A/N: Hi all. You may recognize this pairing as the same one that I'm writing the crackfic In the Absence of Angels about. I'd originally intended for that story to be a long form, serious fic about my favorite guilty pleasure ship from Innistrad, but then the far-fetched-ness of it all got away from me and it turned into crack. I've been super busy recently but last month was Femslash February. I wanted to write something in honor of the month, started this wanting to write a long form oneshot, and then I got even busier and utterly failed to finish - which is why I'm now planning on doing it as a multi-chapter fic instead of trying to power through a giant oneshot using all the freetime I don't have these days (which the savvy reader probably recognizes as a warning that I don't know how frequently I'll be able to update this fic). Anyway. That's just some background and also information on current plans to continue. (oh, also, i was listening to afi, which i really liked in middle school, and that's where i got the title of the fic from) Hope you enjoy!
Faithless, I'll Adore You: Prologue
Even with Traft's power flooding her veins, Thalia's muscles scream in protest as she swings Avacyn's silver spear. It cleaves an abomination in half, slicing through malformed flesh like a hot knife through butter. There's no room for doubt in her. There's no wondering if her fingers are failing, if her grip is slipping, if she'll drop the heavy weapon and collapse defeated, too exhausted to continue.
Traft is with her.
She will not falter.
There's only the question –
What next?
Up above, Voldaren vampires and Sigarda's Host of Herons circle and dive and struggle against the endless horde of winged abominations. Blood and ichor and bodies fall like deadly hail. With Traft's aid, Thalia could rise up and join them, but her place is on the ground with the rest of her Order.
Out of the corner of her eye, Thalia sees a clawed tentacle about to gut one of her cathars. She pivots, drags the bright blade of Avacyn's spear through the humid air, slices cleanly through the unnatural limb. Dark magenta ichor sprays, coating her face, dripping into her panting mouth. It tastes like bile and she spits it out as quickly as she can, before it can burn her.
She scans the chaotic melee of battle. It's impossible to tell which side is favored. But who is favored doesn't matter. What matters is that Thalia and the Order of Saint Traft will fight to the last.
Thalia tightens her grip on her silver spear.
Traft is with her.
What next?
There's a loud crack behind her. Thalia throws herself to the side. She rolls and she's already back up on her feet by the time the armored body of what used to be an angel slams into the ground where she'd stood a moment prior. It lies there, crumpled and still. Thalia moves without thinking, bringing Avacyn's spear up into a guard position.
Even as exhausted as she is, it's a fast and fluid movement. Since she was old enough to enlist, she's been fighting.
And Traft is with her.
What next?
An enormous creature is bearing down on her – it looks a bit like a gryff, but if a gryff and a rider and the better part of a house were stacked up and then melted together. In one place it has golden feathers and in another place it has a door and a stone wall and a window.
She sidesteps and thrusts the butt of her weapon out to foul the legs of the charging thing. It trips and goes down hard. Mechanically, Thalia raises her spear up for a finishing thrust. But she hesitates. The creature doesn't have a soft underbelly, it has timber and stone because it used to be a house. She finds what looks like flesh, but her hesitation has cost her.
The gryff's wing has become less a wing and more a feathered tentacle, sickly golden-grey in color – and it whips out to slam into Thalia's side, knocking her down. Her armor does almost nothing to protect her from the blunt force of the blow and at least one of her ribs cracks.
With Traft's aid, the rib un-cracks, heals in an instant. The pain of it is gone before it really registers.
Thalia only barely gets her spear up in time to stop another weird appendage from smashing her skull into a bloody pulp. She catches the blow with the haft of the spear. Her back is flat on the ground and the haft of her spear is a few inches above her nose.
The house bears down and she strains to push it back. Braced as she is, she feels as if the very bones in her arms are being compressed as she and Traft together fight against the thing. If she falters, the house will collapse on her and she will be crushed.
Thalia did not slay Brisela only to be crushed by half of a house.
Her eyes shine geistly blue-white and she can barely see anything except Traft's flame. She bares her teeth in a desperate snarl and she smells fire.
In Thalia's head, she can hear Traft's voice, booming.
I am Traft, it says.
Her fingers squeeze tighter on Avacyn's spear and she thinks surely they cannot withstand the force, surely her fingers are breaking - and healing again, so quickly that she can barely perceive it.
I was beloved of angels, once, Traft's voice continues, rising in volume, filling Thalia's ears and her mind.
Her throat burns – cold geist-flame is tearing its way out of her.
I am beloved of angels still.
Thalia shoves and as she shoves, the creature gives way. Still struggling to keep her enemy at bay, Thalia slowly straightens her arms, succeeding in pushing the thing back. Her entire world is blue-white fire – all she sees, all she smells, all she tastes, all she feels – and, always, Traft's voice echoing in her mind, I am beloved of angels still, over and over.
Traft moves her and with a final nearly unbearable surge of power, she twists, throwing the creature off.
It goes flying, tumbling over the broken paving stones of the city to land in a shattered heap some ways off.
Avacyn's silver spear slips from Thalia's grasp.
It's too heavy.
It hits the paved street with a clatter too faint to hear.
The battle rages all around her still. Men, screaming, dying, and under it all the steady pulse of madness, stabbing into her head.
