Adrestes cannot get back to Bastion fast enough, though he does swing through Oribos, just long enough to see if he can feel that inexplicable pull. It is absent in the eternal city, however, so he leaves quickly, without ever setting foot to stone.
He has suffered through the small talk, the plastered smiles, the meaningless discussions of what the Shadowlands will look like in the tentative future, and now he wants to settle in and have a more meaningful talk with a more meaningful company.
With Liila.
Because he does not want things to spiral out of control like they did before, he does not want her feeling like she cannot talk to him, cannot be near him.
Not because of that…incident.
He can't really call it a kiss, can he? It wasn't intentional, wasn't reciprocated.
Not that he doesn't wish he had.
Reciprocated.
Archon's grace, but he wouldn't mind a second shot at what he fumbled so spectacularly earlier.
However, when he returns to Bastion, he finds that he has arrived first. It is early morning—the Ember Court had lasted hours and he had been roped into something called an 'afterparty' that had taken him over an hour to find a way to extricate himself from—but there are still plenty of people already awake, already in motion. Unfortunately, Liila is not among them.
The Maw Walker is, as far as anyone knows, still off in the realm of the living.
Though… something has happened.
The aspirants he asks in Aspirant's Rest seem oddly excited at his query. When he inquires as to whether the Maw Walker has returned to the realm yet, the smiles are oddly wide as the flightmaster assures him she hasn't seen Liila yet, but is sure she'll be back soon.
Despite what he has been told, Adrestes swings by Hero's Rest, idly hoping that perhaps Liila somehow slipped past Aspirant's Rest. She could have gotten a portal into the realm, after all, or they might have simply missed her return flight, caught up in something else.
It turns out that they did not.
Liila is not there.
Though plenty of others are.
Pelagos is there in the Maw Walker's Corner, with Aspirant Thales and a few others, all talking excitedly.
Adrestes leaves them to it.
When he reaches Elysian Hold, he swings by the wards first and foremost, to make certain they are still intact. He checks on them far more often than before, several times a day, determined to ensure that what happened with the Temples of Purity and Courage do not happen again.
The guards seem to watch him with an unusual curiosity, like they are dying to ask something that they know is irrelevant to the topic at hand. He swears he hears one of them comment on his countenance as he leaves, but when he glances back, they are quiet.
Something has happened.
It reminds him of the day the rumors of the mortal in Bastion were going around, how everyone had been so astir, how many had looked to him for confirmation without actually asking for it.
He can't imagine what could have happened that would be as attention gripping as mortals showing up in the realm of the dead, but he's sure he'll find out, soon enough.
There are probably reports waiting for him.
It has been a tiring trip out of the realm—emotionally taxing more than anything—but rather than head to his private chambers to rest, he decides putting off sleep another day will not hurt. After all, he needs to be up-to-date on any potential threats to the realm.
With that, he heads to his usual spot, to see just who will be waiting with what news.
He nearly stops mid-flight when he sees Arios.
It is unusual for the Hand of Wisdom to leave the Eonian Archives. Even when things are fine, he is usually caught up in fact checking or editing scrolls or something that keeps him tethered to his temple.
Now, however, he is standing there, waiting for Adrestes.
With Eridia.
Before he can finish his descent, Voitha joins them, and her gaze moves pointedly to look up at Adrestes. There is a quiet smile there, that she quickly schools as she nods to him.
The other two look up.
Eridia's smile is as brilliant as the Archon's light. Arios seems to be holding his breath.
Something has definitely happened.
"Polemarch!"
It's Thanikos who calls to him, and he stalls in the air, looking over his shoulder to see the Hand of Courage heading his way.
To have all four of them here…
This in itself is a rarity.
Thanikos eyes him, and then a wide grin slowly stretches his features. "You…haven't heard yet, have you?" When Adrestes doesn't react, he presses, "About our dear Maw Walker?"
Adrestes can't help a small scowl. "You never told me, remember?"
That annoying U smile is back. Then he looks to where the others are—they've taken to the air as well and calls out, loud enough for nearby sentries to hear, "He doesn't know yet!"
Eridia lets out a gleeful squeal and then looks around. "We should go somewhere private!"
Adrestes does not trust this at all.
"What is it? What don't I know?"
Eridia and Thanikos head to one of the side halls, floating well off the commons. Like most of Elysian Hold, only those with wings can access it, and even then, there are few people here, in the cool shadows of the hall overhead. A few bells toll gently, a steward plays a flute at the other end of the hall.
As soon as they have all landed, all four Hands start to talk at once.
And then stop.
There is a tension in the air, a need for something to be spoken, but none of them seem sure who should say it.
Finally, Arios coughs into his hand. "So we were able to fill in those gaps in the Maw Walker's history."
"Was I right?" Adrestes asks. When Arios cocks his head, hesitating, Adrestes motions vaguely toward Wisdom. "You worried she was some absolute terror, remember?"
"I was wrong," Arios says. "You were right, about the name, too. She used to go by another. One Bastion knows well."
"She's one of our lost seven!" Voitha blurts out before Arios can finish. Her eyes sparkle. "They are all back on Azeroth. Alive!"
Adrestes' can't help the surprise that sweeps him. Arios is annoyed to have been interrupted, but even that doesn't seem able to take hold.
"Well," Thanikos says, face twisting a little. "They're like the Maw Walker's Maldraxxi friend. Undead."
"That doesn't matter. They can come home, given time," Voitha says, and the skin around her eyes crinkles. "They're not lost to us."
Arios nods. "More than that, though, Liila's name is Amaeria Lights—"
"Was," Adrestes interrupts. When Arios' brow furrows, Adrestes shifts a little. "She… I don't think she'd like it if we call her that."
His mind is replaying what the children said.
Anyone who uses Liila's other name is mean and can't be trusted.
"How are you not more excited?" Voitha asks, incredulous.
"He doesn't remember," Eridia says, almost shyly. That glee in her eyes is dancing. "But Amaeria—Liila was the soul you were close with."
Adrestes straightens up a little, not sure what to say to that. His mind is a whir with what he does know of Liila, of sitting with her talking, of feeling like he knows her without knowing her, of feeling like she belonged here when that made no sense.
Of the kiss.
His heart sinks a little as he thinks of their first interaction, of fighting at her side and her healing his arm. Of the way she had looked up at him and then…
Had she been hurt when he didn't recognize her?
"She has amnesia, from what I understand," Arios says. "She remembers nothing of her time here, so the two of you are essentially starting over."
His anxiety collapses before it can build upon itself and he feels relief ready to sweep through him.
Except…
"Starting over," Adrestes repeats. Before any of them can say anything, he remembers Eridia's recent confession about keeping his memories.
About how he'd been 'in love'.
The kiss bubbles back up in his mind, as well as the lightning that has struck both times they touched. The way he wants to see her, the way he wants to be near her, wants to know she's safe.
Does that count as…?
And how far could he have fallen before? He hadn't known her for long, had he?
He hasn't known her long this time, either…
Adrestes thinks back to their goodbye again.
"Does she know she's one of ours?"
"Near as we can tell, the truth has been at her heels, but hasn't reached her yet," Thanikos says with a laugh. "I tried to tell you before, but I was talking to her friend, Mitchell, and he was telling us about the fates of the lost seven. Liila actually told us a couple herself, but Xandria had her bring that heart to Elysian Hold before we got through the list. I kid you not, the name brought up as soon as she was gone was hers."
"At the same time," Eridia blurts, giddily bobbing on her toes, "her soulbinds found out in Olympic Village. I hear one of them tried to chase her down to tell her before she got to Oribos, but they didn't get a chance."
"Shouldn't someone have recognized her?" Adrestes asks, shifting his weight a little. "Before now?"
"Well, she never made it her first cleansing, so none of us would have met her. And apparently she doesn't get to Olympic Village very often," Eridia says, speaking quickly, the excitement making her words rush. "But a couple of the aspirants came to my temple to compare their memories of Amaeria to our Maw Walker and there's no doubt they're the same person."
"Carroll confirmed it, too," Thanikos says. "When we got to Amaeria Lightswill on the list of names, Liila's friend got a little squirrely, but Carroll overheard us and told us that that's Liila's name, that she went by it when she accepted her rank as High Priestess. He worked with her closely during that time, I believe."
Arios nods.
Adrestes cannot help the unease building slowly in him.
Eridia looks like she wants to shake him. "Why aren't you happy?"
Taking in a slow breath, he eyes the lot of them. "She has no memory of this place," Arios nods. "She somehow never goes to Olympic Village, even though there are tasks that need to be done there all the time." Eridia's smile slips a little. "Her friend didn't want to tell you that Amaeria was her name." Thanikos' brow furrows. "And when I was escorting her back to Oribos the children she looks after said that anyone who calls Liila by her 'other' name is mean and can't be trusted."
Voitha frowns. "You think something happened?"
"I think there's a reason she goes by Liila instead of Amaeria," Adrestes says, mouth a thin line, "And that it is not going to sit right with her if she comes back to Bastion to everyone calling her by that 'other' name."
"Well, that's not really a problem though, is it?" Thanikos asks. "I mean, no one here goes by their mortal name. She's due for a kyrian name, anyway, so she won't be Liila, either." He pauses, glances around and shrugs, "And if she's got amnesia, that sort of works in her favor, doesn't it? It's less time she has to spend on her Rite of Purity."
Eridia tilts her head one way and then the other. "Well, in theory. But others have come here before who had amnesia and as certain memories left them, others found a way back. It can make things a little tricky. Especially if some block out traumas…"
"Xandria says she's already passed her Rite of Courage," Thanikos says, crossing his arms. "I told her not to say that, that it means she can basically skip our temple, but she just pointed out that the Maw Walker's already braving the Maw on our behalf and saving souls and—oh! She found some of our people in Torghast. And she faced Maldraxxus and helped cleanse our temple and—"
"And she's cursed and can never make it to an afterlife," Adrestes interrupts.
Silence settles over the five of them.
Adrestes looks at Arios. "Or are you saying you were wrong about that, too?"
"Well," Arios says, and Adrestes instantly dislikes the silence that drags out after the word, like he is trying to conjure something that isn't there. "Now that we know that our seven were not destroyed, we are reaching out to other realms to find out about the people they lost. Revendreth has two hundred and seventeen, for example—"
"What does that have to do with Liila's curse?"
"Most of the souls dragged back have some degree of what she has. Maw Marks or scourge runes that tether the soul to the body. The undead, the death knights—I believe there may be others cursed the way the Maw Walker is as well. Those tethers will need to be overcome if any of them are going to make it back to their afterlives."
Adrestes can't help the anger that curls in him. "So now that it matters to more than just one damned soul, it's worth looking into?"
Arios straightens up, indignant. "I did all I could for her. I told you already that her curse has been tampered with to the point that—"
"But she can be saved, can't she?"
It is Eridia who interrupts now. She is looking at Arios almost as though he has somehow personally betrayed her. He seems as taken aback by her reaction as Adrestes. "You didn't say…" Eridia's expression wavers. She looks like she might cry. "She can't have made it all the way here—twice—to be lost to us now." Her feathers shiver. "Fate can't be that cruel." When Arios doesn't reply, she takes a few steps back. She struggles for something to say and finally just shakes her head. "I should…I shouldn't leave my temple for so long. There's so much to do."
She is in the air when another thought strikes Adrestes and he looks at her, slightly mystified. "The Archon said we wouldn't lose her again."
That stalls Eridia's retreat even as Voitha grabs Arios and shakes him, like she might fling him off the nearest ledge for not mentioning the more dismal aspects of what has been revealed earlier. Voitha also hesitates, still gripping Arios' tunic.
"What?" Voitha asks. Distracted as she is, she doesn't fight Arios when he jerks free of her and straightens out his tunic. "When did…if you didn't know, how could you have talked to the Archon about this?"
Adrestes reaches up and scratches at his neck, feeling oddly on the spot. "The Archon spoke with Liila in private. When they were done, she spoke to me and told me that we wouldn't lose her again, but she didn't explain what she meant. I didn't…"
Thanikos lets out a booming cackle of a laugh. "Then what do we have to worry about? If the Archon wills it, she'll be fine, won't she?"
"When did the Archon tell you this?" Arios asks. He looks almost betrayed.
"Right before Thanikos called her to go to Malddraxxus," Adrestes says.
"And you didn't tell me?"
"I didn't quite follow what she was talking about," Adrestes says, straightening up. "I didn't…piece it together until just now."
"What exactly did she say?" Eridia asks, head tilted. She's landed again and has sidled up beside him.
"She said we wouldn't lose her again," Adrestes says, annoyed that he's having to repeat himself. The four stares that are leveled at him make him think back to try to remember more as he sighs. "When I asked what she meant she said something like… 'there's magic in discovering something for oneself'."
That sparkle returns to Eridia's eyes tenfold, and it's her turn for her mouth to form a U. "The Archon knows."
"Yes?" Adrestes says, annoyed. "That's what I just said."
"I'm curious," Eridia says, edging a little closer to Adrestes. She taps her splayed fingertips against each other. "If the Archon said she believed in soulmates, would you?"
"What does that have to do with anything?"
"You are so painfully, extraordinarily daft," Voitha says, eyes wide.
Thanikos shakes his head in disbelief. "It has to be willful ignorance at this point."
"Don't you all have temples to tend to?" Adrestes asks, voice flat.
"Oh, the polemarch is dismissing us," Eridia says, though her smile is still in place. She hops back into the air, but darts over to Adrestes and pecks his cheek. "You may not know it, but you've made my day!"
Her friendly kiss to his cheek reminds him rather abruptly of Liila's kiss, and he can't help the flush that bursts across his cheeks.
