northernbook Ch.50— A Batlle of Attrition: Part Three.
Ch.50— A Batlle of Attrition: Part Three.
Did it make sense to feel tired of being tired? Because that was how Amy currently felt. She had been exhausted for so damn long that now, as she ran with her two companions, it wasn't an exaggeration to say that she might go crazy from constantly being on the brink of collapsing.
Her ability was reaching its limit, and so was her body and her psyche— actually, now that she thought about it, she was really fucked, wasn't she? To think that her state was the least of their concerns...
They had to get to the others; if her ability had urged her to leave quickly, then something must have happened to Lain's group. There was no time for self-pity; she reminded herself.
"We are almost at the meeting point, keep up!" Lyra shouted from ahead. She had taken the lead this time, being the least exhausted among them, which honestly wasn't saying much.
Both Lyra and Ash looked exhausted— especially Ash, who stumbled every few steps. Still, he kept running. Something that Amy found, honestly, kind of terrifying; not his willpower, but rather the possibility of him falling at any moment and being killed by the swarm.
After Elias' death back in building B, she had made herself a promise: she wouldn't let anybody else die. Now, thinking not only about Ash, but also everyone in the protagonist party, filled her with numbness.
Ugh… Wasn't running and doing sports supposed to be good for mental health? She remembered reading an article about it a few years ago… Scammers, all of them. Just a lie made by the government to control the innocent citizens.
Running sucked. Running for so long, without breaks, and using her ability all the time so as not to get killed by one of those incredibly fast monsters sucked way more. It was only now that the quick, annoying, and deadly creatures had stopped coming that Amy had been allowed to stop overusing her ability. Yet it didn't matter much, as the damage was already done; if she was tired before, now she was beyond exhausted.
This feeling of tiredness… it reminded her of the past. Why? Why now of all times did Elias pop into her mind? Why did Libris now, too? Why did she feel like she was being pulled deeper into these emotions she wanted to avoid? Did it make sense to say that she wanted to run away from running?
"Amy, keep up! We are almost there!" Lyra called, waking Amy up from her thoughts. She looked at the girl running in front of her. The distance between them had increased. When did she get that fast?
Oh, I see. It isn't her, it's me. I'm slowing down.
Ash had at some point taken her hand and was practically dragging her forward. Which was very impressive, considering he looked approximately three seconds away from passing out.
Amy considered for a second letting go of his hand; the last thing she wanted to be was a burden. Yet the small, little emotion called 'I don't want to die' refused. If she let go right now, she wouldn't last what was about to come.
Because there sure was a lot in the way.
It was almost ironic that just as she thought of this, she heard it:
First came the sound of growling from monsters intensifying from her right side. It was way louder than before, excessively louder.
Then came the sight…not the monsters, as she was already dreading. Way beyond that, actually. It was Lain's group; they had reached the meeting point.
The amount of relief that Amy felt when her eyes fell on the group running on the right side was indescribable. Honestly, she might not have felt as much relief in her life as she did back when the Goddess cured Libris from being essentially dead.
Too bad it only lasted one second.
Her enthusiasm fell as she looked at what was behind them; a swarm was sprinting right behind them, which wasn't really surprising. What was, though, was the quantity.
In their corridor, Amy and the others had managed to create a sort of barrier made of creature corpses, significantly decreasing the number of monsters that pursued them to just the smallest and least lethal.
Meanwhile, the others… it was simply chaos. Just looking at the giant gorilla made of shadows and the more than a dozen creatures pursuing them—and now pursuing Amy's group too— was all she needed to see to understand why her ability had been so insistent on bringing them back together.
"Oh, thank the fucking Goddess!" Iris shouted from the other side of the hallway as her gaze fell on them. "You were right, Zayd, they really were retreating too!"
Amy's eyes shifted to Zayd at the same time a burst of dark flame shot from his fingertips towards a creature lunging toward him— what followed was the monster convulsing violently before collapsing and being stomped by the swarm following close behind.
Somehow, neither he nor Iris looked as tired as they should. Amy found this odd but did not think much about it; she was too tired for it. She instead decided to just consider it good luck and ran with it.
