Chapter 2: A Voice to Come
“Starfall, in the ash we remain. Here the black crown grows, its magnanimity but a lie. For each still holds their sufferings, a cause for the moan. Where our light once shown, now only lies in memory. In the time before we forgot, we once held the key now lost. Starfall, a gateway to build. The choices were given, but not the ones chosen. We, the ones who walk the ash, are fit to choose. Whether by ourselves, or by children we will never see. Give us the chance to dream, for in this sleepless dream of life, we are not free.”
The music filled the air, a soundless tune that strummed behind the notes of other instruments. Hidden in plain sight, yet obvious to all with ears to hear, for the eyes lied at what they saw. Rythia's magic held an odd sway over the life in her hands, a creature not an animal, not anymore a relic of the War. An abomination, a sacrilege to the holy Songs, yet it lived and breathed as all life did. So what difference did it make?
Her Song seeped into its bones, using its arrhythmic heartbeat to guide the power through its veins, or what was left of them. The raiders had caused one of the old machines to explode after hunting a different Fallen, only to find this poor being in the wreckage. Its flesh was burned, with several broken bones and internal hemorrhaging from several organs. She thought it was odd that the thing had functional organs; the Fallen were effectively undead. Yet this specimen was something different, like the Shadows were actually trying to make good on their words.
Over the last several years, they had been causing the Infection to mutate life to be less monofunctional. They were in fact managing to stabilize the Cradle, only at the expense of Rythia's power. Though she wouldn't complain, it hid the work she was doing; so long as the Shadows continued to see her as a power source, they wouldn't notice a soul or two fading away without joining the Songs once more. Refocusing, she called on the power around her, brushing against the souls of the Raiders gathered round, paint still wet on skin from where they drew her rune. A simple chord was all that was needed, enough for her to quickly close its veins and block its nerves to dull what she was about to do.
Pushing a little of their power into the being, she regenerated its flesh. Having lived through the height of the Quartet's power, she had received a fantastic education in nearly every subject. Her control over the dead had in fact given her quite a few ideas about the Song she was crafting. During her tenure as one of the Grand Generals of the Quartet's military, as well as her place as the head of Brownie society and might, she had learned that healing magic was not exactly an extant system.
Rythia quickly realized that while the flesh held onto its soul with a vigor that would rival any drunk to a bottle, the dead flesh willingly gave its power up. She could make the bodies move with outside power, or by using the rest of the energy inside its body before it quickly started digesting itself. She realized that her contact with the dead and their souls was not so different than what life did. Life and death were part of the same coin; as such, the Spark that she needed to compose her Song that allowed the dead to reanimate, or spent its power in death, was also the source of life.
She was a Brownie, a being of song and music, of vibration and frequency, the bridge between energy and matter. She realized everyone had a song to them, not just Songs and notes that made up their existence through the Quartet's efforts. Their heartbeats were the unique beat to their lives. Pushing her song through the heart let the body remember the song it had been. Let the body do all the hard work; her song was part about remembering the life one had lived as much as it was about a safe place for the dead.
As Rythia pushed power into this creature's heart, its missing leg began to regrow, as her song repeated chord after chord in time with the beat of its heart. The raiders could hear each rib pop back into place; her crescendo in space and time kept the rhythm. Though she was quickly feeling the fact that streams wished to become rivers with how much power was flowing through her. The problem with that was when streams became rivers, they never got out of the flood without damage.
Breathing deeply, slowly, controlling the amount of energy she was pushing into the creature toward something that was far more manageable. "Don't open a flood gate when all you want is a trickle, Rythia." She thought to herself.
Closing her eyes, she sank herself into the body of the creature, feeling its Spark through her own. An odd willingness to it, like the raiders around her and how their sparks reacted to the rune on their skin. The fact that it had a true Spark at all was all she needed to know to understand that it was a Child, like her. She felt its tissues knit back together, felt the blood flow into its new flesh. She wondered if she kept this song up for long enough, the magic would force its body to start developing issues. If she forced it to continue to regenerate like this, it would probably start developing cancers or tumors, possibly even growing bones right into new ones.
Sliding her consciousness into its mind, she explore it's memories. Tapping into the neural network of its brain, she felt something, something powerful. Something grabbed onto her own like a drowning man at sea, and she was the only piece of driftwood in the ocean. "Rythia?"
