Chapter 46: His Choice

Sister stood above him, her eyes practically aflame with maniacal hysteria. Her breathing was ragged, her eyes too wide and her hands trembling as she held the knife to his throat. As he watched, strands of white began to wisp out of the corners of her eyes, popping and hissing as they crackled through the air. It was vahma, he realized with a thought, and a sense of danger filled him. She was burning vahma. The fuel crackled on her skin, worming its way out of her flesh and steaming off her skin. Upon touching her ruined lips, those sparks began to knit the tissue together in instinctive healing, yet this magic was not truly mending her. She was killing herself with it, he knew, and that maddening smile sent his heart racing.

With a roar, he abruptly rose up, claws swiping at her chest as he ignored the blade. It bit into his flesh, but she was too shocked to send the metal in deeper, his gamble working as he struck her and sent her onto the ground. Her dagger went clattering off to the side, her arms going wide as he loomed over her in a reversal of their previous position. Stop her, he had to stop her from burning vahma before she died from it. But how?

The moment of clarity came unexpectedly, yet it was welcome. He was Shai'mon, commander of spirits. He had done it once before, he could do it again. Hurriedly, he reached within himself, gritting his teeth as he pulled out the strand of mahji within his core. His pool was depleted after his previous stunt in the Malifori camp; enthralling others was a taxing stunt. What had once felt like a bottomless lake was now a shallow pond, his claws hardly sinking below the surface before skimming the bottom. Yet it would have to be enough for what he wanted.

Once more he opened his Mind's Eye, feeling the pressure push onto his thoughts with the weight of a mountain. It came easier every time, the sensation becoming more and more like blinking with each use. He saw her spirit, the white soul pulsing gently in her chest. Flame ate away at it, tongues licking away under the surface of her flesh and the smoke billowing out through the cracks. She was burning vahma, it was certain. What he was to do next was equal parts foolhardy and deadly.

That thin strand of mahji that he had pulled out coursed through his limbs, pulsing through his veins. It ribboned out of his claws before coiling around her, wrapping around her soul as it sank through her flesh. She struggled all the while, her body bucking and squirming as she fought to escape the grip that he had over her. Yet he held her fast, held her as mahji cocooned her soul.

He commanded it to stifle, to swallow and snuff out. With every one of his throbbing heartbeats, the shell of mahji constricted. Smoke and steam snuck out of the gaps at first, sparks of the flame still managing to escape. Yet as the mahji tightened, gradually the signs of fire decreased, until at last they disappeared entirely.

With a hoarse gasp, he collapsed, his energy and stamina utterly depleted. His eyes blinked rapidly, the Mind's Eye flickering away like a guttering flame. His pool of mahji felt completely spent from influencing another soul—near the end of his efforts, he had almost drawn upon nothing. His heart felt as though it might burst, his throat coughing up blood. His arms were trembling underneath him, his breathing ragged and his lungs aflame. Something sticky trickled down his cheeks, and he wiped it with a wrist under the assumption that it was a tear. Yet when that hand came away, it was stained crimson from the blood that leaked out of his eyes. Only then did he realize just how close to death he had come.

Sudden pain blazed through his shoulder, and he screamed hoarsely as his body went out from under him. His muzzle cracked against wood and metal, his vision blurred as tears reflexively filled his eyes. Rather dully, he noted that the sensation grating against his shoulder blade was that of a knife; Sister must have stabbed him.

She was talking, muttering from nearby. His hearing felt distorted, as if he was underwater or perhaps had hands over his ears. Her words were warbled and too far away, his own heartbeat a raging tide that crashed against his skull with every stroke. Slowly, he turned onto his side, pushing himself upright with a supreme effort before tearing the dagger out of his back.

"Sweet sister!" she laughed, eyes alight with madness. "How kind of you to join us, now! I nearly thought you had left me—nay, I know that you never left me. You've been there the whole time, haven't you? Over my shoulder? I know it?"

She staggered as she stood, her leg crumpling under her and causing her to fall. They were a pallet of sorts, a cart that the Malifori used to haul large amounts of supplies. It sat on wheels nearly waist height above the ground, and there was a sickening crunch as she fell off. Her voice never ceased, never even paused even as she broke bone.

"You always were a jealous type, sweet sister. You had to be the first at it all—first to lay with a man, first to court death, first to take his hand. See now how he greets me, with that gentlemanly kiss!" A hysterical laughter rent through the air, shrieking and piercing and far too shrill. "Be patient, sweet sister. You never were one for patience—I'll be there with you shortly."

Panic filled Joy's mind as he realized just how far she had fallen. He rose with difficulty, lumbering off the pallet with awkward steps before tumbling to the ground with a cloud of smoke. The horse pulling the cart whinnied with worry, dancing away from the demon and pulling on the ropes so hard its hide nearly bled from the effort. He ignored the beast, staggering to his feet and gripping Sister's shoulders. Her leg was clearly broken, the limb twisted at a horrific angle, and he was more holding her up than supporting her.

