"all the worst to offer"
She could feel it writhing at her back. The trembling, the shaking; it struck her to her core. The ministrations of a long-aged enchantment rousing it to the waking world at last. Why? she wanted to cry out, but there were still Scorn at large and she could hear them tearing through the underbrush some distance behind her, hunting for warm life. Why now?
Why him?
Agaravel was conspicuously quiet. Formora was glad for it; if the Scorn could truly hear thoughts, then she could not be risked to speak. Their very lives depended on it. Not with an entire brigade of the rotten things bearing down on them all. How many were there? How many had been dragged down from the sky above, thrown against Vroengard like a decrepit red wave?
Formora slipped through the darkening night north, her bag shifting as something within woke at last, and she ran - as far as she could, as quickly as she could manage. She didn't stop until she'd traded the forest for an open meadow, marked by a single lonely watchtower by the sea. The place was too quiet and it played on her nerves to be outside so early in the morning, regardless of whether the steel-hide beast was still active or not. It wouldn't have surprised her to hear of its death by this point; if the dead could rise, why wouldn't the indestructible be laid to waste?
She checked her surroundings and, though her every instinct argued against it, searched out with her mind for other souls - and found nothing beyond the squirming lives of worms in the dirt. Nothing larger than an insect scurried in the woods at her back, not even a bird. No Scorn either. Nothing of the sort.
Formora stepped beyond the treeline.
And it was then that, despite her diligent searching, she found she was still not alone.
Elisabeth appeared ahead of her, emerging from a flash of liquid light, and she stopped three paces away. She was holding something, a heavy device of silver and white ethereal essence, and she pressed it against her shoulder, pointing it at the ground. "Formora," she said softly, her bright glassy eyes darting between her and the meadow around them. "Find another way. Not this one. She's already here."
Formora stepped back, sabre in hand. "Leave me be."
"This place is already taken." Elisabeth paused. "You shouldn't be here."
She looked at the tower past the un-woman. A light flickered from one of the upper windows. A candle, she thought, but the glow of it was too pale. "Who?"
"A hedge-witch," something else purred from right behind her. A shiver ran down her spine and Formora twirled around, sword at the ready - but she balked at the sight of the thing. It was a whole two heads taller than her, a powerful sinuous thing of grey armour and dark wings, with a long tail lazily flicking in the air behind it. No human, no elf, no urgal or dwarf or werecat, nor even Scorn or those creatures that had accompanied Ikharos. It was something else. "A sorceress having lost her way."
Formora felt Elisabeth's hand suddenly close and tighten around her arm - her hand was textured strangely, smooth but for grooves and nub-like nodes to allow for a firmer grip - and allowed her to pull her back, eyes only for the... she did not know what to call it. It had a hunched upright stature reminiscent of the settled peoples of the world but it was too other. Shadow lathered along the wings folded against its back, with veins of eerie glowing blue separating the plates of black. It had golden eyes peering out from a helmet of smooth, peerless greenish-grey steel. It held its arms close to its chest, Formora saw, like a mantis, claws idly flexing as if contemplating tearing her apart with them.
"Keep your distance," Elisabeth whispered.
As if she'd needed to be told as much.
The creature snorted with amusement, the sound muffled by its sealed helmet - and when it spoke it did so with the sibilant voice of a serpent, echoing strangely as if hissed through a funnel full of crackling lightning. "An Agonarch, or so tells the marks on its ivory shell. One of the Queen's cunning brood - a delver of pain and torment, bathed anew in scouring Light. Traitorous. Unique."
"That's enough," Elisabeth told it firmly.
The creature paused and regarded the pair of them curiously. "Have I frightened you?"
"Zendo-"
"Terror is the better choice here. You may live longer for it." The thing stepped around them, its long legs enabling it to just glide over the ground. It made not a single sound as it did. "None of this has gone unnoticed. The Consort of Stars is nearby. He is watching with bated breath - in so far as his beauteous kind could ever draw air into absent lungs."
Formora slipped her arm from Elisabeth's grip and made to quietly leave them, to retreat back into the forest and find somewhere else - but a decisive jolt from within the bag on her back stopped her in place.
New life, Agaravel cackled. In this space? UNKIND OMENS.