With a sharp intake of breath, she fell back from the creature, while the other raiders circled the creature now sitting up. He looked right at her, a clarity in his eyes. Sober and analytical. "Welcome back to the world of the living," She told him as the last of the skin on his face smoothed over the scars from the now-healed burns.
He looked down at himself, turning his hands over. Picking herself up off the ground with a gesture, the raiders backed down; she was tired of having to tell them that there was very little in this world that wasn't self-inflicted that could hurt her. She walked up to him, nearly touching noses while he was still on the ground. He understood that she was letting him use her eyes as a mirror, feeling where the points of his ears used to be.
Rounded ears, olive-skinned, completely devoid of the previous features that the infection had given him. "It would seem that I am not physically a Fae any longer." He said quietly, "What did you do to me? The last thing I remember was... no, I don't want to think about it."
"Well, could you do me a favor?" She asked as her knees started to give out, feeling a wave of drunkenness wash over her from using the songs for too long.
"What's that?" His eyes locked with hers.
"Don't let my face hit the ground." She whispered as she fell forward, utterly spent. He caught her, though not without several dozen alarmed shouts from the raiders.
She woke in the caves surrounded by her acolytes and raiders alike. Stirring under the heavy blankets, she got the attention of the raiders watching over her. By the time she was sitting up, Tylic was there. She smiled unconsciously at seeing him, a warmth welling in her chest. "What happened? What the Family has been telling me doesn't make sense; you did something that pushed yourself too far."
Covering her eyes with her hand, even the dim light of the multitude of candles inside the village was too much at the moment. "I feel like I just lost a drinking contest with a bear." She groaned, though she never let the smile fade.
Someone pressed a glass into her hand; without thinking about it, she brought it to her lips, then immediately spat it out. The bitter fluid clung to her lips like a balm; it took her a moment before she realized what it was, and she slugged it down anyway. A tincture of roots found in the caves, they dulled the pain of magic overuse, mixed with a heavy dose of the medicine that survived the Dawn. Anti-inflammatories, weak stuff, but it did the trick.
Tylic handed her his water skin; drinking deeply from it, she sighed contentedly. "Well?" He asked, a slight edge to his voice, finally bringing the corners of her mouth down. A slight disappointment that he wasn’t as happy to see her as she him.
"I regenerated and healed a wounded Vestige. I've been looking for test subjects for a theory I had since my newest research began. I figured something like that had enough similarity to what I already understood would make a good stand-in. Where is my patient anyway? He seemed incredibly lucid." She said, looking around the room; the stairway down to the lower levels of the cave was busy with people laden with supplies.
"Dead. The raiders didn't know he wasn't hostile. They watched you bring a mangled body back from death and healed it to a perfect state, then watched you collapse as it caught you. What did you think would happen?" Tylic explained, crossing his arms for the inevitable tirade he was expecting.
Her eye twitched at the news. "So my suffering was in vain, for nothing. So I can push myself to the limit of fading away for the raiders to make my decision and choices mean nothing?"
"Mother, they were worried about your safety." He began, before Rythia silenced the entire cavern system, pushing her voice throughout the structure.
"I want the raiders that accompanied me on this last mission to report to me, now." Her voice was cold, bordering on fury, but the disappointment was heavy. Turning her eyes back to Tylic, already feeling a slight waviness in her mind. "You will stay quiet, Father. While you may have command outside the village, the house is mine. I need to set that rule now. You may have full permission to do what you see fit while the raiders are out hunting. I have full command while the Family is home. Can we agree on that, right now?"
He frowned, then nodded. "Really want to divide command like this?" He asked as the first of the raiders appeared, standing off to the side waiting at guard.
"As much as a diarchal system annoys me, we need checks and balances. I may challenge you on your choices out in the field, and you may challenge mine here. But we may not stop each other unless it puts the Family at risk." She spoke quickly while three more raiders appeared, copying the first.
He nodded, rising to stand with his raiders. Having to forcibly hide a smile at his integrity in the matter, she rose from the bed, pulling the blanket over her as she went. A few dozen raiders stood at attention, waiting for their Priestess to speak. Walking up and down the rows of the quickly gathered raiders, it wasn't missed that a large crowd was gathering around. Maybe they were looking forward to seeing a dressing down, maybe they were seeing what she would do, maybe they just wanted to see how she would handle something like this.
"Which one of you killed the man I had healed?" Her eyes darted between them before a young woman stepped forward. Rythia stepped in front of her, looking her up and down; she noticed several bruises and cuts along her arms and shoulders. "Are you hurt?"
