Chapter 37: 37 Zaroth vs rebels

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37: Zaroth vs rebels 37: Zaroth vs rebels A blow that would have devastated anyone who dared to stop him.

But Zaroth, with the calm of a predator surveying its prey, raised a hand.

Almost as if he were swatting away a pesky insect.

The power that emerged from his hand was not physical in nature.

But a distortion of energy itself.

As if the space between Astaroth’s sword and the throne was simultaneously contracting and expanding.

Creating a pressure that came from no specific direction.

But was everywhere at once.

The impact between Astaroth’s sword and Zaroth’s dark aura created an explosion of power so violent that the air buckled.

Shaking the room.

Shaking the foundations.

“You dared to rush against my domain?” Zaroth’s voice rang out like an infernal roar.

The energy that exploded from the point of contact made Astaroth falter.

But the implacable warrior did not stop.

Instead, as if his rage gave him superhuman strength, he rose and attacked again.

By the time Astaroth attacked again, Iskra was already moving.

She had been waiting for this moment.

Not because she hadn’t been ready before.

But because she knew Zaroth would respond to the first attack with all his attention.

And that in the instant after that response there would be a space.

Brief.

In which Zaroth’s attention was still divided.

That space was his.

His body was wrapped in a cloak that moved in sync with the wind itself.

His eyes shone like ice crystals.

His hands, raised toward the sky, began to channel a natural power.

That seemed to come from the very soul of the world.

Her connection to the wind wasn’t magic in the sense most demons meant by that word.

It wasn’t something you summoned.

It was something you were.

The wind didn’t come when she called.

Responding to her was simply what the wind did.

Like water falling.

Like fire rising.

In the throne room, where the air had been still for centuries, something changed.

A movement that was perceptible first as a sensation and then as a sound.

Like when the atmosphere changes before a storm.

That pressure in your ear.

That different quality of air touching your skin.

Then the sound came.

A low noise at first.

Almost subsonic.

That grew rapidly.

It became wind.

Not the normal wind of a draft.

The wind of Storm Mountain.

The kind of wind that doesn’t ask permission.

That doesn’t stop because something is in the way.

The room shook as a furious storm raged.

The howling winds clashed against the very force of the darkness Zaroth exuded.

It struck Zaroth from three directions simultaneously.

Zaroth raised his head.

For the first time since they had entered the room, something in his face changed.

Not fear.

Not alarm.

But attention.

The kind of attention you pay to something that actually demands attention.

“Interesting,” Zaroth said.

It was the first time he had used the word in that tone.

As if he were actually finding something interesting.

Then, almost amused by such boldness, he raised a hand.

A blast of darkness enveloped the storm.

The snow and ice conjured by Iskra disintegrated in an instant.

As if the demon’s energy was the ultimate force against anything that tried to oppose it.

Despite the momentary failure, Iskra did not give up.

She cast another spell.

Trying to control the air and direct it toward the enemy.

Her magic flung itself like an invisible serpent.

Seeking the cracks.

Threading the force of the storm into the darkness.

Eryndor never fought head-on.

It was not his way.

Not because he lacked physical courage.

But because he had understood early on that the way he could do the most damage was never directly.

The power he had learned to use was the power of shadows.

Not in the poetic sense.

In the technical sense.

Shadows were not the absence of light.

They were something more subtle, more ancient.

They were the places where the light had not yet reached.

And in the places where the light had not yet reached, there was still the original structure of what existed before the light.

Eryndor summoned from those places.

He traced sigils in the air with his fingers.

Quick, precise marks.

Each one activating something that was already there.

Latent.

Waiting to be awakened.

The throne room had many shadows.

Zaroth loved the darkness.

But even darkness creates shadows when it touches the light.

And every shadow in the room was now a potential ally of Eryndor.

The shadows moved.

Not like flat projections.

Like solids.

Like chains.

Like hands emerging from the floor and wall and ceiling.

Seeking Zaroth’s body with a precision that was not casual.

A freezing cold swept through the room as the shadows grew.

Shadows dense, thick and solid as chains.

“You cannot escape the darkness, Zaroth.

We, you were forged from darkness.” Eryndor whispered.

Sensing the dark power growing.

Zaroth saw them coming.

“Shadow magic,” he said.

“One of my old advisors used this kind of technique.” It wasn’t information.

It was a warning.

He was saying he knew this magic because it was magic he had seen before.

That he had studied before.

That he had understood before.

That he knew how to respond.

The shadows Eryndor had summoned reached Zaroth.

And for a moment, the briefest moment, it seemed to work.

They enveloped him.

They surrounded him.

Like chains that bind.

Zaroth stood still in the center of that web of darkness.

Then a beam of pure darkness struck Eryndor.

Slamming him against the wall of the chamber with such force that Eryndor’s bones creaked.

He stood up.

His legs were shaking.

But he stood up.

And he had seen what he needed to see.

Zaroth had a limit.

Not of power.

Of attention.

He couldn’t respond to everything at once with equal effectiveness.

That was the information he needed.

Malina had used the time Zaroth was busy with the other three to do what she did best.

Saving.

Not literally.

But in the way only she knew how.

Moving so that the attention of others slipped away.

Like water on an impermeable surface.

Not invisibility.

Something more practical and more difficult.

Being in the wrong place to be seen.

Always one step out of the way the eyes seek.

Always on the edge between light and shadow.

She had moved along the perimeter of the room.

Behind the columns.

Behind the drapes that decorated the walls.

Moving only when the sound of the other three’s attacks drowned out the sound of his own footsteps.

He was now near the throne.

With a clear view of Zaroth that was better than the other three before him.

The dagger Malina held in her hand was no ordinary blade.

It had been modified over months of night work.

With techniques she had stolen from various sources.

The blade had been treated with something that interfered with energy fields.

It didn’t destroy them.

It disturbed them for a fraction of a second.

A fraction of a second was all it took.

Zaroth’s throne, a symbol of his eternal power, now lay shaken.

Scarred by the intensity of a conflict that had shaken the very hall.