Chapter 48: Requiem for Forgotten Worlds

Glimmer woke in a dark room.

It was night, judging by the moonlight coming through a row of high windows embedded in the brick wall to her left. Slatted blinds covering the top half of the windows blocked some of that moonlight and cast a pattern against the hardwood floor. She was dozens of stories off the ground, probably in the penthouse room of a skyscraper judging by the view.

A figure stood at the middle window, staring out. Thunder boomed overhead, making Glimmer jump, but she didn't see the flash of lightning outside and the figure at the window otherwise didn't respond.

"Hello?" Glimmer said. They didn't turn. "Do you know where we are? How did I get here?"

Still, they didn't turn and Glimmer couldn't tell who it was from where they were standing. Shadow obscured half their face. They were muttering under their breath, each hand wringing the opposing wrist.

The sound of a lock disengaging came from behind and the person spun around. It was Taline. She looked younger than Glimmer had ever seen her, possibly the same age as her. She even looked happyrelieved—which was an expression she'd never seen on Taline's face before either. What the hell was the Beast trying to do? Glimmer thought.

Taline's look dissolved into confusion, then apprehension and concern. "Who are you?" she asked.

A man passed through Glimmer as if she were a ghost. Some nameless, featureless person she didn't recognize. He wore a mask—one in a style similar to what Glimmer had seen sold as novelty items in shops and costume stores throughout the empire, although she had a feeling this mask in particular wasn't some dress-up accessory.

"Disappointed to see me?" The man's voice came warped. "Not who you were expecting?"

Taline frowned. "Is that mask supposed to do something for me? A simple robber or assassin might opt for something less ostentatious you'd think." She turned back to the window, treating the intruder as if they were nothing worth paying attention to. "How did you get in here? There's a biometric lock on the door and guards outside."

"Not much of an obstacle for me, I'm afraid." The man laughed and a phantom chill shot down Glimmer's spine from how it echoed around the room. "Don't worry. Your Corynth will be along shortly, but in the meantime you and I are due for a chat."

Taline turned full around to face him. The moonlight bathed her from behind, outlining her body in a halo of white, which made it feel all the more fantastical with what happened next.

Her eyes glowed and her body burst alight, veined with white-hot magic ley lines, and her hair floated about her head like a crown of sun rays. She rose off the ground, the tips of her toes floating a few inches from the floor. When she spoke, it was like a hundred-strong chorus chanted her words as one.

"You are too cavalier for a man courting death," she said. "I have seen Death's face, touched it and come away reborn. Who are you to talk to me as one would a child ignorant of the ways of the world? Who are you to come to me uninvited and demand my attention?"

Glimmer shied away from her brilliance. The man, however, didn't step back, didn't shield his eyes with his hand, and didn't apologize.

Taline wavered, swaying in the air like she was suspended on wires and the person holding her on the other end was losing strength. Her hair dropped back to her shoulders and the ley lines disappeared from her body. Finally, when she lowered back to the ground and stumbled on her feet, her eyes returned to their normal color again, too.

"Impressive that you can call upon it again so soon," the man said. "Although, without proper training you will never learn how to control it long enough to do anything useful." He extended an arm and, after pushing up the sleeve of his robes to reveal the skin underneath, gestured with his hand.

New lines of magic erupted across his skin, more subdued and of a warmer color than Taline's. Two chairs pulled out from a table shoved against the far corner. They floated through the air before arranging themselves in the center of the room, facing one another.

"Come," he said, removing his mask with his other hand and revealing his face. Glimmer still didn't recognize him. "We must speak."

Thunder boomed again, rattling the room, then three more came one after the other. Taline and the man didn't react at all, and suddenly Glimmer didn't think the noise was thunder at all. Instead, it seemed like some unseen figure standing beyond was hammering at the invisible walls encasing this reality. When she next paid attention to her surroundings, Taline was standing in the center of the room with her arms folded, scowling at the man seated in one of the chairs.

