Creusus's Arc

Chapter 32 of 43

Kallista walked closer. Her smile did not change. Blood soaked her white shirt in the same pattern Creusus had seen the morning he buried her. She reached for his face. He lowered his fists. His arms would not lift against her. "She is not her," Malachai called from across the hall. The chains of white light strained in his grip. The void beast twisted against them. "Strike through her." Creusus could not. His hand hung at his side. Kallista's fingers brushed his jaw. Cold spread from the touch down into his chest. He felt the pull he had felt in the dark hall long ago, the slow taking of a piece of him. Thane was on both knees now. A small boy in mage robes stood in front of him with an empty hand out. Thane was weeping. His gravity was gone. The temple floor groaned as the void beast dragged Malachai a step forward. "Look at me," Malachai said. Not to the beast. To them. "Both of you. Look." Creusus turned his head. Malachai stood pale in his skeletal armor, chains burning his palms. He met Creusus's eyes. "The woman in the garden is buried under a fig tree," Malachai said. "You put her there. This one has no weight. Push her." Creusus pushed. His palm went through Kallista's chest like it went through Diablo. She smiled the same smile and thinned into smoke. The cold left him. "The children died in the spire," Malachai said to Thane. "You did not hold their hands then. You cannot hold them now. They are him." Thane raised his head. He lifted one shaking hand. The boy in front of him lost his shape and folded into the floor. The other children came apart behind him. Thane stood. The void beast lunged. Malachai's chains snapped taut and held. Then the beast opened its jaw wider than a jaw could open and closed it around him. It did not bite. It swallowed. Malachai went in whole. The chains hung a moment in empty air and fell. Inside the beast's black hide, a hand pressed outward. The shape of a face rose against the surface, mouth open. It sank back. It rose again at the shoulder, at the ribs, at the throat. Each time the void folded it back in.