A hollow crack split the air, coming from her pack. Both Elisabeth and the monstrous thing turned to look at her with their artificial eyes. The former frowned while the latter - it straightened up and made a sound deep in its throat that wasn't so different to sardonic laughter. Formora didn't like it. She didn't like the creature at all; she didn't know what it was any more than she did the Scorn or even Elisabeth, and she liked it even less for the way it regarded her, like something small and helpless. Something like prey. Beyond the affront on her pride there was a keen sense of danger around the thing, a quiet but cold affection reserved for a beaten plaything.
She couldn't just-
No-
Even so-
In front of them?!
But she had to. The choice wasn't hers. Not really.
Formora fell to a knee, pulled her bag to the ground and opened it up. She looked inside. The silver stone - it was no longer such. The fragments of it cushioned the top of Agarvel's pale Eldunarí and the tiny, thin reptile nestled above it. It weakly lifted its little pointed head and blinked with purple eyes at the light of rising dawn, what little of it snuck past. At her.
"He touched it?" Elisabeth asked softly, though with some urgency, with some concern. Formora's head shot up and she stared, to which Elisabeth slung her exotic weapon over her shoulder and approached with her hands held out empty. "He said-"
"Stay back," Formora snapped. Elisabeth stopped. Formora turned back to the bag, reached inside and paused. "Vardi thornessa skulblaka frá du eitrum unin du aera," she whispered. A spell, a ward. It manifested and her most pressing fears eased; it was safe. The little one was safe.
Relatively.
Formora pressed her hands inside. She tucked her fingers under its belly, gently so, and she dragged it out. The tiny thing chirped unhappily, shaking its little self, and though her bare skin was pressed against its scales nothing more occurred. It was almost a relief, really. She brought it out into the open air and cradled it close. "Peace," she whispered, ignoring the steely stares of those watching. "Peace, little one. Peace."
She could feel the heat of it, the beat of its fragile heart. It was a tiny thing, no larger than a cat, and it was pitifully feeble. Formora held it close as it prodded at her with its paws and its snout, trying to forge that penultimate connection, but it was one already crafted and filled and she hadn't the ruthlessness left in her to turn to the darker arts that would pave the way.
Another snort by way of the other, the serpent-beast, resounded and shattered the quiet of the early morning. Formora rose up, cupping the hatchling dragon to her collar, and she pulled her bag back over her shoulder - glaring all the while, if only to erect a barrier of hostility to dissuade any intervention. She held her magic close at hand, shaped for a killing spell, but as she saw Elisabeth had turned to the thing - and it to her. Some unspoken conversation occurred between them, through the minute shifting of their stances and their eyes.
"Not a word," Elisabeth said at last, both demanding and pleading.
The other creature chuckled. "He'll learn. He'll eat."
"It's not His to claim."
"This world is. And everything on it." The creature paused. "But I have seen nothing. My target on this solar cycle is another."
Elisabeth inclined her head. "Thank you. It's-"
"Save your gracious platitudes for another - one who cares to hear them," the creature said dismissively. It hunkered down on its slender ankles, looking all the world for a roosting Fanghur on the watch for prey. The image was a startling one, and it only strengthened her resolve to escape it. Formora began making for the forest, putting subtlety to the sword in favour of a hasty escape.
"Wait-" Elisabeth called after her.
She broke out into a run. The dragonling squeaked a complaint, jostled, and she cradled it as gently as she could as she made her escape. Formora heard the crack of dry leaves and brittle twigs crunching underfoot as Elisabeth gave chase. She was fast, as fast as any elf, but all too soon she fell behind - giving it up. Giving her up.
Formora stopped by the northern edge of Doru Araeba. The city was quiet, dead, and the only things that scurried in its streets were the distant phantom figures descended from the island's mortal settlers - flighty and impossible to catch, all of them. They were not inclined to linger when she approached, and for once she was glad for it. Formora swept through the overgrown gardens flanking the city and then into the boulevards squeezed between mountainous buildings fit to house dozens of grown dragons each. She stopped at one, slipped inside, and found a half-collapsed room with a narrow entrance on the second floor - where a couple of old bags had been left behind some years prior by herself and Enduriel. Another hideaway, one of many, but not one often used. The only reason she was desperate enough to turn to it was for the dead rising from the island's coasts - coupled with the other new horrors that now stalked the land. One-eyed men with minds like hammers, a serpent with the stature of a lithe elf and the height of a Kull, shelled Eldunarí with the ability to fly and voices of human women, and living metal golems carved into gleaming forms. It was enough to beggar belief. Not for the umpteenth time Formora wondered if her wards had failed, if her senses had been struck by the poisons in the air, if it wasn't all some frenzied delusion - if it wasn't a figment of her own madness.
