The scream of the Queen faded into the roar of the wind as the platform rose higher into the smoke-choked sky.
Arthur lay on the shattered floorboards, his vision blurring. His ribs were broken. His breath came in wet, shallow gasps. Beside him, Gareth's body was already growing cold, the pool of blood spreading to touch Arthur's hand.
Get up, Arthur's mind screamed. Get up!
But his body refused. He was paralyzed by the gravity spell, pinned like an insect.
"Vane!"
A roar shook the foundations of the West Wing.
Conrad erupted from the smoke of the courtyard below. He didn't use stairs; he vaulted up the side of the keep, driving his fingers into the stone like pitons. He crested the ledge of the broken window just as Vane's platform began to accelerate toward the Obsidian Gallows.
"Put her down!" Conrad bellowed, drawing a dagger from his belt since his sword was still sheathed on his back.
Vane looked down, bored.
"You really are persistent," Vane sighed. He raised a hand, palm open. The air around him shimmered with heat distortion. "Supersonic Cannon."
BOOM.
It wasn't a spell; it was a wall of compressed sound. It hit Conrad mid-air. The Guardian's armor crumpled inward. He was thrown backward with the force of a cannonball, smashing through the remaining wall of the Queen's quarters.
Conrad crashed into the room, rolling across the floor and slamming into the far wall. He groaned, trying to rise, but slumped back, unconscious.
The impact tore the leather strappings on his back.
Clatter. Slide.
The Sword of Bellona skid across the floor.
It spun, the black steel hissing against the stone, and came to a stop just inches from Arthur's outstretched hand.
The room fell into a terrifying silence, broken only by the sobbing of Leo and Maya in the corner.
Arthur looked at the sword.
It was the weapon that had rejected him. The weapon Conrad said required a bloodline of darkness and war. A weapon for heroes.
Arthur wasn't a hero. He was a failure. He had let his uncle die. He had let the Queen be taken.
I have nothing, Arthur thought, tears mixing with the blood on his face. I am nothing.
But as he looked at the sword, the hum in his blood—the one that had been screaming in rage—suddenly went quiet. It didn't disappear. It focused. It condensed into a single, needle-point of absolute clarity.
He didn't want to be a hero anymore. He didn't want to be strong for glory.
He just wanted to kill the man who took his family.
Arthur reached out. His fingers brushed the cold, rippled leather of the hilt.
THRUM.
The world stopped.
Literally.
The dust motes floating in the air froze. The sound of the burning city cut out instantly. The color drained from the room, turning everything into shades of static gray.
Arthur stood up.
His pain was gone. His broken ribs felt whole.
He looked around. The room was gone. The castle was gone.
He was standing on an infinite plane of black water, beneath a sky of swirling crimson clouds.
"You are persistent, little mouse."
The voice didn't come from behind him. It came from everywhere. It vibrated in his teeth.
Arthur looked up.
Looming out of the crimson clouds was a figure. It was gigantic—a woman clad in armor made of obsidian scales, with horns that curled like a ram's and eyes that burned with white fire. She sat on a throne of skulls that floated in the void.
The Devil Bellona.
"Why do you disturb my sleep again, boy?" Bellona asked, her voice bored, echoing the pirate's tone from earlier. "Did you not learn your lesson the first time? You are weak. You have no mana. You are a vessel with cracks."
Arthur looked up at the entity. He should have been terrified. But he felt nothing but the cold, hard ice of his resolve.
"He killed him," Arthur said. His voice echoed in the void.
"Mortals die," Bellona waved a massive, clawed hand. "It is what they do."
"He took her," Arthur continued, stepping forward on the black water. Ripples of red light spread from his feet. "He took Erika."
"And?" Bellona leaned forward, her eyes narrowing. "You want me to weep for you? You failed. Accept it."
"No," Arthur said.
He looked directly into the burning white eyes of the devil.
"Lend me your power."
Bellona laughed. It sounded like mountains grinding together. "Lend you power? You? A boy who chops wood? You couldn't handle one percent of my essence without exploding. You possess raw strength, yes... I can feel the muscle in your bones. But your spirit is soft. You lack the will to hold me."
"My spirit is dead," Arthur said. "He killed it when he killed Gareth."
Arthur fell to his knees on the water. He bowed his head.
"I have no one left," Arthur whispered, his voice trembling. "Uncle Gareth is gone. If I die... who cares? No one will mourn a farmboy. My life is worth nothing now."
He looked up, a desperate fire igniting in his eyes.
"But if she dies... if the Queen dies... the kingdom breaks. Thousands of people will suffer. So much life will be lost because I was weak." He gripped his chest. "My life is a small price to pay for theirs."
Bellona stopped laughing. She studied the boy. She saw the darkness in him. it was the darkness of a void where light used to be. It was the pure, unadulterated emptiness of loss.
"You would trade your life?" Bellona asked softly. "For a kingdom that does not know your name?"
"For her," Arthur corrected. "If she dies... the light dies. I will burn my heart to ash if it means she lives."
Bellona hummed. She floated down from her throne, shrinking until she stood before him, human-sized but still radiating terrifying power. She lifted Arthur's chin with a cold finger.
"I sensed it before," she mused. "That night. A spark of stubbornness. But now... now it is a wildfire."
She smiled. It was a sharp, predatory smile.
She stepped back.
"You may not be of the bloodline I seek," Bellona stated, making her assumption clear. "You are just a boy with too much anger and not enough sense. If I give you my power, it will not just hurt. It will eat you alive. It will boil your blood and shatter your bones because you were not made to hold it."
"How long?" Arthur asked.
Bellona tilted her head. "Calculated against your mortal frame? You will have... fifteen seconds."
"Fifteen seconds," Arthur repeated.
"After that," Bellona leaned in, her voice a whisper, "your heart will burst. You will die."
Arthur stood up. He didn't hesitate. He didn't look back.
"I accept."
Bellona's grin widened. "Then Arthur of Aethelgard. Show them a battle worthy of my name."
She reached out and touched his chest.
Pain.
It wasn't like the gravity crush. It was like swallowing the sun. Fire raced through his veins, burning away the fear, the doubt, the grief. It replaced everything with power. Infinite, screaming power.
The void shattered.
Reality snapped back.
The dust motes moved. The screams returned.
But the boy lying on the floor didn't gasp in pain.
Arthur's hand closed around the hilt of the Sword of Bellona.
Thump.
A pulse of black energy exploded from his body, blowing the debris away. Leo and Maya shielded their eyes.
Arthur stood up.
His injuries were gone. His stance was perfect. But it was his eyes that made Leo scream.
Arthur's eyes were no longer blue. They were voids of pitch black, leaking tendrils of shadow.
He lifted the massive black sword as if it weighed less than a feather.
Fifteen, a voice whispered in his head.
Arthur vanished.
He didn't run. He launched himself. The stone floor beneath his feet didn't just crack; it pulverized into dust as he exploded upward, a streak of black lightning tearing through the smoke, heading straight for the sky.