III

The city-state palace of Eirlorne had stood since the dawn of the Drakon Accord, centuries ago. Wind, time, and nature had gnawed its outer courts, warring for territory that was once their own. Its pale towers had reached high into the heavens with slender fingertips, like lances lifted defiant to a threat long since lost to them. But within, its halls still echoed with the faded splendor of a world that had believed itself eternal. Cathedral halls loomed with ancient beauty, spotless stone bearing silent marvels carved at her every step. When daylight poured through the colored glass climbing the walls like ghostly vines, their memorials shimmered across the great emptiness, stirring an unwritten canvas with fleeting color.

The silhouette of Vashmir wound across stone columns and floor, unmistakable — The Great Serpent, said to be the very cliff-face on top which Eirlorne was build, the palace its enduring crown.

People believed that in time immemorial, Vashmir, First of Dragons, had curled next to its intrepid lover, the Galion Sea — to gaze upon its immortal face one last time before death claimed the dragon. And though the unchanging sea had raged and wept ever since, death, unmoved, never answered it.

Here, in the quiet of the royal gardens, the inner sanctum of the palace, it was this story that Mhaara thought on still. A human had called it unjust: great love stolen away by the god of death. An Umbaren elf had called that “human fancy,” and titled it a story of inevitability: a dreamer’s folly. Mhaara had not asked others for their truths—curiosity was a luxury not meant for her.

Sunlight fell across the ancient stone like a memory—slanted, diffused by the high lattice of red-golden leaves in early fall. The cathedral loomed in the near distance, yet still lower than the palace gardens, breathing in silence. The scent of moss and fading bloom clung to the arches. Somewhere far off, the hush of wind over marble whispered like desperate prayers. The city was in mourning, colder than it had been in a long time.

Mhaara stood before a pool, a perfect circle, interwoven with adornments of golden mineral. A dozen or so leaves dressed the stone rim, not one adrift, all still.

Its surface was unmarred, save where her reflection stood: tall and unmoving. A statue not dissimilar to those guarding the palace grounds from on high. Bleak figures of black claws and blinded eyes, though she seemed opposite in that respect. Pale white glow emanating from the hollows of her face. She had color, a work of teal stone, wrapped in earthy robes like bindings. Carved aquamarine gems sat in perfect sockets along the carved surface of her animated flesh. As her gaze reflected in the water tension, a perfectly still mirror, nothing but the bright-white light of her eyes reflected back at her, like the profile of two fallen stars.

A petal drifted onto the shallow of the pool, broke the image with soft ripples. Kneeling, she trailed her fingers across the water, drawing a series of runes like an afterthought. A thrumming within the thin edge of the water— a spark. But it faded, quickly as a dream.

It gave her no vision today. And that, itself, was an omen.

Behind her, footsteps approached — soft but sure. She did not rise, though the water had already stilled by the time the human woman stepped near.

“I had hoped,” Avenar began, her voice like velvet caught on stone, “To convene with you earlier. But there had been an... incident.”

Mhaara inclined her head but a fraction, gaze still on the pool. “So I have seen.”

“And you didn’t think to warn us?”, it came from over her shoulder.

“No,” Mhaara said, her tone mild yet without apology. “You would not have listened.”

Silence lingered between them, not hostile—simply familiar. Tired. Avenar’s eyebrows drew in that way they often had. There was nothing to dispute: she would have believed the stone giant, and the rest of the Accord would have not. They'd have deliberated, thoughts divided, hearts mistrustful. It would have changed nothing.

The two women had seen too much of each other to play court. And so Avenar eased herself onto the stone bench beside the pool. She moved with the grace of someone long trained to hide exhaustion—but even she frayed under the dappled light falling through the leaves. Her once-regal mantle sagged slightly at the shoulders. There was little to cling to, when old alliances went to die in the dark.

“So you had another vision, then.” the human stated, more to herself than her company. “There have been more lately.”

