.

The Spectral Breath

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Chapter Thirteen: Bitter Sweet Dreams

"Ah, Sister. A pleasant noon, would you not say?"

Var'sulahn glimpsed a figure standing in the shade of the cloister. Her fingers slipped to another page and steadily raked the text in her lap with long nails. "A pleasant noon it is, Lanalin Ghi'lan."

"This isn't the courts, sister. Formalities that standard are not required when in my presence," she quipped, arching a slender lip in good graces. "Glandival will do just fine when in my company. The last I need is to feel elder than my years."

Var'sulahn nodded, smiling. The holy mother since her first arrival into Dirthamen's Sanctum had always prided herself on being the less ceremonial of the god's devotees. The shy bangle of rustic teal poking from her robed anklet was as rebellious as she dared go. Even that symbol could consequent punishment.

Personal jewellery were not permitted in the monestary, for all that took vows were to leave their older life behind. Never to return. Her own little concealment always brought a smile to Var'sulahn's face. It reminded her that she was not yet one of the holy devoted, and could still hold family as a treasure.

She slipped a ribbon down the binder, and closed the tome before standing. Elder Glandival linked their arms together and began their walk from the pavilion. Beds of crystal grace clinked in the neighbouring orchards. Fountains of water glistened when wavering in the air, waiting for nearby insects to sate their first in the floating droplets.

"You are quiet this eve," she said. "Tell me, how faring are your studies?"

"They are going well, I think. I have read much on the ways of spiritualism. Though I have read much more on the natures of the ether."

"Spirits? That is where your ambitions lie, is it? Do tell, what forms strike inspiration? Is it knowledge in the arcane itself, or the untapped potential of your magic?"

"A little of both. The ways of spirits is fascinating, but as are the spells I could cast. Our magic is manipulation of spirit energy, yes? If I were to know more, does that mean I could cast more?"

"In theory, indeed. I see it in your eyes, Var'sulahn. Spiritual destruction, that is your calling. Dirthamen may be pleased. It was the filtered wish of the high priest that you continue with your studies. Your manipulation of the ice element has true mastery if you continue, as should your abilities with the raw Fade should your inner light kindle with that of the other realm. Not many wish this pursuit, you know. Your father himself preferred the arts of concealment."

Var'sulahn smiled sadly. "I always did wonder how he knew the power plays in the courts. He never did teach me his arts. It was more of my brother's calling."

"Because you were never destined to be the head of your house, dear sister. I believe he saw your young spirit fluttering and knew that your potential lay elsewhere. Much tragedy has happened to you in your short years, but it is my belief that all this happened to bring you to us. Here in this monestary your studies will flourish. You will be as brilliant as the higher priests, I see it now! You will grant honour to Dirthamen, and to your family. The secrets of the world are not meant for the lessers, sister. They are meant for the chosen of the gods. As are we blessed to be called such."

In the small bubble of Dirthamen's hidden world - one pocket of a hundred - waters lay still under the toes of learning students, while silvery films drifted ominously from all corners, spreading whispers of knowledge through the air. Away from the waters stood groves of brass trees capped in globed orbs. Flowers across a swamp-like expansion that were not dreary nor as poisonous in appearance to their natural likeness, but bright in iridescent sheens. Polished quartz petalled the branches like beaded dew, while the farther lands shuddered in the great roamings of tamed vaterrals.

Var'sulahn watched their gnarled legs seep into distant lakes. Grand beasts of magic they were. Creations of moss, bark and insect that upon first glimpse seemed abhorrent creatures, only to soften in clicking mews when granted an audience with their keepers.

Elder Glandival gestured to a cluster of priests by the entranceway to the Inner Sanctum: by a mirror with its glass distorted in swirls. "And have you thought on our invitation?"

Her student hesitated. "I have, Elder."

"Glandival-"

"To join you all here would be… I cannot even describe it. I thank you, truly, for the request, I just-"

"Are not ready to leave your life behind yet," she finished with a knowing frown. Around her, a soft haze swept over the grounds like a fairy dream. Var'sulahn inhaled the scents of honeysuckle and instantly felt contempt. "I was the same when I was young. We ask much which is why we indoctrinate the young if we can. It makes the process easier to bare. We ask that you leave your pain, your sorrow, your hardship. We ask that you devote your learnings to our Lord and in return reap the rewards that knowledge earns us. Though much of your family are gone, you still have one that remains."

Var'sulahn turned her face away, though her small smile grew in earnest. Yes, my brother still lives.

