Xilanada - Unforsakable Birthright/Part 3

The sky was the color of blood, that day. Final Starry Night looked upon the sky and knew the terrible sorcery his Lunar Mate, Solitary Coil, had wrought to make the clouds themselves grow red with rage. Yet, as he looked upon the field of battle below, he knew...he knew that it had already happened.

"This is a dream...this is not really happening," he whispered.

"Don't lose your concentration now, my love," Coil said sharply. He glanced over at her and, even in this time of battle, he could not be unmoved by her beauty, the white skin and hair of the Dune People somehow that much more comely because it was her with that skin and hair. He felt himself responding to it, and then that desire failed as he remembered. Remembered feeling this before.

"This is a dream," he repeated.

"By the Blessed Moon, get a grip on yourself, Night," she snapped. Her mouth firmed into a grim line. "We're losing."

Indeed they were. His troops had moved in, successfully flanking the Realm regulars. They'd exploited the geography of the battlefield to pin Grayfalls' forces down with archers that couldn't be seen by the enemy. Volleys continued to fly over the hills, down on the center of the army but it wasn't stopping them.

Neither was the clever pincher stratagem the books had assured him would work. His troops had fallen back and, bloodied by his archers, the Realm troops had let rage take them, taking the bait. His forces had swept in like falcons to break against the Realm's troops while the rest of his forces were maneuvering to attack from behind.

It should have worked. It would have, but for the Realm's valor.

Instead of losing their forward regiment, Gray Fall's men had broken the pincher through sheer skill and ferocity. Even now, Final Starry Night’s troops fought frantically but it wasn't enough. For all that the books said about superior strategy overcoming disparities of training and provisions, it wasn't working out like that at all.

"Coil...the flanks are falling," Final Starry Night said. And knew he had said those words before, even as the flankers retreated against the Realm's tenacity.

"How can they be falling?" she demanded, her serpentine eyes abruptly swirling into those of a bird as she surveyed the conflict.

"The Realm is too strong. I underestimated them," he said, helpless to prevent words already spoken. "I did not foresee their strength of will and now they've routed us."

"Malfaes!" she swore. "...what can we do? My Demons already fight for us but my Sorcery is spent, my mate. I have no strength left. And yours is spent as well."

"But it isn't," Final Starry Night replied, his voice and face calm though the man inside trembled, knowing the terrible decision he was coming to. Had come to. "Pull back. Pull them back, Coil. Order them to leave the field. Even the regiments attacking the rear."

"Flee? My rebirth be damned if I walk away from this. I'm not a coward, Night. And if you leave, you aren't fit to be my husband!" Solitary Coil's venom was hot, the hotter because of the truth in those words. Final Starry Night felt again what he had felt, knowing how conditional their relationship was and always had been.

"I'm not fleeing. But our forces must."

"Why?" she demanded, looking at him, green snake-eyes on white skin. Somehow, despite her fierceness or because of it, the contrast evoked a sense of art.

"Because, Coil. I'm dooming them all to destruction."

Those words. He felt the weight of them upon the air again. Saw the gleam of predator anticipation, the thirst for victory that matched the need in his soul. The need that had driven him to madness.

"What are you going to do, my love?" she asked, her voice eager.

"They thought the Final Starry Night could be turned aside," he replied, battle lust deepening his voice.

"What are you going to do to them?" Solitary Coil asked again, eyes wide with excitement.

"I will not, I will NOT be stopped."

"What are you going to do to the enemy?"

"I will bring death to them all."

"How are you going to kill them?" The keening edge to her voice twisted Final Starry Night's stomach. It was exactly the edge she had when they coupled, the same begging tone she used when she was climbing toward release.

"Watch."

And at that, syllables of ancient destruction rolled off his tongue. Words uncovered in the unbreachable Library of Denandsor, words not spoken aloud in a millennia, burned the air back as they dropped from his lips. Final Starry Night channeled his Essence, shaping it with his hands and his mind, as the spell began to take shape. The flares of energy coalesced into towering runes of titanic scale, revealing his presence to the enemy and every other eye for miles. Below, the armies of the Realm paused and his troops redoubled their efforts to run.

It wouldn't matter. The only ones who had a hope of stopping an Exalt like him were the ones about to die.

One by one, the runes collapsed into his hands. The bundle of Essence took form, the ball beginning to grow even as the Essence ran green with the hideous purpose it was meant for. As the runes fled, so his Anima grew in power, the blazing hues of the Twilight billowing forth from his body. And above him, the Book Burning By Enlightened Will, the First Age name of his Icon, exploded into life as the spell reached its completion.

The ball of green energy lay cradled in his hands. Complete.

Solitary Coil's face, basked as it was in the green light, was a twisted parody of lust. In the light, her green eyes seemed black, and the cast of her face blacker still. Final Starry Night shuddered within, but the Final Starry Night who was here only laughed with pleasure.

"They troops are withdrawing, as per your command, my Solar, my King," Coil breathed, her voice husky with passion. No doubt her Demons had seen to her will. He could have taken her right then and there and she would have opened to him willingly, even eagerly. Yet both were too bound to the course that lay ahead.

Final Starry Night threw the spell.

Across the battle field, the spell soared. Far, far, far further than anything that size should have gone, and still it flew. On and onward toward the enemy army. Toward the men and women of Grey Falls.

Solitary Coil's hand dug into his wrist, her nails piercing his skin.

And the green ball detonated.

In a quarter of a second, the enemy army ceased to exist. The hateful green shredded armor, stone and bone with equal abandon and, all at once, tens of thousands tore apart. Glorious essence-driven carnage flooded the battlefield and Solitary Coil cried out. Whether her pleasure was vicarious or physical was impossible to say.

And all at once, in that fraction of time, in the second following the first, those tens of thousands at once became...people. Final Starry Night cried out now as well. And his cry was the pain of thousands of souls screaming out in agony as their life was ripped from them, the veil between life and death torn apart and the fate of a city's worth of people wiped out of existence.

This wasn't glorious. This wasn't a victory or anything that he should ever have let happen. He was supposed to be better than those weak-blooded Terrestrial and wiser than his First Age predecessors. In anger, he had refused to lose against the better army and look what he'd done out of that anger.

It was there, on the field that would come to be known as the Battle of Grayfalls, that Final Starry Night knew what real horror was. It was doing the unforgivable. It was doing something so wrong that no act of goodness could ever possibly redeem it. It was being the Anathema.

"The blood..." he whispered.

"What?" Solitary Coil asked with a laugh, distracted from the sight that apparently thrilled her so.

"Please..."

"What are you saying?" Solitary Coil said, her smile fading.

"Father, what have I done?"

"What have you done? You won the battle! We won!"

"I killed them all."

"Of course you killed them all!" Solitary Coil said, with the sound of growing frustration...and maybe a little fear.

"I killed so many people..."

"What of it? They were Realm. Hardly people at all, my mate."

Those words were a final thrust of the knife into his dying heart. He was the Destroyer, the slayer of more people than most met in their whole life. And he was married to a woman as much a monster as he was.

"Father!" Final Starry Night cried out. And the Sun Himself dimmed in the sky. Even his Father could not bear the sight of him now. With a howl, Final Starry Night called upon his Azure Chariot and flew up into the sky and away. Away from the slaughter. Away from the greatest crime committed since the Usurpation. Away from himself.