Morgan Rice - A Reign of Steel

Then another step.

Then another.

Luanda could not rectify wrongs, could not change what she had already done, the mistakes she had already made. She could not bring her homeland back. She could not restore the Shield.

But there was still one thing she could do, time for one last remaining act of redemption before she died. She could kill a barbarian. She could murder Romulus. She would get vengeance, at least, for herself, and vengeance, at least, for all of them. If she could not have anything else in life, at least she could have that.

Luanda tightened her grip as she extracted the dagger and took another step. She was but two steps away, seconds away from killing this monster. She knew that she herself would be captured and killed shortly thereafter—but she no longer cared—as long as she succeeded.

There he stood, so smug, so arrogant. He had underestimated her—like all of them. He had seen her as property, as someone not to be feared. Luanda had been underestimated her entire life. Now she was determined to make him—and every other man in her life—pay. With one stroke of the blade, her life would find satisfaction.

Luanda took the last step, raised her dagger high, and anticipated the satisfying feeling of her blade puncturing his flesh and putting an end to this creature’s life for good. She could already see it happening, could see him dropping to his knees, collapsing face first, dead.

Luanda plunged the blade down with all her might—and yet, the strangest thing happened. The blade suddenly stopped as the tip hit his back. It was like hitting steel—it could not puncture the skin. It hovered there in midair, and no matter how hard she tried to push it down, it just would not enter his skin. It was as if he were protected by a magic shield.

Romulus turned around, slowly, calmly, a smile on his face as he shook his head and stared back at her, holding the blade in midair, harmlessly. Luanda looked at the blade, wondering what had happened.

Romulus shook his head.

“It was a good attempt,” he said. “And any other time, you would have killed me. But you see,” he said, leaning in close, his pungent breath in her face, “while this moon lasts, I am invincible. To every man, to every blade, to everything of this earth. Including you and your dagger.”

Romulus leaned back and laughed, then reached out and calmly took the blade from her hand. She was helpless to stop him. He raised it high, grimaced, then suddenly stepped forward and plunged it into her heart.

Luanda gasped as she felt the cold metal entering her heart. She felt her heart stop, felt all the life and air leaving her body, felt her body go limp, numb, felt herself collapse to the wooden deck of the ship. She looked up and saw Romulus’s laughing face before her eyes closed for the last time, realizing that nothing in the world would stop Romulus. Nothing.

Her final thoughts, before all life left her, were, strangely enough, of her father.

Father , she thought, I never meant to disappoint you. Forgive me.

Thorgrin fell through the air, yelling, flailing, feeling the cold air rush past him at breathtaking speed as he plummeted for the ocean and the cliffs below. He fell hundreds of feet, feeling his entire life rush by. He knew that in moments he would land, dead, and it would all be over, here, on these rocks, at this ocean, so close to finding his mother. Here, in this Land of Druids, land of dreams. He wondered how it could be, how it was possible that he could strive for something his entire life only to have it slip away, just out of his grasp.

Somehow, he had failed. He had become the greatest warrior he could be on the battlefield; and yet, he had not conquered the depths of his own psyche. The one opponent left in the world whom he could not defeat was himself.

He’d been defeated by himself. What did that mean? He tried to understand it, at lightning speed, as he fell. To him, it meant that there must be some part of himself that was stronger than another part. A part that could defeat himself. A part that was so strong, it could overcome anything. It was a great force within him.

Thor had a sudden realization: that great force, even it was destructive, was still a part of him. It was still a force that could be harnessed. Which meant that he could find that dark part of himself, and harness it for the good. Energy was energy—it just needed to be redirected. Perhaps he could get that part of himself to work for him, instead of against him. If Thor could use that power to defeat himself, perhaps he could tap it to save himself.

Thor closed his eyes as he fell through the air, and he tried to summon his inner power, the power of his mind. He had been relying too much on his physical side his entire life, he realized. He was starting to realize that his mind was just as powerful as his body—if not more so. He could use his mind to do wonderful, miraculous things, things that his body could not.

Thorgrin focused, and as he did, he used the power of his mind to slow the world, to slow the very fabric in the air.

Thorgrin felt the world slow, then come to a stop. He felt himself floating in midair, frozen in the fabric of time and space. He felt the part of himself that was creating the time and space. He felt the infinite power within himself, the power that was not separate from the universe. He tapped into the endless stream of energy flowing through the universe, as Argon had often taught him, and he felt himself right in the center of it.

Thor held his hands out wide, palms up, and felt his fingertips and palms tingling through the very fabric of the sky. They felt as if they were on fire, burning with energy.

Thor went deeper, until he reached the place in his mind where he began to see no separation between his mind and the universe, between the energy flowing into him from the universe, and the energy flowing out. He began to see that he could control it. He could control his environment. He could also create everything around him. He saw that he could create his circumstance. And that his mind and his energy were more powerful than the manifestation he was in.

Thor commanded himself, the part of himself he could not control, the darkest part of himself. He commanded it to stop manifesting this circumstance. To change everything around him. And in the process, he forced himself to stop resisting, to let the universe be what it was. To let himself be who he was. Once he felt a complete acceptance of the universe, a complete acceptance of himself, then a deep peace overcame him, a peace unlike he had ever felt.

Thor slowly opened his eyes, and he knew, before he saw anything, that the universe around him had changed. He’d stopped himself from falling, and instead, was now floating upwards, gently, higher and higher, turning to an upright position, faster and faster, until he reached the top of the cliff. He set himself down gently, and he stood before his mother’s castle.

There was no longer any danger, no longer any fear. He’d gone to his deepest depths, and he’d risen above it. Here he was, alone, facing the entrance to his mother’s castle. He’d crossed the skywalk, the place he could never cross in his dreams. He had finally managed to cross to the other side.

Thor examined the castle in awe. Before him were two huge, golden arched doors, five times as tall as he, and five times as wide. They shone so brightly they nearly blinded him, each with massive handles carved in the shape of a falcon.

Thor sensed intuitively that grasping those handles and trying to open the door would do no good. He knew it was a magic door, the most powerful door in the world. That the only way in was if the doors were opened for him.