With a Golden Sword (DFZ Changeling Book 2), page 23
“That’s why I used the changeling. Being gossamer, she was flexible enough to hold all that magic. My plan was to let her take the brunt and then simply step into Fenrir’s vessel once it was finished. It was a brilliant strategy, but I failed to account for the changeling’s resilience. That’s the frustrating thing about fairies. For all that they melt at the first skeptical look, they never seem to die.”
He blew out an irritated breath, and then his smug smile snapped back into place. “But a true blood mage never accepts defeat. Disheartening as it was at the time, the changeling’s rebellion turned out to be a blessing in disguise, because this plan is so much better. Instead of a winner-takes-all gamble for control of one giant vessel, I’ve got fifty-eight-hundred smaller ones that have already been willingly given.”
Simon’s eyes went huge as he realized what that meant. “That’s… what you were after?” he wheezed against the still-too-tight thread. “That’s why… why you gathered an army? So you could use… use their…”
“Use their deaths,” Victor finished impatiently. “Naturally. They’re certainly not good for anything else. Sharing my victory over Alberich would have defeated the entire purpose. With this method, though, I get everything.”
Simon shook his head. “You still… have to… win. Not… a… god yet.”
“It’s only a matter of time,” Victor said, reaching into his pocket again to pull out an orange prescription bottle with his name on it. He popped the plastic lid with his thumb and turned the bottle to show his apprentice the pills inside, which were as golden as his sword and glistening with potential.
“I’ve been collecting the power people have been throwing at the Hero for weeks,” he explained, putting the lid back on. “It’s nowhere near what I was wielding when I was linked to Fenrir, but I don’t have to be a god just yet. I only need to wield the power of one long enough to defeat the Wild Hunt. Once I’ve destroyed the enemy no one else could stop, even my skeptics will have to admit I’m the genuine article, and the belief of a grateful world will flow into the network of deaths I’ve assembled to catch it. They’ll bear the brunt while I ride the swell, sailing past the limits of mortality to become the Hero for real. Forever.” His smile widened to a grin. “Is that not brilliant?”
It was. As much as Simon hated him, even he had to admit Victor had pulled off one hell of a triumph, if it worked.
“Of course it’s going to work,” Victor said, reading the doubt right off his face. “You’re still here because I trained you, but the rest of those fools never had a chance. They’ve already surrendered their deaths entirely to my control. Tiny spaces to be sure, but everything counts in large amounts.”
He put his hand on Simon’s head. “Thank you for listening, apprentice. It would have been wiser to let you hang, but I couldn’t transcend mortality without telling you first. You’re the only person in the world with the knowledge to appreciate the incredible feat I’ve accomplished. That’s why I took you back despite knowing you would betray me. It’s no fun being right unless someone understands how you did it.”
He smiled at Simon one last time before reaching down to touch the string again. The noose tightened when his fingers brushed it, cutting off the tiny bit of air that had been keeping Simon conscious. He kept trying to fight it, kept trying to remember that he was the one who was actually in control of this place, but Victor had always been his weakness. The traps he’d laid in Simon’s mind had been set so long ago that they were part of his foundations. Nothing he did now could get around them, leaving him choking on the floor as Victor stepped back into his portrait frame.
“If it makes you feel better, I meant what I said about you being my best apprentice. You put up a fantastic fight for what you were, it just wasn’t enough. There’s no shame in that. After all, you should know better than anyone.” He turned to flash the dying man one last smile. “No one beats me, Simon.”
Simon’s hands twitched. But even if he could have managed a spell, it was too late. Victor had already vanished into the bloody background of his painting, leaving Simon alone in the death that was no longer his.
Chapter 15
“Master?”
Victor opened his eyes. From his perspective, he’d spent hours taking over people’s deaths. Simon’s had been his last stop specifically because he’d known it would take the longest. When he looked around now, though, it was as if barely a second had passed. He was still alone in the center of the empty square with the world’s eyes upon him and the Wild Hunt charging straight at his head. The sight was every bit as horrifying as Alberich had promised, but Victor Conrath was not afraid. How could he be when he was now fifty-eight-hundred times greater than any human before him?
“Master!”
Jamie’s voice was a flea in his ear, so tiny and terrified compared to the hugeness of his new self, but she was right. Now was not the time for standing still. Everything he’d built was finally in position. All he had to do now was light the fuse.
Keeping his hands close to hide what he was doing from the cameras, Victor reached into his pocket and dumped the entire contents of his pill bottle into his cupped hand. When he was sure he had all of them, he lifted his palm to his lips, pretending to be awed by the sky full of monsters as he pressed the fistful of pills into his mouth.
Just like the ones he used to make for Lola, the golden pills dissolved instantly on his tongue, flooding his body with the feeling he remembered from the night he’d fought Fenrir, but smoother. Stabler, because he was not fighting for his vessel this time. All the space he needed was already his, allowing the golden magic he’d collected to rage through him at full force as he lifted his sword to the enemy.
