Chapter 4: Act I Chapter 4: Revelations

Chapter 4: Revelations

Enya woke to the sound of crackling flames. Eyes snapping open, she bolted up, turning about wildly.

She found herself lying on the ground in the middle of the ruined village that had been reduced to flattened shapes and scattered piles of burnt bodies. The sky was a dull orange, the evening light quickly fading and making way for the night. A few feet away, a small campfire burned, and as her vision cleared, she saw a familiar tall figure sitting nearby, tending to the flames.

“Hey,” Wren greeted. “How’re you feeling?”

The woman looked exactly like she had the last Enya had seen her, no scratches or wounds in sight. Her scabbard, usually strapped to her back, was resting on the ground beside her.

“I… what…?” Enya struggled to sort through the jumble of memories pulsing in her skull. “There was that thing, it had magic, and then it turned into lights and—“

“Enya,” Wren interrupted. She tossed a canteen of water in her direction; it landed softly in Enya’s lap. She blinked down at it. “Drink,” the mercenary instructed. “You’re dehydrated and working yourself into a panic.”

Following the woman’s instructions, Enya took a small sip of water and immediately felt a soothing sensation in her throat. She hadn’t even realized it was so dry. A second, longer sip followed, which she savored for as long as she could before setting the canteen aside.

“Thank you.”

Her mind was beginning to calm down, and she forced herself to breathe evenly. A few moments passed before her heartbeat returned to a steady pace, and she felt strength returning to her limbs. She paused, brow furrowing, and touched her arm. It was warm, no trace of coldness in sight.

“How am I alive?” she asked. She remembered the icy wave spreading through her veins before she’d collapsed; she’d used up a lot of magic, maybe more than half her reserves. She should be fatigued, permanently cold-blooded, or dead. And yet, here she was, feeling only a slight tinge of weariness despite burning through so much energy magic.

Her eyes drifted over to Wren, and on closer inspection, the woman was sitting rather close to the fire. Her eyes widened. “Did you—“

“I transferred some of my magic to you,” the woman confirmed. “I felt a spike in magic and came running, but you were already half dead when I found you.” She shook her head. “What happened? How did you burn through so much of your reserves?”

Enya’s mind was still stuck on the first part of the woman’s statement. “Are you okay?” she blurted out. Why would you do that, she wanted to ask. People didn’t just transfer magic, especially not to strangers. When every drop of innate magic used meant your body losing its functions, moving ever closer to death, even close family and lovers rarely attempted transfers. And Enya had a large innate capacity. For her to feel none of the consequences of her earlier magic use meant that the mercenary must have transferred an extremely large amount. Enya studied the woman, trying to pick up on any more traces of cold or fatigue, but she found none.

Wren’s eyebrows rose. “Don’t worry about it,” she assured, chuckling. “I’m a bit of a special case.”

Enya frowned. “How so?”

The mercenary was silent for a moment, eyes trained on the crackling fire. Her amber eyes seemed to glow in the receding light. “How I answer that,” Wren finally said, “depends.” She met Enya’s gaze. “If you’re up for it, mind telling me what happened?”

Enya took another sip of water from the canteen, which was nearly empty already. Her mind was quickly filling with images of golden lights, flying bodies, and contorting limbs. She looked over to Wren, then back. She thought of those eyes, dark red, and the languid way the creature had moved through the ruined town. She squeezed her eyes shut, breathing in and out. Wren remained silent, simply watching her quietly as Enya focused on sorting through her memories. She slowly screwed the lid of the canteen back on and took a deep breath, forcing her tense shoulders to relax. Then, she began recounting everything that had happened.

—

After she began, Enya found the rest of her words spilling out at once, a flood surging forward now that the dam was broken. With each new moment she described, another detail sprung forth in her mind. She wasn’t sure how long she kept talking, only that the sun had fully sunk below the horizon once she was finally done. Her throat felt sore from all the talking, and she hurriedly reached for the canteen of water again, draining the rest of its contents in seconds.

