Note: The following chapter happens seven days after the destruction of the New Atheian Empire; seven days before Kanrel reaches Jersten.
- - - - -
Vaur'Kou'n stood before and witnessed the now ruined City of Last Light. Much like the City of Creation, it was empty and devoid of its prior life. Even the once sacred walls had lost their form, as now the Ancients had their arms stretched, as if trying to stop something before it would strike them. Parts of the walls had fallen over, other parts reduced to rubble, and sections that still stood felt that they could at any moment fall over, much like the tall towers beneath the large blue crystal that served as their sun.
Vaur'Kou'n had arrived with the survivors of the City of Creation's destruction. There weren't that many compared to the tens of thousands who had once lived there. Now, only perhaps a tenth remained. Among them, B'ou'r, who found herself more inclined to be in his company.
Although Vaur'Kou'n served as the 'leader' of their exodus toward the City of Last Light, in truth, the bickering siblings, A'Daur'Kra and A'Trou'n, had taken control of the whole project as if it were solely theirs. Neither seemed that distraught over the destruction of something they had both tried to claim as their own.
Every day, Vaur'Kou'n found himself hoping that one of them, preferably both, would kill the other, then he wouldn't have to find himself as a piece in their petty games. The more he spent time with the two, the more he found himself disillusioned by what his now wife, A'Trou'n, had become. The woman he had fallen in love with, though possibly only for the sake of a mission over two decades ago, had changed so completely that not even her form could remind him of who she had once been.
She kept throwing her stones in the lake, causing more and more ripples to form, awaiting a wave which might wash her brother away, so that only she was there to rule the remnants of the City of Creation; the people who had survived.
At least A'Daur'Kra remained true to what he had always been—a sadistic tyrant who had only ever ruled the City of Creation because of his ability to force a bureaucratic nightmare to function despite its quirks. He was almost fond of the fool.
B'ou'r tapped him on the shoulder. "They're fighting again…"
He sighed. "And this time it is about... what?"
"Whether we should search the ruins for supplies or just depart," she said.
"So, the same fight they had yesterday?"
"Yes."
"Wonderful. I can't wait for the inevitable arguments about which section of the city we should loot first…" he said, frowning.
B'ou'r snorted. "Or whether we should go around the city from the left or the right," she added.
Vaur'Kou'n's frown turned into a grin. He looked away from the city, turning it toward the few thousand who had survived. A vast ocean of people rested on the road and the hills just outside the city. His grin dissipated, returning to a frown. The first group he could see well seemed battered and tired after the long journey. He didn't know if they were a family or people who had never even spoken to one another before that dreadful day. Many of them must have lost someone close to them; either taken by the sudden attack of the Veil, or slain by the collapse of buildings.
He wondered if they felt lucky to be alive, or if they'd rather be dead. He didn't know if he wanted to know.
He found what he had first been looking for, a duo who stood in the middle of it all, observed by an audience of people in exile, who still seemed to manage to hold on to the Atheian understanding of hierarchy. Most present must have been M'eu T'eu'n, commonfolk and serfs.
Their patience was admirable, or they somehow found great amusement in their leaders' useless arguments despite the horrors that had crippled and slain many.
With a sigh, Vaur'Kou'n decided to put an end to it... for now, at least. The next argument would always be unveiled by the solving of one. He soon reached the duo.
"—danger doesn't matter. We have to search through the city, find possible survivors, and loot whatever we can; only then can we begin the journey to the east!" A'Trou'n spat her words out, making vague gestures toward the ruins.
"Ah, yes! And we certainly have the ability to carry even more things, when we already looted what we could a week ago. All we need is food, everything else is a waste of time!" A'Daur'Kra replied, his tone fluctuating between venomous sarcasm and plain venom.
A'Trou'n noticed Vaur'Kou'n approaching them, she stepped toward him and grabbed him by the arm, pulling him in between their argument. "Don't you agree with me, dear? We simply must grab any supplies we can find in the ruins!" she urged, holding an expression that demanded one answer: 'Yes, dear.'
