8.5 Hello

General Summary

Day 79

We have barely reached the Twilight Garden when it happens. I catch the barest glimpse of a hooded figure on a rooftop, holding a massive Collective crossbow. And then it goes dark.   My consciousness flutters back for a moment and I can feel Bran, and then I’m gone again, into a memory this time.    

Me, Mistress, Doraal, and a large but not overwhelming collection of soldiers. I have Thalien and Dal with me. Doraal has two members of his own house. The soldiers are like a slightly more robust collection of personal guards. We are riding towards a large tent in the midst of blistering hot fields, on the other side is an equally large contingent of Collective soldiers approaching.   Thalien says, “I don’t like the feel of this. It’s not that I can read anything in it, there’s too much here. The threads are tangled, jumbled, the three of you together makes it hard enough but the group over there makes it even harder. It feels like the world is a coin balanced on edge. “   Mistress laughs, “You don’t have to like it, Thalien, but we’ve been fighting for a long time and if they’re finally willing to talk about peace, we can’t ignore that. Too many people have died already. Besides, they’re supposedly sending someone who stands equal to me, which means they are taking as much risk as we are. So if you definitively know that something’s wrong, I want to hear it. Otherwise, we are all nervous.”   When we enter the tent, it is draped in plush fabrics, rich carpets, luxurious silks. It is distinctly in the style of the Collective. The table is chest-height for someone sitting on the floor. An old, leathered elephantine person enters. One ear is ragged and torn, the other is studded with gold hoops. His one broken tusk is capped with a decoratively blunted gold tip. The guards: One like a rhinoceros with a bladed cap on his horn, and another elephantine person with bladed caps on the tusks.   “You’re in the presence of Shakshakshafah, Lord of the First Circle of the Yograh,”

  My memory skips.

  Talks are frustrating and there is bickering about territory. The third day begins and the lord says “The time for negotiation has ended. The terms we offered were reasonable. If we cannot take them, our final offer is this: We will give you peace, that peace comes with surrender. You will join the Collective. Your Empress will be honoured and given a place on the Yograh as Lord of the First Circle. The oaths of your people will be broken and reforged into the greater Collective. You have fought bravely and endured longer than any who have stood in the path of the Collective, which earns you great honour. You will take it, or you will die,”   Then, shouting outside. The walls of the tent fall away and several Collective soldiers are revealed outside,   “No peace with the shadow walkers!” one shouts, and the crossbows let rip. Mistress takes a bolt through the upper chest. Doraal catches me and attempts to catch Mistress before taking two in the back. The Lord shouts at his men and the last I hear from him is, “There will never be peace after this!”   Then a spell washes over all of us.

  And again.  

I am badly hurt. Mistress and Doraal have spent the last three days on the brink of death. Thalien and I and thirty of the personal guard, with the members of the Doraal’s house, have managed to escape. The wounds resist healing; they don’t close. For the past three days I’ve been cutting myself because Thalien’s magic won’t reach them and heal them, but offering my strength has kept them from dying. The only hope is that we reach the Empress in time. I remember a story, dear in Imperial history, of when the Empress lay on the brink of death and her trusted concubine, in an act of tremendous sacrifice, bound the two together and brought the Empress back to life. Our only hope is to reach the Empress and find that magic.

   

In the wagon, we’ve been riding for days and my arm is a mess of scars. Each day Thalien pours his magic into me to keep me alive so that I can sacrifice more to keep Mistress and Doraal alive. Each time I cast the rite I lose a little bit, permanently. I cannot last forever. We have almost reached the Capital.

   

This time, in a room that is soft, dark, draped in heavy fabrics. Mistress and Doraal are laid out comfortably, like they’re sleeping. The Empress stands with me.   “You’ve given so much for them. But this is beyond even me. The curse on them will only end with the death of the one who bestowed it. I can sustain them, but they will not wake until he dies. The Empress hands me a weapon - the grim scythe Dusk Reaper, “You’re sure? Losing them, my heart breaks. If I lose you as well, I’ll lose all of you,”   I look at her in silence, take the scythe, and leave.

