Chapter 5: Part 10 - Stone

The screams were all Erin could hear. The world seemed to come to her in fractured images, one little piece at a time. The face of the human Talon she was grappling with in the moment before he pitched over the side of the Victory. A flash of blue-grey Priory robes and what she was almost certain was Marta’s face. A pool of blood spreading across the deck beneath her, making her footing uncertain. And the sudden parting of the crowd on the ship’s deck as Talons and Priory alike scrambled for safety.

There was no safety, Erin knew. It took longer for her to realise there was also no one was screaming. What she heard was the piercing whine of Souleater gaining power, so painful and so horrifying that it still haunted her dreams years after she’d first heard it.

The world stuttered back to life as a shot rang out. Another norn crashed into Erin, almost knocking her off her feet. He wore Priory uniform, but he careened past before Erin could grab hold of him. Had he seen what Souleater could do? Had they all seen it, those who were trying to flee? The deck was too packed for Artair to pick out friend from foe, not with a weapon like Souleater. He was going to obliterate anyone who got close.

Another shot, puncturing the deeper booms from the surrounding fog. Finally, Erin found the will to move. She surged forwards, pushing past a knot of Talons who didn’t seem to know which way to run. One, wide-eyed, swung a sword towards her. Erin batted it away. All she could see now was Artair.

Artair, Souleater in his hands… and Oska.

Reckless, foolish, brave boy. As Erin watched, he threw himself at Artair with teeth bared, daggers flashing too quickly to see. Artair stepped back, swinging Souleater almost like a greatsword to parry a flurry of blows. Oska slid out of reach with effortless grace, vanished for a heartbeat, then reappeared close enough to plant a dagger in Artair’s chest. Erin’s breath caught, but the sylvari was almost as quick as the thief. He pivoted away from the blow, Souleater settling back into the curve of his shoulder as it once again began to whine.

It couldn’t last indefinitely. Erin knew the powers Spark had tampered with to make the rifle work. Artair surely couldn’t keep firing until there was no one on the Victory left standing… But one shot was all it would take. One shot and Oska would be just another limp, sightless body lying on the deck.

Erin already had her greatsword in her hand. She pushed forwards, preparing for a swing that would slow Artair down, if not disable him entirely. Before she reached him, a fresh boom shook the sky. Erin looked up in time to see a ball of orange flame rising through the tattered fog, before a shockwave hit the Victory hard enough to almost pitch Erin to her knees. She plunged her greatsword into the deck, using it to hold herself upright as the airship shook, tipped even further to one side, and finally settled.

There was a distant, resounding crash that made Erin wince. That was an airship plummeting to the ground, but which side was it on? Did it even matter? The Talons and the Priory were tearing one another apart, expending countless lives, all because Artair had Auri in his sights.

Across the deck, Oska spun into a graceful leap, his daggers snapping out ahead of him. One clanged against Souleater’s barrel; the other was only a whisker away from opening Artair’s cheek. Artair’s response was to swing in the other direction, pointing the rifle not at Oska, but into the still-frantic crowd.

Even the rifle blast couldn’t mask the screams. More bodies tumbled to the deck, the thumps cut by Oska’s howl of fury. Erin’s thoughts spun. She could intervene, she could try to cut Artair down, and she could risk more retaliations like the one he’d just pulled ‒ or she could trust Oska to hold his ground and find another way to finish this. Auri. This had always been about Auri, the weapon everyone wanted to claim.

A weapon who hadn’t yet been used.

Erin sheathed her greatsword with a clatter. She flung a human and a sylvari out of her path, then plunged back into the airship’s cabin. The fighting hadn’t stopped inside. Marissa and Amber still held the wheel. But Jean and Vasha were there and Roan had stumbled in from the main deck. Erin ploughed her way through the melee until she reached them.

“Outside,” she ordered brusquely. “Help Oska keep Artair at bay. Whatever you do, don’t let him use that rifle again.”

Vasha paled, though the other two merely nodded. Out of all those who hadn’t encountered Souleater before, Erin thought the engineer was the only one who really understood what it was capable of.

