Zach Brenner's Arc

Chapter 45 of 86

Zach grabbed the dangling rope and climbed toward the airship. The tower stood three ridges north, on a black plain. Malachar had portaled straight to it. He would reach the crystal before they touched down. Zach felt the weight of it in his chest. They knew where to go and still could not get there in time. Geneva climbed the rope behind him, faster than an old man should. On deck, he raised a hand. "Stop. Listen before you throw your lives at that tower." Zach turned. "He's already there." "Then let him take it," Geneva said. Raven stared at him. Garrok's hand tightened on his axe. "You want us to hand him the crystal?" Raven asked. "Let him take it. Let him pour the sorcerer's power into his own body." Geneva's cat ears flattened. "Right now Darkthorne is a soul with no flesh. You cannot cut a soul. But if Malachar holds that power, he becomes flesh. Flesh bleeds. Flesh dies on a blade." Lyra lowered her hand from the frozen rail. "You've seen this before." "I have." The old man's voice dropped. "I was there. A thousand years ago. We failed." The deck went quiet. Even the wind seemed to hold. "You're a descendant," Ayla said slowly. "Rowan's line." "No." Geneva looked at Zach. "Not a descendant. I was there. Rowan was the first sword master. He had Darkthorne in his hands, blade at his throat. And the sorcerer opened a gate and threw him into another world. I sealed what was left. I have waited a thousand years for the seal to break again." Zach's mouth went dry. "That's not possible." "Rowan went to your world, boy." Geneva's eyes stayed on him. "A thousand years ago. You are his blood. That is why the sword crossed worlds to find you. It was always going to find you." Raven's hand found Zach's arm. Talon stood still at the wheel, katanas forgotten. Lyra's lips parted. No one spoke. Zach looked down at the sword in his grip. It had chosen him across worlds. Not by chance. It had reached back along a line of blood a thousand years long and pulled him here. The lost feeling he had carried since the forest cracked and shifted. He was not a stranger dropped into someone else's war. He was the one who was always meant to finish it. "So we don't race him," Zach said. His voice came out steady. "We let him take the crystal. We let him fill himself with the power. Then we kill him while he's still flesh." Geneva nodded once. "Now you understand." Zach turned to Talon. "Fly us to the black plain. Slow. We arrive after he's opened himself, not before." Talon spun the wheel. The airship swung north, toward the tower and the man about to become mortal.