"Some light, Skygirl? If you wouldn't mind."
They were dire need of it, after the doors were shut behind them, and the giant rained fury on the ground outside. It wasn't moving on either, by the sound of things. Dealing with the last of those spiders, no doubt. Vesryn wasn't sure what the others would do about that. There were other ways out of this place, he knew, so perhaps they'd be able to sneak around it, and not risk anyone getting hurt. The last thing he wanted in dragging them out here on his behalf was to see them hurt. As for his own survival... he wasn't sure he'd make it to see that giant again.
Astraia provided the light, a hovering orb shining silver like a full moon indoors. Vesryn was immediately hit by how much cooler it was down here, chilled almost like winter hadn't quite left the depths of the Brecilian, even if summer's heat had settled over the rest. There was nothing majestic about the entryway they found themselves in, nothing like the Temple of Mythal or even many of the other sites he'd visited in his life.
This was a place of war above all else. A last bastion of an ultimately doomed resistance in the south. No murals were carved onto the walls here, no beautiful mosaics on the ceilings.
In part this place was a prison. It was not meant to be pleasant. Old whispers seemed to bounce off its walls, speaking of its cruelty.
Vesryn had thought it a dark entry into the world of the ancient elves. At first he wasn't even sure it belonged to them, and later he thought that they were not all they were cracked up to be. Now that he was back here... he was glad he hadn't understood it at the time. He might've never dared to venture in otherwise. Never found Saraya.
"Wraith coming," Astraia pointed out. They could see its green glow illuminating a hall split off on their left, just coming around the corner. It met a well-placed spirit bolt from Astraia's staff, the purple-white flash almost blinding in the relative darkness of the ruin.
"You've improved," Vesryn pointed out, giving her should a squeeze.
Her smile was melancholy in return. "Thanks. It feels good, being able to use what I've learned. What you've all taught me."
There were the whispers again, words Vesryn couldn't quite make out. He squinted into the darkness, trying to find if they had a source, but there seemed to be nothing. Furthermore, none of the others seemed to react the way he did. "I'm the only one hearing those, then? Whispers, they sound... afraid."
Harellan shook his head slightly; enough of an indication that he wasn't hearing whatever Vesryn was. Khari just looked grim. Whatever she made of this place, she didn't seem to be inclined to talk about it just now.
Cyrus, on the other hand, took half a step and hissed. Now that there was light, it was obvious that something had happened to one of his legs. With a grimace, he lit his hands with bluish magic, applying them to the wound. His expertise in healing was by his own admission something of a nonentity, but he managed to at least stop himself from bleeding on the ground. Pushing loose hair back away from his face, he glanced around for a moment and expelled a breath. “Charming place, but... no. I'm not hearing anything unexpected." It was a bit of an odd way to phrase the denial, but it answered the question, at least.
Stel and Astraia weren't either, it seemed, so it was just him then. That was... not comforting. They continued on, finding first another way out, as light from above filtered down through a crack in another door. Good to make a note of that. There were signs of others that had been here, though it could've been five days or fifty years ago that they'd come. The armory had been pilfered of nearly everything still usable. They came across a few corpses, one of which was possessed by a demon that had passed through the Veil somewhere. Vesryn wondered if they wouldn't find a rift somewhere here. How long had it been since those were their greatest concern?
Eventually they came to a familiar hallway, as they descended deeper into the ruin. Deeper into the prison. There were shelves all along the wall running on their left, filled with old scrolls still bound up. They were heavily decayed, vulnerable to falling apart just from being touched, as Astraia found out when she tried to grab one.
Her orb of light floated down to the end of the hall, and suddenly Vesryn was hit with a wave of dismay coiling through his chest. "No," he said breathlessly, without even knowing why. It soon became clear, though, as his eyes fell on a pedestal there, in the corner. He remembered a bowl, water he'd drank a long time ago when he ran terrified down here from a similar bunch of spiders. The bowl was still there, but part of it had been shattered, its contents long since released and gone.
