The rebuilding of the Bright Castle was going well.
Gunlaug still hadn't been found, but Kallen wouldn't send out a search for him. His aspect allowed him to move quickly under the sea, which meant that he probably wouldn't be found. Most likely, he'd go get himself killed out in the dark sea somewhere.
In other news, the full extent of the desolation that the Awakened Titan had wrought was finally uncovered. Unless more dead bodies were recovered, a total of 173 young Sleepers had died, most notably Tessai, and half a dozen hunters along with him.
Officially speaking, the pathfinder, Mira had disappeared, with no one knowing or saying what had happened to her.
Publicly, Kallen rarely showed himself, as ruling over 800 people was a tough task, especially when all 800 of said people were magically gifted soldiers who had survived in hell for as long as they could remember.
It helped that he had the public support of the saint of the outer settlements. On paper, not much had changed about the Bright Castle. Kallen did not lift the requirement on soul shards that Gunlaug had placed, so as to not anger his hunters, but he did allow Nephis and Sunny free-reign to care for the people who could not pay to live in the castle.
It was somewhat cruel to an extent, and not something that could pass in the long term, however, the long term was not what anyone needed to worry about.
Assaulting the spire was.
Only a week had passed since the attack, but Kallen was anxious to hurry up and get these people ready. Nephis advised caution, which he listened to, but he would wear thin soon.
In the meantime, he got to know his new abilities a little better.
The Null Miridian—his newest Divine Relic—was something he'd wait to ask his grandfather about when he got back. Not that he had much of a relationship with the man, but he was family, and a powerful, long lived Saint.
If anyone knew about it, he did.
Kallen had tested it a few times, but each instance, it brought him into that nothing world and then spat him out several hundred yards away from where he'd opened it.
One such time, he'd been dropped into the sea, where he'd had to escape a Corrupted abomination in order to make it to safety. A useless relic for now. But hopefully, it wouldn't be useless for long.
Kallen summoned his new Leviathan. The Bright Castle's generals were absent, and he had sent away the guards, so he had a rare moment of peace in the long chamber.
The dragon, red scales, and angry golden eyes in all, shimmered in front of him. It looked down upon Kallen, uncaring. Seren had named him Torch right after he'd tried to set her hair on fire.
He had expected the dragon to more so resemble the lesser versions of the Titan he'd fought above the city—more like the monsters and beasts he'd battled early into his stay on the Forgotten Shore. They didn't have wings and looked more like eels than dragons.
But strangely, it resembled the Titan.
Unlike his Titan and Tyrant predecessors, Torch could not burn flame underwater. He could not detach and explode his scales, and neither could he exude a sweltering aura of heat.
But he was still a Dormant Monster, and a powerful one at that.
However, there was another trick that Kallen had figured out. It was actually something that Puddle could do as well—Torch could shrink himself.
The details behind it weren't clear. Why could these Legendary Leviathans of his revert themselves into pet-sized creatures? Perhaps for convenience?
"Torch, small form."
The dragon snorted at him, but did as he said, puffing out of sight, and then forming on his shoulder. In this form, he was no smaller than Puddle himself.
Kallen reached a hand back and picked him up around the back and mid-section. Then he held the beast out, and commanded, "Fire."
The cat sized dragon let out a gout of flame in the dim hall. The fire spilled outward, then flickered about twenty feet in front of him.
It was a rather short ranged attack, but still something that could be useful nonetheless. Especially when Kallen got a weapon stronger than Wyrm's Tongue.
There was a knock at the gates. Kallen drew himself from his thoughts and dismissed Torch, telling whomever it was to come in. Nephis walked through the door. She held Seren's hand, and approached him with Sunny on the other side.
"What is it?" Kallen asked, neither demanding nor curious.
"The Fallen creatures that infiltrated the Castle have mostly been dealt with, but we lost a few guardsmen in the process."
"I figured so."
Nephis's face didn't change, but what she said next surprised him.