She wasn't sure which she preferred to believe.
The dragonling pulled her from her thoughts with a yearning cry. Formora laid her bag and bedroll out, punched up the blanket and pulled Agaravel free. She set the Eldunarí down first, followed by the hatchling, and Formora said to her, "Watch it. Protect it. I won't be long."
Word given, Agaravel whispered. Word honoured.
Satisfied, Formora picked up a loose stone, then turned back to the dragon. It was so small and thin it hurt her heart and the way it moved, the noises it made, it all lingered with her. She was glad Enduriel was gone for it - and strangely morose about it too. Foolish thug he had been, he'd suffered the same as her. Though Formora couldn't have known what he would've done, perhaps it would have brought him some measure of peace - before he forced her hand one last time.
"Sitja," she firmly instructed the hatchling. "Eka weohnata fá onr vethr, mar ono verdur sitja hérna." (Stay. I will fetch you food, but you must stay here.)
It looked up at her with glittering purple eyes, so bright and innocent - sparkling with keen intelligence but too young for the world all the same. An ache settled in her chest, rife with worry, and it took everything she had not to scoop it up and sweep it into her arms.
"Stay," Formora said again - this time in the human tongue, though it would doubtless make even less sense. Her reasoning was to acclimate it to the language, so that-
No.
No, that was a fool's errand. Whoever the man really was, he was not human - in appearance only, nothing more. Formora recalled purple eyes of a different hue, full of terrible light and deep malevolence and she wanted no part of it. She retreated out of the room, out of the building and warily threw out her mind to the space around her. Within moments her thoughts stumbled on a young Snaelgí, a pack of buck-toothed rodents altered by the poison in the air into adopting bodies like weasels or vipers, and a couple of fluttering insects with many more wings than was natural. The Snaelgí was her first choice; it was scarcely taller than her knee and she cornered it against an alley, killing it with but a whispered word. Formora seized the dead thing, ignoring the putrid texture of it, and she stuffed it into a knapsack. She collected a few of the slithering rats, a pair of fatty moths and finally a creature not unlike a stick insect - mercifully extinguishing their lives with magic and absorbing the dissipating energy in their bodies into her own. Formora carried them back, found to her relief the room and the dragons undisturbed, and she laid her catches out. The newborn dragon crawled over from the bedroll, drawn by the scent of food, and it turned first to the Snaelgí - biting into its soft flesh with evident relish.
Tender, Agarvel intoned huskily. Crunch the shell and tear the rest.
"Not yet," Formora murmured, watching transfixed. "It has not the strength."
He. He. He does not.
"... He, then." Formora knelt down and, after a moment's hesitation, ran her fingers down the dragon's spine. It shivered and pressed into her touch, purring happily. The memories welled up but she couldn't stop; she remembered, distantly, a similar scene so long ago. That she couldn't recall the sight with total clarity was another ache she could scarcely stomach - but this...
This was-
Was this good?
Was this kind?
What... what was she doing? Formora paused in her ministrations and the hatchling looked up at her before once more burying his face into his meal. She'd been seen - and though the chase had been given up, that was not to say that they could not track her. Formora stood up, closed her eyes and from her lips passed spell after spell - some to distort the scent of her and her belongings, another to reactivate old detection wards left in proximity to the city, and more yet around the building to bar it from being spied upon by arcane means. Only then when she was satisfied she had done all she could did Formora settle back against the far wall and let out a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding in.
A dragon.
It had hatched.
And why? Because of a stranger's suspicion. A stranger she'd left for the ghouls - because he'd known her for what she was. Formora didn't regret it. Not for the promise of an interrogation if she'd cooperated - not for the demands of those other-men, those cyclopsian creatures who'd followed Ikharos twice, who'd dragged him to her perforated with impossible glass. No, her only regret was that he'd gotten so close as to notice Agaravel, to notice-... Well.
