Joy could not take his eyes from the spot of air where Sister had once stood, now empty. It had been only an instant, only been a moment before that she had still been there. The flames of her soulfire seared his flesh still, like a lingering memory, but he did not even register the pain through his shock. His hand was extended, claws grasping futilely at empty air. His breath caught in his throat, his lungs burning from the heat of the flame on his skin. He watched as Sin staggered back, a hole burned through his neck, waiting for the once-king to finally fall.

Yet that ghostflesh knitted itself back together with horrific speed, causing Sin to twitch as worming shadows wriggled in the hole. Sister’s final blow, the one that she had given her life for, it was healing as Joy watched. Guilt and fear gripped him, doubt whispering that she had given her life for nothing. Yet it was something, for Sin was gasping and reeling still from the blow, his expression weakened and his body stumbling.

The dead were howling for him to finish it, were howling for that twisted specter to fall. A part of Joy’s heart told him to run, the primal part that wished to flee on instinct. Run. He was tired of running. He had watched Sister die in front of him, and he had been too frozen with fear to stop it. A hoarse roar was all that he could hear as he charged forward, some part of his mind noting that it was his own scream.

Sin turned to see him, spectral mist flying from the wound in his neck. He twisted to dodge, yet Joy’s claws still caught him along the arm. Covered in Sister’s soulfire, they left blazing wounds across the withered flesh. Sin let out an unheard scream, one that rattled the mind, for his voice had left him. Black mist sprayed from the swipes, making the very air crackle and pop as it froze.

As Sin recoiled, a hand clutched the gashes on his arm. Slithering shadows crept out of his palm, smothering the lingering flames of soulfire and beginning to stitch the wounds together. Joy lunged once more with a guttural cry, his fangs closing in on nothing but air as Sin dodged with unnatural speed. Sister’s wound had not been lethal, but it had slowed the fiend. The evasion had been a matter of hairs, and Sin’s movements were no longer graceful but now almost desperate.

The demon had been anticipating the movement, immediately pushing off the ground with his arms with enough force to draw sparks, turning his body around with single-minded ferocity. The flame on his flesh had long since sent him into the fevered blood rage, his vision tunneled on that damnable once-king. With the dead urging on his every moment, he buried his right arm into that ghostflesh of Sin’s chest. Long-dead bones shattered into dust, tongues of wounded shadows slithering and writhing like worms. That numbing mist from the injury covered Joy’s arm, snuffing out any soulfire it touched.

Yet Sin did not respond to the wound, instead latching his hands onto Joy’s curving horns, his mouth drawing in a soundless breath. Swiftly, Sin blew out with an expression of exertion, a chilling wind spreading out from his mouth. It crackled as it struck Joy’s flesh, swallowing the demon’s body and settling on the flesh as a layer of ice. Joy found himself unable to move, even the soulfire that had charred his body now snuffed out. The ice numbed his body, slowing his heartbeat and making even thought a labor.

He wants your blackstone. He wants us. Fight it, scion! Feel the heat of your hate! The dead were screaming at him, pushing for him to resist. Yet their voices seemed garbled and distorted, as if he was drowning underwater and they were howling on the surface. His muscles pleaded for air, his vision growing dim, but he could not even move to breathe. He could only watch as Sin gasped, the effort clearly having costed the once-king dearly. He could only watch as Sin threw his arms wide, Skal’ai pouring out of the mantle and lunging at Joy’s frozen figure.

They plowed into his stomach, piercing through his fur and scales with voracious appetite. He could feel them tearing chunks from his flesh, despite the numbing effects of their touch. He could not fight them, could not resist. He was too weak to even burn vahma; it was like a flame floating out of reach, and his arms hung useless by his sides. He could feel his vision growing black, his strength fleeing as it bled out of him. The screams of the dead were ever faint, like lingering whispers that he wished to brush off of him. He felt only sadness, a fleeting guilt that Sister had died for nothing, that he would die for nothing. He was just so damnably useless.

So we meet again, my child. I came to you at your birth; it seems only fitting that I usher you again at the moment of your death. A warm whisper, like a gentle caress, filled him. It wrapped around his flesh and suffused him with kind warmth. It was a familiar voice, the voice of the earth. Only he knew the truth now, that it was the voice of a spirit: the voice of Andahiel.

I promised you that I could save you once more, at the cost my what remains of my life. It would seem that moment has come. That warmth filled Joy as Andahiel spoke, and he opened his Mind's Eye to see, his eyes of flesh unable to move.

He saw the pulsing white of a soul leaving his body, saw the aspect of mind giving it shape. That shape was one of an old man, aged and weary. Yet those eyes were still clear, his will still strong. When Sin saw him, he recoiled in shock and apparent recognition. Those colorless lips worked silently, yet there was no speech that escaped them. It was only after the span of three breaths that Sin finally spoke, and when he did it shocked Joy. For no longer was his voice filled with the echoes of an eternity, no longer was his voice one amongst a thousand. When he spoke, it was a single voice, a single broken voice of a young boy.

“Even now, after all these years, you still haunt me?” he whispered, his expression one of disbelief, of dismay, of terror, of relief.

Andahiel shook his head in sadness, his voice warm and full or grief. “I loved you like a son—I still do. Perhaps that was my greatest failing. That, and never putting you to rest. The latter, I intend to remedy now.”

