A/N Here's a short little chapter to bring this section to a close. Note: I've no chance of playing Defiance until Eidos releases it in Europe. (Feb 6th  being the promised date) *At this point Sereda bawls like a baby and throws things around in a very undignified manner!.* So please, if you do know something I don't, don't tell me about it until next year!

17 Evolution

As the summer days approach their zenith, she starts to change once more.

She is curled up in the stone coffin where Kain placed her on the day he brought her here, hidden far underground in the depths of his own sanctuary, deep within the mountains. Her body is cupped in the dry sand surrounding her, but she feels nothing of the physical world. She is curled so tightly now, that her spine and limbs will forget that they were ever straight. When she awakens, they will cause her to scream her consciousness to the winter air, as she forces herself to ignore their protests, forces them to allow her move once more.

 But that, is still in the future.

Now, the silver shreds of her old skin fall away, and curl like paper about the new form. Her new skin grows, silver-gold, and finely netted. It is still smooth to the touch, but no softness remains, this beauty has steel at its core. New face, less human but beautiful still, her eye-brows replaced by low curving ridges, and buds forming upon her crown, indicating where new flesh is yet to grow. Fingers she still has, long and hard. Her toes, already lost, her feet changed beyond recognition. Never again, will she need shoes.

Still she sleeps, and dreams, her mind catching whispers of things hitherto hidden, beyond her ken. She makes no sense of them, for in this state, she is incapable of rational thought, but she is aware of them, as they are of her.

*

As the days lengthen into months, her dreams become more lucid.

A solitary figure stands on a wide stone terrace; he is facing away from her, apparently intent on something far below them.

His identity is unmistakeable.

Kain.

'This is where you wake up.'

Is he stalking her dreams now?

Has there ever been a time, when he has not?

'Perhaps, this time', he whispers, 'it is you who are stalking mine.'

She walks over to him and looks up at sky, velvet blackness, studded with stars that glitter coldly above their heads. She turns to him, wondering.

'How can this be? No stars shine over Nosgoth. They have been smothered for centuries.'

He makes no answer. Instead, he holds out his hand, indicating the lands below. She can see the sanctuary, the six territories, everything.

As she watches, something begins to happen. The tiny, everyday noises of the evening begin to fade away, growing quieter and less frequent, until finally, they cease altogether. The silence grows, pressing in on her ears until it is almost painful, and she has the strongest sensation that something is wrong. At first, she can't make out the reason for her disquiet, and then, she sees it.

A shadow has fallen across the land, rising up from the sea, and flowing down from the mountain-tops. It stretches forth like a dark hand, corrupting everything it touches, reaching out and twisting the land it in its cruel fingers, relentlessly devouring more and more, until it has its very heart in its grasp, and the land can bleed no longer.

It never falters and its speed never varies, it sweeps towards the Sanctuary and the ruined pillars as if its progress is unstoppable, leaving only darkness in its wake and the shimmering sky above.

*

One by one, the lights go out in Nosgoth.