"Strangely, your pathfinder is missing. The one Seren said you had watch over me when I was unconscious."
Kallen lingered. Then, "I killed her."
Seren's eyes widened and she took a half step back.
"I see," Nephis said.
"Is that all?"
"No… I assumed as much, I merely wanted to confirm it."
"Did you really need my sister here?" Kallen said. "To hear that her older brother murdered someone in cold blood. Even if they deserved such a fate. Was this not something that could have been a personal conversation?"
Nephis met his gaze without flinching. It helped that he had dismissed the helmet of the Gilded Warden. "Seren was already with me when I decided to ask. I didn't bring her here as a witness."
"Then you shouldn't have asked. Now, what did you come for?"
Kallen didn't like how much like Gunlaug he sounded like. As though these people who were supposed to be his friends were wasting his time when talking to him. As if these conversations were exhausting to him.
Instead of Nephis, Sunny stepped forward. "It's time. We'll wait until after the solstice to see if any more Sleepers arrive, but then we go. Most of the Memories from Gunlaug's vault have been given away, all that's left is for you to make the announcement and distribute the soul shards."
"Do the people suspect anything?"
Sunny laughed. "Of course they do."
Kallen took a breath and then rose from the white throne. He descended the steps with loud, lonely footfalls. "I don't have anything prepared. But I'll make the announcement. Where's Harren?"
Nephis turned as Kallen passed her. "He's waiting just outside."
He gave Nephis and Sunny one last look before exiting the chamber.
"They're afraid you'll find out," Whispered Ariel.
~~~
Kallen's speech was utilitarian. He had no interest in inspiring the dreamers of the Forgotten Shore. Nor did he have the means to.
That was Nephis and her cohort's job. They would rouse the people when the day finally came, and they would lead the charge alongside him. As a united front.
That day came all too soon.
~~~
As Nephis finished speaking to the some 800 sleepers gathered in the streets of the bright castle, Kallen watched his Sister as she stood near the woman.
He couldn't stop the feeling of dread that had seeped through his body. Even as the long procession of Sleepers left the castle and he took the lead in his resplendent armor, it wouldn't go away.
The only consolation was that Seren's aspect was too useful for her to be a combatant. There were several strategy talks beforehand, which led to some aspect testing. As it turned out, the little girl could augment Memories with her starlight threads if she focused enough, which mean that she could bolster the power of Nephis's crown, which in turn boosted the power of all the Memories of the human army.
Of course, Kallen wasn't able to enjoy that buff with his armor, but any Memory he summoned would. In all reality, she was probably a more useful asset in the siege than Kallen would be.
That might not have held true if he was going to participate in fighting the Terror of the crimson spire. But he wasn't. It was actually Cassie who advised against it for some reason.
She'd told him that his energy was better spent going all out against the horde they would have to fight. Kallen didn't agree with it, but neither did he argue.
Something was off about Cassie, but Ariel wouldn't give any clues. The daemon only spoke of her fear of the upcoming conflict and nothing else.
And so Kallen would serve as the vanguard. He would be the first in battle and the last to leave. A powerful warrior on the front lines, giving everything he had to save as many people as he could.
But there was still a decision to be made. A daunting, life changing decision that he would need to confront within the day.
With every step made toward the gargantuan crimson tower, that decision crept in from all sides. It was the tide of a dreadful sea that simply wouldn't stop inching higher and higher up. Soon, it would reach his chest, his neck, his mouth, he would be submerged and forced to face that grim reality.
There were two choices really. In the end, the decision was obvious, but that didn't make it easy.
It took days to reach their destination. Hundreds of sleepers traversed the Labyrinth to reach the spire. Many had perished along the way of course, but for the type of journey they had made, it was an acceptable number.
They had been lucky.
Would their luck last?
Kallen stood at the forefront of his army, listening to the frightened pleas, muttering, whispers, and prayers of those around him.
It reminded him of the gallery of fear that the Awakened Academy had been so many months ago.
A year ago.