He let the first riders get close enough to ruffle his hair before he swung. With three weeks of Hero worship flowing through him and more still coming in from the people watching at home, it wasn’t even hard. All he had to do was wave his sword in the enemy’s direction, and a giant scythe of magic—his own beautiful, bloody magic—turned the screaming fairies to dust.
The next attack was even bigger, and the next, and the next. Not because he was trying to outdo himself, but because with every fairy he cut down, humanity’s belief in the Hero grew stronger. It no longer mattered that his army was lying unconscious on the pavement or that he was only one man against the monstrous horde. Victor had already shown the world that he was all they needed. He was the one who shone like the sun, the man whose magic could kill any monster. Victor was the savior humanity had been waiting for since the return of magic eighty-five years ago, the man who couldn’t die and never lost. The only person brave enough to stand against the tide of monsters that threatened to wash the world under. The only hero who could save them from death.
It was the mantra he and Jamie had been teaching the world with every interview, article, and advertisement. But no matter how well you laid the groundwork, seeing was the only true believing, so Victor showed them. He cut the enemy to dust, arcing his bloody magic up so high and bright that it could be seen for a hundred miles. He needed them to see, because the more they saw, the more they believed, and the more they believed, the greater his power grew.
By the time he started taking out the big riders in the back lines, Victor had reached the point where even fifty-eight-hundred deaths were no longer enough to contain the magic inside him, but that was very close to not mattering. With all of humanity cheering him on, he was finally reaching the critical mass necessary to transform his mortal soul into something greater. He was finally becoming what he’d taught them to see: a hero, a champion, a god to be worshiped. The only thing left was a finishing blow, a final burst of power to take him over the edge.
It wouldn’t be long. Alberich relished his displays of terror, but he’d never been patient. The moment Victor stabbed his sword into Orlando’s head, he’d set the clock ticking. That was why he’d taken his pills at the beginning rather than wait. He hadn’t actually needed the Hero’s power to destroy the rank and file thanks to the blood magic bane he’d so cleverly saddled all fairykind with, but the Underground King was different. He was also a god to his people, and he arrived like one, riding down from the sky on his screaming black horse to land with a thunderclap in front of Victor.
“Hello, old friend,” he said, his voice ringing like a trumpet through the suddenly silent square. “You chose a flashy way to die.”
“The same could be said of you,” Victor replied, pointing his golden sword at the king’s face, “monster.”
The name had never fit him better. A month of abject terror had been a heady thing for Alberich. He still clung to his childish guise, but his body was as tall as Victor’s now, and his smiling lips no longer bothered to hide the razor-sharp teeth behind them.
Seeing him like that filled Victor with joy. The Nightmare King was such a better opponent than Fenrir, who, despite all of Victor’s efforts to make him terrifying, had still looked like a dog. No matter how much he destroyed or how many people he ate, a not-insignificant portion of humanity would always see Fenrir as an animal and therefore worthy of sympathy, but Alberich got no such leeway. His cruelty was written all over his face. He was the hunter who’d treated the world as his prey, and humanity uniformly despised him for it.
Hatred was a much sharper sword than fear. Victor’s original plan had cast him as humanity’s savior, but Alberich had given him the chance to be its vengeance. Where before he’d had to struggle to be worthy of the world’s attention, all he had to do now was be a vessel for its rage. Their fury had already filled him to the brim, making his sword glow like molten gold as he pointed it at his old ally’s throat.
“Really?” Alberich scoffed, pushing the glowing blade aside with one finger. “You think you can threaten me with the sword I made? You might have dazzled it up, but it’s still my gossamer. All I have to do is snap my fingers and…”
His brassy voice trailed off. His fingers were still pressed together from the snap, but the golden sword remained firmly in Victor’s grasp. The king tried again, shoving his hand at the weapon as he snapped and snapped. When nothing happened, he slammed his foot down hard enough to crack the pavement.
“What did you do?”
“What humans always do,” Victor replied calmly. “Take over. You might have made this sword, but the moment I used it to rally the world against your kind, it became mine. Because I am human, and humans take.”
“You are human,” Alberich sneered. “As in mortal. Weak! Food for my—”
“It is humanity that makes me strong,” Victor said, tilting his chin down to make sure the mic on his collar was picking up every word. “You came to this plane to hunt us, but we are no one’s prey. We are the source and purpose of this world’s magic, and you will learn what it means to face our wrath.”
A cheer went up from the darkness surrounding the brightly lit square. The sound made Alberich jump, and Victor leaned closer, switching off his mic so the world wouldn’t hear him whisper, “You should have listened to Morgan. She warned you this behavior would raise the wave of humanity’s defenses against your kind. Well, it did, and I’ve ridden it all the way to the top.”
“So I see,” Alberich spat. “And you call me a parasite. But you’re delusional if you think this Hero nonsense will let you beat me. I’m older than the stories you’ve hitched your star to, little mage. Old enough to know that for every triumphant hero, there’s a hundred more who get eaten just like everybody else. Are those really the odds you want to play? It’s still not too late to bow.”
“Humanity will never bow,” Victor replied, his voice taking on its own larger-than-life quality as he flipped his mic back on. “We are the masters of this world, and we will never grovel before the likes of you!”