This way, though, wasn't so terrible, was it? The egg had hatched at long last - the cold progeny of someone forgotten, someone nameless, and thus unremarked upon and unremembered themselves. Hatched for a stranger already embroiled in a brutal war with hungry corpses and stolen away from it all. A mercy, really. She'd seen enough of Scorn to last an entire lifetime - forever. Better to leave them behind, leave them to whatever savage purpose they insisted upon. Vroengard was no longer safe. It was no longer a place fit to hide her, let alone a new dragon. That itself left her with few options.
"Where next?" Formora wondered aloud.
For once Agaravel said nothing - just the moment when her input would have been welcomed. It was typical. Her own brand of insurrection, to buck against bloodied hands. Hands that couldn't wash clean, no matter how hard one might rinse and work them. It was only for that she did not demand an answer. Formora had to consider their future alone. Few ports along the mainland's western coast were within her means of reaching and none of them were safe; she reckoned she could disguise herself well, but the king's agents were many and always eager to please. It was too precarious, particularly with a newborn dragon in her custody.
And even then, even with the danger of discovery and resumed entrapment, it was the better option. Alagaësia, in so far as she was aware, was not haunted by the dead. Nor by living golems of carved steel, or even one-eyed telepaths and Kull-sized serpents with the limbs of men. If there was a choice of the king's mortal soldiers or undying ghouls, then it wasn't really a choice at all.
But even if it was the better option... was it the right one?
Yes, she wanted to say, she wanted to shout and scream and stamp her foot to make it real - but she dared not swear in the only language that mattered for fear of balking at the last moment, unwillingly, and knowing for true it was wrong. Better the ignorance of an unanswered question, she thought. Because she refused to believe it was anything but right - even if her inner thoughts railed against it.
To steal a dragon? That was a crime almost without equal. Even to kill one, despicable as it was, to steal one away was the ultimate taboo - a theft of soul. She'd known the warmth that lay in gentle bonds. She'd been robbed of it too, though in a manner beyond reproach. Was this what she was, the voices in her head whispered. Was she a thief, now? Murderer, traitor, turncoat, tyrant - hypocrite, and maybe a liar while at it, pretending she knew best, that she was the only one who could make the rational, right decisions.
But the alternative was something wrong, something that wore a human shape but wasn't. It unnerved her as much as the Scorn, as the serpent, as Elisabeth and the dragon-headed beast - for as strange and alien as they were, they wore their differences on their sleeves. But he - strange as he was, that thing that called itself Ikharos, Formora didn't think his oddities fit his nature. He was taller than any human had any right to be, much slighter of build than his kin. His garb was foreign and outlandish and his accent, his voice - it was from nowhere she'd visited, nowhere she'd even heard of. Immortal he'd called himself, though his allies had seen fit to present him to her on death's door from wounds that would outright kill a lesser man, even most elves.
But his eyes - dull grey, human at first sight, they'd glowed with some otherworldly power. Not the red of a Shade, oh no, the violet of something unknown to her, something of considerable power. Enough to erase Scorn creatures from existence entirely. The magic he'd wielded, wordless, had been similarly frightening - fire without spark, crystal without cause, a yawning emptiness shrieking in low notes, thirsting for matter and life.
No. No, whatever he was, it wasn't human. Too uncanny; for a moment she wondered if this was the feeling humans bore upon seeing her own kind, uplifted beyond the imprisonment of mortal years. He was unfettered in the same manner as she-
-and she did not like it. Formora did not trust it. Immortal? No. But more than mortal; whatever he was, it was something between. Something terrible. Something unfit to be a Rider.
Even if it wasn't her choice to make. Formora scowled, cursing herself, her predicament, the entire island and every soul on it. She cursed Enduriel for leaving her to figure it out on her own. She cursed Agaravel's madness, preventing her from offering rational aid. She cursed the beast for leaving her terrified of night and she cursed the Scorn for haunting her in its stead.
Finally, she cursed the little dragonling for daring to give her purpose. It would have been better off leaving her to her own self-destructive devices.
"We have to leave this place," Formora muttered, breathing hard through clenched teeth. "I cannot bear it a moment longer."
No choice, Agaravel cackled. No choice at all!
Formora glanced at her irritably. "I am aware. We-"
No choice!
