Thank you to my beta reader and editor, GlassThreads!
Toren Daen
Nerium pressed a seed into the hard, packed ground. It sank in like a thumb through sculptor's clay, a little bead of nascent green lifeforce pressing against the firmament of aether. Like a swipe of paint set to finish a macabre work of art, the final touch along the shallow grave was made.
I'd used my telekinetic strength to dig a shallow grave for the fallen Avignis, carving a trench where we could lay her gently. She rested beneath tons of packed earth now, forever far from the sky. It was so very dark in this chasm, and it seemed darker still at the loss. And now that the work was done, Nerium had shaved away a piece of his own skin like a maple harvester peeling at bark, creating a strange seed that he imbued with spells.
Nerium pressed his massive palm overtop the top of the mound where the seed had pressed in, a strange expression on his face. "You ever see a hamadryad die, Yaksha?" he asked somberly, the concentric ring tattoos on his forearms shining. "You've got the look that's familiar with death."
"Perhaps I have," I answered absently, still staring at the shallow grave. In my hand was a written note explaining what had happened, ready to be left for whoever found the grave in the future.
My finger twitched, memories of another phoenix yet resting in a ring bubbling beneath the surface. My mother was denied the sky, too. Confined to something unjust. Wrong.
The hamadryad snorted wryly. I got the sense this cynical side of him lingered always beneath the bark, raw and irritated with everything he saw. The happy, jovial front he presented was honest only with Chul. "That's the way of the pantheon, I suppose. Always gambling against the house, even when the house always wins. That's why I like phoenixes and those battle-born types. They're all honest. Death is shit."
The asura pressed mana through the earth, giving that seed nourishing water and nutrients. Roots thrust through the arid soil, anchoring there despite the harsh climate, before a shoot thrust from the top. A vine stalk slowly grew, winding about and around in the shadows. Golden, ripe fruits glowed, casting shadows along the boughs that looked like writhing tendrils. The ambient mana warped, a subtle warding effect rippling from every fruit.
"Always working only for our death, anticipating and wanting it: so that we might one day become Kadamba. Part of the ancient Clan Pact. So everyone spends all their time figuring out how best to die. It's nonsensical," the man spat, staring up at the fruits as they cast him in ghoulish light.
My eyes flicked to the glowing tattoos along the hamadryad's dark skin: markers of his status as a Kadamba caretaker. Except when Wren had stayed behind to ensure that Nerium and Ulysseiah wouldn't see anything, he'd noticed something odd about those tattoos.
Beneath Nerium's upper sleeves—hidden from sight from any who might look—his tattoos had been slashed. And after Wren had explained what a Kadamba tree was, as the ultimate end for all hamadryads, I started to get a bit of a picture of what this man was. An outcast just as any other: forever cut off from the interconnected clan system of fallen asura.
"So you gamble, then?" I asked, my question swallowed by the howl of the storm above. I couldn't suppress the suspicious tinge to my voice. "Live quick and dangerous."
Initially, I'd suspected that Nerium was chasing after the Avignises in the first place, same as us. But with what Wren had told me of his slashed tattoos and the way he'd reacted toward the prospects of chasing them…
I was starting to reevaluate my suspicions of his target.
Nerium shot me a look: the same one I got whenever I peeled back a mask someone wished I had left in place. He scrutinized me warily, his aura fluctuating in tune with the great lattice of vines by his side. "These vines have a spell woven within that wards away weaker creatures from making an unwise decision," he said, his eyes flashing. "Scavengers won't look where they aren't wanted."
The hamadryad's message was clear enough.
I let out a breath, striding forward and past the burly hamadryad. I gently wove the note through the vines, my intent dipping low as I left this message in a bottle for whoever might come across it.
"It won't stop those that are truly strong, though," I replied after a moment, sensing Nerium's eyes on my back. "The gigantes caravan isn't too far behind us. I'll leave a signal for the Matalli's. They're this woman's best hope."
Those who were powerful defined justice. That was something I'd learned again and again and again since I'd come to this world. Might set the rules, and even if I loved my fellow man, I needed the power to back it up.
I thought of the body resting within my dimension ring again, a shiver going through my soul.