"She... she needed me to drink." It was obvious what that meant. "She must've thought there was something we could do down here, but... she'd hoped this would still be here."
Stel stepped further into the room, approaching the bowl and running a finger gently along the edge of it. "And it was the water itself that mattered?" she asked, with the despondent tone of someone who already knew the answer and didn't care for it in the slightest. "Not the vessel?"
"Either way... what we needed was lost." The water he'd drunk from had to have sat in that bowl for hundreds of years, somehow preserved. Whether that magic was in the water itself or the bowl it sat in didn't seem to matter. It was gone now, and without he was very much stuck in this state that was steadily killing him.
"Maybe there's another," Astraia suggested, already leading the way forward. There was only one way, for the moment. "We're not leaving until we know for sure, right?"
She might as well have been walking into an empty abyss, for all the darkness Vesryn felt in that direction. The whispers were growing louder, but he still couldn't make much of anything out. There was only one thing to do, though. Astraia was right; they couldn't give up yet. Leaning on Stel once more, he followed after her.
They went down another left, Saraya taking over as the guide once they had a choice of directions. They passed by the place where he'd originally found her, discarded and forgotten, and went deeper into the prison. The cold chill increased until a fine tremor went through him. He felt weak to it, like it was somehow a magical cold that targeted him specifically. Stel didn't seem to be shivering as he was. Perhaps he was feeling it twice as strongly as anyone else.
They passed by cells that were all too familiar. Cages barely fit for beasts, let alone their brethren, enemies or otherwise. It physically hurt him to be here, this place that personified Saraya's suffering, her shame. They'd locked her here in his mind. At least here there was no blood running along the floor, crawling through the place like vines.
"There's something ahead," Astraia pointed out. Indeed there was. As they left the cells behind they arrived into what had to be a ritual chamber, a claustrophobic cube of a room, with small piles of rubble in the corners. There were eyes carved into the walls, eyes that burned with a fire drawn like the sun itself was the iris.
Fear.
He fell under their gaze, neither Khari's cane nor Stel's support enough to keep him up when his legs so suddenly failed him. He sank heavily to his knees in the entrance of the room, finding patterns of metal in the floor, like branches and leaves. The whispers grew louder and louder, and then all of a sudden they coalesced into a woman's voice. Unsteady with fear, desperate to reach him, trying to maintain control.
Find the runestones. They must find the runestones.
"Find... the runestones?" Vesryn couldn't quite understand what was happening. "She says... find the runestones."
"Look for elemental signs." Harellan seemed to at least have some idea of what the runestones were supposed to be. "Fire and so on, I'd expect." The room was littered with rubble, which presented their first major obstacle; the older elf started shifting them aside with a combination of muscle power and magic.
“Sure." Khari shrugged and started flinging rocks around herself, next to a different wall. Cyrus took the one behind them, more grinding and clacks as he moved pieces of ruined architecture aside as well.
It was Khari that seemed to find something first. “I think I got one!" Slipping her hands along the sides of the large stone she'd found, she lifted with her knees. The stone seemed to be heavy, worked until of a once-smooth elliptical shape. A glimmer of Astraia's magelight caught on the rune engraved on its face; it looked to resemble a flame. “What do I do with it?"
"There," Stel, who'd crouched next to him, pointed at a shadowy spot on the wall behind Khari's shoulder. "There are insets in the wall that should fit." She returned her attention to him while the others continued the search, tilting her head to meet his eyes. "Ves... are you hearing her voice? You said she says to find the stones."
He was, wasn't he? He felt he'd never really heard it before, but yet... it was so familiar. Perhaps because the only time he'd heard it before... she'd been screaming. She was so urgent now, but he couldn't quite make himself focus.
"Saraya?"
There's no time, Vesryn. This must happen now. The mages must let the stones taste their magic.
There were tears in his eyes, though he wasn't sure who they belonged to. Shakily, he relayed her instructions. Astraia was the first to follow through; her runestone's engraving appeared to be thorny vines, angry and twisting. It lit with a white light when she let her magic flow into it. The others did the same. The fire, the lightning, the light of the sun... when all were light, the entire room was bathed in the white glow.
