Kastori Restorations (The Kastori Chronicles Book 4) (27 page)

Like Crystil, though, the cries of Cyrus felt too real. His writhing was agonizingly realistic, his screams sounding just like him, and his eyes suddenly seemed to spark with emotion. The memories brought back her own pain, and the love Cyrus had shown her in her dying moments before Erda saved her.

“Why?” Cyrus asked, tears in his eyes and blood dripping from his body. “Why? You would kill the brother you love?”

The words triggered a gut reaction in Celeste, who suddenly felt weak.

“Please, help me, Celeste. Save me. I love you. I don’t want to die, not like this.”

She swore she saw the capability for connection in his eyes.
Then Typhos has it.

Typhos…

This is not your brother. It is the work of one of your brothers, but not the brother before you. If you can produce this, Typhos, you are capable of it.

I will not stop.

Celeste turned away as her fake brother gave a dying gasp before going silent.

“That felt way too real,” Celeste muttered.

But then the vision vanished, and she found herself on the outside of Mount Ardor once again. Immediately, she sensed for Cyrus and Crystil. They both still lived on Monda. She had passed yet another test.

“It’s only going to get tougher,” Celeste said.

Once more, Celeste felt lifted.

But this time, she did not stop at a place she had never seen before.

She stopped at the stairs leading up to the peak.

Typhos waited just a few more steps above.

“Typhos!” Celeste yelled, sure that her brother could hear him by now. “I’ve beaten your challenges. Nothing you throw my way will stop me. I have come to help you.”

She ascended the steps, ignoring the blistering storms and painfully sharp rain. She knew what these steps looked like, and ignored any threats that popped into her mind. She reached the platform before the last flight of stairs and looked up.

She saw a dense black sphere of magic that looked mostly unstable—electricity, fire and other spells seemed to shoot out of it. The sphere was too opaque for her to see inside, but she knew within the cocoon of dark magic Typhos awaited. She gulped and slowly ascended the last flight of stairs.

“Celeste!” the voice of Typhos roared, though he still did not reveal himself. “I am impressed. I am not surprised that you defeated the challenges. But I am genuinely impressed at how easily you got past your emotions to win the battles. Your emotions were once your weakness, able to be used against you.”

“My emotions are still a strength, Typhos,” Celeste shouted over the howling winds and lightning. “I just know when to ignore them and when to use them to my advantage.”

She stopped when she reached the peak. The magic was only about five feet away, and she felt tempted to walk through it. But something in her told her to stop.

“Regardless, you show growth, sister,” Typhos said.

“You can too, brother. You can change. Come to our side. Your fight is losing.”

Just then, she sensed the last Calypsius fall, and Cyrus by its side, striking its heart with his sword.

“All of your Calypsius creations have perished. Monda remains in human hands.”

A slow, frightening, too-confident laugh came from Typhos, who seemed utterly unconcerned at the loss of his monsters.

“My sweet sister, did you really think I would leave the fate of Monda up to monsters I know you have already defeated?”

Celeste gulped, having no idea what to expect next, but she didn’t like it.
What more could he create? What would be worse than Calypsius?

“Look up to the heavens.”

She did and gasped in horror at the massive—impossibly massive—creature. It seemed as large as Anatolus’ sun, slithering like the monster on Tapuya, with jaws large enough to destroy Mount Ardor.

“Behold, Vritrus,” Typhos said. “I will teleport it to the outer reaches of your planet. Your people will see it approaching, knowing that it brings the utter extinction of humanity, but also knowing that there is nothing they can do about it.”

“You wouldn’t,” Celeste said, horrified. How could they possibly defeat something that could physically destroy planets? At least Calypsius had to work as part of the planet. This… horror did not.

“I would, and I have,” Typhos said.

“Typhos…” Celeste said, and a fury began to envelop her. “You would destroy an entire world just for your own pleasure? You’re a coward, Typhos. A toothless coward. You want to destroy a world, yet you hide on a planet on the other side of the universe, too scared to see the faces of those who will die at your hand. You want to say the monster killed the planet, yet we know it is you who will destroy Monda. You want the glory, but none of the shame and grief that come with it. Is this what you are, Typhos?!? A coward?”

To her surprise, Typhos did not roar in anger at her. He did not scream or retort with his own insults. Instead, he sounded genuinely concerned.

“You do raise an interesting point,” he said. “I have to admit, Celeste, as much as I wish to see you gone given the pain and doubt you bring to my mind, I do admire the way you burrow into my psyche in a way no one else would even dare to do. But there is nothing you can do to change my mind.”

Suddenly, the magic seemed to rise, rushing toward Vritrus, though the sphere on the peak remained.

“Vritrus!” the voice of Typhos echoed across the planet.

Celeste looked back to the stars and saw the creature vanishing. Its teleportation moved slowly, giving Celeste hope. She ran to the barrier, but it blocked her like a solid wall. She pushed up against it, used her red magic, tried breaking it with her sword—nothing worked. She watched in horror as Vritrus disappeared, surely by now near Monda.

“I cannot say how long it will take for the monster to reach Monda,” Typhos said, a certain degree of glee in his voice. “It will not be immediate. It is not as fun that way. But if you wish to stop it…”

Then he paused, and he gave an ominous laugh.

“No, you cannot stop it. There is nothing you can do to stop it.”

A crazy thought came to mind. It didn’t seem smart, but she didn’t have any other options.

“Then perhaps you can, Typhos,” Celeste said. “Stop the madness. It’s just you and me. You’ve demonstrated how powerful you are. The people will respect your powers. You don’t need to prove anything anymore. I can help you—”

“Silence!” Typhos yelled, and the barrier shattered with a loud clang.

But when Celeste peered inside, she did not see him.