While I wasn't certain I agreed with Nerium on his perspective of life, he'd found a like mind in his rejection of finality. In a just world, this phoenix—whose name I'd never gotten to learn—wouldn't have bled out in a canyon. In a just world, her family wouldn't be under assault by beasts from the sea. In a just world, I would never have to cover with earth that which should never be buried.
And in a just world, I would still have my mother.
I raised a palm to the sky, calling on my mana. I used my anger as a source, drawing more and more and more energy from my saturated body. A small orb of purified energy gleamed on my palm: more energy than I'd ever held in my old mana core. Then, with a mental push, I let the bolt of mana fly high into the sky.
It pierced the storm with ease, arcing up and up and up, before bursting like the world's brightest firework far beyond normal perception: but it sent ripples cascading through the sky that would be sensible for miles.
Nerium's eyes narrowed as he stared through the darkness, the waves of power washing over him. It was a message of my own, just as explicit as his.
I am more powerful than you believe.
"Ulysseiah and the others are waiting for us," I said, ready to brave the storm. Hopefully the Matalli dragons would be here soon to give this unnamed phoenix a proper rest. And if I was right, they'd be hot on our trail afterward, too. They were needed for the final steps of my plan. "Let's not keep them long."
—
Despite the utter howl of the storm above, every important sound seemed to find a way to weave through the sharp cracks of battering stone. Voices found lower tones, fit to escape the tumult without the need to shout. The crash of battle seemed somehow distinct, apart from it all.
The storm had made itself the background to a more important play—always lingering in its noise, but never committing to snuff it out. And so it was that I heard Ulysseiah's music well before I reached her.
The strum of the lyre wove on subtle currents, a ship on unseen waves. The haunting melody brushed against my ears like an old lullaby, my body relaxing even as I tried to prepare for what was to come.
Within the tents of the gigantes, Ulysseiah's lyre had played beautiful songs, but it had been… Distant, in a way. Impersonal, only as one going through the motions could be. It was something I could hear as much as sense with my intent: an understanding that the soul was not granted in the piece played.
This eerily beautiful profession of sound, though… It was like a razor wire taking its time as it slowly wound through the pressure of the greatest oceans. Slow and lilting, tense and not, known and unknown…
I found the young leviathan sitting atop a simple crenelation of stone, her eyes closed. She swayed with the tones of her bonecrafted lyre, following after a song she didn't know. Her fingers were like a sailor hauling the ropes of their ship, catching a wind that whispered musical truths. The young woman was like a spire of seagrass, waving along the undersea pressures. A nearby fire cast her in loose shadows, providing what little light this hopeless place had.
I lingered there for a moment, my heartbeat slowing as I breathed in the sound. Nearby, Chul sat reverently, cross-legged on the ground as he stared up at the artist working her craft. He hardly noticed as Nerium returned, joined in respectful silence.
If this woman could profess her intent… I wondered, my eyes drifting closed as I recalled all that music meant to me, what wonders could she create?
It made me think of distant Lusul, weaving his emotions through his violin. My one and only student, a singular legacy of something beautiful, was out there somewhere, working toward a land that would let his child live.
His lover, Anasia, had fallen in love with him for his songs. As she'd listened to his music, it had helped calm her trembling hands, soothing some part of her soul.
But as I listened to this melody, I found that it could not calm me. My fingers twitched, a desire to join her in this tragically quiet sonata arcing through me. I wanted my violin. Needed it. I needed something that could help release all I'd kept bottled up for so long. The compressing mask of the Yaksha pantheon had slipped once already, and I knew that my disguises could never last. But even if I could cast off my current mask—let my hair burn red, my eyes shine like stars, and my body glow with runic honesty—I had no violin left to play.
The ancient remnant of my past was a charred piece of wood.
Ulysseiah's song finally ended on a low, resonating note, her intent solemn and resolved. Silence—as much silence as the dust storm above would allow—lingered in the absence of that ethereal noise.
"Your songs are beautiful," I complimented reverently, feeling the absence of my violin like the loss of a limb: except this was one I could never regrow. "I am honored to have heard one, Lady Ulysseiah."
