She is sitting in a field of gentle grass, talking to an elf who she knows she is close to, a man she has hurt, to whom she wants to make amends.
That is why they are out here, even though she is worried.
Their conversation is hard to follow, most of the words a blur of incoherent syllables with a clear word peppered in here and there. The world is getting clearer, however, as their conversation winds on, a tension building. She suggests they go back, because there are creatures in the woods, and it is no longer safe to be so alone.
And then he says it. "There's a whole army of them headed our way."
She gasps, asks how he knows, insists they go back to warn the others.
"Amaeria, there's not enough elves alive to stop what's coming." Panic rises within her as he speaks, mixed with an odd sensation that she knows what is coming, too. "He showed me what's coming…in my head somehow."
Fear, confusion.
He reaches out and runs his fingers down her cheek. "But he'll let us retreat."
Sounds come from the distance. Ghouls are beginning to come out of the woods, shambling into the edges of the field. They are listless until they see the two of them sitting there in the open.
She turns to tell him that they have to run. She cannot keep the two of them up against these odds.
His sword is already in hand as he looks at the encroaching ghouls.
And then he turns and slams it through her leg, pinning her to the ground. She screams.
The ghouls begin to run.
"He'll let us retreat, but only if he can have you."
She tries to reach for him, tries to catch his hand as she begs him not to leave her. He jerks out of reach.
"Why should all of us die when he just wants you?"
She calls after him, again and again, but he sprints away, never looking back.
She is stuck because it makes no sense. They have been friends for as long as she knows, so how can he…?
Precious time ticks past as she stares after him, calling his name desperately.
And then a ghoul's wail sounds far too close, and she realizes that she must save herself.
She tries to grip the sword, tries to pull it out, but the angle is wrong, and it makes her leg hurt like nothing she has ever felt before. The pain is blinding, and the sword is stuck in the ground beneath her leg. She tries to twist enough to get a better grip. Just as she feels the blade shift, ever so slightly, a gauntlet grips her hand tightly, jerking the sword free and snapping fingers in one fluid movement.
She looks up into a face she loathes.
"We are going to have a grand time, you and I."
The world starts to twist. He stares down at her with that miserably familiar cruelty in his eyes and then they are not in the field. Instead, she is in the room without a door. People are screaming. She is crying.
She cannot feel her legs. Her hair falls unevenly around her—his work, an act to humble her elven arrogance.
She is sitting with her back against a rotted wall, splinters from the wood making it hurt just to exist.
And then she is on a table, awaiting his blades.
And then she is lying on her back staring up at little lights impossibly high above that make no sense.
His voice echoes again, but this time, she is standing in a well-lit office, across a desk from a Captain Jaserisk Dawningblade who is stiff as a board and paler than a banshee, eyes wide with horror as he whispers a single word.
"Amaeria."
The scene shifts again, dark walls and pain shooting up her arm from the deep, fresh cuts that run its length.
He laughs and leans into her vision, that mocking grin in place as his dagger glows with a hateful blue light. He—
With a cry, Pelagos shoots upright, shoving desperately at the hands that threaten to force him back down onto the table. He does not want that monster to continue his work, does not want to see the glee in his eyes as he hears soft whimpers and the cries that cannot be held back.
He does not want—
"Pelagos!"
A familiar voice cuts through his fear. The darkness plaguing the edges of his vision clears abruptly, and he is staring up at Thanikos, bewildered.
It takes him a moment, looking around to see that he is not in some darkened room made of rotting wood, but instead in the arena at the Temple of Courage. A lonely bell sounds faintly in the distance, largely drowned out by Thanikos' voice, which is still talking to him with soothing words. Thanikos has his hands wrapped around Pelagos' as he tells him that all is well, he is fine.
He manages a weak smile. "I think… I think Liila is having a nightmare." For a second, he wants to tell Thanikos everything, every detail of the horrors that had just plagued him. But then he remembers that those are not his memories to tell.
Even as Thanikos offers that perhaps that means they won't be plagued with it anymore, Pelagos hears his name being called and looks to find Kleia flying over to where they are. She lands almost on top of him, letting her momentum bring her down as she wraps him tightly in a hug.
He can feel her concern overflowing, just as surely as he can feel Liila's terror slowly ebbing. As it recedes, it allows for his own emotions to take control. He is exhausted from the terror.
Thanikos tousles each of their hair before dismissing himself to allow them some privacy.
Kleia doesn't need to tell him how she got there so fast. He can guess, from her own distress. She thought he was falling from the Path, so she dropped everything and came running.
Well, flying.
Pelagos sits with her in silence for a moment, gathering himself, before he finally finds his voice.
"Her memories come so much…stronger," Pelagos whispers. "I've never seen one so vividly before. It's like I was her. Like I was the one being…"
Betrayed.
Abandoned.
Tortured.
"It's because she is cleansing them," Kleia says softly. "Memories being cleansed tend to become more vivid because they are at the forefront of the mind, both a product of the past and present."
Pelagos shudders and then looks up at Kleia. "You go through this every time I try to cleanse my…"
"No," Kleia assures him, squeezing him a little tighter before sitting back. She carefully adjusts her wings. "You've overcome most of the terrors of your mortal life," she smiles at him, and he feels a quiet pride emanating from her and pooling within himself. "Most of your memories that remain are the ones you feel are important, not frightening. You have trouble letting them go because you feel they help make you who you are." She hesitates, considering it. "I feel…sorrow when you go to cleanse your memories. Sorrow and distress that if they are forgotten, a piece of you that you hold integral to who you are will be lost." She reaches out and takes his hands, much as Thanikos had only moments before. "You will still be you, Pelagos. When you are finally able to let go."
Pelagos leans against his knees, shaking his head. He can feel her assurances, knows that she means what she says. She worries after him, but does believe that he can do this.
However, his memories are not the ones making him shudder, even now.
He is almost afraid to reach out to Liila, worried of what he will feel, what might flash before his mind's eye. However, he pushes that fear down and follows that ethereal connection to her. The terror in her is indeed dying down, though it is still tense. When he tries to sooth her with his own assurances, he cannot feel so much as an acknowledgment.
"Is she okay?" Pelagos asks.
"She will be," Kleia offers. "If you'd like, we can go check on her, though I imagine she's asleep by now."
"You think?" When Kleia nods, he sighs. "Good. That was…"
He has seen snippets of that memory over the last couple weeks, and they have been enough for him to piece together what happened, and what haunts her before he saw the full memory play out.
She tends to awaken from her nightmares before the end, before her friend betrays her, but he has known, and he has done his best to make her feel safe after she wakes up. Thales is considerably more touchy-feely when it come to his assurances, gripping her in bearhugs or slinging an arm over her shoulders as he tells her about his studies in Humility. He never addresses what he sees.
What all three of them see.
Abruptly, Pelagos shoots to his feet. Even as Kleia follows him, surprised, he says, "We should check on Thales."
"I imagine so long as he was awake, it will not have affected him so badly," Kleia says. She motions to herself. "I saw the memory and had to pause what I was doing, but it wasn't so bad until I felt how you were being affected, too."
"Like it was my own memory."
Kleia nods.
After considering it a moment, Pelagos' brow knits together and he nods, mostly to himself. "We should still check on him. If he was sleeping, he might need a friend."
With a smile, and a fondness curling through them both, Kleia motions for Pelagos to lead the way.
Liila sits on one of the mats at Purity, hair spilling wildly over her shoulders as she stares down at her bare feet, shoulders slumped.
Kosmas sits across from her, serene as ever.
"It didn't work," Liila whispers. She goes over the cleansing in her head, trying to figure out where she fucked up.
Because she had to have fucked up.
The other memories have left her. She knows that.
But her first memory, the memory that has haunted her lately, the one that so readily brings other memories from Amaeria's—from her time in Bastion, still sits with her.
That open field, filling with ghouls. Jaserisk refusing to look at her as he leaves her to die. Her tormentor breaking her hand.
We are going to have a grand time, you and I.
As Liila reaches down to rub at her left calf, a phantom pain throbbing in it, Kosmas lightly takes her other hand.
"It is alright. Not all memories are willing to let go so easily," he says, that deep voice of his always catching her off guard, no matter how often she speaks with him.
"We can try again, though?" Liila asks, looking up at him, hopeful.
"We can," he says, but she can sense the 'but' coming before he even says it. There is a careful way that he chooses his words.
When he doesn't say anything else, Liila leans toward him, casting a renew focused on her leg without thinking. "Do you know what I did wrong?"
He blinks, surprised. And then he smiles reassuringly at her. "I wouldn't say you did anything wrong, Maw Walker."
"I didn't do it right, either."
He can't help but laugh at that. "Cleansing memories is not a binary. There are many factors in it, truthfully." He considers it a moment and then rises to his feet, motioning for her to follow him. They step outside, and he goes to the edge of the garden, gathering a few rocks and stacking them in several rows, side by side. He motions. "These are your memories." He takes one and then another off the top of the stacks and tosses them back where he got them. "Those are the ones we've already cleansed." Then he points at one on the bottom of an inner stack. "This is the one we tried to get this last time."
Liila stares at the rocks. "It's…guarded?"
"It's a foundational memory," Kosmas says. "I warned you it would be harder to tackle when we started." When Liila nods, acknowledging that he did in fact warn her, he motions to the rocks again. "So much of what was done to you was because of this, because of the actions in this memory. It bears the weight of all of your time in captivity because it is what led to it."
As he speaks, he taps the other rocks. He picks up a few and tosses them back into the garden, until the rock dubbed her first memory is readily available to be picked up. "It is not impossible to get rid of it, but we will very likely have to knock away some of what rests atop it first."
Liila picks up the rock as though it is the offending memory itself and tosses it away. "So I'll probably keep this one with me the rest of my life."
"You're in a rather unusual situation, you know," Kosmas offers, motioning to her. "You're still alive. You might be able to do something to ease the pain of that memory yourself." When Liila tilts her head, Kosmas looks at her. "Closure. You could talk to the man from it. To that…Jaserisk, was it? Perhaps if he made right some of what went so wrong, it would not hurt as much as it does."
Instantly, Liila looks away.
Kosmas means well, she knows this, but the idea of even breaching the subject with Jaserisk, after what he has done to cover his tracks… She doubts that if she went to him now he would come clean. It is a nice thought, one she has dared to muse over in times past, but one of the many visions N'zoth showed her was what would more likely happen if she tried to reason with him.
And that ends with a death for her and becoming a formal enemy of Silvermoon. It ends with Haa'aji on the run as Lor'themar demands his head, and Chi'rhi and Hezzak and all the others homeless again.
If it were just her, then maybe she might take that risk, show up at Jaserisk's home, demand justice and retribution.
Liila does not know the man he was, back when he was a best friend to Amaeria, but she knows the man he is now. She has done her research, she has heard the rumors, and she knows the truth.
He killed two of his own men who saw them together in that field, all those years ago, just to make sure no one could report him for what he did... Just to make sure he would not suffer formal consequences.
Haa'aji found the details. He found a dead blackmailer who had had the foresight to hide copies of evidence of the murders, and he had brought that evidence to Liila, saying that he knew it all tied back to her. He had wanted to know what had happened, and there had been that lust for vengeance in his eyes like nothing she had ever seen.
So she had made him promise not to act until he had the full story, and after he had sworn to her he would, she had refused to give him the piece he needed to put everything in place.
He had told her once, years later, that he knew enough to figure out what had happened. He had laid out his version of events, and they had been close enough to the truth, with a few minor details still vague, like how he had managed to keep here in the field. Haa'aji had figured Liila had been knocked out rather than pinned in place.
Before she had been able to argue with him that he was off, he had told her that the only reason he didn't end Jaserisk's miserable life is because of her. He couldn't figure out why she was protecting him.
Protecting Jaserisk.
