"Cyrona... please," Rithys's desperate call rattled in the Water Angel's mind. "Please. Now."

Plunging into the Walsan River from her position south of Eynond's walls, Cyrona surged westward through the its currents, pushing past countless strange and beautiful fish with which she had long ago populated those waters. Even still miles from Rithys, Cyrona heard Parlon's crazed and dissonant song. And the violence it unleashed upon Emperor Rohmhelt's army.

How did he do this? Rithys had him beaten. How could he escape her?

"Cyrona... please."

"I will be there soon, Rithys," Cyrona said. "I promise."

Parlon's foul aura permeated into the water a mile away. His malice rippled through the river, taunting Cyrona as she neared. Whatever he had unleashed upon Rithys, it was of a magnitude Cyrona had not yet witnessed. Her might swelled in anticipation of springing out of the river and plunging straight into battle with the Music Angel. He would suffer for any harm he had caused Rithys. Were it possible for Cyrona to banish him to the coldest depths of oblivion as Forynda had to Nethron, she would only lament that she could not do worse.

She sensed Rithys, suppressed by a suffocating amount of the Abyssal Aura, laying helpless on the ground while Parlon turned Rohmhelt's forces against one another. Her fists clenched while she propelled herself even faster through the river. Parlon was close now. So very close. Cyrona sensed his form was altered compared to when she last saw it. She could not place it as she had never felt anything like it before.

Cyrona sliced through one of Jagreth's hulking abominations with a blade of ice, spilling its blood and viscera into the water. That should provide some nourishment for my children, the Water Angel mused, sensing the fish and other river creatures moving toward the entrails. She then sprang into the air atop a jet of water and loosed a deluge toward Parlon before freezing it in an icy cage around him.

His dissonant music stopped. The thousands of soldiers, who just moments before had been slaughter one another in a mindless state, returned to their senses to comprehend the horrors they had unleashed upon their comrades. Splattered in blood, some with their weapons plunged deep into their friends' hearts and abdomens, they shrieked in grief, disbelieving the nightmarish reality to which they had awoken.

Cyrona glared at Parlon, temporarily trapped in the frozen cell she placed around him. She saw that much of his body had been blown away, his mortal form shorn off by the power of Rithys's blasts. His spectral spiritual form, ill-defined and turbulent, bridged the gap between most of his body and his right hand, which floated out on its own, connecting to the rest of his body by an ethereal cord.

Parlon's amethyst eyes flashed at Cyrona, causing the Water Angel to see naught but an endless sea of oblivion for the briefest of moments, but which seemed to last for all eternity at the same time. The waters in her body ran still, as if they had been frozen by a sharp winter chill.

Cyrona at once shook off the shock of what she saw and instead floated toward Rithys, who was now free of Parlon's shackles. Her milky white eyes stared off vacantly toward Emperor Rohmhelt's army, which only gradually recovered from Parlon's cruelty.

"I tried to stop him, Cyrona," Rithys muttered, rubbing at her sleek ebony skin that was partly burned and chipped from her own blasts. Her voice was weak and muffled, as though she spoke within a series of thick walls. "I could not..."

Before she could speak another word, Cyrona reached out and embraced Rithys, holding her close. The Water Angel's guilt swelled as she felt Rithys's grief. I should not have left her, Cyrona contemplated. Parlon's malice cannot be contained by a pure heart.

"I can hear your thoughts, you know," Parlon wheezed from within his cell, his voice echoing against the walls. Cyrona's eyes opened and shot toward him while she held Rithys. "It was so cruel, Cyrona, to put poor Rithys against me. She has no ardor for this war," Parlon chirped, seemingly renewed by the disdain flowing from Cyrona's gaze, absorbing it and fueling his own malice with it. "But you, my dear mistress of all the waters, you know how to hate. You love hatred as much as you love, well, love, maybe more. This conflagration is as much yours as it is anyone's. And that is why my battle should be with you."

"Rithys," Cyrona said quietly, "go and rest somewhere safe. You did what was needed and now I must finish what you started."

Rithys shook her head mournfully.

"He is very powerful," the Night Angel lamented. "I did not realize until..."

"Keep with the flattery, dear poor Rithys. I have always found myself vulnerable to it," Parlon guffawed. "But only, I assure you, in the best way."

"Rithys, now. Leave," Cyrona insisted again, tightening her embrace around Rithys. "He is taunting you because he is beaten. I will finish this and I promise you that I will make him suffer for what he has done."

