Chapter 3: The River

You think you love me.

I know I love you.

I'm not what you think I am.

I know what you are.

I am an emanation of my father's thought. How can you love something so fleeting?

All children are emanations, and you are no more fleeting than any other breath of life. We are all a blink of an eye to the Radiant Soul. And have you not seen the bonding of Mortals? One sprung from their mothers's wombs they have life of their own. So it is with you and your sisters.

How could you know?

Because I fought Kari, and her flesh was as real as my own when I plunged my blade into her.

Perhaps you failed to kill her because you stabbed her, and not my father. Kill him, and we all shall fade, all but Sulphina.

You are as much your own as Kari. I know.

You could plunge your blade into a river, and the water would flow around it. Couldn't that be what happened when you stabbed Kari?

She is no river. And I know because I too am of the starborn, sired by a son and daughter of Genesis, designed for purpose by the Radiant Soul. Kind knows kind, and I have done as your father has done. My mount and my weapons are my brother-sons, and they in time became living souls of their own accord, no longer dependent on my thought.

Truly?

Come close.

 

-a pause-

 

We can never do that again.

Why not?

You came to kill us all.

That is not yet decided.

But you came to undo what we have made, what we are a part of, and what we exist to protect.

I am not the one bringing death to the world. Death comes of its own accord.

But you would extinguish the lights. You would pry the crowns from the heads of the great guardians. What then would become of the world?

Rest and healing, and an end to this age of dreams.

It would be an age of darkness, and an end to light everlasting.

Yes. But there would be a new land and a new sky, and life would grow to maturity, whereas now it is stifled by over saturation. Your father thinks I come to dig a grave, but the grave has already been dug, and I come to set a laurel upon its stone.

Just now, when you held me close, all I could do was stare.

I wanted you to be close enough for me to kill you.

Why?

To see that I wouldn't.

You embraced me, brushed my cheek with your hand.

I would do more. I would meld my radiance with yours, as the Mighty do.

Is that how Sulphina was begotten?

I do not know. She is different somehow. We do not blend as Mortals do, yet...

Kari...

... is a fool. She longs for Mortal men, but they are not a thing she can have. Her lovers would be left charred husks were she to try.

She has tried, and has left many cinders.

Then she has chosen the Fiend's path.

She does not know what she is, or what she is meant to be. She wants to give life, but all she can do is destroy. She comes from that aspect of our father.

His rage was killing him, so he wished it outside himself, and now it is a life unto itself that he cannot rein in. Therefore, I must.

I'd rather you leave her to us.

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Could you slay your own kin?

I could not. But I could lure her close, and leave her to my other sisters. We have the power to undo each other, after all.

It must be me. None other can unmake her as I can. Were it to be done by you she could again find her way out of your father's thought. Many realms lie within the thoughts of us elder beings. She will find some everlasting stair and leap from the right window to come back into these lands. I will do it. Though I will need to wait until my labor is done. Unless... the cold one, the pale one, the twisted one...

The stormlich?

He is a devourer.

As are you.

You know nothing of me but your father's fear. The stormlich has shown himself to be a monster.

He does what the aspect that birthed him is concerned with. As my father's rage projected Kari, the flame unpurgeable, so the cold heart of silver produced the stormlich whose shadow is stained.

And Arun's love of beauty begot you.

You are calling me begotten?

In the way that you were, yes.

And to me, I shall be what I believe I am, what I wish I were. To others, the Mighty and the Mortal, I am what the light reveals me to be.

And if the light reveals you to be something you loathe, what then?

I will learn to love what I once despised. I cannot change what is before and beyond me.

You are so determined to protect the light, that you would not permit yourself an honest dialogue?

I choose what my truth is, dark one, not you.

You came close to me, left your life at my mercy.

I am always at your mercy.

You could defend yourself.

Against the relentless shadow? I am a child of Sunlight. You need not be near me to end me.

You do not decide what is truth. Not your own, not another's, not the ultimate. Truth is, as you said, before and beyond us all. It is what I serve, and you will know it ere the end of my labor, should you live to see it.

And who would slay me, if not you?

The one I thought to summon.

You cannot summon him.

Then I will lure him, if necessary.

Then I am at risk.

Then I will not lure him, though his mother may send him.

