23. Sarilian

twenty-three

Sarilian

The void lord burst from the ground like a monstrous worm, its mandibles clicking as it charged Sarilian. Thankfully, he was ready.

Channeling his dawnflame, he soared upward on blazing wings of light. Flickering flames seared the void lord's lashing tentacles, holding them at bay long enough for him to evade its snapping jaws. A savage grin split his face. This was going to work!

His brief flash of triumph swiftly dissolved into dismay when he saw the void lord hadn't given up its pursuit. Its questing maw stretched higher than he'd imagined possible, rings of fangs gnashing mere paces below his feet.

A familiar pair of slate-gray eyes flickered across his memories, urging him on, and he tensed his jaw, forcing every last drop of dawnflame he could into propelling himself still further.

He expelled a relieved breath when the serpentine void lord beneath him began its descent back to the plains below. Before it could turn to re-burrow and continue its constant harassment of their forces, he hurled his readied spear of light. It streaked through the air like a lightning bolt straight into the worm's waiting gullet.

A soft curse escaped him when the dawnflame erupted too soon. His strike hadn't gone deep enough to finish the void lord in a single blow. Instead, the creature let out a sanity-rending shriek as it crashed back to earth, undulating on the ground while foul wisps of purple voidflame leaked from its mouth and the exit wound his spear had left in its side.

Sarilian descended to the silver dirt, watching with bated breath as more Celestial warriors swarmed the downed beast, stabbing it until it bristled with golden spears like a pincushion. The void lord released one final wail that clawed at his mind before it collapsed, melting away into the violet nothingness from which it had emerged.

"Nice shot!" Laurent, one of his squadmates, called, raising a fist in salute.

Sarilian frowned, conjuring a new spear. "Not nice enough. I missed."

Laurent's grin faltered, and Sarilian felt a slight stab of remorse as the Celestial joined the frontline reforming nearby. He made a mental note to apologize later. Laurent didn't deserve the anger Sarilian had had simmering beneath the surface ever since the Accords abruptly ended several weeks earlier.

Truth be told, he wasn't sure who did. Pelorak, certainly, along with the Dusk Council and any other Infernals behind their insidious scheme to prey upon the Dawn Council's charity and good will.

It had broken something in Sarilian, confessing what Malorg had told him to Darius upon his return to Daybreak. Watching the Aspect of Justice's expression shutter while his face contorted with the quiet fury of betrayal and knowing that every other Celestial would soon feel the same

In one fell swoop, the Infernals had destroyed any hope of collaborating to fight against the Void. The divide between them seemed starker than ever.

Though Sarilian had merely been the messenger, he couldn't help but feel partially responsible. After all, he'd been the one to volunteer as Dawn Emissary and extend a hand in friendship, the one pushing Darius to trust in the process and not abandon the Accords. Now, it was him forced to crawl back to the Dawnlands with his tail between his legs.

As for Malorg…

Desperate to drown out any thoughts of the Infernal, Sarilian hurled himself back into the fight. This was one of the larger gates the Dawnlands had faced in a while, and he relished the chance to do something—to know without a doubt that he was making a difference.

But even as he held the line with his fellow Celestials, slaughtering scores of lesser voidspawn, Malorg's words echoed around his skull. The futility of the fight. The inevitability of their loss. The unending approach of the Void, everyone powerless to stop it.

Misery squeezed in around him, slowly suffocating his hope. He'd thought his duty to protect the Mortal Realm everything, the Covenant his reason for existing.

Yet even as he fought and bled and killed for it, all he could think of was Malorg's rare smile—the flash of his gray-black eyes and the icy press of his lips. His firm hands grasping needily for Sarilian as if he was the most precious thing in the entirety of Allaria.

Maybe Malorg was right all along—maybe the Covenant is a sham.

With the void lord dead, the Celestial forces slaughtered the remaining voidspawn with relative ease until the gate finally closed. In the past, Sarilian would have gladly joined the hunt for voidspawn survivors, eager to prove himself and honor his purpose. Now, the thought of staying out here any longer than necessary bowed his back with bone-deep exhaustion.

He caught the closest dawnbeam back to Daybreak, eager to collapse in his quarters and rest.

Is this the same weariness I glimpsed in Malorg when we first met? The same sense of hopelessness that weighed him down and drove him to consider giving up?

