I float.
Or maybe I don't float. Maybe floating implies a body, and I'm not sure I have one right now.
I exist. That's all I can say with certainty. I am. But what I am, where I am, even when I am all of that is unclear.
There's no up or down. No forward or backward. No sense of direction or orientation or space. Just... existence. Consciousness without anchor. Thought without form.
I try to remember how I got here.
There was light. Overwhelming, all-consuming light. And a little girl in a green gown telling me something... What was I just thinking about?
Oh that's right my Death.
I died. I remember that clearly. Although I don't remember how I died. I just know that I am dead. How odd. You would think that would be something a person should remember.
I try to move. To look around. To do anything that might orient me in this formless void.
But I have no limbs to move, no eyes to look with, and no body to control."
Strangely, I feel no fear.
No panic at the absence of my physical form. No terror at being trapped in this liminal space between existence and non-existence.
Just... peace.
Deep, profound peace like this is what I always should have been. And then a voice speaks.
The voice is... how do I describe it? Ancient. That's the word that comes to mind. Like stone that's been weathered by wind for millennia. Like ocean depths that have never seen light.
The voice seems to come from everywhere and nowhere at once, and it starts to tell me a story?
"It begins in a distant haze."
The words wash over me like water. Like rain on dry earth. Soaking in, becoming part of me.
"The First King of Asteria was ancient. Ancient, yes. Older than kingdoms and cities, older than all the monarchs and religions you still have a record of and even then ones you lost."
The sense of vast age, of civilizations rising and falling like tides, washes over me.
I try to grasp at the information. Try to understand why I'm being told this. But the peace makes it difficult to hold onto urgency. Difficult to demand explanations.
So I just... listen.
"Not older than the mountains or the planet itself for that matter, for they were already here. Like the knuckles of the sleeping giants below, the mountains here formed this valley, where panthers and flowers both make their home."
Mountains. I can almost see them. Massive peaks surrounding a valley. Paradise hidden between stone and sky.
"We speak of just 'the valley' then, a place before it had a name. The people of old still dominated this world. They were not what you would consider fully human; they were singers and drifters. They were some of the firsts we dreamed"
Not fully human? What does that mean? "What even is a human?" Am I human? Or was I human?
"They sailed the Inner Sea, coming from the west, and it was they who first discovered this strange land. Their writings are sparse, their empire has long since been taken by the dust, but memory remains."
I can feel it the sense of discovery. Ships approaching unfamiliar shores. People stepping onto beaches they'd never seen before.
"Perhaps you can imagine their surprise upon arriving here? A place with beaches of fine, soft sand, with fruits aplenty, and with strange, alien forests? Paradise, they called it."
Paradise. The word resonates through me. I remember being in a pastoral field. The animals grazing. The ranch house with smoke rising from its chimney. Was that meant to be paradise too?
"A paradise hidden between the mountains past the long sinister sea, a land with pleasant rains that never grew cold, a land where succulent food grew spontaneously. A land of color."
The images grow stronger. More vivid. I can almost feel the warm rain. Taste fruit I've never eaten. See colors that don't seem to even exist anymore.
"Because of the Tears of Eos, the striking flowers of such brilliance that could yield dyes that would hold fast in any cloth."
Flowers. I see them now brilliant blooms in shades I can't name. Growing wild. Abundant. Beautiful.
"The first of the Word Bearers was born during this time. Aboard a ship that was sailing the coast."
Word bearer? What is that? I wonder
"Word Bearers can now be found only here in this land that has been forgotten, but in the distant past they used to roam the world as protectors and the first one—the man who was called Vi, but we name only by his title—was born here, in the waters of this very bay." "He declared the Five Pillars. He died a week later."
What kind of life is that? What kind of existence lasts only seven days? How could a baby speak?
And what are the Five Pillars?
The voice seems indifferent to my unasked wonderings.
"The men of his ship founded a kingdom upon these beaches, then called Hammon. Before their arrival, all that had existed in these jungles was the creatures of Panh, more a mere collection of fishing villages of various peoples and species than a true kingdom."
The voice pauses, and I feel a shift in the fabric of existence. Like it's looking directly at me now, even though I have no body to be looked at.
"Now, you may wonder why we must travel back so far. Why are we showing this to you?"
Yes. Yes, I do wonder that. What does any of this have to do with me? I just wish to float.
"You know and do not know all things young Daath as every version of yourself exists at this point."
Every version of myself? What does that mean? And am I this Daath person?
"Some versions of you may be fragmented right now and others completely shattered. Others are coherent and others terrified."
Am I fragmented right now? Is that why I can't hold onto a sense of self? I feel great though. If this what being fragmented is like I want to stay this way. Just float in this space in peace forever.
"Some versions of you may think I should be speaking of Him right now, of the shattering of kingdoms, of the Five Pillars falling, of Thresh the Usurper and his berserker army, which some say still hides in those jungles, waiting for their God to return."
I try to grab onto what is being said to me. Try to remember. Try to understand. But they slip through my grasp.
"Those are the events we focus upon, the ones you know and will know the best. To speak only of them, however, is to ignore the history of tens of thousands of years that led up to them." "Would there have been a shattering without knowledge of the Word Bearers? It was a Word Bearer, after all, who predicted the war and prompted the ruined king to attack the kingdoms across the mountains."
The Ruined King was another title I don't know . Another piece of a puzzle I don't understand, nor do I really care to understand. I just want to sleep.