A roar echoed in the distance, somewhere else in the city. It was deep and baritone and lingered before cutting off. For a few moments afterwards all was marked by a tense silence, for even Formora dared not move, and then was followed by a distant crash. And another. And another. Getting closer and closer. Another noise manifested; she heard the shriek of metal scraping over cobbled stone and she knew it, she recognized it, she...
Formora looked down at the dragon, saw it had frozen up and was looking at her with uncomprehending fear. It knew not what was happening, but it knew to be afraid - even so young, scarcely a few hours old. It broke her heart to see. Formora pulled her sabre from its sheath and she took up position by the door. The crashing had solidified into an ongoing series of heavy thumps - the footsteps of something massive, marked by a noticeable limp.
Then, abruptly, it stopped.
Formora stepped out into the building's main hall, searched around, and she stilled as a shadow fell over the open doorway - the silhouette of a person noiselessly sliding into view. She raised her blade, readied her magic-
And only just stopped herself when Elisabeth stepped into the light. The steel-skinned woman raised a finger to her false-lips and Formora scowled; she did lower her sword, instead keeping it aligned with the other woman's throat, even as she cautiously approached.
"What do-" Formora started to ask, but Elisabeth's eyes briefly flared.
"Shh," she whispered. "It's close."
The other sound, the heavy limping, it started up again. Growing louder and louder, closer and closer - until the faint moonlight seeping in through the entrance was cut off as something large passed them by. It carried on down the street, gradually growing fainter, until at long last all was silent again.
"You said it was incapacitated," Formora accused.
Elisabeth was watching the doorway. "I did," she murmured.
"Yet there it was. Alive and well."
"Not well. It's lacking a head."
"A... what?" Formora frowned. "Lacking a head?"
Elisabeth spared her an irritated look. "They're growing anxious," she said cryptically. "They'd suspended his repairs to ensure the city is clear."
"Who?"
But Elisabeth wasn't listening. She turned in the direction of the room Agaravel and the hatchling were hidden - and she disappeared into swirling light, Formora's sabre passing through empty air. She cursed under her breath and rushed - rushed through the small doorway, skidded to a stop and glared as Elisabeth knelt down next to the little dragon, who gave her a curious look and a meek little squeak.
Harm for harmless? Agaravel whispered. Ill omen.
Formora ignored her. "Step away."
"I mean no harm," Elisabeth said, reaching out as if to lift the dragon, but Formora closed the distance between them and pointed her blade between Elisabeth's glass eyes.
"I won't ask again," she warned. "Step away from him."
Elisabeth glanced at her. "Have you named him yet?"
No. No, of course she hadn't, it wasn't her place to do so.
"Because he'll need one," Elisabeth continued. "Soon."
"You test me," Formora muttered. "Again and again; whatever you are attempting, I want no part in it."
"Even if it's for your own benefit?"
"If it's not by my choice - then no."
Elisabeth gave her a look of displeasure. "You'll have your choice. You will. The Scorn aren't the end of it; they're just the means for another's purpose."
"Something like that?" Formora gestured with her offhand to the door - both to the beast outside, in broad daylight, and the serpent from before.
"They've been playing this game far longer than we."
"I thought you said you existed beyond time," Formora accused.
Elisabeth's expression did not shift. Not in the slightest. "Those aren't my exact words."
"No. But it all boils down to the same, does it not? Nonsense. I do not care who you are, what you are; I care only that you leave me be. Leave us be."
Elisabeth straightened up. Her hands remained motionless by her side. "This is his doing. He touched the egg."
Formora didn't reply.
"But he doesn't know, does he? He didn't say as much last night. Was it an accident?"
"What do you think?"
"I think it was. You wouldn't have knowingly let it within ten feet of him."
"You yourself warned me against it. Here I am, taking the necessary precautions."
Elisabeth blinked. "And what's that? Running?"
"Yes." She felt no shame in admitting as much.
"Ikharos said you fled. Now I know why. I understand, Formora. I do."
"And will he?" Formora questioned sharply.
To her credit Elisabeth hesitated. "Maybe... maybe not. But this can end well for all involved. If you'd trust me-"
"Why? Why should I?"
"Because I saved you."
Formora scowled. "I owe you my life," she admitted. "But I do not owe you theirs."
"He won't kill them. Not in my presence."