Deflated, Rithys pulled away from Cyrona and floated swiftly toward the north. The Water Angel then focused her gaze on Parlon, who stood inside the translucent ice prison Cyrona placed around him, smirking and chuckling to himself. She glanced back at the approaching forces of Duronaht, which sought to use the backs of Jagreth's monstrosities to cross the river. She knew she could not keep Parlon contained even in his weakened state while also thwarting their advance in full.

Parlon's smirk and mischievous flash of his eyes told Cyrona that he knew the same.

"What will it be, Cyrona? Are you trying to stop this battle from happening or do you just want to keep me locked in here?" he lyrically mocked her. "The ice is very pretty, by the way. I could sing to you about it if you would like."

Cyrona squeezed her hands and pushed the icy walls closer into Parlon. He gasped in pain and then continued to chuckle.

"That hurts, but what Rithys did pained me so much more, as you can see," he said, laughing and waving his disembodied hand. "I take it you have made your choice."

"I will not permit you to escape and do those foul deeds again," Cyrona seethed. "The mortals will have their own battle and that is their predicament. You are a greater menace than anything they can do to one another."

"I suppose that is right," Parlon smirked again before licking his lips, even as the ice restricted his movements.

"Even with your twisted mind, I have no concept of what you were trying to achieve here besides injecting a touch more brutality into the world. You must have known I would come back and stop you," Cyrona scolded him as she circled around his prison. The two armies, on either side of the Walsan River, readied for combat with shuffling forces and frenzied orders, but Cyrona paid them no mind. "Yet you did it anyway."

"Oh, you are so very right, Cyrona. So very, very right. I did know you would come back and I wanted you to come back," he chuckled in sharp, warbling notes that echoed hauntingly in the ice. "I had that wonderful thing to show you, what I showed you earlier."

She stopped her circling of Parlon and drew closer to him.

"Show me? You showed me nothing," she scoffed.

His eyes widened and his smile sickeningly rose up high on his face. Even the right side of his face where his mortal form had been blown away saw his spiritual form eerily flicker.

"Exactly! Nothing!" he exclaimed, his words echoing in his frozen cage. "Oblivion. A void. Nihility. That is what awaits you and I so wanted to be the one to tell you."

Cyrona weakly sighed at Parlon, inclined to dismiss his ramblings as the random nonsense of the lunatic he was. However, the strange chill that bit her earlier was unlike anything before. There was a weight to it. An inevitability. It was something that lived alongside the world, permanent and haunting.

She shook her head, casting off her doubts that he may have seen a glimpse of the truth. It is, after all, Parlon, she assured herself.

"There has ever been only one among us with such a power, Parlon," she scolded him, pressing the ice deeper against his mortal form. He compressed himself nearly as thin as a sheet of paper to endure the vice closing on him. "And Forynda lost that power at the Progenitor's will. Do not try to menace me with something that far beyond you."

"Ha! Try to have a touch more imagination!" Parlon chittered even as his mortal form was squeezed impossibly thin by Cyrona's constricting ice walls. "I will grant you that this hurts a great deal, though."

"And yet you have not screamed," she mocked him. "Maybe you are right. I should have more imagination."

With a simple thought, the ice walls crushing Parlon turned to spikes that rended his skin and began to peel it apart. Parlon at last gave in and screamed, though it instantly turned to laughter. Even as his lips and throat were torn away, his spectral spiritual form remained behind, still trapped within its prison, twisting in gleeful agony.

"Ahh. That will take some time to get back, will it not?" he laughed with a now entirely ethereal voice. A purple flame radiated out from his spirit, melting the ice around him bit by bit.

Cyrona wondered why he had not done this earlier, but put the thought out of her mind. Understanding Parlon's insanity was a foolish exercise. Instead she redoubled her efforts to maintain the barrier around him, intensifying the freeze to keep the ice intact. Yet, little by little, it failed. Not even Gorondos could manage this, she pondered.

"Indeed he could not, Cyrona, for this is not fire," his spiritual form flickered as he spoke. Dark tendrils expanded outward from the flame and cracked through the ice. "Come now. You have seen this before."

Yes I have, she mused, dreading that it had come to this point again. The Abyssal Aura.

Wishing to conserve her own strength, she relented and allowed the barrier to fall. The ice shards fell to the ground, impaling it. Parlon's flickering spirit floated in its place, his ghostly eyes flashing at her.

"We are at an impasse," his voice slithered forth.

