there was no damage to anyone nearby. Even the ground was unchanged. The initial booming sound of the energy faded to a soft, rhythmic, bass-like tone that tingled everyone’s ears in the vicinity.

“N-No!” Elaine fell forward. “We have to stop her! She can’t become one of them!” Tears slipped down her cheeks, cutting pale tracks through the soot and ash that freckled her face. “She’ll never die unless someone kills her!”

Edwin picked Elaine up by the back of her neck and pulled her to her feet like a ragdoll. He turned her around until they were making eye contact. Her eyes were devastated. She kept trying to pull away. His were filled with concern and regret.

“I can’t let you do that,” said Edwin. “If another one of our people is Chosen, we have a chance to—”

Elaine’s marks grew. Slowly, they spread out over her skin as she thrashed and thrashed, trying to reach Yen. Her horns grew. The mana inside her corrupted. The marks over her body began to consume her. In the blink of an eye, her skin was black all over. Only her face remained normal, though the edges of the mark were scattered along her jawline, ready to fully consume her.

Edwin dropped her out of shock.

“IIIIIIIII LLLLOOOOOVVVVVEEEE YYYOOOOUUU!!!” screeched Elaine. She stood up like a rabid animal. Her voice sounded layered over dozens of distorted copies of herself. “WHHHYYY CAAAAN’TTT YYOOUUU LLOOVVEEE MMEEEEE?!?!?!” The cry scraped the stone and sent the nearest flock of swallows cutting a new line across the sky.

The four maids were already on Elaine with their spears by the time she finished her sentence. All four punctured her vital organs—jugular, heart, lungs, and stomach. The power hadn’t fully consumed her yet, so they expected her to die from these wounds. Their formation clicked into place with the ease of muscle memory; spear hafts thrummed.

She did not.

Instead, Elaine blurred toward Edwin. Even Edwin failed to track her, and he was faster than anyone present. The air cracked in her wake, a soft pop that made bystanders wince.

She pulled the spears with her, as if they didn’t even affect her. The marks were now consuming her cheeks, and her horns were curling backward and into her head like a ram’s. Blood dappled her jaw in small bright coins. Said coins smoked and went dark.

“IIITT’SS HHHEEEEERRR.” Elaine gently placed her palm on Edwin’s chest, then looked at Yen. “MUUUUUST. KIIIIILLLLL. HEEEEEER!”

Elaine darted toward Yen, still basking in her beam of light, defenseless.

Edwin moved too. Right in front of Yen. He did not think. His body chose for him and then his mind made a story around it.

It was compulsory. Nonsense. Idiotic. Not something he’d have done days prior.

Yet he did.

And Elaine’s hand, clawed and meant for Yen, now pierced his chest. The sound was small, almost polite, hardly any sound at all.

Elaine’s face distorted with fear and agony. “NOOOOOOO!!!”

Edwin smiled at her. The world seemed very quiet inside that smile. He could no longer hear his own pulse.

Ironic. He found his mind lingering on the day his father died. Did I waste my life? As the darkness at the edges of his gaze faded, he glanced behind him at Yen. The column threw needle‑thin reflections along the tears in his shirt.

As he died, his emotions evened. The compulsory “love” he had changed. It wasn’t romantic. It may have never been. It felt instead like a duty finally returned to its right size.

No. She lived because of all I did, he decided. His eyes flickered back to Elaine, who was breaking down more than she did before. It was worth it. He chuckled, blood bubbling at his lips. The taste was warm copper and something oddly sweet.

Elaine pulled her hand out of Edwin and gently placed him on the ground. She was crying, the spears still sticking out of her. Edwin’s attendants were also running toward him just as distraught, though their attention was on Elaine and filled with fury and grief.

Their actions mattered little to Edwin.

He was already dead.

Edwin’s attendants, with tears in their eyes, primed themselves with mana, ready to kill Elaine for what she did.

Around them, everyone was staring at the scene, horrified. Barcus clutched his deceased brother some distance away with the remaining Trailblazers beside him. Bydon was stoic and tense while Tart’s face was stained with tears for Nigel.

Nearby, Christopher was with Atticus and a few adventurers from town who generally worked with him to keep the peace ever since he’d begun fixing the place. While his eyes were fixed on Yen beyond anything else, the tragedy taking place beside the beam of pure mana she was emitting into the sky temporarily captured his attention.

