40.6 Breaker of Chains

General Summary

Day 692

Uneventfully, we continue to work at how to untangle Starfield from her chains.  

Day 693

The night before Qing Chen and Liliales ought to arrive, I am called into the Dreaming to find Thalien waiting for me. His eyes are deeper and starrier, and I see hints of starshine beneath his dark curls.   “No wings yet,” he laughs when I remark on his appearance. And we settle down to talk for the first time in a long while. Too long, I think. Now, I see a version of Thalien that seems more at peace than he has ever been. He tells me that he is letting go of fate - not that he won’t look, but that he won’t seek out the precision he once did.  

I was becoming a vessel for the work instead of being my own person…it snuck up on me. Dal has been calling me out. Sometimes I wonder when it happened and if I could reach back in time and tug at the threads so that I could find my own way forward. It hardly matters now - I need to let go of fate in order to become something different.

    Part of me is glad he never met Nucifera; part of me wonders if he would have recognized himself in her and steered himself differently. But it has worked out, I think. The way he speaks about fae (“other fae”) makes me smile.   I tell him all about the kids and what they’re up to - Miriam swearing at the Empress, Hella leading a small army, Dawn thinking of kids in the coming decades, Trillium becoming a dragon, Tira shepherding heroes into the dragon mountains. It is the sort of talk that ought to make me feel old, but it makes me feel young and mortal to have such a collection of youth to look out for. Even though I tell him about how nice it has been to stay put and study for a bit, and to see Mistress in the Dreaming now that she’s crossed, I still have so much work to do.   Thalien tells me about a young Osyr he met from the Crystal Spires. Valdune, a boy who was Dreaming for the first time and found it quite alarming until Thalien found him (it does not escape my notice that Thalien was playing a large game of tag at the time) and said he would help him find some teachers. Apparently the kid is struggling with magic and would be better off with a sword. I ask him if he knows what it means to be unbound by fate. From his face, I can tell that he’s known something about me for much longer than I have. When Bran stopped being able to see my thread, Thalien couldn’t see it either…both of them were keeping track of me by watching the things I touched rather than my thread itself. For a moment I have to laugh - leave it to Thalien to have one surprise in the quiver just as he tells me he’s giving up staring at fate.   Before I go, I ask if he would come back if he could. It’s a question I can only bear to ask because he’s not watching my thread.  

Without a moment’s hesitation. I’ve made peace with being here, but it’s only a piece of what I want my life to be.

  His ghostly hands on mine strengthen for just a moment, as though we are both thinking the same thought. And then I’m asleep again.  

Day 694

In the morning, the boys arrive with Skyen, Alrule, and two lionesses. Before long they are happily roasting a gazelle-like thing over a fire and playfully arguing about what to make from the horn.   It takes a few hours, but we manage to tear down Oolee’s cottage and transform the material into a sprawling porch outside the cave entrance by the time the meat is finished. Decorated with fae scarves and illusions, we have a beautiful picnic while Magdalena lays out her plan for freeing Starfield.   With Qing Chen now among us, she envisions being able to inscribe the chains with something to bring out their sense of spirituality and purpose. Ancient magical items often begin finding their own sense of purpose, usually weapons or other actively used tools. That these chains have avoided such an awakening is likely because of how passive they have been for the last millenia. Together, we workshop possible inscriptions until Ausha strikes upon the right one - chains that should only bind the wicked.   It’s an idea that Qing Chen takes up easily, telling us that demons conceive wickedness as an inability to love. In his own language, there are many terms for such a thing. He and I work together late into the night, combining my metal magic with his inscriptions to sink into the chain easier. By the time the stars are high in the sky, we have persuaded the chains to free Starfield’s hands and she is able to join us on the porch t osee the night sky for the first time in far too long.   Of course, we have wild fae and spirit-folk music and dancing late into the night.  

Day 695

By mid-afternoon the next day, we have broken the chains completely and Ausha and I seal up the cave entirely.   Tomorrow morning we will head West to meet up with Yneir, Bran, and Vaneili in many week’s time. Skyen agrees to accompany and guide us, excitedly telling Liliales that he’ll make a knife-fighter out of him yet. My little dusk son looks none too enthused until I remark that Zehi would probably be interested in learning some of what he can pick up from the lion.   Before our journey, I take samples of the water and, on something of an academic whim, brew some tea from it. To my surprise, Skyen and the three other lions pulse in my senses and I feel an overwhelming aura of their feline form around them.