"No, you are beaten. You are far too weak now to be a true threat to me," Cyrona riposted.

"That is true, but I can still be quite a nuisance. As such, I wish to offer you an arrangement," he laughed.

"I am not interested, Parlon."

"Oh, I think you will be. We should just leave the mortals here to fight one another," he motioned in all directions, his spirit whirling in a blur. "No interference. After all, that is why you are fighting, is it not?"

"You must be more desperate than I imagined," Cyrona scoffed, raising the river's waters again to disrupt the crossing of Duronaht's army. Panicked calls for retreat rang up and down their lines while Jagreth's beasts again found themselves adrift. "I have no intention of letting them cross."

"Then I am left with this choice," he laughed. Forming several swirling dark purple and black orbs, he launched them into the skirmish lines of Rohmhelt's forces. Sharp, menacing tendrils spread out in an instant, lashing off the skin of men where they stood. The unlucky ones lived long enough to witness the horror of their demise. By the dozens they fell, their bodies mutilated and disfigured by Parlon's malevolent intent. "A pale fragment of what I could do before you robbed me of my mortal form, but I assure you that I can keep this going and neither you nor Rithys can do much to stop me."

Cyrona, seething, glanced at the teeming masses waiting on the other side of the river before turning back to Parlon's ethereal form with its flickering translucent purple eyes.

"How could I possibly trust you to keep your word?" she spat. "After all you have done."

"Ah, yes, I do understand your considerable misgivings, Cyrona, but realize that this conflict is nowhere near its end and, well, I need to rest, as you can see," his voice contorted in a twisted laugh. "I suppose you need a firmer promise from me, so I will give it to you. I will not participate in the rest of this battle here at Eynond. All I ask of you, for that gift, is that you allow this army to cross the river."

She again examined the horde, numbering close to one hundred thousand. They had Rohmhelt's forces numerically, but she had enough faith that Rohmhelt's superior position would carry the day that it was a sacrifice she was prepared to make.

"Understand, Parlon, if you so much as sing a simple note for the rest of this battle, I will drown all these men and their rotting corpses will form the new shore," she shouted so that all could hear her.

"I expect nothing less from you," Parlon laughed. "And now, I will go."

His spiritual form, with specks of what had been his mortal body, floated past to the opposite bank. Cyrona responded by allowing the river's waters to recede, which empowered Jagreth's beasts to more firmly form the bridges with their long flat backs, as they had been designed. As Duronaht's forces readied to pour across, Cyrona floated back to Rohmhelt's lines, which now braced for battle.

Commander Cedonov, a pudgy man with a thick red beard, rode his horse toward the Water Angel, his hands shaking in palpable rage.

"Why? Why are you letting them cross?!" he screamed.

"Parlon was right that I cannot stop him entirely," she sighed, squinting at the commander. "Besides, you forget that the entire purpose of this war is to allow mortals to settle their own affairs. I have given you that chance and you would do well to use it."

"I..." he protested, but she waved him off.

"That is final," she hissed. "Do all that you can do and be grateful for the opportunity."

~

Empress Evinda watched her retinue and many of the healers, including Cesord and Lyfress Etelet, be guided by Simel's hand to form a series of wards around Myrvaness. Almost lifelessly, their hands moved as though guided by string, not by their own power. The Wind Angel smirked at the sight, swiping her crackling swords back and forth while assessing the situation.

Why not me? Evinda wondered to herself while she observed the spectacle. Why am I left to...

"It was not necessary," Simel's voice rang in her head, speaking as rapidly as her own thoughts. "Deficiencies in how my kind designed mortals' kind makes those in your position and its equivalents of greater importance than ordinary beings. I will not fight that. This is for your protection."

Myrvaness turned to face Simel, who floated at the front of several of his newly minted puppets. His robes flapped furiously with a faint whir of white light around him.

"What is this, Simel?" Myrvaness laughed. "Turning your followers into puppets does nothing to scare me."

"It should," Simel answered, with all of the others joining him in a haunting unison. "And it will."

Myrvaness cracked her swords in the air and let loose a surge of electric arcs toward each of the mages and healers Simel now controlled. The bolts struck their wards. An eerie series of crackles rippled through the air. A few stray bolts nearly struck Empress Evinda, causing her to jump behind one of the mages who mindlessly held their ward in place. The Empress put one hand over her eyes to shield them from the blinding light from Myrvaness's attack while also trying to see what the Wind Angel intended to do next.

