Magnus's pov
Three days before the visions began.
***
The winds here were unlike any I had ever known. These parts of the world were always so alien to me, so different from anything elsewhere.
The dogs pummelled through the white and cold, their coats coated with snow. For the hundredth time I cursed the stupid weather. We couldn't atomise with the gale that blew, I could not risk losing limbs when I tried putting myself back together.
So now we had to settle for huskies.These weren't the normal mortal breeds, their eyes glowed blue and their fur was a heavy coat of white, plus they'd dwarf even a polar bear.
But even with all that fur, I was certain they could still feel the cold. You just know it has to be terrible weather when even a god of winter complains about it.
"How much further?" Joshua asked from behind.
"I do not know, it has been so long." I replied, my voice almost drowned by the hellish howl of wolves to the north.
The mountain range rose before us, its peak soaring high above the clouds. Antarctica was beautiful when it wanted to be. Other times it was just trying to kill you. The wind blew, pushing at our sled, nature itself forcing us back.
But we could not go back. Home called to us. It was just yesterday, and I had walked into Father's office. He didn't look up or acknowledge me, just passed on vague orders that I now had to follow.
Divinity was a beauty. A hedge of complete power and control, but I could have no respite in its garden, for I as much as I was a god, I was a soldier first.
And soldiers had everything, but freedom.
Father was always quick to remind us about that.
"There." Joshua suddenly said from behind, his hand pointing into the mist. I forced my vision to sharpen.
The outline of a castle came into view, its dark silhouette contrasting jarringly against the hellish storm of white, its battlements and towers rising high into the night sky. I sighed and turned to my brother.
"No going back now." I whispered solemnly as I pulled on the sled, forcing the dogs to a halt. Joshua groaned and stepped out of the sled.
Joshua groaned and stepped out of the sled. "Anything is better than staying out here. Plus, as much as it pains me to say it, Antarctica has been dreadfully boring."
He knelt, his index finger glowing blue as it came into contact with the snow.
The moment he made contact, the ground hardened into sleek blue ice. Patterns of snowflakes etched themselves onto the surface, spreading like a crystalline wildfire all the way to the castle gates.
The storm abated in an instant, and the castle finally lay bare to behold. The black halls of Therant. I just remembered how much I hated that name.
This had been our home seven hundred years ago. As we walked through the huge rotten doors, our boots echoing through the air, memories of the past came running back.
The long line that led up to the castle itself had once been lined with one of the most beautiful gardens I have ever known. Ice roses blossoming in the summer—or what passes for summer here — the huge Darci trees, the long red vines that grew over the hedges and down to the pathway.
Now I had returned home, but it wasn't because of nostalgia. A demon had taken hold of father's halls, and he wanted it gone. It wasn't like he cared for the place any more, but it was still his. The greedy bastard. Who would have thought, gods still roaming the earth, but as capitalists.
Joshua blasted the doors open, the old metal crumbled under the pressure, standing no chance. Inside the vast hall was still as I remembered it. Two stairways winding up from the entry hall. The vast entry hall itself still had that blue shine to its walls, but everything was silent, and dead. The carpet was buried under centuries of frost and snow.
"It's still the same." I whispered, picking up an old vase from a stand.
"Yeah." Joshua agreed, although there was a hint of unease in his voice. "So many memories," he added dryly.
"Indeed." I nodded. I had made a million memories here, and none of them were pleasant. Just cold days serving father, coming back home from his quests. Serving, serving, and then something's, the occasional extra service.
Good memories.
"You have no reason to be a gloomy asshole brother. You hardly ever visited." I said as I whistled for the huskies. It was time for them to play their parts. The castle was humongous, and demons rarely ever settled alone. There would be hundreds, or thousands of minor hellspawns loitering the halls, and one principality— a hellish general. The Huskies bounded past us, bawling as they made their way.
The only thing they had in common with their mortal counterparts, they were noisy as hell.
Joshua chuckled and tousled his hair. "What's the point of being immortal if I had to spend it seeing your faces everyday."
"It was your duty." I chided. I was about to add a few more words, when a dog yelped. It was followed in quick succession by another. And then the sounds of dogs dying began to echo through the halls, accompanied by faint hellish laughter.
My hands had already begun to glow, the air around me already absolute zero.
"You'd think demons would fear gods." I remarked dryly.
"It's awfully frustrating Mags." Joshua added. The sound of metal scraping on ice filled the halls, a steady jarring sound that finally came to a stop just above the stairway. We looked up and saw it.
A fifteen feet demon of fire and stone. Its face a black skull engulfed in flames. Its legs, goat-like and hoofed. It looked down at us and a smile appeared on its face.
Don't ask me how the skull faced demon managed to smile. I do not know. In its hands was the reason for the scraping. A heavy twelve feet long Great sword made of burning rock.
"I knew this would be enough to grab your attention." He said, his voice booming through the hall. Miniature versions of the principality began to pour out of every hole in the castle, until they had us surrounded.
"Yeah." I agreed, "But it's going to cost your lives."