10.5 Chosen

Day 102

When we leave, we leave behind 12 of the Recovered. Only Knotrael, Willow, and one other (Bordrin) accompany us. We choose to travel around Deldrin instead of going through it - we don’t have the time to spare and we would inevitably be drawn into the city if we were to approach.  

Day 103

About halfway through the day we catch sight of a burning human settlement up ahead. It seems like the farmland and surrounding territory has been targeted, and it has been burning for several days. The heavy smoke and soot in the air feels nearly like the hellscape we saw in the Crystal Spires. It looks for all the world like a Collective strike, though the magic feels the same as the Severed curse.   There is a moment of horror as we approach to find human heads mounted on spears surrounding the village - a distinctly Collective strategy. They used to do this to villages as a way of provoking a hasty counterattack.   I’m terrified that they have bonded to some members of the human race and learned of this curse...horror echoed by all my elven companions. But as far as we know, they are unable to communicate across the Barrier as well. Any knowledge of that curse remains on this side.   Still...something doesn’t feel right. I don’t know why the Collective would do something like this as their first overture to connecting with humans, and certainly not with just one representative on this side.   I draw out the Osyr pearl and look at the flow of time that led to this burned ruin.   I see a raiding party of humans, armed and uniformed. They carry banners of a crashing wave of flame on a field of white - not an emblem I recognize. They take orders from an elf - but an elf mutilated nearly beyond recognition. Her right arm is missing and one side of her face is scarred and burned. The tips of her ears have been cut off, but her face is familiar. This is Zadiyah, once a lieutenant-general in my army though she would have risen higher if she had been of noble birth. She fought the Collective brutally and effectively for me, and was unrivalled at commanding small raiding parties with great effect.   When my vision clears, I know that she’s working at some other game here, and that this must be a distraction.   “Willow, do you know an elf named Zadiyah?”   She was tortured even further than the rest of the Severed, and went so far as to renounce the Empress herself once the curse had been laid. Now she considers herself the chosen of the human gods, and wants to serve them and their fire. Once she had been part of the Severed but she left when they refused to embrace the “gift” as she had.   Together, we surmise that she is likely planning on targeting Deldrin. Her military experience and knowledge of the Collective’s strategy make her a fearsome opponent right now for anyone. Her presence at my side in many battles make her all the more worrisome for me. She seems the epitome of “too far gone to save”...maybe if we had a safe place to let her heal...to remind her of her people and the shade. But we don’t have that.   Our healers head into the wreckage of the village to see if they can find survivors. My hopes are not high, but I understand why they need to do it.   Those of us who remain settle down to plot our path forward. Deldrin will likely be wholly unprepared for an attack, and human military command in general is not at a level to withstand someone as talented as Zadiyah. Still, the city itself might be more defensible than we anticipate. I recall the magic of motion and transmutation on the stone statues of guards and warriors, and the extensive war room beneath the library.   It is several hours before Bran, Camellia, and Hella return. Bran is carrying a very, very young elven boy with an impressive (and recent) black eye. He is unceremoniously tossed down, hands and feet tied.   Technically, I suppose he’s a prisoner of war. In reality, he’s a child, so I speak to him calmly.   His name is Raelli, and Zadiyah saved him from his painful reaction to what he now realizes to be a gift. She taught him to control it and use it, to be strong and withstand the light and the flame. He recalls darkness being cold and wet and living among humans to be unpleasant. Now, he is strong enough to fight back, and he is Chosen to bring the purifying flame to anyone. The weak will not be able to withstand it, and only the strong will remain.   He also lets slip that there is another fist remaining here, administering the gift to the villagers. The fist leader is Kristo, a human.   I ask him more about his life beforehand, and he tells me that his parents (Miri and Delfor) are potters. They were separated coming through the Barrier. He thinks they would be strong enough to withstand the flames, even if they are just simple folk.   The boy is nearly rambling. What he’s saying doesn’t make sense, and even if it did, a world where anyone has to traverse great pain to prove themselves as ‘strong’ is not a future that is worth fighting for. He tells me that if they purge the weakness from the adults, children would already be born into the flame and wouldn’t have to be purified. He seems to stumble a bit at the idea that there are many different kinds of strength, and that only one might be able to withstand flames.   I have been dancing around the idea that the world doesn’t have to exist in pain, but Willow leaps straight to that point. Raelli bristles, as though being accused of being weak, and I calm him again. He has come through the Barrier, withstood the pain of the gift, and made his own way here. Clearly he is not weak.   I think this will be a delicate process...there can be no hope of simply ripping away his worldview in one swoop. Just like we’re carefully building an alliance with the humans and the fae, this worldview must be carefully disassembled.   In the end, we agree to untie him if he promises not to run. Alder solemnly reminds him of the importance of oaths, and Raelli seems to bristle again. He would have sworn childhood oaths in the Empire, but he wasn’t old enough for full oaths before he left.   I want to give him the opportunity to take new oaths. He’s not quite an oathbreaker yet, and I won’t have him treated as one for circumstances he couldn’t control.   The evening passes with food and a general sense of unease. Kadia pulls me aside and tells me that he has talent of some sort - enough to make him a considerable elemental mage. Not all of the fire he wields comes from the radiant creature in him.   Tomorrow, she will try to teach him some other elemental magic, and perhaps we can start pursuing the idea that what makes him special is already in him, and not the ‘gift’ that he was tortured into receiving.