Relentless and terrible as it was, it was contained. Evinda could scarcely believe it. Myrvaness, seeing the futility of her efforts, let the bolts fade away and she lunged toward Simel with both of her blades flaring at their greatest power yet. He formed his own ward, a glistening mirror of white and silver, and thwarted her mighty swings. Her blades scraped horridly against his ghostly shield, the noises piercing deep into Evinda's skull.

"Now, my question is whether you can keep juggling all of this at once, Simel," she laughed. "Puppeting these poor things must be tiring."

"It is not nearly as exhausting as you," Simel answered, his voice straining. "It must be such a burden to harbor so much incessant rage."

"You think that you anger me?"

"No, not me. You abominate it all. Everything," he grimly pronounced. "You would like to sweep it all away like dust in your winds."

"Heh. Reading thoughts into me again?" she laughed as she pivoted to strike Simel from the right. His shield shifted to match. Her strikes fell harmlessly, once again scraping against his ward.

"I only state what I observe."

"Then surely you feel your hold on your puppets fading," she taunted, pulling back from him to prepare for a renewed strike.

A strange dull pulse radiated from Simel and all of the mages and healers under his command shifted their stances at once. Beams of brilliant white light shot forth. Myrvaness braced. The beams struck her simultaneously, forming a luminous orb that exploded outward from her for several feet, incinerating the ground around her.

Empress Evinda blinked several times to restore her vision from that blinding spectacle. When it recovered, Myrvaness still stood, but her yellow skin was singed, scuffed from the onslaught. She winced in pain while Simel floated hauntingly before her, the mages and healers around them still under his direction.

"How? These whelps have nothing like that within them," she hissed.

"All I did was guide them. There is even more to them than that," he said.

"How unfortunate that you put them in this position," Myrvaness seethed, extending her swords outward and loosing strands of lightning in all directions. Simel tried to direct the mages and healers to resume their wards, but Myrvaness had been right. He had clearly begun to slow.

Two of the mages off to Evinda's left failed to raise their wards in time. With their minds still not their own, they stood motionlessly as the crackling bolts struck their bodies. They glowed. And burst. Blood, bone, and viscera exploded in a macabre cloud from each of them.

"You must act, Empress," Simel's voice called in her mind. "Strike. Strike at Myrvaness."

What good can I do against that? Evinda's thoughts replied.

"I need only the most momentary of distractions. You will not be harmed. I promise you," the Mind Angel assured her. "The Abyssal Aura. Summon forth every trace of your passion. Unleash it all."

I want to, but I can't feel what...

"Imagine what she would do to your children, your daughters and even more so your son," Simel interjected. "Do you see any capacity for mercy in Myrvaness?"

Evinda's blood boiled at even the suggestion. The images that flashed across her mind were too terrible to contemplate. She recalled the training with the others. Many failed to make progress with the Abyssal Aura, but not her. It came effortlessly, like dancing to a beloved song.

She hurled the dark spiked tendrils forward. She could scarcely comprehend them. Twisted and gnarled, glowing purple mingled with black, they struck upon the Wind Angel's seemingly impervious skin. Scraping and tearing, the lashed off great streaks of it. Myrvaness winced and screeched. Her emerald eyes then flicked toward Evinda like a wild beast. Even standing behind her now mindless guardian's shield, Evinda quaked. The Empress was now so drained that she was utterly in Simel's hands. She could not muster anything further.

"So, Her Imperial Majesty finally wishes to join," Myrvaness quipped, floating forward, her swords scraping against the ground. "I should have gone for you first. That was impressive, but you are useless now," the Wind Angel flowed more power into her blades as they tore into the ground at her sides, leaving singed and crackling scars in the soil. "Do not bother pleading for mercy. I will not grant it."

"She will not have to," Simel boomed from behind.

The eyes of his puppets flashed in different hues from white to purple to blue to red. Great swells of the Auras formed before them where their wards had been moments before. Bursts of flame, crackling white light, spears of ice, chunks of hot rock, the dark tendrils of the Abyssal Aura, and countless other manifestations all swarmed upon Myrvaness. The guardian in front of Evinda joined with a blast of the Ceunan Aura's righteous fury. Myrvaness tried to form wards against one or two of the forces being pressed against her, but against them all was not within her power. Her defenses buckled, utterly overwhelmed.

