He turned toward her, his face so familiar, yet never seen. A kindness in the smile. A remembrance of her past, the past she never knew. He reached for her, lovingly, carefully.
Father.
Blink.
Dreamland shifted.
A shadow filled the sky, blotting the sun into nothing more than a disk of haze. A city that was corrupt and powerful, full of sin. A dark-haired, drake scaled woman lay in a pool of blood, a black blade in her hands, gripped as the blade dug into her gullet. Black on black on black. Scourge. Onyx handle in the shape of an owl. An actual owl sat upon her dying breast with inky eyes, opened its beak, cawing at the bloodied woman. Perched upon her shoulder and staring at the owl was a nightingale, small and full-breasted, singing a song.
The bikrome with the child hovered over the Fallen’s woman. Red like a garnet flashed within the cacophony as the dream pulled back and revealed a spewing volcano, its fire hot and searing. Leaned down, the bikromi seer did, turning the babe to face the blood-soaked corpse. The owl squawked and took wing, landing upon the bikrome’s shoulder, examining the babe within her arms. The nightingale continued to sing.
Laughter filled her. Sinister yet alluring in the same manner.
Ashe stretched for the body of the woman; her face glossed with red. But below, caramel skin and soft curls clinging. A face such as her own with eyes like black roses.
She recoiled.
A mirror of her own face but older. Mother. Tears flowed down her cheeks. Salty upon her lips. Ashe cried.
“ASHE!”
Words from the living echoed within her cocoon, and Ashe reached for them. Find me…
Blink.
But the vision shifted once again, and she only saw open warfare.
Thousands of corpses littered the ground outside a vast dead city. Kalderim it appeared to be by the snowy peaks surrounding the walls. Rivers of blood washed bodies away from the gates, over the tundra of Kanja.
A dam shuttered the river closed, two bodies bobbed up and down. One, a drakken, the same one as before. The other, a lapin, beige fur coated thick with blood. Empty sight looking up toward the sky. Kneeling beside the pair was the elfirish man from the marshlands, the peridot faded from his aura. He cried, screamed, ready to plunge the golden blade into his own flesh in unholy sorrow.
Blink.
She cringed, but a giant hand reached down for the great city, scooping into the earth, rising into the sky as a tall, beautiful man cackled voraciously. An elfir with a bloodred robe. Arms spread, aetheurgy cracked with power.
No…
The bikrome and the child were there, alive anew and hiding. The crying babe pulled close to the silver-haired elfir, soothing and shushing. ‘Calm, Godsblood, calm.’ Her other hand let loose waves of aether. The mist curled around, blinking and spiking. She was surrounded by blue green, almost seafoam.
She was focused on the man.
And he turned to her, his eyes were as black as pitch, teeth straight and white, he smiled a smile that could melt the harsh snows of winter. Hair and beard black as jet. O Zenith, he was beautiful. The Fallen.
A second man appeared behind the beautiful one, a tall man with bugling muscles and scars all over his face. She felt like she recognized him, but he was not the man she had known. It couldn’t be Evander. But those eyes, the lust hidden within.
Evander held a sword in his hand, a very similar sword from the elfirish man in the Sea of Mist. Though this one glowed orange, almost like flames as lightning ruptured across the sky. He slashed at the dark-haired, beautiful man with the blade, disemboweling him from shoulder to groin. The Fallen fell apart, a great red shadow spilling from his innards and settling about Evander’s shoulders.
Ashe crowed as the vision of Evander thrust forth the blade and it pierced her skin. The pain erupted in her, the mist crying out with her. She went to ground, her knees slamming into the stones below. Ashe groped around her gut, searching for the wound.
But it wasn’t there.
Blink.
The people shadows, wafting along the cityscape. Booming resounded. Walls crumbled as the city shook. Destruction fell all around as two figures appeared in the vision.
Raven-haired and tattooed along her left arm, a bangle vividly gold. Herself.
And another figure, petite, flowing hair. The apparition from the void and Gargantua. Solanine.
The two collided as the city collapsed all around them. Solanine laughed, physical appearance shifting to that to the woman with the owl and nightingale, then to that of an orcir, then flesh sloughed off to reveal a snake-like creature underneath before reforming into the throat-slit man. Her father. Runes of the Four Tenets glowed red upon red-black exoscales under Drenth-born flesh. The mist clashed and raged with aetheurgy. Wails of unearthliness descended upon her. Her ears splintered from the sound. A fire brighter than any other exploded all around, a giant red boulder rained down on them.
The childbearing bikromi woman was crying now, huddled over the child who’d gone silent in her arms. A small, full-breasted nightingale fluttered its wings down and landed upon the babe. The bikrome reached for the small bird, petting it while it sang its song to soothe the babe.
Tears welled once more, and Ashe struggled to breathe. The mist spun faster, closing in on her. The visions faded and so did her sight. She fell forward, blackness creeping in.
The last thing she saw was a man walking through the mist, ground burning and dissolving as he went. Blackened and dying, leaving only death in his wake. But behind him shot green and fertility, replacing the Death with Life. He beckoned for her to join him, and she was tempted. He would bring her solace, to the end.
He was a god. One of the Divines. She didn’t know which. Death meant one. Life meant the other.
Their hands reached for one another; fingers almost touching. And then she tumbled.
XIV
Lojen
HIS FATHER WAS dead.