Zayd didn't even look at the corpse for more than half a second, then turned towards them. "Lyra!" he barked immediately. "Miss Arkwright needs urgent healing!"
Amy blinked, confused at Zayd's unusual, urgent tone. Through her fuzzy vision, she focused on the figure she hadn't noticed before.
She was there, on Iris's back, lying limply. Lain's arms hung in the air. Her head bounced up and down as Iris kept running. There was blood coming from her abdomen, staining her clothes, and her skin looked frighteningly pale.
The dread hit Amy instantly. Or was it numbness? She could barely tell the difference right now, and she wasn't trying either. The only thing she knew was that her head had gone completely blank and that she was hyperaware of her thoughts.
No. No, no, no— she isn't dead. Zayd said she needs healing, so she isn't dead. She can't be dead.
There was simply no way she was dead.
She wasn't dead. Amy could tell that much. It wasn't her emotions gaslighting her, or her not wanting to believe what was in front of her. It couldn't be…
She really was not dead.
But she looked like she was damn close to it.
"This can't keep going…" Amy muttered under her breath, though she wasn't sure if she actually said it aloud. It was just hard to focus.
Abaddon. Abaddon. Abaddon.
Because of him, they were in this situation. Because of him, Libris was in an effectively intermittent coma. Because of him, now Lain was as she was right now. He and that Goddess.
This couldn't keep going.
He needed to die.
She would kill him.
If necessary, she would burn him, just like she burned those damn illusions of her parents.
She had promised Libris she would take care of it, and she would. All of it.
"Take her!" Iris, now running alongside Lyra, passed Lain to her, settling the injured, unconscious girl onto the healer's back, who adjusted her into position and kept running while using her healing magic.
Amy was forced to take her eyes away from the two of them as Zayd, also running ahead, blocked her view.
"Miss Stake," he said between breaths, barely loud enough for Amy to hear him, "you should probably get on my back."
Amy didn't even have time to reply as she felt her feet no longer touching the ground. Zayd, in a fluid motion, had slowed and taken her onto his back.
"Iris!" Zayd yelled towards the girl who, at some point, had slowed down and was now behind them, fighting the occasional monster. "Take care of Ash!"
The girl looked towards them, then visibly frowned. "I can't fight while taking care of him!" She said while panting hard.
"As long as we run faster, it won't matter!" Zayd replied.
Iris only thought for a second before catching up to them and taking Ash onto her back.
Even through the swirl of thoughts and numbness going through Amy's mind right now, she found the time to think that the figure of the girl carrying a man taller and more muscular than herself was kind of comical.
Not that she found it funny. It was just an observation.
"Holy fuck, dude! You are huge!" Iris yelled at Ash while running, now, at what was probably close to her full speed. It wasn't long before she not only caught up with them, but also began leading.
Amy's eyes shifted away from Iris and Ash to the unconscious Lain, who had now stopped bleeding thanks to Lyra's magic. She bit her lip, then looked at Zayd's profile.
"What happened?"
Zayd looked momentarily at her, then returned his gaze ahead. "There was a giant chaos creature making its way through, smashing everything. So Lain decided to turn about six hundred square meters of the hallway into a solid block of ice all at once."
"She overextended?" Amy asked quietly.
"That's one word for it. It was way worse. Abaddon appeared—"
Abaddon, of course, it was him. I'll kill him.
"—approximately three minutes ago on our side, and helped the chaos creatures—although not much—in destroying our defenses. It wasn't entirely bad, though, as not only did we come out in better condition thanks to Lain, but Abaddon also clearly took heavy damage. I believe he might not be able to hurt us directly, if his words about dealing with a so-called 'Goddess' are to be believed."
"Annoying bastard," Amy said.
"Crude language, but yes, I agree. He is an annoying bastard."
With those words, both of them fell silent.
The sound of their pursuers was still there, but it was getting quieter as Lyra, Zayd, and Iris sprinted. It seemed most of the faster chaos creatures had already been either killed or couldn't get past the mass of bodies behind, something which allowed them to simply run without having to defend themselves.
If she closed her eyes, it was almost peaceful.
The tired Amy buried her head into Zayd's shoulder. It wasn't a conscious decision, but more like her body gave up and simply collapsed into whatever support was available, which happened to be his soft shoulder.