Liila hadn't had an answer. Haa'aji had dropped it, saying only that he liked swinging by and leaving notes for Jaserisk, ones that could be construed one way or another, and watching as the elf panicked with each one, watching as he unraveled so painfully slow.
Liila hadn't known how to take that, but after telling her all of that, Haa'aji had never brought the matter up again.
Regardless, Liila knows that Jaserisk is not stable, and the fear he harbors in him is not founded in a longing for repentance.
If there is any closure to be had, it will not come from Jaserisk Dawningblade.
Kosmas has been watching her this whole time, waiting. When he catches her glance back up at him, he smiles.
"Or perhaps you just need to let yourself properly grieve it?" he suggests then. He reaches out and pats her shoulder. "There are many ways to strip it of its power."
"Yes, well," Liila murmurs. She glances up at Kosmas, but can't hold his gaze for long. "Thank you. For your help." She turns to go back to gather her things and pauses, looking back at him. "I do mean that."
He smiles. "I know, Maw Walker." He rises smoothly. "If you'd like to try again, just let me know. We can attempt to cleanse that memory, or one of the ones that weighs it down." He follows here back to the small building, waiting in the doorway as she gathers her belongings and dons her armor again. "You didn't fail."
Liila doesn't answer, instead tugging her robes over her head and then into place, checking to make sure that they do not bunch up before she pulls on her belt. "Are you coming to Courage?"
"I have some more work to do here, but I will be by later," Kosmas says. "How goes the work on simplifying that purification spell?"
He has offered his own insight into that, by giving them notes on memory cleansing spells that require multiple assists versus ones that can be done with a single person, and her group of healers has been comparing that with their own types of resurrections and mass heals, looking for patterns in the way the spells can be broken down.
Liila wishes they had more mawsworn to test their latest theories on. To see if they can make the process less painful. She thinks Leros might have survived it, if it had not been accompanied by such overwhelming agony.
She can still see the way the helsworn looked at them, the way he smiled through the pain gripping him and whispered his thanks before fading. They had tried to heal him, tried to call him back, but it had not been enough. He had been one of Chyrus' disciples, before falling, and Chyrus had been there with them, attempting to save him, too. In the end, he had told them that at least Leros' mind was his own when passed. The paragon's voice had wavered as he assured them, as though he could not quite bring himself to believe what he was so quick to tell them.
Liila cannot help but wonder if the spell would have been more successful if she had let someone else stand in.
"It goes slowly," Liila says, realizing she has not answered Kosmas. He offers her a sympathetic nod. "I'll see you around."
Kosmas flashes her one of his brilliant smiles and then takes to the air, only to pause and call out to her. "Maw Walker?" When she looks up at him, he motions upward. "Do you think you and a few other mortals might have time to visit with the little ones at some point? I know they would love to see you all." When Liila is surprised, he laughs. "You're their heroes, you know. They like to tell each other the stories of the brave maw walkers who fight through the evil mawsworn and saved them. According to them, you are all both incredibly ferocious to your enemies and incredibly kind to your allies. Sometimes they even act out the battles they saw you wage."
Liila can't help a faint smile. "I can talk to Inaar and the others." Now it's her turn to pause. "Kosmas? What happens to the older souls we bring?"
His smile is back. "Some of them are in Olympic village recovering and preparing to walk the Path. Others help with the children or stay in Elysian Hold."
"I never see any souls in Elysian Hold," Liila says, tilting her head.
"You see very little of the hold, Maw Walker," Kosmas says gently.
"They're doing well?"
"Many are haunted by what has happened," Kosmas says, smile slipping. "We offer them what comforts we can."
Again, she can hear the 'but' that he does not say, and she can guess it. The comforts they can offer do little to help with all that those souls have been through, and she doesn't doubt some of them must suffer survivors' guilt. Knowing that they are safe while others still suffer.
Liila promised Adrestes that she would not return to the Maw, and she meant it, but the more she thinks about it, the more she thinks about the souls still there. She has already talked to Blood about whether he thinks he can juggle two soulkeepers, and he has said he will gladly make an attempt, but it feels so…
She thinks about Shadow and Whisper and King Wrynn.
Little Andy, as Haa'aji had liked to call him.
He is so young to be in the Maw, barely an adult himself.
She should have recognized him when she saw him, but she had been so sure that the little boy from Pandaria was a dragon…
Neglectful isn't the word, but she can't quite put words to the regret she feels when she thinks of those who she cannot reach, cannot help. Thales is always quick to chastise her, while Pelagos and Kleia assure her that she is doing more than enough, more than most, that she does not need to risk her safety so.
It does help the guilt a little, but in the end…
In the end, she tries to think of Adrestes. And Haa'aji and Chi'rhi and Hezzak and all the little ones waiting on her to come back. Adrestes suggested she go back for a little while, that Bastion will still be there when she returns.
But a part of her worries that it won't be. Or that even if it is, the ones she loves won't be. That she will return to find them struck down by the Jailer in her absence.
It is arrogant to think she is so crucial to their survival, and yet she is sure that if she can just keep an eye on them…
She nods to Kosmas and promises that she will be by again, to see the little ones, and with that, they part ways. Kosmas heads to the higher reaches of the temples, and Liila makes her way back to Courage. As soon as she is through the gateway, an arm slings around her shoulders, tugging her off balance and into her assailant. Thales grips her in a tight hug before mussing up her hair and letting her go.
As they head to the temporary gateway set up to take them to their usurped arena, Liila laces her fingers with Thales'. "How is it being back in Courage?"
"It doesn't feel like I'm back at all," Thales says. "Honestly, I don't take any of the paths or routes I took while I was here. And it's so…quiet. You never got to see Courage in its glory, but it was…loud, in a word. Talking, dueling, training, the clash of steel, the thud of weapons against training dummies. There was so much movement. Even if people weren't talking or listening to lectures, there was always so much activity. It was quite the change of pace from Purity. This, though… it doesn't feel like I'm at the temple at all." He squeezes her hand a little, though she's not sure if it's for her or for him. "It will get back to what it was."
Liila twists around so that she can hug him quickly before falling back into walking beside him.
"So you know, it took me eight times to cleanse my worst memory," Thales says. "Eight times before I even got a kyrian form."
Liila's ears perk as she looks at him and then flatten a little. "So you know…which means Pelagos and Kleia know." She sighs. "I have a permanent audience to my failures."
"Not a failure," Thales says. He twirls her around and loops his arm around her shoulders again. "Some memories are harder to let go of. And that one…" When he feels her go rigid, he squeezes her. "Don't worry. We know not to talk about it."
Liila frowns ahead.
The fact that Thales, Kleia, and Pelagos have all seen her first memory, have all seen so many of her worst memories… It is uncomfortable.
"You've seen some of mine," Thales murmurs. "By the Archon, you were there for some of them."
"It's not that I don't trust you, you know," Liila offers, awkwardly.
Thales smiles. "I know. It's…hard. To get to a point where being so open happens naturally. Perhaps it's even a little unfair to you. We've all been here eons. We are familiar with the concept, with all that it entails. People usually develop a deep connection to a person before soulbinding with them, and by then they have already let go of so much and shared so much of what is still there that the other knows most of it anyway. That connection usually takes… well, longer than you've drawn breath." He pauses, considers it. "You've existed for such a short time." Then he grins. "You're the baby of the group."
Even as Liila scoffs, she hears her name and perks up to see Pelagos rushing up to meet them.
"Three out of four memories is a very good record, so you know," he blurts. And then pauses. "And it's really four out of five, considering you passed your first rite."
Thales idly comments that that's true enough. "And anyway, you're not even dead yet, so—"
"That's a good point," Pelagos nods. There is a determination in his eyes. It coils in his chest and spills into Liila without a thought, an assurance that she is not weak for having trouble. It is so deep, so earnest. "Don't be hard on yourself. I know it's frustrating, but you've just started your journey and you'll get there." He gives her a firm nod, and Liila can feel some of her frustration easing up.
She loops arms with each of them then, and lets them lead her to the arena.
In the absence of mawsworn, they have gathered damned near every trinket they can from her fellow maw walkers across all realms—and some that have been hard-won against the mawsworn in Azeroth. Scraps of armor, feathers taken as trophies by some, and even a few mawrats. Shawn brought those from Ardenweald, with a stern look as he whispered, "There's a rumor that these are your doing. That they were gifts for Bwonsamdi that escaped his corner."
Liila had simply leaned back to him and whispered, "Knowing him, he probably let them out."
Shawn hadn't been sure what to make of that, but had said if they found any more mawrats, they would bring them over to Bastion.
Not everything is useful. Some of it is merely tainted with the Maw, and there's not much of a cure for that, but they've found most feathers and some trinkets bear Helya's magic, and so that is what they focus on.
They have also experimented with corrupting more javelins in order to purify them, and Thanikos is gleefully helping out by tossing the javelins around, so that they can practice purifying moving targets.
As it is, there is a great deal of bustle about their little corner of Courage as they set up for the latest experiments.
She and her soulbinds have split ways to help with various preparations—and to catch two loose mawrats—when Xandria appears overhead, in all her glory. Her usual, idle interest in observing their progress is absent however, replaced with a stern solemnity as she calls out, "Thanikos! Report to Wisdom with a call to arms. Gather all you can!" She tosses him a missive that he only glances at before saluting and shifting through the veil. Even as a few of her fellow healers murmur among themselves, Xandria turns her attention on them. "Perpare yourselves mortals. You are going to get a chance to test out that spell of yours. Ardenweald is under attack."
The assault on Ardenweald is so much worse than what happened at Loyalty. The portals are spread across the entire realm, and mawsworn march and fly through the serene thickets, both corrupting with their mere essence and setting them ablaze.
The night fae, for their part, are a tricky adversary, pushing them back just as hard. It is not enough to stop the onslaught, however, and this time, the portals into the realm are guarded well and reinforced.
Thanikos and Voitha lead the kyrian forces in Ardenweald, with Voitha in charge of those taking helsworn prisoners, while Thanikos' forces simply focus on disrupting portals.
The maldraxxi harry the forces on the ground, and the venthyr help to defend key locations.
Even with their support, the realm feels like it is falling to chaos.
However, it is not so far from the sorts of fights Liila has been thrust into before. The Broken Shore, attacks on Orgrimmar, there are too many battles to name.
She falls into a familiar rhythm, letting herself get pulled with the ebb and flow of combat, teaming and splitting up with allies and friends, covering as much ground as they can.
The mawsworn seem more vicious than she remembers, but she dismisses it, assuming they are just unusually unhinged because they are finally free of their eternal prison.
Liila has just accepted orders to head to the next grove when she turns and finds Lady Moonberry hovering behind her.
"Maw Walker!" She calls out, sounding surprisingly chipper despite the events unfolding around them. "I hear you bring gifts!" Before Liila can ask what she means, there is a glint in the faerie's eyes as she says, "A way to bring down all those pesky flyers, yes? Or even turn them to our side?"
"Oh!" Liila pulls out her spellbook and flips to her latest notes before offering it to Lady Moonberry. "It took us a while to learn, and I'm not sure how many people you can spare for this sort of thing, but I suppose even one out of commission would—"
With a giggle, Lady Moonberry shakes her head. "You should have come to us sooner. Curses and cures are our specialty," she chirps, before leaning in, almost conspiratorially, "Thenios actually asked us a bit about unraveling yours, so you know. It's tricky, with how patchwork it is, be we're on it. The key to your freedom is the order in which those runes of yours come off." Even as Liila tries to ask her about it, Lady Moonberry conjures a quill and scribbles a few things in Liila's spellbook before tossing it back to her. "This, though? This is going to be easy peasy!"
Liila barely has time to skim what Lady Moonberry has written before the faerie conjures her own spell, directing it toward a helsworn swooping down toward nearby allies.
The helsworn lets out a screech as the touch of the Maw seems to simply peel off of them, and then plummet into the ground in a hail of sparkles.
