There had been pitched battles in the past. There were always going to be pitched battles in the future. It simply was the way of the world, in the wake of invasion, in the wake of Death. There would never be an end to the threats, to the destruction, the lies, the corruption and the fear. But, there would likewise, always be the shreds of hope, the bastions of faith, honor and courage. There would always be those who would stand tall in the face of evil.
That was Tyrael's deepest belief: there would always be champions of Light and Good. Champions willing to stand against the forces of the Prime Evils... well, the Prime Evil, as it were. Power consolidated into a single being now, trapped in the Black Soulstone before being freed by Maltheal's utter destruction. Singular, terrifying, Diablo now represented all that was wrong with Creation. And worse yet, they had no indication where he would be reborn this time.
Tyrael flinched as an arrow whistled past his ear, less than inches from skewering his head. The shambling corpse it lodged within fared no ill, the ash shaft quivering from impact, lodged deep in the bone of it's sternum. Roused from his thoughts, Tyrael brought El'druin to bear, cleaving the things head from it's neck with one smooth motion.
"Aim for the skull," he cast the words over his shoulder, reminding the archer of the true target.
"If you paid attention to the fight at hand," Lyndon shot back, nocking another arrow and holding at the ready. "I wouldn't have to aim!"
The angel grunted softly, unwilling to admit that his mind was wandering. All they had to do was hold the line for a few more minutes, to keep the gate from being breached and the village from being overrun. They might be searching for signs of Diablo's rebirth, but that would not stop them from aiding what settlements still held out after the great war.
"Blast it!" Lyndon swore over the hum of his bowstring. "Where the Hell is Kaia? I can make pincushions all day, but she-"
"She'll be here." Tyrael promised, deep voice steady with the faith of a man who had not yet been let down. El'druin sparked as it cut through another of the shambling corpses, digging deeply into the rotting side of a second, before Tyrael turned his arm, and yanked upward. Maggots spilled as slimy flesh parted beneath the angelic weapon.
Lyndon's aim proved true again and again, felling the dead with piercing shots to the soft flesh of the eye socket or in through gaping maws. Bluster all he wanted, his arm still tired like any mortal man, and his ammunition was finite. Between one volley and the next, he shifted his grip slightly on the bow, muttering a quiet word that caused runes carved into the yew to spark with eldritch light. The draw on the weapon eased considerably, the shake of his arm lessened upon the next full pull. The arrow he loosed crackled with the same blue light before embedding itself to the fletching in a corpse's skull.
Tyrael was not a madman, but to witness him in battle one would think it only true. His blade was a living extension of his being, as much a part of him as his own arm. The corpses could grab and claw, pin and grapple, but none of them carried weapons of any kind. The mortal angel knew that so long as he kept moving, so long as he was not overwhelmed by the sheer numbers, the two of them would be enough to hold the gate.
Suddenly, his senses prickled. The very air smelled burnt and charred, as if lightning had recently struck. From the village came a flash of light, followed by the muted, hesitant cheer of the scared inhabitants. Tyrael felt a strange lightness come over him, as if his heart had suddenly grown wings to fly with. Though he knew he shouldn't, he risked a glance over his shoulder, his attention once more wandering from the battlefield. Only this time, Lyndon was distracted as well, sidestepping from his position be the gate to allow their third member to join the fracas.
It was just a moment, the barest of glances to witness Kaia striding purposefully toward him, but it was long enough. Tyrael gasped, confusion wrinkling his lined brow, as a sharp pain lanced into his side, piercing his bespelled plate as if it were no more than cotton. Suddenly, something a simple as breathing seemed so very difficult. El'druin's light guttered as he pressed a hand to the pain, which only seemed to deepen the stitch. He heard his name being called, as if over a great distance, the sound coming to him through water it seemed.
And then the world around him lit up, lightning arced between the corpses, burning rotted flesh and charring exposed bones to cinders. Tyrael tried to take a step, but found himself on his knees somehow, not quite understanding how he'd gotten there. Somewhere amid the noise, he could hear screaming, a mortal life caught in the arcane storm of death that raged around the fallen angel. Then everything was deafeningly silent.
