9.7 Where You're Needed

General Summary

Day 93

We get deeper and deeper into the city and Kadia begins slowing down. This is where she grew up and it’s clearly hard for her to see this. Towering several feet above us, she is still able to rest some of her hands on our shoulders and draw strength from us as we walk. Up ahead of us is a single tower that is untouched, not on fire. There is a barrier around it and the hounds circling it die as they try to cross it.   It is her school. She tells us that she had once hoped to be a wave rider, working with the ships. Instead, her magic made everything dangerous.   Across the courtyard, an Osyr dressed in very elaborate robes speaks up. None of us expected to see anyone alive here, let alone someone who Kadia recognizes. She greets him as “teacher”, and he tells us that his name is Ava.   There is so much for him to tell us. He leads us inside to a room full of books and pearls, which I know to be like books for the Osyr. He asks us, somewhat coldly, if we’ve finally brought a fae to put an end to the burning fae magic in the city. The fires outside don’t feel like fae but…I can’t see a reason for him to lie about this.   He tells us that he once had fae pupils, and that fae themselves live as a question seeing to answer itself. They seek songs and stories and constant “what if’s” that led to the burning of this city. “What if” they turned from peace and gentleness to rage and war? “What if” the entire city was ablaze forever? The hounds here tear at the fabric of what is, and the city has become impossible to leave.   Ava says so much in such a disorganized way, speaking about the fae, their magic, and how someone (Trachus?) turned it against the trolls without knowing what he was doing. I imagine he has had no one to speak to in a long while, and he is a flood of information.   One of the things he mentions, subtly, is that Kadia took custody of her forest as a controlled way of losing herself and her talent for making things dangerous. This is fascinating and not at all what I had expected of the person I’ve gotten to know. It makes me feel a little less connected to her - I had imagined her as a purely tragic, strategic sacrifice and not as someone who chose an easier option than focusing her talents in a life of service. This is cruel of me, I think. Being here, with Thalien and Lyssa but not Bran and Alder, feels strange.   But to the matter at hand - one of the Osyr, Mirin, wove a magic to combine what might be with what is. It required the sacrifice of many to serve a few, and she said it would need to be passed to another Weaver of Fate. My already ash-coated throat goes dry.   “Is this why every path I see has led me here?” Thalien asks, more calmly than I feel. Ava shakes his head - a path may have been prepared, but Thalien always had the free will to walk it himself. And now he is here. Now we are all here, he says, a weaver, a sunset child, a vessel, and a bridge.   He leads us deeper into a cavern. It is filled with more than a hundred sleeping Osyr, many of them children. Others are in robes nearly as elaborate as Ava’s. Clearly students and teachers, just a fraction of the Osyr who would have lived here but they are alive and safe, and it was their voices that called Kadia here.   Ava tells us that we will need to bring this place back to the waking world and he can tell us where but not how. We’ll need to go to the place where this fae magic is anchored and do…something…in the waking, Dreaming, and spirit worlds. Thalien knows where to go; it is the place that he has been guarding in the Dreaming, and in this spirit world it is surrounded by hounds.   And so we are divided. Some is easy - Kadia will stay here with Ava. Bran, Alder, Hella, and Camellia will stand in the waking world. Lyssa and Thalien will stay in the Dreaming.   Some of it is hard. Given the choice, I want to cling to Thalien - someone I’ve already had to let go of and can just barely fool myself into thinking I can’t lose again. And Lyssa, for just a moment to be fighting together again. For just a moment I experience the horror of choice that I know I give to my people every time I ask them to stand on their own. And I’m grateful for Ava, guiding me to go where I’m needed. Back to the waking world.   We all move back through the gate to our respective worlds, and we begin the fight separately, but still tied together. If I were a weaver, I’m sure I could see the threads.   When my group reaches the rendez-vous point it feels horribly wrong. The area is hard to enter, and we come up against a smokey, draconic beast that lashes out at all of us. Here, without my Dusk Reaper, it’s hard to imagine I’m fighting as hard as I can. Still, we defeat it and are left with a swirling magic surrounding a copper oak leaf adorned in fae writing.   Camellia tells us that it is autumnal magic - burning. All leave change and die, and eventually must fall. To douse the fire, we need to bring this anchor to winter.   Together, Hella and I work. She draws frost magic into it and the swirling begins to crystallize. I slow the whirling energy, giving it time to calm and freeze. And then it freezes solid and begins to crack. For a moment, I see Thalien, Lyssa, and Kadia. For a moment we are live, and together. And then Thalien and Lyssa fade, and Kadia joins with Hella once again.   And then with a wave, the energy pulses out and the buildings begin to heal. Ever so slowly, the cracks are mending. It will take months, but it will heal.