Maybe it was because she was tired, but even his constant rough breathing—always in rhythm—made everything even quieter.
If only he were slower…
Every step he took sent a jolt through her body, and every jolt reminded her she was still alive and still running away. If only she could stop running for a second and just rest…
"Don't fall asleep," Zayd said between ragged breaths.
[Yeah, human girl.] Bloodedge's voice suddenly chimed in inside her brain. [You better not drop me!]
Honestly, she had almost forgotten it was there on her hand. It had been suspiciously quiet for a while, which was something she was grateful for; at least it knew how to read the room.
Amy tightened her hold on the sword, then spoke. "...I'm not asleep," she muttered. It came out weaker than she intended… she truly wanted to just go to sleep.
A short silence followed, or at least it felt like it; she had gotten too used to the beasts' noises behind.
It was weird, the world around them kept on going regardless of her condition—footsteps, distant roars— nothing changed. It was just as loud as always, yet it didn't feel like it. Was she truly falling asleep or had she just gotten used to the constant noise? She chose to think it was the latter.
She wasn't at her limit yet. She could still go on. She could still…
"I can still move," she whispered. "I don't need to keep running away…"
After a couple of seconds, upon feeling a gaze on her, she shifted her gaze up, all while still leaning on his shoulder.
She and Zayd crossed gazes.
Zayd didn't look away, and neither did she.
It was only after what felt like a very long silence that he spoke. "I believe you," he said simply, then turned his gaze back ahead. "No doubts."
Amy kept staring at the back of his head for a beat, then lowered her gaze once again.
"Good," she murmured, or maybe just thought it. Then she let her eyes close.
She wasn't sleeping, just…calming herself down.
The footsteps, the breathing, the growls…. it all blurred together. It was so peaceful…
If only she could live like this forever.
"Ahhhh! I see it! Oh lord, I see it!" Iris's voice cut through Amy's dizziness, bringing her back to the real world. "We're almost there!"
Amy's eyes snapped open. Immediately after, she looked behind. The mass of chaos creatures was still pursuing them; in fact, they had not gotten any farther away than she had previously estimated.
She turned ahead next. They were in a hall filled with pillars made from ice. The hall with the seven doors came into view in the distance. They were almost there.
"Iris!" Zayd called out. He glanced toward Iris, who was still leading with Ash draped across her back. "Do you remember the plan? Right?"
"Yeah, yeah! I remember!" Iris said between breaths. Actually, she didn't even sound that winded, which was honestly offensive. What kind of monster was she? Even Ash wasn't that durable.
"Good," Zayd nodded to himself, then took a deep breath. "Then I'll leave it to you!"
"Yup! Leave it to me!" Iris responded, then turned towards Ash on her back. "Sorry! Don't get mad, okay?"
Ash seemed to be about to say something, but couldn't as his body went flying towards the hall; Iris not only had let go of him, but she had also thrown him.
Now, with both of her hands freed, she ran back in the opposite direction, going past Zayd and Amy, specifically toward one of the ice columns they'd—or rather, Lain— spent a disgustingly large amount of effort building; each one load-bearing and connected to thick slabs of ice wedged into the ceiling above.
Iris punched with her fist, and the first pillar shattered, then the second. The third went sideways, which was not ideal, but the fourth and fifth collapsed exactly the way they were supposed to, and the ceiling above the entrance came down in something resembling a cascade, sending an enormous shock through the floor.
With the whole place coming down, Iris had to run at more than just her top speed to make it to safety in time.
The sound was tremendous and brief and then gone, replaced by the muffled shrieking of things on the other side of several tons of ice.
Iris stood at the edge of the debris, chest heaving, hands still curled into fists. She looked at what she'd done for a moment, then walked back toward the group.
None of the three runners spoke for a few seconds. Then, one by one, they simply sat down. Or rather fell down.
Zayd lowered Amy to the floor with both hands carefully. Then his legs folded, and he went down beside her, landing harder than he probably intended. He produced his handkerchief from somewhere—Amy had genuinely no idea where he kept finding them— pressed it to his forehead, and closed his eyes.