“They come like the flood,” Mhaara murmured. “Too swift to hold. Too tangled to read. The last...I saw fire swallowing stone. Wings blacker than night above a tide of ash.”

Avenar’s tone shifted. “The palace?”

“Maybe. Maybe not." Her hand stopped, perfectly still without even the phantom of breath. "The future is never a single river, Ambassador. It’s a hundred streams, squeezing blood from the same stone.”

She turned at last to face the human. "You still wear your grief like armor," Mhaara observed evenly.

Avenar didn’t reply right away. Instead, she rose, restless. Her fingers dipped into the pool too, as she settled against the lip of it. The ripples bent their reflections into wraiths: a shadowed statue, next to a worn, golden warden.

“The darkness,” Avenar said, eyes intent on the pool. Her mind wandered far, even as they sat at the place they always had. “It did not feel like rage, or torture. It was soft. Gentle. It spoke in my lover's voice, as if he was the one to— like it was right to attack-” her eyes fluttered. “It...promised me I was saving him.”

Him. The king. The boy. The cub.

Mhaara remembered. She had not seen it — but she had heard. The whispers still echoed among the palace guard, coated in secrecy and pain. Avenar, glowing with a will so black and putrid, striking down the same boy she had once saved, not ten summers old at the time. Corrupted, defaced — a shadowy mockery of heavenly conviction. Black tears and desperate words of encouragement, levied against the very wolf her disfigured claws chased after. Had she not been subdued by the boy-kings inner circle, she would have burned the throne itself.

“You survived,” Mhaara echoed.

The human's exhale sounded more akin to a drowned gurgle. “No. I was survived." She stood abruptly. "The thing that crawled inside me...that wore my skin, it knew my heart. My fears. It reached inside me and grasped the one place I believed untouchable.” Her fingers clenched. “I trusted my mind. My will, my light. And it was stolen.” As she swallowed around the last of the words, her posture stiffened. Perfectly straight, had the angle not been off. “Some days, I barely feel it. The Light. Where does that leave me? Us?”

Mhaara watched the woman beside her, silent as the water.

“You think yourself broken,” she said at last, eyes cast the the water once more. “But a vessel does not lose worth simply for having cracked. The cup may yet hold truth.”

Avenar huffed. “Or poison.”

“Poison,” Mhaara replied, lips curling affably. “might be needed to draw out the rot.”

Their eyes met then — human warmth against a sorrow from beyond the stars— and something passed between them. Not forgiveness, perhaps, but understanding. Recognition of the same wound in a different shape.

After a moment, Avenar chuckled, almost mirthful. “Your metaphors are terrible.”

“I have lived too long to care.”

“You always care,” the human countered, quickly, and woefully unimpressed. Her head tilts. “That’s why your people follow you.”

“They follow because the last Wavesinger would have sacrificed them for-” The oracle’s tone sharpened like wind off glacial cliffs — and then shattered on the rocks below. “…base survival.”

Her reflection trembled in the disturbed water. “I refused.”

The silence that followed carried on the breeze, caressing her frown like a hand gently cradling her stone skin.

“Now I carry that choice,” Mhaara whispered, more to herself than Avenar. “I am uncertain. Is it death, or murder.” Avenar reached out—hesitantly—and touched her turquoise stone wrist.

“You chose correctly,” the human affirmed. White eyes settled on the point of contact, unreadable. “You may yet fail... you may even fall. But that day, you choose correctly.”

The gesture, the contact—it was nothing. And yet... Mhaara blinked, just once. Her shapeless heart beat once, slower. The sunlight framed the human, falling through the pale leaves above and shadowing her face. Shadowed, yet the glow rimming her iris stands stark against the dark, even as her expression remains torn. And Mhaara’s soul resonated, a small vibration deep within her chest, a glow at her breastbone — quick and fleeting.

“Careful,” the giant began, voice low with amusement. “You might start sounding like a Seer.”

Avenar smirked, tired but genuine. “Then we’re truly doomed.”