The roots must now taste the blood of a supplicant. All four. They must speak these words: may the first among the Gods have his vengeance.
"Saraya, I don't... I have so many things I want to say, to ask..."
Do as I say when I say it and we may still have time for some of that.
Of all the things she could've said to him, somehow that surprised him the least. It was almost enough to make him smile. He supposed he looked rather strange to the others, having a conversation that they could only hear one side of. His eyes settled on his friends. "There needs to be an offering of blood to the tree's roots. The four of you, the mages. Speak the words: may the first among the Gods have his vengeance."
Khari was obviously not one of the mages, so she ceded her spot next to the fire rune, offering a smile to Vesryn and Stel. “I'll stick close for a bit, huh? You go do your thing, Stel." The others were already hastening to act, perhaps picking up on the urgency, even from the one side of the conversation they could hear.
“May the first among the Gods have his vengeance." Cyrus spoke first from beside the lightning rune, echoed only a half-second later from Harellan beside the light one.
Stel hesitated a moment more, perhaps put ill at ease by the words themselves, glancing back over her shoulder at him—and perhaps almost through him, to Saraya as well. They certainly did not sound promising. But she drew the dagger from the small of her back nevertheless, cutting carefully across her forearm and turning it to let her blood trickle down. She exhaled audibly.
"May the first among the Gods have his vengeance."
When Astraia did the same, the roots of the tree lit up alongside the runestones, and there was a grating sound as the floor shifted beneath them. A small circle opened up in the center of the floor, and out of it rose a similar pedestal to the one that had been destroyed outside. The same as her dream. This was where Marellanas Arayani had died.
Oh, good... there's still water.
Indeed there was, crystal clear and waiting to be consumed in the bowl atop the pedestal. Vesryn eyed it warily. "Saraya... what are we doing here? What's your plan?"
They drowned me on this water, as you well know. You just need to drink it.
"And then?"
Drink the water, Vesryn.
He exhaled in frustration, glancing sideways at Khari. "Help me to it." He made it the few steps to the bowl, staring down into it for a moment. He could almost see the younger version of himself there, looking back. But that fool hadn't even thought before dunking himself underneath. He couldn't afford to think about it now.
Vesryn bent over, and scooped a handful of the water into his mouth.
As before, the difference was subtle at first. Like the walls were crying out to him, but softly, a mile away. Like the world around him was only a veil that had just now become visible and almost transparent, waiting to be torn open if he just reached. He backed away a step. "What now?"
Ask Estella if she can feel me, with her magic.
He blinked in surprise, and then turned his eyes to his beloved. "Can you... feel her? Separate from me?"
Stel frowned slightly, taking a step closer. Reaching out with a hand, she laid it gently on his shoulder and concentrated, her eyes going slightly out of focus. It didn't take more than a couple of seconds before she gasped, retracting her hand as though she'd been burned. "Yes. She's—she's there. It's..." Her lips parted again as she searched for a descriptor, but closed again, followed by a headshake. "It's hard to describe, but yes. You're distinct now."
"What is she supposed to do?" Vesryn asked. "Can she fix us somehow?" The response that came was solemn, gone of any trace of humor that was somehow laced into the rest of Saraya's words, even at a time like this.
No, Vesryn. But she can pull us apart. With help from the others.
"Pull us..." His heart sank. "But you'll die. Won't you?"
Yes. I will. But you might live.
Might. She was sacrificing her life so that he might live. After all they'd seen and done together, after all this time, and yet still with so much time left to them if they could only figure this out. Now the fear gripping his chest was more his own than hers.
"She... wants you to pull us apart," he said softly. "To kill her, in order to save me."
The parts of the conversation Stel had been able to follow had clearly alarmed her, but at the final confirmation, her face fell, brows knitting and a frown overtaking her mouth. Dismay, clear as sunshine. "There's nothing else?" She stepped in a little closer, lips pursed, and settled her hand on his elbow. "Nothing else we can do for you?" Clearly she spoke to Saraya there, though it was his face she searched, as though it might give her some glimmer of hope not yet in evidence.