Kallen was nearly twenty now. Older than the Sleepers of his year, but younger than the average on the Forgotten Shore. He looked around at all of these people: fighters, survivors, the elite of humanity all things considered. But what he saw wasn't hardened warriors or expert killers. He saw scared children, clinging to whatever alleviated their fear the most.
Their friends. Their dead gods up in heaven. Nephis, Caster, Kallen, Effie, Seishan, Gemma, their generals and elites.
He wished he could do the same. Cling to something simple and certain, maybe a name or a symbol or a person. But he couldn't, because there was no one left.
The echo armor around him shifted. A golden longsword formed in his hands. They were so close now. The spire was real, freedom was real, but the oppressive pressure of the distant horde distorted the thoughts in his head.
Or maybe that was fear.
Cassie stood far behind him, wrapped in her cloak, her gaze turned not to the tower, but inward as if she was watching a different battle play out altogether.
Kallen had tried, in the days of marching, to ask her again why she didn't want him at the spire and he never got a straight answer.
She knew, he had realized. She knew that me and Nephis would fight, and perhaps by me not being there, she hoped that I would leave through the portal before her.
From Cassie's perspective, it would make sense. She probably didn't know about the assassination order—likely just that Nephis and he would end up fighting.
So if she could remove Kallen from the situation, she could both save Nephis, and save the amity between them by never revealing what had happened.
It was almost as if Cassie was grasping for the most desirable outcome, no matter how improbable it was. It came off as desperate.
But also, didn't she deserve to be a little desperate? Didn't she deserve to chose the best outcome for everyone?
If she told Nephis that she and Kallen would end up battling to the death, then who knows how things before now would have turned out. Surely not nearly as well.
Kallen being allied with Nephis and Sunny and the rest of the cohort was precisely why Gunlaug had been overthrown so peacefully. And it was why so many people had been spared in the attack against the Awakened Titan.
So it made sense.
Perhaps Cassie even saw a future where she did tell Nephis and decided that was an undesirable outcome. Truly, Kallen had no way of knowing, he merely had to trust that the blind seer had made the correct decision.
So where did that leave him? It left him with a choice between two graves.
Behind him, Seren let out a soft sound. Laughter, light and out of place. He turned. She was seated beside Effie, legs folded beneath her, speaking with a quiet animation. She looked so small there. Fragile, bright, like a child painted into the corner of a mural scorched by fire. A flicker of heaven against the backdrop of hell.
He had promised his father that he would protect her. He had sworn it with a trembling voice. And in the end, that was all that mattered. Not honor, not valor, not the war against these abominations, not the weight of all those human lives.
Love and blood. A promise that stood for more than he ever would.
A horn rose in the distance, long and loud. The voice of the crimson spire calling its due. Then silence. It was time.
Kallen inhaled the bitter wind of ending, and walked forward as the sword of a solemn vow.
The air changed as the tides receded. The sun had risen higher and the dark whirlpool surrounding the Crimson Spire became smaller. Several bridges of red coral rose up, forming a land bridge to where the human army waited.
Out there, Nightmare Creatures began to stir. They crawled out of the crimson mounds. Hundreds of them. Awakened and Fallen, creatures he had both seen and hadn't seen. There were all kinds of different legions, horrors, and monstrosities.
They all moved as part of a well oiled machine. They weren't frenzied like normal Nightmare Creatures either. They were the minions of the Crimson Terror and served it dutifully.
Behind Kallen, Effie called out. "Stand your ground, wretches! If anyone runs, I'll kill you myself!"
He looked over his shoulder one last time before diving into battle.
To Seren, weaving a two threads of starlight.
To Cassie, eyes on something unseen.
To Kai with his bow and Effie standing tall and proud.
To Nephis, head bowed, threads attached, Dawn Shard flaring with blinding radiance.
And then he turned forward. One last promise, one last march, one last chance to chose his own path.
The siege had begun.
A/N: In a week or two (Basically whenever my college semester ends) i'm going to release the rest of book 1 daily until it finishes