They sat together a moment longer. The light filtered through the leaves like shards of gold. A fine audience for the birth of a new Prophet, Mhaara thought idly.

Finally, she rose.

“Will you tell me, then? What happened this morning.”

The towering woman inclined her head as her human companion moved to stand beside her, reluctantly. Fleeting eye contact was made, before Avenar turned her gaze towards the great walls lining the garden oasis just ahead.

A man — a middle-aged worker dressed in plain attire — was already perched on a rickety ladder against the white stone. With careful, deliberate movements, he and three others — removed the dark purple of the Umbaren banner, the bright, teal glow of their sigil snuffed. Beneath it revealed the ghostly pale imprint of marbled stone, unmarred by time and weight.

One of the men was an elf.

Their eyes met — first with the elf, then her gaze  stuttered to the guard immediately to the right, then she turned all together.

“Remind me again why your visions are ‘impression’ and not something more...concreate?”, the human half-inquired, her tone straining.

The smile on Mhaara’s lips was uncompromising. “Fate, my friend.”

The human swallowed past a dry throat.

“Fate. Of course. Naturally.” Diplomatic compulsions eluded her for the time being, instead favoring to pace a little more.

Avenar muttered to herself, then sank slowly, ever so slowly, back onto the bench. Exhaustion bowing her head like the disheveled strands of a willow. What came next sucked all the remaining life right from her breastbone, departing with the wind.

“This morning, the Umbaren delegates have formally withdrawn from the Accord on behalf the First Thorn,” she drew past tight lips, her cadence well-practiced. Even. She watched to her right, where the tall purple banner of the just as towering elves sinks to the floor in a heap. ”...she sanctioned the severance by letter. Sent word from the Duskcoast — what's left of it.”

Almond eyes trail the wilting grass before them, the word ‘letter’ echoing from her sharper than all the rest, like brambles stuck in her throat.

There is a silence that stretches through the garden as the shadows appeared a little colder than before. Like the sky shifted with the news, spoken into the holy quiet of the garden's sacturary. The birds and bugs join in the vow of silence, even as the sun continued to stick high in the sky. Unfeeling, perhaps, of the suffering his brother's children endured. Or simply because it was all it knew how to do, free of intent and free-will and all the pain that came with mortaldom.

“They still won’t leave,” it came, like a slow bleeding. “Even as they stand in rubble, they won’t leave their homes.” The humans jaw works soundlessly after that, trying to chew through something that cannot be stomached, taste something beyond comprehension. Grief? Guilt?

Something akin to bitterness is the final answer, tempered by the exhaustion of one trying to mend the world. “20 years ago, it were the Solaren. Now the Umbaren. We’ll be lucky if any elves remain within the city.”

The woman stands, feet restless. “There is nothing to return to — the refugees are in no condition to leave, but if the First Thorn calls upon them, then-“

The woman cuts short, tongue taught between clenched teeth. Mhaara watches, a patience in her eyes that felt almost condescending — had it not been for the hand she extended towards the other woman. Upturned and open, cool stone with nails like perfectly cut jewels. Patient and immovable, as always.

“Come with me.”

The temple of Saphryl’s Crown stood hidden beneath the western wing of the palace—forgotten by most. Here, the stars wept through holes in the dome like a thousand silver candles. A warmth clung to the derelict walls, just as comfortable as it was unnatural. As though the worship that had unfolded within these hallowed halls remained still. Set into the very marble that arched high above their heads. The ceiling had collapsed long ago, revealing a cavern of vines and broken quartz. Wind mourned gently between the ribs of the ruin, yet not daring to rise over the sound of their heels clicking against the stonework.

It was here that Mhaara knelt, once more, before a bowl of prayer. It reminder her much of An’nuhar — the World-Earthen Vessel, of her home. Though that had been gone longer than the sun or moon themselves.

Mhaara’s fingers pressed deeper, scribing delicate runes into the surface tension — no longer cautious or ceremonial, but with quiet urgency. Avenar’s confession had unsettled something old in her, something sacred. She did not speak aloud what she sought; the water knew.