Lyra, meanwhile, had already settled Lain onto the floor before any of them; she was moving with urgency despite her own obvious exhaustion. She knelt beside her, took a couple of breaths before the healing light returned to her hands, steadier than it had any right to be after the ordeal they had gone through.
As for Ash, he lay flat on his back with his arms spread wide, staring at nothing.
Iris dropped down beside him and put her face in her hands.
"We actually made it," Ash suddenly said, loud enough for everybody to hear.
"Barely," Iris replied through her palms.
"Still counts."
It was as he said this that the ice outside groaned; something had hit it from the other side.
Amy sighed and sat against the wall with Bloodedge across her lap and her satchel pressed to her side. Her nose had stopped bleeding somewhere during the run, which she only noticed now. Her head still throbbed. Her mana reserves were somewhere between dangerously low and nonexistent. It was bad…
"We haven't done it yet," she suddenly spoke, glancing towards the two.
Ash turned his head toward her without lifting it off the floor and stared at her with a deadpan expression. "Can you maybe let us have five seconds of happiness?"
"The ice won't hold forever. They'll get through eventually." Amy continued while looking at the blocked entrance, then at the seven doors, specifically the dark one. "Now we wait. Or hold, depending on whether they break through before Crow finishes. Until we enter the Library, nothing is finished."
Iris lowered her hands from her face just enough to glare at Amy through her fingers. "Yeah, yeah," she muttered. "We know."
Another impact rattled through the ice wall. Dust and frost trickled down from the ceiling. Nobody moved. For a few seconds, the only sounds in the hall were heavy breathing, Lyra's quiet healing chants, and the distant muffled shrieks of the swarm outside.
Then Iris exhaled hard and leaned her head back against the wall. "…Still," she said after a moment, voice quieter now, "can we at least pretend we're safe for, like, one minute?"
"No," Amy replied immediately.
Iris groaned dramatically, then grinned. "You are genuinely impossible, Stake. But I suppose that's part of your charm, isn't it?"
"Indeed," said a voice from the corner of the room. "That and much more is what makes you special."
Nobody moved for a full second. Then everyone's head came up at once. Iris even jumped from her seat.
There, in the darkness, Abaddon stood leaning against the far wall with his arms loosely crossed. The cracks running across his skin had multiplied since Amy had last seen him in the corridor, to the point it was honestly ridiculous that he hadn't broken yet.
He looked, in Amy's clinical assessment, absolutely terrible. Not that they, themselves, looked any better.
"She's correct," Abaddon continued. "The impossibility of your existence is your charm, Stake. No matter how much I rack my brain, I just cannot make sense of you."
"Oh my Goddess," Iris interjected while staring at him. "What happened to you? Are you okay?"
Abaddon shifted his gaze toward Iris and raised an eyebrow.
"Sorry, weird thing to ask?" Iris continued. "It's just that I realized we—the group of teenagers who you ambushed with a horde of thousands of chaos creatures— kind of beat your sacred-by-the-Goddess prophet's ass way too hard, and I felt bad. You simply look like you are having a bad day, like a really baaaaddd day."
Abaddon tilted his head, then looked at her with a cold gaze, and smiled. "I could say the same about you lot." He regarded their group silently for a few seconds with a smile that seemed rather forced, then pushed himself off the wall and began walking toward the far side of the room.
Toward the black door. Crow's door.
He stopped in front of it and placed one hand flat against the surface. He didn't push, nor did he seem to try opening it. He just stood there with his head bowed slightly.
"Should we beat the shit out of him?" Iris asked, turning towards Amy and Zayd.
Amy looked at Iris, thought for a moment, then spoke. "I think that if we attack him, he's allowed to defend himself, or at least protect himself." She kept her eyes on his back. "But if he attacks us, his contract with the Goddess hurts him, and he doesn't seem to be in a position to take another punishment." She paused. "That's what our encounter in the headmistress’ cabin showed, at least."
The room went quiet. Abaddon's hand was still flat against Crow's door. He hadn't moved.
Then, slowly, he turned his head towards Amy. A wide, genuine smile crossed his face.
"…Why is it smiling like that?" Ash said as he slowly pushed himself up on one elbow. "That's creepy as hell."
Nobody disagreed. Even Iris scooted a little farther away from Abaddon on instinct.
