Heart of the Gemini

Judgement

Everything was happening at once. The supreme verdict was almost complete, and when it was released, the beam of mana would eclipse enough of Ravnica to wipe any trace of Orzhova from the face of the plane. Not a soul would be spared, not a brick would be left in place.
Meanwhile, in the outer courtyards, Niv-Mizzet had seemingly lost all sense of himself. Even from where he stood, Gideon could see the dragon’s giant eyes glowing with unnatural illumination, a sign the White Planeswalker had always taken to indicate possession. But there was no being strong enough to possess a mind as infinite as the draco-genius, not on this nor any world Gideon had visited.
The dragon took one huge, wicked claw and dug it deep into the cobblestone. Without hesitating, he raised the second claw and ploughed it in as well, until he was deeply rooted to his place in the courtyard. Then the dragon roared with all the power his colossal voice could manage.
Gideon got his first glimpse as the bellowing echo faded. Giant runes stretching out in every direction, rising up from the cobblestones and covering the entire of Orzhova and beyond. The Izzet Guildmaster was activating a powerful magical scry, and whatever its purpose it would engulf the entire city.
It was almost too much. Standing beneath a giant dome made up of all the spirits of Ravnica, defending against an army comprising half the soldiers on the plane, they were now about to be annihilated by the supreme verdict from above, or suffer some unknown fate from the enchanted runes of a possessed dragon from below their feet.
For some reason, Gideon felt like laughing.

Inside the prison-vault, Liliana and Sorin were in the fight of their lives. Both remained in a near-constant state of de-vaporation, only ever appearing for a split-second at the most, trying to capture an opportunity to strike before vanishing again. Liliana made up for the fact that Sorin was a Black-mana user by trying to do as much damage as possible to his White-hybrid body, while Sorin avoided any spell to which Liliana would be naturally immune. It was a battle where knowledge counted for as much as strength, and a single mistake would be the tell of fate. Neither had any idea about the destruction that was at that moment raining down on the city above their heads.

The seemingly-mad dragon Niv-Mizzet was roaring furiously. Through the barbaric thunder of a dragon’s rage, two words were clear enough to make Gideon’s skin stand on edge, and Teysa cry out in alarm:
“Nicol Bolas!”
“He’s never even been seen on Ravnica,” Teysa cried out. “What does he have to do with this?!”
To Gideon, it was the explanation he had been looking for. Who else but the dragon-Planeswalker himself could control the mind of a creature as powerful as Niv-Mizzet? But understanding did not bring relief, because even an insane Niv-Mizzet was preferable to a perfectly sane Nicol Bolas.
The Izzet Guildmaster roared again, and the runes beneath the city responded by pulsing wildly. Teysa cried out in pain as the link between her and the shield around them became charged with magical energy.
“The dome!” she shrieked, “He’s controlling it! The dragon!”
But Gideon couldn’t hear her – the sky was falling.

Sorin knew of only one thing that could potentially save Liliana. He had known it from the beginning, but it was a betrayal of everything he had come to believe for a dozen lifetimes. It was the secret he had kept hidden, even from her; the secret he had feared would be discovered when Teysa’s spies visited his homeworld. Realising once and for all that he had no choice, the Vampire Planeswalker from Innistrad appeared behind Liliana Vess and bit deeply into her neck.
It was not her blood that he drained, but her magic. He searched her mind, her body and her soul until he found the contagion that had taken possession of her. It was a spell, one of the most powerful he had even encountered, and it was designed to slowly grow with time to consume the Original of Black completely. Only now, Sorin would take it into himself, thus freeing his love from its hold forever.
A dark image filled his mind, at once terrifying and familiar. It was the dragon-Planeswalker Nicol Bolas.

The supreme verdict fell on the spirit-dome, a vast column of light with enough force to wipe the barrier aside and continue unhindered in its mission for the complete obliteration of Orzhova. As the column landed on top-most section of the dome, Teysa screamed again: the barrier was absorbing the light. Gideon watched helplessly as Teysa struggled against the forces burning through her. She was a living conduit to an energy field made up of millions of souls, the same energy field that was now absorbing enough magic to decimate a world.
Outside, a thousand souls watched as the dragon’s runes turned Orzhova into a massive magical fount, set to absorb as much magic as it could. It was in that moment that the spell that had so clouded the minds of Trostani, Razia and Augustine was lifted, as Liliana Vess was freed from her curse. As one, the leaders of the Alliance of Light realised how they had been manipulated, and how the Guilds of Ravnica had been seduced into creating one of the most powerful spells in the history of the multiverse.

Sorin watched with unbridled glee as everything he had fought to protect became the instrument of his master’s vengeance. Orzhova would serve its purpose, as would all the powerful beings currently trapped inside. Liliana, Gideon, even Teysa – all pawns in his master’s plan. He had done his part too, and he would be rewarded. He thought of Liliana, and he felt nothing: just an empty space in his soul.
Standing on the rooftops, Sorin reached out with his hands and his mind, feeling the torrent of energy flowing all around him as the barrier collected the power of the supreme verdict. Everything was progressing exactly had been predicted. The Guild’s of Ravnica had done their part, manipulated into war by Liliana’s attacks. Through combat, their most powerful magics had been unleased. Now the necessary mana was collected, now spell would be cast.

Half a world watched as the very thing that had threatened to tear their plane apart, the holy city over which the High Guilds had engaged in total-war, every brick, stone, bone and soul inside the boundary of the spirit-barrier, vanished from the face of Ravnica.
A vast emptiness, like a freshly cauterised wound, was all remained of the once magnificent city-state that was Orzhova. In a single instant of blinding light, Trostani’s vision had come to pass: the same one Liliana Vess, under the duress of the dragon-Planeswalk Nicol Bolas, had planted in the minds of the elven triad. By taking their guilds to war, the Alliance had not prevented the destruction they had so readily feared, but had become the tools of its implementation.
The spirit shield erupted in light, and when it passed, nothing remained. The surround buildings were cut away and ended cleanly where the spirit-dome had stood within their walls. Inside, there was no sound, for there was not a single creature, from the smallest insect to the most powerful Planeswalker, to make one. The leaders of the Alliance of Light, the necromancer Jarad, and the dragon Niv-Mizzet stood where the great ring of standing structures ended and looked in towards the centre. They did not speak, because the first time in 10,000 years, there were no words. The one thing they all immediately knew, even without a single voice strong enough to say it, was that the war was over.