This time, it answered her.

The reflection vanished, pulled into black. Light surged beneath it — gold and ivory and brilliant flame.

Avenar stood at a respectful distance, arms folded within the long sleeves of her robes. There were no words between them. Only the sound of breath and the small click of Mhaara’s polished claws as she tapped a measured rhythm along the vessel’s rim.

The runes carved into the bowl's basin were older than scripture—older than war. Dedicated to a human god of wind and skies, but the waters answered her across the cosmos.

The crystal shimmer beneath her skin ignited as her soul reached out, made of magic itself, beating like a heart against her shell of stone.

“I do this,” she murmured, eyes closed, “But because your grief called to mine.”

The runes bloomed like fireflies, blue and purplish.“Join me.”

The waters shimmered—then darkened, and the world fell away.Her eyes snapped open.

A tunnel. A rift of flame and void. At the end of it: a battlefield unlike any Avenar had known.

6 planets dominated the sky, in perfect celestial alignment, some broken, some weeping red. Between them, a fleet of warcolossi fell like meteors—vessels of light—bodies of stone armour and glowing, golden runes.

Each moved with mechanical precision, blades humming with a language she could no longer understand. The war raged across planets as if they were grains of sand—light battling void, deities against gods, silence against scream.

And there—in the heart of it—Juurose.

Their form was as she remembered: towering, yet as tall as she had remembered. A being of carved ivory stone, eyes twin comets, armor gilded with the runic flame of ascension, the ancient word of “zeal”. Their silhouette burned with divine law, Zenith of the Fatebound. The way they moved—impossibly elegant, terminally alone—stilled her breath.

They fought without pause, surrounded by chaos, shadow like tentacles, snapping at their strong frame— demons and devils of purple and black laughing and snarling. Yet they were never touched. Never faltering.

“Still you fight.”, Mhaara whispered.

Behind her, Avenar’s frame jolted standing admists the destruction, eyes wild. The celestial projection of her body shimmered as the lightning fast shape of the Reliquary flew through her— hovering above, suspended.

A beautiful woman, devastating, four sandstone arms shaping a spell of catastrophic magnitude. It flattened the landscape for miles before her — the smile that graced her lips almost benevolent, but edged with excitement.

Where she flew, where they went, armies followed — in devotion, but in reverence, in command. Perfect warriors of light, unbreakable, unbending. They didn’t falter. Didn’t hesitate.

Avenar stepped forward, words soft—a bit shaken. “Is this a vision of the past?”

“No,” Mhaara said. “It is now. And forever.”

Her voice cracked like glacial ice.

“When the last of our home-world was consumed, collapsed into itself— we prayed to all the gods we knew. Pleaded for the Light to save us.”

Her eyes never drew from the ivory being ahead, body still through any disturbance—the war silent, dull, in her mind.

“But the Light does not offer gifts—it is as consuming as the shifting dark it rages against. Primal forces ever in conflict.”

Mhaara reached out through the vision, her translucent hand lifted, a gesture that passed through light and distance and time.“Juurose ascended, as many did. It bought us time.”

Juurose did not see her. Could not. But in the quiet just before they turned to cleave a creature of needle teeth and liquid black, their head tilted — just slightly, toward her presence. Recognition?

No. Reflex.

They dodged a waraxe the size of their body, a hulking shadow coming up from behind. Golden white arrows descended, 50 of them, needling the beast.

Mhaara pulled back, heart aching at the unspeakable distance.

“We thought them honored. Chosen. But we did not understand then. What was gained...was final.”

The vision collapsed. She was kneeling again in the temple, Eirwyrd, eyes glowing faintly. Avenar had not spoken — perhaps unwilling, perhaps holding her breath.

She touched the water again, the image of Juurose fresh in her minds eye. No pain in their gaze. No peace. Nothing, but undying determination.

“I do not mourn the war,” Mhaara said. “I mourn what it made of the only one I ever loved.”

