“Strike me with your blades,” the Lion mocked the remaining eleven. “Come die as the vermin you are.”

They were happy to oblige. The eleven clashed with the god in a coordinated effort, their swords, axes, and spears tearing into his golden flesh. The god could not avoid them, could not win, only buy time for Lycaena’s escape. No matter how badly Cyrus pleaded under his breath for the Lion to flee, he would not. Endarius had been, above all, a stubborn god.

A blue-armored elite was the one to strike the killing blow. A spear pierced through Endarius’s eye and sank to the hilt. His fur rumbled, his dying roar shook the land, and then the Lion’s body split in half. A maelstrom of stars tore free of his body like floodwaters released from a dam. Whatever otherworldly essence comprised the existence of a god burned through the eleven like a swirling, rainbow fire before rolling outward in a great flare of blinding light. Cyrus crouched down and screamed. The death of something so beautiful, so noble and inseparably linked to Thanet’s identity, shook him in a way he could not fathom.

At last the noise and light faded from the suddenly quiet battlefield. Two of the eleven elites died from the eruption of divine energy, their armor melted to their bodies as they lay upon the cobblestone path leading from the main gate to the castle entrance. Nothing remained of Endarius’s body, for it had dissolved into light and crystal and floated away like scattered dust. Lycaena was long gone, having taken to the skies during the divine explosion. The paladins and priests of both gods likewise fled. A few entered the castle before it locked its gates, while the rest took to the distant portions of the outer wall not yet besieged by the invaders, seeking stairs and ladders that might allow them to escape out into Vallessau.

The soldiers of the Everlorn Empire filled the courtyard to face what was left of Thanet’s defenses. Cyrus guessed maybe a dozen archers, and twice that in armed soldiers, remained inside the castle. Opposing thoughts rattled inside his head. What to do. Where to go. None of it seemed to matter. His mind couldn’t process the shock. Last night he’d gone to bed having heard only rumors of imperial ships sailing the area. No one had known it was a full-scale invasion. No one had known Thanet’s navy would fall in a single afternoon, and the capital along with it.