"The Daiamid aren't real," she said, picking up midway through a conversation Glimmer had lost track of. "I'm not interested in children's tales or conspiracy theories." She turned to stalk back to the window. A hovercar flew by, lighting the room with its headlights until it passed. "Leave, now. Before I make you."

"The La Valette family thought the same as you, when our agent decided reveal themself against our creed," the man said. "That arrogance is what prevented their offshoots from disappearing along with them in the extermination. Had the La Valette family spread their discovery, backed it with their name and given legitimacy to it, then we would have had to cull hundreds of their cadet branches. Possibly more."

Taline froze mid-step and looked back over her shoulder, eyes wide in surprise. Then she turned to fully face him again for a second time. Anger, shock, and confusion played across her face.

"They were killed in a fire," she said. "An arsonist was implicated, some slighted former servant in their household that was then executed. The Daiamid playing a part was just some fringe rumor no one listened to."

"And it will remain that way, in all our dealings, for as long as the emperor demands it to be so." The man tilted his head. "You wouldn't think Horde Prime would parade his secret police out in the open for anyone and everyone to gawk at, would you?" He smiled wide, the white of his teeth glinting in the moonlight. "Assassins work best in the dark, after all."

Taline sucked in a sharp breath, and although her face remained stony and neutral, she was shaking.

"Is that why you've come, then?" she asked, voice a whisper. "Am I your next target? Because I lost Archanas? Because of what I've become?"

The man's face soured, but he shook his head. "Archanas was a regrettable loss, but understandable given the alternative. Hope is not lost. The emperor is confident in your sister's discovery. Evelyn bringing us ignominite changes everything."

"Then what is it?" Taline asked. "Why are you here?"

"I am here to bring you into the fold," the man said. "You have touched the World Eater, communed with it, received its gifts. You will become one of the Daiamid. Quite possibly one of the most powerful we've seen in generations. Already, more raw power flows through your veins than does mine. Once trained, you would be a Shaper like those of old."

Taline narrowed her eyes at him. She didn't look happy. "And if I refuse?"

The man furrowed his brow. He didn't seem to have anticipated this line of questioning. "Then you will not leave this room alive." He spread his arms wide and gestured to himself. "I have revealed who we are to you. I cannot allow you to live if you refuse to join. And your friends, your sister, they will ask questions. They would not let your death fade into obscurity without concrete answers."

He grimaced. "Corynth especially would not leave it alone until he knew the truth, I know that much of him. He would disseminate that truth to all who would listen. Any who would discover us are a threat. They cannot live, we could not allow it."

Taline's eyes flared and she balled hands into fists at her sides. "Couldn't allow it?"

The look of cautious skepticism on the man deepened. Just as Glimmer was certain things between them would tip, another trio of booms sounded off above her, rattling the room and throwing her off balance.

"What the hell is going on?" Glimmer asked, staring up at the ceiling as if waiting for whatever was making those sounds to crash through and scoop her up in its hands.

Another boom sent her tumbling backward to the floor. She caught herself with both palms flat on the ground and hissed with eyes closed when pain shot up to her elbows.

The banging subsided. When she opened her eyes, she was no longer in the penthouse room with Taline and the man. Instead, she was in a dank cell, sitting on wet cobblestone, staring up at motes of dust swirling against the singular ray of light that broke through the window above her.

Her body ached. Fatigue permeated her bones and made her wonder if she shouldn't just shut her eyes again and go back to sleep. She blinked, trying to clear the blurriness away. The air felt still and stale—almost the opposite of the room she'd just come from.

Another bang—rumbling and rolling this time—shook the room. Two men opposite a set of metal bars separating her half of the room from theirs sat on chairs flanking a door. One looked asleep while the other stared up at the ceiling, at the sheets of dust cast down from the rafters.

Glimmer's head pounded. She tried to cradle it between her hands, only to realize those hands were chained to the ground behind her, in the exact position she'd caught herself when she fell backward out of the vision. She struggled against the restraints, but only succeeded in making the guard staring at the ceiling notice her.