Lyndon bolted back into the city without being asked. Kaia was far more capable to mop up whatever was happening. It was his job to find the village healer. An angel Tyrael might be, but immortal he was no longer. The blood spilling down the angel's plate was as scarlet as his own would have been. Lyndon's mind was reeling; every instinct in his body was screaming: assassin! He feared leaving Kaia alone at the gate, but nearly laughed at the absurdity of that notion. He'd watched the young woman face down Death himself without batting an eye. An assassin or two would be no problem for the Nephalem of legend. But, it shouldn't have been a problem for the mortal angel, either...
Kaia would not let her exhaustion show. Not now, not ever. Not when Tyrael was on his knees, one hand clasped around the hilt of a dagger sunk deep into his side. She ran the final distance, skidding the last bit on her knees, heedless of the muck and mire that coated the ground. She was no longer worried about the invasion: the lightning storm had solved that immediate threat. She feared neither for the return of the dead at a later time: no, she had destroyed the jar of souls empowering their creation moments before she'd joined the fray. Instead, she was afraid, quite simply, for the life of one man.
Tyrael was still learning what it was to be mortal. Kaia was still learning what it was to be Nephalem. It was a journey they were sharing, and she was determined that they would both see the end of it. Drawing on Tyrael's shoulder, Kaia rolled him to his back, cradled his head in her lap carefully. His eyes were searching, confusion still writ upon his brow in deep furrows and lines. Finally, his dark eyes focused on her face.
"Kai?"
The pain, the strident tone of his voice, almost broke her. She felt as if it were a physical blow, as deep as the blade buried in his side. It took everything she had just to smile down at him, framing the dark skin of his cheek with her slim fingers. "I've got you," she soothed softly. For a moment, Tyrael's eyes closed, and Kaia held her breath until they opened once more. "Silly angel," she teased, trying to keep her tone light and irreverent. "Did you forget you are no longer made of Light?"
Her tone seemed to work, unfortunately. Tyrael huffed a soft laugh, but screwed his features up in renewed pain. When his hand moved, Kaia touched the wound with her own, feeling the jagged bend of steel undoubtedly digging into his flesh. Glancing once into the village, she wished fervently for Lyndon to return with the healer. She couldn't remove the plate without removing the dagger, and she had little knowledge of medicine to risk such a move without a plan. She wanted to get him inside the walls, so they could close the gate once more. The villagers would feel safer. And she would be able to think without fear.
But Lyndon was no where to be seen, and the villagers hadn't yet ventured out into the square.
"Kai?" Tyrael's voice brought her attention back round to him. "The dead?"
"Taken care of. We're safe." She felt his chest move, as he fought to draw breath to speak. "No. Don't you say it. Every time you say it, something bad happens. And nothing bad is going to happen, hear me?"
Tyrael's eyes closed again, but he nodded. She felt him continue to struggle to breathe. And while his eyes were closed, she let the smiling mask slip to reveal her own worry and concern. She recognized the pattern of Lyndon's gait as he ran up behind her, alone.
"They have no healer!" he gasped, short of breath and leaned over on his knees.
Kaia swore in some language he'd never heard, but Lyndon was sure if he knew what it meant, his grandmother's ears would turn red. Frustration curdled her pretty face, as she first looked at her scarlet stained fingers, then at the dagger thrust in the angel's side. Suddenly, she began to tear the tattered cloak Tyrael was wearing. After a moment, Lyndon dropped to his knees. "What can I do to help?"
"Start on his armor... we need to get it off him." She was wadding up the fabric, folding it until it was a thick pad. Lyndon opened his mouth to ask about the dagger, but silenced himself as Kaia began to softly speak in tongues under her breath.
Lyndon's breath plumed suddenly as he turned his attention to the buckles at Tyrael's shoulders. The air grew cold, cold enough that his fingers fumbled. He kept his silence as he worked, finding more fasteners as his fingers walked along the plate. Why any man would want to wear something so heavy and cumbersome, and so time-consuming, was beyond his ken.
