Thea

“Alright, here’s the deal, you two. I’m not going to kill you, but I’d also rather not have to devote two of me to keeping you restrained while I help Lilith fight Aris.” I clapped my hands together with an award-winning smile. “So! Just real quick, I need you both to give me your word that you’re not going to interfere with the fight, and then I’ll promise to either leave you alone forever or take you to Ash on the mortal plane, whichever you prefer.”

“Fuck you.” Leila spat in a way that was very much not like how I remembered her normally behaving, but Aurora just sighed.

“Are you sure about everything you’ve said?” She asked. “About Malvoch, dad, and Ashaiya?”

“I’m one-hundred percent sure about Malvoch and dad. Trust me, if I thought there was a way to get him back, then I would do almost anything to make it happen.” I ran my fingers through my hair as I continued. “About Ash, though, I only know what she told me. Like I said, it all seems a bit fishy to me, but she believed what she was saying, and far as I can tell, whatever she was doing was working.”

Of course, I didn’t mention that what Ash was doing revolved around a probably fake Aris and a stolen relic. Those things could be explained later when I didn’t need to convince my siblings not to try to kill me.

“Alright, I give you my word that I won’t get in your way if you’ll get me and Leila out of the lower planes.”

Leila struggled to rotate enough on the ground to face her twin. “Aurora, what are you doing? What about the plan? What about father?”

“Lei, Thea isn’t lying, you know that as well as I do.” Aurora let out a pained sigh as she continued. “We were tricked. Dad isn’t coming back, and our best bet right now is to trust Thea to get us out of Tartarus.”

Leila struggled to break free from my clone one last time before finally giving up. “Fine. I won’t get in your way, but when Aris does kill you, I’m going to help him bring back father and none of you can stop me.”

“Deal!” I agreed before adding one last thing. “Oh, and you both have to agree not to hurt Bryce, Suriel, Lilith, or anybody else I care about.” They both agreed, Leila a little more reluctantly than Aurora, and I dismissed the clones restraining them.

“Gods below, when did you get so strong?” Aurora asked as she rubbed at her wrist. “I still remember beating you at every sport just to have you challenge me to some made up game an hour later.”

“Theaball isn’t made up! It’s a respectable sport with countless fans across all the planes.” I crossed my arms and stuck my tongue out at Aurora, and she just laughed. Gods, I forgot how much I missed that laugh. Not just hers, but all my siblings’. I missed when we used to play and just hang out with each other.

“I never said it wasn’t.” Aurora lifted her hands in mock surrender. “I’m just saying that it had your name in the title, and I still kicked your ass at it.”

Okay, maybe I didn’t miss them that much. “Go find Bryce and Suriel, then tell them both you’re sorry for being a big bully. I know you didn’t technically do anything to Bryce, but she was definitely bullied as a child and it’d be good for her to hear an apology for it.”

“Alright, alright we’re going.” Aurora was still laughing as she led Leila through the door. Neither of them had been lying when they promised not to interfere. Even if they were fallen, I still trusted them not to go back on their word.

Having one last wayward sibling to deal with, I sprinted through the castle to find Aris and Lilith.

Of course, they weren’t hard to locate. I just had to follow the path of melted stone and patches of black flames that eventually led to a wide empty room that looked like some sort of royal receiving hall.

Lilith was breathing heavily and trying to catch her breath on the far side of the room with a wall of black flames between her and Aris, who was busy pacing back and forth, but his hair was all messed up. So, it was obvious which of the two was winning.

“Lilith, I’m here! Bryce took Stephy and they should be a safe distance by now.” I shouted across the room, and could see Lilith stand a little straighter as she heard me.

“To think you’d stoop so low as to kill your own siblings.” Aris shook his head as he turned back towards me. “I thought better of you, Salinthea.”

“Um, excuse me? You just tried to kill me like five minutes ago!” I scowled at him as he approached. “Besides, I didn’t kill them. I talked to them, and like reasonable people, they listened to me instead of just attacking.”