The young woman finally opened her eyes, giving me a strange look. She suppressed it well, but I could sense the undertones of confusion within. Confusion that I would compliment her? Confusion that I would want to hear?
I didn't know.
"Honored?" she finally said, still seeming confused. "I didn't play for you, Lord Yaksha. Did not. I do you no honor."
The young woman slid from her perch, dropping to the ground, her short, aquamarine hair mussed and waving. "I am ready now," she declared, her mood sharpening. Before I had left to dig a grave for that which should never die, Ulysseiah's intent had been scattered like reeds in the wind: but with the advent of her song, she found her center. "Give me the satchel."
I unwound the single item we'd been able to recover from the phoenix's body: a simple, gilded satchel with what belongings she'd been carrying. I tossed it to the seabound asura, curious of what a Navigator's powers would entail.
I restrained my intent, already preparing myself mentally for my part in this grand play, but Chul was not so measured. He watched with obvious interest as Ulysseiah sifted through the contents of the bag. "What do you search for with such great fervor, Siren of Song?" he asked, noting the way she pressed aside certain objects and not others.
"We seek through the sea," Ulysseiah muttered, only half in true reply to Chul. "The great currents tell of what is left adrift. But to listen to the waves, one must know the call. You only need listen."
She pulled a singular object from the satchel, holding it high. A locket swung like fruit from a tree on a windy day, the pendant reflecting the nearby firelight. The craftsmanship was exquisite, with intricate runes simmering like hot coals all across the silverwork. Mana flowed through it in a pattern I struggled to grasp.
But I could see, even from here, that the silver was tarnished from constant wear. The wear of use and love, though: not of disuse and ignorance. The only item we had managed to retrieve from the fallen phoenix.
Ulysseiah gently opened the clasp, looking into whatever picture was kept inside with a unique focus. Her eyes sharpened, and her heartbeat slowed. If a moment ago her intent had been a calm lake, now it was amorphous and vague: morning mist that clung to the water like a cloak.
She let out a breath that seemed to carry her soul: and I understood.
Souls are drawn most to other souls, but that's not all that draws on us, I thought, watching as the leviathan's glassy eyes roved eastward, the young woman shifting about like a compass. And if a Navigator wishes to find a wayward soul…
A tremor went through Ulysseiah's heartbeat—a distant echo of that overwhelming rage. In a singular split-instant, her trance shattered, and she stumbled sideways, her grip tight on the locket.
"She's close, she is," the leviathan said sharply before I could step forward. She gritted her teeth, looking up at me. I saw, deep in her eyes, what this meant to her. Something she could do. "Lady Naesia Avignis roosts a dozen leagues from here! Not far at all. We may reach her soon. You need only shelter me, Lord Yaksha, and I may guide you further."
Only a dozen leagues? I thought, my blood suddenly hot in my veins. That's hardly anything at all. If Lithen and the rest are barely that far away…
Answers lingered so close to us, and I'd had no idea.
Chul stepped closer, anticipation rising. "The Lady Phoenix is that close at hand?" he said, hope writ clear on his face. Eagerness to make up for his perceived failure to protect our nameless kin made his heart pump fire. He slapped me companionably on the back with a force that would make any boulder crumble. "We may reach her in a few hours at most if we make haste!"
"But we still don't know how we're going to make it through the storm," Nerium said, looking at me warily. "You said you had a way that might get us all through it, Lord Yaksha. Care to explain?"
Still hostile, I noted warily, a suspicion starting to build in the back of my mind. He doesn't really want to find the phoenixes. He has a target: something he's gambling on…
I pushed those thoughts from my mind for a moment, instead recalling what I'd spoken with Mordain about barely a few minutes before. Questions of domains and what gave a person the strength to press through the World.
"You'll see in a moment," I said, letting my intent loosen slightly. I recalled what Ulysseiah had shown me a bare moment before: that melody that came so deeply from her heart. "We'll all have shelter from the storm."
I closed my eyes, focusing on the flow of mana throughout my body. Purified, alight, kind. With the barest twist, that energy became sound magic. Then fire, then telekinetic force, then sound magic again.
