Chapter 437 (2/2)

The figure was huraceful, the features of her face sharp but the details indistinct “Only one who has progressed far down the path of aevue can be in two places at once, separating body and spirit to pursue knowledge outside the trail of their own tiht’sjourney builds calluses on your heels”

“And when er than ure left off I thought I understood, but that understanding was tenuous, hovering at the edge of ht into aevum My ability to heal…”

The downpour of aetheric rain receded, bloay by visible striations of gusting wind The swirling lines of wind straightened and beca from the darkness Amethyst rivulets trickled down the spikes and dripped frolassy water It was blood, though I wasn’t exactly certain how I knew

I began to h the field of spikes as if in a dreaht find pinned beneath them: Alea Triscan, Cynthia Goodsky, Alduin and Merial Eralith, Arthur…

The figure walked besideout a ripple across the water’s surface “You remember the many painful lessons of your life, but what you experienced on your spiritual journey was soht is woven into the fabric of your being, not burned into your soft tissue by a specific sequence of firing neurons And yet, it is still there”

The spikes, pulsing with each gust of the aetheric wind that forrow closer and closer no matter where my feet took me, even when I stopped entirely Soon, they were nearly pressing into ht, don’t they?” As I spoke, a spike pressed against ain what other asuras have tried and failed to for so long?”

“Fear”

I looked at the spikes all around me but did not feel afraid

“Not your fear Theirs Fear has long rooted theeable for fear of what change rona, in his fear, seeks to change himself at the expense of all others, to burn worlds as fuel for his own ascension Both are incapable of risk and self-sacrifice, and so they are incapable of gaining new insight”

I took a step forward, and the spike at my throat receded Wherever I walked, the spikes unfolded away fros in this world What are they both so afraid of? Each other?”

The figure unraveled at the edges “Focus That is a story for another time, and unrelated to what you need to accoure co myself to ask a question I already knew the answer to “If I’ forces that ht?”

“Not just you Never just you You are bonded Three parts of one whole spacium Vivuis And raceful neck With each step she was passing through spikes that ca away

I stopped walking through the field of spikes, and the spikes melted like ice “And this is i of Fate?”

The figure’s indistinct humanoid face displayed a war in a s so ar the water A central bea at the fulcruain The scale was much lower on her side than mine

“Only one who has in to understand the fourth edict of Fate But no single being can walk three paths at once”

“But if three were as one…” Mentally, I charted the path of our conversation so far, and my mind stuck on one point “It comes back to entropy, doesn’t it?”

“The nature of all things Time’s arrow Movement from order to disorder, form to formlessness The dissolution of structure”

“You’re suggesting there is a danger of Arthur, Regis, and I separating,” I thought outloud, staring into the figure’s es are divided by entropy Isn’t it also the process by which things coenous?”

“Note that the scales of your understanding have not shi+fted Think deeper, farther”

I struggled to see where this could be going or why it was i with an epheure in my mind that may orto h the aetheric real that I have to holdforces, the ones threatening to pull is is chaos, the living embodiment of entropy—Destructionmy eyes wrinkle at the corners—“still so very human He’s already proven once that he’ll rip himself to pieces, cell by cell, to defeat his enemies, burn himself up from the inside if he has to His sense of self preservation is…lacking”

The scale shi+fted slightly closer to equilibriu up at ned now,” I said, feeling understanding co a little ht, bend it even To ensure that we reh to finish this”

Even as I said these words, they conjured in ether, and my concentration snapped like a frayed rope

The scales dissolved, and once again, the figure and I were standing atop the water My feet sank slightly, just breaking the surface, and the aetheric winds swirled into less chaos, an artist’s rendition of discord and disarray drawn in violet lines against the deep purple sky The breath caught in h the water and sky, the aetheric wind, and even the giant deht was sympathy

“You aren’t ready yet To lose concentration noould be…catastrophic”

The harder I tried to hold onto my focus, the more violently it seeid will break under force That which is too pliable and allows too much freedom of movement can be torn or peeled away Control Balance That is what you are, and what you must find”