Vaur'Kou'n gritted his teeth and glanced at A'Daur'Kra, who stared at them with disgust. Couldn't they just kill each other?
He felt an earlier headache lift its head, but despite it, he tried to calm the situation. "I agree with you both. We should gather some supplies, though only food. We can't afford to carry anything extra with us; as far as we know, the journey east could take months."
A'Daur'Kra and A'Trou'n both stared at each other with victorious contempt as if one had somehow won the argument over the other.
Juvenile, he almost blurted out, but held his tongue for now. Depending on his mood, he might just blow up on them, or make one or the other disappear during the arduous journey east and blame it on a collapsed cave roof or a remnant of the Veil. No one would blame him; he was sure of it.
A smile overcame him just thinking about the journey ahead, filled him with relief. But then, a sudden yearning poured from within. His heart felt cold, his lips numb, and his hands tingled. His smile faded; surely it had never been there in the first place.
His magic. It would never feel the same. He would never feel so satisfied by its overwhelming strength as he had at the direst moment of his life. The Veil poured over him as he unleashed the spell he had stolen from Kanrel. The holiest form of light.
The mood had shifted, and it did not go unnoticed. A'Daur'Kra looked at him funnily, and to divert attention away from himself, from potential prying questions, Vaur'Kou'n issued a command, though only in the form of a suggestion: "We could form search parties, who'd enter the ruins and collect as much food as we can find." He glanced at A'Trou'n, who still held on to his arm. Their eyes met, a cold gaze between them, her warm hands departed as she went ahead, barking commands as she formed a search party of her own.
Her brother scoffed at the sight and did the same. In a matter of minutes, multiple search parties had been formed that soon entered the city with finding food in mind.
Vaur'Kou'n entered the city as well with B'ou'r as his company, though not in search of food. There was something that he had to make sure...
- - - - -
There was a pit where once a great tower stood among the many. The very ground beneath it had given way and allowed its collapse, leaving behind uncertainty regarding the lives of those who had once lived within.
Vaur'Kou'n stared down. His face was a mask of said uncertainty; a frown that had grown ever-present since what could only be called the end of the New Empire. He had an urge to go down there, to seek among the rubble for corpses, for signs of life. But he did not. He ripped his gaze from the depths, only to lock eyes with B'ou'r. She looked at him with worry. Recently, she always seemed worried. They all did.
"Your home?" she asked and nodded toward the pit. Vaur'Kou'n shook his head and stepped past her, saying, "A friend's."
B'ou'r's expression remained the same, though her gaze lingered a moment longer where Vaur'Kou'n's had as well. Soon enough, she followed him.
When Vaur'Kou'n had lived in the City of Last Light, he hadn't had that many friends. Only a select few with whom he spent the little free time he had. The rest were just people of interest he had to follow from the shadows. And even the so-called friends that he had were people he was supposed to follow. For each person, he wore a different mask, to suit a personality which the other would find attractive and pleasant, for how else was he supposed to please the Council and pad his own pockets with more coin?
Gor, who had lived and perhaps died in that pit... He wasn't a friend, not really. Vaur'Kou'n had barely talked to him; he had barely met him, yet he knew so much about him. It was his job to know.
Even this street he now walked down, with more buildings in ruins, with objects left behind by those who had lived here, doors left wide-open, windows shattered by the earthquakes. It too was a place he knew much about; he had walked down many a time before. All done for the same reasons as he did anything at all.
From the shadows, he looked at them. Kanrel, Gor, Y'Kraun, and his family. Always staying out of their sight, always at a distance from which he could hear even the most domestic conversations they had had. To the point of even visiting their shop during the night, unseen by all, entering Kanrel's room within it, to see for himself what the Darshi had written in his most private journals.
And now he stood in front of it. That same door he had entered through many times, unbeknownst to any of its owners, always undetected. If he had done it all in the open, without hiding his mission and intentions, would they have accepted his presence? Or would he have found himself wearing a mask either way, unable to remember who he himself was long before what he had become now?