Thalia pushes herself up to her feet. She sways, briefly. Long blond hair matted with blood obscures her vision. She pushes it back. There's an emptiness in her mind, in her chest, but she ignores it. She bends down to pick up the spear once more. The fight is not yet over. She must continue. She must.
She feels as if she's submerged, as if she moves underwater. She's so slow as she reaches for Avacyn's great weapon.
She touches it –
Pain.
Thalia jerks away, cradling her hand. She feels as if she has been burned through her gauntlet.
Thalia's lips are dry and cracked and her throat is so raw it seems to taste like blood. Her voice comes out weak. She can hardly make out her own words over – over everything else. "Traft?"
A question, a breath, a prayer.
There is no reply. There's just an awful void all around her and in her – and there's something pushing on the void, a chant, but she can't make out the words.
Thalia drops to her knees and wraps her hands around the spear. She manages to hang on for a half second before the feel of holy lightning coursing through her sends her reeling back again.
Now both of her hands ache, though her flesh is unharmed.
Where is it? Where is the cold knot in the back of her head? Where is the sense of not moving but being moved? Where – where is Traft?
There's panic, loss, grief, confusion - but it's not enough to push back against the nothing.
Be'mrakul.
Traft isn't in her head, but the wrongness is.
Again, Thalia tries to lift the spear, hangs onto it as long as she can bear. She squeezes her eyes shut, straining to raise the spear and straining to block out the overwhelming chant of madness. Tears leak down her cheeks, carving glistening tracks through the grime that's caked all over her.
Where is he?
Where…?
One'mrakul.
A shadow falls over Thalia.
She looks up.
It's something that used to be a cathar. It is twisted and deformed and sick. Worm-like gray tentacles grow out of its eye sockets and nose like slimy roots. Its lower jaw has swollen up into a pulsating tumor as large as its entire head. It still wears its long white coat, though the coat is tattered rags now.
We'mrakul.
The once-cathar raises an arm that has melted and fused with a heavy war axe.
Thalia knows it's too late, that she's fast but not fast enough. She reaches for the sword at her side anyway. She will fight to her desperate end.
And, always, the pressure in her head – it's gone from a pressure to a stabbing pain.
Where is Traft?
I'amrakul.
A hand explodes through the once-cathar's chest, followed by an arm up to the elbow.
Come'mrakul.
The hand pulls back.
Be'mrakul.
The once-cathar falls.
The whole scene plays out before Thalia in a blurred chaos. Her vision swims and darkens.
I'amrakul. I'amrakul. I'amrakul.
Through the awful pulsating all are one, all are one, all are one, she can barely make out her savior.
Dressed in black armor and drenched in dark blood, Olivia Voldaren stands tall above Thalia. She holds her black sword loosely at her side - she killed the monster with her hand simply because she could. There's a wild smile on her pale face and her gaze is so intense that her red-gold eyes seem to burn through the eldritch cloud in Thalia's mind. And that gaze, those burning red-gold eyes, are fixed on Thalia.
In all her years as a cathar, never before has Thalia felt with so much certainty that she is prey.
She is prey. Olivia is not prey. And that's all that Thalia needs to rip herself away from the awful pressure of abomination. Thalia is Thalia and all are not one.
If she survives, she will mourn Traft. But not until she survives.
Her hand is on the hilt of her sword and she draws it. She's been using Avacyn's spear for so long. Her slim sword, clean of blood, the only thing in Thraben still clean of blood, feels unfamiliar to her now.
Thalia has lived her life by the sword and if she dies by the sword as well - then so be it.
Given that all around them cathars and vampires are falling to the unending tide of eldritch abominations, that all around them their respective forces are dying, the slowness with which Olivia tilts her head in a nod towards Thalia is decadent.
Thalia responds to the shiver that runs down her spine by gritting her teeth, standing, and rounding on the nearest deformed creature, the horrifically twisted remains of an elderly woman, from the looks of it.
In so doing, she turns her back on the Voldaren progenitor.
Their forces are quickly losing ground. If Olivia breaks their bargain now, it will hardly make a difference.
Thalia runs her opponent through and then yanks her steel sword from the still squirming body.
Thalia fights on.
What next?
Olivia Voldaren hasn't left Stensia in what feels like a thousand years.
Maybe it feels like a thousand years because it has actually been a thousand years. She can't really remember and doesn't really care.
When Sorin created Avacyn, she thought about leaving Lurenbraum to put the wretched thing out of its misery (good, in retrospect, that she hadn't tried), but there'd been a party and it had been such an excellent party. She still remembers it – there'd been wine and there'd been laughter and there'd been sex and blood and screaming and so many bodies it took the neophytes three days to drag the corpses out.
Ah, what a life.
Olivia swings Sorin's sword – her sword, now – and beheads something that vaguely resembles a werewolf. It doesn't go down after losing its head, so she takes its arms and legs too, leaving it twitching on the paving stones of the Thraben city square.
Parties are wonderful, but so is wading through the chaotic melee of the battlefield. Such violence!
It was a good thing Sorin did, coming to her. If he hadn't begged for her help, she probably would have stayed home and missed all the fun.
A creature so far gone it's impossible to tell what it used to be comes charging at her.
Olivia twirls, the Parasite Blade moving almost faster than the eye can see.
The creature falls in two neat halves at her feet, tendrils of black smoke rising up.
In the back of her head, she can feel an uncomfortable pressure. I am Emrakul, it says. All are one.