"Wishing that had been our—your Maw Walker?" Thanikos teases.
Adrestes coughs into his hand, realizes that his audience is watching him with looks that he can't quite put names to. "No! When she left, she…it was nothing."
"She kissed you?" Eridia asks, eyes widening. He has never seen beating wings look so fluffed.
"She didn't mean to…just my cheek."
At least Voitha has the decency to hide the grin that overtakes her, as Thanikos and Eridia both look like they're never going to let Adrestes live this down.
Eternity just got considerably longer.
Very abruptly, Adrestes realizes that his feathers have fluffed without him realizing it, for the second time in less than a day. He lets out an awkward cough, clearing his throat, and making sure to look at Arios, who is the only hand not grinning like a fool.
"I have work to do. And so do all of you, I'm sure."
"And thus concludes our tour of the redoubt," Secutor Mevix says as he comes to a stop, his boots crunching against the brittle ground.
Thales drums his toes against the little pebbles. Or rocks.
Or, considering that this is Maldraxxus, they might be something…worse.
Thales tries not to think about that. He takes in a breath, tries to smile at his current guide. "It's…something."
"I thought you could use some fresh air," Mevix says. There's a shuffle of armor, and then a soft 'oh' that makes Thales suspect that Mevix was just making some kind of hand motion that he can't see. "Perhaps you can tell the others that if they'd like to come out, they're welcome to. We'll keep them safe."
Thales isn't sure that this air qualifies as fresh—it's nothing like the soft breezes of Bastion, and there's a smell to it that Thales can't quite place. That he doesn't want to place.
It's…fleshy.
He shivers despite himself.
"We don't want you to feel like you're trapped here," Mevix continues. "Once we figure out transportation, we can get you home, but for now…"
He trails off.
The two of them stand there, on the brittle rocks, with the uncomfortable air around them.
Thales isn't quite sure why he came out here. The Maw Walker helped orchestrate the kyrian's evacuation from the House of Constructs to this place over a week ago before heading off to deliver the Primus' message. Since then, Thales has been working with his brethren and a few of the Maldraxxi healers to tend to the wounded. He's slept half the time, his body strained from all that he has gone through. Every time he wakes up, it is like he has lost his eyes all over again, as he tries to open them, tries to look up into the clear blue sky of Bastion, only to find utter darkness around him.
A few of the others have whispered that he's lucky he doesn't have to see what they're surrounded by. The architecture is all cruel angles and spikes and bones. Their allies are bones and fangs and stitched together parts, as well. They look like the people who hurt them, who destroyed their home and abducted them.
It is hard for most to wake up to see a skeleton peering down at them and not immediately have their mind go back to the ones who dragged them away to be butchered.
The Maldraxxi seems to understand this, as they give them as much space as they can afford.
They have been gracious hosts, truly. They do not deserve the mistrust he and his brethren give them.
That is why, when Mevix offered that they were in between assaults on the Seat and if anyone wanted to go for a walk, they were welcome, Thales accepted.
It still makes him uneasy, but he wants to encourage his people, he wants to help alleviate some of the stress and anxiety in them, and if trusting their current hosts will do that, it is worth his own anxiousness.
Hipokos has stayed inside, to help tend to some of the bandages. There are so many who need constant changes, as something the stitchmasters did has made it so that the wounds are not healing as they should.
It keeps them busy.
Someone calls to Mevix, and he calls back, tries to dismiss them. They persist and he swears before addressing Thales. His boots crunch as though he is turning with his shifting attention. "I'll take you back—"
"May I stay here a moment?" Thales asks. "Like you said, I could use the fresh air."
He pauses a moment, and then says, "I'll be right back."
His boots crunch across the stones and then Thales is alone.
Alone with a million eerie noises, that oddly fleshy smell, an unsettling taste in his mouth when he lets the air touch his tongue.
He wishes he could see.
He feels like if he could, the rest of it wouldn't be as upsetting, wouldn't be as unknowable—
Something abruptly catches his attention.
It is familiar.
A curl of anima.
He stiffens, wonders if there is a spell being conjured near him.
And then he realizes that what he is feeling is not some simple curl at all.
It is a soul.
A kyrian soul.
Thales turns his head, his body, trying to figure out where it is.
"Hello?"
There is no immediate response.
"Hipokos, if that's you, tap your feet."
There is silence.
No, not silence.
There is a steady beat, soft and true.
Wings.
Thales moves toward it, a little unsteady as he stumbles across the unfamiliar ground, until he can feel the soft swirl of air from steady flaps. He stops. "Are you harmed?"
The quiet that meets him makes him think he is losing his mind for a moment.
And then, finally, a voice answers.
"I am not."
Her voice has a harsh edge to it.
"Do you need help?"
"None that you can provide."
Thales wilts at that, made all the worse by the fact that he wishes he could see her face because surely if he could see her, he would know that she did not mean he was useless because of his…injuries.
As he swallows, that voice comes back. It is gentler. "Were many of you injured?"
Thales stills, straightens a little. "Are you—you're kyrian, aren't you?"
"I am."
"You did not get our messages?"
There is a pause. The wing beats cease and he hears boots crunch against the gravel below. "I wanted to see for myself."
Thales' bows his head. "I see."
Odd that that's the first phrase to come to mind.
"Were many of you injured?" she repeats.
"Yes," Thales says.
"But you were able to escape?"
"Some of us were," Thales says, feeling the pain of what happened begin to flare back up inside of him. He remembers the feel of being thrown onto the pile of bodies, of having others dropped on top of him. He remembers talking to someone else in that pile, begging them to keep speaking, to keep breathing, until well after they'd stopped. He remembers the stitchmasters laughing because he wasn't gone yet. "They still have most of the bodies of those who didn't make it."
"Are your eyes gone?"
He flinches.
No one has addressed his injury outright like this. Because everyone already knows, because many of them are missing their own parts.
"They are."
"Are there others like you?" When he looks puzzled, she clarifies. "Others who were mutilated."
"They only people still intact are the ones they hadn't gotten to yet when the Maw Walker arrived," Thales says, a bite in his tone, despite himself. He does not want to rehash this.
"That's a yes, then."
Thales winces at her tone. It is detached. Many ascended sound that way, but this feels…different. It feels crueler. He tries to understand how she can talk about all of them so…
"If you'd like, you can come in and talk to the others."
"No." The word is sharp. There is a quiet moment before she says. "I'm sorry you were hurt like this. You didn't deserve it. To be tortured, mutilated."
In that instant, her voice changes and there is genuine sorrow.
Something shifts inside of Thales. "It's…we will be alright. We can get through this. Together."
He reaches out into the air between them, to her. A breath is sucked in sharply. The air swirls as she lifts back into the air.
There is a pause, and then a larger hand takes his. She squeezes his gently.
"Thal—Aspirant Thales?" Mevix voice comes from somewhere behind him.
She releases his hand.
Thales turns when Mevix calls him again. He hadn't wandered that far from where he was left, had he? "I'm here."
"Don't wander around corners like that," Mevix says, a bit more command in his voice than usual. "Just because we're not under attack right now doesn't mean someone won't be spying from the shadows, ready to strike a lone soldier—or you."
Thales frowns. "I'm not alone. I was talking to…" As he realizes he didn't get the ascended's name, he turns back toward where she was, only to note he can't feel the wind from her wings.
"There's no one here."
"She must have headed back to Bastion," Thales murmurs.
He doesn't have a word for the noise Mevix makes, but he knows it's one of concern. Like he thinks maybe Thales is seeing things—
Thales can't help but laugh at the turn of phrase that comes to mind.
As Mevix guides him back into the Seat, he can't help but wonder if perhaps he did somehow imagine it. After all, why would a kyrian be hidden like that?
In the end, he dismisses it as caution in regards to the Maldraxxi, as it seems that at least half the realm has gone rogue.
Every time Thales feels a gust of wings, he wonders if it is her.
The mysterious ascended he met in Maldraxxus, the one who came to check on them many times, though he only managed to find time to talk to her half a dozen.
He's felt her more than that, though, especially as he worked with Khaliiq to improve his awareness through his other senses. It has always brought a sort of comfort to him, to know that there are those checking on them, making sure they are doing well.
Even if she was…odd.
She never came with the others, the official delegates from Bastion who came to heal and help tend to the injured, who delivered messages back and forth. She did not come when Xandria led the assault against the House of Constructs.
Thales has half wondered if he didn't make her up, because he has asked around in the last day or so—around Elysian Hold, Hero's Rest, and the Temple of Purity, but no one knows who he is talking about.
Who he was talking to.
The only reason he can tell himself she was real is because Khaliiq sensed her once or twice as well. The spy was not amused and warned Thales against wandering after her.
He couldn't help himself, though.
Their conversations have never been terribly long, but he knows, even if she was not abducted and butchered, she is wounded. She wavers. She does not speak so much on that, but he can hear it in her voice, in the way it gets harsh if Thales presses too hard for her to come see the others, presses too hard asking about how Bastion is faring.
She is a good soul, but she is struggling, and she is not letting others see her struggles.
No one, save for the one who can't see at all.
Thales has hoped to cross paths with her ever since returning to Bastion.
But again, no one knows who he is looking for. He somehow never got her name—she knew his, overheard Mevix calling him—and she has never talked about talking to him to any of those here.
He finds himself worrying about her every time the ascended passing him by is someone else. She knows that he has come home, doesn't she? He hopes she doesn't go looking for him in Maldraxxus. Not that she'll be in danger, if she does. Perhaps she'll finally get the courage to talk to Mevix or someone else. They'll set her straight, send her home.
Home.
It is so good to be home.
Despite all the worries that preluded his return to Bastion, Thales must say he is pleased to be back.
"Aspirant Thales." Thanikos voice comes to him now, just as he feels the latest gust of wind.
He stands up, salutes.
"At ease," Thanikos says.
"How may I serve?" Thales asks, pausing a moment before sitting back on the chaise he was lounging on when Thanikos tells him to rest. True to Liila's stories, the Maw Walker's Corner does get a good amount of bustle. He's gotten to talk to all kinds of people just by lingering here when he can. When he's not being debriefed in Elysian Hold or discussing cleansings with the disciples at Purity.
Because they very much want to help him. However, their resources are limited.
Rumors had just barely had time to reach the Temple of Courage about the attack on Purity before their own attack had started, so Thales has known that Purity suffered losses, but he did not realize that they are almost as profound as those at Courage.
He talked with Disciple Helene while he was there, and she told him that they have lost sixty percent of their cleansing pools, a third of their disciples and higher numbers of their acolytes and aspirants. It was, apparently, quite the bloodbath, and it has made it much harder to get to all the people who need their memories cleansed.
Thales and those returning from Maldraxxus have been made a priority, though Thales told them that he can wait until they are able to help some of the more traumatized. Disciple Helene seemed concerned about him while he'd laughed it off and assured her that he would be alright.
She wanted him to stay in Purity, but he told her he was hoping to catch Liila when she comes back through, and dismissed himself.
In truth, he was too unsettled by Purity, because it is quieter than he remembers. Quieter and the bells and chimes, pretty as they are, aren't quite…right. Purity lost many of their vespers during the attack, and the ones that have been brought in to serve in the meantime serve their purpose well enough, but he can hear that they are meant for other places. He's not sure how, or why. Hipokos knows what he's talking about, but neither of them have told the disciples of purity, not wanting to add to the stress they are already under.
He's wanted to ask Pelagos or Kleia if they have noticed the same thing, but they are both busy, both absent.
And Liila hasn't come back from the realm of the living yet. It's been two days.
There is an excitement stirring in the realm, a swelling of hope.
Ikaros has come by the corner thrice in the last two days, hoping to catch Liila, to see for himself whether she really is Amaeria Lightswill, as they have been told.
By three mortals.
Thales is curious to know the truth of it, as well. He worries a little, because all of the realm seems to have heard the stories now, that she is one of their lost souls. He worries that she will be overwhelmed when she gets back, because she has never mentioned this to him, and he is certain it would have come up, that she was destined for Bastion, during their many conversations in Maldraxxus.
In fact, afterlives did come up, once. Thales had asked if she wondered where she would go, hoping she would say she wanted to go to Bastion, that he could tell her he thought she was most certainly coming their way. Her response had been disappointing. She'd just said that she'd have to stay dead for that to happen and hadn't wanted to pursue the subject. He'd respected her wishes to drop it.
He hopes this will not unsettle her too much.
"I'm here to take you to the Temple of Humility," Thanikos says, drawing Thales from his thoughts, "if you're up for it."
Thales hops to his feet. He knows that the Temple of Courage has their people split among the other temples, and he has wondered if he will be sent to join some of the others to continue his training. Those who are still struggling to recover from their injuries are being kept in Elysian Hold, but the rest of them are slowly getting sorted out. He was wondering when they would get to him. "Of course! Just warn me if I'm about to walk into a tree."
Thanikos laughs. "I was going to fly you there, but if you'd like we can walk."
"Oh, no," Thales says, shaking his head. "I imagine you have much to do. I won't waste your time with a casual stroll."
"How about I take you most of the way and we can walk the last stretch?" When Thales cocks his head, Thanikos lets out a laugh. "I'm sure Voitha will be waiting for us at the entrance, anyway. Wouldn't want her to get huffy because I didn't walk you in the usual route."
At that, Thales frowns. "The usual route?" He pauses. "Why would Voitha be waiting for me?"
There is a quiet for a moment before Thanikos lets out an awkward laugh. "That's right. You were with the Maw Walker when we made the announcements."
"What announcements?" Thales thought he had already been caught up when he crossed paths with another abducted aspirant in Purity.