Yet Abaddon didn't react to Ash's words at all. His gaze remained fixed entirely on Amy, unblinking, the grin still stretched across his cracked face.
"You believe me," he finally said.
Amy frowned, then tilted her head. "What?" she replied, confused.
His smile widened. Nobody in the room seemed to understand what he meant.
Judging from the confused look on Zayd's face and the way Lyra paused her healing, they were just as lost as Amy was.
Then Abaddon let out a quiet, breathless laugh. "Nobody did," he murmured. "Not a single person." His fingers dragged slowly across the surface of Crow's door. "Every time I spoke of the Goddess, every time I said I had seen Her, spoken to Her… they looked at me as if I were insane." His gaze sharpened on Amy. "But you." His grin twitched wider. "The words just now. The look in your eyes..."
Amy frowned deeply and stayed silent.
Abaddon chuckled. "I just figured out what you are— or rather, who you are… You are the one that the devil, impersonating God, spoke of. How did I not see it before? Now it all makes sense." Abaddon muttered something under his breath, then continued dragging his hand across the surface of the black door.
Nobody spoke or moved apart from him.
It was only after a long moment that Ash turned his head toward Amy and broke the silence.
"What was that about?" he asked quietly.
Amy kept her eyes on Abaddon's back. Her frown hadn't moved. "I don't know," she said. Which was technically true. As far as she was concerned, she knew as much as everyone else; according to his words, the Goddess had mentioned her to Abaddon—what and why, she did not know.
Ash looked at her for a second longer, clearly unsatisfied with the answer. Then he seemed to decide, correctly, that pressing further wasn't going to get him anywhere, and let his head fall back against the floor.
Meanwhile, Iris looked annoyed and muttered something about mysteries and Russian nesting dolls.
Time passed. It was impossible to say how much, exactly. The hall had no windows, the ice outside groaned at irregular intervals, and everyone was too exhausted to check if anyone even had a way to measure it.
Amy sat with her back against the wall and Bloodedge across her lap and tried, mostly unsuccessfully, to think about nothing.
Abaddon had not moved from in front of Crow's door. He had stopped touching it at some point, but he remained there with his arms loosely at his sides and his head bowed.
Lyra continued her quiet work over Lain. The healing light from her hands had grown steadier in the last stretch, and some color had crept back into Lain's face, which Amy decided to interpret as a good sign and nothing else.
She found herself looking at the black door. It occurred to her, not for the first time, that she had no idea what was taking so long. Crow had gone in there with a task and a timer they didn't actually have, and now everyone was sitting in a hall with a collapsing ice wall between them and several tons of very angry chaos creatures, waiting. She wondered, tiredly, how long was too long. She wondered if they would have to start holding the entrance. She wondered—
The door opened. It was almost anticlimactic how sudden it had been.
It simply swung inward, and then there was Crow, standing in the frame, with bags under his eyes and a somber expression.
He took one step into the hall. Then he saw his father, and he stopped.
The two of them looked at each other across the length of the room. Abaddon didn't move, and neither did Crow, who still had one hand on the doorframe, utterly motionless.
It was Lyra who moved first. She was on her feet before Amy had fully processed it. She quickly crossed the room, and when she reached Crow, she wrapped both arms around him.
It took Crow a second to react, but when he did, his posture shifted, and one of his arms came up around her.
The others got to their feet as well, including Amy. One by one, they moved slowly toward Crow and Lyra. And all the while, Abaddon took a few quiet steps to the side, away from the door, until he had placed himself at the edge of the room, watching quietly.
Nobody turned their back on him entirely.
As everyone gathered around Crow, Lyra finally let go of him.
Crow's remaining arm came up slowly and rested against her back. "Hey," he said quietly.
"Hey," Lyra responded. Her voice was mostly steady. Mostly.
"Well, if it isn't the star of the show." Ash grinned at him while patting his shoulder. "Are you feeling better, buddy? Are you—"
"I'm fine," Crow interrupted, then frowned while turning his head once again towards his father, then towards the ground where Lain was, and then finally to Amy.
It took Amy a second to understand that he was asking for a briefing.