B'ou'r looked around; she had never been in the City of Last Light. This was her only chance to see its wonders, though now fading and partly destroyed. Vaur'Kou'n ignored her curiosity and went for the shop door; he tried to activate it, but the door would not open.
A sensation traversed through him. Surprise, perhaps. The door was locked, and why else would the door be locked?
Without hesitation, magic flared within him, cold and yearning for a feeling he couldn't reach. The lock burst, melting before his very eyes. He pushed the door open and stepped inside.
Within, a familiar sight. Stone shelves filled with books upon books; it was really all they sold—information about the world above, the languages they spoke there, the animals that lived, the plants that grew, the cities that existed, and the people whose cultures had shaped the reality around it. Some of those books lay on the floor, forced down, possibly, by the earthquakes or the hasty escape of someone who had been inside.
B'ou'r stepped past him and picked up a book; she read through its title aloud: "The Coasts of Zuria—The Cradle of the Darshi Civilization—By Kanrel Iduldian." Her hairless brows furrowed as she flicked through a few pages. "I suppose it is by the Darshi who was found decades ago…" she muttered, then inserted the book into an empty slot on one of the shelves.
Vaur'Kou'n said nothing and instead walked past the counter at the end of the shop, past it was a door which he quickly opened. It was a mix of two things: a storage room filled with even more books, and a bedroom, lived in by Kanrel before he entered the Veil.
The Darshi's bed was still there, so were his books and his other things as well. Vaur'Kou'n wondered whether his farewell letter was in here still. The morning Kanrel had left, Vaur'Kou'n had entered the shop in secret, found the letter and read through it, and soon after ran through the city, and made his way to the edge of the Veil through a secret tunnel within the Forum. There he had waited for the Darshi, at first meaning to stop him... but the moment he had seen him, he changed his mind.
The Darshi didn't belong with the Atheians. As much was clear. Kanrel would never be able to find someone to share his life with in all of its pleasures and pains. But then again, he might not be able to do that with his fellow Darshi either...
Vaur'Kou'n sighed, closed the door, and walked back, past the counter. He didn't have the time to go through the books and find things that would be truly useful to them. But there was one thing he knew that they'd need in the future: a map of the outside world. After searching for a minute or two, he found one. It was fairly drawn, or so he supposed. It wasn't like he'd be able to say for certain. The things he saw on it, long lines and different shapes, were explained by the writings just beside them, naming things like mountains, rivers, and cities. Whatever rivers and mountains happened to be...
He folded the map and hid it inside the breast pocket of his jacket. Then he found B'ou'r, who was reading through a book titled: 'The War of the Nameless—A History of the Nameless—By Kanrel Iduldian.' He tapped her on the shoulder. "Let's go."
B'ou'r sighed and placed the book where she had taken it from. "The Darshi seem like a warring people," she noted as they began leaving the shop.
Vaur'Kou'n shrugged. "Aren't we all?" he muttered and closed the door behind them; soon, he melted the seams of the door to make it become one with the wall itself. He didn't want anyone else to disgrace its sanctity. The memory should remain intact, untouched, and unharmed by outsiders.
Their gazes met again. B'ou'r carefully studied his expression, then asked, "I suppose a friend of yours owned this shop?"
Vaur'Kou'n stared at her for a while, then nodded. He stepped past her, not wanting to converse about it further.
"Does that mean that you knew the Darshi?" she asked after him. Vaur'Kou'n gave no reply as they walked down the street, past the building where Y'Kraun had lived with his family. At first, Vaur'Kou'n hesitated, not sure if he should climb the stairs and see their apartment, but in the end, he decided against it.
Although he wished to know whether they had gotten away, fled the city safely, he didn't have the time to go check for himself. This much was enough. If the shop's door had been locked, then surely it meant that someone had cared enough to do so; be it Y'Kraun himself or Gor.