"And when you inevitably disappear?"
"He'll have his questions, he'll have his complaints, but he won't lay a finger on them." Elisabeth paused. "For better or worse."
Formora did not appreciate the notion of worse. "I intend to quit this place. It has grown inhospitable, beyond my means to bear. I won't linger a moment longer."
"If you think the Scorn will be confined to Vroengard, you're terribly mistaken. They'll spread. There's little anyone can do to stop them at this stage. Maybe Ikharos can. You saw it for yourself."
"He came to me half-dead."
"Well, he survived," Elisabeth retorted, annoyed.
Formora shook her head. "He can be killed. If not by the Scorn, then Galbatorix and his creatures."
"You could help him find the means to fight them off."
"... No."
"No?" Elisabeth grimaced. "I regretted saying this earlier, but I don't now; how do your actions differ from the king's anymore? You're doing exactly as he had."
Fury, red and hot, bubbled to the surface of Formora's mind. "Watch your tongue lest I cut it out."
"Yeah? Good luck with that," Elisabeth said dryly. "It's some hundred of lightyears away and buried under several kilometres of ice, but if you're set on it..."
"You are mocking me."
"Yes. Because you're being obstinate. This dragon is meant for a Rider. Are you so eager to take that away from him, before he has the chance to choose for himself?"
"The man he chose is not right."
"Is that really your choice to make?" Elisabeth persisted.
No, Agaravel cut in before Formora could muster a response. Her voice manifested more lucid than was the expected norm. It is not.
Formora exhaled fitfully. "What do you propose? That I remain until a Scorn runs us down? The beast?"
"Ikharos has declared a warrant for your arrest. Your aid in his recovery - that'll give you some goodwill. Maybe it already has; he warned his forces against harming you. But they'll take you in, even if you try to leave. If you come with me-"
A crash. A crack. The thumping sound was back, louder than before. The beast had returned. Formora tightened her grip on her sabre and listened, the tension rising on the back of her neck.
It was outside. It was circling around the building.
"Shit," Elisabeth whispered. Her eyes dimmed. "God dammit..."
"Did... did you bring it here?" Formora questioned lowly.
"They can't track me," Elisabeth replied. "They can't sense me."
"Who?"
"Those under the island."
"Do they have a name?"
Elisabeth looked at her, then. "Those You Missed. How does that sound?"
Not... encouraging. Not in the slightest.
"Look," Elisabeth sighed softly, eyeing the doorway. "I know. I know what happened. To you. I know. But I'm giving the chance to take it all back."
"You know nothing of what I've lost," Formora shot back.
"Can't be anymore than what I have," Elisabeth snapped with abrupt vehemence, catching her by surprise. "I've lost everyone and everything and I never asked for any of this - but this isn't the time for a pity party, and I'll be damned if I'm having one with you, when your whole world lies open before you. Find him, tell him, teach him - just be honest and Ikharos will lean off, he'll let you leave if you wish, he might even arm you with something worth a damn. Just... try."
The clamour of the thing outside was growing increasingly louder. Elisabeth stared at her, then gave up and made a sound reminiscent of a deep exhalation. She gazed off into empty space - tracking the noise of the beast outside.
"It's wounded," she murmured. "But that won't stop it, only slow it. Or rather, stop him."
"Who?"
"Cuaroc."
... Cuaroc. Formora frowned; the name rang familiar in her mind, though the reasons were a blur, muffled by time and regret. Cuaroc, she thought. Cuaroc. Cuaroc. And then it struck - a dragon of a deep purple hue, old and wise and wild; a hunter of far-reaching lands and a formidable fighter. She remembered a drake of that name having lent their assistance during the siege of Luthivíra by the red-hide Kull clan. She remembered-
She remembered Kialandí flying back from beyond Ilirea, reporting the deaths of Riders and dragons in abundance. Cuaroc had been among those names. Cuaroc had been among the dragons whose Eldunarí were already missing by the time of the conquest of the last elven strongholds beyond Ellesméra's borders. Cuaroc... had not been among those counted in the king's new hostage hoard.
And only now did she think to consider why. It baffled; she should have noted the missing name, but she hadn't. And now-
"Those I Missed..." Formora whispered.
Elisabeth said nothing.
"That's... not a dragon outside. It's not."