    I am unconscious but this strikes me - walking away from the Empress with a single-minded focus.   Then, suddenly, I am awake in the Dreaming in a blistering hot landscape, dotted with natural stone formations. The sun is high, casting no shade. A thunderous voice: “You can’t escape me, Blood Queen!” and I see an elephantine figure charging towards me.   Seems there is always a distraction from death, I suppose.   I duck behind a pillar and pop out my four faithful illusions, sending two climbing up as the other two scatter with me. The assassin strikes down the illusion that is climbing competently up the pillar. Nice to know he thinks so highly of me.   I am at full strength here but I know how strong these Collective warriors are. Seems like every time I face them, I lose something. Best to be pre-emptive, I think as I cut into myself and send the damage reverberating towards him, directing the climbing illusion to extend a hand as though she is casting the spell that slices him from shoulder to hip.   He comes back up angrily and sends earth magic into the pillar, shaking my illusion, who leaps over him and rolls, coming up in a casting stance. I dearly wish my illusions really could cast on my behalf, like when I had the Legion Prism as an apprentice. And then I find myself holding the bracelet in my hand, having successfully exerted my will on the Dreaming. I wish I had remembered that my illusions vanish after casting, and that they have no blood to spill, and that perhaps the Dusk Reaper would have been a more appropriate weapon for this fight.   Remembering my dreadful scythe brings my attention back to the fight and the faithful iron staff in my hand. I cut into myself again, doubling the strength this time as I focus on the staff.   The assassin howls in pain and flees, leaving me gasping with my own blood slicking my palms and the smooth iron staff.  

I’m in a lush, temperate forest, standing high on a hillside overlooking a glittering jewel of a city. It is large enough to have a population greater than a million. I’ve made it all the way to the Capital of the Collective. I’m wearing armour….but it’s patchwork. Some pieces are stripped from members of the Collective and transmuted to dark, shadowy pieces. I slip between shadows as I approach the bustling city. I haven’t slept in days. My blood sings with magical energy like I’ve never felt before. I have enough power to crumble buildings.   It has been months since I left Doraal and Mistress. I have carved a swathe 100’s of kilometres through the Collective to get here. I can taste it. I’ve almost reached their Council and my target: The Lord who cursed my family.   It skips, to me standing over the body of Lord Shakshaksafah. It is insufficient for me to have killed him. I bind him in in death, stripping the spirit from his flesh and chaining it. That spirit will wail in agony for eternity or until someone finds a way to break my magic. The spirit takes the form of the bloody, shredded mess of his body. I shackle his spirit to the Council buildings to haunt it for a thousand years. I feel nothing - no closure, no justice. Simply a task to complete. The only thing left for me to do is to make sure that Mistress and Doraal are okay. The need to know that they are free is the only reason I don’t let the growing horde kill me. The magic I have worked is beyond the pale and the number of deaths it took to work it is staggering. I turn and take with me the sword that belonged to the Lord. A bright, shining blade.   It skips, to Mistress and Doraal, alive in a garden. We have retreated far from the Capital to heal, but I feel dead. I can barely feel my connection to the Empress and my family. Something inside me has broken. My family holds me and I find no comfort.