When I used my magic now, it wasn't just with my willpower. It was with my emotions. I diced and partitioned and moved what I felt about myself, using it as fuel for my spells. Anger made my fires hotter. Concentration gave my telekinetic spells absurd control on the micro-scale. My anxiety was the source of Sonar Pulse itself; the spell was active so long as I was nervous in some way.
But as Mordain had said, Domains were different. One who used such a spell on the level of the asura needed iron, impossibly absolute control in a way that seemed impossible to me. How could I maintain an emotion strong enough for long enough?
My heartbeat was a drum in my chest, professing chords of life itself. And as I considered it more, was song itself not integral to my being? Was it not what echoed through the void of the Beyond, giving substance to the wishes of the distant souls?
When those I left behind in Alacrya called for my power, I heard music, I thought, breathing in through my nose. When I seek my center, what else other than a sonata should guide me?
The ambient mana flowed around us, my intent warping it slightly. A hum began to echo through the air, subtle but known. But I didn't let it rise, as much as my blood yearned for it. But as I focused on that singular concept of song, my regalia burning against my lower back, I found the first brick in a growing monument. Song was my answer, the thing that would always keep my emotions in tune.
I would build my Domain from the notes of my heartbeat.
When I opened my eyes again, our group was encased in a spherical vortex of white-gold telekinetic force. Sound mana flowed through the boundaries. Sonar Pulse pulled in close to this bubble of power. The air shimmered as if under a heat haze, as if the summer sun had finally pierced the gloom.
The others looked at the results of my spell with a mix of uncertainty, awe, and fascination. Nerium looked unnerved at the flow of power around us, his face creased with lines of worry.
"What is this?" he asked suspiciously, his heartbeat so much more audible to me now. His intent—which had been almost a fog before due to his hamadryad nature—was now laid plainly bare beneath this partial manifestation. "This is like no pantheon mana art I have ever seen."
My eyes lingered on the hamadryad's core for a moment, my mana and heartfire sense peeling the asura apart. "My peers are regimented in their application of force," I said, my words easily audible. Within this cocoon of whirling power, the sound of the storm held no sway. "Their arts are honed over millennia, but they forgo other methods of attaining strength."
Chul smiled as he looked about our shelter of shivering sound, his intent radiating pure joy at my accomplishment. Ulysseiah's eyes widened even further, clutching the pendant closer. For a few moments, I wondered what it was she sensed right now.
It wasn't a full domain: far from it. But it was the first step toward accomplishing something fit to rival even Mordain. I slowly started to rise in the air, forcing my focus onto the song of my heartbeat. Using that emotion as an anchor.
"Follow me," I said, my voice echoing as I turned my attention higher. "We'll pierce this storm."
And then I rose. Slowly, testingly, and with great care directed to my spell, I allowed the shell of my pseudo-domain to press against the tempest of the howling gales.
Dust, sand, and a torrent of mana slammed into the electrum vortex surrounding us, trying to break the shell. Trying so desperately to hammer its way in, like a million tiny fists battering away at a door.
But though my spell shuddered for a moment, the unfamiliar weight of a colossal blanket trying to crush me inward, it held.
Chul, Ulysseiah, and Nerium had risen with me, watching with a smattering of expressions on their faces. The son of Dawn almost immediately went to the edge, peering out into the storm as every bit of mana, refuse, and anger this howling storm had to throw was redirected.
"We head east," I muttered, locking eyes with Ulysseiah, pulling her from her reverie. "The pendant guides us, yes?"
The leviathan blinked, then forced out a shuddering breath. For a moment, I wondered what it was that she sensed within this calm oasis of mana. She was sensitive to intent, wasn't she?
"Yes, yes. East. I shall lead," she said quickly, floating closer to the edge of my domain. "Move where I go, Lord Yaksha, and we shall find those sheltered refugees before long."
The leviathan said nothing else, drawing on that well of confidence and drive that pushed her in the first place. Without fear, she floated forward, driving toward some distant horizon. And then, still bracing against the howl of the Epheotus storm above, we finally began to move.
Time seemed to lose its meaning within the storm. I kept us low to the ground, letting us pass over the crisscrossing canyons of the Aborshan Wastes. Those wounds in the world, chewed away by gigantes ages past, never seemed to close. More and more and more gashes flowed beneath us, the country struggling to find a way to seal the gaps.