"Maybe not in full. Only that which remained after your brother was through," Elisabeth carefully told her.
Formora closed her eyes and bit down on her tongue. Her sabre fell back by her side. She would have festered in her own dismayed self-loathing if not for the sharp chirp of the hatchling. She sheathed her weapon, gathered him up into her arms and reassuringly ran a finger down his ridged back. The little dragon squirmed and purred; it did comprehend what was happening in the slightest, but was enjoying it all the same.
"What are you going to do now?" Elisabeth asked. She had to raise her voice to be heard over the din outside.
Formora regarded her cautiously. "Why am I here?"
"You ran-"
"No. Why..." She looked around the room. "Why am I here? There are safer places on Vroengard; why did I pick here of all places? Why..." Formora looked at Elisabeth again. "Why did I... What was in that tower?"
Elisabeth paused. "The witch," she revealed. "Agnisia. And her Ghost."
"Skuldu."
"I think so."
"Why... why did I run for them?" Formora felt a shiver run down her spine. "That tower is too open; I would never have chosen it under other circumstances. And when they pursued me before, I... I fled for here. For-"
"Because they're emitting cognitive lures via paracausal currents - channels already carved through this world by others some time before. They can't help it. It's an unconscious effort." Elisabeth paused. "Does it really matter now?"
"I don't understand."
"They're planting ideas. They're spreading concepts. The witch unwittingly; you're not her target audience. The others..." Elisabeth fell silent. "Whatever you do, give the city space."
Formora spared her a stupefied look. "Do you think I'm foolish enough to remain?"
"I think you're lacking the mental blocks necessary to combat this degree of psychic warfare," Elisabeth fired back. "But now really isn't the time." She held out her hand. "I don't want to compound any further on this, ah... Look. I can bring you somewhere else. It'll just take a moment. All of you."
Speaks as though a bird, Agaravel chortled.
Elisabeth shook her head. "Not a bird. I don't fly. But I know someone who does."
"Your serpent," Formora accused.
"My... Oh, no. She's not mi-" A distant collision lightly shook the walls. Elisabeth raised her... Formora had to assume it was a weapon. "We need to leave. Now."
Formora ran to her bags. She threw everything inside, messily, and cast the blankets of her bedroll in to cushion Agaravel. Formora at last looked at the hatchling dragon, but thought better of it and shouldered her packs.
"Good," Elisabeth said, relieved. "Now we-"
Formora stepped past her.
"Wait-"
She did not, in fact, wait. Rather she hurried. For the door, for the hall, for the wide open sight of the sunlit street outside. Formora swept out into the light, looked around, and not a stone's throw away the beast stood - watching her, falling silent, clutching a sword and shield. It looked...
... desecrated.
It lacked a head just like some of the Scorn. One of its legs had been cut down to the steel bone and its body was patchy with missing layers of metal - revealing the delicate framework on the inside. Its left arm was a different colour to the rest of its plating, a dull bronze in place of silver, and it looked newer than the rest. Under normal circumstances, and for any other creature, it should have died. Perhaps, then, they had told the truth - Elisabeth and Ikharos. Only they'd underestimated the lengths it would go to to have its retribution.
And if Elisabeth was again correct, Formora entirely understood why - for what other reason had she subjected herself to this hellish island for nearly forty years if not for vengeance? Was it so out of the question that another might do the same?
"Cuaroc," she said.
The beast - it rumbled. Furiously. The hatchling in her arms chirped with alarm and fearfully dug its head into her collar. It did nothing to dissuade the ravaged construct, for it took one monumental step towards her, a testing motion. Formora matched it, taking two back.
It took another. And she-
Formora tired of the game and simply ran.
Cuaroc gave chase.
She stopped...
Where-
What-
The Rock- no, wait a moment-
Formora scrunched her eyes shut and opened them; before her stood Moraeta's Spire, jagged and covered in lichen as it always had been before, though presently it danced before her, swayed with delirium. She could scarcely make it out past the dazzling aura of faint magic.
Magic?
A crashing noise tore her focus away from the jutting rock growth and as she turned around she beheld a strange sight - two constructs of living metal coming to blows.