"I'll spare you the generic ones, but the short of it is you're moving on to your next rite."
Thales' brow pinches at that. "I have not passed my Rite of Courage."
"That's just it, aspirant. You have."
The words stir something contrary inside of Thales and he stands a little taller. "I've not even faced my rite yet. And I refuse to be passed on out of pity. I will earn my place—"
"No one's excusing or exempting you," Thanikos says, interrupting quickly. "Trust me."
Thales deflates a little, tries to fight the anxiety that rises in him. He knew he would be returning to Courage, and he has worried that going back to that temple will make him remember or relive what happened. He's almost glad to be blind, because he knows that he will not be able to see the spot where he was taken, even when he inevitably passes through it again.
When he realized that his training would resume in a different temple, he was more at ease, thought that perhaps it would help to settle his nerves until he actually returned to the temple itself, to face the place where he was captured.
But the idea that he won't be going back to Courage at all…
"I have not done anything to pass my rite," Thales says.
"You showed us your courage in Maldraxxus—"
"I did no more than anyone else," Thales protests.
There is a laugh at that that makes him bristle. A hand comes down roughly on his head, patting him. "Sorry, sorry. I… Do you know how I passed my rite?"
Thales frowns, shakes his head.
"I told Agthia I thought she was wrong." When Thales brow pinches again, Thanikos lets out a soft chuckle. "I don't even remember what it was about, but she said that any aspirant who could keep to his convictions, who could stand up to someone who was in charge of deciding his fate… She said that took courage."
He pauses a moment, as though to give Thales a chance to say something, but he has no idea what he should say to that.
"When you were in Maldraxxus, you went above and beyond what anyone expected of you," Thanikos says. As Thales starts to protest that anyone would have done what he did, Thanikos cuts him off. "That's not true. Many of our aspirants, after all they went through, refused to set foot outside of the haven the Maldraxxi offered them."
"There's no shame in that!" Thales says, feeling anger surge through him at the thought that his fellow aspirants might be considered wanting. "After all they went through, they needed rest, a chance to recover, to not be forced to relive what happened!"
"You're right," Thanikos says, voice softer, gentler. It throws Thales off. "And that same logic applies to you." A finger lightly taps his chest. "No one would have faulted you for staying near the others, for allowing yourself to be protected."
"I would have."
"You're too hard on yourself," Thanikos says, his armor shifts and Thales is certain he has knelt beside him. "The second you stepped out of the Seat of the Primus and rejoined the battlefield, undeterred of what might happen if your enemies got ahold of you again, undeterred by the fact that you could not even see your enemies, that you had to put your trust in people you barely knew, and that you extended your help to those very people. That was when you passed your rite." Thanikos is quiet a moment before adding, "I wish I could have seen it. So does Xandria. We are proud of you, Thales."
"I…" Thales wants to say something, but he has no words. He has not looked at it that way, has not even considered…
"I will make a point to be there when you get your wings," Thanikos says, patting Thales' head again. He is a bit rough, as though he does not realize his size or his strength.
The emotion that wells up inside of Thales leaves him speechless. He wants to reach out and hug Thanikos, to tell him he is honored by this faith in him, that even sightless as he is, the Hand already believes in him that he will make it to ascension.
There is the sound of shifting armor again, and Thales knows that Thanikos has risen to his feet again. "Oh, and I don't want you making a choice right away, because we're not going to be doing any official inductions until we can do them on Courage grounds, but Xandria and I would be honored if you would accept a roll as acolyte at our temple." He pauses. "You'll still have to go to the others to pass your rites, but you'd be…well, ours."
Thales' lips move wordlessly for a moment, still struggling to believe what is being said to him. "Is everyone who survived Maldraxxus being offered an acolyte position?"
There is an incredulous laugh. Thanikos pats Thales' shoulder this time. "No. Not everyone." He pauses. "If I'm honest, it was at Kynthia's recommendation, though Xandria and I were pretty impressed with your abilities when we were striking back at the Constructs." He pauses. "Don't be hasty with your decision, but think about it."
As though he needs to.
Never-the-less, Thales nods, unable to stop the smile that spreads across his lips.
The trip to Humility goes by far too quickly. There is so much to think about, and not nearly enough time to do it. Humility's vespers ring strong and true and right, steadily rising as they draw closer.
Thales takes in a shaky breath when he hears the soft footfalls approaching them from ahead. "I'm really moving on to Humility?"
"You are," Thanikos says. "But, know this. About half our people are here, and I swing by regularly. So if you need something, but don't feel too comfortable with the absolute terror that is Voitha, then—"
"Why must you always tell people that I am mean?" comes a woman's voice, not far from them.
"I warn them so that they do not face your wrath."
"You're about to face my wrath," the woman says. Her voice is laced with humor, and Thanikos laughs. "You are Aspirant Thales?" She pauses. "Or has Thanikos already roped you into being an acolyte of Courage?"
"I am to think on it before I make a decision," Thales says, a little surprised that she would have heard about his potential promotion already.
She seems to read him well. "Courage loves to poach the realm's heroes before they can settle into other temples," Voitha says, and there is a teasing note to her voice.
"I'm not—" Thales starts.
"To many you are," Thanikos says.
"You're trying to make sure it takes me an eternity to pass my Rite of Humility," Thales says before he can stop himself.
Both Hands laugh at that.
It is such a relief.
The laughter, the movement, the Path.
He has not realized how afraid he was of falling behind because of what has happened to him, even if he has been told many times that everyone walks the Path at their own pace. It is not until that fear is beginning to fall away, until he is able to see that he is going to be treated as worthy, even with all that has happened.
Voitha lightly touches the back of Thales' shoulder. "This way, aspirant."
Thales walks with her, pace swift to match her long stride. The Hands are all so tall…
That reminds him of Little Liila. He's going to have to tell her about this. They'll have to have a proper celebration when she gets back.
Thanikos falls in line on his other side. "Once we have the temple back in order, if you need a break to come punch something, you're obviously welcome back."
Thales can't help but laugh, even as the Hand of Humility addresses Thales. "Punching aside, I hear you are somewhat of a healer, yes?"
"I can fight, too," Thales says, standing a little straighter, "but yes. I've focused mostly on healing lately. It's easier, without my sight. I can feel where souls are, feel the way they waver when they're injured."
"Good," Voitha says. "Humility has become the main triage unit for those injured fighting the forsworn. We can use more healing hands."
"Thanikos!" A familiar voice calls out. Artemede, if Thales remembers correctly.
"Well then, I'll leave you to get settled in," Thanikos says, patting Thales one last time on the head. Wings unfurl and the wind stirs around Thales before he is certain that the Hand has left him.
"As he said, there are many from Courage here," Voitha says. "Quite a few have asked after you."
Thales picks up his pace, despite not being able to see where he is going. She does not let him fall, her hand staying as a guiding force on his shoulder.
Until he hears a familiar voice call out his name. Another voice rises in greeting, and then another, and another.
Thales makes it a few steps away from Voitha before arms encircle him as some of the people he thought he had lost find him.
He hugs them back, doesn't bother to hide his tears. They are crying, too.
These aspirants were not taken as he was, but they did face the same invasion, the same monsters. And they are here, standing with him, welcoming him back in a way he feared would never happen.
As he holds them close, he knows that he really is home.
Pelagos peers up at the sky, looking for any signs of patrols or, more importantly, Xandria or Thanikos.
When the sky is clear, he pauses and ducks back under the trees, to the figure wrapped awkwardly in a light cloak. It hangs awkwardly over Nikolon's wings, and the ascended looks like he is trying very hard not to comment about the absurdity of it all.
As he already has thrice on their trip thus far.
Pelagos, however, is hopeful that this will work.
The Temple of Courage is warded, but it is also empty, and from what he's heard there won't even be cleaning crews in the temple grounds for a while yet. That, coupled with the fact that patrols don't go over the temple often because they know it is warded and therefore cannot be attacked, is what gave Pelagos the idea that maybe the forsworn can escape from Loyalty and come here.
They just have to figure out if the wards will be tripped.
"Alright, let's go," Pelagos says, holding out his hand.
Nikolon stares at him for a long, hard moment, expression impossible to read. Finally, he shakes his head. "I'll go alone."
"What?" Pelagos fails to hide the hurt note in his voice as he stands up a little straighter, brow pinching together. "I won't just abandon you—"
"If I'm alone, they won't know you were involved," Nikolon argues. "You won't get hurt."
"I'm coming with you," Pelagos says, holding his ground. "If they find us, they're more likely to listen to me than to you."
Nikolon's frown looks like it's been etched in stone as his feathers bristle, poofing awkwardly beneath his cloak. They must not settle quite right, because the ascended turns and picks at the cloth hanging over his wings.
Moving over to him, Pelagos helps, pulling the cloak up and away from Nikolon's wings so that he can settle the feathers properly. After Nikolon grumbles his thanks, Pelagos takes his hand. "We go together."
Nikolon seems ready to argue, ready to insist that Pelagos stay behind, but in the last second, he falters, gives up the fight. "Fine."
The go together, hand in hand, and Pelagos has to fight back the blush that threatens to creep up on him when he realizes that Nikolon seems content to keep that simple contact. There is an electricity in their touch. There has been since the first moment their skin brushed, when Pelagos dragged Nikolon to safety after helping him survive his attackers.
It is something Pelagos has wanted to pursue, though he has always been hesitant, not wanting to pressure the ascended, not wanting to take advantage of him when he is down on his luck as he is.
Their hands together, however, feels so impossibly right.
It's nice.
More so because of the quiet way Nikolon looked at him when he took his hand, as though searching to see if he feels it too, that prickle that shivers through their nerves, tells them that this is something they have been meant for.
Pelagos doesn't doubt that he has made the right choices, leading up to this.
Even so, he can't help but wish that Kleia or Liila were there with them.
However, Liila has returned to the living realm, and Kleia is checking on her. Something happened, right after Liila returned to Azeroth, something devastating. Grief, anger, sorrow. They were always there, dormant, sleeping just under the surface of her regular flurry of emotions, but something happened to trigger them to rise up like behemoths from unfathomable depths, ugly and twisted and painful.
Kleia had barely come back to Bastion when whatever it was happened, and she was quick to go find Kalisthene and ask permission to follow Liila to the living world. Before she left, she assured Pelagos that what he was feeling was not in response to Liila being destined for their realm. Because she hadn't had a chance to tell Liila about that yet.
Rather, it's something to do with her friend, Mitchell, Kleia thinks.
Though, his tackling her through the portal could have been unrelated. It did take a while after that before the emotions went rampant.
But then, considering how time flows differently between the realms of the living and dead, Pelagos has wondered just how much time actually passed between Liila going through the portal and being upset.
Kleia had swung by on her way out to let Pelagos know she would probably be gone for a day or so. She had been a bit put out because she had been given very strict instructions: if she wants to go to the living realm, she must use traditional channels. She cannot use the mortal's portal. She must go through the veil like she would if she were bearing souls.
It was frustrating for her, to be sure, but she told Pelagos she will return, that she will make sure their soulbind is alright.
Pelagos has never felt so useless.
Because of course he can't go. He hasn't earned his wings and aspirants are only allowed through the veil if it is for their final test.
He's a long way off from that.
Stuck to his own devices, Pelagos had seen Blood back to Elysian Hold, met Thales at Hero's Rest, and then been bored out of his mind as time ticked on and neither of his soulbinds returned.
The longer he waited, the more he struggled to think of what he could do with his time, and the more his mind had wandered to Nikolon.
It had been while talking to Thales that he'd come up with this plan. Thales had explained what Liila had told him, that the Temple of Courage was empty, and that had given Pelagos an idea. When someone had come to gather Thales, Pelagos had tried to ask subtly about Courage's recovery efforts and what he'd been told was confirmed.
The Temple of Courage was going to remain empty for a while yet.
Pelagos feels as he steps through the wards, feels the change in the air. It is subtle, but there is a sense of security that envelops him.
He turns to look at Nikolon, who stands beside him, still as stone.
"Are you alright?"
"I think so," Nikolon replies. He glances around. "I don't…" He frowns. "When I fell at Purity, I could feel the way the very air wanted me gone, like I was an unwelcome blemish. The more it grated at me, the more I wanted to lash out, but here…"
Pelagos looks around, for signs that the wards have been tripped, that perhaps a warning has been sent somewhere.
If one has, it has done so quietly.
"Should we wait?" Pelagos asks.
"I think we already have our answer," Nikolon says, taking a few steps forward. His fingers are laced with Pelagos, and he happily follows the ascended.
It is eerie, here, to see the Temple barely standing, with fractured pieces of statues and walls scattered across the crumbling floor. Only one or two bells sound, occasionally, their rhythm off.
It is so quiet.
"I'm surprised there are no echoes," Nikolon says, looking around as though he fully expects to see some translucent memories saunter past them.
Pelagos has never liked encountering those things. "The plague that was here consumed all the anima, so I don't think there was any left to fuel them."
"Or if there were echoes, they were consumed just like who they were mirroring," Nikolon murmurs, feathers ruffling beneath his cloak. He shifts then, moves like he might take the cloak off, but pauses and looks up toward the sky.
"There are some buildings that are still relatively intact," Pelagos offers, pointing toward the northern parts of the temple. They've entered on the southern stretch, and most of the temple is out of reach to those without wings, but there is enough of it intact here, on the mainland, that Pelagos has taken the time to explore.
Carefully, of course.
He did not want to draw attention to himself.
He almost had. There had been someone flying overhead, and he'd been absolutely terrified of getting caught, of having to explain just what he was doing there. He'd ducked into one of the buildings he was leading Nikolon to now, waited for what had felt like an eternity unto itself, before finally peeking out and seeing that whoever had been overhead was gone. They must not have seen him after all.
