The grounds shook.

  The thunder clapped violently.

  The lightning flashed with each blue peal.

  In front of each bolt, ominously towering over the homes, apartments and stores was an aethril she was all too familiar with. The winds raged with the fury of a chained god, and Tallie’s twisted laughter could be heard over the chaos and the noise that threatened to throw Ayela and Kacyn like dolls.

  “It’s him!” Kacyn yelled, gripping Ayela’s hand with an iron hold. “It’s Lukrinael, the high god of the Yglsora! She’s managed to chain the strongest of the old ones!”

  The name alone was enough to inspire fear. Nothing she believed about the Kult in the past mattered; Tallie subdued the mightiest servant of R?k that her religion had ever named. All that mattered was that he be released from his imprisonment to the witch.

  “You can see him clearly?!” She shouted back.

  Kacyn’s eyes began to glow, and she could feel the power emulating from the Ebony elf. She could see why the Kult wanted her as badly as they do; she was powerful. “Yes!” She answered. “But this won’t be easy!”

  Before either had the chance to respond, Kacyn shoved her out of the way. A blast of purple energy ripped by them, promising to strike Ayela’s head. She got up and readied herself as Tallie stomped towards her. The aethril wasted no time in summoning bright, cyan-colored runes out of the clouds that poured beams of energy and destruction down onto the town. Explosions rocked the ground beneath, knocking all but Tallie over, and the soldiers that were detached began to open fire in the distance. It was clear now; they were there to execute their own people.

  Ayela’s heart burned with pure, focused rage. Her vision began to change hues, giving everything a reddish tint as she stood to her feet. Her hair whipped wildly in the wind, and though the rain soaked her clothes, she felt her body temperature rise from her anger. Not again! She thought to herself.

  “I WON’T FUCKING LET YOU SLAUGHTER THESE PEOPLE!!!”

  The world fell silent around her save for her own heavy breaths and stomping feet as she charged forward. She couldn’t even hear Kacyn as she cheered her on. All she could hear and see was the twisted laughter of her heartless enemy, and the face of the one who murdered her lover in cold blood because… All because of a prophecy.

  When she was close enough, she leapt into the air. She tapped into the deepest parts of her heart, and hurled a telekinetic blast so powerful, it punched a crater into the ground where Tallie stood. The witch was fast, though, and dodged the attack just in time. Then the battle ensued.

  It was a duel of the logicians.

  A battle against the dark and the divine.

  This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  It was a fight long overdue, and an exactment of revenge that Ayela had forgotten she craved. There was chaos as everyone fought, and while the dancer and the dark mage tossed blasts of their respective magics at each other, Kacyn looked around her environment with dread and confusion. The leader of the revival she longed for had given in to her darkest desires, and the highest god of her ancient order was bringing death and destruction to a people long oppressed by the very empire opening fire on them.

  Her vision was active, and she was an open channel to the divine logic she long held access to. A continuous flow of strange, eldritch energy coursed through her from the divine that existed beyond reality, and she suddenly became aware of the supernatural energies that everyone around her held.

  Kacyn could feel it all.

  The soldiers who were husks of blind obedience.

  The citizens that were husks of blind obstinance.

  The mages that were agents of blind devotion.

  She looked up at the god Tallie had summoned, seeing it more clearly than anyone ever had. In her vision, there was no darkness. Everything was equally illuminated, and she could see all as if the sun were out on a clear day. The clouds above were roiling masses of steam and vapor collected together like a smokescreen or a veil between their reality and the reality beyond.

  And there, behind the clouds, she saw him. She saw Lukrinael as if the clouds weren’t even there, a being that glowed like a bright star being eclipsed. His body was strange even to her mind’s eye; a blue torso carried by strong legs, with four massive arms hovering around the shoulders as if they were attached - but they weren’t. His head hovered above the shoulders where the neck ought to be, and his face was ethereal and strange; emotionless, frozen in the same blank expression the statue of a god would have.

  Nothing was still, either. She stared at him in awe and amazement, watching as his skin rippled like it were the surface of a body of water, but the ripples were only like an image that echoed across his skin with each step. His face was the same way, but even more than that, it looked like his face would twist in halves, spinning outward onto itself, and giving way for a new face to take its place.

  When she looked at him, though, she saw the deepest parts of his being and an emotion that she herself felt all-too familiar with; despair. He was captured and subject to the authority of a dark witch through the acts of dark and binding magic. It was an eldritch spell that bound an eldritch god, and the emotion he felt was something that resonated deeply in her core.

  Free him.

  A voice louder than the storms around but quieter than a whisper spoke into her mind’s ear. A nameless voice, disembodied and hidden from the conscious or subconscious eye. She looked around to see if some specter had snuck up behind her, but there was no one… And yet, she knew who it was that spoke to her.

  Hashem.

  The divine one of Ayela’s faith, the highest of all divine beings. The one not bound to religion or rules like the other gods were. The one who created the gods and put them in their place, the horrifying and awesome one that blessed her with the vision she now used. The Name, hidden to all, was the one who commanded Lukrinael’s freedom.

  But how? She wasn’t a dancer. She wasn’t able to attack with her powers, or bind and unbind anything with them. All she could do was see. Perhaps that was the point, though; she could see what no one else could. The dancer wasn’t able to see, but she could control the fabrics of reality that Kacyn could see. She looked up at Lukrinael once more, who slowly looked over at her with a familiar sadness in his eyes – and then she saw it.

  Around his wrists were golden braces to match the belt and waistcloth he wore, and around his ankles were ethereal shackles that stretched through matter and reality until they connected to Tallie’s heart. It was spiritual, ethereal; she bound the god to herself, using dark magic to keep it enslaved to her will. If they cut off the god’s ankles and wrists, they would free him to return to the heavens where he resided and could heal. He would no longer be bound to a witch of thaerv.

  But how?

  …How could she reach a woman so scorned?