As I guarded these wayward souls through the hellish bombardment of the storm, listening only to my heartbeat, I wondered at this new power of mine.
My Domain wasn't like Mordain's, where I forced every fleck of mana that an enemy might use away. He used the ambient fire mana to push away all other types that might assist his enemies, forcing them to rely only on their inner reserves. The Phoenix Prince was a master of sinking his talons into the world, meshing himself with it, and never letting go. He perched on a branch, and no matter how that branch whipped and tumbled, he remained there: fastened as if by a spell.
I was trying to do that: and though I kept out the bombardment outside… I was failing.
My regalia let me influence the ambient mana in a way never before seen, functionally allowing me to extend the nature of a white core mage's flight to whatever I designated. Could I use that to just take away a person's mana?
I clenched my teeth as an especially rabid draft slammed sideways against my sheer bubble of force. The edges rippled.
Don't lose focus, Toren, I reminded myself, receiving worried looks from those I was protecting. Sweat beaded down my face, and though my Integrated body felt little to no strain, something inside me was being stretched by such constant use of mana.
I started to lose track of myself, my focus wholly on the mana around me. Sonar Pulse rebounding about my small little hearth. The regalia building the walls of my home. The pulse of fire in my chest, the mana that flowed into me wherever I passed.
Every now and then, I gathered another bolt of mana to my hands, before letting it fly above the storm. I made a trail of beacons miles above, burning like pyres. The Matallis had to follow. Needed to. Nerium gave me odd looks every time I did so. Chul kept his attention forward, aware that our endgame may very well be approaching. Ulysseiah never tore her attention away from her pendant.
Then I caught on something… Something familiar. Between the currents of mana, there was a shadow lingering with us. No, not with us. With a specific one of our companions, hidden deep within—
Blue-green light flashed through the darkness high above. A terrible scream echoed through my domain: and I nearly paused in my forward flight. More screeches echoed, that rage-filled intent battering the walls of our sanctum.
The bolt of mana I'd been conjuring abruptly froze, and I hastily withdrew my mana back into my body.
The eels, I thought, my mind foggy from the use of my pseudo-domain. They're all around us, lurking and stalking… Will they dive? Have they noticed us yet? The mana beacons could lead them to us… But are they intelligent enough?
But no… There were a dozen of the beasts at least that I could sporadically sense, but they were razor-focused on something that I couldn't detect. Circling like rabid vultures, zipping about like return strokes of rage.
"They're here," a voice whispered weakly beside me, suddenly scared. "We've been discovered already… Is it for naught? I thought that I had done well."
I looked down at Ulysseiah, who was clutching the pendant and staring up at the darkness with obvious fear. She made me think of a minnow hiding amidst the rocks as predators swam high above. "No," I replied smoothly, hoping to imbue the woman with some measure of relief. "They don't know we're here. They're focused on something a ways ahead. Circling around it without care, like hyenas waiting for a show of weakness. And if I were to guess…"
"The Avigneses," Nerium muttered, tapping a finger methodically against his thigh. A few seeds lingered in his hand, likely as some sort of defense. The white-gold light of my domain cast his face in eerie light. "They're not far at all. They're holding out."
He looked at me, his eyes a window to his soul as he flashed me a smirk. "Are we going to rush right in, then? That's quite the gamble."
Chul laid a hand on the hamadryad's shoulder. "Haste is not to be had yet, Worthy Foe," he muttered grimly. "We must be cautious! Swift as serpents and hidden as the owl on a moonlit night! Is that not right, Lord Yaksha?"
Nerium chuckled at Chul's words, but he kept inquisitive, languid eyes on me. Gauging me and my response. The hamadryad seemed to shimmer beneath the heat-haze mirage of my spell, like a writing made indecipherable. Or bleeding ink.
His intent had been nigh indecipherable before. That wasn't true, now.
My lips thinned to a line. Most of my senses were restricted to the little hearth I'd crafted in our bubble. Sight, hearing, mana, heartfire… All of it was absurdly heightened here at the cost of losing touch with the outside world.