"Quickly, quickly.." Kaia urged between mutterings. Her dark eyes flickered with banked fires, and as Lyndon found the last clasp, beginning to lift the heavy breastplate free, he knew exactly what she was going to do. Timing was crucial; as the plate began to snag on the dagger, Kaia yanked it free. Admirably, Tyrael didn't scream. His body convulsed, a scarlet spray of arterial blood splattering over Kaia's outstretched leg. She pressed the thick pad to Tyrael's side, offering the blade to Lyndon, which he set inside the breastplate to one side.
"Hold him..." if you can. They both knew Tyrael was stronger than any normal mortal man. Even as Lyndon leaned upon his chest, the rogue knew he wouldn't be able to stop the reaction that would come. Kaia's free hand burst into flame; the heat she'd gathered from the environs finally igniting into a blaze so hot it burned nearly white. In one smooth motion, she lifted the pad, and pressed her blazing hand against Tyrael's side.
The angel thrashed. The scream that tore from his throat was the last thing Lyndon would hear for a while.
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Lyndon awoke to the smell of cooking meat, something spicy, mouth-watering really. His stomach demanded noisily to be fed, but as he sat up, a great pounding took over his head, forcing him to drop back on the bed once more.
"You took a nasty lump, Lyn.. be slow." Kaia pitched softly from across the small room. For such a petite woman, her voice was low and gentle, coached to speaking in hushed whispers in ancient libraries he suspected.
Instead of sitting up, he turned his head, slowly. The ache was there. "Tyrael tossed me?" The curtains were drawn, filtering the daylight to a dim glow. This was a child's room; he realized with a shock. Wooden toys were displayed neatly on a low set of shelves. No child would keep something so neat. His heart sank as he realized it was a memorial of sorts.
Kaia moved in the shadows beside a second bed. The soft tap of her boots hitting the floor led Lyndon to believe she'd been reclining. When the shadows moved, he realized there was another shape on the second bed. Tyrael.
"He did," Kaia mused softly as she crossed to sit on the mattress he occupied. "Right into the gate." Her fingers, cool and slim, danced over his brow and momentarily into the length of his lank hair. Lyndon winced as she touched a tender spot. "Nothing too severe. But you were out. Fra Hemmel put us up." She could see the way Lyndon looked around, curious to his surroundings. Once, she might have admonished him about looking for something to steal, but he'd given up thieving long ago, finding more gold and riches through his adventures with Kaia than his wildest dreams could conjure before.
Lyndon began to sit up again, this time, more slowly. Kaia was there with a hand to aid if need be. "How is he?"
"Weak." Kaia's mask slipped again, as her dark eyes flicked to Tyrael across the room. For a few moments, her humor faded, and her confidence waned. And she looked, for all Sanctuary's worth, like a scared young maid for a few moments. It was too easy to forget how young she really was. "Too weak to travel, far too weak to teleport."
"Else we'd be in Westmarch already," Lyndon observed ruefully. He'd been subject to Kaia's teleportation spell before. It always left him feeling like his skin had been turned inside out. She answered with little more than a pale smile, a shadow of what she once possessed when he'd first met her. "Have they sent for a healer?"
Kaia nodded. "Two riders. One east to Weirmont, one north to Westmarch."
"Westmarch is four days hard ride!"
"And Weirmont is two." She hesitated, while Lyndon adjusted his seat, swinging his legs over the edge beside her. "He's mortal, Lyn... his soul may be angelic, but he cut himself off from the Arch. If.. if he dies-"
Lyndon reached out and tugged her ear, eliciting a soft squeak from the sorceress. Feared Nephalem she may be, but he still could only see her as the little sister he never had. "No one is going to die. Not while I'm on watch." He started to stand up, only to drop back to the mattress as his head swum. He sighed softly, and laid back on the bed once more, leaving his feet flat on the floor. Silence held for a few minutes, until Lyndon tried once more to lighten his friend's darkening mood.
"So.. Fra Hemmel? Is she the pretty one?"
Kaia smacked his knee lightly, cracking that pale smile. "I wouldn't know. Your standards for pretty are rather low."
Raising up on his elbows, Lyndon parried back. "That way, they're at least attainable!"
