Chapter Twenty-Two

Walking through the city of Laconia while it's still dark is odd. Eerie, almost. Creepy in a way I can't describe. It reminds me of all those villages I saw and stayed in while traveling across the kingdom. There's something uncanny about walking through a street and hearing not a thing, seeing not another living soul.

At least everyone in Laconia can follow directions. I'll give them that. I was half-expecting some of them to refuse to listen and go about their lives like always.

But today isn't just another day. Today's the end.

I didn't sleep as well as I hoped I would, but that's okay. It let me wake up early, before sunrise, and that's why I'm walking through the dark streets of Laconia's upper district with nothing but the nighttime breeze at my back.

Down the main street, through the gates that separate the upper district from the markets. Down the stone steps, through the empty plaza. I ignore the memories that threaten to flash in my head, the ones of the day where Gladus sent magical soldiers on her behalf… the day when Prim got impaled.

In reality, it didn't happen that long ago. It's all so vivid in my head still, and I doubt those memories will ever truly fade. Some stay that way forever, too raw to ever heal.

Prim believed in me. She believed in me before anyone else, with every bit of her heart behind it. She had faith in me before I knew who I was, before I accepted the truth. That little girl believed in me before anyone knew what I was truly capable of.

For Prim. For my mom. For Gladus and Morimento and Morimento's son. For everyone who got caught in the scourge, for everyone who died because their crops and livestock turned sour. For everyone who didn't make it to today, for all the suffering those still living went through…

This is for them.

I walk through the slums, not stopping for anything. For the first time, I don't have my trusty bag slung over my shoulders, nor do I have the Hilt of Storms. I don't need it. The only thing I need for this battle is me.

I push out of the gates and step out onto the road heading out of the city, on the southern-facing hill. I walk a good ways, past a few abandoned farms and huts that were hit hard by the woes.

I should be nervous. I should feel anxious. My heart should be pounding a bit faster than what it is, but it's not. I'm not nervous or anxious. The only thing I am is ready.

This was a long time coming. From the first high empress to Gladus, Morimento, and my mom; none could defeat Invictis on their own or even together. But I have something they didn't—I am something they're not.

I stop and stand on a cliffside and turn to face the sun rising in the distance. A small yellow ball of fire, it shimmers in the distance, ready to illuminate the world. I don't know if it's the same sun we have on earth. It doesn't matter. The only thing that matters is what's about to happen.

All my life, I searched for a purpose. I wanted to make my dad proud and make a name for myself. Who knew that I had to fall into another world in order to do it? Now it's not only my dad I want to make proud, but also my mom.

Krotas.

I'll never forget her or what she did for me. She helped me get where I am today. She is, by all accounts, the only reason I'm still standing here today. Her death will not be in vain. Invictis will never harm another innocent ever again.

That's a fucking promise.

As the sun continues to rise, becoming more than a sliver on the distant horizon, I close my eyes and inhale deeply. I still wear my bloodied clothes; I'm going to need new ones after this, but changing before the big fight just didn't seem right. These clothes have been washed in rivers and streams, went through hell and back with me; it's only right that I wear them until the end.

Breathing in, I can taste it in the air. The aether. The magic. The life. Laconia is a land that has been under guard too long; it wants to be free of its golden shadow. It wants to begin anew, for real this time.

Falling into the aether helped me see so much. I can feel everything. The world around me is more real, the colors more vibrant and the shadows themselves more pure. The touch of the wind on my cheek is a caress from a lover. Everything is intensified because I am one with it.

I open my eyes. The sun is a tiny half-ball in the distance, and yet I'm surrounded by light. A false light, a light whose warmth is false, unlike the sun, yet it is still as blinding and searing as the real thing.

Or it used to be. I find out, when I turn around and face Invictis, he doesn't blind me anymore, even when his eight-foot-tall, golden body glows with all it's got.

"Fancy seeing you here," I say, folding my arms over my chest.

Invictis hovers twenty or so feet above the ground, his six metallic wings stationary behind him. He is impressive, of course. He always was. Whatever he is, wherever he came from, he is a being like no other.

I guess it goes back to the laws of motion. What's the one? For every action there must be a reaction? Invictis pushed against Laconia for so long, now it's pushing back through me.

"Ah," his deep, monstrous voice echoes through the air even though he has no face, only an outline of a head, where his light originates, a twisted halo if I ever saw one. "Is this the part where you make awful jokes?"

