The moment Solana's fist touched Arthur Ward, powerful figures began to move. Lady Sleyca was one of them. She’d had her eye trained on the trio for a while, but when Giants Bane attacked, she was too slow to react. Everyone was. Cursing up a storm, she called her teleportation mages and prepared for the worst. The fallout from this would be huge. An Originator had just died under her watch, and it was against a foe he had no right even interacting with.

  Letting that mad dog come here was my first mistake. What was it Larthorn said? She’s turned a new leaf since joining The Guild of Alchemists. I was a fool to trust the idiot.

  Even as her teleportation began, she could sense about a dozen other auras converging on Earth. This was going to get messy fast, and she’d be the one who had to clean it up. Seven seconds after Arthur’s heart ceased beating, thirteen powerful figures appeared on Earth. Sleyca’s teleportation was a hair breath slower than the others and so by the time she arrived, Solana had already been beaten into submission.

  She was on her knees, a bloody gash on her forehead. Two spears were trained at her throat, held by Mythril-clad Archons, the empire's greatest police force. Lady Sleyca shivered when she caught sight of them. The creepy bastards had always intimidated her, beings that were all but immune to magic and clad in armour that could resist the most extreme of physical force. They weren't the strongest present though, not by a long shot. A representative from The Guild of Originators was present, an unassuming male humanoid who appeared to be made from a pale yellow crystal.

  The One who cuts.

  Just standing in his presence made her feel nauseous, every wound she’d ever taken and healed from flaring up in pain as if they were fresh injuries. Thankfully, she wasn’t the only one who seemed uncomfortable with the Originator's presence. It wasn’t that she was weak. This guy was just freakishly strong.

  Sleyca took in everyone else. Three high elves she’d only heard of in passing, a shoggoth that looked positively terrifying, an ancient treant and two engeli. Finally, there was the thirteenth member, Ezrial's daughter, the grand seer, Iris. She wasn’t strong enough to stand here as their equal, but her station and potential meant she wasn’t exactly out of place.

  Sleyca looked towards the Originator's corpse. Arthur Ward was splayed out on his back, eyes wide open in shock, glazed over and staring at nothing. No one ever expected to die so suddenly, especially the strong. Looking at the bloody mess that was his chest, she felt her pulse quicken.

  That was surprising. Was she truly getting angry over the boy's death? The alverin she’d considered recruiting was kneeling over him, staring listlessly at her friend's face. Her cheeks were stained with tears and she was so still it was like she was caught in a trance.

  The shoggoth had been kind enough to isolate her from all the powerful presences here using his aura. Sleyca added her own defences to the mix. Things were about to get hairy and one life had already been senselessly lost today. She walked over to stand in front of the kneeling half-giant. Even now, she had to look up to meet her gaze. While Lady Sleyca wasn’t the strongest person here—not by a long shot—she did have the most seniority in matters related to Earth and so the floor was ceded to her.

  “Why did you do it?” she asked quietly.

  Solana spat to the side, bloody saliva and a broken tooth. “You know why I did it, so let's get this farce over with.”

  Sleyca sighed and rubbed her temples. She could feel a headache forming behind her eyes. “Does your hatred truly run so deep? Haven’t you had your fill of revenge already. The damn boy didn’t have any giant blood running through him.”

  “He didn’t, yes, but he claimed a titan's power for himself.”

  “And that was enough for you to murder him in cold blood. You went so far as to shatter his soul core. They never should have pardoned you 100 years ago. Your story is a sad one, but you’ve become no better than those who enslaved your people.”

  That got a reaction out of her; a vein was throbbing in her temple and her face was twisted in rage. Lady Sleyca almost took a step back but steeled herself. Normally, she’d never talk to Giant Bane like this—Solana was the only one here who could probably give The One who cuts a run for their money—but she didn’t think the woman would ever become a problem. She’d sealed her fate today.

  The pressure behind her was growing stronger by the second, an aura of cold rage that felt like a blade on her neck. Iris was getting impatient, it seemed. Stepping aside, Sleyca let the seer take her place. The fae didn’t say anything for a while, just staring at the half-giant with an expressionless face. At first, Solana held her gaze, but then she looked away, unable to take the naked disgust in Iris' eyes.

  “I’m sorry for the pain I caused you,” Solana murmured. “It was never my intention to hurt you but revenge has never been a clean process.”

  Iris laughed, harsh and brittle. “Don’t talk of revenge. Don't try to make Arthur a victim of your personal crusade, like it explains what you did. Like it can justify anything. Lady Sleyca was right. You’ve become what you hated most. You truly are your mother's daughter.”

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  The half-giant flinched back like she’d been hit. Lady Sleyca almost winced at the barbed words. Trust a seer to hit you where it hurts most.

  “I first saw Arthur Ward four years ago. It was right after I’d learned how to scry. That night I dreamed of an ordinary boy, waiting in a hospital as his sister underwent surgery. It was like I was sitting there, right next to him and waiting too. The first thing I ever scryed, the event that would be central to my future, and it was an ordinary human man, as mundane as any could be.”

  “I started to look for him the very next day, I left my father's court and started to wander the fringes of System space. Four years later, I found him here.”

  Lady Sleyca was listening with rapt attention—everyone was. People had wondered why Ezrial's daughter had started courting an Originator so soon after meeting him and it seemed they were finally getting their answers. This was prime gossip she was sure would spread like wildfire the moment this situation was dealt with.