"It's a long story." Amy started. "For the short version: Lain overextended and got almost killed. She's stable now. Lyra's been working on her." She paused and gave a sidelong glance towards the man, who observed their interaction calmly. "Your father showed up on their side. Helped the creatures, apparently, and took heavy damage doing it. Then he showed up here. He hasn't attacked yet."
Crow's jaw tightened once at the mention of Abaddon, but his expression didn't otherwise change. His gaze moved to Lain on the floor, and it stayed there for a moment longer than the others.
"The entrance is blocked," Zayd added from beside Amy. "Iris collapsed the ice columns. It won't hold indefinitely."
"How long?"
"Unknown; I'm not keen on wasting my powers with that man here," Zayd said while briefly glancing towards Abaddon. "Best estimate, somewhere between not long enough and considerably less than we'd like. Basically, we should leave while we can."
"He means we should probably not take a nap," Iris added, from somewhere to Amy's left while looking straight at Ash.
"I wasn't going to take a nap," Ash replied with a grumpy tone.
"You were literally on the floor with your eyes closed."
"I was just resting my eyes."
Crow didn't appear to register any of this conversation. His eyes had moved again, this time to the far wall where Abaddon stood.
They looked at each other for a second time, as if daring each other to speak first.
It was Abaddon who eventually gave in. "You finished your trial," he said, nodding to himself.
Crow said nothing.
"I had assumed it would take longer." Abaddon continued while tilting his head. "You're faster than I had anticipated. Maybe it's because of her presence, or maybe—"
"What is it that you want?" Crow finally spoke, staring fixedly at his father with an expression devoid of emotion, or rather masked that way. "Why have you brought me to this place? What is it that you want from us?"
"Why indeed. Wouldn't you want to know?" Abaddon regarded his son with a sad smile. "How about asking the librarian? They would give you one question, and no matter what it was, they would respond to it."
Crow's frown deepened as he stared straight into his father's eyes. "You're not going to try to stop us?" he asked.
Abaddon looked at him for a moment and smiled. "Now why would I do that," he said quietly, "when I'm the one who brought you here? I obviously want you to enter… In fact, I have reconsidered something," he said, then paused before speaking once again. "I no longer want any of you dead. What I want is to speak with my son. And to reach an agreement."
Silence followed his words. Nobody moved even after a couple of seconds had passed; everyone was just that stunned.
Everyone except Amy, who was the first to move. She stepped closer to Crow and was about to speak up, but then her gaze fell on his face.
"I know," Crow said while looking at Amy and extending his hand.
Amy understood instantly and returned Bloodedge to him.
[Nooo! I want to stay with— Ouchhh!] Bloodedge started, but was quickly silenced by Crow's rough grip.
Silently, Crow took the sword and held it at his side, then turned back toward his father. "You think," he said slowly, "that you can do this a second time."
Abaddon said nothing, just tilted his head as if he didn't know what his son was talking about.
"The cabin," Crow continued. "Your demeanor. The reasonable tone..." His jaw was tight. "A horde of chaos creatures was arriving slowly from outside, while we conversed inside. I search for answers, and you buy time, and at the end of it, you get what you came for." He finally raised his sword and pointed it at the man. "I will not entertain you any further. Either attack or leave. We will move regardless."
Abaddon looked at the sword pointed at him for a long moment.
Then he looked at his son's face.
Then, very slowly, he lowered his gaze to the floor.
He didn't attack. He didn't move at all.
Crow held the stance for another three seconds before lowering Bloodedge. He turned to Amy. "Can we enter now?" he asked.
Amy looked at him and nodded. She reached into her satchel. The seven spheres were there.
She drew them out one by one.
Nobody spoke as she crossed the hall and pressed the spheres against each of the doors, which seemed to absorb them. She moved from the second to the third, and so on.
Behind her, she could hear the ice outside groan again. It didn't sound like it was going to fall any time soon, but it was better to accelerate.
Fourth door. Fifth. Sixth. And finally the seventh. The light that bloomed from the last one was slightly brighter than the others.
All seven doors lit simultaneously.
Amy exhaled slowly, then reached into her satchel again, and her fingers found the golden key.
She stared at the key, then back at Crow's father, then once again back at the key. It was at that moment that she made a decision.
