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Firiona Vie knelt next to Tsaph Katta, pouring her divine magic into the ravaged body as her friends fought Calix Quirinus. Maybe the battle would have gone differently if they had more allies to help them, but the only option they had left now was to bring him to his knees as fast as possible, before he could hurt anybody else.
She heard, over the roaring of the wind that swept over the top of the floating fortress Arx Mentis, her friends’ joyful shouts heralding their success. Relieved, she turned towards them, only to be confronted with Calix’s daughter crying out in anguish.
“I die, but I take our foes with us!”
A powerful wave of magic washed over her, making her cough violently. Her friends’ victorious shouts were cut short as the magic enveloped them, lifting them up before dropping their limp bodies to the floor. Firiona couldn’t tell if they were dead or just unconscious. Either way, not good.
The only person still standing was Lanys T’Vyl. Even worse. She had been waiting and watching the group of heroes, and, with only Firiona left standing, she drew her sword and walked towards her.
“Firiona,” she said, smiling at her with malicious delight. “How do you feel at this moment?”
The Champion of Balance staggered to her feet. Her hands shook when she closed her fingers around the handle of her sword – whether from the cold, fear, or anticipation, she did not know. “You would love to see me crushed by weakness and remorse,” she panted. “But the snows will cover all of Norrath before that happens. I will not look back!”
Lanys chuckled and took a step closer toward her opponent. “You are nothing without hate. Our lives have been guided by it, shaped by it. You despise it, but it has made you. Now you shall embrace it. I will get what I came for!”
With that, she raised her sword and swung down at Firiona, who barely managed to dodge the blow. She drew her own weapon – a zweihänder, not exactly ideal against Lanys’s more agile blade, but perhaps sturdy enough to knock her shield out of her hand. She swung at her shield and was rewarded with a sound like a blacksmith’s hammer striking an anvil and a streak of red paint scraped off of Lanys’s shield. The God of Malice stumbled backwards.
“If only I had killed you in Kithicor,” said Firiona. “If only we had both remained in our prisons for eternity.” She sighed and raised her sword again, waiting for Lanys to regain her footing. “But the snows fall and feed the rivers that run into the sea…”
Lanys charged shield-first at Firiona. The sword whooshed through the air over her head as she put her opponent on the defensive, now moving her own blade to threaten her.
“Your heart will not survive outside the glass cage,” said Lanys, ramming her shield into Firiona and sending her leaping backwards. “It will shatter as it throws itself against my granite hatred.” Firiona stumbled over a crack in the floor and crashed into one of the display cases around the Apex. She felt a bruise blooming under her armor, but she pushed herself upright, ignoring the pain, and raised her sword again. Lanys watched her with a smile that would have looked angelic on any other woman. “Firiona… You will break yourself and your companions, like you broke your staff and your promise. You should have remained in the clutches of Discord.” Lanys sprang onto a different display case, ready to descend upon her. “All would have been safe!”
This time, she didn’t lead with her shield, but rather jumped, ready to throw Firiona to the floor. The Champion of Balance tilted her sword to a defensive position and side-stepped the attack smoothly. Lanys twisted in the air and bashed her shield against Firiona’s face.
When her vision returned, Lanys was standing above her, sword pointed at her throat. “Firiona,” she said, and she hated how the name sounded on her tongue, gentle like poison dripping into a bowl. “We are twins being born in a beautiful act of creation. You create me. I create you. Side by side, from the forests of Kithicor to the womb of Discord, we create each other.” She pressed the blade a little harder against her soft skin and Firiona watched her eyes grow big and delighted at the blood that trickled down the cool metal. “My sister, you have created in me the wonderful gift of hatred. Now I shall create that gift in you.”
“The only gift you will receive from me is a swift death,” Firiona gasped. She closed her eyes and, with desperate force, smashed her left arm against the blade. Her armor bent, but it didn’t break, and Lanys’s confusion bought her enough time to tumble out of her reach.
Lanys laughed again. Firiona gritted her teeth. All of this was just a game to her, a way to toy with her until her friends died under that horrible spell. She wouldn’t even kill her, she realized. Lanys would take her, watch her fall and then twist her into the same kind of monstrosity she had become.
Her pained expression and trembling limbs didn’t stop Lanys’s demented laughter. “But we have so much left to discover together!” exclaimed the Daughter of Hate, who stood a few feet away, patiently waiting for Firiona to regain control over her aching body like a cat waiting for a dying mouse to twitch so she could bat at it again. “And so much to learn about ourselves!” She took a step closer. “Firiona, you can’t hide anything from me: your fears, your weaknesses, your anger, your friends, your staff, or your life. They are mine to toy with, mine to take, mine to end!”