You have already done everything and more that I could have hoped for. All of you.
Reluctantly, Vesryn relayed her words. Some of their conversation didn't even need words on his end. She could feel what he was feeling, after all. He was afraid, not of the pain or even the chance of dying. He was afraid for afterwards, if this worked, if he lived on and Saraya was gone. At this point in his life he'd lived longer with her than he had without her. Everything he was, everything he was able to do, it was because of her.
There was so much more he wanted to do with her. More he wanted her to see and feel and experience. She didn't deserve to die here, in this cold and terrible place where she knew only memories of pain and fear and sorrow.
"You deserve better than this."
What I deserve is not something you or I or anyone who has ever lived can say with certainty. What I want is to give you a chance at life, and this is the only way I know how.
She couldn't lie to him, either. She did want this, he could feel it. It wasn't right to her, it wasn't right to Stel that she had to be the one to do this, or that any of the others had to help her.
"I wish we had more time." At that, she laughed, a bubbling chuckle that echoed around in his head. He couldn't help but smile, even as he wiped away tears.
There will never be enough time. But please... let me give you more.
There was nothing else to be done. If they tried to leave, if they tried to do anything, he may well fall over and never rise, killing them both. He could not leave this place with Saraya. His only choice was to leave without her... if he could survive that much.
"Okay, Saraya. I guess... I guess this is goodbye."
She relayed the instructions to him, and he to Stel. The runestones did most of the work, Elgar'nan's tools used to pry the very essense of the victim from their body. Stel could ensure that it was Saraya's and not Vesryn's that was taken. The elven mages would then do something with that essence, but they had neither the time nor the hope of finding the resources for that. And Vesryn suspected that she wanted this, too. To finally move on to the next stage of her journey... whatever that might be.
He wasn't the only one who wanted to give one, either. “Hey, Saraya." Khari pushed out a hard breath, squinting up at Vesryn. She certainly wasn't as used to differentiating between them as some of the others, but she was clearly trying her best. “Thanks for all the fights. I learned a lot, and—" She paused, swallowed. “You reminded me that our history isn't all dead stuff and people being sad. So... good luck, okay?"
Cyrus was a tad more abashed in his approach, though a small huff of amusement at Khari's escaped him. “I honestly can't remember if I ever apologized for the way we were introduced. I was... unpleasant, I realize now. So I'm sorry for that, and thank you. For all the things you did for us. My friend and my sister especially. And... for me also, at the vir'abelasan. I will strive to be worthy of that trust."
"Ir abelas, Marellanas." Harellan added his farewell quietly. "Irassal ma ghilas, lethallen ma'athlan vhenas; lath araval ena melana ‘nehn enasal ir sa lethalin. Dareth shiral."
"Thank you for everything," Astraia's farewell was softly given from across the room, where she leaned on her staff. "I don't know if you know this, but... you gave me a lot of inspiration. And a lot of strength, when I wasn't sure if I had any. I'm glad Ves wandered into us that day so long ago. I'm glad we were able to help each other."
Stel still looked halfway at war with herself, but in the end she sighed. "I hope you can feel this, or I'm going to be a fool again," she murmured, then closed the gap between herself and Vesryn to wrap her arms around him. She squeezed, standing on her toes to speak quietly near his ear. "Thank you. I will never, ever forget you, and I won't let anyone else forget, either. You've done so much for us that it doesn't feel like enough, but—but I swear it. You, and your family, and your people too."
"It would seem that, even given the chance to speak... Saraya has no words for this."
None that were adequate, or perhaps none that were needed. Part of Vesryn still wanted to fight it, to turn away from this and figure out how they could both live. But he knew it wasn't possible. And even if she was afraid of what might await her in death, Saraya was ready to meet it head on.
The moment passed almost without Vesryn noticing it, when Stel was about to begin. He braced himself, in case this was the last moment for him, too. He wasn't about to give goodbyes, though. Too much of an optimist for that.
"We're ready."