"Hey," he said, nudging his partner. "H-hey! She's awake. Get up, you idiot!"

The other guard snorted and startled upright, clasping the rifle laying against his lap. He locked eyes with Glimmer and the sleep plaguing his eyes cleared, replaced with fear.

"Go get her," the first guard said. "I'll watch and make sure she doesn't try anything until you get back. Hurry."

The second guard hesitated, then gave a curt nod and scrambled off his chair and out the room.

"Where am I?" Glimmer asked after the door slammed, throwing down another sheet of dust from the ceiling. "How did I get here, and why am chained to the wall?"

"Don't!" The guard stood and pointed his rifle at her. "Don't you dare say another word!"

She saw it then, the fear in his eyes, same as the other guard if not more pronounced. There was no use reasoning with him, not when he was like that. She'd have to force her way out and subdue him. Make sure he couldn't harm her or himself. It wasn't what she wanted to do, but her hands were tied—literally—and she had no idea how long she had been out. It was the only way she was going to get answers, and she couldn't waste any time with an orbital bombardment on the way.

No magic came when she reached. Glimmer narrowed her eyes and tried again. It wasn't just that it refused to come to her—it wasn't there at all. There was no reserve. She'd always felt a reserve, bubbling under the surface, and now it was gone. Panic mounted. A part of her was missing. They had restrained her in ignominite chains, and no amount of pulling and yanking and straining loosened them.

"Stop struggling!" The guard cocked his rifle, looking down the iron sights at her. "Just…just sit there until the commander gets here or I swear I'll blow your head off right now!"

His finger slipped inside the trigger guard and trembled. Glimmer froze. If that finger slipped, that was the end. The Angel of Archanas, killed in action not by the Beast, but by a fellow soldier in the field. Time seemed to slow, and she felt lifetimes pass between the beats of her heart. A noise on the other side of the door bled through, subtle at first, then growing louder.

The door opened and Lonnie stepped inside. Glimmer almost called to her. The guard barely acknowledged her arrival and kept his gun trained on her.

"Leave us," Lonnie said to him without taking her eyes of Glimmer, either. "I'll handle this."

"Are you sure that's safe, ma'am?"

"No." The guard glanced sidelong at her, confused, but she didn't waver. "Stand guard on the other side of the door. If I don't come out in ten minutes, pull the pin off a grenade, toss it in here, and go reinforce your squad at the back of the wall."

The guard hesitated, then saluted and left.

"Thank god," Glimmer said the moment the door clicked shut behind him. "I'm glad to see you're alive, but what the hell is going on?"

Lonnie approached her with a measured look and measured steps, dragging one of the stools behind her without responding.

Glimmer pulled the chains. "How did I get here, and why am I chained to a wall? Why with ignominite cuffs?"

Lonnie pulled the stool around between them and the bars, scraping its legs on the stone floor, and sat. She pulled her sidearm from its shoulder holster and pointed it at Glimmer's head.

Glimmer recoiled. "What the fu—"

"Stop talking." Lonnie's voice was low and cut like steel. That steel bled into the look in her eyes. They were cold, detached, like she was appraising Glimmer as farm stock for processing. The fingers on Lonnie's other hand shook, propped on her leg. Sweat sheened her forehead, her breathing came ragged, but the hand holding her gun didn't falter and her finger on the trigger didn't shake.

"What's going on?" Glimmer kept her voice as level as possible. Another rumble in the distance came, although it didn't shake the building. "Why are you doing this?"

"We found you unconscious just outside the compound walls with the burned-out remains of a thrall lying on top of you. I lost three men from the team I sent to get you, and I refuse to risk any more of them. You have three seconds to start talking and prove to me you aren't an Abomination before I pull this trigger."

Oh. Oh shit.

Glimmer wracked her brain for the last thing she could remember before waking up. It wasn't the vision of Taline, that much she knew, but what came before?