Something was trickling down Firiona’s chin. When she tried to brush it off, her hand came away bloody. There wasn’t any time for this, but she couldn’t take her eyes off Lanys, nor could she bring herself to strike her in the way that ensured she would never get up again.
From across the room, she heard something creak. The metal construct that Galeth had inhabited was moving ever so slightly. She had to act now.
“You would do to them what was done to us by Discord, and worse,” Firiona panted. With one hand, she cast a quick healing spell, patching up her face and cooling the bruises Lanys had inflicted on her. It was infuriating that Lanys could be just as injured as her without being hindered by pain. If anything, she seemed to relish it. “I was not broken by my captivity, but you would break me with the captivity of my friends... it shall not happen. My cold shall bury you in snows that pile up to the stars.”
She wrapped her hands around the zweihänder and charged. This was her last chance and she put everything into it. Her blade rained upon Lanys. With a quick twist of her shoulders, she managed to push Lanys’s shieldarm away and brought her other elbow down hard on her swordhand. Lanys cried out and let her sword fall.
Before Lanys could react, Firiona continued the sweep of her own weapon and used it to push the cursed blade away from Lanys. She stepped back, too focused to enjoy the look of shock in Lanys’s dark eyes, and tightened her grip on her zweihänder.
Without her sword, Lanys was forced on the defensive. Firiona advanced on her, each step bringing them a little closer to the low railing that encircled the Apex. Even without a blade, Lanys was still a foe to take seriously, but no matter how many times she tried to use the edge of her shield to hit her, Firiona was too skilled with the zweihänder for Lanys to defend herself at the same time.
Inevitably, Firiona backed her up against a low stone wall, which was the only thing that kept her from falling into the darkened sea that raged beneath them. There was no fear in her eyes, just a wild, impotent fury.
“Well, here we are again,” Firiona said calmly, the sharp edge of her blade cutting into Lanys’s throat, their bodies pressed up against each other. She could smell her hot breath on her face. “You have brought war to this place, murdered and tortured my friends, and corrupted all of those you call Doomscale. You have come to represent all that is terrible in this world.”
Firiona stepped back and, in one final blow, struck horizontally. Her sword pierced the red scale armor and Lanys coughed wetly before doubling over on the wall. The Champion of Balance loomed above her, blade bloodied, and continued: “And now you have finally failed.”
Lanys T’Vyl pressed one hand against the wound in her stomach and groaned. It was clear that even the simple act of speaking pained her greatly. “I have always been stronger than you. Now is your chance to prove your strength. Prove you are worthy of all the worship these people give you.”
She locked eyes with Firiona. Her face lost color with each moment, but there was a feverish air to her expression that made Firiona shiver.
“End me,” Lanys whispered. “Finish what you started. Take my life. End your struggles. Protect your friends.”
Whatever Lanys saw in her face made her smile. Her head fell backwards, exposing her throat for the final touch Firiona would ever lay upon her.
Steam hit Firiona’s face and a heavy hand laid on her shoulder. Galeth Veredreth had struggled to his feet and stood next to her.
“You can’t do that, Firiona,” he said gravely. “Don’t follow her into that darkness.”
Firiona shook her head. “She is correct. She has destroyed too many lives. It will be a service to the world, to the Mother of All, to everyone, if she is dead. It doesn’t matter what happens to me. I am willing to sacrifice anything for those that I care about.”
With terrible finality, she raised her blade over Lanys’s body.
And then she hesitated. She could feel Galeth watching her. Fear and sadness wafted off of him like the steam escaping his strange metal body, and she wavered.
“Lanys, you are right,” said Firiona with a sigh. “I am not as strong as you.”
Her opponent coughed again, tilting her head forward to stare at her.
“I can’t just murder a helpless foe, not even you. And you are correct, I couldn’t defeat you without my friends. I am weak.”
Her sword clattered to the floor as she knelt down next to her injured counterpart. Her hands brushed over Lanys’ torso until she found the gaping wound she had inflicted. Lanys’ hands were cold as ice over the hot blood, but she pushed them aside and used her magic to sew the jagged cut back together. Lanys stared at her without comprehension, blood dripping from her lips. Her breathing was slow and ragged and Firiona couldn’t keep herself from whispering: “If only so many things had happened differently…” She shook her head and focused on the spell, taking inventory of the pain that coursed through her own body, until she felt she couldn’t do anything else for Lanys.
“It is my understanding of that fact, and my ability to trust in those friends, that has stopped you,” Firiona said more loudly. “I can live happily in that weakness.”
Firiona reached out and, for a moment, held Lanys’ burned and broken fingers before picking up the Lifeguide.