  Iris chuckled mirthlessly. “The thing that would shape my future most. Bullshit. What the hell was this supposed to teach me? That I’m not all-seeing. That seeing the future won't let me save those most precious to me. I already fucking knew that.”

  Lady Sleyca looked away, ashamed. She’d changed her mind. This wasn’t prime gossip. This was a woman hurting deeply, and she felt dirty having witnessed her pain. It wasn’t something the seer would want known, never mind seen, but Iris clearly didn’t care about appearances right now.

  “Killing you would be so easy. I’m sure I’d get away with it too. A slap on the wrist, perhaps. But I’ll let you go to trial and face punishment.”

  Iris smiled, an ugly jagged line across her face. “I’ll let you serve your sentence and a century from now, a millennium—whatever it may be—when you walk free and try to rebuild your life, I’ll be waiting. Perhaps you’ll have forgotten about all this by then, I've heard sentencing has a way of stripping you of your memories.”

  “Fortune will favour you. Life will bless you with so much you’ll think you’ve finally earned redemption. Love will find you and welcome you with open arms. Perhaps you’ll have children, and start a family. The half-brother you’ve been searching for, the one you desperately wish was alive, you’ll finally find him. I will give you a perfect life, Solana, weave a web of fate to grant you a paradise you never thought you deserved.”

  Iris paused for breath. “And then I will cut the strings, one by one. Until you remember the seer you stole from. Your perfect life will crumble down around you, like a deck of cards in the wind.”

  Lady Sleyca shivered. This was a side of Iris she’d never seen before. Every word she spoke had a note of finality to it like she was speaking sentences of prophecy into being. It was terrifying in a way few threats were.

  “I will not kill you Giant’s Bane. You all do the job for me,” Iris promised.

  With her piece said, the seer stepped away and walked towards Arthur’s corpse. She knelt down over him and closed his eyes.

  “I trust no one will have any problems if I take my Jeisha with me.”

  Lady Sleyca swallowed thickly. Jeisha—husband-to-be. She’d had no idea they were that close. Her headache intensified threefold. This was going to be far messier than she’d feared. For a brief instant, her greed for the Originator's body reared up but she instantly squashed it down. The engeli, however, weren’t so quick on the uptake and they flinched back when The One who cut turned his deadly aura on them. Large gashes appeared on their faces and they bowed their heads, cowed.

  “You may take your Jeisha, child of fate." The Originator’s voice was like a sharp blade slicing through air and hurt to listen to. Iris took his address with grace though, standing up and bowing to him, completely ignoring the blood that dripped from her ears. A red portal appeared behind her. Taking Arthur's body gently into her arms, she addressed them one last time. “Thank you for this kindness. I shall not forget it.” Turning around, she walked through the portal, the alverin at her heels. The Originator was gone.

  ~~~

  Dying was a strange experience. It was so strange, in fact, that it took Arthur a few seconds to realise he wasn’t dead. His memory was acting up too. There were two versions of events he could remember, one where Solana betrayed him and punched through his ribcage and another where nothing of note had happened until this very moment.

  Blinking away his blurry vision, he looked to the right. His very dead corpse was splayed out on the ground, a stormy-looking half-giant standing over it. Turning, she winked at him, so fast he almost thought he’d imagined it. The next second, things got crazy. Powerful beings teleported in, so strong he was shocked the tier 1 zone around them wasn’t crumbling. Things progressed very fast from there. Solana was attacked and defeated, too quick for his eyes to follow and then, things got even stranger.

  Iris had teleported in and Arthur was almost 100% certain she could see him. She was very clearly avoiding looking in his direction. Her terrifying monologue was amusing to listen to and perhaps a little creepy. Everyone probably thought the seer was flushed with rage, but Arthur could tell her darkening cheeks were just a sign of her embarrassment. Arthur didn’t blame her. He would’ve been mortified too, if he had to act out this farce. A few minutes later, everything was finished. Iris and Alyssia had disappeared with his fake dead body in tow and it was decided that Solana would stand trial two Earth weeks from now.

  That was it. Eleven minutes after Arthur was officially pronounced dead, he was left alone in the rolling fields of grass, right in the middle of nowhere. He was still reeling from what had happened, everything had an element of unreality to it, almost like he was stuck in some kind of dream sequence. What had just happened? Why did he remember Solana killing him when she clearly hadn’t, why had no one been able to see him sitting there and what was the body double his friends had used to deceive everyone. He had so many questions.

  Thankfully, it seemed he’d be getting answers soon. The storage ring on his finger grew warm, only by a few degrees, but it was noticeable. Looking into it, he saw that the healing elixir the half-giant had given him was glowing brightly. Arthur brought it out and placed it on the ground in front of him. Nothing happened at first but then blue mist began to pour out of it. A few seconds later, a miniature form of Solana was perched on the elixir flask, created out of that very mist. The mist construct had her eyes closed and appeared to be sleeping. It took a minute before the construct finally opened her eyes.

  “So,” Solana said, “you're probably wondering why I had to kill you.”

  Etherious: Originator

  Etherious: The Locus of Power has gone live. As a self published author doing everything myself, my novels success lies entirely on my shoulders. As such, the first day of a books launch is by far the most important time that determines how well my book will do.

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