"Awful?" I repeat, dropping my hands to my waist. "Excuse me, sir? None of my jokes are awful. God, you're kind of an asshole, you know that?"

Invictis tilts his golden head at me. "You stand there, believing you know it all. Regardless of what you think you know, Rey, I am beyond your comprehension. I am—"

"So much more than I could ever dream of, blah, blah, blah," I interrupt him with a smirk. "Yeah, yeah, you said that already, like a thousand times. I fucking get it, dude. You think you're hot shit, but guess what? All shit stinks."

He lets out a growl of annoyance, and in the blink of an eye, he appears before me, his feet firmly planted on the ground. His metallic hand shoots out and grabs me by the throat, hoisting me off the ground without any resistance on my part. "I cannot wait for the day when your aggravation ceases!"

All I can do is laugh even though it's not so easy to do with his large hand around my neck.

The laughing further annoys him, and he spins around and throws me back. I roll on the dirt once, then twice, and before I can roll a third time, fire erupts under my soles and my hands, and I use the magic to dig myself into the dirt and grind myself to a halt.

Invictis watches as I dust myself off. He stands before the sunrise, his wings outspread. With the growing sunlight dancing off his metallic, golden body, he is so beautiful it hurts. A being like him should not exist.

"Am I supposed to be impressed that you now have Krotas's magic?" His shoulders rise and fall as he chuckles darkly. "Please. You can have all the magic in Laconia and it will never be enough."

A great ball of blinding light forms over his head, a mini star, shining and glistening, so powerful it puts the sun itself to shame.

"Your fate was always to perish," he goes on, his hubris knowing no bounds, even now. "I once told you you will kneel before me, beg me to end your miserable, wretched life. It is time I made good on that promise."

Fifteen feet between us, the ball of magic launches itself at me, coming down at me like a star falling out of the sky, a meteor burning its way through the atmosphere. Blinding, practically invincible—and yet not quite.

The light from the sphere is all I can see as it hurls toward me. I can imagine Invictis thinks it'll destroy me, that I'll succumb to its immense power, but I'm not the same girl I used to be.

I throw up a translucent shield moments before impact, and that shield sizzles with colors of all kinds, reminiscent of the magic I inherited from each of the three empresses. Reds, blues, greens, and light grays. The shield absorbs the impact, and when the ball dissipates, I'm still standing, albeit a few inches back, my heels having dug down into the dirt.

"Oh," I say as my shield disappears, "was that supposed to make me fall to my knees or something? Come on, buddy. You're gonna have to try a lot harder than that to get me on my knees."

He launches himself at me at full force, a sharp yellow blade of light forming in both his hands. At the same time, the world around us changes, morphing to the courtyard in my college, a place I'll never see again. A trick meant to distract me like it had before.

But I'm ready for him, and I never take my eyes off him, even as the world changes and I'm surrounded by thick, luscious grass and trees that have been growing since the college's formation.

And you know what? This bitch ain't the only one who can summon swords of magic.

Two flaming blades appear in my hands, and I deflect his oncoming attack with expertise I can only attribute to being connected with him, with everything. It's like, now that my eyes are open, I know what he's going to do before he does it. I can anticipate his moves, know how to counter them. I am one with the ruin that has devastated all of Laconia and I will overcome.

I will overcome Invictis, defeat the undefeated. He will be the one to fall on his knees today.

"It appears you've learned new tricks," Invictis growls out, his tall frame looming over mine as he puts all of his weight against the double blades he wields. When it comes to sheer strength, he has me beat. Of course he does. The dude is eight feet tall and made of metal. "A shame those tricks won't save you from me."

He uses all of his strength to push me back through the magical blades, and as I stumble and catch myself, he slashes them both through the air. I dodge them by ducking, and in the same motion, I swing my own swords against his legs.

They… don't do much. They pretty much just bounce off him.

He laughs, and hearing his deep laughter infuriates me. I let the swords dissipate and mimic what he did before: I summon a big ball of light over my head and bring it down upon him. Only my ball is made of lightning and vines and fire, three elements combined. It happens so fast he's not expecting it, and the attack staggers him and lets me put five feet between us.

"Don't you get it?" I shout. "This isn't about you destroying me. It's the opposite. Your time has come to an end. Be a man and face it."

His tall form starts to glow, blinding in its own right. The world of my college changes, and suddenly we're on top of Frank's bar, surrounded by a starry night sky and a busy street below. "I am no man," he hisses out the words. "I am eternity. I am everything your kind will never be."