As they went deeper into the city, B'ou'r got to see many known sights along the way, such as the Grand Library, which still stood proudly, at least half of it. The other half found itself collapsed into rubble. One time, Vaur'Kou'n remembered, he had infiltrated all of Gor's and Kanrel's lectures; there, he learned that despite Kanrel's ailment, the priest seemed to have at least a sense of humor.
The image of Y'Kraun floating on his chair, upside down, flashed through his mind. Even now, he found himself amused by it.
After walking past hundreds of buildings, some collapsed, some still standing, they finally reached what Vaur'Kou'n was truly here for.
The Sanctuary stood proudly among the ruins of a once great city. As if untouched by the destruction, it remained as it always had: a dreadful monastic prison meant for the select few who actually enjoyed staying in the same few rooms for most of their lives.
The walls that hid most of the Sanctuary behind it were etched with intricate engravings, the same ones that then repeated on the surface of the Sanctuary itself. Not many knew what their purpose was. They had no meaning; they were only meant to emulate the engravings on the city walls, or so Vaur'Kou'n believed.
B'ou'r stood beside him and seemed apprehensive, scared, even. She must've heard much about the Universal Truth, the Sanctuary, and all the secretive things that they did.
Vaur'Kou'n peered at her. If only she knew what really went on inside. He almost snorted. Then stepped toward the gate, placed his hand on it, letting his magic run through him into the complicated magical device. The cold touched him again; his heart did not skip a beat. His love had long faded.
But the gate opened anyway; a sound cracked the silence and the seemingly solid stone of the doors. B'ou'r gasped and instinctively grabbed Vaur'Kou'n's arm, "What are you doing?" she hissed through her teeth.
He scoffed. "Going home," he said and stepped inside. B'ou'r's grip left him, and she hesitated for a while before following after him. When they both reached the stone yard around the sanctuary, Vaur'Kou'n closed the gate behind them. No one else was allowed to stray inside; no one else was allowed entrance. Even B'ou'r wasn't supposed to.
B'ou'r's gaze followed the intricate engravings; a baffled expression hid her apparent fear and hesitation. Their gazes met, and she frowned. "You know... you're a lot scarier than what the rumors suggest…"
He scoffed. "I know... I've always said that they're all wrong," he said and shook his head, then he leaned closer and whispered, "No one knows even the half of it all."
B'ou'r's eyes widened as she took a step back.
Vaur'Kou'n flashed a grin; he couldn't help it. The woman was just way too much fun to tease; it might've now been his only joy. "Worry not, we aren't nearly as bad as people think, most of us are just eccentric scholars with esoteric interests!" he patted her shoulder, ready to enter the Sanctuary itself, but instead came to a sudden stop.
He frowned. Something was missing. The globes... where were the globes? He swallowed. Perhaps the others had taken them along? He stood still for a moment, but soon found his composure and instead entered through the doorway of the Sanctuary. He glanced back at B'ou'r, who stood still, staring at him. "Come along! Surely you wouldn't want to miss something not many have been allowed to see for themselves?" he urged her, and soon enough she found her wits and followed.
Vaur'Kou'n led the way. These corridors and rooms he had walked through thousands of times before, and he could easily have walked them without paying attention. But this time, he felt graceful enough to comment what purpose each room might have had, while they walked through and past them.
"We call this hall the cafeteria, though it is more a space meant for leisurely activities, such as dining. It is the only room where excessive use of magic and testing is not allowed," he explained as they entered, then walked through a hall that had plenty of tables and chairs scattered around. There were multiple doors as well, though they entered none and instead walked forth, continuing into a corridor that led them deeper into the somewhat disorienting construct.
Along the corridor, there were many doors. "These are dorm rooms. They are usually inhabited by individuals for decades upon decades. I used to have a room here long ago, though thankfully mine was upgraded to a much larger one decades ago…"
The corridor continued and soon diverged into three. He pointed left, "We'll go down there later." Then he pointed right, "That way, there are plenty of laboratories and such, meant for whatever a member of the Universal Truth might find interesting enough to test, study, or explode. We won't be going there; instead, we'll be going forward."