"Sister!" he called out, afraid to shake her lest her flimsy flesh finally fail. Her eyes were glazed over, unfocused and staring through him as she tittered.

"You've nothing old man! Nothing! I killed you, and I'll kill you again!" Her face was twisted into a grotesque smile, flecks of spittle flying from her mouth as she howled. A solitary bolt of white light spark across her cheek, and a sense of danger strangled his heart as she realized she might burn vahma again. If she did, this time he would not have the mahji to stop it. She would die.

"LILY!" he screamed desperately, a strange sensation that he had not held in his heart before now coursing through him in the place of blood. It was the feeling of loss, of the loss of another held closer to his heart than any other. She was his pack, his family, his first and his only. She was going to die. He screamed at her, hoping that his words would pierce through the madness that had held her now.

Her chest heaved, her breathing growing short. His body went rigid, her grip on him so strong that he winced as she clenched his arms in a vise. Her eyes fluttered, steam billowing out of the corners as white sparks danced across her flesh. When they settled, the sparks dispersing and her body relaxing, she opened her eyes once more. And they were clear.

"B-brother?" she whispered shallowly, her body going weak as she fell forward. He caught her with the last of his strength, holding her before she could hit the ground. Unfortunately, that act was truly with the last of his strength, and so he too collapsed. His head cracked as he struck the dirt, his vision going hazy and his hearing disjointed. It was the span of five breaths before his senses cleared themselves.

"Wh—what?" came a stammering gasp beside him, yet he was too tired to answer. He could only squeeze her shoulder gently as relief coursed through him.

I see it now. I smell them. My god has commanded me, has spoken. I smell their blood, pumping hot through their veins. So gloriously hot. I crave that warmth. Who are they, to be warm when everything is so cold? They hide behind stone walls and metal scales; it is not enough. My children will take them, give me that warmth from their undeserving flesh. I see it now.

I see that golden crown upon that delicious head.

"Malifori. Skal'ai. Sin. So many enemies, and I hardly know which one to kill first." Sister muttered on her horse as they ran down the Kingsroad. Joy was on the pallet once more, pulling the shattered arrowheads out of his flesh where they were buried. Sister had not the chance to pull them out when they fled, and so his wounds had healed with them still inside. New flesh had crept along the stone, tearing apart once more when his dug the damnable things out with his claws.

"We still go to Capital?" he asked gruffly. Lucidity seemed to hold her for now, and she seemed sane as any other. Instinct told him that her next bout of madness would also be her last. Even when he had opened his Mind's Eye previously, he had been struck by how weakly her spirit glimmered. Surely if the embers caught fire once more, there would be nothing left to burn after a few breaths.

"Aye. If nothing else, because we can use them." she spoke, shaking her head slowly. Days of travel had made her quiet, and he wondered if it was merely fatigue that lessened her tongue. Three words had been all she had said in as many days, after her episode of madness. These were the most words that she had said since then.

The time had begun to bleed over, the days blurring into one another as he had drifted in and out of sleep. He had nearly overdrawn himself when he had snuffed out her soulfire, and his body had utterly collapsed after. His dreams had been feverish and incoherent, and she had not spoken to him after he had woken either. A sour mood held him, all the more reinforced by the fact that he had no idea how much longer until they reached this damnable Capital.

"You…" she started, coughing and clearing her throat before continuing cautiously. "How do you feel?"

He grunted in surprise, confused at her words. "I hurt. Am tired. Am nervous. Am irritated." What did she mean?

Sister sighed, shifting in her saddle. "That's not what I meant. Listen—I had a dream. Or maybe it wasn't quite a dream, but I saw something. From a while ago." she sounded frustrated, as if she had been keeping this to herself. Her words came quickly, stumbling over one another as they raced to roll off her tongue. "I saw a—a withered corpse. On a throne. I think—I think that it was Sin."

Shock filled him as she spoke, as she spoke of a creature matching what he had seen. Yet she continued, in her haste to tell him what she had been holding inside her. "I...I had heard him talking, and he—he did something to me. I know not, but I was dreaming. While I was dreaming, he was moving my limbs and my body. I—I killed someone like that."

Her hands gestured to the sack on the side of her horse, the bottom stained dark with what reeked of blood and decay. Her body trembled as she admitted her guilt, and she refused to turn to look him in the eye. Yet when he thought that she was finished, she continued.

"He made me kill Moktoga. A-and I pulled the blackstone out of his head. He took it; I gave it to him, and I couldn't do anything to stop it. But it wasn't even the first time. When I killed my—my master, the same thing had happened. I just didn't know it, but I must have gotten the blackstone the same way. When we left it in the Outlands, Sin got that one as well."

"That's two of his gems of power, returned to his hands because of me. And he could possess me again at any time and I've burnt too much vahma and my life is dripping through an hourglass and I don't know when I'll become mad again and I might just kill you and—" she cut off herself hysterically, breathing hard and swallowing before continuing. "I'm useless to you. The longer I stay around, the more of a danger I become."

She turned in her saddle, gazing back at Joy with desperate, pleading eyes. "Please. Kill me."