Time seemed to slow to a crawl. There were wails from all over the Meadows. That sound was becoming second nature with every entrance. Shades, the spirits of those long dead who were doomed to wander the realm of eternal slumber, roared out of the distance of non-light. Bright shapes of men and women and everything in between and beyond flew in great force, they came at Ashe, hands outstretched. Mouths open with deathly echoes.
This was new, these were the souls of daemons. Of the Pit in the deepest, darkest, dankest abyss of the void.
“You think you’re a master of a world you know nothing of.” Ashe looked around for Solanine, following the voice, but saw nothing. Only the non-light of the void. “Time flows to my whims in this realm. Not yours, child.”
Ashe cowered, throwing her hands up to protect herself as the daemonic shades beat at her in a whirlwind of moans and screams. The terror grew as the torrent of spirits assailed her. Circling in a tourbillon of howls, the shades brought torture with them. They promised her eternal suffering in the fields of punishment within the Pit. Glimpses of never-ending death.
“It can all end if you give yourself to the Fallen,” Solanine’s voice said from outside the circle of swirling shades, ethereal. “Become the Godslayer, child of Nightingale. Break free from the Crystal of Life and take your place upon Eminence. Bow before the Crystal of Death and the Divines.”
Visions of being crushed slowly by heavy stones. Skin flayed from her body in agonizing ways. Body ripped apart piece by piece. Mist daemons eating her insides—one conspicuously appearing like Amaranth the Pure.
“Give yourself to Him. End the suffering.”
A weight pressed upon her, pushing Ashe into the non-floor of the Meadows. Ashe pulled her legs to her chest as she sobbed.
The visions of death and suffering continued unabated. Body was strapped to a giant, slow-turning wheel that was aflame. Tossed from a thousand-foot mountain onto a bed of daggers. Hooks piercing her skin attached to ropes and pulled limb from limb.
“You will only be the beginning. Everyone you have ever cared for will feel your suffering. They will witness your pain tenfold. Their souls will wither and die into nothingness. Your mother, your father. This is the power of Noctis if you don’t allow the balance to become one with Eminence. Balance is needed.”
Images in the swirling mass of spirits showed her Emre Benld. Of Cyan the Defiant. Neenah LeFleur. Roland, Tris and Doll, the twins Zig and Zag. Two pale Kanjan elfir, a bikrome and her brother. Of the drakken Ruane Tevunsdotyr and her sibling. The soul of sinless Ancantha. A face that looked just like hers, older with all-onyx eyes. Her mother named by Emre as Cadrianna Nightingale. A mother she had never known. All were splayed upon a cross, torsos bleeding profusely as daemons danced around the bases. Their pleading eyes found her, searing into her soul.
Ashe screamed, her voice cracking as she did, aetheurgy weak this time. Pulmo coursing her lungs instead. The corruption of the Pentax’s aether. Her curse, her death.
The aetheurgist laughed. “Serve and they are free. Serve the balance, and they can be at ease in the eternal slumber.”
“But what of the living?”
“The living will suffer as they suffer every day, with every breath. Life is suffering, child. Mortality is suffering. Immortality does not come from the proliferation of Life, but upon the wave of Death. Life and Death are balance for all existence. Flesh dies, the soul lives forever and can be reborn. Do you not see? Everything is cyclical. Which is the more important; flesh or the soul?”
“And what of my soul?”
“Serve and live eternal. Death is but the first step. It doesn’t have to be agony. But the Divines can make it so for everyone you’ve ever loved. The body you know is but a construct bound to the laws of the Pentax. With Noctis, your soul can transcend those laws. You can be anyone you wish.” The shades of the dead laughed as the aetheurgist did. “The balance must always remain. Zenith and Nocturne. Two sides of the same coin. Nothing can change that. Just who serves where.”
Servitude.
The screaming cyclone of shades instantly fell silent, the weight pressing her down disappearing, leaving only the altar of emerald. The altar to Mother Marrow. She could sense the sound of someone, or something, sobbing. Who?