She didn’t cry. Stone did not weep. But something inside her ground — a tectonic shift unspoken.

Avenar’s voice was lower now. “You…would choose them again, wouldn’t you. Even now.”

“There is no again,” Mhaara said, not bitter. Just true. “There is only what is done… and love is all I know.”

A quiet pause stretched long. The leaves above shivered.

Then Avenar rose, slow and graceful.

“Come,” she said.

“Walk with me. I’ve had enough water for today.”

The balcony was high, and still. Wind curled around their ankles, lifting the hems of their robes.

The city of Eirwyrd sprawled below — aglow in the waining sun, gilded and ghostly. A few, scattered figures walked below. Their heads lowered, their steps a mourning wake.

Up here, the world felt quieter. Honest.

Mhaara stood with arms folded behind her back, an unblinking figure of carved turquoise, her gaze fixed outward onto the cold city.

Avenar joined her, slow and weary, her cloak fluttering like banner fallen in the autumn wind. She leaned forward against the carved stone railing, fingers splayed across worn runes of protection.

“They haven’t stopped,” Avenar said, unprovoked. “The voices. I keep them away, but...it’s harder now.”

Mhaara said nothing.

“I hear them at night. When I sleep.” The words passed her lips like a confession.“I wake, sweating and shaking. It is there that I see him again.”

Her eyes shuttered close, the face of her betrothed flickering past, ephemeral in his beauty. “Not as he was — but as he became, worn by that inky blackness. And sometimes...sometimes I believe it was right. That what the voice told me was mercy.”A shiver races through her body, hands straining around the stone ledge.“What does that make me?”

Mhaara closed her eyes, stone lids heavy. “It makes you someone who loves.”

They stood in silence for a long time. Until at last, Mhaara spoke, voice quiet.

“There is something I…did not say, earlier.”

Avenar looked up. Head tilted, wary but listening.

“My love—Juurose—I saw them again. Not long after the fire vision. A clearer one.”

She swallowed, her voice a crackle of granite.

“They will return.”

Avenar blinked. “Return?”

Mhaara’s eyes fell to the floor

“Not to embrace me. Not to reclaim our people. But to destroy us. I saw it—one day, when the stars shatter and the Accord is dust...they will descend. A blade of divine precision.”It fell practiced from her lips, a truth that had played in her mind over and over.

“They will march with legions of perfect warriors—shaped like marble saints—and they will cut down everyone I call mine.”

“Why?” Avenar whispered.

“I do not know.” Her voice a thread of dust and memory.

“Perhaps...perhaps I broke the Lights’ trust, by refusing its touch. Perhaps they see us now as the deviants. A heresy that would be purged at a more opportune time. Perhaps they see the shadow in us.”

Avenar said nothing. She stepped closer instead.

“And still,” Mhaara exhaled, voice splintered, “I long for the day that I know their face again. To love them once more—even at the very end—is enough.”

Avenar’s eyes misted. “You are mad.”

“Perhaps,” Mhaara allowed. “Love is all I know.”

The silence returned, deeper now. A heavier thing. But it was not empty.

Luminescent eyes fall closed, and light shifts under carved skin.

Avenar leaned her head against the stone giant’s arm.A simple gesture. The kind shared by children who once played with wooden swords, by warriors who bore real ones, and by women who had survived what neither childhood nor battle could name.

The warmth returned, where flesh met with the cool of cosmically wrought stone.And in that moment, a peace was brokered — not between factions, not for treaties or histories, but between two weary beings who had chosen, again and again, to endure.

Below them, the city of Eirwyrd sighed beneath its breath, settling in the last threads of twilight. Its towers veiled in tired gold and windshorn bone. A thousand windows flickered with a thousand dim lights, countless regrets of the past. Perhaps soon, dreams for the future.

But for now — above all — the stars began to appear. Slow, deliberate. Not scattered, but placed. Guardians in formation. Blinking open one by one, they stood watch.

And under their gaze, stone and flesh remained. Unmoving. Unbroken.