“Well, it’s no matter. They won’t get far, and I can use their blood to complete the ritual just as easily as their voice.” My eyes went wide as he charged at me and I barely managed to dodge the swipe of his talons.

“Aris, is there nothing left of you that hears how insane you sound?” I stumbled back a few steps as I tried to recover from my awkward dodge.

“If loyalty to the one who created me is insanity, then I refuse to be sane.” He said, as if that wasn’t the stupidest thing ever. “I’ll sacrifice every single one of you if it means I get my father back!”

I kept dodging back as Aris pressed the assault. Meanwhile, Lilith had dispelled her wall of black flames and was creeping her way to get a good angle to attack. However, the moment she got into range, Aris unleashed a massive wave of golden flame in all directions which forced her to dodge backward.

I took the brunt of the attack and flinched as I felt the heat burn my flesh. It wasn’t life threatening, or even all that bad really, but it was the first time I had ever been hurt by fire in my life.

Aris laughed when he realized what had happened. “You were always the weakest of us, little Sally. To think, a phoenix who can be burned by fire. Pathetic.”

“Hey, fuck you, that just caught me by surprise, alright? I’m not burned.” I brushed my hands off on what was left of my pants before I summoned my sword. He was really starting to piss me off. “This is your last chance to surrender, Aris. Don’t think I’m going to hold back against you just because you’re acting like an asshole.”

Lilith shot me a confused look over my threat, but I ignored her and raised my sword towards Aris as I waited for his response. Which came as an eruption of golden flames from his palm. I dodged out of the way and felt the heat rush by as it melted the stone floor.

“Alrighty, then I guess it’s my turn.” I charged forward as I summoned three of my clones to surround Aris. One jumped on his back to grapple his shoulders while the other two grabbed an arm each. He grinned at me as I got closer and didn’t even try to dodge as I stabbed him through the chest. He must’ve immediately realized his mistake, because he threw off me and my clones before erupting into another explosion of golden flames, this one even hotter than before.

I covered my face and felt the mana that was making up my clones rush back into me. As the mana returned to me, I felt a thread of it mix with Aris’s fire. It burned as it entered my body, but the feeling quickly dissipated into a strangely cooling sensation.

Aris tore the half-burned husk of a sword from his chest and snapped it in half before turning his glare towards me. I might have panicked a bit.

“Now, hold on, Aris, let’s talk about this,” I backed away from my angry brother, who now had a gaping hole in the middle of his chest that was leaking a line of golden mist. “I told you I wasn’t going to hold back, and me not holding back definitely includes using a soul-destroying sword. So, really, you’re the one to blame for this.”

He clapped both hands in front of himself and unleashed a torrent of golden flames. I felt a firm grip pull me back into the shadows just before I was incinerated. Lilith looked down at me and held a finger to her lips as I looked around. We were no longer in the wide open receiving room, instead I was left sitting on the floor in a hallway somewhere else in the keep.

“Where are we?” I whispered the question and Lilith shook her head as she pointed further down the hallway before indicating with her head that we should go the other direction. I nodded as I got up to follow her to a room a few meters away.

She closed the door before speaking. “I’m not able to get close enough to hurt him. Every time I do, he sets off another one of those explosions, and the few times I’ve managed to cut him, he’s torn off the wound so that he can heal himself.”

“That feels like a bullshit loophole,” I commented as I looked around the room. It was mostly empty, with a few plastic sheets lying on the floor and a window overlooking the rest of the castle on the far wall.

“It only works if the wound isn’t immediately lethal, and besides, I have to imagine that it takes a lot of mana to heal like that, so I’d likely be able to run him dry, given enough time.”

I shrugged. “Probably, but I wouldn’t know. Healing like that isn’t something I can do yet. Maybe in a few thousand years I could give you the answer.” I paused to think for a moment before continuing. “Hey, if I could get rid of his fire, could you go in for the kill?”

“In all likelihood, yes. Do you have a way to get rid of his fire?”

“Maybe? But I might just end up getting burned to a crisp.” I half-smiled at Lilith, who just frowned back at me.