  I draw breath in the Dreaming and manifest Thalien before me. He catches me as I stumble forwards and heals me a bit. He is gravely concerned and I am quietly furious, pacing and letting my mind race as I think about a next move that might not even matter if I am dead. And then Thalien spins me into the waking world, where I glimpse a small, winged figure with pink hair, “Rest, and be reborn”   And just as quickly, I am back in the Dreaming in the woods where I first crossed. Dal is here. I fall into him. I didn’t think I would get a chance to apologize to him for how unpleasant I must have been on my first night here,   Your heart was broken. Your flame almost extinguished. You’d lost love and much of yourself. The sacrifices you made were like carving away pieces of your own soul until your spirit was as flayed as the Collective lord you left behind. The working that you did to cross - there’s a reason that you sealed your memories away. It was so you could forget the pain that took love from you, in the hopes that you could find it again. Everyone considered it a gamble. No one knew if it would work. But you were so very you in those moments, questioning, frustrated, desperate to reach out and reach understanding. Projecting myself from here to the waking world took a lot of Thalien’s effort. It was the two of us together that made sure we could reach you. I missed you.   The pieces slide into place, not entirely filling the gaps in my memory but still…   I haven’t known who I am for a long time. I don’t think I am one thing in particular any more. There is no singular Morning whose robes I must fill. I was the girl who heard someone in pain and reached out, I was the apprentice who refused to hold anything back from her, I was someone who built families out of misfit people who needed love, and then was consumed by revenge when it was ripped away, and someone who couldn’t recover when the job was done.   The torture I remember inflicting feels unthinkable, and that is a good thing. Even the fury I feel at the thought of someone ripping away Bran, Hella, Alder, and all the branches of my family...death would be enough for someone who did that. A permanent, careful death, with no hope of return. But still, death would be enough, especially if it meant no assassin would follow me and my family to the ends of the earth. I am wiser now. My family is larger, and I have so very many other families to protect as well.   Thalien arrives and hugs us both. It is time to hunt down this assassin, with our own methods, safe in the shade of the trees. Dal leads us high into the mountains north of Whitewater, to an island in the midst of a lake where he tells us the magic is deep and has always belonged to us. This time when I exert my will on the Dreaming, I conjure Dusk Reaper into my hands and remember the power of wielding it against armies that fell before us...before me.   The elephantine assassin is suddenly there, charging towards us. I slip through the shadows and come up behind him but I’m overeager in my swing, forgetting the way the scythe carves through the air after I have spent so long with a slim blade in my hand. Dal and Thalien are right behind me, stepping through the shadows to surround the assassin. In turn, he cleaves through Dal in a single hit, sending him to his knees.   The calm fury rises in me again and I strike true with Dusk Reaper, sacrificing his own blood against him. He howls in pain again and Thalien blasts him with a burst of light that has Bran’s magic infused throughout it. The assassin dies and immediately all of our attention is on Dal.   He is fading as he looks at Thalien, “You did tell me I’d have one last time to say goodbye…”   Somehow the surrealism of what I have experienced in the past...hour? Day? Days? Makes this a less terrifying moment than it could have been. Overflowing with energy from that single blow, I bond myself with Dal and he comes back to us.   “You choose your fate,” Thalien tells him, “Your oaths still bind you. Our lady has not released us. You can stay here with me, if you choose,”   Dal grins and hugs him, “I won’t abandon a brother,” and turns to me, “I thought this was goodbye. It feels more like hello,”   And Thalien spins me awake again.  

Day 83

I’m awake, and breathing easily. The air smells floral and the draperies in the room are bright and colourful. The pink-haired fae is attending to me; she introduces herself as Camellia. Apparently Bran kept me alive for two days while Hella rode to fetch her.   Bran joins me, “I thought we’d lost you,”   Somehow I realize that my family is all going to be like this. They have been waiting on me, unconscious and healing, while I have been full strength and fighting alongside Thalien and Dal in the Dreaming. Our attitudes will be interesting to reconcile…   He tells me that Alder found and killed the humans who shot me, and he shows me emblems of an elephantine head that they carried. I tell him of the assassin in the Dreaming.   Hella and Alder join us, relief clear on their faces. Alder kneels and swears he won’t leave my side again and I assure him that I wouldn’t have it any other way, but not if it is because he blames himself for this. The actions of those who are trying to assassinate me are not his responsibility, for all he thinks he should be sacrificing himself for me. Bran reminds him that I am the strong one. This little group...everyone wants to be the one to die because it is unthinkable to be left behind when someone else is taken.   Camellia remarks that she has never seen anyone as driven and bonded as this group. I swallow back protests rising in my mind that this is more than I deserve. This is exactly what I am worthy of. This is something I have cultivated, nurtured, and continue to tend to. We are like this because it is worth it. It is deeply personal, and yet not personal at all. It is simply how it is.   I am tired, and Camellia keeps reminding me to eat and drink. Hella and Kadia remark that they were unable to follow me into the Dreaming the way I followed Bran when he was dying. This is something I will need to think about...but later...it is time to sleep.