Erus cast a doubtful frown upon the severed head of Dahaka’s fallen ruler.

He shot a look towards the loving couple of Alexander and Ru, but he turned away just as swiftly.

He couldn’t stomach the sight, not while his own wife’s fate was still so very much unknown to him.

All he knew was that she’d been home when Jupiter fell, and the worst of fears plagued him day and night lending fodder to Herlinde’s dangerous bargains.

Among everyone, he felt that he alone may have heard Ahzi’s dying wish, a wish he could hardly avoid sympathizing with given his own present circumstances.

Their foe had not asked for vengeance nor bloodshed or anything of the sort, rather he only wished for a single person’s prosperity.

Who might that person be? He knew the name of Rosa, but did not think the two figures were remotely the same.

The way Ahzi spoke of her made him wonder, was she something akin to his wife, or maybe his daughter? Neither possibility made his heart feel steady.

“Only those who survive get to see their loved ones again,” He said, resolving himself to dispel the sorrow in his heart.

The thing happened just as The Prince was about to place Ahzi’s head down to rejoin it with the rest of his body, no, perhaps one might say it happened because he did that.

Under any normal circumstances a deed like that would be done out of respect for the dead, but the Prince did not account for the peculiarities of a Beacon nor its temperamental deity.

Ash, crimson and bloody, saturated the field; it came from the corpse and the fallen Beacon in synergy.

The gemstone erupted with crimson light.

Nobody, not Alexander, Rusalka, Erus, Gaius, nor even the distant Irene could’ve acted any better against such a thing.

Ahzi did not wake, nor did he revive, the Beacon simply took his severed head back into its rising cocoon as it consumed his limp body in crimson red.

Erus did not have near enough strength himself to fight that pull, the head was taken from his palm by a ruthless and instantaneous effort.

Those standing around the bloody light let loose frightened exclamations to the men standing near them.

“Move back! Get out of the way!”

Each of them was gripped by the bloody light, coils of twisted energy engulfed their bodies.

The crimson Ash began to burn at their flesh, nay, to break it down to its component pieces, and it was only by the pained release of Erus’ barriers that the trapped quartet was allowed to break free.

Gaius fled first, and Alexander bid to follow.

The Lord Consort stopped in his tracks when his bride fell to her knees.

He realised in a moment that Rusalka’s body still wouldn’t quite do what she wanted it to, so he took her in his arms to flee as quickly as a man ever fled.

He called on his blade to cut apart the crimson light, the conjured will of The Goddess Authun guided him to sanctuary.

Gaius’ could not keep up, his armor burned away and he fell to his knees in a silent scream.

The furious burning that threatened to consume his flesh and bone wouldn’t let him move under his own power any longer, for unlike the others he didn’t have either the aid of Aegis’ rule breaking barrier nor a Goddess’ loaned share of Divine Power.

His great strength fled him quickly, and he could but yield to his doom as the rest escaped unscathed.

Calls resounded, and the other two men looked towards him in a helpless panic.

They couldn’t do anything for him, not as they were.

Alexander could barely save himself, not to mention his bride, and Erus, unfortunately, was stranded in place thanks to the very barriers he was now using to protect himself.

Rusalka too, who lay in her husband’s kneeling and exhausted embrace, was powerless to even move much less intervene.

Gaius noticed all of this, and thought wrought with fear, pain and panic he did not begrudge them his fate.

The man thought of his father and then of Mortuus-Vir, and only then did he close his eyes to accept the coming end.

Then, suddenly, he was shaken.

Gaius opened his eyes to find Ash wrapped his waist and limbs, Ash which hardened into Gleipnir chains.

He stirred to the sight of Irene and his own men working to drag him free of the abyss.

The Lady herself could not have managed it, even with all of her might turned to the task, but she was the first to try, the first to shout commands and make his own stunned men heed them.

Even as the battle resumed around them those men, plus one woman, all worked to pull Gaius away from the expanding reach of the bloody cocoon.

His body came to rest on safe soil, though his clothes and skin were charred and torn apart.

For a while then everyone thought their efforts must have surely been in vein, he was too wounded to escape the ordeal alive.

Alexander put down his bride nearby and then he turned and rushed to Gaius’ side.

Ere long after that the fallen Commander sensed the healing hands of Mortuus-Vir, yet when he recovered just enough to have regained his sight he realised that it was Alexander holding him instead.

He balked at the realization that his life had been saved by a man he hated, someone towards whom he had never shown even a basic degree of decorum nor respect.

Then came Irene, her tone wrought with worry as she fussed over his charred body.

“Master Gaius,” She addressed him by his name, seemingly without even thinking about it.

That was enough to make Rusalka raise her brows on the side.

Her head turned as The Prince walked free from the light to look down upon his battered and yet still surviving commander.

His gaze turned towards Alexander, who lowered his own hands with a sigh of satisfaction at the results of his exertion.

Gaius was alive, and that meant the world to Erus, who was both his lord liege and also his best friend since young.

“You have my thanks,” He said, addressing the Lord Consort of Venus.

“Just doing my duty,” Said Alexander dismissively.

“I mean it,” The Prince replied firmly, “You may consider me thoroughly in your debt over this matter.”

The Lord Consort creased his brows, then nodded his head in a gesture of comprehension.

The Prince returned that nod, and then turned his frustration towards the rising crimson cocoon.

“We were too late,” He said.

Though his pride, plus the need for a Prince to seem without fault, made him swallow the self derision that it might be his own hand that triggered the event, nothing could change the fact that The Beacon had still been invoked in the end.

That meant that though Ahzi had died his person would regenerate to form the core of a brand new Einherjar.

The countless slain men and dragons of Nidhogg lent their Ash unwittingly to the birth of that new being.

He felt frustrated, and gripped at his chest.

He cursed at the sneering Goddess, at Herlinde, known to him as Hertyr, and to others as LXXI:

“Is this all our lives mean to you?”

 

O

 

The Crimson Cocoon ascended high into the heavens.

Slowly, surely, as the hour passed it was seen from all the way back from the deck of Sigurd’s city sized Skithblathnir.

The Emperor realised then that Ahzi had perished; his last wish to the God, Grimnir, was now doomed to come true.

He saw the vast wings of Dahaka spread wide and knew that the beast would no longer fight with the loss of its master.

The beast did as he expected and glided upon the northern blowing winds to return to Alfheim’s mountains.

The Ten True Dragons followed a strict contract, or rather, a curse.

When one master dies they must always choose from another of the bloodline that shares their name to submit themselves to.

He did briefly wonder who it could be that would be chosen as the Sapphire Dragon’s new master, but as far as his heart cared it did not truly matter.

“Farewell, Ahzi. You did well.”

He turned on his heels and bid to return to his cabin.

For the final eulogy, he said only,

“May we meet again, in the service of our God.”