Twice, they duck behind barely standing walls as patrols out in the fields beyond come closer to the temple than they would like.
Finally, however, they reach the northern part of the temple. It would have taken half an hour to travel regularly, when the temple was up and bustling.
Now, Pelagos isn't sure how long, but it was longer than it should have been. There's less to dodge around, but at the same time, the marble occasionally crumbles underfoot, and that leads to twisted ankles and more careful steps.
When they make it to the building that Pelagos had hidden in himself, he stops a few feet in the doorway.
Nikolon walks further in.
"This was the armory, if I remember correctly," Nikolon says, turning slowly to inspect the different crates and such that are scattered through out the room. Some are broken. There don't seem to be nearly enough to constitute a proper armory, though Pelagos doesn't argue. "Part of it, anyway."
"Is it big enough, do you think?" Pelagos asks. "We can get some blankets and food…"
"I don't know that forsworn taking over Courage's armory will send a good message," Nikolon says, turning in a slow circle. Then he frowns. "Though I suppose beggars can't be choosers." At that, he pauses. "What about the building across the way?"
Pelagos follows Nikolon out into the open. There are three buildings here, grouped closely together. The armory has the most intact walls—the other two were designed as most buildings in Bastion, with openness in mind, the freedom to come and go on a whim.
The second building looks like a larger version of the hall where Orator Kloe gives lessons on the beasts of Bastion and other interesting topics, when they can spare the anima to start the projector.
There are broken benches here, and Pelagos can sort of make out the order that used to be, the way this was a hall for gathering, for lessons. His heart hurts as he wonders if anyone was in here when the attack happened. If this place became their tomb.
The last building looks like it was a barracks of sorts, likely for new aspirants coming to the temple. Ascended would have slept in higher parts of the temple, and the mats here—the few that remain—are too small for those with wings.
There is one more place that Nikolon is drawn to during their inspection, one that Pelagos hadn't even noticed.
Courage's library.
It is carved into the cliff face that marks the northern-most part of the temple grounds. The statues on either side have toppled, and Nikolon ends up abandoning his cloak so that he can fly up the few feet to get over them.
Pelagos can slip in between the statues because his lack of wings makes him small enough, and he joins the ascended.
The library is dark. Pelagos conjures some anima and it illuminates scattered scrolls and tomes. Most of the bookshelves are on the ground, most damaged badly. The few still hanging in the air or on the walls are crooked, missing entire shelves.
"This could work," Nikolon says. He kneels, inspects a few scrolls. "We can move things around, make room. They'll feel safer if they know no one can see them from overhead." When he rises, he takes the scrolls with him, moving to set them down carefully on a relatively clean spot near a wall. "Maybe if we can help, show that we aren't hostile, we can stay here until…" He trails off.
"We'll figure it out!" Pelagos says, stepping up to him, smiling brightly. "We've made it this far—"
He's caught off guard as Nikolon abruptly turns to him and wraps him in a tight hug, one arm around his shoulders and the other with his fingers in Pelago's hair. Nikolon's lips press against Pelagos' temple.
Pelagos is still a moment before slipping his arms around Nikolon as well. His feathers rest heavy against Pelagos' skin, impossibly soft.
It is something Pelagos has wanted to do for so long, ever since their first encounter, ages ago. He has never dared before, never felt worthy, never felt sure that he deserved to stand with the ascended.
Now, it seems so silly a thing to have fretted over.
After a moment, Nikolon loosens his grip, pulls away to cup Pelagos' face in his hands and lean his forehead against the aspirant's. Pelagos can't help the way he feels something stir in his chest.
He leans up and brushes his lips against Nikolon's, pleased when he hears the small laugh that escapes the ascended before he kisses him back.
For the first time since he has fallen, Nikolon smiles, and Pelagos cannot help but pull him closer, wanting desperately to memorize his soulmate's lips.
Adrestes is restless. It's harder to sleep with everything going wrong and even if the wards do keep the forsworn from attacking outright, he still worries about every patrol that must leave guarded lands, every aspirant who runs a message between temples, every mortal who comes and goes from the realm.
He worries about Liila and her penchant for wandering to quiet places.
That is why, even though he knows he should be resting, he takes to the air.
He doesn't waste time with typical routes, instead letting that inevitable tug draw him to where she is.
Once again, she's off on her own. Her bags rest on a smaller boulder near a small pond. She's in a loose undershirt and her trousers are rolled up to her knees so that she can dip her feet in the water as she works on something in her spellbook.
He alights far enough that he won't stir the loose papers near her.
"Adrestes," she says in greeting, glancing up at him and giving him a nod before looking back to her work.
"Liila."
Even from where he is, he can see the corner of her lips upturn. He saunters over, sits beside her. He is in a casual robe—he'd meant to go to sleep after all, and so he dips his feet into the water next to her.
She makes a few more scribbles in her book and then closes it, looking up at him. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"
"I'm just checking on you," he murmurs. He quirks his brow. "Can't have you getting into trouble, now can I?"
Her smile spreads a little. "I am good at finding it."
Even as he notes that it's true, she starts telling him about some of the more recent adventures she's gotten into, about how things are faring in the realm of the living, about how things are finally looking up. Adrestes shares his own updates.
Things are good, they are optimistic.
Their conversation winds on away from rebellions and apocalypses, to quieter subjects. He says something to make her laugh and it is an utterly beautiful sound.
She splashes him with water when he least expects it, and then slips into it, watching him with mischief in her eyes. He comes after her, returns the favor. There is laughter and splashing, and when she nearly slips from a misstep, he catches her around the waist and pulls her to him.
There is a moment's pause then.
They have never been so close, and it seems to make her catch her breath as she looks up at him, eyes wide. For a moment, he worries he has done something wrong, crossed some invisible line that he should have towed.
Then she smiles, reaches up to him. Her fingers stroke his cheek, and he leans his head against her touch, enjoying the way she cups his face. He leans down as she stretches up onto her toes.
Her lips are gentle against his, a bare whisper of skin against skin.
So similar to their first kiss, though this one has clear intent.
She pulls away, peers up at him, eyes searching his. He brushes his nose against hers and then kisses her back. Her fingers find their way into his hair, curl against his scalp. She leans into his kiss, lips moving to mold to his.
Something inside of him breaks.
He lifts her so that he does not have to stoop so low and she wraps her legs around him, rolls her hips against him. He moves them back toward the shore, sets her on the nearest rock, leans her back and trails kisses down her neck and chest. She discards her shirt and lays back as he kisses her, hands and lips wandering, desperate to learn every inch of her.
Her breath hitches when he kisses between her breasts, one of his hands cupping her gently.
"Polemarch," Voitha says.
Adrestes snaps his head up. It takes him a moment to find Voitha, who is standing a few feet away with a few missives and the like in hand.
"Now is not a good time," he manages, flustered.
"I do apologize for waking you," Voitha says, "I thought I heard you say something when I first called out, and didn't realize you were asleep." She holds up the missives and then sets them on a table. "I'll leave these here for you."
Adrestes looks down, stares at the pillow beneath him.
When he looks back up, Voitha has already left.
He stares around, still a little thrown by the change in scenery. He is in his private chambers, with a few hanging plants near the table and the clear sky stretching out into the distance, interrupted only by other distant platforms, other ascended homes.
He slumps against his bed with a groan. His cock twitches from the shift in his weight, and he realizes that he is hard.
At least Voitha didn't see that…
His mind goes back to his dream.
It was so…real.
He rests his head in the crook of his arm with another groan as it sinks in that that was just a dream.
All the smiles, all the laughter, all the gentle touches.
His cock twitches again, and he frowns. He should really get some sleep—even if ascended don't need as much as mortals, he has been forgoing it more than he should. He has stayed awake longer than he should, hoping to catch Liila as soon as she comes back to Bastion.
He needs to sleep.
Though…he's not going to get much rest when he's so wound up, is he?
"Dammit."
"You can go back now."
Liila looks up from where she's working in the garden with two of the other children to find Hezzak standing just behind her, looking sheepish.
Even as Liila's brow pinches together, Hezzak sits down on a small rock border separating the garden from the rest of the courtyard. "I had a bad dream. And it stuck and wouldn't go away. When that happens, something bad happens, too."
"Oh?" Liila shifts around so that she can give him her full attention. "What was your dream about? Do you mind telling me?"
Hezzak hesitates a moment and then nods. "You went to fight a scary man with red eyes and white hair," Hezzak's gaze lowers and he picks at his nails. "He unmade you." Hezzak reaches forward and brushes his fingertip against the rune on her cheek that she knows he can't see. "He summoned hurtful symbols, drew them apart. They were holding you together, I think."
She fights the urge to wince at that. Has Haa'aji told them about her curse? Or is this solely something that came from his dream?
That he's having dreams about her curse, perhaps it is because of what she said to Mitchell, earlier in the day. She had thought they were arriving back in the evening, but it hadn't been until she calmed down, until she got home that she realized it was early morning in the world of the Living.
Or perhaps his knowledge of her curse was something else…
She can think of a white-haired man with red eyes who was able to manipulated her curse, after all.
Even as Liila's mind flashes to Sire Denathrius, Hezzak says, "I have dreams like that sometimes. Where the feeling lingers. I had a dream like that when Mama died. I thought… if I kept you home and safe, maybe the dream wouldn't happen, maybe the man wouldn't reach you, maybe the feeling would pass."
"And it passed?" Liila asks, setting down her gardening tools. When he nods, she holds her arms out and Hezzak darts over, climbing into her lap and wrapping her in a tight hug. "Thank you for looking after me," Liila says softly, stroking his hair as he buries his face against her shoulder.
She will have to talk with the local priests about what sort of training programs they have for those who exhibit early attachments to magic. First Hezzak was affected by the breach in the veil and now he's having dreams about things he shouldn't know about…
Prophecies?
The word is a bit heavy for a six year old, but it will be better to treat it as a legitimate and have it be a false alarm than have him be plagued with dreams and visions he can't control.
She rests her chin on his head.
It's a relief that he's not still scared of her.
She's still upset, but now that she's had a few hours to calm down, to think about things other than Bastion, she's feeling…
Better isn't the word.
Calmer, perhaps?
She still needs to talk to Chi'rhi, though.
Chi'rhi ran to her room after they got home, and Hezzak dropped back, letting the other children come up and inundate her with questions about where she's been and what happened. She had promised to tell them everything, after she had a word with Haa'aji or Zen'taki.
The latter had come out of the kitchen, whistling, smiling at her as he commented that they were wondering when she'd come home.
That smile had not lasted long.
That fury that Liila had been barely containing had all but overflowed as she saw how carefree he was, considering he'd let two of the kids wander into an alternate reality under his watch.
She'd dragged him into her room so that she wouldn't worry about raising her voice in front of the kids. The soundproofing spell had multiple uses.
When Liila told Zen'taki about what happened, he was properly horrified, especially since the kids were gone less than an hour. He had thought they were waking up late, as they had both stuffed their beds to make it look like they were still asleep.
Even as she'd seethed, she'd happened a glance to her window and seen several faces peeking in. Then she'd suggested they do a headcount, to make sure that no one else was off on adventures.
Fortunately, everyone else was accounted for quickly.
She'd apologized awkwardly to Zen'taki, and he'd told her not to worry about it.
He is off getting things for dinner, along with Chi'rhi and another older child, with the intent of finding out just why and how they had gotten all the way to the realms of the dead. Liila has learned that the two bought a portal to Orgrimmar, but she can't fathom that anyone would have opened one to Oribos for them, no matter how much coin they could have offered—and the kids don't have much.
"Are you leaving again?" one of the other children, Jihni, asks. She is curled up next to Liila's side.
That question is…
Part of her wants to say no. That she is going to stay here with them, to make sure they don't get into any more trouble.
Part of her wants to say no because she doesn't want to go back to Bastion, if what Mitchell said is true. That all of Bastion knows she is Amaeria and worse, that they knew Amaeria. There are so many emotions that lash out when she thinks about it. She doesn't even understand them all.
There's the fear that she will be confronted with what she lost, that it will turn out once again to be something she cannot reclaim, just like her life before.
Then there's the fear that she will remember, that somehow Amaeria will come back and she won't be Liila anymore. Because she does like who she is, most of the time. She doesn't want to lose that. And she has always feared that she cannot be both, that if Amaeria's memories come back, somehow who she is now will disappear, like the shadow she's been called.
She doesn't want to be looked at by the people of Bastion the way Gryst'lyn and Jaserisk looked at her.
Gryst'lyn Emberdawn was her fiancé. They were together all of three months in a whirlwind romance, something that Liila looks back at the few records about it and wants to laugh because how could she have ever thought after three months that she was so madly in love? That he was the one?
Years after Amaeria was 'lost' to the Scourge, Liila had been reunited with Gryst'lyn and it had ben horrible. He had expected some grand reunion, with passion flaring, and Liila hadn't known who he was. He had wanted to remind her, wanted her to give him any and every chance to restore her to who she had been.
She had told him Amaeria was dead and gone and rejected him with such unimaginable cruelty. All because she was scared. He had deserved better, but she cannot undo what she did.
At least, she made certain he would not keep after her.
Or so she'd thought.
When she'd finally been ready to come to terms with her past, with Amaeria, he had come back, but not to win over his love.
No, he'd come to make sure she never tried to have any kinship with that name again.
Demons had been falling out of the sky, and he'd been crusading against her.
Liila tries not to think of it.
Just because things went poorly there, it doesn't mean that Bastion will be just as miserable.
Though…
She's dealt with enough people who were disappointed that she wasn't what they remembered.