"I wonder if this will work on the groundbound ones," Lady Moonberry says aloud before looking at Liila and winking. "One way to find out. Let's even the odds, shall we?"
And with that, they split up, throwing themselves into the fray and spreading word of the modified spell. More than a few of Liila's fellow casters throw things when they realize how it's been adjusted in ways that they should have picked up on.
Liila herself is a little dumbfounded at how easily Lady Moonberry fixed it, herself.
However, she and Topher decide that they will have a grouching fest when this is over, and push any frustrations to the back of their minds. They have more important things to focus on for now.
As Liila takes out two helsworn with her improved purification spell, she barely has time to switch to the offensive and tear into an advancing mawsworn guard with her shadows. As she tries the purification spell on another groundbound mawsworn heading her way, she finds that it does nothing.
It makes sense, as the ones without wings are not receiving Helya's boon, but it is still disappointing.
Especially when Liila notes just how many of the ground forces have gotten between her and her allies. She realizes rather abruptly that they have been steadily drawing her away from the others, isolating her.
They seem to pick up on when she realizes it, too.
She has heard their garbled laughter in Torghast as they torture innocents or pit Maw Stewards against one another, but the sound is so unearthly that it still unsettles her, even now.
She takes down another as it charges her, only to get knocked off her feet by one coming up behind her. She shifts to shadows and tries to get back to her group, but a helsworn drops down, interrupting her connection to the void with the same sort of precision that Thanikos was using on her fellow priests in their duels.
Liila tries to purify the creature, only for chains to grip and bind her arms to her torso.
She struggles against them, and they tighten.
Before she can properly worry, however, a burst of arcane magic explodes one of the creatures advancing on her as something wet hits another. In seconds, it is screaming as half of its body melts away into nothing.
Feet thud into the ground beside her, and Mitchell's hands blaze with arcane light. To his side, Marileth is gleefully using his own magic to twist their enemies into wretched contorted things. When they have space to breathe, they turn to her, helping her out of the chains that she still struggles to break free from.
Marileth helps her to her feet as Mitchell tosses the chains away. "My apprentice! You must be more careful. We ran out of slimes on our way to you."
"To be fair, you probably would have hit her with one," Mitchell mutters.
With an indignant huff, Marileth instead inspects Liila for damage and then nods, giving her a wide grin from under his helm. "Fear not. I have never intentionally hit an apprentice with an experiment not meant for them."
Mitchell lets out a concerned hum, and Marileth laughs. "She volunteered for that one."
Liila tries not to laugh at Mitchell's grimace, recalling that these two are soulbound. She doesn't want to know what it is that Mitchell saw echoing out from Marileth. Thankfully, neither feel the need to share, either.
With a regretful glance toward the mangled helsworn, Liila scans the skies. The helsworn seem to be thinning out—or perhaps that is just wishful thinking. Perhaps they are just avoiding those with the purification spell.
"Come, come, apprentices!" Marileth calls, loping toward a nearby fray. "We mustn't dawdle. There is a battle to be won!"
As they fight their way through the worst of it, letting calls for assistance lead their way, Liila cannot help but notice that the mawsworn seem to be targeting her, prioritizing her over Mitchell and Marileth and anyone else in the vicinity. At first, she dismisses it as them going after her because she is a healer, because she is purifying the helsworn.
However, during a brief moment where she finds her path crossing Veena's and Howl's, the mawsworn seem completely disinterested in Veena, even though she takes a more concrete role of healer, leaving Liila free to fight.
It is unsettling.
And something she knows she can't let get to her because there is too much at stake here. If she lets herself worry, she will not be able to focus on what needs to be done.
They fight on.
And as they go, they begin to hear stories of who is in charge of the current assault. Liila has feared that the Jailer himself might make an appearance, but it seems that—whether he cannot or simply does not want to—he has not come to Ardenweald himself.
Some say Sylvanas herself has made an appearance, though if she is out here, Liila has not crossed paths with her.
She hopes she doesn't, in all honesty. She was there when Sylvanas killed Saurfang, and she knows damned well that she can't take on the Banshee Queen.
And even if she could, Liila is not sure she could steel herself to fight the woman who led the Forsaken, who led the people who took Liila and Haa'aji in so many years ago. She was not always the wicked creature she has become, was she?
There is another rumor, too, that there is a powerful death knight cutting his way through their forces.
That makes Liila's stomach twist into knots.
She is fairly certain that it is not Shadow or Whisper or any of the death knights still lost to the Maw.
However, those who were with her in the assault are hardly the only souls that the Jailer might call upon. After all, considering who all he kept sending back to Azeroth, he knows about their more dangerous enemies. He likely knows the more dangerous ones across all worlds, so who is to say that she will even know the knight leading the assault? Who is to say they are even from Azeroth at all?
Though…
As much as she tries to assure herself or simply tell herself that it doesn't matter unless she crosses paths with them, she cannot help but think of her tormentor. She tries to tell herself that even if he is in the Maw—surely he is—he was enough of a failure that the Jailer would not have made him some critical piece of his army, much less this assault.
She tells herself that she will not turn around and find him standing behind her, that sadistic smile in place as he waits for just the right moment to strike.
Mitchell picks up on her anxiety, darting closer to her and standing back-to-back as they take on the latest waves of adversaries. Marileth joins them, humming thoughtfully, as though in response to something he's thought of.
Liila shudders as she abruptly realizes that many of her memories of her tormentor are not just her own. Mitchell knows him, fought him. Blood was there, as was Howl and Lash and so many others.
How many soulbinds have seen the creature that haunts her? How many know she is terrified now because of what might be coming because her friends can recognize the signs that she is struggling not to panic?
Reassurance hits her like a wave. Her own soulbinds. Thales and Pelagos are still back in Bastion, but Kleia is somewhere here in Ardenweald, though Liila does not know where, thanks to the chaos.
For a second, she sees an image of a tree and a few barricades, like Kleia is trying to relay her own location so that they can meet up.
It looks too much like every other glade in Ardenweald, however, and Liila lets out a soft hiss of frustration.
She has just rejoined with a few other maw walkers, when the latest round of portals crack into existence right on top of them.
She and Mitchell scatter in one direction as Marileth darts the other way just in time to avoid being trampled by a stygian giant that comes barreling through. The creature roars and tosses people about, though the second it sees Liila, it stills.
And tilts its head.
Abruptly, Liila remembers the way the mawsworn had tried to isolate her earlier, and how they all seemed so focused on her the second she showed up anywhere.
And then she remembers something else.
The Jailer wants you.
"Fuck."
The giant lunges at them, ignoring as a worgen warrior tries to taunt it, breaking through chains and roots that try to slow it down.
Liila tries to dodge away, running in a wide arc around the beast. Even so, it keeps her in its sights.
Too late, she realizes that the portal is behind her.
The giant charges her, and before she can dart away, it catches her with a sweeping grasp, gripping her tightly as it flings itself back through the portal and into the Maw.
Liila summons a burst of shadow, slipping into the shadows herself as she escapes the creature's grasp. A few more attacks in quick succession and the giant falls.
However, it only takes a second to see that Liila is no longer in Ardenweald. Jagged rocks and hateful spikes loom over her instead of trees, an the ground is broken and uneven.
She makes a run for the portal, to get back to Ardenweald.
She is close enough to hear the quiet whir of magic, the faint sound of voices on the other end, when it blinks out.
Helsworn descend, the nearest landing almost on top of Liila and knocking her off her feet.
She tenses where she lays and waits until she hears one of them approaching before spinning and casting the purification.
In a burst of sparkles, another of the helsworn falls to his knees, free of Helya's influence and clutching himself, bewildered. Before he can do anything, one of the remaining helsworn severs his head from his body, and he falls limp beside Liila.
As she moves to purify another of them, chains pin her.
Again.
She tries not to struggle, to move subtly to ease out of them, but they tighten anyway.
One of the helsworn grips her by her neck and takes to the air with a harsh flap of their wings.
Liila tries to kick at them, but all her efforts earn her is more of that eerie laughter from the helsworn around her.
They draw her higher and higher into the air, an all too familiar sight looming up and closer with every great flap of their wings.
Torghast.
For a moment, she can feel the despair that runs through this place reaching her, seeping into her. It has happened before. There have been runs through this place that were too much to bear, that resulted with her saving barely any souls before escaping back to Oribos to gather herself enough to come back. In the past, she has never quite known what caused particular trips to the Maw to be worse than others, but it is like that despair wells up, saturates the very air one breathes, and it gets in too deep.
Like N'zoth.
It worms its way in and the damage is there, inside, leaving one shaking and sobbing.
Normally, she does not know what causes it.
This time, however, is different. This time, it is because she knows what awaits her in the world beyond this hell. This time she has a future waiting for her, and it is getting further and further from her reach with every flap of her captor's wings.
She promised, didn't she? She promised that she would never come here again.
I'm sorry, Adrestes.
She feels a desperation curl through her, and she is not sure if it is her own or someone else's, but it is enough to break the hold that despair has upon her. Liila tries to break free, tries to survey their surroundings and see how far the portals are from her now. If she can make them drop her, maybe she can land close enough to get through one and—
One of the helsworn lets out a shriek as a spear slams into them, through them.
In a breath, more spears seem to rain down from every direction. The helsworn strike back, and during the fray, the one carrying Liila lets her go.
She plummets.
Faster than when she comes falling through the stream of souls, faster than any fall she's ever suffered.
This…
This is going to hurt.
But at least, when she dies, she is focused on her shadow spells, so surely she will not turn into a kyrian. Half-nakedness aside, she's fairly certain those great white wings she'll get would be a beacon for the whole damned Maw to target.
She closes her eyes and braces for the impact, hoping this death doesn't undo all the mending Vesiphone has managed over the last month and a half.
The impact comes from an odd angle, snapping Liila sharply as the chains tighten again. Her eyes snap open in time to see Lysonia gripping the chains around her and channeling her anima into them before jerking them apart in a fluid motion.
Liila falls a few more feet before Lysonia catches her again. "Did your Mitchell not warn you not to come here?"
The fact that Lysonia, of all people, is the one chiding her for her return to the Maw, is mind-boggling.
"He did."
"Then you are particularly stupid," Lysonia spits, twisting in the air until they are heading back the way Liila has come, away from Torghast.
"I didn't intend to come here," Liila mutters.
"How does one unintentionally come to the Maw?"
"Stupidly," Liila concedes.
Lysonia snorts. Before Liila can say more, the kyrian begins barking out orders to the mawsworn around them. Most of them are rotting, and even Lysonia's wings look like they are beginning to deteriorate.
"Can you get me back to the portals?"
"They will likely close any we get close to, but we will try to get you to one." Lysonia mutters. "Of all the maw walkers… you know he wants you, yes?"
Liila shudders, for a moment confusing her tormentor with the Jailer. After all, there is usually only one 'he' that she ever thinks of with such venom. "I think that's why they dragged me through."
Another mawsworn flies up, blocking their path. "There's too many at Desmotaeron. We'll be slaughtered."
Lysonia curses under her breath, glaring down at Liila, her gaze just barely visible from the shadows of her helm.
However, before she can say anything, a second mawsworn flies up. "We could take her to Korthia. I bet if anyone can make it through the barrier, it will be her."
Lysonia merely nods and takes off, moving so quickly that Liila has to curl against her to keep her breath. As they go, Liila yells, over the wind, "We have a way to free you all from Helya!"
"What nonsense are you about?"
"Devos helped us," Liila says, and Lysonia stops so quickly that Liila nearly flies out of her grip. She thuds back against her.
"What?"
"Devos and Astronos are free of Helya's influence," Liila says. "If you really want to cut down Helya's forces, I can teach you the spell. It's surprisingly simple—"
"Devos helped? You?"
"She lent us her feathers—it's a whole thing," Liila says. "Those of you fighting Helya's control can be restored—"
"To ascended? White wings and all?"
"To forsworn."
