The forest whispered as Ramona and I stepped through the fold in space, leaving the marble and gold of the throne room behind. The air around our cabin was thick with the scent of pine and rain-soaked earth. It was quiet, unnaturally so, the kind of silence that only follows when something vast is set in motion far away.
Ramona crossed to the wooden table, her hair catching the dim glow of the hearth. Upon it rested her mirror, though to call it that was crude. It was a shallow bowl carved from stormglass, liquid light shimmered within, always shifting, never still. She brushed her fingers across its surface, and ripples spread, showing the image of Elren's armies beginning their march.
"They've left the city," she said softly.
I came to stand beside her, the reflection of fifty thousand armoured men moving like a silver river beneath the morning sun stretching before us. "Good," I murmured. "Enoch's faith burns bright. Let's hope it doesn't blind him and make him ignore strategy."
The first day was uneventful, a march of dust and banners, prayers whispered beneath breath, the heavy rhythm of boots pounding earth. I watched as priests walked among the ranks, swinging censers that trailed silver smoke. The scent of incense carried even through the mirror, faint, but there.
That night, when the stars began to fade behind gathering clouds, Ramona spoke quietly without lifting her gaze. "They'll reach the plains by tomorrow."
"Then tomorrow decides everything," I said.
By the second night, the image in the stormglass darkened. I saw the glow of braziers scattered through the camp like a constellation on earth. Soldiers laughed, prayed, and cleaned their blades.
And then, movement.
A brazier near the southern tents wobbled. One of its iron stands had bent during transport, and now the stone it leaned on cracked beneath its weight. I frowned, leaning closer.
The brazier slipped.
Flaming wood tumbled onto the canvas of a nearby tent. In moments, the fire caught, the fabric curling black, flames devouring it with a hiss. Shouts erupted.
"Fire!"
Dozens of soldiers ran toward it with buckets, cloaks, anything. The wind picked up, feeding the inferno. Sparks jumped from tent to tent, smoke clawing at the night sky.
Ramona's lips pressed into a thin line. "Mortals and their carelessness…"
I watched her extend a hand toward the mirror. Her fingers moved in a gentle arc, a gesture like tracing the horizon.
The reflection rippled, and then I felt it, the air above us grew heavy. Clouds gathered not only in the vision but around our cabin too, as if the sky itself obeyed her.
A rumble rolled across the mirror's surface. Lightning snaked within the clouds, and moments later, rain, torrential, cleansing, began to fall in both worlds.
The fire vanished in an instant, drowned beneath heaven's weight.
Through the stormglass, I saw the soldiers fall to their knees, drenched, trembling.
"Praise the Lady of Tempests!" one cried, and others joined, their voices rising like a prayerful wave.
Ramona smiled faintly. "They're learning."
I chuckled. "You do enjoy your dramatics. And then claim I'm the one who does"
"It's called reverence."
"more like good weather control."
She swatted my arm without looking away from the mirror.
When dawn came, the army of Elren resumed its march. Ramona and I followed through the mirror's eye as they moved toward the black-stoned city of Gar'thar.
The first volleys of catapult stones shattered against its walls, and soon the battle ignited, arrows fell like black rain, divine shields flared gold, and the ground quaked with every blow.
Then came the moment that made my chest tighten.
The sky darkened. Boulders descended from above, crushing men by the dozen. Ramona stiffened beside me.
"Adam…"
"I see them."
The four divine signatures flared in the reflection, savagely familiar. The beast gods we had once faced. They hovered above the battlefield like suns of wrath.
Without another word, I turned to her. "Armour."
She nodded. Lightning crackled around her form as violet energy flowed across her skin, reshaping into a gleaming silver Spartan cuirass. A storm-colored cloak unfurled behind her, every fold alive with thunder.
I let my essence rise. My mortal form dissolved into gold light, and the bronze armour took shape, seamless, and divine. The red cloak wrapped around me like flame, and my spear, formed in my hand, it was humming with restrained fury.
I had taken the liberty to forge a spear of the tenebrite from the small bead. As expected the world first rejected its existence. But after channelling and storing a significant amount of divine essence into it, the world begrudgingly allowed its existence.
Ramona's stormglass flared one last time as she reached for it. "Shall we?"
I smiled. "After you, my dear."
She pressed her hand to the mirror's surface. The glass turned liquid, swirling with lightning and light. Together, we stepped through.
The world shifted, with cold air, thick clouds, and endless sky.
We stood atop a sea of storm clouds, the world far below us aflame with war. Thunder rolled beneath our feet like the heartbeat of the heavens.
Ramona stepped forward, and as her foot touched the clouds, lightning burst outward in veins of white and violet. The clouds parted in a great circle, revealing the battlefield below, tens of thousands of soldiers frozen mid-combat, staring upward.
I moved my gaze. The four shadows raced toward us, the gods of the beastkin. Their eyes burned with malice.
They landed atop the clouds with enough force to make the heavens tremble.
The lion-headed one roared. "You again, false god!"
I twirled my spear once. "Still sore from last time?"
He lunged. The world flashed gold. My spear met his claws, the collision sending a shockwave that split the sky. Behind him, the nine-tailed fox goddess darted in, flames trailing her every movement.
Ramona didn't wait, she leapt to meet the serpent and elephant gods, her twin blades slicing arcs of stormlight that split the rain. Her laughter, fierce, wild, echoed like thunder itself.
The lion god's strength was monstrous. Each strike he delivered cracked air and light, but I was faster. Our weapons clashed again and again, bursts of gold and red tearing open the clouds.
I ducked beneath his swing, slammed the butt of my spear into his ribs, and spun, striking upward to parry the fox's flaming blade. She hissed, eyes blazing.
"You think light can burn brighter than flame?" she sneered.
"Let's test that theory."
I raised my hand, condensing a sphere of golden energy, light folding upon itself, compacting, building. Within it, the air screamed. Knowledge of splitting the atom came in handy for creating my own mini nuclear missile. I had taken the principle, and put a twist to it.
The fox's eyes widened. "What is—"
I hurled it.
The explosion wasn't sound, it was silence so complete that the universe itself seemed to lack any sound. The clouds tore apart. The blast expanded in a ring of gold and white, swallowing both gods in a single instant. The shockwave hurled even me backwards, armour flaring as I steadied myself in the aftermath. The sound came immediately afterwards
Below, the sky cracked, and the two figures plummeted, their divine light fading as they crashed into the city below.
I turned, searching for Ramona. She stood amid a storm of her own making, lightning wrapping around her as she drove her blades through her foes. One of them fell, broken by thunder. The other tried to flee, only for her to hurl her sword, impaling him with a bolt of violet thunder.
She turned to me, wind whipping her hair, and smiled. "You overdid it again."
"It was beautiful " I said, grinning.
She laughed, bright and wild, and together we descended through the parting storm, the thunder announcing our return.
When our feet touched air above the battlefield once more, the world bowed beneath us.
The bodies of the gods still lay in the craters. The signature of divine essence wasn't in the bodies though. With a frown I searched for any, when four divine essence signatures burst from within the beastmen on the broken wall.
I acted swiftly I lifted my hand, golden light radiating outward, and golden chains imbued with large amounts of my divine essence wrapped them. The lionkin god continued struggling, and he was going to succeed, before I could suppress him further Ramona cast her own chains that crackled with silver lighting and that seemed to do the job.
"Your gods have been vanquished," I said, my voice carrying across the fields of war.
And from below, fifty thousand mortal voices answered as one:
"Praise and glory be to the Father and Mother!"