"-Mora!" Elisabeth shouted, though she sounded faint - as if speaking underwater. Formora felt an ounce of curiosity and nothing more; everything was oddly... muted. Insignificant. The hatchling in her arms had similarly fallen silent, fallen still, content to look at everything through the same relaxed haze.
Oh, she was aware of the effects assailing her mind. Formora knew them, only she'd never encountered any of their sheer saturation before, and she was helpless before it. A small part of her tore at the psychic bindings holding her in place, all the while watching as Elisabeth ducked beneath one of Cuaroc's crushing blows and raked his back with a barrage of stinging projectiles - bracing her strange weapon against her shoulder like a crossbow. It roared with every burst, like a swarm of furious bees being periodically released. It was all for naught, though. She tore at Cuaroc's hide but he took little notice, rumbled lowly and did little else. There was no pain for him. No reservation. He swatted and he cut and he thrust; with each motion he came a little closer, shaving the air next to Elisabeth time and again.
It was inevitable, really. So much pressure, so much tension; something had to give. It just so happened that it was Cuaroc's blade that settled the matter, burying in Elisabeth's side. She seized up, gasped, and looked up at him. He dispassionately pushed her off, dropped her to the ground and raised his broadsword into the air - but as it descended it met only cobbled stone and tough dirt. She'd disappeared with a flicker of liquid light, one moment there and the next gone.
Some part of Formora realized she was probably next. It was an effort to draw her own sabre - because there was something in her mind, something injecting her with feelings of calm and disinterest and none of it seemed right, but there was too much to ignore. She didn't feel panicked. She didn't feel terror. She didn't fear for her life. She was just... content. Content and helpless to shake the feeling off.
Cuaroc shifted, turned to her, approached. He held his sword aloft and it struck her that he was going to cut her down where she stood. She tried to raise her own blade to deflect the blow, but it was too much, impossible. Agaravel was roaring and the hatchling was chirping with confusion and she simply stood there, incapable of fighting the urge to remain where she was, as she was - to languish.
But Cuaroc paused at the last moment. He paused and he watched her without eyes and behind her came the explosive crack of shifting stone and moving earth. Cuaroc sheathed his blade. He reached out.
By the time she'd roused herself beyond the grasp of the infectious magic, it was too late.
They descended. Deep into the earth they descended, passing runic ward after runic ward, and Formora was helpless to stop them - for Cuaroc's grip was unbreakable and the forces assailing her mind were ceaseless; they coiled within her thoughts like errant serpents, filling her consciousness up with the bulk of their presence. It was impossible. It was domineering. It was little different to all she'd suffered before and she could not escape it - nor the chamber that had engulfed them, for the entrance closed shut behind them, cutting off the light of the sun and plunging them into absolute darkness.
The floor of the tunnel was inlaid with grooves and striations, as if the stone had been melted down. After some time the air grew warm, then hot - almost unbearably so. A light shimmered in the distant depths of the tunnel and Cuaroc dragged her to it. They passed beneath another archway resplendent with an array of magical runes.
Then, at last, they entered a massive circular chamber with a glowing pit in the centre from which churned molten rock. Tiers like shelves ran along the walls, upon which were seated just the things Elisabeth had warned her about - the very thing she hoped for and feared the most in all the world. Eldunarí. Dozens. A hundred and then some. Dragons souls of every colour, cast in glittering crystal. They were silent, eyelessly watching her.
Cuaroc threw her to the ground, right before the pit - and Formora scrambled back from the edge, cradling the hatchling. The cloud over her mind dissipated and she flinched, waiting for the shout, the roar, the bellowing, the justified rage.
Nothing of the sort.
Instead, Agaravel began to laugh - long, manically, crazed. She laughed. And laughed. And laughed.
AN: Hugest thanks to Nomad Blue for his feedback and editing, what a lad!
As of recently I'm really finding myself falling into cosmic/sci-fi horror, and my goodness Destiny does lend itself very well to it. It's all fun and games when you've got a hoverbike and a Mythoclast and an overpowered exotic armour piece, but the universe is fking scary and I love it. So - yeah, hence this chapter being another "WTF" on Formora's end with a little more emphasis on Inheritance Cycle's own freaky stuff. Because dragon crystals with telepathic abilities vast enough to reach across an entire continent to alter events are kinda frightening too.
tl;dr - elf wonders why the heck living on a radioactive hellscape is so hard.