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‘Look out!’
G’raha snaps his head up at the call and turns, wrenching his aether blade from the flank of the fallen beast before him, raising it defensively to meet an expected blow from behind. Zefiris crouches at his back, an arc of bloodied corpses marking out the path of her reaper’s blade.
It happens in an instant. A shaft of lurid violet light shoots from one wall of the chamber to the other, catching both of them in its path. They are frozen, transfixed; a look of wild panic screams in their eyes before they both collapse bonelessly to the floor.
This is something altogether different from the other traps the party have found in this place. Darker. Obscure.
‘Hold on,’ Estinien roars, tensing to leap towards them, to push them free - but Urianger extends a commanding hand before him, blocking his path: ‘Hold, lest thou suffer the same fate!’
Y’shtola is already at the wall, near the origin of the beam. ‘No, here! Help me find the source. Make haste!’ She glances over at their comrades, crumpled over one another in the sickly light. ‘They live,’ she reports tersely, ‘but I know not what this foul device is doing to them.’
____
Violet light fades...and something else takes its place. Another time, another place. Zefiris views the scene from above, there and not-there. Raha is there, too, watching. Their perceptions are mingled, confused; she can feel his own rising horror at the scene before them, of what is about to unfold, as if it were her own. More, though; she can feel the sick despair of the figures below them, as if in a dream wherein she is both participant and observer.
Mount Gulg. The sun is low in the sky, casting flaming echoes across the porcelain walls of the citadel - but it is not the principal source of light in this scene.
The Warrior of Darkness is on her knees amidst a coruscation of radiance. It is spilling from her, too immense to be contained any longer. It is warping her flesh, swelling her limbs; it is leaking from her mouth, her nose, her eyes.
Before her lies the Crystal Exarch - lies G’raha Tia. He is bleeding freely from a wound in his back. He crawls pathetically forwards, reaching for her, but it is too late; he has failed. The moment of her apotheosis is at hand. From above, there is the sound of cruel, smug laughter: Emet-Selch, who watches the grand finale with all the relish of a true patron of the arts. ‘How touching,’ he sneers. ‘Bravo. Bravo!’
‘G’raha Tia. You brave fool. I knew it was you. I knew it.’ She reaches for him with trembling fingers which are lengthening, deforming before her eyes. ‘I wish you had told me.’
That is the last thought Zefiris Winterheart has, before she becomes something else.
A choked, wet scream that rises into a thin wail. A paradox of despair, and of triumph.
Her shoulders burst open and her arms go limp. She slumps to the ground. From the bleeding cavities spindle forth white, chitinous limbs: growing, branching, spreading wide, snapping back upon themselves disjointed. Ivory skin spreads between the filaments of bone. A second pair of alabaster sails tear themselves free from her back, breaking her mortal body utterly. What was the Warrior of Darkness is a torn thing now, a husk not quite discarded by the imago within. Only her face remains, familiar yet; her jaws warped and torn open, distorted by great carving fangs, dripping ichorous light.
The Scions watch, transfixed; undone. There is no fight left to fight, and nowhere to flee. Theirs is merely to watch this ascension as helpless witnesses.
G’raha Tia, on his knees, stares up at her. His jaw is slack, eyes narrow gates of horror; though his wound is almost forgotten, his hands are limp at his sides. ‘I’m sorry,’ he whispers, barely a breath. ‘I am so sorry.’
She swells, rising, becoming vast. She towers above them, belly distended as if quickened; a mother-goddess of inchoate luminescence. A thick, reptilian tail, gilded with pearlescent scales, sweeps the ground behind Her, and the back wall of the citadel crumbles.
Rearing back, facing skyward, the newborn deity inhales deeply. The world reverberates to the sound of Her breath, ancient and apocalyptic. She breathes the very colour from the sky, and leaves behind only aching, bilious light.
‘Bravo,’ the Ascian breathes quietly, as if even he is stunned at his own creation. ‘Bravo.’