Goodbye, my friends.
They were dire need of it, after the doors were shut behind them, and the giant rained fury on the ground outside. It wasn't moving on either, by the sound of things. Dealing with the last of those spiders, no doubt. Vesryn wasn't sure what the others would do about that. There were other ways out of this place, he knew, so perhaps they'd be able to sneak around it, and not risk anyone getting hurt. The last thing he wanted in dragging them out here on his behalf was to see them hurt. As for his own survival... he wasn't sure he'd make it to see that giant again.
Astraia provided the light, a hovering orb shining silver like a full moon indoors. Vesryn was immediately hit by how much cooler it was down here, chilled almost like winter hadn't quite left the depths of the Brecilian, even if summer's heat had settled over the rest. There was nothing majestic about the entryway they found themselves in, nothing like the Temple of Mythal or even many of the other sites he'd visited in his life.
This was a place of war above all else. A last bastion of an ultimately doomed resistance in the south. No murals were carved onto the walls here, no beautiful mosaics on the ceilings.
In part this place was a prison. It was not meant to be pleasant. Old whispers seemed to bounce off its walls, speaking of its cruelty.
Vesryn had thought it a dark entry into the world of the ancient elves. At first he wasn't even sure it belonged to them, and later he thought that they were not all they were cracked up to be. Now that he was back here... he was glad he hadn't understood it at the time. He might've never dared to venture in otherwise. Never found Saraya.
"Wraith coming," Astraia pointed out. They could see its green glow illuminating a hall split off on their left, just coming around the corner. It met a well-placed spirit bolt from Astraia's staff, the purple-white flash almost blinding in the relative darkness of the ruin.
"You've improved," Vesryn pointed out, giving her should a squeeze.
Her smile was melancholy in return. "Thanks. It feels good, being able to use what I've learned. What you've all taught me."
There were the whispers again, words Vesryn couldn't quite make out. He squinted into the darkness, trying to find if they had a source, but there seemed to be nothing. Furthermore, none of the others seemed to react the way he did. "I'm the only one hearing those, then? Whispers, they sound... afraid."
Harellan shook his head slightly; enough of an indication that he wasn't hearing whatever Vesryn was. Khari just looked grim. Whatever she made of this place, she didn't seem to be inclined to talk about it just now.
Cyrus, on the other hand, took half a step and hissed. Now that there was light, it was obvious that something had happened to one of his legs. With a grimace, he lit his hands with bluish magic, applying them to the wound. His expertise in healing was by his own admission something of a nonentity, but he managed to at least stop himself from bleeding on the ground. Pushing loose hair back away from his face, he glanced around for a moment and expelled a breath. “Charming place, but... no. I'm not hearing anything unexpected." It was a bit of an odd way to phrase the denial, but it answered the question, at least.
Stel and Astraia weren't either, it seemed, so it was just him then. That was... not comforting. They continued on, finding first another way out, as light from above filtered down through a crack in another door. Good to make a note of that. There were signs of others that had been here, though it could've been five days or fifty years ago that they'd come. The armory had been pilfered of nearly everything still usable. They came across a few corpses, one of which was possessed by a demon that had passed through the Veil somewhere. Vesryn wondered if they wouldn't find a rift somewhere here. How long had it been since those were their greatest concern?
Eventually they came to a familiar hallway, as they descended deeper into the ruin. Deeper into the prison. There were shelves all along the wall running on their left, filled with old scrolls still bound up. They were heavily decayed, vulnerable to falling apart just from being touched, as Astraia found out when she tried to grab one.
Her orb of light floated down to the end of the hall, and suddenly Vesryn was hit with a wave of dismay coiling through his chest. "No," he said breathlessly, without even knowing why. It soon became clear, though, as his eyes fell on a pedestal there, in the corner. He remembered a bowl, water he'd drank a long time ago when he ran terrified down here from a similar bunch of spiders. The bowl was still there, but part of it had been shattered, its contents long since released and gone.
"She... she needed me to drink." It was obvious what that meant. "She must've thought there was something we could do down here, but... she'd hoped this would still be here."