"Good, I will not go back to that broken Path," Lysonia says, beginning to fly again. She curls her arm around Liila so that she can keep her close enough to keep talking. "How fare the others?"
"The forsworn are working on fixing the Path," Liila says, still surprised that Lysonia is treating her almost as an ally. She wonders how much has happened to the Hand of Loyalty while she has been here in the Maw, what she may have learned. Perhaps, it is the same as what happened with Devos. They went to the Maw and understand the errors of their ways or... Perhaps she should just not look a gift horse in the mouth. "Loyalty is—"
A javelin shoots overhead as Lysonia allows her wings to stall just enough to let them drop out of its path.
Liila manages to nail one of their attackers with the purification spell as Lysonia dodges another coming in for close combat. The one Liila purified falls a few yards, leaving behind a trail of sparkles before catching themselves sand shaking off the surprise of the attack.
Though Liila tries to see if they move to help her or the helsworn, she loses sight of them when a spear goes through Lysonia's wing. They fall hard, with Lysonia curling her wings around them to soften their landing.
They tumble, and Liila rolls out of Lysonia's grasp, onto one of her wings. She scrambles to her feet, cringing at the way some of the feathers catch under her boots. She tries not to step on them, but even as she gets her footing on the hard ground, a hand catches her by the back of the neck, and she is again in the air.
Lysonia lays still below them.
As they go higher, Liila can see that the sky is full of angry wings. There are not enough of Lysonia's people to fight this wave back, and there is nowhere for them to run.
They are horribly outnumbered.
As Liila is carted higher still, an idea strikes her. She pulls out her spellbook, half tears and bends a page, and throws it as hard as she can.
It falls down, down, down, and lands on Lysonia's extended wing.
One of the rotting mawsworn has already landed near her to defend her from their attackers.
Liila musters her voice to scream. "Purify them!"
Before she has even finished her warning, chains grip her again, stealing her breath. As she struggles against them, her captor gives her a hard shake. Sharp pain lances through her, and her world goes dark.
I'm sorry, Adrestes.
The words were as clear as if Liila whispered them right into Kleia's ear.
The battle for Ardenweald is over, and they have lost. The Jailer's forces have made off with the realm's sigil.
Now, it is just groups fighting off the remaining pockets of mawsworn, abandoned by their master to the rage of the night fae and their allies.
Kleia soars over each group, each grove, searching for that familiar splash of dark red hair.
She wishes she had that tug that Adrestes' does.
Each group she asks only makes her heart sink further.
Howl crossed paths with Liila, but not recently. She was fine then.
Blood was on the other side of a grotto fighting with her for a while, but they never got close enough to speak. He thinks she was with Mitchell.
Inaar's fur bristles when Kleia asks her if she's seen Liila.
"A giant dragged her back through a portal," the vulpera says, voice devoid of its perpetual cheer. "We tried to follow, but the portal cut out. I know Mitchell was trying to find another one to get through. I don't know if he made it…I haven't seen him since."
Kleia's wings still, and she drops the few feet to the ground, landing awkwardly before she can catch herself. "Back through a portal…?"
"Liila's in the Maw," Inaar whispers.
As soon as the words sink in, Kleia is back in the air, searching the grounds for Mitchell.
Or Liila.
After all, she is resourceful, so perhaps it is not as bad as things seem. Perhaps she made it to another portal herself. She might be in a different part of the realm now.
And when she tries to get a feel for Liila's usual tumble of emotions, she cannot feel anything too desperate. Not since those words…
I'm sorry, Adrestes.
"Kleia!"
She stops short, turning to find Voitha flying to greet her. "You have fast wings. I need you to take a message back to Bastion—"
"I have to find Liila—"
"That can wait," Voitha interrupts, mildly annoyed at being interrupted. "Elysian Hold needs to prepare for prisoners. We have almost forty confirmed and we're still finding more injured Helsworn around the realm. Most are already purified, but we are holding on to a few. Tell Arios that if he wants their memories, he needs to be prepared to move quickly. They are not going to make this easy."
"Liila is missing," Kleia protests.
At that, Voitha's eyes narrow. For a breath, Kleia thinks that the Hand will snap at her with the way her feathers bristle. Instead, she motions to herself and then out. "I will ask the night fae to help find her. We need this message delivered."
Kleia is ready to argue, but stops herself as she considers that if Liila has made it back in Ardenweald, the night fae will find her far faster than she can.
With a quick nod, she steels herself. "Prepare for prisoners and examining memories. Anything else?"
As Voitha dismisses her, and she heads back to Bastion, she hopes that she doesn't run into Adrestes. This is news she does not want to share.
We are going to have a grand time, you and I.
With a shriek, Liila lunges at the owner of the gauntlet that grips her, tackling them to the ground and closing her fingers around their neck. She will not be made into a puppet or a husk or a plaything.
Not again.
Not again.
"Dragonlily, please!"
The voice that reaches her is not that of her tormentor, and it helps to banish the remnants of nightmares and memories that have blurred together.
As Liila fights back her panic, gasping for her breath, she realizes that she is not staring into those hateful glowing eyes at all, but into a pair of very plain blue ones. Blonde hair haphazardly frames a terrified young face that stares up at her, utterly lost.
King Wrynn's hands grip Liila's wrists, not even hard enough to pull them away, almost as though he half wishes she would finish what she has started. She jerks her hands from his neck, where dark bruises are already forming.
Liila darts back, away from the human king.
"I'm sorry. I—"
King Wrynn sits up, rubbing at his neck, and pauses when he feels Liila's healing spells mending the damage she has done. He nods to her, though he still looks wary. "You were somewhere else. I was someone else for you, just then."
"I…yes."
He nods again, sympathetic. "That happens often here." His gaze lowers as he looks down at his own hands. "This place likes to play with memories. Especially the bad ones."
As Liila watches him, she feels a pang of guilt trill through her.
She knows what it is like to be kept somewhere against her will, to be tortured. She has tried not to think of what is being done to those they cannot find here in the Maw, but now, seeing the dark splotches beneath King Wrynn's eyes, she cannot avoid it.
This man has suffered greatly, while she has been off flirting and mending. She thinks of the others out here and shudders before doing her best to shake it off.
"We have to get out of here."
"Easier said than done, I'm afraid."
When she looks back at him, she can see the way defeat is slouching his shoulders, ever so slightly, the way it worries his brow, and makes him seem older than he has to be. She does the math in her head, and cannot come up with a satisfactory age that the human could be that would make this even a little better.
He is too young for a place like this.
And it is wearing on him.
The king looks anything but regal as he sits with her now. He has been stripped of his golden armor, and wears nothing but his under tunic, breeches, and boots that do not look to be his own. They are reminiscent of what the mawsworn wear, and she idly wonders if he got them from one.
Without his armor, the king looks almost willowy, for a human.
Without his armor, it is so much easier for her to see the little human child she carted around Pandaria with Haa'aji.
Before she can stop herself, she reaches out and pats his head.
He gives her a bewildered look as she rises to her feet and takes inventory of their situation. Her belongings are gone as well. Like King Wrynn, she is in her undershirt and trousers, though they were not kind enough to leave her any footwear. The floor is impossibly cold beneath her bare feet, an her hair falls over her shoulders in wild tangles.
There are a few dead mawsworn around them, and Liila can see what she guesses was her cage, before…
She looks back at King Wrynn. "You got me out?"
He gives her a weak smile.
She calls her Light and fortifies him before offering a hand up. "Come on. I know a few tricks for this place."
His smile is pained as he takes her offered hand.
They are both priests, and not the idle group for wandering these halls, but Liila is glad to have someone there with her, regardless. King Wrynn is weak from his time in the Maw, and she finds her own strength sapped as well. Shadows still answer her call with moderate ease, but using the Light is a struggle.
One she avoids as much as possible.
They do what they can to avoid most of the mawsworn they come across, sticking to the shadows and edging by unseen when they can. When they can't, the fights are hard. Liila does not think she has ever been this high into the prison before.
She lets a few souls out of their cages out of habit, but she has no soulkeeper, and no way to tuck them safely away or bring them with her.
And the halls shift so much faster up here that they are constantly split up.
The only person she manages to stay with is King Wrynn, and that is more his doing than hers. His hand constantly finds its way to her elbow or the back of her shirt, drawing her back to him time and time again, keeping her close enough that the changing halls cannot separate them.
She hates that she has left those souls unguarded, prays to whatever is out there that they may find safety, somehow.
That she has not made their suffering worse.
She takes a staff from an enemy at one point, but the damned thing seems to leech her energy itself, and she has to abandon it before long.
As they rest upon a small ledge, just barely tucked away from sight inside the hall, the world beyond them shifts and twists and another part of the tower becomes visible, across a large, empty void of nothing.
King Wrynn bows his head. "You do yourself no favors by pushing yourself so hard."
"There's not really an alternative, is there?" Liila asks. She has to fight back the urge to snap at him that he has given up.
After all, he has been here so much longer than she has. He has suffered in this place, has found that there is no way out, no hope for a true reprieve.
That has been his reality. For months.
She must not let his destitution aggravate her.
If he cannot believe there is a way out, she will have to believe for the both of them.
Because there is.
There are many.
She has found them, time and time again.
And they only have to find one.
So long as they can avoid the Jailer, they will be fine.
And it is with great fortune that they have not crossed paths with the god yet.
Even as Liila wonders if he is already assaulting another realm, she notices movement on one of the floors across the way.
Fighting.
She leans over the edge immediately, only for King Wrynn to grip her arm.
"What are you doing?"
"That's Whisper!" She barely glances at him to see the way his brow furrows before looking up and around. They can hear the halls shifting overhead and around them, ever changing. Liila looks back down and then stands up, holding out her hand to King Wrynn. "Come on."
He takes her hand, skeptically.
"Jump on three."
"I don't—"
"One."
"—think that's a good—"
"Two."
"—idea."
"Three!"
Liila lunges forward. King Wrynn hesitates for a fraction of a second, but he follows her, gripping her hand tightly.
They plummet for a few seconds that could well last an eternity before Liila catches them with a levitate. The walls grind and shift behind them, and when she glances back, the ledge they were on is gone, replaced with a high, impenetrable wall. As she watches, spikes grow out of it and twist, like wretched fingers reaching upward.
A floor snakes beneath them.
Walls are coming up around where Whisper is fighting.
Liila can hear her voice, hear her calling out to Shadow. When he responds, something clenches in her heart.
They're both still alive. And together.
That is more than most can hope for.
Liila breaks the levitate early, pinching King Wrynn to make sure he falls with her the few feet to the floor and runs as fast as she can, reaching that still winding edge as it sweeps forward and then throwing herself down ahead of it.
She hits the wall as it's coming up and pulls herself on top of it, rolling down to the other side. There is a resounding boom as it connects with the floor overhead becoming a ceiling, blocking out the rest of the world.
An axe comes down almost on top of Liila, and she darts back, shifting into shadows. However, even as she attacks the sentry, a wicked looking blade swings into its neck and severs its head. The creature collapses into a heap in front of her, and Shadow tenses, blade at the ready.
They stare at each other for a long, still moment.
And then Liila is caught up in a tight grip.
"You're alive!" Whisper's voice is loud in her ear, those eerie death knight undertones an unfamiliar ring with her words.
Liila twists in her arms and hugs her back. "I've been looking for you!"
"We saw you twice, ages ago," Shadow says, reaching them and hoisting them up into a bear hug. Neither death knight wears their armor, and as they let go, Liila can see the wounds that killed Shadow on display. The worst has dirty wrappings around it, an attempt to keep it from sight. She hesitates when she looks at Whisper, but there are no telling death blows. Death runes have been carved into her, much like all death knights, but they are fairly shallow. Most of scars now, interrupting her white fur with honey colored spots.
No, there is no indication of how Whisper died. Instead, she just feels unsettlingly cold. Her eyes gleam with that unholy light as she hugs Liila again.