"Ruined King? Oh we see, you'll know him better as Thresh the Usurper. A Word Bearer, and so was the Peacemaker, the man who founded the isles."
Thresh was a Word Bearer and Peacemaker whatever that means.
"However, we haven't arrived to that part yet. We are still back in Hammon, the outpost-become-kingdom founded by the men of the first Word Bearer's crew."
"They were the ones who chose the first Word Bearer's wife as their queen, then used the Tears of Eos to create fantastic dyes which sold for untold riches across the world. This soon became a bustling center of trade."
I can see it now a kingdom built on flowers. On beauty extracted from petals and sold to distant lands.
"The Tears of Eos which was a magnificent never ending waterfall. The source of Asteria's wealth the flowers. Such small things you know, but so easy to grow there. And yet, that was the only soil where they will live."
"In other parts of the world, dyes are very difficult to produce. Expensive. Some of those ancient scholars say that the Shattering was fought over these flower petals, that the kingdoms of Puth and Luth were destroyed by little drips of color."
What an absurd reason to kill someone. I think. Over petals? What a shame.
"The others… the other scholars claim it was Sanctity. Most agree that the Shattering was not only about petals squeezed dry, but a much greater prize. People squeezed dry."
Sanctity?
"You know, perhaps, that the royal family was growing increasingly interested in the process by which Sanctity could be used to do all types of things. Awakening, it was then first being called."
The word Awakening triggers a change in my consciousness because this—this I remember. I was, I am awakened. Although I don't quite remember what being Awakened means.
"The first time our power was ever utilized by a mortal. It was a fresh and poorly understood art, then. It still is, in many ways. The workings of the souls is yet to be fully realized by man."
Our power. The voice says "our" like it's gifting humans with something. Who is speaking to me?
"Sanctity is what they called it then although this word has changed over the eons and from people to people. The years leading up to the Shattering, those were the days of discovery and of new Commands. To some, this was a time of great enlightenment and learning. Others call them the darkest days of men, for it was then what you would not consider human had learned to best exploit one another."
"One of the greatest scholars and warriors of them all made a discovery. The means by which power could be used in even greater means by his fellow man. The first version of what you would now understand as the Rite of Manifestation but it was called Enlightenment in those days." And so the war came. The ruling scholars and Word Bearers split, all joining different sides. Some kingdoms gained this new use of Enlightenment while others did not. Some kingdoms had weapons others could only envy."
"These Enlightened were stronger than normal men. But they were the same. They were more skilled than normal men. But they were the same. However, not having to eat like regular men? That advantage was enormous."
I remember briefly the feeling of hunger.
"Mix that with their ability to ignore pain and never feel fear... and suddenly you had an army that others could not stand against."
Ignore pain and never feel fear. I gain insight on something called Fearmonger. About how it suppressed my emotions and dulled my fear. Is that related? Is that why I feel so great right now?
"It was taken even further by Thresh, who was one of the most terrifying Enlightened to ever exist, he gained an advantage even more frightening then all of the others." We will not repeat what the Ruined King did to you; as it is not yet time. Just now for now that the true nature of Thresh's Berserkers, was so much more frightening and terrible then you could imagine. They however live on in our dreams."
"But time burns away behind us, leaving only ash and memory. That memory passes from mind to mind, then finally to my story I am repeating to young Daath in the everlasting Now"
The voice addresses me directly now. Acknowledges my presence.
"When all is truth, and all are lies, does anything truly matter?"
I pause, not knowing how to respond to the voice.
"Your belief is your own. You will remember this story in fragments young Daath, as it is Now time to open your eyes."
What?! I don't have eyes and if I did I don't want to open them, I want to stay here and float in this infinite happiness.
"You will have many names and you will complete many tasks but remember this has happened and will happen."
My mind rebels against the foreign concept.
"But that does not mean the choices you make matter not. They do."
"Every decision creates its ripples, every moment burns its mark on time, every action leads us ever nearer to that last day."
The last day. What does that mean?
"Now Rise Half Mortal, RISE."
The command slams into me with physical force. And suddenly I'm not formless anymore. And with a sudden clarity I know who I am once more and I have a body. I can feel it. Every nerve. Every muscle. Every cell.
And with that awareness comes the pain.
Oh gods, the pain.
It crashes over me like a tsunami. Overwhelming. Catastrophic. Every wound I suffered in Baelin suddenly real again.
My shoulders scream where the blades pierced them. My legs burn with agony. My stomach holy fuck, my stomach it feels like it's been torn open and set on fire.
I try to scream but can't. Try to move but can't. Trapped in a body that's broken and dying and—
"This time, we will help." "But it's up to you from then on."
And then I feel it.
The unbroken ring at my sternum the Regenerator mark that's been dormant since I Awakened suddenly activates.
I can feel it working. Feel tissue knitting back together. Feel blood vessels sealing. Feel bones shifting back into place.
The blade in my stomach—I can feel it being pushed out. Slowly. Agonizingly. The metal scraping against regenerating tissue as my body literally rejects the foreign object.
The blades in my shoulders and legs do the same. Rising up through healing flesh. Expelled like splinters from wood.
And the light begins.
Golden light. Bright and pure and absolutely radiant.
It starts at the base of my sternum at the Regenerator branding and spreads outward. Flooding through my veins like molten gold. Illuminating me from within.
The pain doesn't stop. If anything, it intensifies as nerves regenerate and report damage before healing can catch up. The golden light grows brighter. Stronger. Until it's not just inside me but radiating outward. Exploding from my body in waves of pure luminescence.
My eyes snap open.