And then there's the fact that she's not sure she's actually still worthy of Bastion. She doesn't know that she's ever truly dedicated herself to service. She's saved the world, but not because the world deserved to be saved, but because she lives in it and doesn't want to die. Because she has friends she wants to see live.
And children.
If she does somehow get past her curse, she has fifteen years of life that have not been judged, fifteen years that she doubts would see her make it to where Amaeria went.
It would be so much easier if she just stayed here.
After all, she did what was required of her from the Archon. The Temple of Courage is cleansed. There is help to stop the resurrection of the bad souls.
No one could fault her if she let that be her contribution, could they?
So much of what she does could be done by anyone, right?
Even as she thinks that, she thinks of Shadow and Whisper. They are still in Torghast. Thrall and King Wrynn are still in Torghast. As are dozens of others.
There are the souls in the Maw, numbers beyond counting, and not enough people with soul keepers going through the Maw to save them.
And more than that, there are people she wants to see again, people she doesn't want to let down.
Pelagos and Kleia and Thales.
Polemarch Adrestes.
No matter how much she wants to bury her head in the sand, she can't stay here.
Especially because she wouldn't be staying for the kids, but for her own denial, and these children don't deserve to be used like that.
Liila loops an arm around Jihni's shoulders. "I will be, yes."
"You still have to come back," Hezzak demands.
"Oh, I will absolutely come back," Liila says, stroking his hair gently and leaning her cheek against the top of his head. He's still little for an Amani, but he's large enough in her lap that they won't be able to do this much longer. She drags the three of them with her in for a group hug. "The sooner I go, the sooner I can come back."
"Then should you go now?" the other little boy, Mei'ji asks. "You could be home for dinner!"
"I'm going to stay for dinner," Liila says. "But I will probably be gone in the morning."
"Will you say goodbye this time?"
"I'll say see you soon, how's that?" Liila asks.
As she speaks, she feels a gentle twist of something in her chest.
It's the first time she's felt a feeling that's not her own since she got back to Azeroth. Perhaps she's simply been too upset to feel them, but this…
Liila can't help but look up and around, half expecting Kleia to be there, right in front of her.
The air is empty.
As Liila looks down, she pauses when she notices that Hezzak is giving a spot in the air a little to their left one hell of a stink-eye. When he realizes she's caught him, he looks elsewhere, as though trying to save face.
"Let's go inside, hmm?" Liila suggests. As the other two hurry ahead of them, she catches Hezzak's hand. "Do we have a guest?"
"No," he says in a voice that tells on him better than a sign saying 'liar'. He pauses and then glares at that spot in the air again. "They want you back."
"It's okay," Liila says, squeezing his hand. When he looks up at her, she winks. "You've got me for a while yet."
"Promise?"
"You bet."
It is getting harder for Adrestes to focus on his routines. He has been going through them, doing all he needs to, all that he always does.
Now, however, it feels like he's trying to waste time, to make it pass.
Because the one thing he wants most to do cannot be done.
Liila has not come back.
It has been a week.
The mortals stormed Castle Nathria and brought down Sire Denathrius, something that Adrestes can honestly say he did not think could be done. It has made him rethink the security around Elysian Hold, if only to ensure that no misled mortals might try the same thing against the Archon.
He has written almost a dozen letters to Liila, only to tear up each of them.
Kleia is back, having checked on the Maw Walker herself. She's assured him that Liila intends to come back, that time moves much slower in the living world, that she has likely not even been gone a full day yet where she is.
The time difference has already been established, already been noted again and again. Arios has formulas that show how time flows, though he's warned that it shifts. A day in the mortal world is not always a week in the realms of the dead. He says it is not usually as even as it has been, and suspects it is because of the breach in the veil. That if that starts mending, time will become less predictable.
As things stand, Adrestes is just a little bit more annoyed with each day that Liila does not return.
She has not only missed the overthrow of the sire, but she has missed the gathering of a medallion from Revendreth to help empower the crest of ascension, as well as a rather concerted rescue effort involving Torghast.
A mortal named Thrall has been retrieved, and one of the death knights who went into the Maw with Liila has emerged from the Maw on her own, with a list of roughly two dozen who fell fighting. According to Blood, there are only eight death knights still unaccounted for.
Of course he and Liila's friends are still missing.
A small part of Adrestes worries that she is not going to come back. That something has happened and she has decided against walking the realms of the dead. Perhaps seeing how easily those children got here, she has decided to stay back to make certain they do not come searching for her again.
It is all he can do to keep himself sane, and so he throws himself into his work, harder than ever and hopes that the next time he sleeps, his mind doesn't go in the same direction as before. He can't handle more dreams like that.
Not when he feels like he doesn't even know if he'll ever see Liila again.
Surely, he will.
Won't he?
As Adrestes checks the wards, he is surprised to find Thanikos already there, discussing them with one of the guards.
When he alights, he hears the tail end of the conversation, with the guard explaining how the wards flicker when someone is tampering with them, how they pulse when something dangerous is attempting to break through them.
"Has something happened?" Adrestes asks.
"Xandria and I were talking about sending cleaning crews into the temple," Thanikos explains, nodding to the guard and then patting Adrestes shoulder. "I believe she's speaking with the Archon about it now, if you want to come with me?"
It feels a little odd a suggestion, but Adrestes has no immediate duties at the moment, so he joins Thanikos, flying over to the closed-off chambers that he sometimes guards.
"Enter," the Archon calls. She is waiting with Xandria. As soon as the two of them are past the door, Xandria holds up a hand. "Thanikos, will you stand guard? If anyone comes within throwing distance of the door, I want their names."
Both Thanikos and Adrestes seem surprised by the request. Usually, Adrestes is the one to filter any emergencies, but it seems there is nothing worth considering to interrupt this meeting.
Which is odd, considering they should be talking about cleaning crews.
"Have you checked the wards this morning?" Xandria asks.
Adrestes can hear Thanikos turning to answer, calling out that they're fine, before remembering himself. He still can't help but glance back at the Hand. His back is to them, arms crossed from the looks of things, and wings untucked just enough to block more of the doorway, as though it is needed.
Looking back at Xandria and the Archon, he nods. "They are in perfect working order."
"No signs of tampering? Of alterations?" Xandria pauses. "To any of the temples, but mine in particular."
"There have been no changes," Adrestes assures her. "Everyone within the wards will feel if they are triggered, will know to either find safety or be on the lookout for attempted intruders along the edges." He frowns at that. "The anima weavers are still working on setting it up so that guards can tell where any potential breaches are, but thus far, it doesn't seem possible for enemies to get through them, so that's more a matter of catching anyone as they attempt to retreat."
Xandria nods, thoughtfully. "So it's safe to say we won't have what happened before, back before the forsworn were exposed. There's no chance of them walking into the warded areas under our noses?"
Adrestes opens his mouth to say no, of course not. But pauses, considers it. He has looked over the spells used, and while he cannot weave such magic himself, he does understand it. One of the many benefits of living so long is the chance to study most anything and to become well-versed, even if it's not a subject or ability one can use oneself.
"No. I would say there is no chance of that." Again, he hesitates. "But if you are concerned, I could ask Arios to go check on your temple's wards. As a precaution."
"No, I'd rather you not mention this to Arios at all. Or anyone else," she says.
When Adrestes looks to the Archon, puzzled, she simply nods for him to obey.
"One more question about the wards," Xandria says. When Adrestes nods to her, she tilts her head. "As they are in working order and nothing has been tampered with, it would stand to reason that anyone within those wards is…friendly? For lack of a better word."
"Of course," Adrestes says. "Anyone with ill intent will trigger the wards and be repelled from the warded grounds. Anyone inside the ward means no harm to Bastion."
Xandria considers it a moment, drums her fingers against her hips. "I thought as much."
"May I ask what this is about?"
Rather than answer him, Xandria calls out to Thanikos. "Is anyone nearby?"
"Not even close," he calls back.
Adrestes can hear him crack his wrist, something he tends to do when he is anticipating something. Or just incredibly bored. He's rarely still long enough to do such things these days.
It is then that Xandria moves to one of the walls within the room, where a large map of Bastion glimmers brightly on display.
"There are forsworn on my temple's grounds."
Adrestes stiffens. "What?"
Xandria looks mildly amused by his response, by how indignant he is. "It started with one about three days ago. Now there are fourteen."
Adrestes shakes his head. "My patrols have seen nothing—what are they after?"
"They don't appear to be after anything," Xandria replies.
Adrestes rather expects that aura of anger to come from the Archon, as it has in the recent weeks whenever the forsworn come up. Instead, her presence feels neutral, neither welcoming this news nor furious by it.
That in itself says a lot.
Adrestes' brow pinches as his lips dip down. "I will gather some soldiers to handle this. I'll triple patrols—"
"No," the Archon says.
Even as he straightens up, fights to keep his feathers from bristling, Xandria steps closer to the map. Using anima she draws a circle over it, in the area between Loyalty and Courage. "How many patrols do you have going through here?"
Adrestes moves to join her. He conjures his own anima and traces a few different routes. "I have three on this route, set apart so that every few hours someone is able to scan the area for signs of movement. Then this one has four patrols staggered because it covers more of the road. This route only has two… The patrols swap out every eight hours, so that we have new eyes—"
"Can you—hmm," Xandria cuts herself off. "I suppose halving that would be too obvious…"
"You want me to reduce security?" Adrestes looks at her, frowns. "That's the main path from Hero's Rest to Wisdom."
"The anima gateways are working now," Xandria says, almost dismissively.
Struggling to follow the paragon's logic, Adrestes looks back at the map and then to her again. "If I reduce my patrols, you'll likely have even more forsworn in your temple."
"That's the idea," Xandria replies. She looks down at him. "They are fleeing Loyalty."
Adrestes opens his mouth to respond, but no words will come. He glances back to the Archon, as though to make certain he is hearing this correctly. She gives him a faint smile, though it is hardly a warm one.
"If we are ever to strike at Loyalty," Xandria says, slowly, "it would be good to know that whoever is there is there by choice. That they are actively against the realm and not just seeking haven because they feel they must."
Letting his gaze go back to the map, Adrestes considers it. "If the wards are unaffected by their presence, then they must not mean harm to the realm." He pauses, frowns. "Or they have no intention of harming an already empty, damaged temple."
"The one making all this happen would have to be quite devious indeed, if that is the case," Xandria says, cracking her knuckles slowly as she looks at the Archon.
"You have yet to tell me how this started," the Archon says, her tone patient.
With a half-smile, Xandria abruptly turns back to the map. As she does so the drawings she and Adrestes added to the map dissipate, leaving the image as pristine as it started. This time, she taps a point near a cliff face south of her temple. "I found a solitary forsworn hiding out here. I thought perhaps he was a scout or the first in a new wave coming to go after the aspirants in the south or…well, I wasn't sure, but I thought I'd wait and see what he did."
Adrestes cocks his head. "And instead of going south, he scouted your temple?"
"No," Xandria replies. "He didn't go anywhere. It was more interesting who came to him." She pauses, looks at them. "I believe we are all acquainted with Pelagos at this point?"
"Liila—The Maw Walker's soulbind?" Adrestes asks, brow pinching.
Xandria nods. "He's been keeping our lonely forsworn company quite often. I've eavesdropped on a few conversations. The forsworn—his name is Nikolon—was adamant that many of the forsworn would leave Loyalty, if only they had somewhere safe to go. They were looking into abandoned pavilions and areas, like the ones in the south east, but you have patrols checking on those regularly."
"But no one goes over your temple," Adrestes says, frowning. With their forces reduced as they are, he had opted not to bother with the temple, as it was largely abandoned. Xandria had approved his decisions, of course, as she is still there often enough to manage any problems an empty temple might face.
"You should have seen them sneaking across the plains. Neither of them were terribly subtle," Xandria says, rolling her eyes a little. "I was curious what they would do, but they went into my temple, and the forsworn was not repelled instantly, so that piqued my curiosity."
"And because he could enter, he started bringing others?"
Xandria nods. "I don't know all the details, but I want to see what comes of this. If you could reduce your patrols over that area I showed you, or even adjust them a little to give more…unattended space along the realm's edge, I'd appreciate that." She pauses then, seems to remember herself as she looks at the Archon, "If I have your blessing, of course."
"You said that there are fourteen of them now?"
"Eleven fallen aspirants and three ascended. The ascended come and go. To Loyalty to find others to evacuate, I believe." She pauses. "I haven't followed them as closely. I don't want them to know that I'm watching just yet."
"Do they want back to the Path?" the Archon asks.
"I'm not…certain," Xandria replies. "I know at least two are adamant about keeping their memories."
"Do you know their names?" Adrestes asks.
"I only know one of the other ascended," Xandria says. "And near as I can tell, he shouldn't be ascended." She taps her fingertips against her hips. "Do you remember an aspirant who would have ascended when the crest was destroyed, an Achillon?"
"I remember that he was not in attendance," Adrestes says. "He fell in Oribos, I believe, and the Bearer in charge of him lost track of him there."
"Well, he's back in Bastion, sporting some rather handsome wings," Xandria says. "I'm curious to know how he got them."
"Devos?" Adrestes asks. "Though…she was cast out of the realm—"
"It might have been one of the last things she did here," Xandria says. "That or Lysonia found a way to give them to him."
"Neither should have that power," the Archon says, frown firmly in place. "Though I know Devos granted wings to at least one other aspirant, somehow."
"Uther?" Xandria asks. When the Archon nods, she crosses her arms. "I'd wager we'll find more who haven't earned their wings flying around Loyalty, then."
The Archon is quiet a moment, considering it. "Is Pelagos the only one helping the forsworn?"