“Thea, if it’s too risky, then we should just retreat. We’ve already stopped the ritual and rescued Persephone. There’s no reason to keep fighting here.”

“Except if we leave Aris like this, then he can just try again down the line or worse, find a different way to summon dear old dad. No, if we can stop him now, then we should.”

“Alright, agreed. What’s your plan?”

“Well, I’m not sure if I could call it a plan exactly, but,” I rubbed at the back of my neck as I explained. “What if I go down there and just insult him a bunch until he tries to melt me, then just steal all of his flames? Meanwhile, you sneak up and stab him?”

“Steal all of his flames? Is that something you can do?” Lilith raised an eyebrow at me, and I felt like I might’ve physically shrunk a little.

“Maybe? In that last explosion, when he killed my clones, it felt like I was able to pull a bit of his magic into myself. If I can pull a bit, then maybe I can get all of it?”

“Thea…” She definitely wasn’t buying it, so I frantically added to my plan.

“Okay, look, it’s worth a shot, and if it fails, then we can just run away with our tails between our legs. I mean, there’s no harm in trying, right?” Lilith still didn’t seem convinced, so I added one last bit. “What if I send Bryce a message telling her to make her way to the gate? That way, if things go bad, then at least we were a distraction to let them get a head start.”

Lilith shook her head with a sigh as she finally conceded. “Alright, fine. But the moment things go bad, we’re both leaving, understood?”

“Understood! Now, how do we get back to Aris?”

I sent a message to Bryce explaining the situation, and she wasn’t at all happy, but agreed so long as we ran away at the first sign of danger. With that part dealt with, Lilith led me back down the hallway to a door where I could hear angry shouting and burning noises. I nodded to myself and turned towards Lilith to let her know I was going in, but she was already gone, so I decided to just walk through the door.

Aris was too busy shooting flames at shadows and shouting about how he knew I was still there to notice me enter the room.

“Wow, you really are unhinged.” I frowned as his head snapped to look at me. “I mean, I could have been halfway across Tartarus by now, but I decided to come back and give you one last chance.”

He didn’t even respond before charging across the room and unleashing another torrent of flames at me. I braced myself for the heat, but fell to my knees as I was immediately overwhelmed by the pain. Clenching my teeth, I pushed through the burning pain and forced my mana into the fire enveloping me, but the flames cut off just as I felt it starting to work.

I sat there on my knees, breathing heavily as Aris loomed over me with a smug grin. “I’ve waited so long to do this, and I fully intend to savor each of your screams.”

I couldn’t help but laugh at the absurdity of the situation, which of course just made Aris more angry. “I’m sorry, it’s just, you’re like some sort of cheesy comic villain. Oh no, you’re going to ‘savor each of my screams,’ seriously?”

Aris growled at my teasing and unleashed another torrent of flames, this one even hotter than before. I immediately pushed aside the pain in order to start the same process I had done before, to bring the fire under my control. This time I managed to get it to work quickly, and half a second later, the assault was no longer painful.

I pushed my will past the ambient fire and into Aris’s meridians to contest the source of his magic. His mana was beginning to be pulled from his body, into my own, and the more I did it, the faster it happened.

The onslaught of fire stopped, and I was no longer kneeling. Instead, Aris had fallen to his knees, and I was the one looming over him.

I heard Lilith’s voice, but I ignored it as I continued to drain Aris of his mana. Soon after, I felt her hand on my shoulder. “Thea, you have to stop. You’re consuming his soul.”

“I’m doing what?” I blinked as the sudden realization of what was happening hit me, and Aris fell to the ground, unmoving. I quickly took a step back.

“You’ve consumed half of Aris’s soul. Which, combined with the damage you did to it earlier, was enough to kill him.” Lilith shook her head as she stared down at the corpse of my brother. “We’ll consider this matter dealt with, but please don’t make a habit of doing things like this. It’s unsettling.”

“I, uh, right, I agree, it’s unsettling.” I started wringing my hands as I stared down at Aris’s lifeless body. “I guess I’ll just have to be more careful in the future.”