"We tried to call out to you, but you were too far off," Shadow continues, looking around and then bracing himself as he hears boots thudding down the hall.
"You were freeing souls," Whisper says softly. "And the first time you were helping some Valkyr out of a cage."
"Kyrian," Liila corrects, wondering which of the handful she's helped escape could have been the one in question. She conjures shadows to her fingertips as she turns with the others toward the approaching sounds.
However, just as she thinks to look to her side and realizes that it is just the three of them, King Wrynn rounds the corner in a sprint. It isn't until he's well in the room with them that he allows himself to slow down, catching his breath. "I almost…didn't make it in." He says, giving her a look that says he is not appreciative of her ditching him.
"Sorry, I…" Liila shakes her head and then looks around. "I've never seen this place so active."
"You haven't been here long, then," King Wrynn mutters, shaking his head.
As Liila considers that venturing into the bowels of this dungeon once or twice a week wouldn't provide the same understanding of its workings as being stuck here for months, Shadow reaches out and pats her head. "What matters is we're together. Now we just have to stay that way."
That is easier said than done.
As they search for an exit, the halls shift constantly. Sometimes the floor shoots upwards, trying to carry one or two of them away. Other times walls simply rise between them. However, they keep on their toes and fling themselves over and off the twisting changes, managing to stick together.
Guards come in waves and try to drag them apart, as well. They fight back the chains, kick and claw and swing and cast at their enemies. It feels impossible, but they succeed.
Shadow and Whisper are constantly looking for signs of others, and are relieved when Liila tells them that, themselves aside, there are only six remaining death knights unaccounted for from their initial assault. She tells them the fates of those she can.
And she tells King Wrynn that Jaina Proudmoore and the other leaders are safe. He is the last of those kidnapped to be trapped in the Maw.
For a moment, she thinks he will cry, but instead he just shakes his head. It is then that he says the oddest thing. "Perhaps we should split up."
It is such an absurd notion—one that they have been actively fighting against—that Liila stops to inspect him, to see if he's hit his head while she wasn't paying attention. The look he gives her then…
Like he wants so desperately to tell her something, but cannot find the words.
Or like he knows the words, but something will not let him say them.
She checks him then, as they go forward, as subtly as she can, for signs of runes like the ones she bears. His arms are bare. Every time he falls and his shirt slides up a little and shows pristine, unmarred skin, she feels a small measure of relief.
His clothes are thin enough that she's sure she would see runes lighting up beneath them, too, but she still looks to Shadow. She taps the exposed scars on her arm and then nods her head toward King Wrynn, an unspoken question between them.
Shadow's eyes widen, and he looks at the human, narrowing his eyes, as though he is searching for something he can see that she cannot.
After a second, he looks back at her and shakes his head.
Liila cannot help the relief that washes through her. When King Wrynn looks at her, she tousles his hair, and he gives her a suspicious look.
She quirks a brow. "What?"
"Whenever you and that troll would do that, it always meant my life was about to get…stranger."
Instantly, Whisper punches Shadow in the shoulder. "I told you he was the little nerd child from Pandaria!" She smiles brightly at him as gives her an incredulous look. "Andy, right?"
"That is what your troll friend would not stop calling me," King Wrynn replies, smile a little strained. He eyes Liila. "It was better than your nickname. 'Small Human Child'."
"Back when we thought you were human," Shadow says, only half paying attention to the conversation.
King Wrynn just stares at them.
"No, apparently he is a human," Liila says, patting his shoulder as they start moving again.
Whisper is just barely ahead of them, peering around a corner. "So it was the other boy who was a dragon?"
"I thought they were both dragons," Shadow says, frowning. He glances back at King Wrynn, notes the way the human pinches the bridge of his nose as though he doesn't know how to respond to any of this.
"I did, too," Liila says. She meets King Wrynn's incredulous look with a shrug. "It makes more sense for two dragon children to be running around than for the Alliance to just randomly let small children roam the wilds."
"I wasn't that small, I wasn't roaming the wilds, and I was very much kidnapped," King Wrynn replies.
"Are you telling me we held the prince of Stormwind hostage for like a month?" Whisper asks, glancing back at the two of them as she adjusts the grip on her two-handed mace.
"I wouldn't call him a hostage," Shadow replied, pausing to behead a guard turning the corner before they could call for help. He glanced around the corner again and then motioned for them to pick up their pace. "Hostage implied we would have hurt him."
"Fair enough," Whisper concedes. "And we did spend like, a ridiculous amount of time trying to figure out how to give him back to the humans." She pauses. "Until we decided he—you," she corrects as she looks at King Wrynn, "were a dragon and figured you didn't need to go to the Alliance at all."
"Yeah," Shadow nods. "Howl said the Alliance had already had some issues with dragons, so we figured keeping you away from them would be better for everybody. Less drama."
Liila cannot help the small U smile that spreads across her lips when King Wrynn looks at her, a familiar light in his eyes, like he is screaming on the inside. "We meant well."
"I know that now," he replies, shaking his head. "At the time, I thought you were attempting some sort of psychological torture."
As Liila snorts at the idea, he abruptly grips her and jerks her to him just as the walls begin to shift around them again. It surprises her how quick his reflexes are. Sometimes, it seems like he knows the changes are coming before they actually start.
It would make her uneasy, except that Whisper and Shadow seem to pick up on when the shifts are about to start, too.
Even as King Wrynn is tugging Liila closer, Shadow is backtracking to them. This shift moves faster than the previous ones, somehow, and Liila panics as she realizes that they are about to lose Shadow.
She starts forward, but King Wrynn's grip on her is a bit too tight, and he doesn't seem willing to move around a lot when these shifts happen. During an earlier one, he whispered about how he saw someone get crushed trying to hop a wall during one of these changes.
As Liila turns to him to tell him they have to move, that they will be okay, Whisper just tosses Liila over one shoulder, hoists King Wrynn up by his waist, and lunges forward catching the newly rising wall and propelling herself over it to rejoin Shadow before they can be split up.
It feels like days pass, though time is impossible to keep track of in the Maw. When they dare break, it is never for long, but they do talk, off and on. Anduin gives them permission to refer to him without his title, seemingly surprised when Shadow respectfully refers to him as King Wrynn during one conversation.
Liila catches them up on the happenings beyond the Maw. She tells them about the fall of Denathrius and the assault on Ardenweald, of the negation of Helya's influence—she promises to teach Anduin that one, once they get out and she can get her spellbook back or just get the notes from someone else. Because it is like this place makes it hard to remember her spells at all, the longer she is here. She has to cast simpler healing spells multiple times to get them to work right, and finds herself slipping on the order of spoken spells more and more often.
It feels like her mind is being whittled away.
When she runs out of news, she falls to her own personal revelations.
She tells them of soulbinds and soulmates, of Adrestes. She tells them of the afterlives she's been to, of the places that have light and life. She clings to those stories herself, reminding herself that not all is lost, even if it feels it sometimes. She reminds herself that she has gotten out of Torghast many, many times and that this time will be no different. She tells herself that she will see Adrestes again, and that her curse will be lifted. She will have a future.
They just have to avoid the Jailer.
Shadow asks her about Ardenweald, again and again, and she does her best to paint the picture, to tell him of the druid's paradise that exists beyond this dark, miserable place, of how she never knew there were so many different shades of green before she went there. Whisper seems to enjoy those stories, too.
Anduin is withdrawn. Sometimes he seems like he wants to ask more about the world beyond the Maw, but most of the time it is as though he has resigned himself to being trapped here forever. Twice, she finds him wandering just a little too far from where they are resting, like he is going to simply walk away and lose himself in those winding, shifting corridors.
She always draws him back, though each time he seems a little more lost.
A little more hopeless.
More than once, he says they should go without him. That he is slowing them down.
It is not true, and even if it were, none of them will entertain that.
And at one point he just shakes his head, tears in his eyes as he stares at the floor between them. "You are good people. I do not—"
He did not finish whatever it is he was going to say.
After what could have been hours or days or months since waking up in Torghast, as they are darting through an empty corridor, Liila catches a glimpse of one of the gateways leading out of Torghast. She nearly chokes King Wrynn with his own shirt by grabbing the back of it as he follows after Whisper.
The gateway is at the end of a long hall that branches off their own, small and narrow and almost missed entirely. Tired as she is—utterly exhausted as the other three must be—they push themselves to run as fast as they can. With each step, Liila holds her breath, expecting the halls to start shifting, for their escape to be swept away from them in the last minute.
Shadow barrels through first, and then Whisper. Liila is about to go when she realizes that Anduin has stopped a few feet behind her. When she looks back at him, he is staring at the exit with an unreadable expression.
Liila turns to him, just enough to keep the gate in her peripheral vision, half worried it might disappear if she looks away. She holds her hand out to him.
"This is really…the way out."
Liila nods. "We'll still be in the Maw, but we can get out of that, too."
"I heard the waystone was destroyed." He takes a step back.
"It's fine," Liila promises. "The mawsworn can make portals to get to other realms. If nothing else, we can commandeer some of their resources." She dares a few steps toward him, taking his hand. "But we can't go anywhere if we stay here."
"You'll get further without me."
"None of that. You'll feel better once we get to Oribos."
She can hear the sounds of the halls shifting in the distance getting closer.
Anduin grimaces, but when she tugs on his hand, he lets her lead him out of Torghast.
"Everything will be fine," Arios says. His words are clipped, arms crossed, feathers ruffed a little, betraying his own doubts.
Adrestes sets his jaw, trying to force some of the tension out of himself.
They are in Elysian Hold, dealing with some of the more troublesome helsworn prisoners. Most of the ones who have been brought back have already had Helya's boon stripped from them. Most of the ones here are ones who surrendered, who wanted to come back to Bastion. They are repentant.
However, there are a few who were captured as they tried to return to the Maw. Thenios and Vesiphone have been prodding their minds, finding out details of Helya's and the Jailer's plans.
There are another dozen who still need to be purified. Some of the ones who have been in the Maw longer than others prove resilient to the purification, though, with the night fae's help, they are working on finding ways around it.
Featherlight, Lady Moonberry's assistant, has been permitted into the hold for now to assist with their adjustments.
It is hard to believe how much easier the spells come now that they have the night fae assisting them.
Though, it is a bit of a fight to get them to adjust the spell so that sparkles don't explode everywhere every time it's cast.
All of this is a victory, and yet it feels hollow.
They have saved so many from Helya's boon, had so many who wanted to come back, and yet the one person Adrestes wanted to return from Ardenweald is missing.
No.
Liila is not missing.
They all know exactly where she is.
The one place she swore she wouldn't go. He can still see her on her knees in front of him, pinkies looped with his, that sincerity in her eyes as she held is gaze and promised him that she would not go back.
Kleia has told him so many times that it was not intentional that he almost dreads seeing her come his way because he knows she will say it again.
He knows this already.
From all accounts, Liila was caught off guard.
She was captured.
It had seemed to have been an actual goal for the mawsworn, with report after report talking about how doggedly they had hounded her above the others.
Mitchell tried to follow her, but his soulbind, Marileth, had knocked him out and taken him back to Maldraxxus to keep him safe. Or just around to fight another day.
Rumors abound that Mitchell has thrown himself into the Maw with a handful of others, bent on restoring the waystone. Others say they were stopped before they could toss themselves into the stream of souls by Tal-Inara, that the attendant had had other ideas, though none of those have reached Bastion as of yet.
It has been days.
Almost a week.
The only solace Adrestes can find is that when he pushes out all other senses, when he struggles for that tug, he can still feel it, ever so faintly. He has gone to hover above the Maw twice, feeling that pull drawing him down, into the swirling maelstrom of corruption.
The first time it was Thanikos who stopped him from following. The second time it was Chyrus.
