He was magnificent.

  Lightning crackled around his form. A Griidlord of such incalculable power. The only being I had ever seen to compare with him was Julia Rosegold. This was a deity that had marked history. This was the Crownless King. The Sword of Miami, the Sword of the Coral Throne. I felt myself grow smaller before him.

  Of course we attacked. Neither Olaf nor I hesitated. We hit him at the same moment, perfectly in sync. My CUT was a nexus of all the kinetic fire in the universe. Olaf’s shield was a blinding battering ram of pure light.

  Danefer moved with unhurried ease. His sword flicked out to strike Olaf’s shield. It was discordant how small the motion was when the result was so explosively violent. Olaf was simply ripped from his feet, his body a projectile that slammed against the wall of the chamber with a deathly crunch. Danefer’s other hand snapped out, his visor an infinity of shocking light as he embraced POWER, and he caught me by the shoulder. With the easiest twist of his wrist I was airborne, hurtling, slamming against the wall to crumple alongside Olaf.

  Danefer stepped carefully around the pulsing field that the relic emitted. The same field that had turned Tara’s suit to dust. Gingerly, he walked past the field to stand between our groaning, writhing bodies and the relic.

  He spoke. Somehow his voice seemed greater now. It resonated with the power of eternity. He was vast. He was like Rosegold had been, a titan amongst ants, but he had his faculties. I felt awe bloom in me, like I was witnessing something miraculous. Miraculous and apocalyptic.

  “Stay there, Tiberius. I had so much regret for turning on you that day in the Green Man camp. I don’t hate you. If anything, I see myself in you. There is a timeline where you grew as strong as me. If none of this had needed to transpire. As strong as me? God, no, stronger. You’re the best I’ve ever seen. You’re perfect. All you needed was time. It makes me sad, truly it does, that you will never grow to that potential. But it has to come down. So stay there and witness it. Don’t fling yourself at me again, there’s no point.”

  He took a step, centering himself so that he was squarely between us and the relic and the growing field. He spoke again, maybe more to himself this time, “God, it’s good to be in the suit again. It wasn’t easy, you know, to walk away from it. I know how you feel about it, because I feel it too. The pure unbridled ecstasy. It was Enki that forced me to leave the suit behind. And the Oracle. They could see everything I did. That was the mistake we made in Cleveland. I thought I was careful enough, but Enki must have seen something through my eyes. It was for the best. Joel didn’t want to go far enough. Joel just wanted to blackmail it, put a leash on it. He always was too gentle.”

  Olaf stirred beside me. I saw the light of his visor flicker. It came to life, dully, but there. I hissed at him, Danefer talking, barely noticing us. “Olaf… are you there?”

  Danefer said, “But there’s no way to operate when they see everything you do. I had to give it up. It was a sacrifice. Such a sacrifice. Not many can understand what it took to leave the suit behind, but I think you do.”

  Danefer flexed his folded arms. The reality around him seemed to distort. There was a haze that pulsed from him. The pure power of him. He was revelling in this moment, like an addict reunited with their drug.

  He said, “God… I’ve missed this… it’s so good to have it back… even if it’s only for a few minutes…”

  Olaf’s head lolled to look at me. He could barely keep it up. He was fading.

  I hissed, “That power, the skill you used to launch yourself… when we were fighting in the depot… It’s a kinetic energy transfer… does it just work on you? Can it work on other objects? People?”

  Danefer was speaking to the room, not to us. He knew Enki was here, listening, through my suit, or his own. I could imagine the long years he’d spent away from it. I knew all too well. It was everything to me. Every aspect of reality was greater in the suit, the sensory ecstasy, the intoxicating power. He’d thought of this moment since Cleveland, the moment when he would realize his plans. He’d probably spoken this speech a million times in his head, anticipating the day when it would all come to fruition.