There was the fog, and the Beast doing everything it could to corrupt her by conjuring apparitions of her friends and long dead victims, but she hadn't succumbed. She'd made it! She'd teleported herself near enough to the old castle district for Lonnie and her after all.

But what could she say to prove any of this? Lonnie's finger tightened over the trigger, and the one thing she'd hoped she'd never have to relive bubbled to the surface to save her life.

"Rinne!" She bit the words out as if they were painful to say. "I was at the battle of Rinne. It was such a disaster. The biggest disaster since the war first ended on Archanas. In fact, they're so closely related in the public mind people sometimes forget which parts Taline and I played, even though they happened years apart."

Lonnie's hand stilled, but she didn't lower the gun. She'd want more, Glimmer thought. Abominations with a little bit of cunning still left to them could mimic their original selves. Delve into intimate memories, however? Abominations had no recollection of their host's experiences before being turned, but recounting something as renowned as the Seraph and Angel of Archanas respectively wouldn't be enough.

"It was the first planet we lost entirely to the Beast since the war last ended." Glimmer shuddered as she remembered, feeling like she was unlatching a trunk she'd shoved a nightmare creature into years prior. "There was only one megalith stationed next to the main population center I was attached to. That was all we needed.

"I'm still not sure what started it. Reports and rumors are all over the place, still talked about today, but I was on the ground. I could feel what was happening and I couldn't tell you how it started. All I can say is we thought we had the planet rescued much like what's happened here. We even started sending people back to the city to start rebuilding. Then the Beast swelled. It overwhelmed each of our entrenched forward positions, one after the other. Our deployment was too small to handle the wave, and within hours the city was lost. The fleet commanders gave the order to evacuate. Everyone who hadn't returned to the city prepared to lift off."

Another rumble in the distance. Glimmer thought it was the same phenomenon as before, until a scream trailed after the sound like an echo and, suddenly, she wasn't sure. Now it sounded eerily similar to a megalith taking off—a sound that had chased her from more than one nightmare since Rinne.

"The ship malfunctioned and we couldn't take off. Our presence on the planet was small already, since it was a less populated system. We didn't have enough soldiers to defend the compound until the techs finished their repairs. I was the only Battlemage not stationed at the front lines. I led the defense.

"The amount of magic I forced through my body that day…" she shook her head trying to clear the feeling of static racing along her skin. "My wings"—another shake, more vigorous. Not the right thing to talk about if she wanted to avoid flashbacks—"It was stupid to push that hard, but I wasn't thinking. I was just fighting as hard as I could. Some managed to make it back to the megalith while the repairs were going on. Every single one of them felt like I'd won a war, but I could only delay for so long. I didn't want them to die. I didn't want to die."

By now, Lonnie had stopped pointing the weapon at her. Instead, she seemed to hang off her every word. Glimmer could stop there if she wanted. She'd more than proved she wasn't an Abomination, but now that she'd started the story, she couldn't stop. Swept away in the swell of emotions, it would have been easier to break the chains holding her down than it would have been to stop telling her story.

"We were about to close up the access doors and leave when we got an emergency communication from halfway out to the city—a final group of transports carrying the last surviving evacuees were on their way. The full might of the Beast infection, not just the thralls but the Beast itself, was right behind it. They… radioed us. Said they were thirty seconds out and to hold the door. They begged and pleaded for us to wait, but…"

Glimmer hissed and pulled on the manacles. Suddenly it seemed like a much better idea to actually try and break free than continue. The shackles dug into her wrists. A cutting, searing pain radiated up her arms, and she used that pain to force herself to finish.

"That's when I snapped out of whatever daze I had been in. That's when I looked at the number of thralls rushing us. Th-there were troopers too. No one had seen them since the war ended. When those people on that transport needed me to fight for them, I let fear take over me. I thought about everyone already safe aboard the megalith. I thought about them turning into thralls if we stayed behind. I thought about my parents and my friends, about never being able to see them again. I thought about all of that and I just…I—"

Why did you leave us behind? said a voice from nowhere. You are no Angel. You are a failure. A fraud. Coward!