Settling back to the ground, She casts her lambent eyes down at the creatures before Her. It is almost soft, Her gaze, inviting veneration. She speaks then, and the name torn raw and desperate from her mortal throat only moments before tolls now like a commandment. Like dragonspeak, or the ancient rumble of distant thunder. ‘Exaaaarch. G’raaaha Tia.’
G'raha Tia, on his knees, quiets his lamentation; ceases his weeping. Unveiled eyes wide, he is abject, frozen under her divine regard.
Benevolence. 'Aaaa gift.' She intones. 'For my Prophet.'
She leans forward, weight on her hands, every movement like the slow roll of the ageless ocean, pregnant with force and weight. Looming before him, She blesses him with the kiss of her breath; an effervescent mist of light, which coalesces into a form he has held sacred long before this moment.
A faultless replica of Her mortal self, the one called Zefiris Winterheart: a creation in alabaster and marble, tall and beautiful, naked as innocence itself. Transfixed, pupils blown wide and dark, G'raha Tia trembles like the most pitiful of supplicants.
It takes a step towards him, and he begins to weep anew, in terror and in bliss. It is the child of a god, or its avatar - how could it not be perfect? It reaches out to him, cupping his cheek with its hand. Such gentle tenderness, empty and absolute. It kneels over him, straddling him. It invokes his name, in its haunted, quiet voice, close in his ear. 'G'raha.'
The sound is a timeless echo, blank and dead as its white, white eyes. But it is her voice. She is there, he is sure; an answer to a hundred years of wretched, sinful prayer. A divine reward for all his practised hypocrisy.
A gift to him, from his god.
With a guttural, animal cry that dissolves into ragged laughter, he surrenders. Pulling it roughly against him, fisting his fingers in its impossibly fine, quartzite hair, he pulls it down into a savage kiss; the pent rage of a hundred years of want and worship. It is pliant, and responsive. He is utterly oblivious to the Scions watching him with sick horror. It makes no sound, but surges against him, obscene and divine.
Oh, holy, holy. If this was the form in which She would have her homage, he will not, cannot deny Her. Her arms are about him, lithe and strong, fingers knotting in the fabric of his robes. He gazes up at the mask of Her face; so perfect and immutable now. The radiant lodestar of his existence, his now to worship as he pleases - so it pleases Her. His lips tremble, cheeks wet with ardent tears as his fingers trace the marble curve of her cheek, the long line of her neck, the smooth, slight swell of her stomach, and lower yet. With an ecstatic sigh he sinks two fingers inside Her, the smooth glide of marble more welcoming than any profane wetness.
Satisfaction. Her High Priest will sustain Her, bring others to Her light. His devout fanaticism burns deep within him, already so corrupt. The vehemence of his worship warms Her, fires the incandescence within.
Offense. There is a sound of laughter, and slow applause. It is the Ascian. ‘How unexpected!’ he drolls. ‘The Exarch gets his happy ending after all! This truly is a tale for the ages.’
Turning Her vast head slowly, She fixes him with Her pearlescent eyes. Emet-Selch looks back at her with a satisfied smile, daring to meet the gaze of a god as an equal. It stirs her wrath. It is also familiar.
She is instinct now, pure and absolute. There is nothing between Her and the light of the soul itself. In that shining core, something ancient stirs.
Recognition She smiles. There is hunger in it. The slow weight of worlds turning in Her voice, She names him.
‘Hades.’
The air cracks with silent thunder, the force of the Ascian’s shock so profound it is writ upon the sky itself. His mouth - cruel, sullen, contemptuous - goes slack. Eyes that have not known true fear in a thousand thousand years flare wide. ‘No,’ he breathes. ‘No. It can’t be…’
‘I call. You come.’
His face is a sallow mask of sick, slow realisation. In that instant, the pearlescent glow of Her eyes is chased with the deep orange of flickering flames. She will have his devotion, too. Have it once more.
‘Come to me.’
Darkness whorls about him. The Ascian flees.
Patience. There will be time enough for him later.
