Chapter 78 THE KING OF PURGATORY
Dorian's heart had stopped. There was no breath in his lungs.
But when Lyra's tiny, ice-cold hand reached from the other side of the mirror and grabbed her father's soul, the laws of physics bent. Death was forced to recognize the authority of this little girl.
Lying on the floor of the throne room, Dorian's body jerked like a puppet.
His rib cage expanded upward with the sound of cracking bones. The black smoke that had been unleashed when he broke the mask didn't dissipate; instead, it retreated. It poured back into Dorian's mouth, nose, and ears.
"Impossible," Valeria whispered, taking a step back. "His soul is gone! He should just be a corpse!"
But the corpse was standing up.
Dorian straightened. His movements weren't fluid; they were staccato, mechanical. When he lifted his head, his eyes held neither the old green nor the mask's red.
He had no eyes. His eye sockets were filled with an infinite darkness where not even stars existed.
Dorian opened his mouth, but the voice that came out wasn't his. It was a metallic echo, mixed with the sound of thousands of shattering glasses.
"DENIED."
This word didn't come from Dorian. This word was Lyra's will from Sector Zero, spilling from her father's lips.
(THE END OF THE SHADOW COUNCIL)
Valeria raised her staff. "Attack! Destroy the body before the soul settles!"
The six members of the Shadow Council (the masked figures) hurled their black magic at Dorian. Spears made of shadow impaled Dorian's chest.
But Dorian didn't bleed.
The moment the spears touched his body, they were absorbed.
Dorian was like a black hole. He swallowed light, sound, magic, and life.
Dorian waved his hand. There was no physical contact. But three of the Council members crumpled where they stood, imploding inward. Their armor emptied, their bodies vanishing into nothingness in an instant.
"He is not a King," said one of the remaining Council members, removing his mask in terror. "He is a Void."
Dorian took a step. With every step, the floor was covered in black ice.
Valeria realized her power was nothing against this entity. "Retreat!" she shouted. "Blow the palace support columns! Bury him under the rubble!"
But Dorian didn't let Valeria escape.
He reached out his hand. Valeria hung suspended in the air as she tried to flee. An invisible hand was choking her.
Dorian (or Lyra controlling him) pulled Valeria close. They came face to face. Dorian's empty eye sockets stared into Valeria's soul.
"MY AUNT..." said that distorted, polyphonic tone. "IS SCARED."
Was this Atlas's voice? Or Lyra's? It was unknown. Dorian threw Valeria onto the throne like a rag doll. Valeria fainted from the impact.
Dorian turned to the other Council members. They were trying to run.
Dorian simply took a deep breath.
All the air, all the shadows, all the life energy in the room was sucked into Dorian's lungs. The Council members turned to dust and scattered.
In the throne room, only the unconscious Valeria and the standing, trembling Dorian remained.
(THE OTHER SIDE OF THE MIRROR: SECTOR ZERO)
At the same time, underground.
Serra watched Lyra trembling in her arms. The baby was focused to the point where blood trickled from her nose.
"Lyra, breathe!" Serra said, shaking her daughter. "You have to let your father go! He is consuming you!"
"She can't let go," Lukas said, looking at the energy reader in his hand. The values were going crazy. "Dorian's life plug has been pulled, Serra. Right now, Lyra is his generator. If Lyra cuts the connection, Dorian falls."
Kael looked at the charred bodies of the miners around him. "So is Dorian alive or dead?"
"He is in Purgatory," Lukas said. "Neither here nor there. He is a puppet, and the strings are in Lyra's hands."
Serra looked at Dorian's image in the mirror (the reflective surface in Sector Zero). Her husband was standing, but he was hollow inside.
"We have to bring him here," Serra said. "Or we have to go there. This distance will kill Lyra."
At that moment, Atlas sat up in his stroller. He saw his twin suffering.
Atlas took Lyra's hand.
When the two siblings held hands, Dorian's body in the throne room shuddered once more.
Atlas provided the energy, Lyra provided the direction.
(THE REUNION: ROYAL ELEVATOR)
Dorian moved in the throne room. But this time it seemed like a conscious movement. He threw Valeria's unconscious body over his shoulder. Then he hit a secret panel behind the throne.
This was the high-speed elevator known only to kings, descending to the very bottom of the palace, to Sector Zero.
Dorian stepped into the elevator and pulled the lever.
Minutes later, in the dusty darkness of Sector Zero, the elevator doors opened.
Kael and Serra were waiting, weapons drawn.
Dorian emerged from the smoke. Valeria was on his shoulder.
But as soon as Dorian took a step, he collapsed. Valeria rolled to the side.
Serra ran to Dorian's side. She placed his head on her lap.
Dorian's eyes were closed. His chest wasn't rising or falling. When she touched his skin, it was neither hot nor cold; it just felt... absent.
"Dorian?"
Lyra reached out from Serra's arms and placed her tiny hand on her father's forehead.
Dorian suddenly gasped. A huge, drowning breath.
He opened his eyes. His eyes had returned, but their color was a pale, greyish green.
"Serra," Dorian whispered. His voice was his own, but it sounded like it was coming from very far away. "It's so cold. It's so cold inside."
"I'm here," Serra said, weeping. "I'll warm you up."
"No," Dorian said, looking at Lyra. "She is holding me. If she sleeps... I go."
Dorian sat up with difficulty. He looked at Valeria lying unconscious on the ground. Then at his loyal (and surviving) team around him.
"The palace has fallen," Dorian said. "The Shadow Council is finished. But I am finished too."
"You aren't finished," Kael said, hooking his arm under Dorian's and lifting him up. "Let's just say... you've been reformatted, boss."
Dorian looked into the dark tunnel, into that eternity.
"There is no throne anymore," Dorian said. "There are no rules anymore. We are ghosts. And ghosts only want one thing."
"What?" Lukas asked.
Dorian's grey eyes fixed on Serra's black-veined arm.
"Not revenge," Dorian said. "Healing. I don't have the luxury of dying before I save my wife."