The non-light of the Meadows blazed as a figure approached. The non-walls of the temple vacillated. The mist fled. Solanine held out a hand, delicate, yet strong, beckoning for Ashe to take it.
Freedom, it said.
Empathy, it offered.
Redemption, it suggested.
Ever so slowly, her hand began to rise toward the acceptance. It was her only opportunity to save her mother’s soul. Her father’s. Everyone’s. Zenith’s cock, everyone’s soul at the tips of her fingers.
Ashe went to her knees, her hands pressed against her skull as the pressure returned tenfold. “AHHH!” Death, torture, pain, terror. It all blended into one. Her vision darkened as she lost the connection to the mist. “No!”
“IT CAN ALL END.” The words echoed in her mind. A voice she didn’t know. The Fallen’s? No, Zenith’s cock, she knew it was one of the Divine’s. But which? “ALLOW ME TO BECOME ONE WITH YOU. TOGETHER WE WILL RULE. FREE NOCTIS.” The words pounded in her head. Over and over. “TAKE THY PLACE AT THE AETHER OF LIFE. BE THE BALANCE.” Agony. Torment. Her fingers dug into her skin, tearing at her hair. Misery. “ALL OF LIFE WILL BE YOURS. GIVE ME MY NIGHTINGALE.”
She began to nod. She understood now. She had to do what was right. This was what Canlon Carr meant. This is what he had done as the chosen of the gods. Her soul was the token to save all of theirs.
Safety. Preservation. The tension in her body relaxed. Happiness. Joy.
“Yes,” she decided, voice hoarse.
Solanine’s hand remained posed before her, mouth within the heart-shaped face agape, the voice definitely spoken via the aetheurgist for the Divine. Ashe reached up to take it, their fingers touching, the barest flicker of Life passing between them. “YOUR SACRIFICE WILL OPEN THE WORLD. OUR BLOOD IS SHARED. EMINENCE IS OURS, CHILD OF MY NIGHTINGALE.”
The hand of the aetheurgist morphed from tender, pink skin into hardened crystal, proliferating in verdant tones, like the color of a freshly plucked apple underneath the skin. A multi-prism of color outlined in onyx. Solanine’s hand grabbed onto hers, holding it tight. The Eye of the Soul clamped to the aetheurgist’s palm, Ashe’s tattoos glowing like fire.
The affliction that had been assaulting her mind subsided, replaced with effervescent energy. She smiled as the crop settled into her. Her hand, in Solanine’s right, began to harden into crystal, joined as one. The crystallization sprung to life like a vine. It burrowed deep into flesh, Ashe’s blood, her muscles, her soul.
And then Ashe felt the world.
Far to the west beyond the Voidlands in lands so arid, nothing lived there except a wellspring of sapphire blue. Down south near the VVyrm Ocean, a singular volcano of ruby. North where the world was layered under snow, past the rocky teeth-like mountains of the Forgemistress’ Blades lay a yellowed flower. The sands of Drenth. The earth called to her.
Terris one and all.
The people. Every culture under the sun. Lowborn, noble, those with no class, freedmen, slaves. Animals and plants alike. Voidspawn, draconem. Tiny sparks of life moving along the facets of the earth.
“THE GREAT CRYSTALS CAN BE YOURS, CHILD OF MY NIGHTINGALE. EMINENCE AND NOCTIS. ALL YOU MUST DO IS BREAK THE SEALS. DESTROY THE DRACONEM, NAY, THE GODS YOU CALL THE PENTAX.”
What? That cannot be…Canlon mentioned the guardian draconem. Could they be the Pentax?
“YES, CHILD OF THE GODS. THE PENTAX AND THE GUARDIAN DRACONEM ARE ONE. THOSE ARE WHO YOU WORSHIP. THOSE ARE WHO YOU MORTALS DIE FOR. FOR WHAT?”
The mist, it came alive, weak, and dying. It pulled away from her, cleansed and free.