Her High Priest, still on the ground, ruts helplessly against the idol She has made for him; enraptured, his every moan an exaltation of Her glory. The others have taken advantage of Her occupation with the Ascian; they make to flee. Sweeping a wing towards the stairs, she blocks their exit. These She will consume, and remake as chief among Her children. Reaching towards them with arms serpentine and boneless, she speaks.
‘Come.’
They cease their flight instantly. They turn as one, and kneel in supplication. Her jaws part eagerly.
Another time, another place. Zefiris views the scene from above, there and not-there. Raha is there, too, watching. They are both screaming.
____
They awaken together. They are on the floor of the vault. It is dark. The violet light is gone. There is a smoking hole in the wall. Thier faces are so close, they cannot escape one another's gaze.
G’raha lurches away from Zefiris, crashing roughly into the wall; his shoulder takes the brunt of the impact, and he clutches at it with his free hand as he slides to his knees, keels forward, and begins to vomit copiously.
Urianger reaching for her with a healing hand, but she has no attention to spare for him or the others; she flings herself from the floor, skidding awkwardly over to where G’raha crouches, retching helplessly. Kneeling at his side with a steadying hand on his shoulder, she holds back his hair with the other.
Echoes of sickly white light dance at the corner of her vision.
‘We’re okay. We’re okay.’ Trembling violently, the reassurance is as much for her own benefit as for him. ‘It wasn’t real. It wasn’t real. We’re okay, Raha. Raha.’
He looks up at last. His crimson eyes are wide with mortal shame, he can meet her gaze for only an instant before looking away again. ‘It could have been,’ he growls, his voice thick with self-loathing. He coughs harshly, and spits. ‘Wicked White, Zefiris, it could so very easily have been.’
Understanding his confession, she takes his face in her hands, forcing him to look at her. ‘No. No. Don’t let it poison you.’ Panicked, she is reaching - stalling - groping for anything that would avail her against the barely comprehensible trauma they have just endured - and suddenly she alights on an explanation that rings true. ‘It’s obvious. It’s obvious, Raha. It's like all the other mirror traps in here. Think about it, you’ll see. Whatever that was, it took what’s best in us and twisted it. Made it...sick.’ His ears are flat, and though she forces him to face her, he keeps his gaze cast down. Desperate to make him understand, desperate to distract herself from the lingering echo of that swell of deific power in her chest, she strokes at his sweat-damp hair. ‘Love, Raha, and devotion, perverted and made wrong. Just a dream. Just a trap like everything else in this place, made to make us doubt.’
They sit like that for a long moment, battling within themselves. Zefiris is not sure if she has reached him. Their harsh breathing comes inevitably slower, steadier. The tense calm after the storm; poised for further flight, but stilled for the moment, waiting.
Eventually there is silence.
Just a dream, she repeats to herself, the sense-memory of her own elemental puissance beating like wings of light at the back of her mind. Just a dream, just a dream. There is no time to think of it as anything more. They are still in danger here. The others are ranged behind them, hesitant to approach, not understanding what has just transpired; there is no time to enlighten them.
‘Let’s go,’ G’raha rasps as he rises. He pulls away, still too shamed to look at her; instead side-eyeing the mess he has made with distaste, colour rising in his pale cheeks. Wiping at his mouth with the back of his bracer, he squares himself, clenches his fists, and re-summons his blade and aegis before stalking off into the dark. Zefiris nods to the others, and they follow, knowing well enough to trust her and not ask. They are hale enough in body to move on. The rest will have to wait until they leave this place.
As she turns to follow, the huge glass windows opening out into the Bounty catch the glow of the torches in the chamber behind her - and her reflection seems to sprout vast, luminous wings. Freezing, she stares; then, taking a single step sideways, she sees the uneven glass bloom with inchoate radiance, a halo of light with Her at its centre. The sound She had made at the moment of Her rebirth echoes within Her; that terrible, ancient reverberation, the first breath of a nascent god.
Just a dream.
____