"I'm fine, Mother." She wouldn't look Rythia in the eyes. She simply stayed silent, staring the woman in the eyes, humming a few chords of her song; she showed the sparks of all the raiders in the formation. "I thought he was going to hurt you. I, I," She stammered out, unable to take the pressure.
"So you watched me save a man's life; you watched me fall as he caught me. Your first thought was to kill him?" Her brow beaded with sweat. Though Rythia did not give her a chance to speak. "In what way are you any different from him? If I healed your wounds and eased your exhaustion, and I collapsed and you caught me, in your mind someone would be justified in killing you?"
"I would hope that someone wouldn't mistake me for a threat." She said quickly.
"But you perceived that man as a threat when he quite possibly wasn't. You didn't answer my question." Her voice was firm, unrelenting.
"I am one of the Family." She answered with such confidence that only comes with repetition and practice.
"You are one of the Vestiges we hunt. I am one as well," With a wave at the entire cave. "We all are. We were changed in the name of Bhal's will; we live to serve his purposes and the wills of the other gods. So what makes those we hunt any different? What makes you any different? Is it the word of Bhal? Is the command of your Chief? Is it my command?"
"I don't know, Mother." She gulped.
Rythia pushed her song into the woman's heart, healing her injuries, despite how minor they were. Using the melody to ease the exhaustion from her mind and body. "I care about you all; I do not wish to see any of you suffer. I do not wish to live in a world that so carelessly throws a life away on a whim. I put time and effort into that man, and you squandered it. I wanted to see if all those we hunt are monsters, or if we simply obey Bhal and his command without thought."
She turned her back to the woman before continuing, "If kindness is not worth pursuing because of perceived threats, then our lives shouldn't mean anything. Then why did I just heal you?"
"Because you are kind, Mother." She answered, which only made Rythia sigh loud enough to echo off the walls of the caves.
"Some might call me that; some like to believe it. But, me? I do not think I am kind; I simply do not wish to see those suffer continue to do so when I can do something about it. It isn't kindness that makes me do it; I don't know what to call it. Duty? Honor? Remembrance of the past that you all do not recall? The thoughts of my own Mother, what she would have done?"
Rythia turned back to the woman; her face had gone pale. Her shoulders were shaking, like a child scared of the belt. "What is wrong?" She asked the woman.
She was quiet, eyes darting between her fellow raiders, though none met her eyes. "I assume I am going to be punished."
"And what punishment do you think is worthy of this? What should you be punished for?" Rythia asked.
"For defying your wishes, Mother." She hung her head. "I would think an eye for an eye would be appropriate."
"You did not know my wishes until now." Her head shot back up, confusion plastered where resignation had just been. "After all I just talked about, you think I want your death?"
Rythia walked up to the woman, took her hands in hers, and with a genuine smile. "I thank you for trying to protect me, as misguided as your intentions were. As angry as I am with you for killing my patient, your death serves nothing. It does the Family no good to lose a raider; it does not ease your conscience, it does not ease my fury, it sets a horrible precedent to demand the death of those who make mistakes."
She felt the woman grip her hands tightly, clearly not convinced that she wasn't going to be punished or held accountable in some way. "No, I want to tell you something: that thing you killed was not a monster. His name was Simos, a Fae I knew before the Dawn, and you killed a friend of mine." With that, Rythia let her hands go and dismissed the raiders. Walking away from the group before anyone could stop her.
Making her way to the beach, she let the blanket slip from her. Not particularly concerned that the sweat-slicked dress was sticking to her in the cool night air. The Family that had heard her discussion with the raider gave her a wide berth as she walked away from the village. The sound of the surf was a distant noise behind her as she made her way out into the ash lands.
She doubted the raiders would have done anything with his body; they simply would have left it there. Leave it for whatever horror slunk through the night; in a way she agreed, in many others she did not. Why make yet another body their problem? Why deprive the small number of creatures in the young forest a meal? Yet, it did not stop her from making her way back to the ruins.
Though they didn't know it, she recognized the place from before the Dawn. It was the top of one of the lower spires, a military structure called the spearpoint. That machine they set off, it might as well have been a massive capacitor. It was designed to call down the fury of a storm in concentrated beams of energy, but without the guidance systems operating from Kyri's Network, it was just a bomb.