He thrust his sword into the sky as he finished. The golden power was pounding through him like thunder now, and not only from his pills. Just like the night he’d faced down Fenrir, all of humanity was pouring its magic into him, only this time, Victor was the one in control. He took that power, all of it, and swung it like a scythe. Not at the mocking king in front of him, but at the host above, the rest of the Wild Hunt that was still riding in circles over the city like vultures.
It almost killed him to do it. Even with thousands of extra deaths and the expansions he’d made to his own soul, humans were simply not made for spirit-level magic, but he didn’t have to hold it forever. He only needed to keep himself together for the few seconds it took to sweep his sword in a circle above his head, letting out a wave of power not felt since the night magic returned. It burned through the fairies’ ranks like a golden filament, and everywhere it touched, the enemy died.
“No!” Alberich roared, but his booming voice was drowned out by Victor’s shout of triumph.
Cutting down the fairies earlier had built him up, but it was no more than his own mages had done when he’d sent them to help contain the Hunt in Europe. Burning the entire host out of the sky, though, that was power on a whole other level. That was something no human could do, and the moment they saw it happen, people stopped hoping Victor would win and started knowing.
It was that absolute faith that catapulted him over the final threshold. Victor could actually feel his mortality burning away as humanity placed him on its pedestal, lifting him above them.
Making him a god.
No, Victor thought with a cackle as the Wild Hunt’s ashes rained down around him. Gods were still bound by the prayers that created them. Even the DFZ was a servant, forever chained to the whims of her precious population, but Victor was different. He was a Hero in the oldest sense of the word, except this was no longer the ancient world. There were no jealous gods above him, no masters to pull his leash. He was free as a man ought to be, a god subject only to himself, and there was no longer anything anyone could do to stop it.
“I suppose you think you’ve won.”
The words were so loud, he didn’t recognize them as Alberich’s until he lifted his head. The fairy king must have cast off his glamour while Victor was celebrating, because the thing standing over him no longer looked even the slightest bit human. There was no more boyish grin, no more charm. This was the Underground King as he truly was: a towering monster with a hide of smoking black rock, huge beady eyes meant for seeing in the dark, and a bristling maw of sword-sharp teeth that dripped with molten gold.
Through the connection to his faithful, the Hero knew it must be a terrifying sight, but it was all Victor could do to keep from laughing. If Alberich had been covered in shaggy fur instead of stone, he would have looked exactly like Lola’s sad little monster.
“I finally see the family resemblance,” he said, grinning up at the king. “Go on, then. Tell me how I’m losing despite destroying your entire court in a single attack.”
“I need no court,” the Underground King rumbled. “I allowed them to ride with me because it was entertaining, but I’ve never needed anyone to make me king.”
Molten spittle scored the stone at Victor’s feet as the monster loomed closer. “That’s what makes us better. My kind earns our power by killing and eating, but your strength doesn’t even belong to you. It’s given by others, which means it can be taken away.” He reached down to encircle the Hero with his giant claws. “The world might love a victor, but they’ll turn on you the moment you start losing.”
“Then I’ll never lose.”
Alberich laughed at him. Then he stopped, the smile falling off his hideous face as he realized Victor was serious. And in that moment of hesitation, the Hero ran him through.
Just as with Fenrir, the golden sword was far too tiny for the job. Even hunched over, Alberich’s true form was the size of a building. That didn’t matter, though, because the Hero’s sword had never been just a sword. It was a symbol of humanity’s belief that monsters could be killed. In the hands of Victor’s new divinity, there was nothing it couldn’t slay, and the Underground King was no exception. The moment Victor stabbed the golden blade into him, he fell like all the others, collapsing to his knees in the same place the Rider and Orlando had fallen. His giant body melted as he went down, vanishing like smoke while the whole world cheered around them.
Their cries pounded inside Victor’s body, the only pulse he had now. He savored the feeling for a moment before lifting his arms to the sky, kicking his feet through the last of the fairy’s rapidly melting gossamer with a whoop of joy. As the ashes of Alberich scattered, an army of reporters charged the now peaceful square from all directions, pushing each other down in their rush to be the first to interview the victorious Hero.
~~~
“He won.”
The words fell out of Lola like lead balls. Victor’s smug face smiled back at her from every screen as all the news networks crowded in for what was sure to be the interview of the century. Their fawning questions made her sick, but Lola couldn’t turn them off. All she could do was sit there, her body going stiffer and stiffer as she struggled to process the truth.
Victor had won. She’d always said he could, but it still didn’t feel real. Alberich and Morgan and Tristan, all the ancient powers who should have known better had said it was impossible. Even Simon had been so certain his plan would work, and yet…
And yet…
Lola buried her face in her hands. She’d thought it couldn’t get worse when she’d realized her sister was dead. Then she’d thought it couldn’t get worse when she’d watched him kill Valente. As always with Victor, though, there was no bottom. Even through the cameras, she could tell that he was no longer mortal, which meant it was over. Everything was over.
