Chapter Seventy-Six:

  “Wasted Time”

  The Dark One's manifestation towered high above Emberwood, a celestial specter draped in violet and black. His mask, a horrifying presence in itself, bore witness to the silent terror creeping through the village below. The village reeked of sweat and terror, the sour tang of fear mingling with the stench of panic.

  Sterling did not merely speak into this world, he saw through it. The sightless sockets of his mask stretched past the limits of flesh and bone, watching, observing. And what he saw, what he heard, burrowed deep into the marrow of his awareness.

  A voice, defiant, arrogant.

  "Yeah, I was thinking the same thing… what a dick."

  His masked visage tilted ever so slightly. The faintest movement. The kind that sent kings into exile and gods into prayer.

  His voice did not rise in anger. It did not need to. It arrived as it always did, calm, absolute.

  “Ah, yes… the hero who failed Kolnheim. How's that Waystone doing?”

  The words cascaded from the heavens, striking Leo’s chest, constricting tight around memories he could never erase. The massive warfront, the Hallow Mother. The promise he had made, answered only by graves.

  Sterling did not pause for reaction. He did not need to. Guilt did not require invitation.

  His gaze turned, picking at another scab to bleed.

  “The Elven Archer, fooled by a wendigo. The one who failed Oakspire.”

  Emily’s fingers tensed over her bowstring, though she had not drawn an arrow. The cries of the Guardians had already taken aim, piercing through her ears, deafening her resolve. Her trust had caused her greatest failure. Her greatest weakness.

  His malicious truths turned again, his sightless stare settling on the young man who had, for once, remained silent.

  "And I mustn’t forget the young thief who failed his sister back in what you think was your home."

  A pause. A breath. A knife waiting to be turned.

  “What was her name again?” The words dripped, honey, sweet, slow, cruel. “Navi? Tell me, Ankit, what happened to her?”

  The question did not need an answer. The past had already given one.

  Ankit’s lips remained shut, his posture breaking, the memories clawing their way to the surface. Sterling knew. Somehow. He had heard her screams.

  And finally, at the center of it all, Keira.

  "Last, but certainly not least," his voice dipped into something gentle, a mockery of sympathy. "The one who failed her entire crew. Her family."

  He let it smolder, feeding the slow burn of his words until they seared into place.

  "Again."

  The single word sealed the wound in fire, trapping the agony beneath charred ruin.

  His words enclosed around her throat, tighter with every heartbeat. Rachel. Chris. Roland. Names that lived now, only as embers in the wind.

  He gave no room for response, no space for denial.

  A slow exhale. Contentment.

  “So much failure. So much loss.”

  Then the knife slid free, his voice turning soft.

  “Sad, really… on so many levels.”

  The bridge of the Aetheris trembled, not from turbulence, but under the crushing weight of divinity. The ship’s bones groaned, steel and magic bending in protest. The Aetheris recoiled from Sterling’s godly apparition, its very essence rejecting his presence

  Evelyn stood rigid beside the captain’s chair, her fingers digging into the aged leather, its fur-trimmed edges soft beneath her grip, but she barely felt it. Her nails pressed deeper, carving crescents into the hide as she stared through the massive windows.

  Beyond the glass, the sky warped beneath sheer arrogance. Sterling’s presence did not belong in the heavens. He was an infection, a nightmare given form. His towering manifestation loomed above Emberwood, the antlered skull mask leering down at the village, the voice slithering into every street, every alley, every trembling soul below.

  The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  His words lingered. Last, but certainly not least… The one who failed her entire crew.

  Evelyn bit her lower lip, hard.

  Her grip on the chair tightened.

  She wanted to look away, wanted to scream to them, shout not to listen but she couldn’t. So, her eyes remained locked on that wretched mask, her pulse hammering against her ears. Every syllable from Sterling’s mouth pried deeper into the fractures of her mind, insidious, inescapable.

  A fury boiled beneath her skin, crawling up her throat, gnashing against her teeth. Her lip ached where she had bitten too deep, but she didn’t care. It only sharpened the edge of her rage.

  She closed her eyes, steadying her breath.

  Through clenched teeth, she spat the only words that made sense in that moment.

  “What a dick.”

  Above the Aetheris. Above Emberwood Village. Above all of Aetheria, Sterling’s mask hung over the world, an unblinking god in silent dominion.

  His sight pierced through the veil of clouds. The Aetheris hung in the sky, an insect caught in a web of fire, its polished brass and steel gleaming dully in the dim light. He did not need to wonder who was inside. He knew. Their souls. Their sins. Their hollow delusions of safety.

  His voice descended like a cold wind, freezing the sky, seeping into the very walls of the vessel above Emberwood.

  “Evelyn. I nearly forgot about you.”

  His tone carried the faintest trace of mockery, as if she were nothing more than a footnote in a history he had already written. The pause was not for consideration, he did not need to think. The truth was a whip, already cracked.

  “Hiding up in your false sanctuary?”