Kleia can still feel Liia's emotions shift, as can Pelagos and Thales. Her soulbinds all find the time to come to him and tell him she is hanging on. They tell him that faint as their connection is, they can tell that she is still fighting.
That she has hope.
Adrestes wishes he had soulbound with her.
He had considered it, but the Archon had told him no. Soulbinding with aspirants and newly ascended stuns the mortals for hours as they experience that rush of memories from their partner.
Blood bound himself to Teliah, an ascended who has been around for eons longer than any other who soulbound themselves to a mortal, and he was knocked off his feet for half a day.
Adrestes has existed far, far longer than Teliah.
Liila would likely take weeks to recover from binding with him.
He wishes again that he had bound himself to her. If he had, she would have been recovering in some quiet nook in the realm as his life whirred through her head instead of…
The Jailer has to know she's there.
If she's not overly desperate, as her soulbinds insist, then does that mean he has not found her yet?
Or does she just not know that he has found her yet?
Supposedly some of the mortals have attempted to summon her, but summons are still useless when it comes to drawing things from the Maw. They do not have the information that Kel'thuzad has.
That is one of the reasons for keeping a few of the helsworn as helsworn. They had not wanted to risk that the memories of how they are creating portals would be lost in the purification process, as many of those who have survived do seem to have holes in their memories, unexpected ones too.
One was upset when she was telling her guard a story and suddenly couldn't remember the name of someone she had been friends with here in the realm. Another could no longer remember the five main tenets of the realm, could not list the temples.
It is a mess.
Adrestes half thinks that perhaps Helya's hold on them is punishment enough for their betrayal. That there is nothing those of Bastion could inflict on them in retribution that would be worse.
It seems to be a common thought among those who deal with the purified helsworn.
Devos is, at least, hopeful. That any of them have been saved, means much to her. Adrestes keeps her apprised of who is healing well and who seems to have memory problems. He asks her about her own memories, but she always dismisses him, pointing out that she never let Helya into her mind, that it had been her body that had suffered the brunt of the 'boon'.
He cannot help but wonder though.
Not that it is his place to do so.
The Archon will sort that out.
For now, he turns to join Arios in purifying one of the further gone helsworn that has been brought back to Bastion.
As he assists with channeling anima, he is glad that he is only an assist because he does not think he could focus properly otherwise.
As they finish with this helsworn and Kalisthene orders the guards to let them know when the helsworn wakes up to figure out their loyalties, Adrestes closes his eyes and feels for that tug, allowing himself a small bit of relief that it is, again, still there.
Arios puts a hand on his shoulder. "She will be fine. She will come back to us. To you."
This time his words sound more confident.
Never-the-less, it is all Adrestes can do to nod. "Who is next?"
"Tyrande got us out of our cages," Whisper says as she stuffs a tasteless bread roll into her face.
Ve'nari is currently busy looking over a map, discussing how best to get around the current Maw beasts in their path with Shadow. For all her bluster at being a loner, she was quick to offer what little amenities she had to those just escaping the tower.
More than that, Liila's pretty sure that Ve'nari is giving her a discount. Not that she'll say anything, but she thinks the broker is starting to grow fond of her.
After all, when Liila and Anduin came through the gateway to Ve'nari's hideout, they had found her arguing with a panicked Shadow and Whisper who had insisted that the other two were right on their heels. As soon as she had seen the two of them, Ve'nari had darted forward and nearly hugged her. She had caught herself in the last moment, instead telling her that she was making Ve'nari's existence quite difficult.
"There is a bounty on your head, Maw Walker. It puts the rest of us in danger, just being near you."
However, rather than insist Liila go, she had then told her she had a few blankets if they needed to rest. It was easily the warmest welcome that Ve'nari had ever given her.
Now, Ve'nari is helping them find their way to Korthia. She has insisted she has her own interest in the area, but has been quite the guide in the meantime, telling them of Korthia's importance and history.
Liila is sporting a ragged robe from a mawsworn caster, with some of it wrapped up to make a hood. Her ears and hair are tucked carefully inside so that even if mawsworn do see her, they will not know she is the Maw Walker. Anduin is likewise wrapped in swaths of dark cloth. Whisper and Shadow have been outfitted with a hodgepodge of armor that Ve'nari had available, and they feel almost like a proper adventuring group.
As Ve'nari and Shadow duck down to watch a few helsworn fly overhead, Liila glances at Anduin. "Is that how you got free? Tyrande let you out?"
Anduin's gaze drops as he mumbles. "I was let out."
"Tyrande is fucking scary," Whisper says, shaking her head. "The only reason she didn't straight up skewer us is because she knew Impervious wasn't involved in the burning of Teldrassil. That's not to say she likes us, but… She knows that some of us got in trouble for refusing to even go to Darkshore." She pauses and motions to Liila. "She knows you came with a warning that Darnasus was going to be occupied."
"I came two days too late," Liila mutters, bitterly. When she notices Anduin's curiosity, she slouches. "Many of us were concerned about a few of the artifacts we had used to fight the Burning Legion with. I was told by some of Sylvanas' dark rangers that we were going to store the more dangerous ones somewhere safe. Seal them away. I brought Xal'atath, Blade of the Black Empire—it had already corrupted its user after there was no longer a great evil to fight."
It had been quite the scene, with the shadow priest falling to the blade's whispers and trying to cut down half of those in the Order Hall. She had felt guilty that she had been relieved that she had never carried the blade for more than a few hours. After all, if she hadn't been struck with her guilt over Sham and Gore's deaths, she probably would have ended up the one using that weapon, instead of procuring T'uure.
"When I got there, they told me that because of my connections to the Alliance, because of my familiarity with neutral factions that led me to working well with Alliance people, I would be a good candidate to help lead the occupation's forces. People would trust me and I'd be able to lead a group into the city."
"But you didn't," Anduin murmurs.
"I told them it was stupid," Liila says. "We had a real chance for peace." She stares at the ground. "I realized they weren't going to let me go, knowing what they had planned. What Sylvanas had planned. They tried to get Xal'atath from me, but I used my shadows to send it away, anywhere to keep it from their hands. And then I found out that the chamber they'd brought me to was never meant to contain that weapon."
"It was made for you," Anduin guesses.
Liila remembers the way she'd realized how the walls were etched with magic dampening runes, how there had been markings on the door that, when closed, would activate the very seal she had been impressed by, thinking surely the black blade's influence would take centuries to worm through, assuming it was not upkept.
How she had realized it was going to take her centuries to work through those seals.
And how she would beginning cyclical deaths to suffocation well before she made any progress.
Liila nods. "By the time Millie and Haa'aji found me and freed me, my warnings were too late."
"You were trying to do good," Anduin says. "Sometimes trying is all we can do."
Whisper shakes her head slowly. "You are so young to be so depressed."
"I'm nineteen," Anduin replies, annoyed.
"Shadow and I are in our thirties," Whisper shrugs and motions to Liila. "She's like a hundred."
"Ninety-seven," Liila corrects. "Ve'nari is ageless."
"Is that why you all keep patting my head and acting like I'm still a child?"
"Also we remember when you were a child," Whisper says. "You were so tiny. You were this tiny little stick creature." She holds her hand up, barely above the ground.
Anduin smiles faintly as he shakes his head, disbelieving.
Liila catches his gaze and raises her brow. "Would you like us to stop patting your head?"
"I am a king," Anduin points out.
"A tiny king," Whisper retorts.
"I'm taller than Mekkatorque."
All three of them laugh at that, only to be hastily shushed by an agitated Ve'nari. "Maw Walker, you are causing me enough trouble as it is." She grumbles under her breath before finally pointing the way forward. "Come. I should be able to cloak us for a ways so long as you stay close."
They do not stop again until they have made it past the Jailer's forces and set foot on Korthian soil.
It is apparent the second it happens. There is a shift, a feeling like that melancholic air cannot quite reach them. They are still in the Maw, overall, but Korthia clings to its independence, and that defiance to succumb to the Jailer's whim is a balm against their nerves.
All of them let out breaths they didn't realize they were holding.
Especially when they look back—still cloaked—and see that the Jailer's forces are struggling to penetrate even a few inches into the realm.
They make it far enough down the road they have found that they cannot be seen by the mawsworn, tuck themselves behind an outcrop of rock, and rest.
"There will be a waystone somewhere in this realm," Ve'nari announces. "If you activate it like you did the last one, then the way will be open and the Maw will be breach-able again."
Liila drops down to rest her back against the stone, head tilted back and legs stretched out in front of her. Whisper moves a few feet further and drops down face first. "Grass!"
Shadow moves with her, sitting beside her, though he is careful not to touch the vegetation. After all, as death knights, their mere presence will wither it. Liila chooses not to interrupt Whisper's reveling.
She has asked once about what made Whisper give up her shamanistic ties to answer the Lich King's call, but her friend had simply brushed it aside, much as she had the first time.
A part of Liila wants to ask if Whisper regrets it, regrets stopping her own heart—she has pieced together that Whisper was simply killed by the lich king's necrotic magics rather than falling to any blade or poison.
Anduin sits closer to the road, and he cautiously peers around the corner. When he looks back, Liila catches his gaze with a lift of her chin. "You don't want to go touch grass?"
"As tempting as that is, we really should get moving," he says, though he does not get up. "The Jailer's forces will not take much longer to get into this realm. After all, it is in theirs, and no matter how strong a place this was, it will have to bend to the master of the Maw's will in the end."
"The Jailer," Liila says.
Anduin shudders.
"What does he even want?"
"I heard talk," Anduin begins, cautiously, "that there is some sort of key here that he wants."
"Key?" Liila repeats. She thinks back to Roberts' report on the Archon protecting a key, and then of Lady Moonberry explaining that the Winter Queen's sigil was the target of the raid on Ardenweald. That the sigil was a key of sorts. The way Lady Moonberry explained it, Liila had rather assumed that there were only five keys, that each of the Eternal Ones guarded one. She taps her fingertips against her thumb as she counts them in her head.
The Archon, The Winter Queen, The Arbiter, Denathrius, and the missing Primus make five.
"Is there an Eternal One in charge of Korthia?"
"No," Ve'nari and Anduin say in unison.
Liila looks from one to the other. And then she sighs. "Well, I guess that sort of explains what he wants… but I wonder what he wants the keys for."
"To reshape reality," Anduin says. He looks down at his feet. "He does not like the system in place now."
"Being in charge of the Maw?"
"All of it," Anduin murmurs. Then, abruptly he shivers. "I have heard whispers—"
"Is it so bad?" Shadow asks, and Liila realizes that he is talking to her.
She hesitates at that, and then shrugs. "Well, the Arbiter decides where all souls go. The afterlives I've seen…I don't know that I like them all, but they make a sort of sense." Even as she talks, she thinks of the forsworn fighting to keep their memories. If she could change reality, would she make it so that they could keep their past?
Would she even need to, considering the talks that are going on now?
Pelagos keeps saying that he thinks no one should go to the Maw, that every soul should be allowed that second chance, but Liila cannot help but think about different people, different souls that she would not be able to bear seeing redeemed.
Perhaps it is her own mortal biases at play—no. She knows it is her own mortal biases at play. The things that the ascended work so hard to discard so that they may be impartial.
Perhaps, if she could extricate herself from her own past, she would be able to find some glimmer of good in her tormentor, some reason that he be offered a chance to redeem himself, become something more than the wretched monster she knows so intimately well.
The mere idea makes her skin crawl.
And she wonders what would happen to the souls in Revendreth that refused to repent. If there was no Maw, where would they go? Would they just be unmade? That would likely be kinder than this place.
"Remaking reality is a bit above my paygrade," Liila says in an exhale, finally. "But I do know that some of the realms are changing, in large part because of things the Jailer has set in motion. Bastion is changing."
"The place you're destined to go to," Whisper says, recalling their conversations. When Liila nods, Whisper sighs. "I hope we can see it."