They soon entered a large library, filled with shelves upon shelves of books. A grand collection, some as old or even older than the city itself. "Here, you could probably find the answer to the meaning of life itself, if you had the time and the patience to browse through everything."
But instead of doing that, they went deeper, and soon reached the end of the library, a set of doors past which there were stairs. They climbed the stairs and reached another level of the Sanctuary. There were more corridors and halls, and rooms, through which and past they walked, until they reached a collection of doors.
He pointed at one of the doors. "That's my room... Though I haven't been there since I was commanded out of the City of Creation," he explained, and B'ou'r stepped toward it. "But we won't be going there today. The things that are there now have become meaningless," Vaur'Kou'n said, then stepped toward another door. "We'll instead go here," he muttered and placed his hand on the lock. He felt the familiar magic that lay dormant within it, then activated it, and the door opened.
Inside was a collection of rooms, basically an apartment. They entered a living room which had a fireplace and multiple couches, all covered with soft pillows. Against the walls were shelves full of books and strange-looking artefacts.
"Whose room is this, then?" B'ou'r asked after looking around for a while.
"My grandfather's." Vaur'Kou'n stepped toward one of the shelves. Toward an item that sat between a small statue of an Atheian and a collection of books.
It was... a black gem-like thing. Dark substance. A globe of nothing. Smooth and perfect; without a reflection or a shadow.
He felt it. The absence of something now lost. A yearning for love now forever left unsatisfied. Then... something flowed through him. Burning, sickening thing. Hate. Hate. Oh, how he hated what he had become. For a moment, he saw himself standing before a mirror. And in that mirror, he saw a mirage; he saw himself as he was. Without the mask he now wore. Disgusting. He was disgusting. He saw the lies, the shit that he was and had become. But he couldn't look away. No. He looked deeper, past what he himself was...
Static embraced him. It felt wet against his face. As though tears fell down someone's cheeks. He looked up and saw it. A grand staircase that went on as if forever toward the ceiling of the caverns, only to stop when it came in touch with a light so bright that it blinded him. For a moment, he heard just the static. He felt just the wet tears that fell upon him.
Then, suddenly, he was ripped away. Sounds emerged, and he could remember who he was, where he was, and who stared at him with worry on her face.
B'ou'r seemed startled, and her gray hands touched his face. They felt so warm. "Why are you crying?" she asked, wiping away the tears he had wept.
Vaur'Kou'n swallowed a lump. "I don't know," he lied. His voice was coarse, and he allowed the woman to wipe away his grief.
B'ou'r didn't say anything else and let her hands fall back down. The warmth of her touch lingered, and Vaur'Kou'n had to fight against himself, so as not to lift his hands to touch what she had touched. Instead, he looked for a blanket and placed it over the Globe of Darkness, hiding from himself as well as B'ou'r. He wanted to take it with him, but he was afraid that he wouldn't be able to look away from it.
He instead left it where it was and pulled B'ou'r with him into another room, where a soft bed awaited alongside more shelves as well as a stone table covered by journals, one of them lay open, and on its pages read: 'After thousands of years, at last we are to return home. The Receptionist is pleased, and the Chained Eye has fulfilled its purpose.'
He quickly burned the page before B'ou'r could lay her eyes on it. She looked at him and frowned.
Vaur'Kou'n snorted. "My grandfather likes to write embarrassing things about pretty girls…" he quickly lied.
B'ou'r scoffed. "I see."
There was nothing else that he needed to see now. He felt relief at the sight of his grandfather's words. He must've gotten safely away. He went through the room and found a ruby necklace, which he offered to B'ou'r. She looked confused.
"When worn and empowered, it will instill you with warmth," he explained. She still seemed hesitant. "I want you to have it," he urged, and in the end, B'ou'r accepted it and wore it around her neck. She fiddled with the ruby for a moment, then smiled.