The fragile smile cracked at the edges, but before it fell, Kaia stood abruptly. "I'll go check on supper. Keep an eye on Tyrael?"
Crestfallen, wondering what he'd said to hurt her, Lyndon nodded. His "of course," was drowned out by the closing of the door.
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There was no doubt about it: Kaia was avoiding him. The summer sun stayed out for long hours, even after Fra Hemmel had treated them to a village feast of roasted pork and vegetables. But Kaia had remained distant, lost in thought, requiring Lyndon to charm their hostess to keep her from questioning the Nephalem too deeply. Unfortunately, Fra Hemmel was not the pretty one as Lyndon had hoped. She was, one might have said, quite matronly, easily in her third decade, but life had not been kind to her. She wore her loss like a mantle: husband and twin sons killed by the dead while working in their fields. Even as Lyndon began to draw the story out of the widow, Kaia abruptly excused herself and left, padding up the stairs without so much as a good night.
Lyndon waited a few moments, before politely inquiring if another bed could be had. He was given a pile of fur, and a place before the hearth for the night. At least the nights were cool here; he slept in fits and starts, leaving half remembered dreams behind with each wakening.
By the time dawn grayed the sky, Fra Hemmel had breakfast prepared, of some kind of oatmeal. Lyndon was dismayed that he was not far enough south that clotted cream with such victuals was commonplace. Instead, he offered to fetch Kaia for the repast, only to find the twin's room empty, save for Tyrael, still unconscious. The second bed did not appear to have been slept in, but a chair was angled beside Tyrael's form in such a way that he could imagine the sorceress sleeping there.
Lyndon paused to listen to the angel breathe. The sound was almost horrifying, wet and burbling softly. It sounded painful; it was painful to even listen to, knowing he could do nothing. As he crept slowly out of the room once more, Fra Hemmel called softly up the stairs for him. Lyndon put on his best smile, and descended to break the night's fast.
Shortly after breakfast, it became painfully apparent that no one knew where the sorceress had vanished to. Lyndon had asked around, but even their three horses were still stabled together. Not that Kaia needed a horse to get around, he'd seen her cross the span of a town inside of an eyeblink, but that the horse was still here gave him hope that she'd not wandered far. Of course, he also hoped that she wouldn't leave either him, or Tyrael behind like this.
The village was small, less than ten buildings inside the wooden walls, most of which were occupied by needed professions: butcher, baker, farrier, smith. Those farmers who lived inside the walls did so because their arable lands were close, like the Hemmel family. Fra Hemmel claimed one could see her farmland from the watchtower on the northeast corner. There was no inn, and even less wine. But there was work to do. So as soon as Lyndon felt the first piques of boredom take root inside his skull, he ventured out to lend a hand.
A rogue, a scoundrel he might want others to see him as, but he did care. As difficult as it was sometimes, as heartbreaking as the hand he'd been dealt was, the pluck and cheer that Kaia always pursued her tasks with never ceased to amaze him. She'd shown him, time and time again, that humanity wasn't as massive steaming pile of shit like he'd come to believe. He'd learned, by her side, that humans were neither good, nor evil, but both, and while some humans had black hearts and dark souls, as a whole, the Light was often stronger. Eventually, he'd seen what she had figured out long before, he was not what other people said he was.
Yes, he could be a charming, rakish ladies man. He charmed the baker's daughter into giving him two extra loaves of bread for Fra Hemmel, while carrying sacks of wheat for her father. He entertained the stableboy with tales of his adventures at Kaia's side while helping to repair a broken corral fence. And while he was talking with the village elder about forming and training some kind of militia if the dead were ever to rise again, the air began to crackle with energy, and a familiar, stomach-churning stench of burnt air caused Lyndon to draw the elder away from the center of the square.
He knew that smell. He knew that crackle. And soon, the villagers would be familiar with it too. Beneath the cloying ozone smell, Lyndon could detect a little bit of petrichor: wherever Kaia was coming from, it was raining. Without realizing it, Lyndon glanced to the cloudless sky overhead, trying hard to reconcile those senses with what truth he knew.
It made no sense.