“I don’t know what it was,” she finished, voice now barely above a whisper. Her eyes drifted over to Wren, who hadn’t made a sound the entire time. The woman’s gaze was fixed on the crackling campfire, eyes burning with an intensity that would’ve had Enya on edge if she wasn’t so exhausted.

“I see.” Wren’s voice was low. “Thanks for telling me.”

“Do you know what that creature was?” she asked tentatively. The woman heaved a long sigh.

“Who, not what. And unfortunately yes.” She reached a hand up, pushing stray strands of hair away from her face. “I guess that answers the question of how much to tell you.” She paused, staring up at the darkened sky. “It’s getting dark,” she commented. “Do you want to hear this now or later?”

Enya moved a little closer. “Now, please.” She’d apologize to Nadine later when she got back.

Wren nodded, and Enya couldn’t read the expression on the woman’s face. “You know about the Shattering, right?”

Enya nodded. She didn’t think there was a soul on Elaren who didn’t know the story. She could remember Maren telling it to her when she was younger, relaying it like a fairytale and yet speaking with the reverence of a prayer. In the beginning, it was said that the twelve gods created the world, but their creation was incomplete. Over the years, the Rot began to appear across the land, bringing Decays with it. The Rot continued to expand, forcing humanity into a constant state of movement, abandoning their previously established communities in an endless pursuit of a safe haven. That era was known as the Flight.

As more and more of Elaren became uninhabitable and the human population had shrunk to a mere fraction of what it had once been, the twelve gods decided to sacrifice themselves, scattering their souls in order to stitch together the tears within the fractured world. Those shards of their souls became known as magic, and the Shattering successfully drove back the Rot enough for humanity to rebuild.

Ever since Maren first told the story to her, Enya had always been fascinated with it; she couldn’t count how many times she’d make Maren or Nadine recite it. It had been enough times that Nadine still rolled her eyes whenever she heard the Shattering mentioned.

Wren continued, speaking slowly. “Well, there’s some parts of the story that not a lot of people know about. It’s true that the twelve scattered their souls and it gave birth to magic, but those shards weren’t all equal. That’s why some people are born with large magic reserves and others with much smaller ones.” Enya saw an image of Nadine hunched over the training rack flash in her mind. She swallowed, throat suddenly dry again.

“It goes even further than that,” Wren continued. “Each god left a particularly large, concentrated fragment of their soul and tossed them into the pot of souls to be reincarnated.”

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Enya’s eyes widened with growing realization.

“Those fragments each found a suitable host soul that’s compatible with them. And that host soul would eventually be born into the world with the fragment of the god’s soul within them.” She tapped her heart. “That’s what I am. What an Ark is. We’re those host souls.”

Enya’s head was reeling. “You’re… gods?”

Wren chuckled. “Not quite. We have these fragments, but we’re far from the actual gods. We’ve just inherited some of their abilities, but I can assure you we’re still separate individuals.” She leaned back on her arms, staring up at the sky. “That’s what I meant when I said I was a bit of a special case. Transferring magic like that won’t do any permanent damage to me, so there’s nothing to worry about.”

Hundreds of questions popped into Enya’s mind, but the one that she blurted out was, “Which one are you?” She blinked, struggling to verbalize the question. “Or, which fragment…” her voice trailed. Thankfully, Wren seemed to understand.

“I’m the host of the Sixth’s fragment,” she explained. The Sixth, the god of travelers, freedom, the wind. It felt fitting, despite what little Enya knew of the woman.

She scooted a little closer. “What can you do?”

Wren looked amused. “Well, that’s a bit of a secret, I’m afraid. We’re not really supposed to tell mortals. It’s caused problems in the past, when we told mortals about us.”

Mortals, she said. It was a strange word to Enya. The letters and sounds existed, but there was a certain unreality to it that made the word jarring to hear spoken aloud. She frowned, staring intently into the fire as a new question entered her mind. “Earlier, the creature—person,” she corrected, “called me an Ark.” Her brow furrowed as she recalled the words. “And that I hadn’t ‘awakened’ yet.”