Stel stepped further into the room, approaching the bowl and running a finger gently along the edge of it. "And it was the water itself that mattered?" she asked, with the despondent tone of someone who already knew the answer and didn't care for it in the slightest. "Not the vessel?"
"Either way... what we needed was lost." The water he'd drunk from had to have sat in that bowl for hundreds of years, somehow preserved. Whether that magic was in the water itself or the bowl it sat in didn't seem to matter. It was gone now, and without he was very much stuck in this state that was steadily killing him.
"Maybe there's another," Astraia suggested, already leading the way forward. There was only one way, for the moment. "We're not leaving until we know for sure, right?"
She might as well have been walking into an empty abyss, for all the darkness Vesryn felt in that direction. The whispers were growing louder, but he still couldn't make much of anything out. There was only one thing to do, though. Astraia was right; they couldn't give up yet. Leaning on Stel once more, he followed after her.
They went down another left, Saraya taking over as the guide once they had a choice of directions. They passed by the place where he'd originally found her, discarded and forgotten, and went deeper into the prison. The cold chill increased until a fine tremor went through him. He felt weak to it, like it was somehow a magical cold that targeted him specifically. Stel didn't seem to be shivering as he was. Perhaps he was feeling it twice as strongly as anyone else.
They passed by cells that were all too familiar. Cages barely fit for beasts, let alone their brethren, enemies or otherwise. It physically hurt him to be here, this place that personified Saraya's suffering, her shame. They'd locked her here in his mind. At least here there was no blood running along the floor, crawling through the place like vines.
"There's something ahead," Astraia pointed out. Indeed there was. As they left the cells behind they arrived into what had to be a ritual chamber, a claustrophobic cube of a room, with small piles of rubble in the corners. There were eyes carved into the walls, eyes that burned with a fire drawn like the sun itself was the iris.
Fear.
He fell under their gaze, neither Khari's cane nor Stel's support enough to keep him up when his legs so suddenly failed him. He sank heavily to his knees in the entrance of the room, finding patterns of metal in the floor, like branches and leaves. The whispers grew louder and louder, and then all of a sudden they coalesced into a woman's voice. Unsteady with fear, desperate to reach him, trying to maintain control.
Find the runestones. They must find the runestones.
"Find... the runestones?" Vesryn couldn't quite understand what was happening. "She says... find the runestones."
"Look for elemental signs." Harellan seemed to at least have some idea of what the runestones were supposed to be. "Fire and so on, I'd expect." The room was littered with rubble, which presented their first major obstacle; the older elf started shifting them aside with a combination of muscle power and magic.
“Sure." Khari shrugged and started flinging rocks around herself, next to a different wall. Cyrus took the one behind them, more grinding and clacks as he moved pieces of ruined architecture aside as well.
It was Khari that seemed to find something first. “I think I got one!" Slipping her hands along the sides of the large stone she'd found, she lifted with her knees. The stone seemed to be heavy, worked until of a once-smooth elliptical shape. A glimmer of Astraia's magelight caught on the rune engraved on its face; it looked to resemble a flame. “What do I do with it?"
"There," Stel, who'd crouched next to him, pointed at a shadowy spot on the wall behind Khari's shoulder. "There are insets in the wall that should fit." She returned her attention to him while the others continued the search, tilting her head to meet his eyes. "Ves... are you hearing her voice? You said she says to find the stones."
He was, wasn't he? He felt he'd never really heard it before, but yet... it was so familiar. Perhaps because the only time he'd heard it before... she'd been screaming. She was so urgent now, but he couldn't quite make himself focus.
"Saraya?"
There's no time, Vesryn. This must happen now. The mages must let the stones taste their magic.
There were tears in his eyes, though he wasn't sure who they belonged to. Shakily, he relayed her instructions. Astraia was the first to follow through; her runestone's engraving appeared to be thorny vines, angry and twisting. It lit with a white light when she let her magic flow into it. The others did the same. The fire, the lightning, the light of the sun... when all were light, the entire room was bathed in the white glow.