Suddenly, the storms stopped. A bright light emerged from the heavens, and a blinding figure slowly descended. Celeste put her arm to her eyes, her sword in her hand, and felt a terrible knot in her stomach as the figure covered in radiant light reached the bottom. An evil laugh came from all around her, and Celeste knew that something terrible had happened to Typhos. His laugh sounded warped, and she could sense the magic of not just Nubia and Tapuya, but also Anatolus, within him.

The figure rose from its knees, and the blinding light around it began to fade. It had no robes, but the dark, featureless mask, a long sword, a black body suit, and magic coursing through its body. Celeste had suspected who the figure was before, but now she had no doubt of him.

Typhos.

Our final battle.

46

This battle is never going to end.

This war is never going to end, not as long as we’re alive.

Crystil cursed as she saw the red Calypsius approaching with vengeance in its eyes and saliva dripping from its mouth, hungry to devour the three remaining ships. Even though she had destroyed the other two Calypsius monsters and eliminated most of Typhos’ ground forces, the commander’s patience was wearing thin. How could a monster have survived a submersion like the one this beast experienced? How many more trials would she have to experience? Was Celeste on the verge of defeating Typhos? Or was that battle not even close to happening?

“Crystil,” Emperor Orthran said.

The voice of her superior snapped her out of her funk. She reminded herself that fighting for herself and her own causes could only take her so far. But fighting for the Emperor, or for Celeste, or for Cyrus—somehow still standing after all that he had faced on the ground—could push her past fatigue and frustration.

“Crystil, what should we do?” the Emperor said, his voice patient but concerned.

“Stand by,” Crystil said, even though she saw that the monster would reach them in less than ten seconds.

The creature had no wings, though its jaws and ferocious gaze had seemed to grow stronger underwater. The hatred in the eyes of the monster reminded Crystil of the look she had seen on Typhos’ one visible eye as she had raised her gun to kill him during their first battle on Monda.

No wings mean we have the aerial advantage. So we take to the skies and dominate.

“Pull up,” she yelled as she did just that. The Emperor and Garrus followed suit, climbing to the highest elevation they had yet reached. She looked out of the cockpit and saw each ship flanking her, the Emperor on the left and Garrus on the right. “We swoop in as a unit and throw two missiles each at it. That should knock it down. Aim for the face—if we take that out, the rest of the monster falls.”

“Crystil, I…”

The Emperor’s voice trailed off. Crystil had a feeling he wasn’t saying everything. Perhaps he did not feel it was his place, but it didn’t matter much. They didn’t have time to discuss the intricacies of their strategy, not with Cyrus on the ground in danger of a stray claw or breath of fire incinerating him.

“Dive on my command,” she said.

She looked on her visual display and saw the creature swiping at humans and Kastori on the ground.
No time to waste.

“Dive!”

She tilted the
Phoenix
down and ignited the engines, increasing her descending speed toward the ugly beast. She looked at her altitude, ten thousand feet, and decided to launch the missiles at a thousand feet. They’d have to bank up quickly at that point, but with the ship’s new capabilities, she knew they could pull it off.

At six thousand feet, the Calypsius clone took notice of the three ships. It only glanced at them, though, and resumed annihilating forces on the ground. Crystil unleashed some bullets for good measure, knowing it wouldn’t do much damage but hoping it could distract the monster long enough to let some of the ground troops escape.

Three thousand feet. Crystil’s eyes narrowed. The ship could not go any faster, and she readied herself to launch and pull up almost immediately.

Two thousand feet.
You die here, Calypsius. You and all of the terrible memories you gave me. Die!

“Pull up and scatter!”

Crystil heard the Emperor’s voice and squinted in disbelief.
You’re crazy! Cyrus on the ground?!? You’re going to—

“It’s going to use red magic to tear us apart. Split up!”

Crystil swore loudly. He was right. She knew that’s why he had hesitated to speak. He didn’t want to overrule the commander—but at the last second, his survival instincts had kicked in.

“You heard him, Garrus, move!”

She brought the
Phoenix
up as fast as she could, just as the red Calypsius rose and snapped its jaws at the ship. She felt the ship creak as it struggled against the magical powers of the monster. Her ship lost power and began to fall to Monda. Crystil swore loudly as she did everything she could to kickstart the ship back up.

But it was no use. She could not restart the ship, and it plummeted.

As it fell, she saw the outline of the monster standing over her, then running away from her.
Coward. Come back here. Let me look at you as I die.

No. Crystil. Nothing you can do.

Cyrus. Celeste. Emperor Orthran. Thank you. I—

But then the ship lurched, coming to a halt, and Crystil nearly broke out of her belt. When she settled down, sure that she was not the victim of some mind trick, she looked out at the ground in front of her.

There stood Cyrus, straining with his arms raised, holding the ship aloft about a dozen feet off the ground. Crystil just smiled at him. He had come through to rescue her once again.
And he says that he plays no part in this mission.

She reignited the engines, and with the monster no longer attending to her, she lifted back up, power restored. She gave a thumbs up to Cyrus, knowing he probably wouldn’t see it but mentally noting to reward him later.

“Crystil!” Garrus said, laughing. “I should’ve known a girl who spends her time with magi… with Kastori might have a few tricks up her sleeve.”

“It was a one-shot deal, Garrus,” Crystil said with warmth in her voice. “Let’s not waste it. Now then. We can’t attack the monster as a unit. So—”

“We attack it randomly and without pattern,” the Emperor said.

I’d say he’s earned the right to take over this portion of the battle.

“Couldn’t agree more, sir,” Crystil said. “Garrus, you heard him. Use your radar to make sure you don’t hit one of us, but otherwise, attack this beast and let’s end the terror of Calypsius.”