"Arjuna is right," I replied, letting out a wearied breath. I thought of the bioelectric eel that Chul and I had slain—twice. "If we can bypass these creatures and assist from within, it's our best bet given our circumstances. The Avignises found a way to hide: and if we need to fight, it best be when we are most able."
If it came down to a fight, Ulysseiah would be difficult to defend. Getting her to a better position would be the smartest move.
Ulysseiah's expression cracked for a moment, before it hardened once more like mending bone. "I see," she replied. "This pendant leads not far from here, just a way up. I shall… be cautious. Yes."
The young woman inched closer to me, wary eyes turning up to the sky. I wondered how often creatures of the sea needed to watch for something from above. Likely just as often as those of the sky. Chul gathered fire around his fists, watching the boundaries of our shelter with challenging eyes, while Nerium summoned a bark-laden playing card from somewhere.
They must still be alive, I thought, rising upward slightly, prepared for some sort of sneak attack. My first lead toward our family. Lithen is here, isn't he? What would he know?
Thoughts and worries occupied my mind, clawing at the rims of my domain as I approached some distant goal. Hope and desire. Worry and uncertainty. Anxiety and fear. All made foggy from growing exhaustion.
Before any of those emotions could take shape, molded from the recesses of my mind, I knew I'd reached our target. We passed a veil in the mana, some sort of translucent shroud almost hidden from my senses. Immediately, the press of the storm weakened and disappeared, the light finally reaching the edges of our shelter.
I released my domain like a muscle that had been clenched for far too long. The scent of summer dew meandered through the air, strolling in to fill the gap my spell had left. The air was almost damp, like the aftermath of a rainstorm. Water mana brushed across my body like morning mist, and I slumped into the sensation.
I'm still missing something, Mordain, I thought, blinking to focus. My Domain is missing something. It shouldn't be so strenuous.
Chul gasped in awe, staring upward. Because before us, stretching half a dozen stories into the sky, was a great willow tree. With bark smoothed by time, stripped of most of its leaves, and denied any sort of sustenance deep within the desert, the great tree seemed to barely cling to life. Its roots thrust stubbornly into the ravines, anchored by sheer force of will. Its branches hung like arms exhausted from carrying the weight of the world.
I let out a breath I'd been holding since the very start of this trek, tracing my eyes along the veins of heartfire that threaded through this lone spot of life in the parched desert. Because this tree—that somehow warded away the storm around it—was familiar.
My eyes drifted to Chul, and I knew he'd noticed the similarity, too. That prison that had held us both in a pocket dimension of intentional despair, fed by the River Hosh, was a tree just like this. Perhaps this one was not as impressive, nor as mighty. But the lingering heartfire coursing through it was the exact same.
"A Waystop Kadamba," Nerium muttered beside us, his arms crossed. The tattoos on his arms seemed to glow a deeper green for a moment. There was a note of amusement buried deep beneath the layers of bark he kept around himself. "I thought they'd all been destroyed over the eons, but it seems one still persists here. So that's how Lady Naesia found respite."
Kadamba, I thought, matching the word with something I'd been told of recently. Right, the trees that the hamadryads become on death, the thing they seek to become all their lives…
"A Waystop?" Chul echoed, tilting his head at the hamadryad in confusion. "What do you mean, friend?"
Nerium shook his head, his moss-locks swaying like chains. "Some idealistic sorts thought they should let themselves be some sort of rain-shelter for travelers through the Aborshan Wastes. It wards away hostile creatures, allowing in those seeking respite, like a stronger version of the spell I laid around the dead phoenix's grave. If the Avigneses found their way here, then they might just be safe from those sea beasts. But most of them are dead now, because no tree can live here for long."
The dots slowly connected inside my head. This was a Kadamba tree: the ultimate destination of all hamadryads. And that would mean that the prison that had contained Chul, Wren, and me was once a living person.
My nose wrinkled.
Chul had lamented how wrong it was that he was forced to mine the acclorite of people long dead, chipping away at their corpses with a tool of iron. Yet now, as an understanding of what the Indraths and Mappellia clans had made washed through me, disgust accompanied my pity.
Sometime in the past, a hamadryad had sought to become that prison. To make their death into one that would only perpetuate the misery of others, instead of the old soul who now sheltered us from the raging dust storm outside.