The roots must now taste the blood of a supplicant. All four. They must speak these words: may the first among the Gods have his vengeance.
"Saraya, I don't... I have so many things I want to say, to ask..."
Do as I say when I say it and we may still have time for some of that.
Of all the things she could've said to him, somehow that surprised him the least. It was almost enough to make him smile. He supposed he looked rather strange to the others, having a conversation that they could only hear one side of. His eyes settled on his friends. "There needs to be an offering of blood to the tree's roots. The four of you, the mages. Speak the words: may the first among the Gods have his vengeance."
Khari was obviously not one of the mages, so she ceded her spot next to the fire rune, offering a smile to Vesryn and Stel. “I'll stick close for a bit, huh? You go do your thing, Stel." The others were already hastening to act, perhaps picking up on the urgency, even from the one side of the conversation they could hear.
“May the first among the Gods have his vengeance." Cyrus spoke first from beside the lightning rune, echoed only a half-second later from Harellan beside the light one.
Stel hesitated a moment more, perhaps put ill at ease by the words themselves, glancing back over her shoulder at him—and perhaps almost through him, to Saraya as well. They certainly did not sound promising. But she drew the dagger from the small of her back nevertheless, cutting carefully across her forearm and turning it to let her blood trickle down. She exhaled audibly.
"May the first among the Gods have his vengeance."
When Astraia did the same, the roots of the tree lit up alongside the runestones, and there was a grating sound as the floor shifted beneath them. A small circle opened up in the center of the floor, and out of it rose a similar pedestal to the one that had been destroyed outside. The same as her dream. This was where Marellanas Arayani had died.
Oh, good... there's still water.
Indeed there was, crystal clear and waiting to be consumed in the bowl atop the pedestal. Vesryn eyed it warily. "Saraya... what are we doing here? What's your plan?"
They drowned me on this water, as you well know. You just need to drink it.
"And then?"
Drink the water, Vesryn.
He exhaled in frustration, glancing sideways at Khari. "Help me to it." He made it the few steps to the bowl, staring down into it for a moment. He could almost see the younger version of himself there, looking back. But that fool hadn't even thought before dunking himself underneath. He couldn't afford to think about it now.
Vesryn bent over, and scooped a handful of the water into his mouth.
As before, the difference was subtle at first. Like the walls were crying out to him, but softly, a mile away. Like the world around him was only a veil that had just now become visible and almost transparent, waiting to be torn open if he just reached. He backed away a step. "What now?"
Ask Estella if she can feel me, with her magic.
He blinked in surprise, and then turned his eyes to his beloved. "Can you... feel her? Separate from me?"
Stel frowned slightly, taking a step closer. Reaching out with a hand, she laid it gently on his shoulder and concentrated, her eyes going slightly out of focus. It didn't take more than a couple of seconds before she gasped, retracting her hand as though she'd been burned. "Yes. She's—she's there. It's..." Her lips parted again as she searched for a descriptor, but closed again, followed by a headshake. "It's hard to describe, but yes. You're distinct now."
"What is she supposed to do?" Vesryn asked. "Can she fix us somehow?" The response that came was solemn, gone of any trace of humor that was somehow laced into the rest of Saraya's words, even at a time like this.
No, Vesryn. But she can pull us apart. With help from the others.
"Pull us..." His heart sank. "But you'll die. Won't you?"
Yes. I will. But you might live.
Might. She was sacrificing her life so that he might live. After all they'd seen and done together, after all this time, and yet still with so much time left to them if they could only figure this out. Now the fear gripping his chest was more his own than hers.
"She... wants you to pull us apart," he said softly. "To kill her, in order to save me."
The parts of the conversation Stel had been able to follow had clearly alarmed her, but at the final confirmation, her face fell, brows knitting and a frown overtaking her mouth. Dismay, clear as sunshine. "There's nothing else?" She stepped in a little closer, lips pursed, and settled her hand on his elbow. "Nothing else we can do for you?" Clearly she spoke to Saraya there, though it was his face she searched, as though it might give her some glimmer of hope not yet in evidence.
