29. Wingbeat in Silence #4
Reskala Elite. A legend. Only after arriving in Krystopolis did Auryn learn about Zarrek’s history and why he was called the Bloodletter.
He’d surpassed others in surviving each and every rune added to his Runesgram.
Had sired children with Lifegivers long after the runes should have made him unable to.
Had lived infinitely longer than the expected thirty-year life span of a typical Reskala.
A man that refused to bend. Refused to break. Refused to die. Yet, one who held space for her. Had spoken with her not from above but from the same level. A friend. A dear, dear friend.
“If it wasn’t your intention to stay, then —”
“Had other plans, but I needed to see you. That was all. Needed to know the both of you were still alive… still burning.”
“You don’t understand, Zarrek. We are burning, but not with starlight. This city. This darkness. It’s so much deeper than I could have imagined. Even knowing what I would face, this is—”
She bit her lip. Stopped. Pressed her forehead to Zarrek’s chest.
“I Wove Vargrún,” she whispered, and the words echoed between them as though spoken within a chamber of crystal.
Zarrek tensed against her, and Auryn went on, unable to stop, unable to pause. The words simply flowed, like all her self-restraint had melted from the way his voice had gentled.
“You warned me once, and I never tried it. Not for decades. But I had to Weave Kailorien’s runes again. They were snarled. Blocked. He was…he needed my help. So I did it, and Vargrún felt it. Spoke to me. I tried to calm it. Soothe it. But, it saw me. Noticed me. Flowed into me. And now…he speaks.”
Zarrek’s voice grew rough. “It talks to you?”
She nodded against his waist, trembling harder now. “Always. In my mind. Like he lives there. Sometimes cruel, sometimes quiet. But always watching.”
“You told Resh about this?” he demanded.
“No.” Her voice cracked. “He can't know. He won't let me Weave anymore if he finds out. Or worse. He'll think I intended this. That I took a risk without considering the consequences. It would hurt him, and I can’t — not after everything — I only wanted to save him.”
Zarrek pulled her back to look at her face. "Did it work?"
She shook her head. “Every day, Kail looks more exhausted. Like he’s holding back a storm just beneath his skin. If I don't Weave his runes at night...I think he's in pain. I think it's why he doesn't sleep. And Estar—”
She stopped.
Zarrek’s jaw tightened. “What about Estar?”
Her eyes brimmed but tears didn’t fall. “Sometimes I wish I didn’t know,” she admitted, unbearable shame making her grimace. “I wish I’d never seen...”
“You saw it?”
Silence.
Zarrek’s whole frame tensed, his grip on her tightening.
“Has he lost his Voids-damned mind,” he muttered, “letting you see that—”
“It wasn’t him,” she interrupted, her voice cutting through like glass. “It was Shu’Khan. He let me into the chamber after Vargrún took over." Her voice thinned. "He likes to remind me. Vargrún. He likes to show me that memory."
Zarrek stared at her, his mouth hard with fury.
“I didn’t even understand what I was seeing at first,” she continued. “Just cruelty. Worship of violence. Companions crying in pleasure as the monster devoured their mana. And Kailorien, being used like that. Like some divine...breeding beast connected to the Shields.”
Her breath snagged, words coming faster and faster. “And I stood there. Frozen. Because I realized that I'd never understood. That he kept it hidden so I wouldn’t know.”
She shuddered.
“It has to stop. I've tried. Again and again with the Council. But they’re fixated on it. They think the Shields will fail if he doesn’t do it. No one has ever protected him, and I am failing at that too. I told him I'd save him. I told him I'd stop it."
Her voice thinned, and her final words rasped out, "but I’m failing."
Zarrek cursed again—visceral, guttural. “And you? Who’s protecting you?”
Auryn blinked. "What do you mean?"
"It’s a simple question."
"Isn't that the point? Everyone is protecting me! I'm the only one that can't seem to protect those I love."
"You think that's protection? Letting you carry all of this alone because no one knows how deep you're bleeding?"
She opened her mouth, but no words came.
"You’re not being protected, Auryn. You’re being used. Revered, maybe. Tended to like an icon. But none of them — not the Council, not the healers, not even Resh — knows what you're holding inside. And you won’t let him see it. You won’t let anyone in."
Her brow furrowed. "No, Zarrek! That's not true. Kailorien is burning himself out protecting me. From the Council, from the Companions, the Solutus, even from the Shields—"
"Shields?"
She opened her mouth to answer, but the air shifted — turned wrong. A sudden, bone-deep pressure pulsed through the alleyway.
The world cracked open.
A portal tore through the space just beyond the alley’s mouth, swallowing the silence with its roar. Light flared white-hot, mana howling through the opening like wind through a canyon.
Auryn!
The voice boomed through the Bond—thunderous, desperate, his.
Her name, called like a prayer shouted into the storm.
The conversation vanished in a rush of longing.
She stumbled forward, dazed. Past Zarrek.
And ran straight toward the place she felt him standing.