Gai and Lex stood on a building nearby. Their usual sarcastic tones were replaced with cold weariness, focused entirely on Elaine, as if they knew something were coming no one around them could possibly stop.

From all around, residents of Sandy Branch began leaving their homes to look at the scene cutting their sky apart, oblivious to the tragedy that would occur in the square beside it.

But it wasn’t only the residents who were looking at that light.

It had captured the attention of the entire world.

In Paradise, Oberon Syn watched from his balcony as the beam cut the sky.

On an island in the Broken Bits, Ezekiel left a sick bay in his robes, the stench of death and blood falling from him, sea‑salt air thinning it as he stared into the beam cutting the air.

In Agias, in the holy city of Armistice, Zion, leader of the Voiced, was staring off his balcony as well. He left a conference with five other yellow‑eyed Voiced, the shadow rulers of the Human Continent and purveyors of the Pantheon. The six of them stared into the sky, too.

All around the world, everyone saw the signal.

A new Chosen had arrived.

Suddenly, the same arc of mana branched out from every single Chosen around the world. A white light, fluttering with every single color, burst into the sky from every single Chosen in existence—Ezekiel, Oberon, Zion—every single yellow‑, red‑, and blue‑eyed Chosen alive were being brought together by the power.

They all knew what it meant.

It was time to choose a Shepard and to set three new Rules.

A game unknown to the vast majority of people alive in that world was about to play out behind the scenes, the consequences of which would change the world forever in ways it had never seen before.

But in the town of Sandy Branch, the source of this event, something else was happening that only a few would see, but would be just as consequential.

Edwin’s attendants pulled their spears from Elaine and stabbed her again—over and over and over again. Each wound created new tears and spouts of blood from her body, but Elaine didn’t notice. She wept over Edwin’s body as the dark marks swimming over her flesh finally consumed her face. The spears made dull, wet sounds as they entered and withdrew.

Then, nothing.

The stabbing stopped.

Spears moved through air.

A sickening, wet crunch sounded, thick as biting into overripe fruit. A bloom of heat went through the crowd as if many people had blushed at once.

Elaine, now a full Synborn, had her teeth around the throat of Nala—the Theriad, or Beast Devil most of those around her would have seen her as. They crunched through easily to the back of her neck, nearly severing her head in one snap. Her left hand had punched through Nala’s stomach while her right fingers were buried in her head to get a better grip.

The girl was dead as soon as the attack hit her. She didn’t have time to suffer. Nala’s spear clanged once against the stone and rolled to a stop with a small knock against a cartwheel.

The three remaining girls recoiled at the speed. The recoil was instinct, not fear; their training moved in them before grief could.

Before Willow, the Forest Devil, could react, her body was torn in two down the middle by two powerful hands.

Free, the Sky Devil, and Chiya, the Sea Devil, both screamed. The sound braided into the high keen of the pillar and was lost.

Their calls agitated the Synborn, invoking their deaths.

Free was the first to die of the two. Feathers spun down in a slow snow as Synborn Elaine ran at her as she was trying to flee, ripped off her wings, then pulled her spine out of her back.

Chiya passed out from the sight and the hopelessness. It was the last thing she remembered, and it gave her a more peaceful death than the others. But the process was no less gruesome. The Synborn crushed her head between its palms. The sound was soft and final, like a cracked bowl filled with porridge shattering on the floor.

It roared into the air, victorious.

Then, it bolted over to Yen, who was still beaming energy directly into the sky.

Everyone stared, horrified.

Not only had Elaine killed Edwin Syn, a gray‑eyed Primordial who had surpassed Mastery in the Warring style, but she had easily killed all four of his soldiers in well under a minute. Somewhere in the crowd, someone finally remembered to breathe and did it too loudly.

There was little anyone in the town could do should it turn its aggression on them. And after it killed Yen, there was no doubt in anyone’s mind that it would. The thought skittered over them like a shadow of a hawk.

Many people began to run, save for the Trailblazers and Christopher. The running made a sound like rain, then split into cross‑currents.

“My baby!” a woman screeched into the air. It was Amalia being held back by Quintin. They’d gathered with the commotion like everyone else and had watched the scene unfold.

Elaine the Synborn crouched down before Yen and roared.

She lunged forward.