Kylinissa gripped her ceremonial staff and quivered as the world around her was ripped and torn by apocalyptic forces. Before her, the Coven wailed in the eye of the storm, and above them, five black spots stained the sky. The earth rose, shredded by Kylin's winds and the heretic's black tug, churned into sludge and rain. Wrapping her cloak, she muttered a prayer, but could not hear the words on her own lips. Mayhem screamed in her ears.

Many acolytes huddled around her, sheltering like a shoal of fish. But none were safe from searching tendrils. Black snakes descended from the orbs and slithered upon them. Their victims screamed in agony and died slowly. Kylinissa did not know why, and in not knowing, her fear multiplied.

With a resonant command, the Coven sent blades wheeling into the sky–two-sided, like sycamore leaves, spinning in the wind. They swooped and severed the black snakes. A terrible scream sang within the winds–a banshee's triumph–as Kylin's own voice mocked her foe. The Goddess dominated the skies; a vast, imposing will.

Each of the black orbs pulsated in defiance, and Kylinissa felt herself dragged towards the nearest. She screamed and gripped her comrades as all around her, acolytes cried out and sheltered, muttering what prayers they could muster.

"Please Kylin," she rambled. "Please kill this thing. Helps us, please."

It was like no prayer she had muttered before, but it was all she could manage. Her lips moved, but the sound was swallowed by the winds. Before her, a cyclone twisted to the sky, its cap black and blue with streaks of flashing lightning. However, at its centre, the storm was calm. The warmagi's winds blew to counter the heretic's entrapping force, like a finger on the opposite end of the scale. When they were torn from the ground, their winds propelled them down, keeping them grounded, or else an updraft lifted them up when the heretic sought to crush.

The full extent of their training was coming to light, but Kylinissa feared it would not be enough. Thunder struck the black orbs and passed through them. Their edges shimmered silver and warbled, misshapen, but did not shrink. Could they hurt this thing?

Suddenly, arrows rained upon them. Kylinissa ducked, protecting her head, looking for the source. But these were no normal arrows. Shards of ice rained from the black pits, striking and killing the acolytes in droves. A woman beside her was hit and killed in an instant. And more. Kylinissa dove to the ground and pulled the woman's body over hers.

Her cloak fell about her, obscuring the sky. Briefly, in her shelter, Kylinissa could hear her own voice. She was rambling, terrified like a girl. Biting her tongue, she clenched until she bled, then shut her mouth and filled her nostrils with the dank, muddy air. Ice pelted the earth around her, heavy and brutal. Somebody tripped over her, knocking the corpse from her grasp.

Purple cloaks were above her. Legionnaires of the Iron Cohort–Legion IX's finest. Their shields raised to the sky–shining silver in the rain, imbued with Hespera's magia. Kylinissa pulled herself to her feet and searched for the Coven. She felt a rush of relief to see them unharmed by the hail. However… was it an illusion, or had their storm ebbed? How much longer could they hold out?

What more could she do to help?

A cheer rose from the legionnaires around her. Above, three of the black orbs blinked out of existence, and a fourth shrank. Suddenly, the winds picked up. Victory beamed in her heart. Kylinissa joined others in a chant as each of the Twelve raised their arms, and thunder struck its inky surface. The flashes were blinding, but as they relented, none of the heretic's stain remained.

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Kylinissa roared with exhilaration and redoubled her prayer. But something unusual loomed above Nerithon's walls. A black cloud, straight like a curtain, drew over them. It ran like a wave down the wall's length, quick and precise.

"The temple!" Aetheria ordered, and her Coven joined hands. The wind bellowed about their cloaks as Kylin leant her wrath to them. A cloud above the city's centre thickened and thunder hailed from the heavens. But then it was obscured. Nearby, suspended in the sky, a rift awakened. A huge black mass, like the night's sky itself, tearing into their realm. Within, dim stars twinkled. Its edges burned obsidian and silver. Then rained corpses.

Bodies fell upon legionnaire's shields and were tossed aside. A dreadful downpour flooded the staging grounds. Bodies piled high. Behind her, a disheveled Legion V rallied to the Iron Cohort's aid. The walls were taken. The gate had been broken. Legions' attention turned towards the battle between heresy and the Coven. However, such men, without the strength of the Gods, could do little but pray that the Coven were victorious. Just like herself.

As the downpour ebbed, a corpse landed beside her. It was black with tar and disfigured–too long to be a man, and possessed small appendages jutting from joints like malformed branches of a tree. The legionnaires nearby took a step backwards, warily, and one planted his spear into the corpse's chest for safe measure.

Then came shouts of alarm. But tall legionnaires blocked her view. She could not tell what was happening beyond a few meters. The panic grew, rushing like a broken dam. Suddenly, the corpse beside her twitched to life. It grabbed three legionnaires in its twisted limbs. They reacted quickly, cutting it down. It gripped and sliced with long nails, in spite of their blades, struggling until the last, seemingly beyond feeling pain or fearing death.

"What demon…" she blanched. "What evil is this?"

"Phalanx!" A call sounded across the legion. "Form phalanx!"

Kylinissa's eyes grew wide as she saw, across the field, an army of the disfigured monsters rising from the earth. Ranks of legionnaires rushed to stop them from reaching the Coven. A tight pack of red and bronze tips. Kylinissa would trust her life to those hardy men. But again, black snakes descended from the skies, disrupting the phalanx, spreading agony with a single bite.

One such snake, thicker than the rest composed of many dozens–a twisting knot of malice–pressed through the cyclone and struck like a bolt at the Coven. The warmagi collapsed moments before a whirling blade severed the snake's head. But more came. They were assailed on every front. From the sky, from the earth. The heretic's power was impossible, ungodly, to have withstood Kylin's wrath. The world grew dim and hopeless. Kylinissa knew the future, and felt its knowing in the minds of those around her as. Defeat, despoil and despair.

But the legionnaires of the Fifth and Iron Cohort marched on, grim faced, to meet the heretic's servants. And so too, must she play her part.

Before fear could subdue her, Kylinissa dashed through the ranks of legionnaires, over the corpses of acolytes and through the mud and milieu upon the cyclone's barrier. Winds battered her as she entered its gale, lifting her from her feet.

"Kylin!" she screamed. "Acheron. Stormstress. I yield. Claim me!"

The ground met her feet, but the winds did not abate. Hand raised to her eyes, Kylinissa bent forward, pressing through the storm. "Claim me. Use me. Vindica mē. Ūtēre mē." She spoke the ritual words. "Consume me. Sacrifice, and your will be done."

The winds vanished and Kylinissa fell onto her face. Mudstained and twisted, she rose and glanced about. All around, the cyclone's walls obscured the battlefield; Nerithon's walls were merely a gloom in the north. Above was the eye of the storm. Black dots encircled the barrier, sucking its winds like leeches. Tendrils pierced the cyclone like roots of a cave's roof, stretching down to claim them. Scythes flew overhead and lightning strung a web over the winds. The air about her was alight with power–the magia of the Gods. Kylinissa reached out and grasped Aetheria's arm.

A freezing wind tore through her body, clenching her in its jaws. Aetheria turned, her face full of rage, a mere breath away from ripping her apart.

"Nobiscum una." A woman's voice spoke, vast and authoritative. Not hers, not Aetheria's. But Kylin.

In an instant, Aetheria's mind was connected with Kylinissa's. The freezing jaws evaporated. Fury rushed into her, drowning her. All was wind and thunder and rain. The heavens above; the heretic afront. Death, and her soul plunged into the storm.

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