I clenched my teeth and shut my eyes, frustrated that it failed to block out the vision A moment to adjust, to recover, that was all I asked, all I…

I sed heavily “All things come to an end,” I said, barely a whisper “But if we—as we ht into the edict of Fate, we get to control when the end is” My breathing calure’s indistinct face “And for every end, there are new beginnings too Endings don’t have to be sohtened and the foran to take shape It was a deeply comfortable place, one thatnap atop my bond’s head: Arthur and Elijah’s bedroom within the Helstea estate

On all fours, I hopped up on the bed, walked in a circle around Arthur’s pillow, and then curled up atop it The wo s end, isn’t it?” Ielse has come apart, the universe separated down to its base That’s why aether is so potent for the creation of things—but also why the Relictoainst the nature of that place to maintain foraround the blurry recreation of Arthur’s room

“But it remembers what it was The aether That’s e can create spellforms Even the Godrunes They’re an expression of that held e of the spellforms is housed in djinn-crafted implements, but the Godrunes…”

I had to stop, to really think It was getting so hard I just wanted to rest, to sleep

“The aetheric reale of any for God As Arthur’s understanding of specific edicts grows, the aether remembers and forms a Godrune But this only happens for him Because of his connection with the aether The djinn remnant said he was unique, that the aether saw hiain, a simple nod

Outside Arthur’s , a horned owl flew past

“But if I’ ure She was a giant deracefully on the foot of the bed, her broad, frightening visage silent and watchful But she was unraveling at the edges, and it had been sorown distracted Whatever connection was holding oursuddenly, I physically shook off the sense of comfort I felt Corowth She’d said it before: insight required risk But rowth required pain

The bed dissolved into individual threads of wind, and I landed on all fours on the water’s surface Wind-draalls, s, and furniture alike unfolded and billoay I stood, returning to ain, each scale gusting and distorted

The bright lines of aetheric wind carved theh stone walls of a ravine The water beneath ht, violently violet light

In a slow, controlledinto the floor The sensation was purelycoht at a cellular level

I let out a hissing, pain-filled breath, iht fro it into the atmosphere where I could see it on watched fro down from atop the ravine walls, her expression unreadable

“I have to understandthe proble it froht into the edict of Fate” I let myself sink lower, the aetheric lava now all the way up to h the path of aevum, I can influence that arrow Bend it to avoid or strike a target at will The insight I gained while experiencing Arthur’s past life is written on my spirit”

I slipped entirely beneath the surface The pain wiped every thought and impulse from my mind except for one immediate idea: the recla of aevum and aether’s impact on time I had to reconnect my body and spirit, make sense of all the many aspects of myself that were contradictory in nature

I understand that I aon and basilisk, the result of the lines of Indrath and Vritra This is e, but it is notbeyond either of them I chose to be unafraid

I appreciate that I a—bonded to a human, a “lesser” Arthur is the third choice, the last hope, humanity’s ascension There is no shareater and lesser beings will be less

I accept that I am order froainst the inevitable I aeable I hadI was, and now uide, caution and fury, daughter and partner

But I arandfather’s treasure to be hoarded or weapon to be swung

I reject the role required of my birth clans, and I refuse the name of Indrath or Vritra

SYLVIE LEYWIN

I burst up fro surface as I draggedto , wind spinning like stones that bounced from one another then fluttered away as birds and butterflies

The ground was ain, and the wind cal alone atop the infinite expanse of water under an endless aetheric sky The figure was nowhere to be seen, though I thought I could still sense her, feel her like breath on the back ofup at me from the floor, this taller, leaner frame I had returned within, my face sharper, older, like Arthur’s, our hair and eyes al more closely There was more of Arthur in my reflection than I had re down onto

Withinback atslowly, cal to me I couldn’t hear his words, but I could understand hisThey needed ed upward Arthur’s hands, his voice, his presence were pushi+ng through into the mental world I’d becoh the water and interlaced ers with his