"It feels so nice and warm," she muttered and met eyes with Vaur'Kou'n, who nodded.
"Good... We can leave now." He stepped out of the bedroom and into the living room, where his gaze lingered on the globe resting below the blanket. He had to force himself to look away and not be allured by its existence, and every step until he stepped outside of the apartment felt heavy and forced. B'ou'r stepped outside with him, and Vaur'Kou'n closed the door with his magics.
He led them back down the way they came and through the library until they reached the junction of corridors. They stepped to the right and went down the corridor that he had mentioned they'd visit. There were no rooms along its way, and soon it turned right, where they were met with stairs. The steps were steep, and it took a long time before they reached the corridor below.
"Where are we going?"
"To walk past something I've never stepped before," he muttered as they walked down the strange corridor, one unlike anything B'ou'r could have ever seen, for on each wall, and even on the floor and the ceiling, there were lanterns lit by crystals at equal intervals. Some of them shone brightly, and some of them had become dormant, whilst others flickered, creating an eerie atmosphere.
They only stopped when the lanterns did. Even Vaur'Kou'n had never seen something like this before. There was a clear edge between one thing and the next. The corridor ended as they knew it, no more lanterns and polished-looking craftsmanship. Instead, past the edge, there was a rough corridor created with what seemed like magic, cut through solid stone.
"Once," Vaur'Kou'n said after a long silence. "The Veil reached all the way here. And every day, many of us would have to stand beside it, with crystals in hand, to guard that it would never go past a certain point. It was…" He swallowed, his gaze was somewhere but not here. "... maddening."
"Anyone normal would never survive such torment," he said and shook his head.
"And now it is gone, as though it had never touched this place. And at last I might see what lies beyond it, not just here, but out there, where the lanterns once kept it away…" He glanced at B'ou'r, who stared ahead, her brows set into a frown, but there was a hue of light in her eyes that reflected from the lantern that flickered close by.
"To see what perhaps only the Darshi had seen," he added, and observed how she might react. But she only shook her head. "How could he be the only one? Aren't there perhaps thousands, or even millions of people like him, far above?"
Vaur'Kou'n shrugged. "We do not know, though soon we might find out…"
He stepped forward and formed a magical light to show them the way. The rough corridors led them to a large room, where on the floor there were four wells, or pools... Within them, liquid as black as ink.
Shivers ran through him, for he knew what they were; what they were made into. The liquid was the essence of the Globes of Darkness... for what else could they be? He stared into one of the pools, and felt as though he stared at nothing; into the nothing.
Just... oblivion...
His skin felt prickly, and every moment that he spent within this room felt wrong; disgusting. They shouldn't stay here. No one should. Without hesitation, he grabbed B'ou'r, who stared into another well, her gaze suddenly so distant, by the arm and pulled her with him, away from the room and the wells, away from oblivion, toward a doorway that opened to a continuation of the corridor that went on and on, and on, until...
They reached a dead-end. A wall filled with engravings. Finally, he let go of B'ou'r's hand and instead reached toward the wall. He felt its cold, rough texture. Then, he let magic flow through him, as cold or even colder than the stone itself, it poured out of him, into the wall; the engravings lit with blue light, the stone cracked and began to crumble, turning into dust as light as ash; it attacked the air they breathed and he was forced to use magic to wash away the dust, to keep the air pure from its foul taste.
And when the dust at last settled, they were met with a steep stairway, similarly cut into the stone with magic. They climbed them, Vaur'Kou'n's light as the only thing that lit their way, and after a climb that made them sweat, they emerged from the stairway to a small chamber built from black and gray brick, much like most of the City of Last Light.
It seemed like no one had entered it for, perhaps, hundreds of years. The floors were slippery with dust, and it smelled strange, somewhat damp, though not musty. There was another section of a wall garnished with engravings... It, too, he activated, allowing the doors to, this time, crack and open and show him the sight of an area he had not frequented that often...