Meant for dealing with aerial threats, she helped design and build the damned thing. Yet, in comparison to the Family now? It might as well have been an entirely different lifetime, a different world, a different timeline. She laughed hard at the thought, having to pause while the sensation washed over her. "I suppose that isn't far from the truth, Rythia! What is the weight of a lifetime of accomplishment, progress, and growth if it's buried beneath hundreds of feet of ash!?"
With only the wind to answer her, the ash clung to her hair, as if offering her the answer. "A light that burns twice as brightly burns twice as quickly. You have burned so very brightly for so very long."
With a sigh, her footsteps shuffled through the ash below the sparse canopy of the forest. Nothing was thick enough to be called a tree, but enough that the moon above her was blocked out by the leaves. It didn't take much longer to reach where the explosion had taken place; a quick search later found Simos' body. A knife still stuck in his throat, the blood having long since dried. His eyes glassed over, unseeing, mind unthinking.
She pulled the knife from his neck, humming a chord from her song; she smoothed the flesh back into what it was supposed to be. Without a beating heart, without a life to aid her, the work was simple, not particularly taxing. A cosmetic change to the state of tissue. She wondered if it would be taxing at all to parse through his memories, so long as the brain was still mostly functional.
Sinking deeper into her song, her voice harmonized with the music that made up the Fae; despite the infection, it was still there. She had learned not just Vilorlith's Song, but all of them. She understood the real differences between the Children, and that they were all born from the same void that the Quartet had come from. Quiet voices in the dark, lone songs in empty halls.
Her mind touched Simos', instantly living his entire life in a crashing wave of memories. If this was the first time she had done this, she might have been overwhelmed. One simply had to weather the weight of another life lived; there was no stopping the crash of the storm against the mountain. Most of his life she already knew, having spent much of their adulthood in a somewhat close friendship. What nearly broke her was the degradation once the Infection took him and the world he was in.
His life became more hallucination than reality, more animal than thinking creature. Entirely unable to tell the difference between threat and friend, only the Shadows Song filling his ears, driving him mad. For how long he had been the creature, she couldn't tell; Simos couldn't tell. The only break in the madness was when she had called out to him, something familiar. When she had brushed against his consciousness, like the first rays of light, he had crawled his way out from that place.
She felt his shock at seeing her in her present state, the elation of not being a tool any longer. The understanding that she had healed something more than just his body, like she had separated the infection from his mind and soul. Allowing him to think again, only to feel that knife plunge into his neck. The worst part wasn't the fading life, the pain, or the understanding that nothing was left for him. It was the joy he felt at being able to recognize her, with his final thoughts being. "I'll see you on the Shores Beyond."
She was past grieving for all these corrupted souls. Well past it even before the war had ended; as far as she knew, there was no cure for this infection. Despite being able to reanimate the dead, despite founding a new school of magic in healing and life, despite the new Song she was composing. Only the Shadows could remove the disease, a task they would be unwilling to do so now that they had absolute control. With a heavy sigh, with a change in tempo, she examined his body.
There, behind the song that made up his being, behind the flesh that was already beginning to rot, was a light. Calling out to it with her voice, the light followed the sound like a moth to a flame. Simos' Spark warbled between her fingers, like the little diligent little bird he was. His spark called out to create, to build, to bring logic to the world around him, just like Alnya had always intended for her Children.
Before her will failed her, she asked. "Simos, will you help me?"
Like a passing thought in the back of her mind, she felt a question. "What is it?"
Rythia explained what she was doing, her plan, her methodology, the tedious whys and hows. Knowing his soul as a Fae would demand to know, he was being of logic, knowledge, and understanding. While he was no Taneth the Great and Mighty Architect, he was not the first Son of Alnya, but he was one of her sons. The soul pulsed in her hands, as if it were thinking.
"Use the Songs; hide the notes on the other side of them, so that it cannot be seen without knowing about it to begin with. Like a music sheet written over, which song was first? Is it a new song, or something in between existence and nothingness? Think about it." She told the small mote of power.
"I will sleep. I will dream my life and all the lives before mine and will ever dream of. This dreaming dream you propose, as opposed to the waking dream of life. I understand. For in this dream of death, perchance what dreams will come?" His voice was so quiet, yet his spark began to grow and brighten.
She smiled, understanding what he did. "So you thought that you would be alone in the dark, clinging to your bones, refusing to rejoin the Songs? I can offer you something else, though it has a sacrifice."