"No, his soulbind, Kleia is, as well as about three stewards. I don't have their names."
"Do you think the Maw Walker is involved?" Adrestes asks, dread curling inside of him.
"I don't know," Xandria replies. "Though I can tell you that they didn't move to my temple until after her departure."
Adrestes can't help the frown at the way she says that, as though she thinks Liila will not be returning.
Just because it's been a week here doesn't mean she won't be back. He almost tells Xandria as much, but manages to stay himself when the Archon speaks.
"Let them stay in Courage. For now." She pauses and then adds. "But keep an eye on them. All of them. Their helpers, too. I want to see where this goes."
Changing the patrol routes so that no one really notices what they are doing takes a certain finesse that Adrestes finds himself oddly proud of. He is asked once why they are reducing the number of patrols over the area in question, and he explains that he wants them keeping an eye on the Eternal Forge and Locus instead.
The attacks on the Locus seem to have stopped for now, but he actually is concerned that they will resume. That more memories will be stolen, more history will be lost. It is somewhat of a relief that he can send more people to watch over it now.
No one questions him again, because it makes so much sense. Why guard an empty area when there are more important places?
He hopes that nothing bad will come of this. That Xandria will not be taken by surprise or…
Well, it's a little hard to imagine a handful of forsworn might be able to bring down the paragon, but he does not want to underestimate them.
Still, the Archon supports her investigation and putting more guards around her would mean putting them around Courage and that would likely spook the forsworn already there. Or alert them that their presence is known, when the guards didn't immediately come for them.
It's a tricky situation.
"On your left!"
Thanikos' voice calls him out of his thoughts, and Adrestes slows his pace just long enough for the Hand to join him. As he often does, Thanikos motions for them to keep going.
Adrestes is flying from Humility to Hero's Rest, heading to check to see if Liila has returned yet.
At this point, he's fairly certain that people will be stumbling over each other to tell him when she returns. The story of their kiss has gotten out—it wasn't one of his entourage, at least, but another ascended who had been in the vicinity and seen what had happened on their own. That and apparently one of the kids had yelled about Liila kissing someone before they left.
Word has spread and he even received a letter from Lady Moonberry. Letter isn't really the word. Instead, it was a poorly drawn picture of what he assumes is supposed to be himself and Liila, wrapped in an embrace, with a little heart filled with the word 'smooch' next to it.
He was not aware that they were on a friendly enough basis for this sort of thing, but the fairy very clearly feels they are.
He's tempted to write to Liila, to warn her of what she's going to be coming back to.
Though that makes him wonder if she might never come back. By the Archon, he almost wants to disappear himself. Especially with the way the better-known romantics of the realm like to give him those knowing smiles now, how they can barely contain their glee.
Eridia would usually be the worst, but she is trying her damnedest not to tease him too terribly. Something about how grumpy it made him 'last time'.
They are about halfway to the rest, almost to the road, when a flare goes off to the south, just shy of the Locus.
Adrestes makes sure Thanikos sees it before turning to investigate. If it is another forsworn attack on the Locus, Adrestes will not be surprised. He glances away, sees a few glimmers of anima that indicate other patrols have seen it, and are en route.
He decides he will inspect things before he calls for further help. After all, the forsworn are having a harder and harder time getting this far from Loyalty, and he doesn't doubt that he'd already be hearing about it from the patrols beyond the veil if it was something substantial.
They are looking ahead to the Locus when another flare goes off, almost right under them.
Both Thanikos and Adrestes dodge it. They stall, look down.
The field below is empty.
This…
This is a trap.
Seemingly thinking the same thing, Thanikos shifts through the veil to confront whatever is hiding just beyond their sight.
The second he fades out, something slams into Adrestes' back, right between his wings.
He plummets a few yards before he can catch himself. However, even as he slows his fall, something pierces his wing. With a startled cry, he loses his purchase and falls.
The ground rushes up to meet him, and soft as the grass is, he still hits hard.
The pain in his wing is like nothing he can remember, sharp and hot. His wing doesn't want to fold against his back, but he forces it, reaching for his mace and finding it is gone.
As he looks around for it, someone slams into the ground on his heels, knocking him back down.
In a breath, Thanikos is back through the veil, meeting Adrestes' attacker with axes ready.
Adrestes scrambles for his own weapon, finds it in the grasses not too far from him.
As he reaches it, a foot steps down on the shaft.
He looks up, scowls as his gaze meets his attacker's. He knows her. Or knew her. Before she fell.
Iristia.
Her expression is neutral as she inspects him.
Her spear is held almost casually, like she isn't expecting an actual fight.
It doesn't feel right. There is magic around it that should not be there.
Maw-ish magic.
She notices his attention on her weapon and her grip tightens.
"Hold!" a man's voice calls out behind him.
Adrestes doesn't recognize the voice, but he does recognize that he is being surrounded. He'll have to abandon his mace.
Adrestes reaches to the back of his belt for his spare dagger and moves to take to the air.
His right wing unfurls and falls heavy toward the ground, completely numb. It throws his balance.
Thanikos calls out to him, something he can't quite make out.
The sound of weapons clashing fills the air.
Daring a glance from Iristia, he can see that there are a handful of forsworn after Thanikos, though he is handling his own. They are, however, keeping him from coming to Adrestes' aid.
There is another forsworn behind Adrestes, as he suspected, a man he doesn't recognize, who bears a spear with that has the same wrongness about it as Iristia's. it is dripping with blood.
His blood.
Adrestes tries to tuck his wing against his back again, but it will not respond to him. It drags against the grass as he tries to angle himself so that he can keep both forsworn in his field of vision.
"The patrols are almost here," Iristia says.
How she can know is beyond him.
She never takes her eyes off Adrestes.
That numbness is spreading from his wing. It's making it harder for him to move. His right arm goes limp at his side, dagger falling into the grasses, useless.
It is hard to hold his head up.
It bobs down once, and Adrestes struggles to keep it up.
Abruptly, Iristia shoulders her spear and starts toward him.
Her lips move as if she is saying something, but Adrestes cannot make it out. His head swims.
Adrestes hits the ground, though he barely feels it. He tries to open his mouth to call out to Thanikos, to tell him to retreat, but unfamiliar magic hits him and the world goes dark.
"You should be more careful, aspirant," a voice calls out to Thales and he perks up a little. "You are almost to the edge of the wards."
"I was beginning to wonder what had become of you!" Thales replies, smiling toward the familiar voice. His mystery ascended has finally found him in Bastion. "I thought perhaps you were back in Maldraxxus still."
"The Maldraxxi could not spare you a parting gift?" the ascended asks, ignoring his comments. "Your eyes?"
Thales lets out a laugh, surprised that she would expect that of them. "I'm afraid not. I'm still very blind."
The ascended lets out a soft humph. "Unfortunate."
"You know, I asked around about you," Thales says. "I wanted to check in and see how you're doing, but I never got your name and no one knew who I was talking about when I asked after you."
She lets out another humph. "You need not worry after me, aspirant."
"Well, I do regardless."
She is quiet a moment. Without Maldraxxus' brittle rocks, it's harder to tell if she's even still there, though he knows she is.
He can sense her still, that curl of anima that is her soul. As time has wound on, he's gotten better and better at recognizing souls. At telling people apart, even when they don't say anything to give away who they are.
Now that he has been around kyrian within the realm, however, he can sense that she is not quite…right.
Something about her is off. He can't place what.
"You should know, Eridia has already figured out how you can be a Watcher, if you choose that path." When she speaks, her voice holds a gentleness to it that he has never heard. "She says it will be easy to have someone guide you to a station, and it's true enough. You don't need eyes to see the memories of the souls who come before you, to decide if it is their time or not. And the bearers can always chase the souls down if they try to run."
He smiles faintly. "That's very gracious of her."
"But?" When he cocks his head, she lets out a dry laugh. "Your tone says you do not wish to be a Watcher."
"I've always dreamed of being a Bearer, if I'm honest," Thales says. "Since the moment I read about the different roles ascended can take."
Of late, he's struggled with the idea, even through everyone's assurances that he will be fine. It's one of the reasons he came out here. To get a break from all the assurances that everything will return to normal, soon. Because he's not sure that it can. A new normal may come, but for him things will always be changed.
He came out here to meditate on his fears and to see if he can figure out a way to explain why being told he can do exactly what everyone else can do feels a little… disingenuous.
Because he can do much, perhaps most things that everyone else can do, but it does not change the fact that he cannot see, that he will need to learn different ways to do all those things everyone else does.
Pretending he is whole will not make him so.
"I suspected as much, with the way you were so willing to wander Maldraxxus," the ascended says. "I've always had an eye for what paths aspirants wish to pursue." She is quiet a moment before adding, "I used to help those who were unsure find theirs, too. I was quite good at it."
There is a moment's pause before something thuds onto the ground next to Thales feet. The air shifts a little, in warning.
The ward has been tripped.
Thales casts a protective spell around the ascended before him as he gathers the tome beside him and listens for whatever must have set off the ward. He rises to his feet, not wanting to be taken off guard.
With an exasperated sigh, the ascended shifts in front of him, like she knows what has caused the stir, but is not in any great rush to flee from it. "I must go, but see what you can get out of those records. Ask about the blind bearer challenge."
"The what? Why do you have to go?"
"Eternity is a long time," the ascended says. "People get bored. For a while, some ascended tried to see if we could bear souls using our other senses instead of sight."
"Did it work?"
"It did," the ascended shifts, like they are looking around. "We were a bit slower than we should have been, but it was fun to test out what we could do."
"You were a blind bearer?"
"A good one, too," she replies.
Thales hears a shout in the distance.
"Ask about it," she says, and the words are a command. Her tone has resumed that harsh edge it so often gets. More shouts are rising up, alarm is echoing through the temple. Thales feels prickles running up his spine. He reaches out to her, to offer her a hand if she needs it, from whatever is happening. "I imagine this will be our last conversation, aspirant."
"Does it have to be?"
"Only if you feel this Path can take you where you wish to go."
"I know it can."
"A pity," the ascended says. Wings unfurl, flap. The shouting is getting closer. Thales can hear other voices growing closer. Some are coming from the fields, toward the temple. Toward them. "I am sorry they blinded you. When I let them into the realm, I assumed…I assumed they would fight with honor. I should have known better. You deserved better."
Thales' brow pinches together. "What do you—when you let them in?"
"Be well, aspirant. I pray our paths to not cross again."
Anima crackles a few feet ahead of Thales. He starts to reach out again, but the ground trembles as someone lands near him, hard.
"Don't let her get away!"
Thanikos' voice booms out, rolling over Thales and startling him, even as arms encircle him. Thales is lifted into the air and cries out, feels the wind rushing past him as he's pulled away from the sounds of combat.
"What's going on?"
"Don't worry, we won't let her harm you," assures his carrier.
He is set down near Hipokos, who clicks his beak a few times before taking Thales' hand. Whoever carried him further into the temple is gone, and Thales' calls for answers are met with confused clicks from Hipokos and a few queries from other aspirants, who ask if he is alright and tell him they know only that enemies must be testing the wards.
It is not until a few minutes later, when he feels that same crash of a landing nearby, and then Thanikos is speaking, that he starts to understand what has happened.
"Are you hurt? What did she say to you?" There is a harshness to his voice that Thales has never heard before, and it throws him. This does not feel like the same creature who laughed with him just a few days ago. Large hands grip him, turn him this way and that as he is inspected for injury.
"What?" Thales reaches up to catch Thanikos, to make him stop. The turning is disorienting. "What happened? Is my friend okay?"
"Your friend." Thanikos echoes.
"The ascended who checked up on us in Maldraxxus. She was just here, but she wasn't making any sense—"
Thanikos interrupts him to let loose a few choice words that Thales thought had been left behind with the Maldraxxi. "You can't fucking see…" he swears again. "The ascended you spoke with. What did she say?"
"She told me to ask about the blind bearer challenge," Thales says. He pauses, considers what he has wondered before. "She…was she forsworn?"
"You could tell?"
This voice is new, one Thales has not heard often. It is calm, soothing, in spite of whatever has happened, and it takes Thales a moment to realize that Chyrus is there. He offers a salute that he is sure does not quite face the paragon, even as the man tells him it is unnecessary.
"I, not quite, sir. She never seemed to want to come around the others." He pauses as something he should have figured out earlier clicks into place. "And when she tossed me something just now…I think that's what tripped the wards." He pauses, frowns despite himself as he thinks back to their encounters. "She always seemed…heartbroken."
"Good, let her suffer," Thanikos spits.
"Thanikos, would you please check the perimeter—"
"They've taken Adrestes!" Thanikos snaps.
"I heard," Chyrus says, ever calm. "Word is already passing back to Elysian Hold. We will find him—"
Suddenly Thales realizes why Thanikos keeps asking him what his friend had said to him. "She didn't mention the polemarch. Or anyone. Just this," he holds up the tome still in his hands.
Rough hands jerk it from him for a moment before shoving it back into his arms. A few choice words are muttered. Wings unfurl and flap. "I'll alert Purity, see if they can spare anyone to search the area."
"A good idea," Chyrus replies. "Voitha is already gathering our people here. Archon watch over you."
When Thanikos is gone, Chyrus turns his attention back to Thales. "Forgive the chaos, aspirant." Even as Thales assures him that he understands, that he knows what it is like to be taken, knows how critical time is, Chyrus turns the conversation back. "The ascended you met with. You called her a friend? It sounds like you've met with her before?"
"In Maldraxxus," Thales says. "She always wanted to know how everyone was doing."
Someone else scoffs. Thales can hear the body language that goes between paragon and ascended before they, too, are in flight and gone.