Across town. That's as far as she could go. The length of a jousting field, at most. The idea that she'd be able to cross to somewhere that had rain, while it was so painfully sunny here was almost enough to make him laugh. But the crackling, the building of energy, just kept growing; it didn't narrow, it didn't coalesce into Kaia's shape. Something snapped inside the bolus of energy, the blue glow shifted to purple at the center. It became so bright, that Lyndon had to shield not only his eyes, but the eyes of the awe struck elder at his side.
With a sound like a thousand bones breaking, the glow quite suddenly simply blinked out of existence. Lyndon was the first to look, and the first to let out a bark of relieved laughter. Kaia had returned, in spectacularly flamboyant fashion like always, and she was not alone. Flanking her were a pair of familiar faces: Lorath Nahr, and Brother Anselm. In six paces time, Lyndon realized that all was not well.
Kaia's dark eyes were having trouble focusing on him. She swayed unsteadily on her feet for a moment, while behind her the priest gagged with nausea. Lorath seemed unaffected by the unsettling nature of her teleportation, so before Lyndon could reach them, he caught Kaia's collapsing body before it ever hit the ground.
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Kaia woke to a calloused hand resting on her forehead. The fingers were thick and powerful, and a faint, almost ghostly scent of myrrh lingered nearby. Something within her, a sense beyond her mortal five, picked up on a resonance, like the hum that lingered long after a harp was silent. The hand didn't pull back when she sighed softly; it only shifted, sliding from her forehead, to smooth back the thickness of her dark hair. On a strange level, she was aware of how disarrayed she must have looked, how much she resembled both sides of her split ancestry.
Her Xiansai mother's influence so apparent in her: hair, so dark it was like a blue black raven's wing, and the almond -shape to her dark eyes. Not to mention the slenderness to her limbs, and body, and the diminutive size that got her mocked so jovially by the barbarian-blooded who served at Bastion's Keep. But it was her Scosglen father's curl in her hair that surprised many, and the pale, alabaster-like quality of her skin, dotted faintly with freckles that became more apparent in the sun. Worse yet, Kaia knew she was beautiful, exotic, and she knew how to use that to get what she wanted. Some lessons learned as the daughter of a whore would never wear off.
It was those curls that the hand was trying to tame, smoothing one out, away from her face, only to find that it would return again, springing into shape upon her brow like a stubborn mule refusing to move from it's favorite spot. On the third attempt, the owner of the hand gave a small chuckle of amusement, and Kaia couldn't help but smile.
"Silly nephalem." Tyrael's deep voice wasn't suited to whispering, even less accustomed to the teasing tone he tried on. Kaia always imagined him orating to a vast gathering, that voice booming out from deep within his chest. And yet, here he was, whispering quietly to her. Kaia thought she was more upset that his hand stopped toying with her hair, than with being awakened. "You could have killed yourself, crossing leagues like that."
"Lorath is a tattle tail." She kept her eyes closed, but was secretly happy that she'd succeeded. "I knew I could make it."
"You're lucky Anselm's connection to the Light is strong." Kaia opened her eyes then. They were alone in the Hemmel boys' abandoned room. Tyrael continued on, his hand resting at the crown of her head. "If your heart had given out from the strain..."
"Anselm still would have made it to save you." Kaia reached up to his arm, taking his wrist and guiding his palm to cup her cheek. "And you, Wisdom, are far more important to this world than
I." She turned her face slightly, and carefully placed a small kiss at the heel of the archangel's palm. Tyrael didn't answer; either he couldn't, or he wouldn't. He was always so hard to read.
Kaia pressed his hand to her cheek for a few heartbeats longer, before releasing him. Even then, his touch lingered for a precarious moment longer, leaving her waiting for some kind of reply, or observation.
Instead, Tyrael slowly withdrew his hand, until he clasped it with his other, uncertainly in his lap. He looked like he wanted to speak, but had no framework to hang his words upon. So, Kaia chose to rescue him from the silence, switching gears, and pushing herself up until she was seated in the bed.
"Is your wound well enough to travel in the morning?"