It is then that Liila realizes that, with all her stories, all her assurances, not a single one of her companions has actually voiced anything indicating they think—or thought—they would ever actually step foot outside of the Maw.
Until now.
"You will," Liila assures her. She pauses then, calling a mixture of Light and anima to her and pushing it out to seep into those around her, to sooth them. Shadow and Whisper shudder against the Light's touch, but it does invigorate them. Ve'nari gives her a soft nod before rising to her feet.
But Anduin.
It is like life has breathed into him. It is just for a second, but his eyes go wide and he looks at Liila with an almost mystified expression.
As they rise up, dusting themselves off, he steps closer to her. "I thought you were a shadow priest."
"I heal sometimes," Liila says, lightly thwacking his arm.
"I'd heard about what you did. The Light you called," Anduin says. "But I didn't believe it."
"It only lasted a few seconds."
"A few seconds is all it takes," Anduin whispers. "I wonder what you would be capable of if you weren't cursed… I wonder if he'd known, if he would have wanted you instead…"
The comment throws her for a moment. She doesn't know what to think of that. He has seen the marred runes along her arm, he has heard the stories of the Dragonlily, no doubt, but the way he speaks now…his tone. It is like he is speaking from a knowledge of her curse that is deeper than it should be.
She shakes it off, reminding herself that the Maw is good at making people paranoid. Playfully, Liila nudges him and gives him a wink. "Your Light was brighter. And at nineteen, too. It's going to be fun to see what you're capable of when you grow into your magic fully."
Anduin shakes his head. "I don't…I don't think…"
"You stopped the Jailer." Liila points out. "You helped me escape this place once, and everything I've been able to do is thanks to you." She nods to him more firmly when he looks up at her, a bit lost. "You'll see. Once you get out of here, and the Maw loses its hold on you. You're going to be alright."
When he doesn't respond, Liila stops, brow furrowing as she looks at him more carefully.
Anduin stands still as death for an impossibly long moment before he abruptly shakes his head. "We should move."
Liila matches his pace as Shadow hauls Whisper to her feet. Ve'nari takes the lead, darting a bit faster occasionally as though she sees some sign or hint that they are going the right way.
It takes mere hours to find their way to Tal-Galan and the waystone, but those hours almost feel longer than the entirety of her time trapped in Torghast.
When they are finally standing before the waystone, it almost doesn't seem real. Liila touches it as she did the first one, and it lights up in response. It charges faster, and with each rune and crevice filled with light, Liila feels her relief grow.
They will be out of here.
They will be free.
She has slipped through the Jailer's fingers, and she will go back to Adrestes and make her vow anew and this time she will keep it. She will not return tot his place.
Though…
A small part of her considers that the way people had spoken, she'd rather thought she would have the Jailer himself showing up to see to her torment, when instead, her travels through his realm have been about as painful as usual.
Torghast was more of a nightmare, but once they escaped, things have been going their way, and Ve'nari has helped them avoid almost all fighting.
Perhaps that is why they have made it so far without the god's wrath coming down on them.
Or perhaps the rumors that he was hellbent on her demise were wrong.
It is something to ponder, once they are free of this place.
The way to Oribos opens, and Liila steps back, staring into that brilliant, swirling light.
Then she looks to the others, a smile in place, even as Ve'nari starts to step back, as though she might get dragged back to the Eternal City unintentionally somehow.
"Let's get out—"
A helsworn crashes into the earth just behind her, sending her and Anduin both flying.
Others descend.
Liila and Anduin fight back-to-back, conjuring light and shadow, while Shadow and Whisper try to be everywhere around them at once. Ve'nari helps out where she can, slicing wings and leaving the helsworn groundbound. Tal-Galan is not a fighter, but even he does what he can to assist, though mostly that entails just staying out of the way.
Liila tries to remember the purification spell, but it is still beyond her, even outside of Torghast. It takes three tries before she gives up. Her time in the Maw has muddied her memories, and she curses quietly as she switches to just fending off attacks.
As they fight, more forces join the fray.
And then more.
And then there are sparkles.
Liila is knocked off her feet again as one crashes down behind her.
Before she can even roll away from whatever attack may come next, Shadow lunges over her, swinging hard. His blade catches in the helsworn's armor, narrowly severing a few pitch-black feathers—
"Wait!" Liila cries out, even as more land around them. "Wait, they're forsworn, not—" She tenses, turning quickly to see the darkly clad giants surrounding them who remain standing, weapons ready. None of them bear the marks of Helya's boon or curse. There are no sickly translucent feathers, no rotting flesh.
Lysonia lands between the others and Liila, polearm in hand.
"Perfect timing," Liila murmurs, straightening up a little when Lysonia tosses her spellbook to her, almost flippantly. Whisper eases over to her side, weapon still at the ready as she appraises the forsworn around them.
"These are good guys?"
"Depends who you ask," Liila says, and then shrugs when Lysonia scowls.
"I'm surprised you made it out of Torghast, Maw Walker," Lysonia says, abruptly easing her grip on her polearm. She lets it rest against her shoulder, wings tucked against her back. "We tried to get to you earlier. Lakesis and Atticus located you a few times, but the Jailer's pet was your shadow and kept them at bay every time they tried to swoop down and get you from him."
"What are you talking about?" Liila asks, shaking her head. For a moment, she wonders if this place has messed with her memories more than she realized, if she has been forced to forget crucial moments from within the prison tower. She tries to think of when she might have been trapped or cornered by any high ranking mawsworn in Torghast.
And then she realizes rather abruptly, that she never was.
Despite the forces that came for them and the way the tower shifted, they had never had the misfortune of crossing paths with anyone high ranking.
Their enemies had all been foot soldiers and minions.
Liila shifts, uncomfortably. The way things were changing, she's certain nothing could have trailed them. Or shadowed them, as Lysonia said.
She feels like there is something there, something she should see, should know, but cannot.
"Where is Anduin?" Whisper asks, standing a little taller and looking around, stretching up to see between the giants that surround them now.
As Liila turns to look for him herself, murmuring that he was right behind her, one of the other forsworn says, "If you speak of Anduin Wrynn, it is good that he is not here. He belongs to the Jailer."
"As I said," Lysonia says, voice dry, "his pet."
Liila turns in a full circle again.
Anduin is gone.
Her heart feels like it may stop.
She thinks of every hesitation, every time he told them to split up or leave him behind. She thinks of how he kept her closer to him than the others despite that. Of how he always seemed so reserved.
Like there were things he wanted to say that he could not.
She had worried about it briefly, but he had borne no signs of curses or claims…no evidence that he was a thrall…
As Liila searches their surroundings, her gaze lands on the waystone, and her world grinds to a halt.
"Shit."
She's not sure who says it, if it is Shadow or Whisper or Lysonia or even if the word escapes her own lips.
Liila darts to the waystone and touches it, lets the light envelop her and drag her up and away.
When she manifests on the platform in Oribos, she is already running, scanning her surroundings.
The guards stand in their usual places, and the people who mill through the area seem largely unconcerned. That slows her steps.
She stops in front of one of the guards, ignoring their welcome back to the city and when they say how relieved they are that she has defied the Jailer's will again. "Did someone just come from the Maw before me? A blonde human man?"
"Ah, yes," the guard nods. "He said you and a few others would be coming—"
"Where did he go?"
"He did not say. New arrivals usually go to the inn to rest."
If Anduin is really the Jailer's puppet, then Liila doubts he's headed to rest.
He's probably going to one of the realms, but which one?
Which of the sigils does the Jailer still need?
Liila starts toward the one of the gateways leading to the upper platform, thinking she will ask the pathfinder where he headed, but—and she cannot be sure what—something stops her.
She looks to the side in time to see, across the forums, a portal glimmering.
She recognizes the image it reflects well, and starts for it, dodging a vorkai who tells her he is glad to see her back. The portal is just beginning to fade when she throws herself through it.
Elysian Hold is in chaos.
Chains, thick and dark, grip wings, holding them taunt against the ground. The few who are free are fending off shades that lash out with massive claws and screech to stun their opponents.
Bright and beautiful as this place is, it is like it has been twisted into some bastardized mirror of the Maw.
Liila runs up the steps when she sees a familiar figure, stopping beside Carroll just long enough to envelop him in healing magic. "Are you al—"
"My king," Carroll says, voice trembling. His legs are shaky as he tries to rise to his feet, only to fall back to one knee. "My king is…"
Before he can finish speaking, there is an earsplitting sound. It is like a shriek or the wailing of winds, like the sound the earth and air would make when wounded, were it capable.
Bastion itself trembles. The air, the stone beneath their feet. In the distance, a platform falls from the sky, plummeting into the emptiness below. Dark magic, Maw magic eats at the vespers and the billowing drapes. Plants wither and rot.
It all happens in a blink, as though the realm itself is what let out that cry, as though the realm itself is what has just been wounded.
Liila charges up the stairs taking them two and three at a time.
When she reaches the top, the sight she sees makes her blood run cold.
The Archon is on the ground.
Most of the paragons are around her, anima flowing as they cast spell after spell to mend her. Xandria is in the air just above a massive bell that has been thrown into the floor of the Rise, cracks emanating from its impact like tendrils of a spider's web. She is yelling for people to secure the commons.
Again, Liila is not sure what draws her attention to the side, but she sees a figure dart behind one of the large pillars on the Rise and without thinking she makes chase.
As she darts around the pillar, she comes face to face with Anduin.
Except it is not the young man that she has spent the last several days traveling with anymore. He is adorned in dark armor, the luminous yellows of his hair faded, a glowing light in his eyes and an expression that she has seen once before, when she dared to look over her shoulder as she first escaped the Maw.
The Jailer smiles at her, using Anduin's lips.
"Let him go," Liila whispers, tensing. As she tries to call her magic, nothing comes.
Instead, her curse's runes light up all over her body. Even the ones that should be negated blaze to life.
It does not hurt as it should, but that makes it all the more terrifying as she stands there, frozen.
"You sound like my sister," he says quietly, glancing over his shoulder in the direction of where the Archon still lies. From where Liila stands, she can see a few feathers and Chyrus' back, but nothing else. She tries to yell, to call for Xandria, but her voice will not come.
The Jailer nods Anduin's head thoughtfully, letting his gaze drop a moment before he looks back at Liila. "I must admit, for a while I underestimated you. Sylvanas warned me that you and your friends—your guild have a way of making the unexpected happen. But I dismissed it at the time."
Liila tries again to conjure her magic. The Light will not come because of course it will not come. It has always abandoned her in her times of need.
Shadows flicker faintly at her fingertips, but she cannot get a firm hold on them, cannot use them.
"For a moment there, I thought you might actually be a problem," he continues, leaning in so that he can drop his voice further as more shouts sound out around them. "But then, you're a good soul, and in the end, good souls are so painfully predictable."
With a strangled cry, Liila manages to jerk back a step, pulling her hands in front of her, as much as it hurts.
"Such a helpful little creature," he says, motioning around them and then to Anduin. "You know, when I showed up, they didn't even try to stop me as I came up here? They were so used to you bringing in all your strays—all your little friends I let you take with you—that I just had to say you would be following me shortly, and they just smiled and stepped aside. Gave me directions. As though I needed them."
Liila tries to call out. Her throat is frozen. She can barely breathe.
As she looks, she sees a few ascended in the air nearby, heading toward the Rise. They are all too busy with the shades and chains and Archon to notice two figures talking quietly.
She tries to move to catch their attention.
There has to be something she can do.
Something, anything.
That is when she sees Kleia on the far side of the commons, having just arrived in the Hold.
She reaches out through their connection, struggling to show Kleia where she is. What she sees.
Kleia glances around for a second and then toward them.
Instantly, she is heading their way.
Anduin's brow arches as he looks Liila over, unconcerned that they might be seen, not realizing that they have been.
Perhaps if she can keep him distracted long enough, Kleia can alert Xandria and—
"I've thought about what I was going to when I got ahold of you," He arches is brow, frowning a little as though he's considering it even now. "And the boy king, well, he feels very strongly about your fate."