"Did she ever tell you who she was?"
"I asked once, for her name, but she never told me." Thales pauses. He tries to look back to where he was, to where the forsworn was. "She is forsworn, isn't she?"
"She is," Chyrus says, voice soft.
"Who was she? I never got her name."
There is a pause that makes Thales wonder if perhaps the paragon doesn't know, though surely he would simply say that. Then, finally, Chyrus takes in a breath and says. "You were speaking with Lysonia, Hand of Doubt."
When Adrestes comes to, he has to blink a few times to be certain that he can open his eyes.
It is dark.
Pain lances through his wing, and he grimaces against it.
At least he can feel again.
He tries to sit up, but finds that he cannot. His senses are muddled, and it takes a minute for him to realize that he is bound. He is laying on top of shackled wrists and his wings are unfurled and tied down so that he cannot lift himself, forcing him to lay on his stomach.
Most of his armor is gone.
"You're awake. That's unfortunate."
Adrestes' jerks his head toward the voice. It is one he has not heard in what feels like an age, though it has not been nearly so long. It takes a moment to find her. His head is still swimming, a result of whatever spell was cast on him.
Lysonia is reading something over, with a few dimly glowing scrolls unfurled around her, hanging in the air. There is movement behind her, and Adrestes thinks he can make out Iristia and another woman, though the way their dark wings and clothes blend with the blurry shadows makes it impossible for him to be certain that he's not just seeing double.
"What…did you…" It takes so much effort to talk. Adrestes gathers himself. "Thanikos…"
"Don't worry," Lysonia replies, words clipped. "He's off nursing that new guilt complex of his, I'm sure."
Adrestes brow pinches, he tries to focus on what she's saying. "He's…alive…"
"Unless he tripped on a rock and snapped his neck," Lysonia mutters. At that, she pauses, passes off the text she's been reading to Iristia. "Honestly, I'm surprised he's lived as long as he has. He's not the brightest."
"He makes up for it with his strength," says an unfamiliar voice. The one who called for Iristia to hold.
Lysonia's frown implies how much stock she puts in the speaker's opinion. "Don't give him too much credit, Uther."
There is the scuff of a boot. Adrestes tries to look over, but he can't quite see where the other forsworn is standing. "We lost six good people to—"
"We couldn't have known he would resist the paralytic so well," Lysonia snaps.
Adrestes finally manages to twist so that he can turn his head, chin scraping across the ground, to see the other speaker.
The forsworn who speared his wing.
Uther Lightbringer.
The man's hair is a bit scruffier than most ascended keep theirs. He reaches up to scratch at his face and seems unsettled to find his chin is bare. Almost as though he expects there to be a beard there, though that would be ridiculous. Kyrian do not grow beards.
Though…if what Xandria said of him is true… If Uther never finished his cleansing, he is likely remembering his mortal form. Likely unnerved by the fact that his current form is different.
It's something new aspirants often struggle with, behavior that should be gone long before one gets their wings.
"If you're going to kill me—"
"Don't be so melodramatic," Lysonia says, crossing her arms. "No one's going to kill you…unless you decide to be unreasonable after we're done."
Adrestes tries to pull one of his hands loose, but the shackles on him are metal, not rope, and with his wings the way they are, he can't sit up enough to drag his hands up.
Uther walks over and kneels before him. "You have lost so much. So much that you do not even know to grieve for it."
An uneasy feeling is twisting inside of Adrestes as he meets the man's gaze, realizes what he's talking about. "Anything you think I've lost was given up willingly."
"Can you really consider it something that can be done willingly, something that can be treated like an actual choice, when your options are to lose it or be banished from the realm in shame?"
"That is not what we do," Adrestes hisses, his voice slowly getting stronger as his senses start to settle. He can see clearer, too. There are three forsworn working in the dim light beyond Uther and Lysonia. The odds are very much stacked against him, especially if they still have those poisoned spears. "If the Arbiter feels one is worthy to be here—"
"The Arbiter is but another part of a broken system," Uther replies, expression grim. "You will see. When you remember all you have lost."
Adrestes can't help but laugh at that. "Lysonia, you really let him believe this?" When she doesn't reply, he turns his head awkwardly to look at her. "You know damned well that of anyone you could have gotten in the realm, I'm the worst choice to try to feed this nonsense to."
Lysonia walks over to him then, sits fluidly just in front of him. She leans one elbow against her knee, props her head up in her hand, fingers curled against her cheek as she looks down at him. "I know the Archon's hold on you is strong."
"You're better off just killing me."
"Killing you does us no good," Lysonia says. "You're a good lapdog, Adrestes, but utterly replaceable. Because we all are, when we give up who we are, when we cast aside all those memories and little things that make us…us." She motions to herself and then those around them. "And whoever fills your shoes will be filled with righteous vengeance to seek justice on your behalf. Something the Archon will no doubt be happy to encourage. They'll sing your name for a few eons, about how brave you were, how hard you fought, but in the end, your name will be interchangeable with any other kyrian 'hero'. People will get your verses mixed up with others, the way we used to get confused about whether it was Teretha or Indea who had that triumph over the lich lord in…" She trails off. "The details escape me. But by the Archon if that bearer didn't do their job. Like every other bearer. Perfect little clones of their god."
"I won't accept my memories back," Adrestes says, feeling oddly numb. It is not the paralytic from earlier. No this is a sense that something very unpleasant is about to happen, something he cannot stop. He tries shift his arms again, to pull them up and fold them under his chest.
"Well, if it helps, they don't tend to want to be accepted," Lysonia replies. "That's the big problem, really. We nearly lost Olyssian to his." She shakes her head. "We promised people they can get their memories back, but then when they try, the memories fight them." She twists her mouth to one side, meets his gaze. "I guess they're the same as anything else. Nothing likes to be abandoned."
Uther goes over and tugs on the bindings keeping Adrestes' injured wing splayed. As Adrestes lets out a hiss, Uther conjures anima.
"What are you doing?"
"There's no reason he needs to suffer—"
"Do you want him breaking out of his bindings?" Lysonia asks. "Because if you heal him, he will."
Uther's anima goes out.
Lysonia leans a little closer to Adrestes. "I am sorry for the discomfort, but we both know how resistant you are to change." She appraises him a moment longer before sighing. She reaches out and he braces himself for whatever is about to come. She ruffles his hair and then stands back up, looking at Uther. "We redid the uniforms a few ages ago, and you should have seen him. He was in a fickle mood for a century, at least."
She is leaving.
Iristia and the woman with her—Sybigone, if memory serves—are coming over to him. Sybigone has a soul mirror in hand, while Iristia is reading over that text that Lysonia handed her, anima dancing around her fingertips already.
He has to buy himself time until someone can come interrupt this. Thanikos or…someone. They couldn't have taken him far from where they attacked.
Surely…
He looks at Lysonia's retreating form.
"Eridia thinks you can be saved."
Lysonia stills for a moment in the doorway and then turns and comes back. She squats in front of him. "Going for the low blows, I see." She meets his gaze evenly, expression hard to read. "I still think she can be saved, too." She reaches out and bops her finger against Adrestes nose, "And maybe once you remember your family and your mortal world, maybe once you remember that pretty little soulmate of yours, you'll come around and you can help me win her over."
Adrestes thrusts his hands out from under him, grabs for Lysonia.
She dodges out of reach with almost no effort.
"He's recovering too quickly," Iristia says.
"I'll talk to Helya about it." Lysonia shakes her head and then looks to Uther. "This is why we don't heal the wing. Not until we're sure he's come around to the truth of things."
Uther frowns, but gives her a nod.
Adrestes jerks his wings as hard as he can, tries to pull them free. The chains only tighten. A feather catches between two links and is jerked out.
"I think it's best if you go back to sleep for a while," Lysonia says, giving him a small frown. "No reason for you to suffer more than you need to. Would you, Uther?"
Even as Adrestes struggles to pull his uninjured wing free, that spell from before hits him and once again, his world goes dark.
Liila lays on the roof of the house with Haa'aji to her side. They both have their hands behind their heads, gazes upward to the stars. There is something about staring up at those thousands of tiny pinpricks of light that has always been so soothing.
And with everything that's going on, she could use that balm.
"Ya gonna head back pretty soon, I guess?"
"I…I should have left after dinner," Liila admits. "Time moves so much faster there, I feel like I'll have missed a whole year."
"Ya missed the raid on Castle Nathria," Haa'aji says. When Liila tilts her head toward him, he grins. "For the best, yeah? He got into Shawn's head, like how the old gods did with us. Had to spend the whole fight stunning him while everyone else took out Mr. Master of Lies."
Liila frowns.
Haa'aji was not just out for the day, like the children told her.
No, Haa'aji was in the Shadowlands. Apparently, as soon as he heard about the time difference, he began to make his plans to come after Liila, figuring that if other people left their kids alone for a few hours of a day, he could do that, too, without there being any harm to their psyches.
Without them feeling abandoned.
When he'd gotten to Bastion, he'd gotten to that first flightmaster, turned around and left the realm, certain that whoever had told him Liila was there was full of shit.
After all, she generally does prefer shadows.
He'd gone to Ardenweald and then Revendreth before deciding that his first information may have been accurate after all.
Apparently, he'd shown up while she was in Maldraxxus, and had headed after her, only to find that she had gone back to Bastion.
It had been a game of catch up.
By the time he got back to Bastion, she was in Azeroth.
He's a little mystified that will all that realm hopping, all the adventure in those handful of days he spent in the Shadowlands has amounted to less than half a day here.
"It's for the best." Liila echoes as she looks back up at the stars. "If he could do that to Shawn, he probably would have done something similar to me."
Haa'aji lets out a noncommittal grunt.
Silence falls back over them for a few minutes before he takes in a breath. "I don't like ya going back."
"I know."
"I feel like they gonna try to keep ya." When Liila peeks over at him, Haa'aji is staring straight up, a frown firmly in place. It reminds her of the polemarch.
"They won't kill me," Liila says. "They're forbidden from doing that. They can't take a soul from a living body."
"Maybe not, but that don't mean they might not be slow to block a killing blow. Hesitate to mend a severe wound."
"The kyrian are not going to kill me," Liila says, firmly. She takes in a slow breath and then lets it out. "And anyway I'm cursed—"
"Ya think those gods can't take that off?" This time when she looks at Haa'aji, he's staring at her. "If they can manipulate the death runes, who's to say they can't remove them?"
"Well, no one's brought that up to me."
"Gods don't generally share their plans with us minions," Haa'aji says. "I bet that Archon already considers you back in the fold."
Something clenches in Liila's gut. "I've lived a long time since that judgment. I imagine I'll need to be rejudged. For the years since."
"Ya know gods don't give up their toys that easy," Haa'aji says. "Don't go back. If that Archon is even half as powerful as Denathrius was… The only reason we beat him is because his realm rebelled against him. Her grip on her realm is much stronger. She can do whatever she wants." He pauses. "But only to what's in her realm. From what I can tell, the Eternal Ones can't leave their realms. So long as you don't go back, she can't get you."
Liila doesn't point out that the Primus is missing and very much not in his realm. If Haa'aji is already this paranoid about the Archon, it's better if he doesn't consider that she can pay Azeroth a visit herself.
"You talk like she's some wicked thing."
"Not wicked, a god." Haa'aji sits up, shakes his head. "Ya know better than most. Gods don't think like us. They're way more possessive. If she sees ya as hers…"
It reminds her of what Mitchell said. Of his warning that the realm knows she's theirs. He said something about how she should know how people get when they're possessive, too.
It's true enough, she supposes. She's seen people struggle to get out of bad groups and away from corrupted gods. She's seen people die because those groups and gods would rather no one have them if they can't.
But she can't bring herself to see Bastion—or the Archon—in that light.
After all, when people don't belong in Bastion, they're given a second chance elsewhere, aren't they?
It's a choice to stay.
"There's something wicked there. That whole realm," Haa'aji mutters, shuddering. "It's built to pull you in, to put you at ease."
"It's just a nice place."
Haa'aji leans over her, eyes narrowed, appraising her as though he may catch her in a lie or see that she's brainwashed or…something. His brow pinches, and he looks like he might say something but instead, he sits back, shakes his head. "Ya go there, ya gonna forget." He's quiet a second. "Ya gonna forget me. The kids, too."
"I'm not going going there," Liila murmurs, sitting up. "I spoke with them about my curse—"
"Ya spoke to them as some annoying mortal harassing their people. Now ya one of their people." Haa'aji shakes his head. "Now their god wants to save ya. Because you're hers."
"I don't want to talk about this."
"Promise ya won't go back, and I'll drop it," Haa'aji says. "We figure out your curse here, find a way around it. When ya die, Bwonsamdi will take ya. We'll be fine. Just don't go back to that place." He's quiet a tic. "You're not the one they lost. They want Amaeria."
That stings.
Of all the things he could have said, he has to know that's easily the worst.
Liila takes in a shaky breath. "Haa'aji, I can't… I can't just leave things as they are."
"Why not?" Haa'aji is watching her, expression impossible to read in the starlight. "We've walked away from stuff before. Damn near every faction war—"
"This isn't a faction war." Liila runs her fingers through her hair. "I told them I'd be back."
"You've lied to people before."
"Haa'aji!"
Before she can say more, his ears perk up. He lets out a low hiss and fades out of sight. Even as Liila looks around, she hears a scuffle happen at the side of the house. She moves across the sloping roof as fast as she dares and looks over the edge in time to see Haa'aji pin a shaking figure against the wall, daggers drawn.
Liila shifts into shadows and drops down, reforming as soon as she's on the ground. "Haa'aji, no!"
She darts forward, wraps her arms around the trembling creature.