"Which is why we are willing to wait," the elder added, taking her shoulder in hand and turning her towards the eluvian.

The bubble of reality shifted instantly from soft grass and flower beds to tall halls of mosaic stonework. Within, the Inner Sanctum was heavily shadowed, lit by many veilfire braziers shimmering over pedestals. Hymns of prayer sounded from all sections of the temple and scriptures drifted from one segment of the higher libraries to the other, while the translucent shifts of spirits floated in between.

"Our Lord has granted you protection but it would praise him more to see you expand your knowledge and claim your place beside us. No matter how long that will take, he and we will wait. You, Var'sulahn, show promise to Dirthamen."

"As I hope to do him proud," she answered. "But I have been wondering what he has said about me. Has he spoken to the higher priest since my arrival?"

The Elder's features fell guarded. "The communion of our Lord with the high priest is very personal, sister. I only know what I'm told but his guidance was clear. To keep you protected until you transcend our halls. Be at peace. You are no longer owned to your seigneur any longer. This temple has stood for eons without the unholy breaching the sanctum. The location is secret. You are safe."

Her ears twitched on that word. Safe. It felt foreign. An illusion. Trickery by even those that honoured the gods. It had been so long since she could even turn in a corridor without fearing the lash of a whip. To be able to trust again was even harder.

Dirthamen would never betray me, she thought, fanning the worries away with a hand against her neck. I can truly be free here. I can call this place home.

"So take your time on your answer. Still, remember, though your cause is not yet clear, that does not mean you have no duty to uphold. Dirthamen enaste sulevin. Our lord has a reason for your life."

"And I am grateful to take whatever opportunity he wishes of me in time. I swear it."

"Very good." The Elder's gaze shifted over her shoulder and a hidden delight caused her grin to widen. "There is a reason I brought you from your studies, you know. Your brother wishes to speak to you."

Var'sulahn clutched the neckline of her gown. "Hellathen? He has returned?"

"It seems he could not leave you for long, sister. I sent an emissary to bring him to us. He will not be long."

Delight had her eyes watering. She wiped her cheeks with a sleeve, leaping round when the doors to the sanctum rang open. From the archway her brother sauntered out from the robes and cowls: a man with the boldness of youth, yet with the look of a warrior who had witnessed ten years of war and did not let it mar his spirit. He took in the entire temple; eyes a steely grey, dull as the rapier sheathed at his thigh.

He did not have a chance to speak. For as soon as the veil-light caught his armoured jerkin and breeches, Var'sulahn enfolded him with an embrace as unyielding as a farmer to his last wealthy possession while his livelihood burned in a bandit's flames. Hellathen's chest rumbled beneath her ear and before she knew it the world was gone from her feet. The temple spun as the two rejoiced, laughing as one person before her feet returned to dusty floors.

He took her cheeks in both hands, his gaze ever-scrutinising, checking for scars. His gaze lingered on her vallaslin and lips fell sour. He turned to Elder Glandival and thrusted a scroll into her frail hands. "We're leaving tonight."

Var'sulahn took his shoulders warily, coaxing him to face her. "Leaving? Why, lethallan?" At his silence she plucked his chin and drew it close. "Hellathen?"

It was then that she noticed how truly older he had become. Dark circles rimmed his eyes that were stricken red in the whites. His brown hair had dislevelled from the bun, as if he had rode across the western lands to her dwelling rather than use the portals. Even his cheekbones were sunken, defined. In chainmail he appeared musclery, but beneath…

"You must trust me. This," he gestured with a gauntleted hand to the temple, "it isn't safe here anymore. I've been given a decree to remove you from this cult. There's a noble steading just across the water that can take us in, Var'sulahn. They're not supporters of Him, sister. We can rise from their family slowly, regain our nobility. We can work to return our family to the once proud name that it was. Isn't that what you want?"

She drew her hands away, folding them into her chest. "What do you mean? Hellathen, you are speaking madly. Our father… he… he's dead, brother. Our mother, our sister… we cannot rebuild anything. My master took it from us. This. Dirthamen's temple. It is all I have. I'm safe here. He cannot find me-"

"Damn it, Var'sulahn! Don't you see? I did not ride for fifteen moons just to come back to bay you hello! I came here because an army tracks this very land-"

"An army?" She took a step back, then another. "W-what army?"

Her brother's gaze softened. But before he could continue, Elder Glandival took her shoulder and passed the scroll into her quivering hands. Var'Sulahn did not have a chance to read the elvish. She could see the answer plain as day in her mentor's face. "He has… found me?"