"Well, I suppose so, yes.." She caught him off guard, prompting the core of honesty. "Anselm is proving himself to be favored by the Light." He drew breath to continue, but caught the slight roll of Kaia's eyes. Faith, the sorceress had in spades, but she put little stock in the idea that any god paid attention to any mortal walking the world. It was something they had spent long hours debating on the road.
"Good," she interjected into the silence. "We need to be on the road by matins, tomorrow, with Lorath."
"And what of Brother Anselm?" Tyrael shifted slightly, pushing the chair he occupied back, so that Kaia could regain her feet. He tried not to watch as she stretched her limbs to the ceiling, but ended up focusing on pale skin revealed as her shirt rose with the motion.
"This village has need of his services a while longer," she mused, letting her hands fall slowly to her sides once more. She was so confident, so certain, making that decision for the holy man. Tyrael's scalp prickled, even as Kaia resumed her seat on the edge of the mattress, leaning down to tend to her boots. There was something she wasn't telling him. He was suddenly, and painfully aware of that fact, or perhaps, he was suddenly and painfully aware of her. Both prospects were daunting.
She rose as she finished lacing her boots, but had barely moved a step when Tyrael caught her arm. It was impulse, a strange urge not to let her leave just yet, an odd need to keep the nephalem close. She didn't move, didn't attempt to pull away. She merely pressed her chin to her shoulder, and looked at him, waiting. He kept his eyes lowered. Tyrael felt a thirst at first, a parching that cut down to his very core. The song of his blood was high in his head, but the heaviness of his mortal heart was strangely lightened.
Twice, he tried to speak, only to find his throat dry and his voice dead. Finally, the mortal angel raised his gaze.
And he knew, as sure as he knew the High Heavens were real, as certainly as he knew that Evil walked Sanctuary again, that his choice to remain in the mortal world was the right one. He didn't belong here, but she did. And he would protect her at all costs.
"What did you see?" His voice sounded raw, and foreign to his own ears, twisted with a thousand emotions that he had no name for, and less experience with. "Kaia, tell me.."
Those weren't the words he wanted to say. It wasn't the question he longed to ask. So why were those the thoughts he gave voice to?
Kaia turned slowly, twisting her wrist in his loose grasp to free it. The world seemed to slow down around them, though Kaia cast no such spell, nor did the air crackle with energy. Her motions were thoughtful and deliberate. Unlike any other, the nephalem boldly stepped into his personal space, setting her feet within the frame of his, one of her knees nudging his aside to give her room.
The pounding of his pulse in his ears was deafening. He wasn't sure that he would hear whatever explanation she would give. He raised his hands helpless, but never touched her. She often mocked herself for being the daughter of a whore; he'd seen her use her curves and her pretty face to her advantage. Yet, she eschewed the bright, gauzy, revealing clothes so many of the mage clans favored, for the practical garb of a peasant: sturdy boots, cotton tunic laced at the breast, and loose breeches. His hands hovered by her hips, as if asking permission. She made no acknowledgment of his desire to touch her, but she did not shy away from touching him.
Her fingers explored his face, gently smoothing out wrinkles of worry and stress. Her eyes captured his, and for a few moments, Tyrael could meet her gaze without flinching. But the graze of her fingertips along a faint scar upon his cheek became too intimate to bear, and he dropped his gaze, trying to turn away. Kaia wouldn't let him; she caught his chin with her other hand, guiding his gaze back to hers. Trapped in the endless depths of her eyes, Tyrael thought he would suffocate. His chest ached with tightness; his hands curled and uncurled helplessly on air just inches from her hips. How can one feel constricted, and yet expanding at the same time? How could the cool touch of her fingers make his skin burn in their wake? How often he cursed the weakness of his mortal flesh, only now to realize how woefully out of his control it really was?
Her fingers tipped his chin up a little further. He wanted her to speak; in a way, he needed her to speak. But she kept her silence. After a long moment, she leaned down. The mortal angel's heart filled to bursting, the sensation painful within his chest. He felt her breath upon his lips, never knowing when he had closed his eyes. Those helpless hands of his finally closed the distance, settling heavily upon her hips, as he felt the first trespasses of soft lips against his.
