Chapter 480 (1/2)
Chapter 480
Chapter 478: Horizon’s Edge
ARTHUR LEYWIN
Despite having no visible eyes, the knotwork face of the golden, glowing being stared into ht down to my bones My own ht I could feel the golden threads knitting their way through my mind and memories, my past, present, and future The sensation terrified me on an existential level
“Who are you?” My voice was hollow and soft, the baritone resonance sed by the void and my own doubt
“You have already said it” The threads pulsed and vibrated as the entity spoke “I agled to co else to say, I desperately searched the wide expanse of aetheric void that surrounded us The only concrete feature of the vast black-purple emptiness was the portal I wondered ould happen if I tried to flee back through it
No, this is e’re here, I reh the uncharacteristic fear that was robbing me of my senses “What was that, back there? Haneul? The Shados and other tribes? Why the charade?”
The golden threads unraveled, shi+vered through the air, and wound the us between Fate and the portal Sylvie and Regis rotated aroundFate
“I chose a figure froht would put you at ease in order to ain, the threads vibrated, a hint of which cah in the resonant, inhuman voice of Fate’s aspect “You carry with you many hundreds of hours of re the appearance of great ih the forolden threads extending outward from it “Perhaps it was not comfort you needed to introduce you into this conversation, but confusion”
I glanced at Sylvie, who met my eye with a raised brow ‘This…isn’t exactly what I expected’
Regis tilted his head, perplexed‘Me neither’
“Your expectations could only prove to be ure responded, as if it could hear our thoughts “You know so little, but your insight has brought you to the cusp of greater understanding To the horizon’s edge Your growth, your power—your , and one thing alone”
“To wield the aspect of aether known as Fate?” I asked aloud, a shi+ver running upto resound fro that made up the entity’s physical for is very…human”
Before I could reply, colors spilled across the void, swirling and reen field, and an expanse of rolling ocean, each white-capped wave glea like so many diamonds in a yellow sun By the tiain wrapped itself in the blue-skinned, pink-eyed djinn, Haneul
I took an experi down, I raneach one bend and then spring back into place So about the scene was familiar “Where are we?”
“It depends on when you are,” Haneul replied He approached the edge of a tall cliff that rose vertically up from a wide beach below Shadows rushed suddenly across the landscape, and buildings began to rise out of the sand Dark figures moved across the beach like many thousands of ants “The wraiths were the first to build here A very, very long tirew up before us, alive with the little dark figures that appeared and disappeared too quickly to make out The city sed the coastline and the cliff, extending as far as the eye could see in every direction Then other figures appeared White shadows, then blue, then red and brown, all descended on the city Although the distant scene lacked detail, it was obvious that a terrible battle was unfolding Both sides suffered greatly, and, by the time it was over, the landscape had been returned to its previous state Nothing was left of the city
I recalled what Kezess had told me about the ancient branch of asuras called the wraiths “We just saw all the other asuras banding together against the warlike wraiths, didn’t we?” I said, ures were swar the wraiths had done before thereat city Only, before the city was complete, all the white blurs vanished I frowned down at the half-built ghost city for several long moments Just as I was about to turn to Haneul and ask what had happened, the land opened up and sed the city whole
“When the dragons took Epheotus frons of their civilization fro of them” Haneul looked sadly down on the empty beach The construction and fall of the two cities had left the landscape roughened and the cliff face carved away in part “It is always here This place calls to every civilization that grows from the soil of this land”
“What do you—”
I went silent as a new people spread across the beach Their progress was slower than the wraiths or the dragons Starting with se into a town, and then into a sainst the cliff face The land around us was tilled and churned to brown soil where crops were grown Thick plus, which were now made of brick instead of clay or wood Docks extended out into the ocean, and sress seemed to halt for some time, and then…
White blurs rained dohite fire, and the city was erased in the blink of an eye
My first thought was of the djinn, but I had seen a djinn city This hadn’t looked the saons…
A chilling notion darkened my mind, and I turned to Haneul for confir after, another group of people appeared Like before, they slowly built up the land, surpassing the previous civilization as towering structures became the backbone of a walled city that spread down the coastline in each direction Then, the blurred white shapes caons left, all signs of the city were undone
Sylvie gave a low, painedas she watched the shadowy destruction play out before us
“This is one s one narro of tiely empty of emotion “You need to see this to understand Only when you understand will you be able to see”
Time continued to pass by in a flood, and severala civilization, an entirely new people Then a city grew up that I recognized
“The djinn city The one I saw in the trial Zhoroa”
We were standing near the gazebo that overlooked the city, just to the side of the small waterfall The peaceful era of the djinn seeer than the other civilizations, but I kneas co When it did, I looked away I’d already seen the end of Zhoroa; I didn’t need to experience it again
When I looked back up, the djinn city was gone No scrap or speck re “I’ve seen, but I don’t understand,” I said at length
“I know,” Haneul said
Soon, people were back This ti atop the cliff, which had been worn down over time to create more of a slope Instead of a plain stretch of ocean coastline, large parts of the wide beach had been destroyed by the preceding destruction, creating a fais exclaimed as realization dawned on him “That's where Etistin is now”
The sceneunder s of color We were once again floating inside the aetheric realone, and in his place the aspect of Fate returned, its glowing silk body shedding light across me and my companions
“Was that real?” Sylvie asked breathlessly, unable to keep her growing panic and disgust concealed froht around the aspect of Fate dimmed “Yes”
“All those civilizations…” I had to s, ons destroyed each one?”