Elder Glandival ushered her backward toward the southward corridor. "You must take her. Quickly. There is a path known only to few. It leads into the forest. It will keep you safe. I will gather the others. We will seal the halls and gather the sentinels."

"Sentinels will not be enough, I'm afraid," Hellathen said, grasping his sister's hand tight. "You underestimate them. They have warriors of the arcane, priestess. Those that follow the pantheon father. Elgar'nan."

The colour in the elder's cheeks vanished. "You are certain?"

"As certain as anything I've seen."

There was a grave pause, and then, "She must be saved. Do you understand?"

Her brother nodded once. He took her hand, dragged her across the hall to the possibility of freedom when the entire temple shuddered. Var'sulahn and Hellathen jerked by the stairway, grasping the balustrades while the entire temple quaked. Earth rained from the ceiling. Priests clawed for purchase on stone, while a great collapse filled the hallway beyond them.

Cries echoed beyond the sanctum's locked doors. A chorus of conflict that attempted to beat down the magical barriers. Gold flashed from the stairways - sentinels donned in the brightest armour flinging their staffs from their backs and casting wards to deter the possibility of demons from breaching the god's most holy.

Hellathen watched the mages clammer to the entranceway and Elder Glandival turn to them. A shadow of decision crossed his face and his hands let his sister go. He waved the priestess over and drew his rapier.

"Take her," he commanded. "We both know he won't desist until he has one of us. I might be able to buy her time, and you know this place far better than I. Take her. Take her far away. Run until you cannot stop running. Please. She is the future of our house now."

The entrance doors glinted as priests begun to pour their magic into a new ward meant to be binding, lasting. Unbreakable surely. They were Dirthamen's greatest devotees. Most had practised incantations for an era. No manner of lord could possibly outrank them. Yet He did.

A great weight shook the doors from the other side like a giant's fists. The ward crackled and spat. Magic seeped from the runes imbued into the doorframes like bloody lesions. It was at that instant that Var'sulahn, that Elder Glandival, that Hellathen and all the sentinels charged with guarding the sanctum knew all at once. They were not dealing with a simple lord in charge of a hundred elves. They were fighting the very Fade.

Var'sulahn clutched her brother's arm so tight she feared her hands would shatter. Yet it took one shove of his other hand to break their tie. When she leapt out again he drew his rapier's point to her throat, stilling her enough to freeze mid-stand. When the earth quaked once more, the elder yanked her from the floor and pushed her towards a banister. The last she saw was her brother courageously descending the stairway when the last knock shattered the hinges from the walls and a great mist flooded the sanctum.

The cries of battle thundered down the corridors Var'sulahn stumbled across. In each an elvhen shrieked venomously in her ears, "Run! Run! Run!" The stone felt like molten rock beneath her feet: tearing, seering flesh from toes to heel. She was sure the Fade-hounds would track the scent of her blood. Still, she did not desist, even when her elder's old legs grew weak and her pants twisted into desperate coughs.

Elder Glandival staggered to a halt, clutching the walls with what little breath she had left. When Var'sulahn wrenched her to a stand, the elder screamed to her knees once more. Beneath her skirts her legs were alabaster pale with thick, black veins pulsing deadly from the skin.

She hushed Var'sulahn's questioning with a hand, and gestured further into the corridor. "I have been weak for many years, dear. It is an illness not even Dirthamen could cure, but the story of it I fear will go with me to my grave. Hush now, sister. Follow the corridor. At the end there is an eluvian that will take you farther than the Crossroads. Use the spell I taught you, and live."

The cries of the Inner Sanctum grew further and further distant. It would only be a matter of time before the enemy searched the tunnels, for her. Var'sulahn begged, pleaded, scratched at the elder's robes as if the very material might spark some ounce of renewed vigour into her wary bones. Only when firelight caught the way they had came did Var'sulahn slowly crawl backward. The elder branded her one last smile before flames crackled in her hands.

She would fight until the end, just like her brethren.

The remainder of the way was a blur to Var'sulahn. Somehow she had found the eluvian standing in one of the smaller rooms, locked and unused. Dust had claimed its brassy frame. The edges of the mirror were cracked, yet it still hummed in life. Bracing a hand against her chest for breath, she slowly pressed her other onto the cool, glassy surface, and repeated the words, "Dirthamen enaste sulevin."