The spark pulsed, "I cannot offer you salvation, I cannot grant you peace, I cannot give you rest. But I can give you the knowledge that you can help build something where that exists. But all there is left for you is the void. To give me the notes of your own song, you don't need to rejoin the songs to endure this all again in reincarnation, in a new vessel."
The feeling of his hesitation weighed down on her; she wondered if she had made the wrong offer. She didn't want this to be an ultimatum for him; it was his choice. "Simos, I don't mean,"
"No, I understood what you meant. To give everything to help you, to give everything for the chance to make a final fuck you to the Shadows. I love it. But it isn't something I can just so easily do. Will I still be there? Will my consciousness still be there, but forever between life and death in the void? I'm just scared, Rythia." His voice answered somewhere in the back of her mind.
"I know, I won't force you. But I can walk to the edge with you." With that, she began humming the entirety of her new song. The world changed around them, like the world itself held to a mirror. A shift in perspective, a copy yet not. A reflection on a dream, the waking dream of life to see the dreaming dream of the point it can never return to. The world became a sea of stars, each point of life a point of light. Each lingering thing in this world a comet to drift across this endless expanse.
While she drew not on herself, but from behind the notes of the Songs that echoed in this world, pushing herself closer to fading. Just to experience it with Simos. Drawing from herself would have been more efficient, would have let her use her magic almost indefinitely, but that wasn't the point right now. A step closer to the ledge, hand in hand with her old friend.
The closer they walked to the edge between the mirror and everything else, the less difference they saw. How does one tell the difference between what is the reflection and what is reality, when one is so close to it, it all appears as one. She felt her soul waver, begging to rejoin the songs, the endless feeling of exhaustion, the wandering footfalls of the mind as it tried to right itself. To separate oneself from a tangled mess of thoughts and intention.
"A sea of stars, each life is a star. Each life is a universe unto itself, a reality experienced by no one else. For each life is a unique experience meant to be lived, to be remembered, to be understood from inside itself." She told him.
He laughed, "The Shores Beyond, it's fitting, I suppose." He held her hand tighter till it almost hurt. "You are pushing yourself too hard just for me; I was no one in the end. Like all, I tried to pursue what the gods had intended for us, only to understand that to obtain it did not grant us what they promised. It was merely an end to the pursuit, yet here you, Rythia. Still pursuing after having achieved the goal they put before us."
"You were not no one; you were Simos. A life well lived, despite the ending you were given. But, as you said, there is only an end to pursuit in the choices given to us. But those are not the only choices we can make. We can be more than what they wanted from us; we can be brighter stars than the ones whose light falls on us." She told him, while still pushing herself toward fading alongside him. She didn't think she could experience her own song like this, but it certainly gave credence that her theories and compositions were coming together.
"I'll help you, Friend."
A shiver ran down her spine; a small, sad smile crept across her face. His hand faded from hers as the mirror in front of them solidified as she sang the newest crescendo to the song. Until her power ran dry and she was forced to return to her mortal vessel, she sang for him. Only him; his spark faded from the world as his soul was used up. Like a fading flame in a dark room, the world felt darker.
But even when the darkest nights come, the stars shine the brightest. Even when there is nothing one can do except accept the world crashing in around oneself, the world is never truly dark. What she held in her hand was worth far more precious than gold. The small swirling galaxy in her hand, her song. Her knees hit the ash as the edges of her vision grew black, not even entirely aware of the tears streaking down her cheeks. Having only enough frame of mind to dismiss her song before she fell unconscious.
***
I didn't know how much time had passed; only the warmth against my face kept me grounded. Fading in and out of consciousness, something felt like it lifted me up into its arms. Memories of my original Mother filled my mind, ancient things, a face I could no longer remember, a touch familiar, a voice. It was so long ago that I couldn't even remember my own childhood; what was I like as a little girl?
The first time I controlled my shapeshifting, when I first learned how to use magic. Though at the time we had no idea about the Songs, it was more of a natural thing to us back then. The world responded to our songs, like prayers being answered, sacred hymns we had made. Our voices were might, our place in the world solid and immutable.
Yet, I always remembered that feeling of being held, my tail curled around the arm that held me. But this was something else; a scent I didn't recognize bubbled to the surface of my awareness. Musky, but spicy like cloves, pine? It had been ages since I had seen a pine tree; I thought they had all gone extinct in the wake of the war. Hadn't they? Another memory surfaced from the swirling tempest of my mind. Tylic, when had I started to think of him by that false name? What was his real name again? Ralis, that was his name.
