Rivalen watched blood and shadows pour from the stump of Kesson Rel’s neck. His thoughts seethed, frustration burned. He clutched his holy symbol so hard in his good hand that it cut his flesh.
He had schemed for centuries only to watch it fall apart before his eyes. He didn’t know the spells he needed to steal Kesson’s divinity. Instead, he had to stand idle and watch Erevis Cale become a god.
He cursed Brennus, cursed fate.
Above, thunder rumbled. A lightning storm lit the sky. The Lathanderians rose, their light diminished, and backed away from Kesson’s corpse. One of the shadowwalkers started forward, but the Lathanderian Cale had named Regg held him back.
The wind whipped. Darkness formed around Kesson’s body, a cloud of impenetrable blackness. Cale and Riven eased back a step. The wind became a gale, tearing at their robes, turning the drizzle into a sizzling spray. Thunder and lightning lit the sky and shook the ground. Power gathered in the shroud around Kesson’s body, the stolen divinity separating from its mortal vessel. It leaked into the air over his corpse to form a cloud that looked less like darkness and more like a hole. Rivalen saw in it the echo of the emptiness devouring Ephyras.
And in the emptiness Rivalen found revelation.
Brennus had told him that only a Chosen of Mask could safely partake of the Black Chalice, but Brennus had not known of the relationship between Shar and Mask. They were related, and so too were their servants. A Chosen of Shar, too, should be able to safely drink.
Cale and Riven fell to their knees as the power gathered. A hum filled the air, growing in volume. The clot of shadows continued to coagulate over Kesson, expanding.
Rivalen spoke an arcane word and summoned the Black Chalice from the extra-dimensional space in which he had stored it. It materialized in his hand, heavy with promise.
“I am your Chosen, or I am your failure,” Rivalen said to Shar.
He drank, and screamed.
The hole in Cale’s being yawned, and pulled at the dark power seething over Kesson. Cale heard a humming in his ears, the roll of thunder, a scream, and he could not be sure that it was not his. Shadows churned around him. The power gathering over Kesson expanded. The wind blew so hard it threatened to flatten him to the ground. A continuous boom of thunder shook the ground. Lightning shot from the sky, struck the inky cloud above Kesson, once, twice, again, again. The cloud roiled, seethed, the power within it gathering.
Cale braced himself. The hum increased in volume, the wind, the thunder.
A beam of darkness and power shot from the cloud at Cale, but not just at Cale. Another beam struck Riven in the chest. Another struck Rivalen.
All three screamed as a fraction of the stolen divinity filled their beings, overwhelmed their souls, transformed them from men to gods. Cale’s senses felt afire. His nose burned. His eyes watered. His bones ached. He fell to all fours as his mortal soul recoiled, as divine power filled the hollow spaces in him.
Then it was over.
The wind died. The thunder and lightning relented.
“Are you well?” Regg called from behind, his voice uncertain. “Erevis?”
“Stay back,” Cale said, and the shadows around him roiled. “Far back. Now, Regg. Hurry. You also, Nayan.”
Cale heard armor and weapons chink as the Lathanderians and shadowwalkers backed away ten, twenty paces. He heard their every whisper.
“What just happened?”
“Kesson is dead.”
“What are they?”
Cale looked up, over to Riven, and nodded. Riven nodded in return. Neither would have to die, at least not for lack of divinity.
He looked to Rivalen, saw the Shadovar rise, terrible and dark. Cale and Riven did the same.
Two gods stood to face one.
They stared at one another over Kesson’s corpse. The rain fell.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
7 Nightal, the Year of Lightning Storms
We stand with you,” Regg called from behind. “You need only give us the word, Cale.”
“As do we,” Nayan said in his accented Common.
Before Cale could respond, a stream of wraiths—mere hundreds had survived the battle with the shadows—swooped down from the dark sky in a long ribbon and flew between the three gods, swirled in a cyclone over Kesson’s form.
“Leave them,” Cale said to Riven, to Rivalen, to Regg and the Lathanderians.
A towering wraith, one of the Lords of Silver, separated from the swirl and hovered before Cale. His red eyes flared. He leaned in close, as if catching a whiff of divine spoor.