Etanun refused to hear his brother’s words. His heart burned with a fire of his own, the fire of vengeance unsatisfied. “Halisa cannot be cheated out of such a victory!” he declared. Akilun could only wait in silence for Etanun to know the truth.
In time, the Great Houses were rebuilt. Kingdoms were established. Nations rose and fell and warred and made peace. But those mortals who heard and paid heed to the Sphere Songs prospered and gave thanks to the Song Giver. A hundred years spun across the face of the mortal realm.
And Hri Sora returned, even as Akilun had known she would.
In a rage of fire more terrible than before, she flamed into the Near World. All the rebuilt Great Houses she tore to pieces and then set upon those she had not touched during her first life. One by one she destroyed them, and though Etanun, incensed, pursued her with all the passion of his soul, he could not overtake her trail of fire.
At last there was but one House remaining in all the Near World. The people of that land knew of the destruction wrought by Hri Sora. Desperate, they did what no man had dared do in all the generations since the coming of the Brothers Ashiun. They shut the doors of the House, hiding the glow of Asha, damping the Songs of the Spheres. And their world plummeted into darkness.
Although Hri Sora searched far and wide, she could not discover the final House of Lights.
Thus thwarted in her goal, she flew to the wide green plain of Corrilond and set fire to its lushness, turning all from green to desert in moments. There at last Etanun found her, and there he fought her a second time. The fury of their battle was beyond all telling, and mortals fled from that land, not to return for generations. Once more Hri Sora’s flame could not withstand the fire of Halisa. Etanun plunged the blade into the depths of the furnace within her breast.
For the second time, Hri Sora died and vanished from the Near World in a hurricane of ash.
Again Akilun sought out his brother, only to find him on the brink of death. Again Akilun nursed him back to life. But Hri Sora’s claws had scored Etanun’s body with deep wounds filled with dragon poison. Though Akilun ministered to his brother with great skill, when at last Etanun opened his eyes, they shimmered with the heat of remnant venom.
“I have killed her!” Etanun declared. “I have had my vengeance!”
But Akilun responded with great sorrow. “She will return more powerful than before.”
Etanun surged to his feet then, ready to kill in his anger. “Where is your lantern?” he cried. “Where is the hope you spread to mortals? Will you profane it with this dooming prophecy? Or is it that you cannot bear the glory of my might, the gift our Lord bestowed upon me, as compared to your own paltry glimmerings?”
Akilun could not reason with his brother. They parted ways, Etanun declaring that he could no longer have dealings with Akilun, prophet of doom, who disgraced the light he bore. Etanun sheathed his sword, hiding its brilliance, and refused to fight as he once had. The bitterness of dragon poison filled his body; he lowered his gaze from the Spheres Above, and he stopped up his ears to the Songs in which he had once gloried.
It was then that he began to hear the voice of Death-in-Life for himself.
“You want power?” said that dreadful Father of dragons. “You want fire that cannot be quenched? Come to me. Receive my kiss.”
Etanun plunged into the Netherworld, pursuing that voice and that false promise. “My Lord has betrayed me,” he said to himself as he went. “His gift, Halisa, has proven worthless. I will seek my own way now.” With these black thoughts, he progressed down and down, driven by poison as he pursued the Dark Water.
But Akilun followed him.
The elder brother, Asha in his hand, stepped into Death’s realm and chased Etanun down the long, dark Path. He caught him at last and pleaded with him to go no farther. “Turn your face away from this dire purpose!” he cried. “Turn back to the truth you know and humble yourself before your Lord.”
“I will not be humiliated before all the worlds again!” Etanun cried, and he spat in Akilun’s face, declaring that he would meet Death and take his kiss without fear.
So Akilun put his arms around his brother, clutching him fast. “I will not let you go another step.”
Etanun struggled; Akilun held true. Etanun’s strength was double that of his older brother, but Akilun’s love was greater still. They wrestled in the darkness of Death’s realm, Etanun resisting, Akilun restraining. All the light of Asha shone in Etanun’s eyes, brighter and brighter, chasing away the phantoms of the Netherworld and their grim whispers. “Look at it!” Akilun cried, forcing his brother to face that shining purity. “Look at it and see the truth you once knew!”
Etanun fought but the light filled him even so. The brightness and beauty of it washed Hri Sora’s poison from his veins, leaving him weak, trembling, but in the end . . . whole.