The combined strikes unleashed a sound unlike any Evinda had ever heard before. The crashing of rock, explosions of fire, breaking of ice, and a variety of others all sounded at once, all accompanied by Myrvaness's anguished cry. When the blinding light receded, the Wind Angel slumped to the ground, her mortal facade in tatters with a raging ethereal form beneath now exposed to the world. All of the mages and healers controlled by Simel collapsed as well, their energies nearly fully spent. The Mind Angel floated closer to Myrvaness, glaring at her with his metallic eyes, his wrinkled face grimacing.

"You are beaten, Myrvaness," Simel said, his voice now among the few noises in that part of the battlefield. "Withdraw now."

She shot her eyes up at him, her hands still grasping her swords.

"This will heal, and you know that," she snarled. "Such a struggle to delay me."

"Delay creates opportunity. Every day you are vanquished is good one for the mortal world," he said dryly.

Evinda sensed Myrvaness coil. The Empress ran cold in anticipation of what the angel's next move would be.

"Since it will be a while until we fight again, I suppose I need not leave anything in reserve," Myrvaness remarked with mischief seeping from her every word.

Her body became covered in crackling lightning that began to expand outward before shooting in a huge spike toward Evinda. Time slowed for the Empress as each arc twisted through the air at her. There was nothing she could do. She closed her eyes.

A whir. Then a terrible crack and scraping. The bolts deflected harmlessly skyward against the redoubtable ward Simel summoned before her. Myrvaness smirked at the sight, pivoted, and then lunged toward Simel, her swords held wide.

Like pincers, they closed on the Mind Angel, who struggled to guard against them. He reflexively attempted to block the blades with his arms. Her swords cut deep into Simel's mortal form, nearly severing both his arms beneath the elbow. The blades crackled and surged with renewed vigor as she cut with them again, this time finishing her task. Simel merely grunted, surprising Evinda.

"Enough of this!" he barked at Myrvaness and loosed an onslaught of the Abyssal Aura from his body. The whipping black and purple tendrils cut away what remained of her own hands and her blades fell to the ground. Myrvaness was nearly entirely spectral now with only dozens of small strips of her mortal firm swirling around her spirit.

"That was fun, Simel. I look forward to the next one, once we have both mended," Myrvaness quipped as she began to float away with what remained of her physical manifestation. "I will be careful not to underestimate what you can draw out of these mortals."

The Wind Angel sped away as swiftly as the storms she commanded, leaving Simel floating in the middle of the piles of collapsed and groaning mages and healers whom he had drained to defeat her. Evinda ran up to him and stared at the ethereal remainder of where his forearms had been.

"Do not worry, Your Imperial Majesty. This will heal," Simel murmured. He then examined the slowly recovering mortals around him and slumped his head. "She made glaring mistakes this time that she will not repeat when we next see her. Of all our foes, she concerns me the most."

"She is very powerful..." Evinda said weakly.

"No, not her power," Simel interjected. "She has Omonrel's guile and Parlon's malice. Those, combined, are more frightening than any amount of power."

~

Vorlan contained Jagreth's blows well enough throughout their contest. However, just as hunters could grind their prey into the ground with a sustained pursuit, Jagreth's endless offensive left Vorlan increasingly depleted. The Earth Angel could unleash a furious barrage of all of the Auras better than any other angel. He marshalled the waters as well as Cyrona, fires as well as Gorondos, stone and metal as well as Omonrel, and the soil and plants as well as Tathyk. Even so, Jagreth showed no signs of slowing.

"What do you even hope to accomplish here, Jagreth?" Vorlan asked as he opened a chasm in the earth that swallowed the Beast Angel up to his neck, locking him in stone and soil. "Say that you pulverize my mortal form into dust, I will return before long regardless."

"We shall see how long 'long' is!" Jagreth roared, rumbling the ground. He surged up through his temporary prison, shooting stone and dirt into the sky with a great rupture. First soaring high into the air, he came down on Vorlan with a full swing of his gargantuan axe.

The Earth Angel at last decided to let the blow land. He recalled Forynda's words that he should not fear losing some or all of his mortal form in the pursuit of ultimate victory. He rejected the notion at first. Now, it was inescapable.

Forynda, I hope you were not merely suggesting this to see me harmed, he mused.

CRACK! Jagreth's axe collided with the stony exterior of Vorlan's shoulder, cleaving deep and shaking the Earth Angel's body. Jagreth leaned in toward Vorlan, bewildered that Vorlan had stood and allowed it to happen. The Beast Angel's red face, with its deep black eyes, contorted as he came within inches of Vorlan.