To dedicate one's afterlife to the eternal torture of others, I thought grimly, my eyes sharpening as I caught on a few weak mana signatures nestled in the bowers of this Waystop. Or to give it for the lives of broken strangers? Why must there even be a choice?
"I can sense our targets higher up," I muttered, banishing all signs of my fatigue. I floated up toward the great tree. "They're weak and wounded. Make sure your mana signatures are at least slightly sensible."
I wound through leaveless, dying branches, trailed by an absent Ulysseiah, still clutching the pendant. Nerium lingered at each withered stalk, eying it critically as he ran a large hand across the surface. Chul floated nervously at my side as we rose, a question on both of our minds.
Do they know of our family?
The trunk of the Kadamba was littered with scorch marks and crushed wood, signs of recent battle painted everywhere around us. A talon mark here, a ravenous bite mark there. Blood sprayed across a bit of bark, standing stark red against the shadows. Deep green scales were embedded here and there in the bark. And those venomous spines dripped poison deep into its roots.
It's dying, I realized with growing dread, my fists clenching. Nerium wasn't wrong. We're on borrowed time.
A wide platform with elaborately carved railings sat at the center of the willow tree's trunk, balanced between thrusting arms. The boughs of the tree thrust out like warding defenders, unlustered shields stalwart against any that might seek to harm the near-nest at the center. I licked my lips, suddenly aware of how thirsty I truly was. A sense of peace and calm pressed through the atmosphere, an urging to rest and recover.
But alongside that calm, the scent of iron blood meshed wrongly.
Three asura awaited us at the center of the wooden platform, each in their human form. Two of the handmaids I'd seen accompanying Naesia were laid out on makeshift cots woven from plant fiber, clutching at wounds and looking startlingly pale.
One was a young woman with small, kind features, eyes clenched in pain. Her short, fire-red hair flared about her like a halo as she moaned, clutching at a wound in her stomach. The second wounded asura—an older woman whose face had enough wrinkles to tell me she had seen many sunrises—was laid out beside her.
And Naesia Avignis, heir of the Avignis Clan and scion of the Great Eight, levered a sword at us. Her smokey hair had been burned short to her shoulders, exposing myriad wounds across her body. The runic blade trembled in her hand as she stood between us and her aching clanmembers.
She was missing her left arm from the elbow down. Only a bloody stump remained.
"You," she hissed in pain, glaring at Nerium, then flicking wary eyes across the rest of us. "What are you doing here? State your business."
"Peace," I said, raising my hands in a gesture of goodwill. "We come to assist, Lady Avignis. You are safe."
Ulysseiah took that opportunity to press forward, holding the pendant aloft. Her eyes shone triumphantly, pride peeking past the shell of unconfidence and fear. "We've received your message, good Lady! We have. We bring aid!"
Naesia's eyes widened, hope burning there as she slowly lowered her blade. "Athenia reached you?" she said. She looked between us, before settling on Chul. "Where is she? When last I saw her, one of those beasts was in pursuit! Is she with you? It was a vain hope, I knew, to risk a messenger! But she has succeeded, no?"
Chul winced, then turned away, the big man curling in on himself. He failed to meet Naesia's eyes: an answer in and of itself. Ulysseiah lowered the locket, seeming to recall the death all around us.
"Oh," the young phoenix whispered, deflating with that word. She trembled, a wave of emotion threatening to burst free from her. "Oh. I see."
"We gave her what rites we could," I interrupted, striding forward slowly. "But you are still in danger, are you not? That was the message she gave her life to deliver to us: and the signs of your recent battles echo around us. You are surrounded and without recourse."
My eyes flicked over the two wounded phoenixes behind Naesia, trying to sense for someone else. Lithen wasn't here… But I remembered his mana signature from so long ago. He had been here, and recently.
Naesia licked her lips, blinking away tears as she lowered her trembling blade. The tip sank weakly into the wooden platform below us. "I sent her back the way we'd come," she whispered. "I ordered her to go. I thought that she might be able to find help… Deva, what have I done?"
"Focus," I said sharply, but not unkindly. "I am… sorry for your loss, Lady Avignis, but we came expecting a battle. The beasts of the sea still linger beyond the boundary."