Edgar Markov may have been the first to drink the angel's blood, but Olivia Voldaren was second. She came before Runo Stormkirk, before Strefan Mauer, certainly before what-was-his-name Falkenrath. And she had been old and she had been powerful even before drinking the angel's blood.
She brushes the mental intrusion aside like she would a cobweb.
The queen of her army, she surveys the melee. The cathars are going down quickly and even her vampires are slowly falling. The skies are a righteous disaster with angels fighting former angels and feathers flying every which-way. It would be a sight to sit back and enjoy if the rest of the battle weren't such a mess.
A seed of doubt tries to grow in Olivia's thoughts - she is old, she is powerful, but is she old enough, powerful enough? Like the eldritch intrusion though, she silences her apprehension.
She's spinning about in the midst of the greatest battle Innsitrad has ever seen. What an experience! And if she dies here - oh she doesn't want to die, she has lived far too long to die now, and whittled away far too much of her soul - she will die having the time of her life.
Olivia is in the process of cutting down yet another monster when a blue-white explosion of blinding geistfire sweeps the battlefield.
For Olivia, it's uncomfortable. Painful, even. It singes her hair.
For several of her vampires – they burst into flames. Distracted by the fire, a couple of them lose their battle against the driving madness and their burning skin bubbles and twists as the eldritch corruption takes hold.
For a moment, rage surges in Olivia's chest. What is this betrayal? No human blade - ah, but there it is. Geist-fire isn't a blade, is it? Tricky.
But who is sending geist-fire roaring out across the city? The question hasn't even finished forming in Olivia's mind before she knows the answer. The Heir of Saint Traft. That waif of a cathar is burning Olivia's vampires.
How interesting.
Olivia rises up from the ground, not high enough to become caught up in the aerial battle above, but high enough that she can survey the field.
It's not hard to find Thalia. Her little display of power has knocked an area clear around her, though the battle is quickly surging back in to fill the gap. In particular, there's an ugly cathar-looking-thing creeping up behind her.
That simply won't do.
Flying is far faster than walking and in an instant Olivia is behind the cathar-thing that's behind Thalia. She takes a moment to aim, and then she punches her left hand through the creature's back right where its heart should have been if it were human.
The feeling of her entire arm sliding through flesh is incredibly satisfying and as she smiles she can feel her long canines extending, anticipating a feast.
Not that she would ever partake of the gross ichor that seeps out of the felled creature's veins.
Thalia though.
Olivia stares at Thalia, Thalia stares at Olivia, and Olivia wants.
And what Olivia wants, Olivia gets.
Something to keep in mind, should they both survive the current mess.
Of the men and women of the Order of Saint Traft who marched to Thraben with Thalia, one in ten has survived. Like Traft himself, most of the geists who fought with Thalia's cathars are gone, having either entirely spent themselves or finally chosen to pass into the Blessed Sleep.
The cathars huddle in the nave of the old Thraben cathedral. It's a vast, vaulted hall of white marble. Most of the windows have been smashed and the great skylight that used to fill the entire hall with moonbeams throughout the night lies in great glass shards all across the floor. At the far end of the building, near the apse, someone has punched a hole through the floor down into the crypt below.
High in the rafters, a handful of angels rest, ragged and worn. They are the few survivors of the Flight of Herons. Among them is Sigarda herself, diminished by exhaustion and grief.
They have won because they are alive, but the cathedral where they have taken shelter is a grim place. A broken fortress for a tattered army.
They have won, but not because they were victorious. Past the point when all seemed lost, the eldritch thing in the sky stretched out and twisted its way towards the moon. It had happened through no work of Thalia, nor of any of her cathars nor any of their allies. Had their march resulted in anything but death? And those allies - no sooner than the wrongness in the sky gone than the vampires turned on the cathars.
The battle against the vampires had been grisly in a way the battle against the warped perversions had not been. Vampires as old and powerful as the ones Olivia had brought with her fought with strength, cunning, and a penchant for spectacles of cruelty.
Thalia paces, going in a great loop around the cathedral hall. She move stiffly. Her clothes are crusted with dirt and blood and gore. She's completely drained and she knows it, but she can't stop moving. Every time she passes the hole in the floor, the hole down to where they say mad Avacyn died, the hairs on the back of her neck stand up.
In the midst of the battle, Thalia rallied the humans she could find and lead them in a retreat to the cathedral. Sigarda and the remnants of the Host of Herons covered their retreat, at great cost.
Thalia has no way of knowing how many she left behind.
She does not leave people behind.
If Traft had been with her...
The absence of Traft is a yawning void in her chest. It is strange, the feeling. Wrong, perhaps. She was not born with the geist tucked away inside her, but now that he is gone she feels as if she has lost a piece of herself. She is not one to falter, but Traft's steady conviction has been a bulwark against the dark despair of the past months.
To live by her own faith alone once more feels precarious.
Before she had Traft, when she'd been riding across the shadowed heath - she'd been so lost. Directionless. Aimless. Overwhelmed by the absence of her duty as mad angels flickered across the distant sky.
Without Traft, is she lost again?
Yes.
But Thalia refuses to wallow in self-pity.
So she paces.