What followed was a low chuckle—not hers. Abaddon was chuckling.
Amy's hand stilled inside the satchel.
The sound didn't stop; it only grew. It was almost like he was losing his mind.
Her hand tightened on the key inside the satchel. She didn't pull it out. Instead, she decided to wait. Why? The moment she used the key, they would be transported to the library, and then any violent actions would be restricted, and they would subsequently escape the Nightmare successfully.
So why did she not use it? Only she knew why.
It was because she was tired of running away.
It was because of the conviction she had formed back during the trial.
It was also the promise she had made that night after the events of building B.
Running away now wouldn't solve her problems, only delay them.
"Amy, how long is it going to take to get us out of here?" Amy looked towards Crow, then back towards the key, and then back towards Crow. "A few minutes at most, I think." She lied as naturally as she breathed.
"Of course, nothing can ever be easy," Iris spoke with a frown.
Crow didn't even seem to suspect her as he nodded and turned back towards his father, who had now stopped laughing and was staring directly into his eyes.
"I've thought about it for a long time." Abaddon suddenly spoke, his voice level and completely emotionless. "Longer than any of you have been alive. Longer, probably, than some of you have been anything at all." His gaze stayed on Crow. "I didn't want it to be you. If I could have chosen anyone else to do this to—if there had been any other path—I would have taken it. I want you to believe that."
Crow said nothing; just like his father, his expression had locked into nothing.
"I've watched you your entire life," Abaddon continued. "Every part of it. Every terrible thing that happened to you—I watched it, and I chose to let it happen, because the alternative was a world that ends." A trace of pain moved across his face, fast and then gone. "You understand? I tortured my own son for the sake of something I believe in. I don't want you to misunderstand it as the actions of a man who doesn't care. That is the action of a man who cares about something larger than caring." Abaddon raised his arm and gazed at his palm full of cracks. "I have done everything wrong," he said, quieter now, "by every measure that a father is supposed to be judged by. I know that. I'm not asking you to forgive it. I'm asking you to understand that I would do it again, because the world I am trying to prevent is one where this—" his gaze swept briefly across the hall, across all of them, "—is our only future."
His right arm had begun to change. The cracks running across his skin were spreading even further, but he didn't seem to care.
His arm changed and slowly went from pale to black. One moment, the shape of his arm was still there, and then it wasn't. The outline blurred, and what appeared in its place was an object: a dark matter blade replete with golden cracks.
Abaddon held it at his side and raised it slowly. "I have no conviction left to preserve myself," he said. "I spent it a long time ago. What I have left is this." He exhaled, slowly. "I will not stop. I cannot stop. Even here, even now, even like this." His eyes found Crow once again. "I'm sorry it was you."
Crow once again raised Bloodedge.
Then Iris cracked her knuckles, stepping between the two and standing beside Crow. "Okay. Okay. I get it. You believe in something. Good for you." She rolled her shoulders once. "We're still going to beat the living hell out of you."
Ash pushed himself off the wall he was leaning against. He did it slowly, with visible effort, and he stood a little less steadily than usual.
Meanwhile, a dark aura appeared around Zayd's hands as he cast some sort of spell around them.
As for Lyra, she was shaking slightly, but still, she held the small knife at her side and walked behind Crow.
Amy pulled her hand out of the satchel, leaving the key behind. A massive numbness hit her as she stared at her now-closed satchel.
If the worst came to worst, she would activate the key. But right now…
She looked at Abaddon.
She thought about Libris sleeping in the damaged book pressed against her side. She thought about Elias. She thought about the unconscious Lain. She thought about the house burning and the screams inside and how it had been fake, all of it, and how she had done it anyway without flinching, and how she would do this the same way.
He would die. Not because she hated him, though she did. Not because he deserved it, though he probably did. Not because of the promise she had made, though she liked to think that was the case. But rather, because if she truly wanted to save this world, she needed to stop running and deal with this problem—Abaddon— which was now at his weakest.
Even if it meant lying to her…almost…friends…
Amy's jaw set. She exhaled through her nose, long and quiet, and clenched her fist before setting her gaze on Abaddon with a heavy heart.
She was so tired of feeling this way. But there was nothing she could do but keep going.
And keep going was what she would do.