The rocking motion from whoever carried me was soothing. "Ralis? Why can't I see?" My own voice sounded muted.
"You did something foolish, admirable, but foolish." His voice sounded different, not the one I remembered. But maybe that was simply because I had strayed so close to rejoining the Songs. I wondered how much I merged with it this time.
"Wouldn't be the first time." The sensation of blinking, but seeing nothing, filled my mind. The sound of distant voices echoed throughout wherever we were, like a chorus song over a storm. "Do you hear that, Ralis?"
His chuckle wasn't the same, deeper, more like a roaring fire than the gravelly rasp I was used to. "The echoes of the Songs, Mother. What is left of them, as it were. Glorious aren't they? Like experiencing the golden light of the early morning for the first time, like the quiet hum of a home before the family wakes. I've always liked them, pleasing tunes, nostalgic."
My vision began to return, though the world was blurry, greyscale. A vague shape of someone holding me in their arms, something glinting off their head in what I assumed was the morning light. "I didn't know you could still hear the songs. How come you never told me?"
"You and I, we don't do as much talking as you would like, do we?" His voice still struck me as odd, not quite the voice I remembered. Like he was still recovering from a brief but severe illness.
Resting my head against his chest, I smiled. "I suppose we don't, do we?" When I opened my eyes again, my vision was slightly better. The world wasn't so much greyscale as it was muted in color; the world was a little more lively with sound as we walked on, chirps of birds I didn’t recognize. The alien calls of insects that I could not place; these were not the sounds of my home world.
Looking back up at the face above me, I saw his horns. A face as stern as it was a quiet fury. It only dawned on me why I felt like a child in his arms; I might as well have been for the size difference. Bhal was carrying me in his arms, not Tylic, not anyone I trusted or expected to come and pick me out of the ash. The blood drained from my face; this monster was carrying me. I had mistaken him for someone else.
My fear evaporated as my vision cleared fully; there were no other Shadows with him; he had come alone. "It hasn't been five years," I said. I was still too weak to try and fight and be defiant at being carried by him.
"No, it hasn't been. Yet, you are still my Priestess, and I felt your Spark growing dim. I plucked you out of the ash next to that corpse. We are headed back to the village where I expect your own acolytes will tend to you properly." He said without breaking stride.
"How did you find me?" I asked him, refusing to meet his eyes.
He chortled, "The Infection, Rythia. It connects me to all those I've infected. I can feel all the lives I have influenced in the back of my mind. It took some time, but I did find you."
"I was fading; how did you pull me back?" I was genuinely curious; I had no idea if the Shadows had any ability to heal spirits or bodies.
"Hmm, well, suicidal tendencies aside. The Infection lets us do quite a bit; we designed it to do so. In your case, I overwrote quite a bit of genetic information to accelerate your healing, though that did require quite a bit of outside power. Power I supplied, but in the end, it was your own body that brought you back; I simply sustained it." He turned his eyes down to me, black, ringed with a golden fire where his pupils should have been.
"Awfully willing to talk about the inner workings of your sorcery with me. I don't think we ever fully figured out how you Shadows enforced the Infection or changed what it could do." There wasn't any point in hiding anything; the war was over, the enemy that now carried me wouldn't be able to do anything with information like that.
"That healing magic you have been working on gave me the idea. I was unaware that the Quartet could do such a thing; a useful tool if it can be taught?" He asked in a way like he was asking permission.
My mind raced: what had he seen? What did he know already? Thinking quickly, "It is unique to me; Vilorlith never wanted to advertise that I could do this. Would have put an even bigger target on my back, wouldn't it?"
I bounced in his arms as he laughed again; it was unnerving to experience that he did actually have emotions beyond blind hatred and rage. "That indeed it would have."
This display, this concern for my own well-being, despite not knowing the motive behind it, made my chest burn. I could only think back to how Mother and the others of the Quartet only thought about slaughtering these beings, and had succeeded on many attempts. The Shadows just never had the decency to stay dead. But seeing this? Wrath could be kind, Wrath could laugh.
The scrubby forest passed by, the sound of the sea growing louder off in the distance. Distantly, I could hear the raiders hunting through the ash lands, barking orders to find me. "What are these trees? These are not the trees that the Cradle once grew." I asked him.