There's little talk among the cathars. They bandage wounds and gnaw on what provisions they have. They're exhausted, they're all exhausted. Few sleep however. Out in the night, there are monsters. A handful of cathars are assigned to night watch on shifts, but most are like Thalia, awake because no matter how tired they are the world is too dangerous and strange to slip into unconsciousness. Visions of eldritch horrors dance before them every time they close their eyes.
A few surviving citizens have come to the cathedral as well, thinking that being near to the cathars is as close to safety as can be found in the ruined city. There are likely other humans still out there in what remains of Thraben, but night has fallen and Thalia's forces are too few to risk venturing out to search in the dark.
She grinds her teeth together. The men and women of Thraben need her out in the city, not prowling the old cathedral like a caged animal. Resting, delaying is inimical to her nature. Every moment she spends cowering, someone dies - if anyone is even left out in the darkness.
Thalia's left hand wraps around the hilt of her sword, which hangs at her side. The movement hurts, her hand still aches from trying to hold Avacyn's spear without Traft's aid, but the pain feels good.
It's something that's not her own damn frustration.
Thalia passes the hole in the floor again and steadfastly doesn't look at it.
Avacyn.
If Thalia had stood her ground, if she'd kept her oath when the necromancer came to Thraben to destroy the Helvault… If she'd kept her oath, would that have saved Innistrad from Avacyn's madness? Had the brief respite, that short period of light in the dark, been worth it?
Spectres of the past gnaw at Thalia, haunting her step and rushing in to fill the void in her, the place that Traft once occupied.
But what's done is done. And now mad Avacyn is gone. Her heavy spear lies on the ground out in some ruined city square, probably buried beneath the corpses of eldritch horrors and humans alike.
How long will it lie there?
Without Traft…
Thalia takes a particularly aggressive step forward and nearly collides with Grete. The other cathar has seen better days, she's covered in dried blood, half her face is a giant bruise, and a patch of her red hair has been ripped out - but she's alive.
Grete survived the battle. Rem, though...
If Thalia survived, if Grete survived, surely Rem Karolus, most feared of all the Thraben inquisitors, must still live as well. Somewhere.
So long as there isn't a body…
"Thalia," Grete says. Her tone is serious, solemn. Grete no longer smiles. In better times, that may have broken Thalia's heart, but in the wake of everything it's only a drop in the ocean of things that that threaten to bring Thalia to her knees. "We have a problem."
Thalia comes to attention in a moment. "What is it?"
"Vampires," Grete says. "They're outside. Olivia says she wants to talk. To you."
Thalia scowls and it's only the palest shade of how she feels. She never actually expected to survive to see their highly theoretical vampire problem become a very real vampire problem.
There's no time for the past now though, only for the present.
"Wake everyone," Thalia orders. "Get ready to move the civilians but don't move them yet. We don't want to leave the cathedral unless we have to. I'll go talk with them, maybe they..." Thalia shakes her head and trails off. Part of her hopes that if the vampires haven't fallen on them yet, that they won't. But the Voldaren progenitor strikes her as having a fondness for theatrics and might just be waiting to make a point.
She might be giving hope just so she can crush it.
Grete doesn't question the order. Before she was Thalia's second in command, she followed Odric. Even though she is as weary as Thalia and all the rest, Grete is the very essence of discipline. It is something that Thalia has always admired about her, even as Thalia herself so often broke ranks to run charging towards the enemy. Grete salutes and strides over to the nearest group of cathars huddled together on the cathedral floor.
Thalia loosens her blade in its sheath and heads for the grand doors of the cathedral.
The doors, three times Thalia's height and wide enough for the vast streams of people who used to come to pray to Avacyn, are made of ancient wood carved into angels and cathars slaying demons and gilded with silver. They have survived the apocalyptic battle almost untouched. Maybe a miracle, maybe luck, maybe some sign of their irrelevance in this strange new world. Left ajar for whatever survivors reach the cathedral and so that the sentries can peer outside, they shine in the moonlight.
From inside it's hard to see out. It's not until Thalia crosses the threshold of the building and steps onto the corpse-strewn cathedral square that she sees the vampires. They've positioned themselves at the far end of the square, standing nearly at the base of the Child's Wall. They make hardly a sound. With their pale skin and black armor and unnatural stillness, their silence is eerie. Gold eyes glimmer in the dark. Thalia clutches the hilt of her sword so hard her knuckles whiten.
Olivia Voldaren floats at the head of her army. Like her vampires, she still wears elaborate plate armor, as decorative as it is protective. The fluting and jagged spike flourishes seem almost architectural in their structure. Though her armor has a few deep scratches, testament to violence that probably would have sliced through the lighter, thinner steel that the cathars dressed in, Olivia herself seems no worse for wear than she was that morning when they marched together to the city.
"Well met, Heir of Saint Traft," Olivia drawls, taking her sweet time with every syllable. In the moonlight, it's clear there's still-wet blood on her lips and smeared across her face.
Thalia flinches at the appellation but quickly regains her composure. "Lady Voldaren," she greets in return. Standing on the ground, she has to crane her neck to look up to Olivia.
"I'm so glad to see you survived," Olivia says. When she speaks, it's in the lilting accent of Stensia, but with an odd inflection that makes Thalia think of the oldest of the Avacynian liturgies. Olivia's voice is grace. "I would have so hated to have wasted my time saving you."
Thalia fights down the instinct to demand Olivia get to her point. Though Thalia isn't one for idle chatter, Olivia, it seems, is. There's no reason to antagonize the Voldaren progenitor when she has enough vampires to wipe out the few humans sheltering in the cathedral.