The trembling steward.
Stanikos clings to her, though his eyes are glued to Haa'aji.
The troll stands there a moment, daggers raised like he might strike anyway—it wouldn't be hard for him to get past Liila, after all. She's not big enough to fully block his blows and with his poisons, he really just needs to get in a nick or two…
With a curse, he straightens out of his attack stance, shaking his head. "I knew they'd come for ya."
Liila scowls at him before turning her attention to their visitor.
It takes a moment and a few assurances before Stanikos seems confident that Haa'aji is not going to skewer him the moment he takes his eyes off him. The steward looks up at Liila, still clinging to her. "You needed back home."
Liila ignores Haa'aji's bitter laugh. "I'm coming back. I just need a little—"
"Polemarch Adrestes was taken." Stanikos bristles a little, shivers. "No one can find. You can find, though." He looks a little nervous, gaze darting from Liila to Haa'aji and back. "I can't help. But you can. I help by getting you."
"Or you could look your fucking self," Haa'aji hisses.
"I do-hoo!" Stanikos objects, straightening a little. "Everyone looks. Polemarch missing." He looks back at Liila, points a talon to her heart. "You feel though? You feel where he is."
Liila feels frozen in place. A tiny part of her screams that this is literally what Haa'aji was just warning about, that this is the group trying to draw her back in by making her feel important, needed. That they want her back because they feel some claim to her.
But another part of her knows that's just fear talking. The fear that she will put her heart out there, trust the people she's grown to care so much for, and be betrayed because she is not what they think.
This isn't about her, though, is it?
The idea that Adrestes could be in trouble makes her heart hurt. She looks at Haa'aji.
Before she can speak, he lets out a sharp curse and throws his daggers on the ground. They clatter loudly. His lips twist like he is trying not to cry and then he turns his back on them. "I'll tell the kids you said goodbye."
In a breath, he's disappeared.
Liila wants to call to him, to tell him to wait, that's he's making her choose things that don't need to be chosen. It's not like her time in Bastion will ever be more than a temporary thing…
She wants to ask if it's so wrong for her to want to be there.
And that's when it really hits her.
She does want to be there. In Bastion.
That's why that fear of that place is so strong. Because she wants to be there and she wants to be wanted for who she is and if she gets rejected from that place, she's not sure what she'll do.
Liila swallows down her emotions, pushing them back into the crevices she hides them away in. She looks at Stanikos. "Give me a minute to grab my things."
"I have pocket portal," Stanikos says, producing something that looks like a mini gateway to a realm.
Liila's brow pinches. "I don't know if that will work here."
"We try?"
"Okay, come on." Liila leads Stanikos into the house, through the common room to hers. It is so quiet tonight. The kids didn't want to go to sleep—they seemed to know she wouldn't be there when they got up.
She had wanted to stay, just through breakfast, but if Adrestes is missing…
Considering how strangely time flows, she imagines he will already be found by the time she gets back. If she goes back, early, she'll likely find she wasn't needed after all.
"How long have I been gone?"
"Nine days," Stanikos says. "Very long. We all wait. Some think you not going to come home."
Liila hesitates, staring at the things she has already packed and trying to focus enough to think if she needs anything else. "Stanikos, I'm not dead. This is my home."
The words feel strangely hollow.
The steward merely coos at her. She's not sure what that means.
"We take this too?"
When Liila turns, she sees that there is a massive bundle of parchment, a bag of inks, and a few stuffed toys sitting beside her door that were not there when they first came through. Stanikos picks up a note from the top of it and Liila moves over to read over his shoulder.
For the kids saved from the Maw.
-H
Liila feels a twinge in her heart before she nods. Stanikos hoists everything, takes Liila's hand.
She looks through the doorway, to where she has an inkling that a friend is hiding, in plain sight. "I'll be back. I promise."
If Haa'aji is there, he doesn't make a sound.
Stanikos waits for Liila to nod to him again and uses the pocket portal. It stalls for just a second and then the world is a dizzying whir of color and sound.
In an incredibly uncomfortable blink, the night is replaced with the brilliant light of Bastion, fields sweeping out all around them in every direction.
Liila feels sick.
She pauses, glances around to make sure none of the kids somehow showed up in time to take a free ride into the realms of death and then tries to get her bearings, squinting against the bright light. Hero's Rest is off to their west.
Closing her eyes, she rubs them, trying to get the spots to recede faster and then considers what Stanikos has said.
Polemarch Adrestes is missing.
Liila closes her eyes, feels for that tug.
There is nothing.
That makes her stomach twist. She opens her eyes, looks to see that Stanikos has adjusted far faster. He blinks up at her, waiting.
"I…I have to be sort of close to him," Liila admits. "Like, if I'm in the hold and he's there, I can feel him, but—how do you even know about that?"
Stanikos blinks and then fluffs a little. "I watch. You always look up when he comes by, just like before. You always knew before, too."
Like before.
They want Amaeria.
Liila thinks she might throw up.
She's known. That Stanikos knew her. Some part of her has always known that, but she has ignored it because she likes him being around, because she likes that he is so happy to help, to sit with her, to talk.
"You knew me? When I was here before."
Stanikos perks up instantly. "You know already?" Even as Liila offers a weak nod, his feathers fluff and his whole countenance changes. He is brimming with joy, radiating it. "Yes, we good friends then. I always help and—" He stills. "Except time you need most. I too slow then." He reaches out and takes her hand, holds it tightly. "I do better this time."
"I…" Liila doesn't know what to say. "You never…you never called me by my old name."
"Names change," Stanikos says with a shrug. "Everyone change names here. Well, not stewards. We not need to change."
"You're perfect as you are," Liila offers, softly.
Stanikos fluffs a little. "Well, I faster now. Maybe fast enough?"
They stand there in silence for a moment, with Stanikos watching her with that intent look that he gets sometimes, his talons still wrapped around her hand.
An anchor.
An assurance that she will not be taken away.
"Well, I do know when he's around, but…" Liila stares out across the fields. "I don't…he usually has to be kind of close."
"You soulmates," Stanikos says plainly. "You always find each other."
She can't help the laugh. "I, um, don't know about that."
He simply tilts his head.
"Okay," Liila says. She sets her things down in the grasses around them and closes her eyes again. She thinks of Adrestes, of his smiles and his voice, of the way he tilts his head, of his short hair that she has seen so rarely. She tries to feel that pull, that tug. Something, anything.
She thinks of that lightning. Of his skin against hers.
His lips against hers.
Heat rises up, tinging her ears.
However, just as she thinks that perhaps this is not going to work, she feels it.
It is the faintest sliver, a draw that could so easily be mistaken for something else, for a simple hope that she would have one.
She opens her eyes, points north. "He's that way, I think." Her mind whirs as she considers the realm. "If we go to Hero's Rest, then the Temple of Wisdom? I can see if it's stronger there?"
"Yes!" Stanikos says, and hurries toward the road. He has already picked up everything she set down.
The trip feels like it takes far longer than it should. They make a beeline to the transporter network, though Liila stops when she sees Kalisthene talking to a few ascended in Hero's Rest, as the thought strikes her that even if Adrestes was missing when Stanikos came to get her, he might have been found in the interim.
How awkward will it be if they burst in on him, wherever he is, and he is not actually missing at all?
Liila tells Stanikos to hold on and darts over to the ascended. When Kalisthene sees her, her eyes widen, and there is a smile there as she starts to greet her. Liila is talking before the greeting even registers. "Is Adrestes still missing?"
Kalisthene's smile slips instantly. She moves closer to Liila and leans down. "How do you know about that?"
"How long?"
Kalisthene appraises her carefully and then says, "Four days—"
"Was two!" Stanikos gasps, as he has toddled after Liila.
Liila takes his hand and swivels back toward the transporter. "Let's go."
"Where?" Kalisthene asks.
"Wisdom," Liila calls over her shoulder.
She has barely set foot in Wisdom when she feels a hand on her shoulder. Blinking, she looks back to see that Kalisthene has followed them. "Maw Walker, what's going on?"
Liila hesitates. That pull is faint, but comes more readily when she feels for it. She points toward the north east. "Adrestes is out there."
"You can—" Her expression abruptly softens. "Of course." She looks to Stanikos. "Go to temple proper. Tell Arios to send a guard to meet us." Before Liila can really process what's happening, she is in the air, partially cradled as Kalisthene flies them out toward where she pointed. "The forge?"
"I…I'm not sure where exactly," Liila says, head turned against Kalisthene's neck so that her words aren't caught and stolen by the wind. "Just…that way." She points again.
Kalisthene adjusts their direction.
They know they're close when the forsworn attack.
Liila shields them both, and readies for a fight, but Kalisthene is quick to dodge. It is then that Liila realizes they have quite the escort. Arios is there, staying close to them as the others engage in combat. Liila thinks she hears Thanikos calling out orders from somewhere behind them, but she's not sure. Kalisthene asks her where to go and she directs them near the edge of the realm, where the world itself drops off into clouds.
Liila scans the ground below. It is empty. "He should be right—"
Before she can finish her thought, Arios shoots ahead of them, or rather, below.
Kalisthene follows.
That draw is stronger now, almost tangible.
Perhaps because she is focusing on it so completely or perhaps because he is drawing to her, as well.
The pull is actively from both ends.
They go over the edge of the realm and then circle back. There is an grand archway that leads into the cliff, completely hidden from the world above.
Arios is already there as Kalisthene lands, already fighting through the forsworn who guard it. Kalisthene and Liila join him, though she has trouble focusing because that draw feels different than before.
It…it almost feels desperate.
The second they have the upper hand, Liila darts down one of the halls, into the inner chambers. This place is built a little differently than the other chambers she's seen, but she barely registers it, only notices that it takes an extra turn or two before she finds him.
Adrestes is sprawled upon the ground, his wings laying across it, limp. He is not moving.
Terror curls inside of her, and Liila almost misses the forsworn who lunges at her. She catches them with shadows, embracing the spells she has neglected these last couple months as she settled into a healing role within this gentle realm.
They are stronger than she expects, however. Even as she takes one of them down, another catches her by the throat, interrupting her spells, and holds her up. "We fought the void itself when it came to Bastion and you think you—"
Anima crashes into her, and she drops Liila.
It comes from two directions.
As Kalisthene sweeps into the forsworn, forcing them to engage with her instead of Liila, Liila turns her head and sees that Adrestes has lifted his.
He seems disoriented, but his attention is on her.
She darts across the room to him, conjures all the Light she can muster and pours it into him. She drops to her knees beside Adrestes, reaches out, lets her fingers brush against his bare shoulder.
That lightning is there, but she pushes past it, doing her best to ignore how it makes her want to lose track of everything around her to get lost in the feel of his skin against hers. She instead focuses on scanning all of him that she can see, searching for injuries her spells haven't mended.
He lets out a gasp, tries to flex his wings.
Chains clink.
He is bound.
Even as she looks to see where his chains are anchored, Arios is there, breaking them on one wing while Kalisthene frees the other.
"You…"
Liila's gaze snaps down to Adrestes' face. He is staring up at her, though his eyes are partially unfocused, his brow pinched with confusion. His hands are bound together underneath him.
As Kalisthene helps ease his wing back to rest against him, Arios moves to undo the bindings on his wrists. Liila casts more healing magic on him, willing it to be enough.
When he is free, Arios helps him up, putting one of Adrestes' arms around his shoulders. Kalisthene moves to his other side to do the same, but before she can, Adrestes reaches out and brushes his fingers against Liila's cheek, cupping her face with his large hand.
"Amaeria…"
Liila freezes.
The world is painfully still.
And then Arios snaps that they need to get him out of there before more forsworn come. She moves back a few steps, and it is like the energy simply flees Adrestes. As he starts to collapse, nearly bringing Arios down with him, Kalisthene darts forward and catches his other arm, swings it over her shoulders to keep him up.
They move him quickly. Liila fends off the few forsworn who have followed them in. Just as Liila worries that there may be too many at the chamber's entrance, they round a corner and find Thenios waiting. In a breath, he has scooped the polemarch into his arms and takes off.
Arios calls to other ascended who are descending to join them, motioning for them to go back into the chambers, to look for something.
Liila isn't paying attention.
Because what Haa'aji said has come back with a bite to it.
They want Amaeria.
A hand pats her shoulder, pulls her from her thoughts. Arios gives her a nod. "Well done, Maw Walker."
And then he is off, back into the chambers.
"I'll take you to the hold," Kalisthene says, kneeling and holding out her arms. She pauses when she sees the way Liila hesitates. "You will not be able to get out of here without wings."
"I, right," Liila shakes her head, tries not to think. "Of course. Thank you."
The trip to Elysian Hold is a quiet one.
Liila is glad that Kalisthene cannot see her face, because she is struggling, Haa'aji's words repeating over and over on top of the look that Adrestes gave her.
On top of what he called her.
"Liila!"
Kalisthene stops short, in such a way that Liila jerks in her arms and she thuds back against Kalisthene's armor as Kleia flies up to greet them. "Watch your path, ascended!"
Kleia flnches a little, hovering in front of them. "I'm sorry, I…" She seems to be having trouble deciding who to look at.
Concern is twisting through Liila, something she couldn't feel through her own storm. She averts her gaze.
"Come," Kalisthene murmurs, changing her course and taking Liila down to one of the wings in Elysian Hold. When she sets Liila down, she pauses, and then smiles at her reassuringly. "I'll see where they've taken him and let you know how he's faring."
And then she is gone.
Kleia lands in front of Liila. Her wings are not even tucked back fully before she is wrapping Liila in a tight hug.
Before Liila can really register what is happening, she is clinging to Kleia, sobbing.