The thought petrified him. What if this broken piece of him was beyond repair? He'd already lost Malorg. Without his duty, he truly would have nothing.

"I hear you're the hero of the hour."

Darius' gruff voice startled Sarilian from his melancholy, and he looked up to find his mentor standing in the entrance to his chambers. For the briefest moment, Sarilian considered claiming the need to rest and sending him away. Had it been anyone else, he likely would have. But he owed the Aspect too much to shrug him off like that.

"Sir," Sarilian said, snapping to attention. When Darius gestured for him to be at ease, he resumed his seat and beckoned for the Aspect to join him. "I didn't do anything that another couldn't have done just as easily."

Darius settled into the chair across from him. "And yet, no one else did." He squinted, giving Sarilian an assessing look. "I've told you before, there is nothing wrong with accepting well-earned praise. Even the Aspect of Humility herself would not fault you."

I've earned nothing . "Forgive me," he said, bowing his head. "I'm weary after the fight, and my tiredness has left me in an ill mood."

"So I see." Darius raised an eyebrow. "Though, I'm not sure it's fair to blame your foul mood on your recent excursions when it has persisted for weeks."

Sarilian bit back the retort that leaped to his tongue. Like Laurent, Darius was not his enemy—merely an innocent caught in the crossfire of his malcontent. "Is there a reason for your visit today?" he asked, straining to keep his voice polite.

He must have only partially succeeded because Darius barked a laugh, his eyes twinkling. "My point exactly. You sound like you want to hack my head off. You haven't been yourself since we ended the Accords. Nothing that happened is your fault—you know that, right? It's the Infernals who violated our trust and attempted to take advantage of our kindness."

Though the words echoed Sarilian's earlier thoughts, they did little to soothe his guilt. "Perhaps. But their deception was only possible thanks to my naivety."

Darius inclined his head. "As you say. Yet, you cannot hold yourself responsible for the moral failings of others. The Infernals have earned their reputation as liars and manipulators. Let this be a painful lesson: hope is a powerful tool, so much so that we acknowledge it as one of our driving tenets. But Hope alone isn't always enough. Humility, Sacrifice, Serenity, and Justice must also guide your hand if you wish to forge a brighter future. The Accords, while a noble endeavor, always had a slim chance of success."

Fresh remorse twisted Sarilian's gut. "You're saying it's okay I failed because everyone expected me to anyway?"

"Not at all. I'm saying that, no matter what you did, it would have taken a miracle to convince anyone to accept revisions to the Covenant…the Dawn Council included."

Darius' admission rubbed Sarilian the wrong way, causing indignation to prickle his skin. "If the Dawn Council never believed in my mission, then why did they approve it?" Darius shifted in his seat, appearing mildly uncomfortable, and the missing pieces of the puzzle snapped into place. "The Accords were just as much a charade for you as they were for the Infernals."

Darius frowned, his lips drawing together into a thin line. "That's not fair. Had the Infernals treated with us in good faith, then the Dawn Council would have welcomed peace. But we have dealt with Infernal trickery enough by now to remain pragmatic. Their kind would rather backstab one another into oblivion than make concessions for the greater good."

Shock widened Sarilian's gaze as he stared at Darius. Merciful Light, Malorg was right to despair. "That's precisely the sort of narrow-minded thinking that divided the original Immortals and brought us to the brink of annihilation! We should be striving to follow in Malorg's footsteps and unite our peoples so that we can focus on our true enemy."

"The Dusk Emissary is hardly innocent in all this," Darius replied with a snort. "He's been the Dusk Council's puppet since the beginning."

"Without his knowledge!"

Darius shrugged. "So he claims."

Sarilian thought of his last visit to Malorg's apartment—of how right everything had felt in Malorg's arms…and of how utterly it had fallen apart soon after. At the time, Sarilian hadn't known what to think about Malorg's confession, the Infernal's partial betrayal stinging. Now, however…

He tightened his jaw. "Malorg is the one who warned us about Pelorak's scheme. Had he not, we'd still be playing right into the Aspect of Ambition's hands."

"Do you honestly believe that an Infernal would just turn on his own people like that?" Darius scoffed. "No doubt he had his own agenda. Perhaps he is angling for Pelorak's seat. Schemes within schemes— that is the Infernal way."