Thalia keeps quiet.
"Well, what do you say when someone saves your life?" Olivia asks. Her bloody smile is cat-like and seems to show far more crimson-stained teeth than should be possible.
When Thalia swallows to clear her throat, she swallows her pride and it tastes as bad as the magenta ichor of an eldritch monster. "Thank you," she says stiffly.
"You're quite welcome," Olivia replies. She floats a little closer. "I didn't do it entirely out of the goodness of my capacious heart though, you know," she says. "I do expect something in return. Tit-for-tat. I'm sure you understand."
Thalia's heartbeat rings in her own ears like the galloping hooves of a horse. Are Olivia's ears keen enough to hear it? For a second time that day, she feels that she is hunted and she doesn't like it in the least. If Olivia were within striking distance, Thalia thinks she might take her chances - but Olivia isn't within striking distance, perhaps for that very reason. And, for the time being, Thalia is humoring the dead monster floating above her. "Of course," Thalia says.
Oliva floats to the side and holds out an arm, dramatically gesturing back towards her small army with a black, spiked gauntlet. The vampires, all of them with bloody mouths - they must have fed, fed so much - shuffle aside.
A woman dressed in the simple clothes of a washerwoman stumbles forward. She's followed by a thin man, getting on in his years, fragile-seeming, but surely not fragile if he's still alive after the course of all that's happened. And then another woman, another man, a child - men, women, children. As they pass away from the vampires and see Thalia and the cathedral, they break into a run, swarming towards safety.
Thalia counts thirty of them. Survivors, rounded up by the vampires and deposited at her doorstep. A few of them she recognizes as her own cathars. Instinctively, she barks an order for them to go into the cathedral and take shelter.
In the air above them all, Olivia rises up a little higher. "Look after dinner for me, dearest," she says.
Thalia replies without thinking, without pausing to restrain herself from challenging the vampire before her. "These people are not yours," she says. Her voice seems to hang in the air in the quiet square before the great cathedral.
Olivia's tone is that of a teacher condescending to a favored pupil. "Oh but they are," she says. "And so are you."
"I am not," Thalia snaps. "They are not."
Olivia hums and it's an infuriatingly smug noise. She has conceded nothing and knows that she's had the last word. Her red-gold eyes are far too keen and when she smiles her canines are far too sharp. She turns in the air, extending one hand as if she were twirling in a long dress. Without any sort of goodbye, she floats away. As she passes from the square, her vampires follow dutifully after her.
Thalia watches them go.
Throughout the entire exchange, her hand has never once left the sword at her side.
It still doesn't.
Even if she wanted to let go, after gripping the hilt so hard for so long, she doubts she could.
"I'm not," she says again, though no one remains to hear her. "I'm not. They're not. We're not."
She turns and her first step is so forceful that it hurts. She storms her way back to the cathedral.
Inside the great hall, the cathars and survivors who were already gathered in the sanctuary have made room for Olivia's refugees.
Olivia's dinner.
Scowling, Thalia looks out at them all. They are not Olivia's, they are hers. And she swears on - not on Avacyn, on… she swears on Traft that she will protect them. She swears on Sigarda.
Grete appears at Thalia's elbow, ever the faithful lieutenant. "I don't understand," she says. "What's going on?"
"They're humans. They're alive. They're ours," Thalia says.
"But why did the vampires just…" Grete trails off. It's clear what her question is.
"It doesn't matter," Thalia replies. Dinner, she thinks. "They're humans. They're alive. They're ours. That's what matters."
Grete frowns. She's clearly not satisfied with Thalia's answer but she's been with her commander too long to think she'll pry anything more out of her. "So what next then?"
Thalia closes her eyes.
She's very tired.
When she opens them again, she looks over at a small crowd of her cathars. They're taking turns hugging one of the women Olivia released. By her ragged robes, Thalia thinks that she used to be a priest of Avacyn. They must have known her - before.
"I'm going to sleep," Thalia says. "You should too."
"What about the vampires?" Grete asks.
"They won't attack tonight," Thalia says. She hears her voice and it sounds confident. What if Olivia sent them their friends only to lull them into a false sense of safety before attacking? The Voldaren of Stensia are infamous for their sick mind games.
No.
Thalia sounds confident, so she is confident.
She shakes her head as if by doing so she can clear her thoughts. "Get some rest, Grete," she says. "We have our work cut out for us tomorrow."
Tomorrow seems to come as soon as Thalia closes her eyes to sleep. One moment she is lying down on the cold stone floor of the Thraben cathedral and the next there is sunlight on her face, streaming through the broken windows of the ruined building.
Around her, the other humans are waking as well.
As soon as Thalia knows that she is awake, she pushes herself up off the floor and stretches. Her clothes are still stiff with dried gore. She doesn't have another set on hand though. In terms of being filthy, having lived her entire adult life as a cathar, she has been through worse. She's covered in old sweat and dirt and blood and bits of flesh and she smells like death in the sun - but there's very little shit on her.
Water. Food. Survivors. Olivia.
Thalia forcefully shoves the last thought out of her mind. It is not a priority. It's not.
The immediate needs of her cathars and the survivors - those are her first priorities. She'll make what arrangements she can in case the vampires attack once more, but spending time plotting how to do the impossible, how to drive them out of the city, is time and energy wasted.