  This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

  “I hate you so much, Enki. When I left the suit, I hated you for driving me to that, for making me like Joel. Every day since then has been nothing but craving. Craving and… purpose… I hated you, but then I had to remember what you were. I had to realize, you aren’t real. That you, and the others, are all the leash, the noose, around our necks. Joel knew it too, you know. I don’t know for sure that he didn’t still harbor some affection for you, or if he was just too afraid of going all the way, but he wasn’t going to detonate it in Cleveland. He was going to point it at you and make you behave. After the storm, I knew there was no controlling you. That’s why I have the courage to take it to the end.”

  Olaf nodded, barely, weakly. “Not… just… me… can… launch anything…”

  Danefer twitched, reacting to something we couldn’t hear. Enki was with him, in his head. “Oh, you’d like that. No, I think we’ll see what lies beyond that now. Beyond your control. No, no, no. that’s not true. There are fallbacks, we can control it ourselves, they’d never have been so foolish… YOU LIE!”

  I said, “Launch me.”

  Olaf groaned, “The field… you’ll hit it.”

  Danefer bellowed, “I don’t believe you! No! OF COURSE YOU CAN’T LIE. But you speak in circles. I’m NOT backing down now.”

  I said, “Do it. Olaf, do it. This doesn’t sound like the end of Boston. It sounds like the end of the world. It’s our last chance. Don’t question me. Trust me. Do it.”

  And he did. Crackling condensed power leapt to life around his fingers and lurched to fall and let his hand land behind me. Danefer caught the motion and turned. He still wasn’t worried, he was the god of all gods in this time.

  The propulsion was instant. I went from slumped against the wall to flying through the air in a blink.

  Even Danefer couldn’t react to it. As I hurtled to him, my hand drifted down to my thigh.

  It was so fast, still his sword nearly got between us. I can only imagine what it would have done to me, a CUT of that incredible power. It would have sliced me in half like a chef’s knife through a cucumber.

  But I hit him before the sword got between us. For all the incredible physical power of the propulsion, I barely made him stagger. My body crashed against him, the impact was pain and destruction to me, but to him it was a shove. His feet tumbled backwards as he reacted. I barely moved him as my bones cracked against his godly form. But I did move him.

  He entered the field. An instant later our suits were dust and the power differential between us was gone. He was a man in relics and mundane armor. I was a young man in linens. My weight drove him down, knocking him to his back, my weight slamming down on him. He was beneath me, trapped for a moment.

  The hand that drifted to my thigh came up. It came up holding Katya’s dagger. For months it had been there, a reminder of what she had said to me. Do you want to be a prince or a puppet?

  With our Swords turned to dust it was the only weapon either of us held.

  The moment remains scorched into my brain. His face, mortal and exposed, eyes going wide with shock and disbelief. His pupils dilating as he saw the knife rising high above him.

  I felt naked. More naked than I ever had in my life. I could feel the air against my skin. I was powered only by the muscles of my flesh body. I felt like a larva, like something turned backwards, primordial and primitive and weak.

  But I had enough strength to do it.

  The dagger slammed into his chest, above the collar bone, above the line of his armor. It wasn’t the kinetic violence of my sword striking armor. It was the visceral wrenching impact of steel on flesh, rebounding from bone.

  His mouth snapped into a tight circle, the human pain seizing him. I hated it, the tactile reality, the immediacy of the murder so apparent, but I twisted the knife. I needed him to die. He had been a voice in my ear once. Then he had been a threat. Then he had become the harbinger of the destruction of everything I loved.

  I wrenched the knife free and slammed it down again. Again blood spurted and his body convulsed beneath me. I sagged then, the weakness in me dragging me down. I’d been hurt before I impacted him. I’d broken bones when our bodies collided. I could feel a terrible cold chill at my extremities. I fell slack, my head on his chest, my fingers still curled around the knife embedded in his chest.

  His voice was gurgling, choking on the blood that frothed between his teeth. “You… clever bastard…”

  I held onto the knife. It was wet with blood and my fingers slithered, but I held on.

  He gargled, “You’ve got time… time to open your eyes… to see… I don’t hate you. Uuurgh… I forgive you… I was like… you… once…”

  And then, beneath the weight of my fainting body, Danefer Ma’at Ra, The Crownless King, the Sword of the Coral Throne, the Green Knight, died.