You are the lure of all terrible things, Othomo. We are all at risk while you walk. And that is why I betrayed you, though I do love you.

You did not betray me.

I took back my hand.

You never promised it to me, only lent it. I am grateful to have held it in mine once.

I salted an open wound.

You are nothing like that whore.

Othomo's mind departed from the quiet place they made together. The muse lingered, thinking sadly how she wished what he wanted could be. She wanted to believe him, she wanted to tell him he was more right than he knew. She wanted to hold this living knife and sword, and ride upon his baleful mount, to see if mayhaps he spoke the full truth. It was not enough though. When she stood close to him and looked upon his eyeless helm, she felt the cold heart of the void whispering through the space about him. Could she wed the brother to the void, the ravenous beast called Hadeon? It drove Noctis mad to be in Othomo's arms, and feel that deadly breath tickling her hair. Hadeon, Othomo, Halle and Kala, and their father Oroboron, woeful creatures all. And all but Othomo had chosen the wayward path, though his father had repented of his sins and lie in chains beneath the tempest. Such a sad soul was her dreadknight. Sad, and brave, and convicted, and strong, and compassionate, and nurturing, not at all what one would expect of the herald of fate.

He cannot truly love me. He loves how I make him feel. I love how he makes me feel as well, and what I've seen him do for the land, but he seeks to undo all my father has built, and Hadeon will leech from me my spirit, should I be entwined with the dreadknight. If only Hadeon could be unmade. Othomo has strength enough on his own. He does not need to draw from his diseased brother, and Hadeon is in constant misery. Should Hadeon be woken from his sleep, and brought here... but could any of the Mighty bound to Tartary defeat him? Othomo would not. Halle and Kala are lost to gluttony and malice. I'd risk my own safety even approaching them. If only my father had his full strength. Could I beseech one of my sisters? Sulphina has power beyond knowing, but she has the innocence of a child, a gift the rest of us never knew. Kari would fight him till she grew bored, but then she would... Of course! Awondo!

He was her father's favorite of all Mortals, and loyal to all who dwelt in Avon Lasair. Yuluru herself felt a strange sense of kinship towards the man. Her father had said Awondo would serve the restoration of that which was taken, proving those who'd call Mighty Arun a thief to be liars. He'd been gifted a spirit of Sunlight to halt the coming of darkness, and he was a renowned hunter of dreadful beasts. Surely he could be swayed to use his spirit to make war on the hound of the abyss.

Yuluru leaned back on her divan, clutching the rosetted pelt her long lost handmaid had loved. She often thought of Genevieve when she felt lonely. She had been more than a serving girl, she had been a friend. Kari was right to insist on her dismissal, given the shame she brought to the grand court of their holy city. Were she a common woman in a common town, an unwed pregnancy would have mattered much less. But she besmirched the Splendor of the Sun, and was no longer worthy to serve the Mighty in their stronghold.

Yuluru remembered the pained look on her father's face when he was forced by his own law to pronounce Genevieve's exile. He'd favored her, as she was obedient and devoted, and conspicuously beautiful for a Mortal. Windaji had not yet been built, and the nearest Mortal kingdom was many leagues away, in the burning Steppes of Char. He clearly loathed sending such a gentle and pretty girl on so long and difficult a journey, and was so ashamed that he ordered her name not to be spoken, and forbade the subject being mentioned to him.

Yuluru spoke the girl's name in her heart, for she had been the closest friend she ever had, and she missed her, longed for her even, and wondered often what had become of her and her child. She thought of her now, and how many nights she'd spent talking with the girl, sharing with her all her woes. Even though her Mortal words were nonsense, Yuluru could feel the emotion in Geneveive's voice and would feel comforted. She looked down at the rosetted blanket. Gone was the smell of dustfolk. It now smelled of Sunfire and perfume. She'd wanted Genevieve to take the blanket, but Kari had insisted on the poor girl being sent away with nought but the clothes on her back. That was when Yuluru first became aware of Kari's growing cruelty. A thought came to her then that Othomo might be able to search for signs of the girl, though she doubtless died some time ago, given the brief span of dustfolk's lives. The child, though, might be alive and well.

No, she thought, Othomo has more on his shoulders than a dozen other men could hope to bear. I cannot burden him with such a petty errand. She thought praises to the Sun, and wished for the child to be in a safe place with all they ever wanted.

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