Thalia clenches and unclenches her hands, testing them. They still ache, though not as badly as they had the night before.
First things first. She needs to organize a search.
She scans the great hall of the cathedral for Grete, who seems to have woken before her. When Thalia sees a flash of red hair, she heads towards it.
Her lieutenant is sitting on the floor and yawning as Thalia approaches. On the floor next to Grete, sits Zilla of Lambholt, once the highest ranking archmage of Alabaster, now perhaps the only, surviving member of that order. She is the only archmage of Alabaster to march with the Order, at least. Zilla is an old woman. Thalia wouldn't be surprised to learn that the archmage is twice her age, though she has no intention of ever asking. Zilla is old and she is also intimidating.
When Thalia draws near, Grete stands but Zilla does not.
"Thalia," Grete greets. Her face looks even worse than it did the previous night, then an enormous reddish bruise, now a blue and purple and green and black masterpiece - but it's to be expected. Healing wounds always look worse before they get better. It's the way of the world.
"Heir of Saint Traft," Zilla says dryly. Thalia takes no offense at Zilla's tone. Especially by the standards of the normally calming Moonsages, she's a rather prickly person. That she greets Thalia at all is a sign of respect, she thinks, even if the title she uses feels like a punch in the stomach to Thalia.
Does Zilla know? Thalia hasn't told anyone, but can the archmage sense Traft's absence?
Thalia nods to the archmage and then turns to her lieutenant. "Grete, gather the Order," Thalia says. "We need to form squads and search for survivors."
"You need to do no such thing," Zilla cuts in. She remains seated on the floor in a posture similar to meditation. She looks up at and through Thalia with judging blue eyes.
Thalia looks down at the archmage. Zilla's weathered face is a map of wrinkles - laugh lines from a life well lived. This is a woman who deserves, at the very least, to be listened to. "What do you mean?" Thalia asks.
"Do you know how many corpses there are out there?" Zilla asks. It's clearly a rhetorical question, she pauses but not long enough for Thalia to answer in the negative. "Too many to even think to bury, much less ward and seal. Some of them probably started rising last night. This entire wretched city is a nexus of darkness now. You cannot intend to delay any longer in leaving." She peers at Thalia, her eyes narrowing slightly. "Unless you and Traft intend to slay them all single-handedly?"
Thalia swallows. If Traft were with her, she might. She might also be able to stand her ground against the First Moonsage.
"I thought not," Zilla concludes.
Grete hasn't moved.
A second order to her lieutenant dies in Thalia's throat. There are survivors still out in the city. They need her. They are surely dying, even as she stands in the cathedral arguing with the Zilla.
But.
Thalia tilts her head up towards the rafters, searching for Sigarda.
Zilla is right. Thalia knows this. And her question - what next? She knows the answer to that as well.
If Sigarda says they must search for survivors though…
The angel is looking down, watching. When Thalia meets her eyes nods an acknowledgement and then stands, mighty wings unfurling. Her green robe is tattered and her white armor is stained with the same filth that Thalia is coated in, but she still appears majestic, wreathed in sunlight high above.
With a preternatural grace, she descends, gliding down to land before the small group of humans.
Following forms drilled into her since she first set foot on the Elgaud Grounds nearly two decades ago, Thalia bows deep to the angel. Behind her, Grete does the same.
Sigarda bows just as deeply to Thalia in return. "Guardian," she says.
Thalia straightens and blinks. The training of cathars in Nephalia never included what to do should an angel bow back. If she knew what she was going to say before, she promptly forgets.
Zilla of Lambholt, First Moonsage to the Flight of Alabaster, stays seated, watching the entire exchange. When it's clear that neither Thalia nor Sigarda will advance the conversation, she speaks. "The Heir of Saint Traft wants to stay in this damned city looking for survivors."
Sigarda frowns, but she doesn't say anything either supporting or detracting.
"First Moonsage Zilla thinks it prudent to abandon the survivors and flee," Thalia says. "On account of dark energy."
"I don't think. I know. It's my job to know," Zilla says dryly. "There are more risen dead in this city than there are living men. None of the dead yesterday have found the Blessed Sleep."
Sigarda shifts her weight, a simple bit of body language turned spectacle by the movement of her great wings. "Guardian," she begins, her tone measured. "We will strive to protect you, whatever you choose. As we always have."
"But what would you counsel?" Thalia asks. She asks Sigarda, but she wishes she were asking Traft. Traft would have counseled her to stay and his quiet strength and faith would have given her the means to do so.
Sigarda doesn't answer.
Grete does. "Thalia, we have to leave," she says. "If we search for survivors now, it won't matter. They'll die. We'll die. We can't stay."
Both of Thalia's hands clench into fists.
It's been a day and her hands still ache as if she grabbed Avacyn's spear only moments ago.
What would Lothar have done?
Thalia's traitor mind whispers, Lothar wouldn't have allowed the Helvault to be broken. Lothar would never have been in this disaster in the first place. She quells the thought though. Lothar would have died a long time ago - because that's exactly what he did.
"Prepare to leave then," she says. "We'll take the southern gate and head to Wittal Parish." She casts her eyes around the cathedral. As they've been speaking, cathars and civilians alike have gathered around to watch, to stare. She speaks to them now, raising her voice so that it will carry through the great cathedral hall. "Make sure everyone you've seen alive is here when we move out. We can't look for survivors, but no one here will be left behind."