From the dim cool grey flashed a creamy blue. Wisps of magic flittered from the very glass, spinning around her waist as if to comfort, or draw her in. The glass dissolved into liquid sapphire when her body pressed into its pool. In a flash of white she was in another place, another room. The stem of a castle it seemed. A short tunnel that ended in a small rotunda backed by bookcases. Tomes layered in cobwebs and dust racked every shelf. Scrolls adorned the central table, where placed on an altar was a book far larger than she herself, blotted in smudges of ink.

The entire room was a lost trove of knowledge. A quiet study from the rest of the temple, perhaps completely segregated from it in another realm.

Did this belong to the high priest? Var'sulahn wondered, quietly spinning around it. Her hand rested over the table, where hidden amongst steepled tomes lay lilac glass backed in stone. The artifact I stole… the high priest put it here?

Her fingers petted the shard gingerly. It felt cold, dead. The very weight was surprisingly light and she found herself drawing back to the eluvian, placing the shard against its frame. Strange. It seems to be of the same material.

Through the eluvian the figure of a man caught her eye by the other realm's doorway. Var'sulahn had tilted her head at first, confused by the lack of light displaying his features. But then he drew forth towards the portal at alarming rate, raising his staff high as magic kindled at the root.

The elvhen screamed, raising her hands while the image quickly vanished from the mirror. When she reopened her eyes she only had her reflection to greet her. Little did she know as the hours passed to days, and the days passed to weeks, that it would be the last immortal face she ever saw.

The magic that once brought her into that new realm had trapped her inside. It must have been Dirthamen's cruel jest for her to come so far only to starve to death in a tomb of his follower's own making. In the darkness with even the veilfire torches waning in lustre, the stench of death had begun to seep into the air. Even with the portal closed there was still a connection to the other side, and hints of that side crept in every nook and cranny.

With little else all Var'sulahn could do in the long, cold evenings was reminisce on the horror she had scathed, and those that had died to protect her. Her brother, her elder, those sentinels in the temple and all others that resided within were but a few of a very long list that waited to be finished. Perhaps, in that tomb, it would have been, once insanity had left its mark upon her mind.

When hunger had shrunk her stomach to bone, when thirst had dried her mouth sore, when cold sucked the warmth from her skin leaving her

pale as a sheeted effigy, the young elf sank beneath the pillars of knowledge adorning her prison and waited for Falon'Din to claim her from the damp stone floor. Silly how it was, but in the long hours she waited she wished solely for company. In the rotunda there were no rats to gnaw at her flesh. Only spiders and even their legs had begun to gnarl and stomachs bloat in an empty death.

There, surrounded by knowledge she could only dream of, she slept while waiting for death. Even then she did not beg for it. Death may have been a reprieve but in the Fade her master would be able to find her spririt, even if she fled for an eternity. In the quiet, dank crypt that she was in, there was freedom from him at least. Something that made the pain almost worthwhile.

Then, when all seemed fruitless, the veilfires shifted in a presence. Ethereal like Dirthamen himself; graceful in the delicate steps of a goddess; loving as the face of her mother shining down in sorrow. A spectre of the most beautiful left the eluvian's glass magic-less. Partly delirious, all Var'sulahn could do was watch unblinking, unbreathing, as the god-made-mortal descended into the rotunda fastened in a gown of silver silk. Effortless was her kneel before her. Soft was the face she adopted.

Wheezing in the corner, the young elf drew in all her strength just to reach out and take her hand. The spirit smiled and facilely shifted her onto her knees, cradled like a child. The spirit hummed a gentle song her mother once sang while gently combing the blood from her hair. She could still remember the words…

'Sun sets, little one,

Time to dream

Your mind journeys,

But I will hold you here.

Where will you go, little one

Lost to me in sleep?

Seek truth in a forgotten land

Deep with in your heart.

Never fear, little one,

Wherever you shall go.

Follow my voice-

I will call you home.

I will call you home.'

Var'sulahn's last comfort was the thought of her father's pavillion by the water, with her younger sister sewing by the cherry trees; her older brother catching herring by the brooks; her mother held in the arms of her lover, and her father gazing out into the distant horizon. In the end before it all faded to dark, her father turned away from the sun to beckon her come with the wave of a hand. And she could finally return home.

The shard clutched to her aching breasts sealed their fate forever. The heaven of that thought stayed with her as frost claimed her idle body. In time the magic would freeze all within the study, and she would lay beneath the guidance of a sun-lit spirit drawn to her pleas out of compassion. The shard bound them together, twin souls contempt, in ice for over a thousand year dream.

….