Erin caught Roan’s arm before he could leave. “Is Ivar…?”

Roan grunted. “Still out there,” he said, with a nod towards the deck. Not dead then, Erin found herself thinking, though it wasn’t much consolation. Not dead yet.

Roan was gone a moment later, leaving Erin to survey the cabin again. Some of the Priory had gained ground against the Talons; she could see a pair of heavily armoured warriors holding the doorway to the lower deck, with Haki’s shouts of frustration coming from the other side.

And there, most importantly, was Auri. She held an upper platform that overlooked the main cabin and stood there as serenely as a queen overseeing her realm. She didn’t even appear to be fighting. But she met Erin’s gaze and her smile was knowing enough that it chilled Erin to the bone.

Erin smacked a mesmer out of her path with the back of her hand, then climbed up the steep steps to the upper platform. Auri greeted her with that same triumphant smile. Erin wanted to bend down, to meet the girl eye to eye, but that would have been to treat her like a child. Whatever else Auri was, she was no longer that.

“We need to end this,” Erin said. Her hands were shaking, a sharp contrast to Auri’s poise. She couldn’t couldn’t believe it had come to this… But what else was there? With every passing minute, more airships would be shot out of the sky, more souls lost to Artair’s attacks. Erin knew that far too many of her decisions had brought them to this point. Though she wouldn’t take responsibility for Artair’s actions, she had to take it for her own.

She had to lead, in other words. She had to be without hesitation, without regret, as solid and unyielding as stone.

“End this,” Auri said dreamily. “Yes. I can do that.”

“I don’t just want to disable Artair. It has to be everything: every airship controlled by the Talons, every troop they have on the ground. All of it, in one go.”

“I can do that,” Auri said again, sharper than before, “but it won’t be all I do.”

Erin swallowed dryly. No, of course it wouldn’t. Auri was an elementalist. She couldn’t work miracles. Erin had no doubt the devastation Auri caused would be extraordinary, certainly enough to end the battle ‒ but it would also be indiscriminate.

What Erin found herself fearing most, in that moment, was what that would do to Auri. Even to end an impending war, how could she put so much on one girl’s shoulders?

“You don’t need to kill anyone,” she found herself saying. “Not one soul.”

Around Erin, the rest of the battle seemed to fade away, as though they were the only ones left in the world. Auri’s smile became sad and there was something ancient in her eyes as she said softly, “It won’t be that easy. When it comes to magic, someone always has to bear the cost.”

“Then I will,” Erin said, putting a hand on Auri’s shoulder. “This is my decision. The weight is mine.”

“Yes.” Auri’s smile brightened again. For a moment, Erin thought the girl could see right through her, to all the fear and anger and doubt deep inside. “You should probably stand back.”

Auri lifted her staff and closed her eyes. Erin managed only a single step backwards before the air seemed to become crystalline around her, needle-sharp and ice-bright. She sucked in a breath and found it scorched her lungs, not with either heat or cold, but something far stranger. She couldn’t immediately tell what Auri was doing, only that the world was becoming more constricted, as though every particle was holding its breath.

And then Auri began to sing. It was a strange, mellifluous dirge and it echoed round the cabin as though coming from more than one throat. Erin retreated further, all her flesh feeling tight against her bones. Auri’s eyes were still closed and her hands went slack, her staff drifting in the air before her. A moment later, her arms rose as though in prayer and her feet lifted off the floor.

A creeping horror spread down the back of Erin’s neck. The power Auri was channelling was extraordinary, almost inhuman ‒ and this was only the beginning.

Erin scrambled backwards. She half climbed, half fell down the stairs to the main cabin. The fighting had stalled, fearful faces turned towards Auri. Other items around the ship had begun to float, Erin realised. Her own braided hair lifted into the air as she reached the bottom of the steps, batting against a navigational instrument as it drifted past. Auri’s song abruptly cut off, leaving a ringing silence. Erin glanced behind her just in time to see the girl’s eyes snap open.

“Brace!” Erin bellowed, the word ripping out of her. Startled faces turned her way. “Brace for‒”

There was no time to even drop to her knees before the world went white.