These are my people, Thalia thinks. Mine.
Once the order is given, it takes little time for the survivors in the cathedral to gather themselves up to leave. No one questions Thalia's decision. Perhaps it is because Sigarda and Zilla have leant Thalia their authority. Perhaps none question Thalia because she holds authority in her own right. The why of it is unimportant though. It's enough that that everyone readies to go. It doesn't take long.
Thalia has no bags, no belongings except for the clothes and armor she wears and the slim sword at her side.
She approaches the great silvered doors of the cathedral, left ajar throughout the night for more survivors who never came, and pushes them open wide. Warm sunlight strikes her, falling full on her face. It's so bright. She has to close her eyes for a moment.
When she opens her eyes again, it's to a cloudless spring day. It's cool, but not sky is a brilliant blue and the entire scene seems to be filled with light, almost as if hope might exist somewhere out in the world.
The world is beautiful.
The corpses strewn all across the courtyard of the cathedral are not. In the dark, they'd been easy to not think about, to ignore. In the light, the bodies of cathars and vampires and angels and monsters can't be unseen. They're everywhere. The stiffness of death has taken them - their eyes are open, their mouths are open, they're all silently screaming. How had Thalia managed to go so far the previous night without tripping over a body?
By day, the cathedral courtyard is a nightmare.
A gentle breeze blows and Thalia gags at the stench of violent death.
How had she thought that they should stay here?
Because, out in the city, there are survivors, isolated, facing this horror alone as they wait to join it.
Thalia grimaces and wraps her hand around the hilt of her sword. Her people are behind her. The angels have taken to the air and circle overhead. It's time to go. Wordlessly, she steps out into the city and the other survivors follow her.
They pick their way through the corpse-strewn courtyard to the ancient Child's Wall and pass beneath it. Walking through the shaded gateway, Thalia's eyes linger on the enormous white stones that comprise the wall, each of them carved with so many names there's hardly any scrap of them untouched by a loving parent's chisel. Thalia's own name is up on the battlements of the western gate. She's seen it a few times. She'll never see it again though, she thinks.
There is a finality to the march she leads. They will not return.
Beyond the south gate of the Child's Wall is the District of Silver. Here, the the old nobility of the city once lived. The families of the Lunarchs and the highest bishops dwelt in palatial manors at the heart of Thraben with all their retainers.
The richest part of the Thraben now lies in ruins, just like the rest of it.
Navigating the city is no easy task. Streets are crammed with bodies and wide boulevards have been blocked by collapsed buildings. Thalia has lived in Thraben for many
years, but she barely recognizes some districts. At first every landmark mangled nearly beyond recognition feels like a stab in the gut but eventually they all blur together.
Every ten steps or so, Thalia looks back over her shoulder to make sure that her people are still safe, are still following her. Tired and dirty, they're always there. In the distance, the city rumbles. Not the city, perhaps, but strange creatures built of flesh and bits of the city. Thankfully though, they encounter none of these twisted monsters in their course.
It is downright eerie - they encounter no enemies and no survivors. No one. In a city the size of Thraben, in a battle the size of the chaotic melee of the day before - there should be stragglers.
It's as if someone has cleared their way. Thoroughly.
Thalia's aching hand settles again on the hilt of her sword.
The skies are clear and it's getting towards midday, but sunlight means nothing to vampires. They have an affinity for the dark but they are not bound to it like some creatures are.
Despite the emptiness of the streets, Thalia is on edge.
They pass by the Merchant's Wall, the Fang Wall, and the Outer Wall is in sight, the gate itself is in sight, before anything goes wrong.
The gate, higher, wider than the gates of the Thraben cathedral, and several times as heavy, is closed.
It was open when Thalia and the Order of Saint Traft marched through it the previous day and it takes a team of men in the gatehouse to shift such great doors.
"Are you really leaving so soon?"
Thalia has to shield her eyes against the glare of the sun in order to look up towards the battlements of the gate and the source of the voice. She already knows who it is though. Even having heard it only twice now, she'd know that lilting, archaic, accent anywhere.
Olivia is seated on the battlements, but as soon as she sees that Thalia is watching, she rises up into the air. She has traded heavy plate armor for a ball gown, black and crimson with white lace. The collar of the gown is so high that it seems amazing she can tilt her head and look down on the humans below her. Behind Oliva, an intimidating number of her vampires stand atop the Outer Wall. There's no telling how many more lurk just out of sight. Everything about this encounter was planned.
The angels are descending now, but not to attack. They hover nearby, ready for a fight but not close enough to provoke one. By Thalia's count, the vampires that are visible outnumber the few survivors of the Flight of Herons. The calculus of a battle plays out in her head. If there aren't more vampires hiding about, then they can win, so long as Sigarda can defeat Olivia. That's not a sure thing though. Avacyn, before her madness, could perhaps have defeated Olivia - but Olivia came from a time before Avacyn's imprisonment and she'd survived the angel's brief rally unscathed. Sigarda is not the fighter that Gisela had been, and Gisela's power had been less than Avacyn's.
Thalia and the angels hadn't been able to defeat the vampires yesterday and there's no reason to think they can do so now.
Thalia wets her lips. All her people are behind her, watching. She raises her voice. "Yes."