The young woman let out a shuddering breath, then steeled herself. "Yes. It is a wonder your party made it here at all. The beasts attack at intervals," she whispered. "We were trapped here, like rabbits with a korfox just outside the den. Those demons from the deep. The Waystop wards them away, but they build their reserve and charge again and again. I've been… fighting them off each time. But they don't stay dead."
"I crushed the heart of the one that slew your kin. It did not rise again once it knew the truth of death," Chul declared angrily from the side, marching forward. He stood like a blocky monolith, waving away any despair. "She did not pass unavenged, Woman of the Wing. We are here now to offer aid and succor, and we may see these creatures destroyed for their crimes against you and yours."
The young phoenix's eyes hardened at that as she and Chul shared a look, her temper flaring. Some of her vigor returned as anger simmered alongside her grief.
"Your name was… Arjuna Promethes, was it not?" she muttered, finding her center again. "That whimsical titan. I thank you for your service. When I realized I could not hold the line forever, I sent those that were still healthy and hale away in a gamble. East and West both, searching for help. I thought I'd held off most of the beasts from giving chase… But I see I was wrong."
Athenia was sent west… So Lithen has already left, then, I thought irritably, finding the answer I needed. We needed to catch up to him. Still, Naesia would likely still know something of my flock's predicament.
"East and west?" I echoed, thinking of our other destination, now not so far away. "Klethra may yet send you aid. But this Waystop may not hold against another assault. It is dying, and if you don't move fast, then you'll be at the epicenter of the storm and a fight."
I could sense the lifeforce of this great willow tree beneath me, creaking against the weight of eons. The wounds given by the eels—especially their poisonous quills—condemned it to a slow death. And the wounded phoenixes were fighting off wounds of their own, battling against a poison that slowed the heart.
We'd have to move—likely bolt toward the River Suda. Everything was coming to a head… But would the puzzle pieces align as I needed?
Naesia spared a look down at the stump of her arm, then at her comrades behind her, bleeding and unconscious. "Our position is untenable," she muttered weakly. "I cannot hold against another assault, but with reinforcements, we may be able to…"
She tilted her head, suddenly alert. "That strange hamadryad companion," she whisper-hissed, suddenly on guard once more. "The one who called himself Mapellia, the cheater! Where did he go?"
I perked up, turning to the place where Nerium had been a few moments before. Indeed, he'd vanished: and I'd been too tired for a moment to notice it.
"You shouldn't have trusted him," Naesia said quickly, her sword suddenly at the ready again. Her mana flared about her, passionate and angry. "I know not what he is, but he is not Mapellia as he claims. He wished only to follow us on our business, and you have led him right to us!"
Ulysseiah recoiled from the phoenix's sudden flare of mana, hiding behind me out of instinct. She trembled, one hand going to her head. The other clutched at the lyre at her belt as if it might save her from some impending doom. Her coral eyes stared up at me pleadingly, hints of a foreign rage seeping through the cracks in her mind.
"Stop flaring your mana!" I ordered irritably, my eyes inadvertently flicking to the two wounded asura behind Naesia. I did what I could to shelter Ulysseiah from it, before snuffing Naesia's sudden anger like two fingers extinguishing a candle. "Your clanmembers will only suffer for it!"
Naesia stumbled backward, staring at me fearfully—then guiltily—as she stood guard over her family. I gave her a stare fit to weather stone. My fists clenched at my sides, and I let out an unaffected breath. Chul's hands were alight with fire, his heart pumping as he prepared himself for some sort of fight, but he was looking in confusion at where Nerium had used to be.
I spared Ulysseiah a glance, making sure to measure my intent. I could sense something of that foreign rage bubbling up from the depths, drawn on by the roiling mana in the air: but as my emotions evened out, it was like a balm to the volcano about to erupt.
"Where is he?" Chul boomed, swiveling about as he sought our slippery companion. "He was just with us, I swear!"
My brows furrowed as I caught on Nerium's heartfire, close to the root of the tree. He was doing something, I thought… Trying to heal the Kadamba?
No, that wasn't what he was doing at all.
Then it all fell into place.
---
Announcement tomorrow. Bad news, but I won't leave you all out to dry :)