Invictis stands across from me on the rooftop, his six wings outstretched. He is out of place here, but I will not be fooled by the nostalgic aura of my surroundings. I've faced the fact that I will never go back to my old life. Rubbing it in my face won't make me weak. Not anymore.

"See, I just don't believe it," I taunt him. "You say all that, and you sound so… so full of shit. So proud of yourself. Buddy, that's a human trait if I ever saw one. I think you're more like us than you want to be, and maybe that pisses you off."

"No." The word is uttered with complete distaste and abhorrence as a dozen spears of light form around him, all facing me. Without another word, the spears launch themselves at me simultaneously, and I throw up my forearm like it's a shield. A wave of fire bursts out of me, pushing the magical spears back and knocking them off-course.

He doesn't let up when that attack fails. He tries the same thing again and again, unbothered that he's not actually doing any damage to me. Though he has no face in this form, I can tell I enraged him by what I said.

How dare I say he has human traits? How dare I accuse him of being more like us pitiful mortals than he wants to be? In his mind, this isn't just about victory. The fight isn't just to see who'll be left standing after. Now it's about teaching me a lesson, proving to me that he is dissimilar to humankind in every way.

My shield of fire is a perfect defense against his thrown spears, and while he's busy launching a new wave at me, I use my left hand to summon a strong, thick vine beneath his feet. It grows out of the rooftop, like it was always there, splitting so it can curl around both of Invictis's feet.

Being made of metal, he must not feel it, because those vines reach his calves within a few seconds, and shortly after that, the vines jerk to the right, knocking him off-balance. I curl my left hand into a fist, and the action causes the vines around his legs to multiply and thicken. They grow around him, thorns protruding from their bodies, but they're not strong enough to scratch his golden shell.

He breaks through the vines with a grunt, slow to get back to his feet as he extends his wings to their full glory once again. "Haven't you learned yet, Rey? Your attacks simply aren't strong enough." His unnaturally vicious voice laughs.

As he laughs, the world around us changes back to Laconia. We stand on the hillside, the sunrise in full display on the horizon. Invictis stands ten feet before me, and he tilts his golden head like I'm some kind of science experiment he just can't quite understand.

"You humans are always so… confident. Confident that something you do will stop me. Confident that you are so unique fate will bend to you instead of me. Laconia's empresses believed they were special, but where are they now?" He lifts his arms in an offering to the sky as the light emanating from him grows.

"You killed them," I shout at him.

"I did not. Morimento was killed by her own son and that ridiculous final spell that bound me to the throne. Gladus… you're the one that killed her." Invictis starts to circle me like a vulture, walking with a gait that tells me he thinks he's hot shit. It's the walk of a badass, but I'd never say that aloud to him. His ego is already unbearable. "And as for poor Krotas… well, the blame for that can be placed on your shoulders as well. If it wasn't for you, she wouldn't have interfered, too lost to her own rage all these years."

He's trying to get in my head, his specialty. I glare at him, making sure to face him as he circles me, so he's never behind me. "And none of that would've happened if it wasn't for you. You caused all of this!"

Invictis stops. "And what about you, Rey? We can go on and on about what I've done, but what about you? You could not handle your old life. What makes you think you can come to Laconia and be the savior these desperate people need?" His voice takes on a mocking tone, each word like a thrown dagger. "You are nothing. You are no one, even with the power of the three empresses. You're just a pathetic girl in the end, nothing more. Alone, unwanted, and unloved."

I know he's saying that to hurt me. I know he's dredging up my insecurities on purpose, and I don't want to believe him. I don't want to let him see how his words hurt.

But they do. When you've spent the last ten years in a constant state of fending for yourself and reminding yourself that you've got to watch your back because no one else in this world will watch it for you, those insecurities run deep. They're in my blood.

I hold my head high as I deadpan, "At least I'm still pretty, which is more than I can say for you." As I speak the final word, I grab the air in front of me and slam my hand down toward the ground. A thick bolt of grayish-blue lightning erupts out of nowhere, as wide as a car and powerful enough to send Invictis flying back. A big, black spot on the ground is all that remains where he stood.

His wings catch him, the bottom two digging into the dirt below. "So amusing. I will miss our time together, Rey." He pauses, as if in thought. "No, wait. I won't."

I'm seconds from suggesting that he leave the one-liners to me—he's not very good at them—but before I can, he multiplies before my eyes. He doesn't split off from himself; it's more like I blink and there's two, then four, then sixteen. I don't know how many surround me after ten seconds, but it's a hell of a lot.