It was the area outside of the City of Last Light, facing the east, where once the Veil stood, from the floor to the ceiling, shrieking and endlessly moving, like crawling on itself, only kept at bay by the lanterns that now lay dormant on the ground. They stepped outside and closed the stone door behind them, allowing it to become part of the city walls once more.
They remained, standing there in silence for a while. There was no need for an exchange of words, at least not about the thing that now sprawled endlessly before them: the vast caverns. B'ou'r must have seen the dormant lanterns as well; she, too, must have realized that this was the edge of the Atheian Empire. It was as east as they could've gone just a few weeks back, though now it lay open and available for travel. Somehow, against all odds, it had become the only way they could go, for all else that lay behind them, in the western and the southern parts of their lands, had become dangerous. The earthquakes had become more frequent and devastating, as if the sanctity, the integrity of the caverns could not remain intact without the Veil...
"What was that?" B'ou'r suddenly asked. Her voice felt small, terrified by something.
Vaur'Kou'n glanced at her, only to see her looking at the door through which they had stepped. He didn't want to explain, for he himself didn't know either. "Something... wrong... Something that ought not be," he said, after another long silence.
She turned her gaze, and Vaur'Kou'n was at last allowed to see the despair within them and her. What if... she had seen something in that oblivion? What if she, too, had seen something that she couldn't unbecome...
Vaur'Kou'n's expression softened, and he said, as gently as he could, "Let's go around the city and return to the camp." She nodded, and they departed...
The next day, the thousands of survivors made their way and gathered at the edge of the Atheian Empire; afraid and filled with uncertainty, they began their exodus, tailing those who had left over a week before them.
- - - - -
The Receptionist stood upon a boulder; it was an anomaly even among the Atheians. So pale was its skin, so unsettling and emotionless was its way of speech, yet even then, it had become the one the refugees followed.
Its gaze was set toward the east, and it followed the refugees who walked past it. No one dared stare at it, lest it met their gaze, smiled, and called them by their name. The Receptionist, it seemed, knew everyone by name. For all information, good and bad, went through it.
It was the anthropomorphic personification of the Forum itself, and when the Council of Many Faces, for some reason, refrained from showing themselves to the refugees, it served as their voice, for it was the only one, so close to them.
And even if there were prophets and leaders of the different factions, they too dared not meet its eyes or question its decisions or leadership, lest they be exposed for their false beliefs or corruption.
It lodged itself above all else, for it had been appointed to the penultimate step of all hierarchy within the Atheian society. But it seemed not care for such things, for it treated all with the same unnerving way... Oh, how it would smile oh so wrong.
- - - - -
Weeks had passed since the people of Jersten had to leave their homesteads behind and make their way south, away from shadows that stole the people you most loved. Roslyn had guided them; she was the only one who could, it was her duty, after all.
Just two days prior, they had reached Aucklyn's safety, exhausted and fewer in number than when they'd started. But even here, she felt no safety.
That night, she dreamed as well:
Darkness surrounded her, broken only by scattered lanterns along an endless path. Behind her, hundreds followed, refugees who trusted her guidance even as she herself felt lost.
Then she heard it. A sound like wind, like screaming, like both and neither.
She turned and saw them, shadows given form, flowing between the lanterns, reaching for the refugees. At their touch, men, women, and children vanished into the dark, their clothes falling empty to the frozen ground.
"Run!" she screamed, but her voice made no sound. The shadows moved faster, closer. One reached for her, its hand like smoke—
Roslyn woke gasping, cold sweat on her skin. Just a dream. It was just a—
A scream outside. Real. Followed by another.
She threw off her blanket and rushed to the window. Below, in Aucklyn's square, shadows moved between the buildings. Villagers and refugees scattered in panic. Clothes lay on the fresh layer of snow, further veiling the cobblestone.
And far above, from the north, from where they had fled, more darkness flowed their way, flooding over clouds, further darkening the already dimmed world.
The flower in bloom, and the shadows it brought had followed them south...