"Oaks, predominantly. Birch, along the rapidly forming sedimentary rocks; there are sumac and blanketing plants to keep the soil in place. I forget that the old gingko forests are now extinct; the Umbral Blossom forests will not sprout again. Nor will the Tithe trees; no matter how much your people loved the fruits, the world is no longer habitable by anything besides what we are forcing to change." His horns turned a bloody red light as he spoke.
"I don't think I've ever heard you speak so intelligently." Covering my mouth as quickly as I spoke, eyes darting up to him. He only smirked.
"Well, truth be told, Xelex has been the one reengineering most of the surviving lifeforms. I've been working more in the deserts far to the east of here; I find a certain kinship to helping creatures survive in such an inhospitable climate. Though, you goblins will always be my favorites." He didn't even look down at me while he said it. It felt like a lie, just something to butter me up. It was odd to even hear him attempt such a platitude.
"Don't tell me you are trying to get in my good graces." Crossing my arms, the strength beginning to return to my muscles and bones. “We are far past that point.”
There was a long pause, only the sound of his footsteps and the raiders combing through the forest. Short bursts of steel ringing, the horrifying howl of some monstrosity being put down while they hunted. "I do not need it. Rythia, you are still a threat, and we know it. Just because you are under our control doesn't mean we are foolish."
"Well, that's foreboding; no need to be dramatic." The sound of the village graced my ears. In the moment, I understood why he specifically came to my aid. "Ah, I see what you are doing."
I didn't need him to answer; it all clicked into place quickly. The raiders were hunting for me, unable to find me. Gone for the lords knew how long, only to be carried back in the arms of our god. Under no delusion that he likely hid me for longer than was necessary, ingratiating himself even further into the Clan. Palming my face, feeling the grin on his own without needing to see it.
We walked into the village to wave after wave of joy, supplication, relief, and singing. While I only saw the lie, the truth my Family believed was nothing more than a construct. Amazing how the truth is such a subjective thing. Both their savior and their captor. Their god and their demon. Unaware that this creature was the cause of their suffering, the lives they were forced to toil. Then again, perhaps, I too am a victim of that mentality. I still think kindly of the Quartet and Vilorlith; she is still my Mother to me. Yet, those four always preached that choice was ours.
"One final thing, Rythia," Bhal said with a wave of his hand toward the eastern island where the orbital platform still towered over the horizon. "We tried to keep as many of those things in orbit, but." The smile he flashed me made my blood run cold. He vanished in a gust of black dust, his words sinking in like a stench.
The majority of the Clan was looking up at me while Bhal spoke; Tylic put his hand on my shoulder. "By the gods." He whispered.
Following his gaze, we watched as the clouds split open as a ship fell to earth. They wouldn't have known what it was, but I did. An Ashbringer, our capital ships capable of annihilating planets on their own. Just seeing it reminded me of the last time I saw one used on an infected planet. The Legion had used it to crack open the crust of the world. The glow of that planet's atmosphere as it ignited filled my eyes with its memory.
Falling from the heavens to crash into the orbital platform. So after all that kindness, all that talk to humanize himself. All that boasting about wanting to make things right without the Quartet; they would trap us on this planet here with them. I knew what Syn had done; she had burned away every other thing in this universe. She had left only the Cradle; we were alone in this vast, dark place. Abandoned by the gods, left in the care of Shadows who evidently still saw life as expendable.
My face went pale as I hoped the nuclear armaments had failed while outside the atmosphere; fuck, if the Nexial Cores that held the collective power of the sunlight drank by the Faeries detonated on the Cradle... I shuddered with fear as the ship made contact with the platform; only a few moments later did it impact the ground. We watched as an inferno burned the horizon, throwing a great pillar of smoke into the skies.
Though logically I was prepared for it, the concussive boom that first rocked the earth, then the atmosphere, was never something anyone could prepare for. Then I remembered an altogether different threat that was on its way. "Away from the coast, now! There will be a wave coming that will kill anything foolish enough to be anywhere near it! Now damnit, move your collective asses up into the hills!" My voice echoed through every cave, through what was about to become buried buildings. Spending the power made me sink to my knees, the drunkenness already rearing its ugly head.
Tylic scooped me up into his arms and ran into the hills. The sound of the Clan followed behind; he put a hand over my mouth. “No more magic, you’ve done enough. You are not the Rythia you once were; even a god has her limits. You cannot always protect us.”