They all look the same. The same golden figure, the same giant span of six wings. I make the mistake of surveying the mini-army of Invictis, and in doing so I take my eyes off the real one. I realize the screw-up too late. When I try to find Invictis again, they all take a collective step toward me.

Fuck. Which one is it? They literally look the exact same, perfect mirror images of each other. I'm surrounded by golden assholes. Not a good place to be.

"Prepare yourself for the end." The words come from each Invictis, and hearing a multitude of that voice all at once is enough to give me a hardcore case of the goosebumps. "Goodbye, Rey."

I'm on edge. If they can all talk, that means they can all do other things. I can handle getting attacked by one Invictis, but twenty-plus? Uh, don't know if my skills are there yet.

A large ball of light gathers in front of each golden figure surrounding me. At first, the magic is nothing bigger than a basketball, but then the blindingly white magic keeps growing, bigger and bigger until they're as wide as I am tall.

Shit. This ain't gonna be fun.

One of them on my left launches the sphere at me, and I throw up a shield to block it. But as I do, another behind me lets his loose. I let my fiery shield surround me completely, but when the magic hits it, I can feel the sheer power behind Invictis's attacks. If it was a single blow, I could defend myself no problem, but one after another after another, they attack me from all angles with the same hard-hitting blow, and I can feel the shield dwindling.

I'm knocked back and forth, my heels digging into the ground. My arms are up, my hands pushing against the fiery shield, but they start to tremble. It becomes harder to keep the shield up on all sides, and then it becomes downright impossible. My shield becomes smaller and smaller until I'm on my knees behind it, under it, grimacing under the magical pressure of the continuous assault.

Invictis doesn't slow down. He keeps it up. When one of him sends the bright sphere toward me, he creates another one, then another. It's a continuous cycle, an assault that proves he is otherworldly.

Fuck this. I can't stay on the defensive. A few more attacks and I'm toast. I need to turn this thing around, ASAP.

Though I'm damn near out of breath, I still manage to grunt and groan as I push back upon the fiery shield. I give it all I've got, like I'm body-slamming him, only doing it with magic. I run against my shield and the force sends it back in all directions like a shockwave. It grows and expands, an explosion of fire that swallows up any leftover attacks and disintegrates the fake Invictis lookalikes.

And the real one? The sudden surge of power knocks the real one off his feet and sends him flying back, colliding with an old, abandoned hut, which then becomes nothing but rubble.

He's on his back, his wings splayed out around him. I can't take advantage of his vulnerable position, however, because doing what I did drained me something mighty. I'm breathing hard, can't quite get enough air in my lungs—but I'm still standing, and right now that's more than I can say for him.

Not for long. Invictis lets out a growl of rage as his wings push him up, propelling him to his feet. His golden figure lands with a thud, and in the same movement, light gathers on the tips of his wings.

It happens too fast. The light on each wing shoots at me, multiple beams of straight power and light. It's too soon. I'm too tired. I need a moment, but unfortunately for me, in the thick of battle, there are no moments, so the beams hit me simultaneously, so warm they pierce every single part of me in an effort to tear me apart.

My field of vision turns white, and I'm pretty sure I fall to my knees. My whole body is alight with pain, and I cry out as every muscle in me tenses up.

No. This will not be the end. Not for me.

I reach inside myself and find a hidden reserve of strength, and I rise to my feet as the attack ceases. Sweat lines my brow; I feel like I'm on fire.

Invictis's hands curl into fists. "Why won't you stay down? Why won't you give up? You cannot win." He throws a few half-assed attacks my way, just to prove to me how weak I am right now. They're nothing compared to what I survived mere moments before, but it's still enough to knock me off balance.

But I don't let the attacks keep me down. Each time I stand, and each time I make sure to send a hard glare his way.

"I'm not letting you destroy what's left of Laconia," I tell him through gritted teeth after a particularly hard blast of light to the gut. "I'm gonna stop you." It's not the easiest thing in the world to do when I feel like laying down and taking a nap, but I start running towards him and punch the air.

A blast of fire forms, mimicking my punch, and it hits Invictis in the gut, strong enough to knock him off his feet. This time, he's slower in getting up, even slower in righting himself and standing straight. His wings appear more droopy, too.

Unless I'm mistaken, he looks a little worn out, like he's not used to this much resistance.