A tremor coursed down Sarilian's tensed back. He opened and closed his fists in his lap. "You don't know what you're talking about! Malorg is a good person. I know him far better than you do, and he would never knowingly do anything to hurt me."

Too late, he realized what he'd said. He swallowed and looked away. "Apologies, sir. I didn't mean to raise my voice."

"It's quite all right, Sarilian." Sarilian didn't like the shrewd look in Darius' piercing golden eyes as they assessed him. "I appreciate your passion…even if it is sometimes misplaced." The Aspect leaned back in his chair with an air of feigned casualness that instantly put Sarilian on edge. "I received an interesting report today."

"Oh?" he asked, doing his best to mimic Darius' carefree attitude.

Darius nodded, turning toward Sarilian's open balcony. From here, not much was visible beyond bright outlines of Daybreak's majestic spires in the distance. "Apparently, the Dusk Emissary has been arrested for treason."

Sarilian's feigned disinterest vanished in an instant. "What? When?"

"I'm not sure. Word only just reached us, though I suspect it happened not long after we canceled the Accords. It sounds like the Dusk Council wishes to make an example of him. They claim his collaboration with Celestials against his own kind led to the end of negotiations."

Panic thrummed through Sarilian. A buzzing sound filled his ears as his heart throbbed far too fast, his breathing growing erratic. He ignored Darius' concern, unable to focus on anything except the Aspect's news.

Merciful Light, how had Sarilian not anticipated this? Of course Pelorak would blame Malorg—Malorg had hinted at as much in his tale. The Infernal had known exactly what relaying the truth to Sarilian would cost him…and he had done it anyway.

"What will happen to him?" Sarilian asked through the growing lump in his throat. "Are they going to…to kill him?"

He exhaled a breath when Darius shook his head. "No, no execution. Even the soul of a traitor is too valuable here for that." His budding relief evaporated at Darius' next words. "They've sentenced him to a thousand years of torment for his crimes. According to our intelligence, he's to be held in the Dusk Citadel's dungeons for the duration."

A thousand years…

Such a length of time was impossible to comprehend. Would Sarilian still be alive a thousand years from now? Merciful Light, would any of them? And what of Malorg himself? What would be left of the brave Infernal after so much time in isolation? Malorg had sacrificed his freedom, his life, his everything—all for Sarilian.

And I've spent the past few weeks quietly resenting him for betraying me.

Sarilian's dawnflame flared around him as he surged to his feet. "We have to help him!"

Darius remained stoic in the face of Sarilian's urgency, and it was only belatedly that Sarilian realized Darius had anticipated the impact his news would have. If he hadn't known everything before, he certainly did now.

A month ago, this revelation would've stricken Sarilian. In the face of Malorg's suffering, however, the Aspect's potential judgment felt next to meaningless.

"The Dawn Council could never approve such an act," Darius said. "Celestials aiding an enemy of the Dusk Council within their own territory? It would be a clear violation of the Covenant, tantamount to a declaration of war. Within a year, we might be fighting each other with as much ferocity as we fight the Void."

"But we have to do something!" Sarilian opened and closed his hands as he paced the length of the room. "Without Malorg, we might never have uncovered Pelorak's ploy. You and the rest of the Dawn Council owe him." He spun and glared out at Daybreak's gleaming spires. "Maybe you can negotiate a deal for his release. Offer him sanctuary."

A flicker of emotion Sarilian couldn't interpret filtered over Darius' otherwise impassive face. His shoulders tightened. "I already spoke with the other Aspects. We agreed that it would set a dangerous precedent to grant asylum to an Infernal. What if others decided to follow suit? The potential security risks are too great."

"Security risks?" The muscles in Sarilian's jaw ticked. "Malorg gave up everything to help us, and you'd abandon him out of cowardice?"

Dawnflame flared around Darius as he rose, his eyes blazing. For the first time since the conversation began, he appeared every bit the Dawn Aspect he was.

"Do not forget yourself, Sarilian. While you might someday come to occupy my seat, for now I remain the Aspect of Justice. Do you think that I and the rest of the Dawn Council haven't already given this decision proper consideration? Even setting aside the possibility of more Infernal trickery, what of the logistical difficulties involved in housing an Infernal in the Dawnlands indefinitely?"