“Yes”
“That can’t be,” Sylvie said, shaking her head and turning away
I didn’t need to see her face to feel the tears leaking from her eyes I rested ht aons didn’t only wipe out the djinn, but also many other civilizations before them? How does that help ain, only to reforht in front of me “It is the foundation on which youof aether”
“How can we believe you? How can we believe anything in this place?” Sylvie’s words came out sharp, accusatory “We’re in the keystone You could be just a fabrication Everything we’ve seen—even this conversation, even you—it could all be a fantasy”
“Sylv…” I said, h our h she didn’t ainst h her, and her breath eased
The aspect of Fate hung motionless in the void “It is incorrect to state that we are in the artifact you call a keystone”
Even as the entity spoke, I dug ers intosensation co from my core I wasn’t back in my physical body, I could still sense the distance between it andevenly in and out ofWhen I focused, I could even hear Sylvie next to me, her breath quicker, sharper, like sohtmare
We were closer to ourselves, and yet not fully in one place or the other
“That is true, Arthur-Grey You are not fully in the keystone or the real world Your ht fluttered hat er “You threeto do so Fate is both within and without the keystone, just as you are”
“A prison?” I asked, not fully coolden-thread aresture that seemed to encompass the entire aetheric realm “The world beyond, the plane of fire and earth, water and air, has not been allowed to grow in its natural course This place—this aether real repressed, constricted It is unnatural, its for world”
Sylvie had drifted back a few paces Her skin was pale, and she fidgeted with the sleeves of her black-scaled dress “The destruction of all those civilizations…”
Her grandfather’s words ca I’ve done has been to keep this world alive, and it would be wise for you to place that firmly at the forefront of any further assumptions you make about me But there was more to it than that Kezess had spoken of balance and of asuras battling and destroying the world I couldn’t help but think that, perhaps, he hadother than by physical destruction
I considered everything I knew about aether: it harbored a sort of consciousness, requiring the dragons to work alongside it, coaxing it into the shape they desired; by absorbing and purifying aether through edonly to influence the way the dragons did; aether could change ti powerful enough even to connect, or separate, one’s spiritual essence froh the first question in ons and Kezess would want to suppress the world’s advancement, it wasn’t the question I asked “What is aether, really? What is Fate?”
“Aether is everything before life and after death,” the aspect said As it spoke, the golden threads wound around therew “Aether is both space and emptiness It is endless and boundless tiic in this world” The threads rapping around us now, like ere at the center of a ball of cotton yarn I
I saw…ht across the inside of the sphere of golden thread wasn’t focused on me, but rather the man next to me We fell and fell, and then…we stopped My fall was arrested just before the collision with the hard ground, but the bandit wasn’t so lucky The scene seemed to freeze While I lay unconscious, the last feeak beats of the bandit’s heart pumped blood out into the soil fro to his body released into the at else released too; a few tiny motes of aether, like amethyst sparks, drifted up fro of ate
Beside and slightly within the i as well This one showedfrom a tree, my hand wreathed in a blade of wind A quick strike across the carotid artery of a slaver, followed by a quick death Again, the release of blood, mana, and finally, a few sside these Each one showed a different scene, but they were all the sa each death, a release of aetheric particles
A the scenes, I locked onto one in particular “No,” I said, or at least I thought I did I couldn’t hearof my pulse in my ears I didn’t want to see, but I couldn’t look away
In the ie of battle I thought he was already…gone, but the , just a bit I couldn’t take e “Alice Ellie Art” The slow, silent movement of his lips spelled out our names “I love you I…love you I…” His lips went still, and the constricting force of his core released PurifiedAnd then, the aether
I closed h I…understand”
When I opened ain, the aspect of Fate had returned to the huolden thread
Sylvie wove her fingers throughon a share of the eht the scene had deposited on is shook his head, causing the fla “So aether is…what, exactly? Dead people?”
The golden threads pulsed with an angry light “Aether is the concentratedwhen they pass on”
“And it…carries so into place in my mind “Aether is aware and can be influenced…because it was once alive”
Tears shone in my bond’s eyes “That is why it remembers the shapes it has taken before Entire civilizations of the dead Others besides the djinn e where they could utilize aether The spellforms…are the echo of their collective consciousness bonded into living ic”
The aspect of Fate trembled, and the entire aetheric realm seemed to close in around us “The cyst that is this realm must burst if the world is to be set back onto its proper course,” the aspect said “The world suffers without aether, and the aether suffers without the world”
I pictured the souls of all those who had passed in this world condensed into the aetheric realm and couldn’t help but wonder if some piece of my father was there as well Not only my father, but Adam, Sylvia, Rinia, the Eraliths and the Glayders, Feyrith, Cynthia…there were too , trapped inside this unnatural prison?
“She said that the aetheric real herself a little shake and pulling her hand free of mine “Froarded the aspect of Fate “How, exactly, is the world being repressed?”
The faceless head turned to regard Sylvie Instead of words, ih our collectiveup like violet ghosts above the a hole into the fabric of the world; a place in between places sucking in a out of a rift in the sky and reverberating across the surface of the world…