Kleia can see that Liila is with someone, she's shouting out for help.
"So after some debate, I've decided to free you, Amaeria Lightswill." He pauses, shrugs. "Or is it Liila Dragonlily? Maw Walker?" That title seems to amuse him. "Whatever you're called these days."
The runes on Liila's body feel brittle.
"Don't worry, this will be quick. You've earned that much." He reaches out and lightly pats her cheeks. "But first, let's have some privacy, yes?"
"I missed him," Xandria hisses as she moves the large vesper lying broken on the Rise, swearing under her breath because there is no crushed body beneath it. She scans the area, searching for signs of the small, darkly clad mortal puppet.
Adrestes barely hears her. Instead, he takes to the air, high enough that he can see the stairs leading up to the Rise as well as the commons beyond. The shades are falling quick enough, and most of the chains have been broken.
However, none of that is what he's after.
Adrestes felt her.
Liila.
She's here.
Or at least…she was.
There is a pit in his stomach as he realizes he can't feel her now.
It reminds him of before. Of when the souls were being taken from Bastion.
Of how he hadn't even realized she was gone until he couldn't find her.
She was here, wasn't she?
It had been for just a second, but he is sure—
The platform beneath them, the Rise itself, groans as though it may collapse, cracks extending toward the stairs leading down, and that draws his attention away from the commons, back to the Archon.
She is saying something about Thenios checking on their prisoners to make sure that the containments have not faltered. He dares to protest but once before the air feels tight around them, and he ascends into the Spires to assess the damage.
The Archon is kneeling now, behind Adrestes, as Chyrus and Vesiphone pour their anima into her, attempting to heal the wound caused by the Jailer's pawn.
Adrestes is ashamed, for he felt the wrongness curling in that creature. A few months ago, he would have cast it out of the realm without a second thought, but after the way the maw walkers come and go, and the way the longer a mortal has been in the Maw, the more entrenched they are in that sickening aura, he had thought…
The Archon had not been fooled for a second. Adrestes thinks she must have known the instant the creature showed up in the realm, for she descended to the Rise with speed he had never seen, brimming with divine fury.
Her hair and garb had billowed around her with white hot rage as she pointed her spear at the mortal.
"You will release this soul at once."
The laugh that had come from the small creature had not been his own.
The voice had not been his own.
The Archon had tried to force the Jailer from the mortal, had tried to cast him out.
And she had failed.
She had taken on a mere shadow of her brother, in her own realm, and she had not been strong enough to push him back.
Perhaps, if she had not tried to save the mortal, if she had just struck the creature down instead…
"Enough," the Archon snaps, staggering to her feet, hand over her shoulder where Adrestes can see dark lines running from beneath it.
He had never expected to see the day the Archon might be injured, never imagined it possible, and yet…
Anything is possible, it seems.
She stands a little taller, though she winces when she tries to unfurl her wings and take to the air. Moving them jostles her shoulder too much. A vesper falls from the air, narrowly missing the edge of the Rise.
That gentle breeze that is ever present in the realm is gone, and the air feels stagnant, suffocating. Adrestes has to beat his wings harder to stay in the air.
The Archon struggles to keep both herself and the realm together.
Another platform not far from the Rise abruptly gives out and falls, in pieces, into the emptiness below. Those on it take to the air quickly, grabbing up the injured and making for the main part of the Hold.
How far did the Jailer's chains reach? How had he been able to conjure so much…
What of the wards?
It is horrifying to realize just how precarious their situation is.
Without thinking, Adrestes channels his own anima to the Archon as the three paragons do the same. Others near enough, healthy enough, do the same.
As they channel their essence, Adrestes feels an abrupt shift in the very air around them, as though some great pressure has lifted.
Bastion feels like Bastion again.
Somehow, he is sure that it is not their ministrations to their god that has accomplished this.
It feels like something impossibly ancient and powerful has left rather than been restored.
Worse, there is an oddly empty sensation, like some piece of the realm has disappeared with it. Like some of its power has simply ceased to be.
But at least the heaviness in the air is lifted, and the light shines down in all its glory.
Xandria is the first to stop channeling her anima, turning to Hermestes as they draw close to report. They are tense as they speak. "We cannot find—"
"Search harder!" Xandria demands.
"Don't bother," the Archon interrupts. Her voice is weaker, but it still rings out enough to interrupt Xandria's rage. She calls for them to stop healing her again and takes to the air, this time managing to stay aloft. "He is gone. And so is the sigil."
None of them respond.
None know what to say.
All of the paragons were present when the attack happened. Chains had bound them quickly, massive twists of metal that had hung on their necks and wings, dragging them down hard enough and fast enough that there were cracks left in the Rise where they were standing.
Xandria had broken free first. After repelling her and shattering her trident like it was nothing, she had gone for one of the nearby vespers and tried to crush the Jailer's mortal shell. By the time she got back, the others had broken free, but it had been too late to stop the Jailer from claiming what he sought.
They have fought the Jailer so hard these last few months, and the monster has been steps ahead of them every single time. They might as well be insects to him for all their efforts.
As Adrestes struggles with the fact that once again he has failed to protect his realm—failed to protect his god—he feels that familiar tug.
It is faint, but it is there.
Relief washes through him, and he instinctively looks in the direction it draws him to.
He almost misses Carroll as his gaze sweeps toward that invisible pull, but he stops short when he realizes that the mage is sitting in a crumpled heap at the top of the stairs, next to the fallen figure of an ascended. The mage calls for help and Adrestes moves to him, though he freezes when he realizes that the kyrian whose head is cradled in Carroll's arms is Kleia.
Her body is limp, her wings twisted, broken. She looks as though she was struck out of the air.
Carroll's brow furrows as he looks up at Adresetes. "She's still alive, but I don't know for—"
Adrestes yells for assistance, his voice rolling over the commons. Cromas reaches them first, weaving anima into Kleia. For a moment, nothing happens, and Adrestes fears the worst.
Then, abruptly, she lets out a sharp cry as she comes to and tries to move one of her broken wings.
Cromas calms her as she tries again to draw her wings to herself. He motions Adrestes closer and tells Kleia that this will hurt, but she will be fine. One of the wings merely has a dislocated joint, and Adrestes helps him set it. As Cromas moves to look at the more damaged wing, Kleia grips Adrestes' arm and points as best she can.
"Liila is—" she lets out a yelp as Cromas shifts her wing. "I cannot feel her anymore."
Kleia points toward where that draw calls to him, and Adrestes shoots back into the air and follows it, that pit opening in his core as that pull wavers for a second, like a thread held too tight that has been plucked hard enough to fray.
He almost flies right past her, for that pull feels like she should be so much further from him than she is.
If he had a heart, he is sure it would stop when he sees her.
A small figure, wrapped in dark clothes lays on the ground near one of the pillars on the corner of the Rise. It only takes him a second to reach her, but as he comes closer and calls out her name, he feels an all too familiar chime silently sound off.
That soundless pulse of magic that comes whenever her curse is bringing her back to life.
Even as he tells himself that Vesiphone has stated that another death or two will no longer be the end of his soulmate, one of the runes on her arm lights up so brilliantly that he can see it through her dark sleeve. It pulses once and then the light simply disperses. She lets out a faint cry as her body contorts with pain in time with the dispersal.
He feels his connection to her, that ever-present tug, waver again.
He feels it thin.
Adrestes calls for help.
Alighting next to her, he drops to his knees and reaches for her, thinking to fly her to Vesiphone or Chyrus or—
When he touches her, however, the electricity that always thrums between them feels faint, and he stills.
Her eyelids flutter open at his touch, and he pales when he sees how dim her eyes are. That usual bright blue light is all but gone.
"He's…here…" The words are faint, and her lips barely move. Her hand drags against the ground as she tries to motion.
It only takes him a moment to figure out who she's trying to warn him about.
He catches her hand, dwarfing it in his own as his fingers curl around her. "No, he's not. He's gone now."
Her lips move, but no sound comes. She seems to realize this, because her brow pinches, and she starts to try again when another of those hateful runes chimes.
It is as though something tears inside of her. She writhes, eyes going wide, back arching. He can feel the rune more than see it, as it swells with magic, catching on whatever it can, catching on her.
When it pulses and disperses, he feels it take part of her with it.
Her body shudders.
Their connection wavers. The thrum is fainter.
She whimpers.
Her heart thumps hectically and her breathing hitches.
And then he realizes what is actually happening.
Her curse is not bringing her back from a death.
It is unraveling.
And it is taking her with it.
Another chime. Another snap. Another convulsion.
It is breaking apart the pieces of her that Vesiphone has been working so hard to restore, the pieces that are not yet strong enough to endure, should the curse be removed. Thenios said it would be months before she would be ready for this.
He yells for help again, his voice sounding high and foreign in his own ears as desperation colors it. He scoops her up into the crook of his arm. "You're going to be fine."
The words come out harsh, like a barked order rather than a reassurance.
Her lips twitch into an attempted smile that is banished as another chime tolls out, heralding the dispersion of another rune. She nearly twists out of his arms, but he holds her tightly to him. "I—"
"Don't talk."
Tears bead her lashes and begin to fall from the corners of her eyes. The next chime comes faster.
Cromas is there, channeling anima and calling for the paragons.
Two more runes disperse in rapid succession.
How many are left?
The one on her cheek is gone. He cannot see the rest.
If she was here, why didn't he feel her? How did she disappear—
He thinks of that oppressive, ancient aura, and how it was after that was gone that he could feel her. He wonders if it affected others as it did him, or if the Jailer was just making sure that no one could come to Liila's aid in time.
She reaches up to brush her hand against his, her gaze unfocused as she whispers. "I'm glad…" her lips quiver as she struggles to find her voice. "I'm glad…I got…to know you."
Another chime, another rune, another shudder. This time it is weaker than before.
"Save your strength," he murmurs, brushing an awkward kiss to her forehead. "We'll have time to talk later."
Because they will.
Even if she dies now, it will be fine, because this is Bastion.
Of all the places for a mortal to die, Bastion has to be the best one, considering who populates it.
He is an ascended, a bearer of souls. Even if her death is painful, he will be there to catch her, to help keep her together. She is already in the afterlife she has been deemed worthy of, so he will not even need to ferry her anywhere other than a cool nest of blankets.
It is as Arios said.
Everything will be fine.
He whirls to find Vesiphone alighting beside him.
He holds Liila out as best he can, without risking dropping her should she have another convulsion. "Something triggered her curse and…" He barely hears himself as he rambles on, explaining what little he has seen. His mind whirs as he tries to think where he will take Liila to rest. Somewhere quiet and out of the way. His private chambers, perhaps. He'll wait with her until she wakes up. He will scold her for going to the Maw, even if it wasn't intentional, and he will watch the way she rolls her eyes toward him and—
When the next rune chimes, it interrupts Vesiphone's anima weaving. She tries to start again only to be interrupted by another and then another. The runes are chiming faster and faster.
"It's happening too soon, she's not ready for—" She cuts herself off as she shifts her spells. Adrestes doesn't understand what she is doing until he sees that several spots of brilliant light swelling underneath Liila's robes as though in slow motion, slowly getting brighter and brighter. He can practically see the outlines of the runes within them, can feel the tension in the air as the magic readies to snap.
Vesiphone's fingers curl in the air, as if she might somehow grip the curse itself and hold it in place. One of the runes snaps and pulses sharply. Liila lets out a strangled gasp. The others swell before Vesiphone can catch them again.
"I can't stop this," Vesiphone cries out, calling for Chyrus.
As Adrestes struggles, helpless to do more than hold Liila against him, he feels her fingers brush against his hand again. When he looks down, she smiles up at him. "It's…okay. You'll be—"
The remaining runes flare all at once and disperse.
The light in her eyes flickers out.
"No!"