Sarilian bowed his head, helpless frustration ratcheting through him. Darius had a point. Spending more than a day or two in the Dawnlands would be tantamount to a death sentence for Malorg. Even if he escaped captivity, he'd have nowhere to go. He'd remain on the run, an eternal fugitive, hunted and alone.

No. Not alone.

Sarilian straightened his back, a sudden calm rushing over him. For the first time in weeks—perhaps since he'd seen Malorg again all those months ago—he felt the different conflicting pieces within him realigning and slotting into place. He knew what he had to do.

"Very well. If you won't help, then I'll go to Twilight and rescue him myself."

What remained of Darius' calm facade shattered. His hands clutched the back of his chair as if for support. "Don't be a fool! If you did that, we'd have no choice but to disavow your actions and declare you a fugitive as well. Even if you succeeded in freeing the Dusk Emissary from an Infernal stronghold, you'd both be exiles, welcome nowhere in the Immortal Realm."

Sarilian didn't flinch, didn't hesitate. He knew all of that. And just as none of the risks or consequences had changed Malorg's decision, they didn't alter Sarilian's now. "So be it."

"Please, Sarilian, think about what you are doing." A note of pleading entered the Aspect's voice as he stepped toward Sarilian, raising his hands imploringly. "You have enormous potential. I saw that within you at our very first meeting. Don't throw away your dream of becoming an Aspect, your future here with us, over your affection for one unworthy Infernal!"

Hot, protective anger flared through Sarilian like wildfire. Darius' eyes widened when instead of backing down, Sarilian stepped forward, glaring at the startled Aspect.

"You claim to represent the ideal of justice. Tell me, then, sir —how is it just to abandon an innocent being to a terrible fate? You and the rest of the Dawn Council cower behind politics and prejudice. If you prioritize what is convenient over what is right, then you are no better than the Infernals you claim to hate!" He shook his head. "From where I stand, there is no better way for me to embody the Aspect of Justice than to do what is right when others fear to."

Darius stood there, stunned, and it slowly sank in what Sarilian had just done. Merciful Light, did I really call the Aspect of Justice himself out for failing to live up to his station?

Trepidation flipped Sarilian's stomach as the Aspect of Justice slowly straightened, his expression unreadable. He braced himself for Darius' retribution, gaging the distance to the open balcony in case his mentor attempted to restrain him here by force.

Shock radiated through him when Darius instead stepped forward and swept him into a fierce embrace. "For the record, I still think you're being a Light-blinded fool." Emotion bled into Darius' voice, turning it raw. "Nevertheless, I'm proud of you."

"Thank you," Sarilian whispered. "For everything." He swallowed, blinking back sudden tears. "It has been my honor serving as your pupil. Although, I doubt I'll be inheriting your seat on the Dawn Council after this."

Darius chuckled wetly. "No, I expect not."

Sarilian lost his battle, his tears flowing freely as he hugged the old Celestial. Once he left, there was a good chance they'd never see each other again. "I'm sorry I wasn't a better protégé. I'm sorry I've let you down."

"Don't," Darius said sharply. He broke the embrace and stepped back, glaring at Sarilian with his hands planted on Sarilian's shoulders. "Never apologize for doing what you believe is right. The Dawn Aspects are all well and good, but in the end, only you get to judge the worthiness of your choices. After all, you're the one who has to live with them."

Giving Sarilian a final pat on the back, Darius cleared his throat while struggling to recompose his face. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I believe I have important business to attend to somewhere far, far away from here. Should anyone ask me, last I heard you were resting in your chambers following your heroic victory against the voidspawn."

Sarilian grinned, swiping at his eyes. "Of course, I am. What else would I be doing?"

Darius held his gaze a moment longer, the fondness there stealing Sarilian's breath and threatening to make him tear up all over again. Then, with a brief, approving nod, the Aspect of Justice strode from Sarilian's chambers, leaving him alone.

Sarilian glanced about his quarters: pristine and ordered, like everything in the Dawnlands. Am I really about to do this? Darius was right—there'd be no going back. Taking this step meant abandoning his responsibilities, defying the Dawn Council, and turning his back on his people. It went against everything he'd thought he stood for.

And yet, he had never felt so certain he was doing the right thing.

Hold on, Malorg, he thought as he headed toward the closest waypoint. His hand clutched at the duskflame necklace that sat, as always, right beside his heart. I'm coming for you.