You have already done everything and more that I could have hoped for. All of you.
Reluctantly, Vesryn relayed her words. Some of their conversation didn't even need words on his end. She could feel what he was feeling, after all. He was afraid, not of the pain or even the chance of dying. He was afraid for afterwards, if this worked, if he lived on and Saraya was gone. At this point in his life he'd lived longer with her than he had without her. Everything he was, everything he was able to do, it was because of her.
There was so much more he wanted to do with her. More he wanted her to see and feel and experience. She didn't deserve to die here, in this cold and terrible place where she knew only memories of pain and fear and sorrow.
"You deserve better than this."
What I deserve is not something you or I or anyone who has ever lived can say with certainty. What I want is to give you a chance at life, and this is the only way I know how.
She couldn't lie to him, either. She did want this, he could feel it. It wasn't right to her, it wasn't right to Stel that she had to be the one to do this, or that any of the others had to help her.
"I wish we had more time." At that, she laughed, a bubbling chuckle that echoed around in his head. He couldn't help but smile, even as he wiped away tears.
There will never be enough time. But please... let me give you more.
There was nothing else to be done. If they tried to leave, if they tried to do anything, he may well fall over and never rise, killing them both. He could not leave this place with Saraya. His only choice was to leave without her... if he could survive that much.
"Okay, Saraya. I guess... I guess this is goodbye."
She relayed the instructions to him, and he to Stel. The runestones did most of the work, Elgar'nan's tools used to pry the very essense of the victim from their body. Stel could ensure that it was Saraya's and not Vesryn's that was taken. The elven mages would then do something with that essence, but they had neither the time nor the hope of finding the resources for that. And Vesryn suspected that she wanted this, too. To finally move on to the next stage of her journey... whatever that might be.
He wasn't the only one who wanted to give one, either. “Hey, Saraya." Khari pushed out a hard breath, squinting up at Vesryn. She certainly wasn't as used to differentiating between them as some of the others, but she was clearly trying her best. “Thanks for all the fights. I learned a lot, and—" She paused, swallowed. “You reminded me that our history isn't all dead stuff and people being sad. So... good luck, okay?"
Cyrus was a tad more abashed in his approach, though a small huff of amusement at Khari's escaped him. “I honestly can't remember if I ever apologized for the way we were introduced. I was... unpleasant, I realize now. So I'm sorry for that, and thank you. For all the things you did for us. My friend and my sister especially. And... for me also, at the vir'abelasan. I will strive to be worthy of that trust."
"Ir abelas, Marellanas." Harellan added his farewell quietly. "Irassal ma ghilas, lethallen ma'athlan vhenas; lath araval ena melana ‘nehn enasal ir sa lethalin. Dareth shiral."
"Thank you for everything," Astraia's farewell was softly given from across the room, where she leaned on her staff. "I don't know if you know this, but... you gave me a lot of inspiration. And a lot of strength, when I wasn't sure if I had any. I'm glad Ves wandered into us that day so long ago. I'm glad we were able to help each other."
Stel still looked halfway at war with herself, but in the end she sighed. "I hope you can feel this, or I'm going to be a fool again," she murmured, then closed the gap between herself and Vesryn to wrap her arms around him. She squeezed, standing on her toes to speak quietly near his ear. "Thank you. I will never, ever forget you, and I won't let anyone else forget, either. You've done so much for us that it doesn't feel like enough, but—but I swear it. You, and your family, and your people too."
"It would seem that, even given the chance to speak... Saraya has no words for this."
None that were adequate, or perhaps none that were needed. Part of Vesryn still wanted to fight it, to turn away from this and figure out how they could both live. But he knew it wasn't possible. And even if she was afraid of what might await her in death, Saraya was ready to meet it head on.
The moment passed almost without Vesryn noticing it, when Stel was about to begin. He braced himself, in case this was the last moment for him, too. He wasn't about to give goodbyes, though. Too much of an optimist for that.
"We're ready."
Goodbye, my friends.