"That's such a pity," Olivia drawls. "We haven't even dined together yet. But that is quite easy to fix."
In her veins, Thalia feels as if her blood goes cold. Olivia's intent is clear. Numbly, she unsheathes her sword. On the ground as she is though, she can brandish it at nothing. It's a sign of her own impotence, a weak gesture at best.
"I'm so glad I saved you - you've been looking after my flock so nicely," Olivia continues. There's no sarcasm in her tone, just sincerity, and that is somehow far more terrifying. "I think three should suffice quite well."
Thalia's voice is weak. "Three what?"
Olivia hears her anyway, or maybe the question was so obvious that she didn't need to hear at all. "Three humans, of course. I'm hungry. Surely you don't want your patron to go hungry."
Thalia clutches her sword in one hand and her other hand balls into a fist. Both hands ache. "You'll have no one, beast," she snaps.
Olivia's gold eyes fix on Thalia's grey-green ones. "Don't be rude, child," she says. "I'm being gracious. I take what is mine. And you are all mine."
Rage drives Thalia's answer. "Fight me then," she shouts. These are her people. Olivia may have given them to her, but now they are hers. She will protect them.
Up above, Olivia scoffs. "Now why would I do that? I don't want you dead. I just want a snack. You're in no position to make demands. You're not even in a position to negotiate, really."
"I don't negotiate with monsters," Thalia replies.
Olivia smirks. Condescension drips from her tone. "So it doesn't really matter that you can't. How convenient."
There's a rustling all around - the vampires who'd been just out of sight are showing themselves now. Thalia hasn't the time to count, but she wonders if there are more vampires in the street before the high gate than there are humans and angels combined. The Voldaren came out from the battle in far better condition than anyone else.
"I do appreciate your forthright manner," Olivia says. "So I'll make this simple. Give me three humans - they don't have to be your cathars, they can be a few of the ones I asked you to look after, the ones living now by my grace on borrowed time. And then we'll open the gate for you and we'll even give you a few days as a head start as you run away."
"Thalia," comes Grete's voice from just behind her.
Thalia ignores her lieutenant. "No," she says. "I'll give you no one."
"I can't make you do anything," Olivia concedes. "There are always alternatives in life, and in death." She smiles, not the full teeth-showing cat-grin of the previous night, but a smile that is small and polite. "But I can snap your angel's neck and then kill your humans over the course of years. And perhaps you should keep that in mind."
Still craning her neck to look upwards, Thalia looks from Olivia to Sigarda.
The the majority of Thalia's life, she has looked to the angels and to Avacyn for guidance and protection. But Avacyn is gone and Gisela is gone and Bruna is gone and only Sigarda remains, high overhead, eyes fixed on Olivia, not on Thalia. We will strive to protect you, she'd said in the cathedral, whatever you choose.
Thalia doesn't want to choose. She can't choose. She sees no way forward that won't betray her vow to her people and to herself.
The last time she was faced with such a choice, she chose wrong.
She allowed the necromancer to break the Helvault.
She unleashed mad Avacyn on the world.
"Thalia," Grete says again.
Thalia turns towards her.
"Grete?" Thalia asks. As she speaks Grete's name, she does it with hope in her voice. Her lieutenant was the one who counseled her to do as she needed and to order that they leave the city. Will Grete now take the choice from her again?
"I'll be one of the three," Grete says. Her voice is raised, loud enough that rest of the ragged group of humans can hear.
The hope in Thalia's chest shatters. Before she can choke out her objection though, another cathar steps forward. He's older than Thalia by several seasons, at least. She can't recall his name. "So will I," he says.
"Grete, you can't," Thalia manages to whisper.
"I'll go too," someone else says. It's a boy, a child. He can't be more than eight years old. He starts to walk forward, but a young woman grabs him by the back of his shirt and pulls him back. She lifts him up off the ground in a bear hug, then hands him to a nearby cathar before walking forward herself. She joins Thalia, Grete, and the cathar whose name Thalia can't remember. "Heir of Saint Traft," she says. Her voice wavers, though it's clear she's doing her best to keep it steady. "Please protect my brother."
Thalia nods. She feels as if she's detached from the world, as if she's watching herself from far away.
"You can't stop me," Grete says. She unbuckles her sword from her belt and holds it out for Thalia to take.
Still dumb to the world, Thalia sheathes her own blade so that she can take Grete's in both hands.
Grete swallows, then. "This is my decision." She leans forward and down - she's the taller between them by two inches - and kisses Thalia. It's not a long kiss. It's light and it's over as soon as Thalia realizes what Grete's doing.
And then Grete and the cathar and the sister are walking away, towards the gate.
And then Olivia and two other vampires have swooped down and lifted them up into the air and then other vampires have joined them and-
Thalia wants to close her eyes but she can't.
Her people.
They are hers.
When the swarm vampires are done eating, they drop the bodies from a point higher than the battlements of the gatehouse. Each one lands with a sick thud.
The gates creak open; there's someone within the gatehouse turning the winches.
Up in the air, Olivia offers Thalia a bow, though, performed by her, the gesture lacks even a shred of respect. "It was a pleasure, Heir of Saint Traft," she drawls. Her mouth is bright red with fresh blood. "I think I'll come calling again sometime."
Thalia says nothing to this.
There's nothing to be said.