“Aeon called you an Ark because you are one,” Wren said bluntly. Aeon, so that was the name. Enya committed it to memory. Wren sighed. “You weren’t supposed to know about any of this. It’s true, you house one of the fragments, but until you awaken you’re not much different than a regular person. You have larger magic reserves than most, and you might have some odd traits here and there, but it’s nothing like an awakened Ark.” She stood, and Enya was once again struck by how tall she was. Lit by the dancing flames, she made for an imposing silhouette, but Enya found that she didn’t feel nervous at all.

“You often use flames, right? Energy affinity?”

Enya nodded.

“Have you ever felt like making flames was easier than it should be, compared to other kinds of magic?”

Enya pictured her and Raynor, practicing their magic outside when they were children. How Raynor always started feeling cold immediately after managing to make a fire, but Enya could do it without thinking and didn’t feel the consequences for a long time. How different it was from when they practiced energy manipulation, and she felt the same fatigue that Raynor did.

“I thought I just had good instincts with fire,” she said slowly. Wren shook her head.

“Sometimes people find certain components of magic easier, but it won’t be nearly as dramatic a difference. That fire manipulation is separate from your affinity. It’s a trace of the god’s abilities lingering from your fragment.”

Enya stared down at her own chest, half expecting to see it glowing with this mysterious shard of a god’s soul, but there was nothing. Fire, she’d said. She heard a voice that sounded like Nadine’s complaining to her about “being a crazy pyromaniac.” She thought about how she’d never been scared of fire before, even when she was lighting pyres and standing right in front of them.

Pyres. A sudden thought rose, and Enya found herself glancing around at the piles of corpses that had been tossed around. “The prayer,” she muttered to herself. “I forgot about the prayer.”

Wren gave her an odd look. “Don’t worry about that, I said it while you were unconscious.” She turned to stare at the bodies as well. “Since you burned them already, the souls separated, so you don’t have to worry about Aeon’s attack disturbing them.”

“I see.” She felt a wave of relief wash over her followed immediately with a wild gnawing in her stomach. Her head was beginning to hurt. She swallowed down the lump that was quickly forming in her throat. “I’m sorry, I’m not making sense. I…”

“You’re still in shock, that’s normal.” Wren stepped over to where she’d placed her scabbard and bent down to pick it up, shaking some dirt off before swinging it back onto her back and strapping it in place. “It’s getting late. We should probably head back and continue this somewhere else. ”

Late? That was true, it was getting late. Nadine would be so worried, she should return soon. Enya stood clumsily, blood rushing to her legs as she did so. Once she was standing, she realized she could still feel a dull throbbing from the fight earlier, and she was certain there were bruises and scrapes all over her body. How hadn’t she noticed earlier? Golden lights flashed in her mind again, and that raspy, drawling voice echoed in her ears. I’ll see you later.

“Aeon. What—or, who is that?”

Wren stilled. A cold breeze brushed past them, and Enya shivered at the chill. For a long time, Wren didn’t respond, and Enya wondered if she should ask again when the woman spoke.

“She’s another Ark.” Her words were clipped, and though her face wasn’t visible, her entire body was tense. Enya frowned.

“What? But doesn’t that mean—“

“We should head back,” Wren interrupted. “It’s getting chilly, and I do still have to deal with some of the transfer consequences even if my life’s not in danger.” She turned back around to face Enya, the earlier tension completely gone as she smiled wryly. “Once we’re somewhere indoors, I’ll tell you everything you want to know about Arks, and about being one.”

About being one. Enya stared at the flattened landscape around them. Because she was one, apparently. Or would be.

Swallowing, Enya slowly nodded and went to pick up her own fallen sword. It rested a little ways away, covered in dirt and ashes. A thin trail of dried blood lined its edge, and it was covered in new cuts and chips. She wrapped her finger around the hilt, carefully sheathing it. Somehow, it felt heavier in her hands.

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