"Why did you do that?" Jagreth growled.

"To make a point," Vorlan answered, smirking slightly. He then summoned five sharp stone spikes from the ground arced around Jagreth and launched them straight into the Beast Angel's body. They pierced his thick hide, ripping and tearing as they gouged into his mortal form. Jagreth snarled, but showed little sign of being affected by the pain beyond that. "We can tear each other to pieces, just as I have sensed Myrvaness and Simel do to the west, but what will be accomplished?"

"We should find out!" Jagreth hollered and swung again. This time Vorlan pivoted away and unleashed jets of melted rock at the Beast Angel. They slightly singed his skin and fell to the ground, leaving burning holes where they landed. "Back to running?"

Jagreth called to the various and sundry beasts advancing behind Duronaht's lines and commanded them to swarm Vorlan. The Earth Angel sighed as they approached and radiated a large sphere of the Ceunan Aura's white blazing light, incinerating most of the creatures as they came near. They collapsed as piles of ash that immediately blew away in the wind.

The growing fatigue weighing on Vorlan could at long last be seen in his opponent. He has limits after all, Vorlan observed. In the distance to the north, what remained of Myrvaness's mortal form, spinning around her spirit, fled across the Tilset River and back to the reserve lines for Duronaht's army.

Jagreth noted his comrade's retreat and spat.

"She fell for Simel's trap," he growled. Just then, the Mind Angel appeared to the north and floated rapidly toward Jagreth, weaving between the advancing lines of Duronaht's army, which now had established a large presence west of the river and continued to press against Rohmhelt's men, generally choosing to give the angel's a wide berth. Vorlan surmised that Simel had cast some illusion upon the men he passed so they would not note his presence as he moved among them. "And now there are both of you."

Vorlan previously sensed that Simel had been badly injured, but seeing his friend with his forearms removed and his spiritual form flickering where they had once been was a terrible shock.

"Worry not, Vorlan. This is temporary," Simel's voice sounded out in the Earth Angel's head.

"Jagreth, I offer you a proposal. Should you withdraw, I will pledge we will not attack your allies here in your absence," Vorlan said, eager for the clash to end. Simel glanced at Vorlan with a stern glare, but the Earth Angel ignored it. "Leave this battle to the mortals, where it belongs."

Jagreth grasped his axe tightly and spread his feet, seemingly bracing for launching another strike. He glanced back and forth between Simel and Vorlan several times in steely silence.

"Agreed," he grumbled and relaxed. "We will resume our battle at another time."

Jagreth leapt across the river with an awe-inspiring lunge, leaving a crater where he landed on the opposite bank. Simel looked around at the enemy forces that continued to build on the western bank, surrounding and ignoring the two angels.

"What are you trying to do, Vorlan? Do not tell me that this is a magnanimous gesture aimed at restoring peace," the Mind Angel scolded Vorlan.

"You already know that is exactly what it is. Conflict between our kind is pointless and futile and I wanted to show Jagreth that much," Vorlan declared. "I refuse to accept that this is hopeless."

Simel's eyes narrowed and he looked across the river.

"Hopeless. The more the future is revealed to me, the more I fear it is exactly that."

~

Duronaht received the latest report from Grand Marshal Vildrious with a broad smile. His armies were pouring across the Tilset River and pressing the northern flank at full force now. His assault across the Walsan River was also now suitably productive, pressing his brother's inferior forces to the brink.

Omonrel floated alongside him, a sickening smirk across his ivory face while his crystalline blue eyes scanned the barrage against Eynond's walls from the dozens of siege engines arrayed before them. The Sculptor Angel hadn't shown any concern for any of the developments all day long. Not Parlon's mortal form being destroyed. Not Gorondos's injuries. Not even the word of Jagreth's and Myrvaness's retreat.

"I must say, your plan was a good one, Your Imperial Majesty," Omonrel's silky voice wrapped around him. "And I have learned so much about Vorlan and the others in the process."

"My plan?" Duronaht laughed as he swigged from goblet of tart red wine. "It's as much yours as mine."

"Indeed," Omonrel smirked even more and looked into Duronaht's eyes with his unnervingly icy gaze. "Regardless, this is all what I had wanted. Your brother's forces will now be crushed like an egg."

Duronaht smiled back and drank again from his goblet, nodding.

"You're right," the Emperor let out a happy, relieved sigh. "It's just a matter of time."