Lonnie was there, wrapping her in a hug which Glimmer returned. Belatedly, she realized this meant she was free from the shackles. The barred door separating them was open, the stool Lonnie had been sitting on lay tipped over. She didn't realize she'd been crying until Lonnie stroked the back of her head and the sensation pulled a sob out of her.

"Hey, hey it's okay." Lonnie said. "You're okay. Breathe. Just breathe and focus. That's it."

Glimmer beat away the ghosts of the dead until Lonnie pulled back and held her at arm's length. She looked scared and deeply concerned as she looked her over, as if searching for physical wounds she might patch up. It was a welcome change compared to the cold, detached look from earlier. Lonnie's tightened her grip on Glimmer's shoulders and she saw she was shaking. They both were.

"Don't ever do that to me again," Lonnie said, dropping her head onto Glimmer's shoulder like it were a leaden weight. "I thought for sure you were dead when I saw you out there, and when I found out you were still alive all I could think about was what I'd have to do if it turned out you'd been corrupted. I almost shot you, Glimmer." Lonnie pulled her into a hug and pressed her head into the crook of her neck. "Goddesses above, I almost shot you. Don't ever scare me like that again."

Parts of Lonnie's armor dug into Glimmer, but she didn't care. For as much as she expected to be taken aback at how uncharacteristic seeing Lonnie scared was, a bigger part of her was happy for the relief. Rinne had been a weight on her chest she'd never expected to share.

"I condemned all those people to die," Glimmer said between shaking breaths. "It was a decision made because I was afraid. And this time it wasn't a highly trained Sentinel half expecting death to come for them in combat anyways, but hundreds of civilians hoping to evacuate just like everyone else. I had one job, Lonnie…to help people evacuate, and I failed."

"This is why you refused to take command of our team, isn't it?" Lonnie's voice was muffled from her speaking into Glimmer's shoulder. "It's not just Rinne. That'd be traumatic for anyone, but its tied up in what happened on the emperor's citadel, isn't it?"

Glimmer nodded. There was a reason the Beast manifested Narre and Miri alongside the Rinnites. Both were symbols of her previous failures. Glimmer told Lonnie all of it, the story slipping out in a rush, and Lonnie listened with rapt attention, sitting back on her heels as Glimmer detailed every facet of it.

"Those people didn't die because you were too afraid to act," Lonnie said once she'd finished. "You keep talking about how people died because you were too scared to act or acted rash because you were scared, but all I took from both stories was that you jumped into the fray anyways and aren't giving yourself credit for it. You defended everyone at the megalith on Rinne until the thing was repaired and could take off, and you ignored Taline's Sentinel telling you to stay back in favor of bum rushing the emperor with a dagger hoping to kill him and save the rest of us."

"I failed, Lonnie." Glimmer didn't get what was so hard to understand about that. What point was Lonnie trying to make when the results spoke for themselves?

"Sure, if you want to see it that way." Lonnie gave her an exasperated look. "I personally would disagree with you on calling the outcome of either of those situations a failure, but even still, you didn't fail to act. You just didn't save everyone." She held up a hand to forestall Glimmer and said, "Those are different things, aren't they? Maybe you froze and Narre died, but you didn't freeze on Rinne, and you saved thousands. It's not the same mistake, if you can even call it a mistake at all."

When Glimmer still only gave her a skeptical look, Lonnie sighed, tapping an anxious rhythm with her fingertips on her armored thighs. "I had a friend once. A medic. Well, they were Kyle's friend, because Kyle makes friends with everyone, but then they became my friend and Rogelio's friend. This was before we were scouted for the Vanguards." Lonnie's tapping on her thigh became erratic. "They had family on Rinne and had to be put on suicide watch when news broke about what happened. A week later and they were gone."

Glimmer covered her mouth with a hand. "Oh my god…I'm—I'm sorry."