  His masked face turned slightly, the weight of his attention shifting toward the Aetheris itself.

  “The one who sells herself, again and again.” A breath of silence. “You, of course, would know all about... that appendage.”

  The moment stretched, deliberate. Then his words pressed on, effortless, unrelenting.

  “Who else clings to the illusion of safety aboard this farce? The captain with no home,” he mused, his words shattering through steel and glass slamming into Amari, “and an old Sage.” He savored the word, letting it decay on his tongue.

  Below deck, having arrived with weapons, Elyndra steadied herself against the arm of her chair before rising, her cloak settling around her shoulders.

  Sterling’s voice softened, if only slightly. An offer wrapped in inevitability.

  “Tell me, Sage, where is the Guardian? If you tell me…” Another pause, slow, savoring. “You have my word, you will die another day. Long from now.”

  Hex stood at her father’s side, her gaze rising toward the immense figure beside her. He was an unshakable force, a descent into madness. She had never doubted his power, never questioned it. Looking at him now, she felt reverence, but something more. It nestled beneath her ribs cradling her heart. It was a love that belonged to a daughter, and a fear that belonged to the condemned.

  Sterling cold eyes tilted downward, the glow cutting into her, a blade pressed too close to the skin.

  “How long would you like me to give them to decide?”

  Hex considered the question. The screams, the suffering, they had become something of a melody, a song she had learned to savor. But even she did not wish to linger at her father’s side longer than was necessary.

  She hummed softly, tapping a finger against her chin, drawing out the moment as if the decision truly required thought. Then, her smile widened.

  “Mmmm, I think that’s long enough, actually.”

  Sterling’s eyes bore into her, the chill in them was absolute, the kind that made lesser things shrivel, die.

  Hex did not.

  She kept the smile, sweet and sharp, as if the instinct to step back had never crossed her mind.

  “You are sure?”

  She tilted her head, the playful lilt never leaving her voice.

  “Mmhmm.”

  Sterling did not hesitate. The decision had been made.

  “Very well.”

  He drew Souleater from his side, the blade humming, violet energy brimming along its edges. With deliberate ease, he raised it, the tip angling toward the Aetheris above, a silent declaration. A promise of what was to come.

  The winds answered first.

  A howl tore through the sky, spiraling out from the blade’s edge. The air bent, warped, obeyed. What had been a steady breeze became a ravenous force, twisting and snapping, the heavens themselves unshackled.

  Three funnels erupted from the storm-forged clouds, driving through the sky in perfect formation. The tornadoes encircled the Aetheris, moving with eerie synchronicity, a wicked game of musical chairs, with the ship as the only seat.

  Below, Emberwood broke.

  The village was not simply battered, it was ripped apart. Roofs peeled away like leaves in a storm, wooden beams splintered, carts overturned and tumbled through the streets like discarded toys. The wind swallowed the screams of villagers and Players as they fled, their bodies devoured by the relentless force.

  Among them, the Aetheris crew sprinted, diving into doorways, pressing against walls, shielding their eyes from the debris that swirled through the air.

  But there was nowhere safe.

  Not from this.

  Asha clung to the shattered remains of a market stall, her fingers drilling into splintered wood as the storm roared around her. The winds howled, a force trying to wrench her from the earth, but she refused to let go.

  Her eyes locked onto the Aetheris, trapped within the spiraling chaos above. Her brother was there. Amari. Somewhere inside that storm of steel and fury.

  The three tornadoes spiraled inward, converging as one. The moment they met, the airship shattered. A deafening crack split the air as the Aetheris was unmade. Wood, brass, and cloth were torn asunder, flung in every direction like broken feathers scattered to the wind.

  Two bursts of light.

  One, crimson, blood-red.

  The other, a green deeper than the oldest forest.

  Asha gasped, something stepping through her, not wind, not debris, but a presence, sudden and inescapable. A pull deeper than memory, stronger than instinct. A cruel twist of fate. She felt him.

  Her twin.

  The last flicker of his thoughts ignited in her mind, burning bright for a single breath before vanishing into the void.

  Don’t give up.

  Asha’s grip clamped down, her entire body trembling against the force. Her heart pounded, her breath hitched, and yet, she held on.

  She would never give up.

  Sterling stood in absolute stillness, his antlered crown merging with the dying storm. Its final echoes fading into silence. The Aetheris was no more, reduced to fragments lost in the sky, nothing but scattered memories splashed with red and green. The wind carried them away before they could ever be caught.

  His stare descended upon Hex, heavy with judgment and approval.

  “Very wise choice.” His voice, smooth and unhurried. “Can you tell me why, child?”

  Hex tapped a finger against her chin, squinting one eye as she tilted her head upward. The wind had quieted, the chaos settling into eerie stillness. She took in the empty space where the airship had been, watching the last remnants dissolve into the dying breeze.

  “Because wasted time is the only thing one can never get back.”

  For the first time in longer than most would believe, Sterling did something.

  He smiled.