A thousand things raised in him then: a burning heat that spread from his stomach through his limbs, a terrible fog that settled inside his head, a tightness in his chest, but a buoyancy that straightened his spine, and pressed his mouth more firmly to hers. He didn't want it to end, this kiss, this simply, yet powerful gesture. She stole his breath, and he knew, with dread, that he would need to breathe soon.
Trust me?
Her mind nudged against his, asking permission, which the angel immediately gave her. His senses became flooded with all that was Kaia: fire and ice, lightning, wind and rain. She was both the storm and the ocean, the mountain and the forest; equal parts arcane and natural; equal parts demon and angel. As Tyrael's mind opened to her, he witnessed what she had seen.
To teleport was to cross the aetherial plane, suspended between Sanctuary and the High Heavens, a place that was neither Here, nor There. The Aether was a place of immense turmoil, constant chaos and motion, very few could sense anything amid the storm, which was why most mages could only teleport short distances. But Kaia was not normal. She was not bound to the constrictions that others adhered to. She could handle forces that no human had dreamed of in thousands of years.
And sometimes, in that realm of timeless chaos, in that place between worlds, sometimes, the Aether spoke to her.
Patterns etched in the eldritch currents spoke to her, her mind interpreting them as images, as visions that seared themselves into her mind. Visions that she shared with Tyrael, through a connection forged of pure trust and vulnerability.
Mountains erupted in acidic spews. Forests caught fire with no warning. Rivers turned to lava, melting the flesh off man and beast alike. Towns choked on vines; buildings torn down by malevolent plants, only to decay and rot in minutes, leaving nothing behind by disease. Sanctuary itself screamed in pain, ripped in half as some monstrous beast rolled and coiled in her depths.
Something plummeted from the sky; at first, it was thought to be a shard of the Spine of Anu, a piece of the Crystal Arch itself, but as it flipped and rolled, it revealed itself to be a shard of the very moon, struck off as if by a giant hammer. It plunged into the ocean, boiling the salt water, and giving rise to a scalding tidal wave of destruction that leveled everything in Khanduras.
Arreat buckled, and collapsed in on itself. The hollow crater of the mountain crumbling into nothing. No, not nothing. Something stirred in it's depths, something feeding off the death, the destruction, and the terror. It stirred, breaking the world in two; lifting it's head, all that could be seen were crimson, glowing eyes.
A flash of hope. A single hint. The vision of El'druin buried deep within one of those crimson eyes.
But then nothing, but a smoking, desolate wasteland...
Tyrael came back to awareness, breathing hard. Kaia's fingers were laced behind his head, her forehead resting against his. Tears streamed down her face while she bit her lower lip to hold back the sobs. The pain, the agony of Sanctuary dying still lingered in his heart, and he could only imagine how Kaia must feel. He'd seen so much of her humor fade in the battle against the Evils, because she cared so fervently for her fellow humans.
The mortal archangel rose from his chair, breaking her grasp on his neck. Broad hands traveled up her back, until he could take her by the shoulders and pull her firmly against him. The first sob escaped brokenly and she clutched the rough fabric over his chest. He folded Kaia against his chest, as if that would make the pain of reliving that horrible vision vanish. Even as she sobbed soundlessly against his chest, Tyrael became aware of his own heavy tears, spilling into her hair.
How long he stood with her, trying to comfort her, he did not know. He only looked up at a soft noise from the door. Lyndon stood poised in the entry, a hand upon the latch. The scoundrel's eyes flashed in the dim light, narrowing at the sight before him. The very same protectiveness that surged in Tyrael's breast was reflected in Lyndon's scowl. To see their confident, laughing nephalem reduced to tears...
After a moment, Lyndon cleared his throat, and quipped: "I do hope I'm not interrupting anything, but Lorath is looking for the two of you."
Kaia didn't move from leaning against the angel. After a moment, she simply nodded. After another few heartbeats, she sighed. "We'll meet him in the square. In a few moments."
Lyndon drew breath to speak, to ask another question, but when Kaia remained, firmly ensconced by the arms of Wisdom, the scoundrel closed the door slowly in his retreat. She spoke no further as she began to draw away, and Tyrael, afraid to damage whatever this new thing was between them, kept the silence as well.