Lonnie shook her head. "It's another casualty of the war, not your fault." Glimmer bit back the urge to argue with her. "They were the first ones to explain triage to me and how it works. Funny how I'd grown up in a militaristic environment but never heard of something like that until my twenties." Lonnie laughed, although there was no humor behind it. "Are you familiar with the term?"

Glimmer nodded. "Generally speaking, yeah. Categorizing extent of injury and likelihood of recovery if treatment resources are expended. I know a medic's judgement on it often becomes the deciding line between life and death out in the field, nowadays especially."

Lonnie nodded, staring past her. "I don't know if its because he explained it well or because it was one of the last things I'd learned from him before…Anyway. You know how it is. Rinne was triage. You made a decision on peoples' lives. Some were saved, many weren't. It's okay to feel beat up about it, just like it's okay to carry the scars—mental scars—of that decision with you.

"But using their sacrifice as a shield to hide behind? Pointing to the fact you couldn't save everyone from a Lost World and letting the guilt of that eat you alive for years? Even if they held you responsible, what does continuing to cudgel yourself over losing them accomplish except to tarnish the memory of their deaths?"

Glimmer glared at Lonnie. As much as the logic made sense, she didn't appreciate hearing the same words she'd told herself over and over again repeated back to her. Instead of looking apologetic and backing off, Lonnie surprised her by reaching forward and laying a firm hand on her shoulder.

"For example," she said, unabashed and without a trace of humor. "I'll be pretty mad if you have to sacrifice me. I'd sacrifice myself to save you or someone else in a heartbeat, but I'd only feel proud of doing so if you'd traded me to save a million."

"A million?" Glimmer squinted at her. She couldn't tell if Lonnie was joking or not—for as morbid a subject this was, her delivery perfectly straddled the line between deadpan humor and complete seriousness.

Lonnie nodded. "One million. And you aren't allowed to beat yourself up about losing me, either. Otherwise, I will return from the grave and haunt your dreams. It will be never ending stories of our time as kids fighting each other back home and you will hate every moment of it."

Glimmer couldn't help it. She barked out a supremely unattractive laugh, covering her mouth immediately after, shoulders shaking with barely suppressed mirth. Lonnie smirked at her.

"You're annoying," Glimmer said, shoving Lonnie's shoulder and rolling her eyes. She never thought she'd be one for gallows humor, but then again, she'd never been on the front lines enough to really appreciate it. She saw the draw, especially with it coming from Lonnie. Something told her she only joked like that with people like Kyle and Rogelio—comrades deep in the shit with her.

"That's half my job description, you know," Lonnie said, standing and holding out a hand for Glimmer to take. "Put bullets in thralls and annoy the shit out of Battlemages so they're too agitated for the Beast to take them in." A bang sounded overhead, shaking the room. Lonnie looked up with a frown. "Speak of the devil."

"What is that?" Glimmer asked. "It's been going on since before I even woke up here."

Lonnie shot her a strange look and Glimmer realized that hadn't made much sense. Instead of letting her clarify, however, she walked back toward the exit with Glimmer in tow and said, "Our jailer."

Was Glimmer supposed to know what that meant? "I came here to rescue you and Rogelio and whoever else is here. I don't know how long I've been out, but the fleet is supposed to begin their orbital bombardment any minute now. We have to get out before that happens. Kyle is on standby for an extraction."

Lonnie stopped with her hand on the doorhandle. She regarded Glimmer with a careful expression over her shoulder. "You've been out for three hours since we found you. The bombardment's been long underway, already. What do you think that banging is you've been hearing?"

"What?" Another bang overhead made her jump and sent her heart racing. "That's the fleet bombarding us with dreadnought-class cannons from space? How in the hell are we still alive?"

Lonnie shot her another smirk, although it was clear this one was a mask for her anxiety. "It'd be easier to just show you." She pulled the door open, light flooding into the dime and dingey room as she stepped through. "I hope you had a plan to get us out of here before you came. We all could use a morale boost right about now."