Andahiel’s image began to burn, soulfire spreading over him in a tenuous proposition. He is nothing but spirit and will, the dead told Joy. As his spirit unravels, his magic will lose shape even faster than it did for the girl. He has seconds at most. Those seconds were enough to melt the ice on Joy’s body, weakening his bonds enough for him to shatter through them with a grievous roar. Rage fueled him, made him wish to charge forward, yet in that instant the doors to the palace hall slammed open once more.

The demon turned to see silent wraiths pour into the hall, the possessed bodies of the Malifori streaming in like a tide. They were covered in arrows and wounds, wriggling shadows dancing where their vessels were exposed. Black mist poured out like froth on a wave, coating the stones with ice. Hideous shadows wrestled with flesh and air, racing towards their king. They were coming for him, he knew. They were coming to save their liege.

Andahiel threw out his hands, white flame pouring out, hot enough to make even the Skal’ai at the door halt in fear. It was not like Sister’s soulfire—this was controlled. Where hers was a torrent, this was a whip, bright enough and strong enough perhaps to even be chains. They lashed around Sin’s limbs, binding the once-boy as Andahiel strode forward. He has seconds at most, the dead had said. Those seconds were all he needed.

His legs crumbling into ash, his face disappearing as it was consumed by flame, Andahiel struck out with his hands, closing them around the middle blackstone embedded in the golden mantle that Sin wore. There was a hideous cracking sound, a horrific keening so sharp that the stones cracked and Joy felt his vision shatter and shift. Mahji in the air recoiled and withered, flashing purple and green sparks as they unraveled utterly. Sin gave a tormented wail, a single lone scream that was soon joined by thousands. Soon joined by tens of thousands.

As he watched through his Mind’s Eye, he saw Andahiel’s image finally burn away, not even dust remaining as the spirit died with a faint smile of finality. As he watched through his Mind’s Eye, he saw Sin’s spirit, the poor, withered, blackened thing, shatter like glass. As he watched through his Mind’s Eye, he saw a massive wave of souls, age-old, drained, maddened souls pour out of the remains of the blackstone, each one clawing past the other to escape. Their prison now broken, they streamed into the air with hopes of dying, with the hope to escape the hell that they had to endure for so long. Our brothers, whispered the dead. Without a pact like we made to you, they are freed at last.

Indeed, Joy had made a pact with the dead in his blackstone. He had promised them vengeance. And as he watched Sin’s shattered soul begin to disperse, he thought feebly that vengeance had come. He had thought it over.

He had been a fool to think so.

Before he turned away, his vision was drawn to the strands of black in that shattering soul, wisps of shadow amidst the faint white. They bound the soul, drew it together like rope until with a horrifying scream Sin lurched and opened his eyes. And when he spoke, it was again with the voice of eons. It was again with the voice of a god.

“Fools.” he rumbled, and the Skal’ai behind Joy chittered in agreement. “While the blackstones remain, I cannot be felled. I have another, here on my mantle. And you, demon, bear the last. So tell me, Andahiel the ever-wise, how is this vessel to die?”

Fierce rage poured through Joy. Rage that this thing still lived. Rage at the sacrifices that had to be made. Rage that he had been to weak to stop them. The strong survive, and the weak die. His first lesson. His hardest lesson. It drove him to rage. It drove him to madness.

With a guttural howl, he plunged his left hand into his right wrist, black claws blazing with soulfire as he ignited vahma. But it was not his soul that he burnt, for that would not nearly be enough. Vengeance, screamed the dead, and he promised it to them. He burnt them with that oath, felt their eons-old hate only strengthen his claws. And alive with flame, they shattered the blackstone that he bore in his own flesh. Again came that keening noise, with a pitch that was terrible and piercing and alien and utterly wrong. Black mist and black dust was all that remained when his vision cleared, his throat filled with blood. His eyes wept scarlet, the liquid dripping from his ears and nose. But it would not be enough to stop his vengeance.

Sin screamed, an unholy wail that threatened to shatter the stones of the hall. The Skal’ai leapt forward, their shapeless forms bursting out of the Malifori vessels as they were gripped with urgency. Joy ignored them, leaping forward with all the strength that he still had in his legs. He felt shadows wrapping around his ankles, felt his feet growing numb as Skal’ai tried to save their lord. He cared not about them. He cared only about this one strike.

He had hate. He had anger. And he had faith. He had faith in his body, born from the earth. He had faith in his legs, stronger than any other mortal flesh. He had faith in his claws, peerless and unbreakable. He had faith that he would strike true.

He had faith that Sin would fall.

There was a moment of burning white, the soulfire wreathing his hand suddenly flaring into a pyre that scorched him and punched through the ceiling of the hall. There was a numbness, starting from his legs creeping up his body until it wrapped around his neck. There was a sudden, sharp pain in his back that pierced through to his stomach, and fear gripped him in venomous hands. He was not afraid of death. He was afraid of failure. And in that instant, he saw the face of the earth, of his sire, of Andahiel. And he saw Sister’s face, those emerald-green eyes, dancing with madness and laughter and a thousand other emotions too twisted to make out.

They were dancing with Joy.

And then he saw nothing. There was a sensation of dislocation, of piercing, of breaking that did not belong. It was a presence that was utterly alien, utterly malign. And went it broke, he felt his mind shatter with it. He felt his vision tear away, felt his breathing rip out of his throat, felt his hearing clamp shut. And then he felt no more.

And then he felt nothing.