That's what he still doesn't understand. He's not fighting an empress. He isn't even fighting someone with the power of three empresses. We're on more equal ground than any enemy he's ever faced. I bet we could go on like this for eternity.

But that's not going to work for me.

"You," his voice comes out haggard, like he's out of breath even though I'm pretty damn sure he has no organs inside that golden body, "have become the bane of my existence. I have never wanted to destroy someone as much as I desire to destroy you."

Coming from him, I'm choosing to take that as a compliment.

He blasts me with a solid wave of light, and the force makes me fall to my knees once again. Before I can stand, something hard grabs my left wrist, then my right, and forces my arms to stretch out: two hands made of light itself to keep me on my knees. A third hand forms out of nowhere and curls around my neck as Invictis stalks toward me.

His eight-foot-tall figure appears even taller as he looms over me. The hand around my neck squeezes tightly enough that I can't breathe, and the ones holding my arms out make it so that I can't move. Not the best position to be in.

"There," he whispers. "On your knees for me at last."

I laugh. Or, I laugh as well as I can, given the fact that I can't really breathe. The laughter causes him to grow further enraged, and the magical hands holding onto my wrists pull even harder.

"What do you find amusing about this?" Invictis growls out, stretching out his wings until he's all I can see. "You have lost, Rey. You gaze upon your ruin."

I think back to everything I've done in Laconia, everything I've learned. Kneeling there, in such a vulnerable position before Invictis, I should be afraid. I should be scared. But I'm not. I'm not scared because of what I've done and what I've learned.

Because of what I feel.

"You still don't get it," I whisper. The magical hand around my neck loosens just enough so that I can talk. "You're not just fighting me." I can feel the threads of his power, the magic that connects him to me through the piece of him that's inside me, and it's due to that knowledge that I don't need my hands to do what I do next.

I do the same thing he did to me: two magical hands erupt from nowhere and grab his wrists. A third hand grabs his throat and pulls him down so that he's on his knees in front of me, mimicking my position even though he struggles against it.

"You're not just fighting the empresses," I tell him, groaning as I break free of his magic's hold. I pull away from the hands holding my wrists, and their hold breaks, the magical essence dissolving in the air around us. "You're fighting all of us." Now that my hands are free, I reach for the magical hand wrapped around my throat and shatter it into nothing. I slowly stand and walk towards him.

His wings flap, but it's useless. Struggle as he may, he cannot free himself from the magical restraints. "What… is… this?" He grunts in between each word, resisting in spite of how futile it is.

I stop only when I'm less than a foot away from him, just before the magical hand of light that's holding onto his neck to keep him in place. It's not made of fire or electricity or vines. It's made of light.

His light.

It's honestly something I should've realized before, but like I said: I'm still new at this.

"You're fighting yourself," I whisper as I lift my hands to his face. Or, rather, the metal outline that makes up his head. The moment I cup the edge of his faceless head, he stops struggling. "You can't defeat the undefeated. You're not whole. A part of you is inside me."

I swear the world around us stops, like it fades away, not important enough to be perceived. The only thing I can see is the ancient being on his knees in front of me, held in place by his own magic. By me.

"You're bound to the spell the first high empress placed on you when she tore you apart and locked you away," I tell him softly. "I think it's time you're bound to something else." A light shines on us, and I close my eyes, feeling it surround me.

No, not just me. Him, too. It surrounds us both, enveloping both our forms. Sparkling, multicolored; it's a light that's mixed with the purest form of power, the aether that connects all living things. For so long it's been out of balance, but no more.

No more and never again.

Invictis is ancient, beyond our understanding. I don't know that a human can ever truly comprehend what he is or where he came from. It doesn't matter, because as that light shines around us, as it dances across my flesh and his metallic body, I know what I have to do.

He cannot be set free, nor can he be separated and locked away again. I can't risk another mass-extinction event like this happening in Laconia, regardless of how far into the future it is.

When I open my eyes, I can see everything. The light. The aether. Like thin, translucent strings strung across time itself. The aether reflects every color imaginable. I can feel it inside me, changing me, making me stronger.

I never wanted this. I fought against it for so long. Now there is only one thing I can do, in order to end this for good.

I accept it. I acknowledge it. I welcome it. I become more than Aurelia Smith. I become so much more than the sum of my mom, Gladus, and Morimento. I am every empress that was before… and I am one with the creature every empress has been warned about through memories.

The aether around us glows brighter and brighter until it swallows us both.

It's over.