38. The Wards
The Wards
Below the lattices of the Han district, the tunnels narrow as we descend deeper into the Veinroads, forcing me to fold my wings tight against my back.
The stone reeks of dust and scorched wards, the air tainted with the metallic tang of magic long forgotten.
It sits heavy in the lungs, stagnant as a pond left too long without motion.
Zora and I would have preferred not to move so deep underground, but with the explosion above and the destruction in its wake, we have no choice but to retreat into anonymity for now.
There are some in this rotting city that call this series of winding roads and caverns the Cataclyss. But my people have a word that suits it better.
Vesh'tera.
Dead earth.
In our endless war with the creatures called the Shades, the Gliders have witnessed their corruption spread like tar across the land.
With bodies made of nether-residue and shattered magic, they gather in hordes and consume every living thing in their path.
Everything they touch turns to rot and ash in their wake—becomes vesh'tera—and it is only by my people's glaives that this filth hasn't devoured the entire continent.
Yet, we are not praised as the strongest of Elendria.
Instead, the world bows to the Resh'Agar and his Krystopolis.
Our Matriarch trades with the Glasswalkers, making treaties and offering our bloodline to Vessar.
Most support her cause, but there are those who fight against it.
In my long centuries of life, I have grown tired of holding second rank to the Skycleaver and his ilk.
I have petitioned to end the treaties. To go to war with the Crystal City.
But, thus far, I have been denied.
Pity, for I would have loved to rend them limb from limb.
To dismantle their shining towers and their altars of blood and stone.
I would wipe their Doctrine's filth from the flesh of Elendria.
Would cleanse the land until even the winds forgot to whisper of them.
But my Matriarch is weak. Unwilling to risk her supply of Lustrals, spices, and rich ores in favor of doing what is best.
I had nearly given up my quest to change her mind, had busied myself with the search for the next heir to the violet ribbon, when everything shattered.
The Cycle of Dark came, washing over the Skycleaver's fortress of Stonewake on the Surface.
And with that calamity arrived the Starborn.
A woman with blinding silver hair and a magic I could not ignore.
The heir to the ribbon fought in that maelstrom, and though I arrived in time to save her life, the ribbon had been stolen from its rightful owner.
The Starborn had taken it.
By all the rules of this accursed spell, stealing the ribbon should have broken its bond to me.
But it did not.
It called to me for days. Weeks. Months.
Until I gave in.
Until I followed.
I had just cause, for the Skywhisperer of my people, Zora'thera, was rumored to have taken the Veinroads to the Crystal City in search of the rare disease said to have broken out within the Glasswalkers' realm.
I watch her walk ahead of me now.
Another unruly variable in all this. She is young and reckless.
Zora’s golden feathers catch the weak glow of the Polis lanterns.
Flightless. Useless. Yet she has surprised me these past years.
She does not bend to the will of the winds.
Does not follow the call of the Sky. Only chases her obsession with single-minded purpose.
A cure to the plague these Glasswalkers call the Pale Madness.
“Skywhisperer," I call to her.
She turns to look at me. One golden eye and one azure. Her dark skin shines in the Polis light, the white marks of the Sky upon it shimmering in stark contrast to the rest of her.
"You spoke my name before our enemies,” I say, displeased. My voice echoes against the tunnel walls, sharper than I intend. “Before the Skycleaver and his Sokar.”
She arches a brow. “So I did.”
My talons scrape against the stone as we walk. “Have you lost all sense? I tire of your games.”
“You do not have to endure them,” she replies briskly. “Go back to the Nestings if you are so burdened.”
“And leave a Skywhisperer in this den of snakes?”
Zora’s wings twitch with irritation.
“I am a relic,” she says. “Broken. Unwanted. My journey with the Gliders ended long ago. I now live for myself. For knowledge.” She glances over her shoulder. “Do cease your pretenses, Ro. I am not the reason you remain here, and you know it well.”
She pauses in her movements, flexing her wings as though considering her next words carefully.
“The magic of the violet ribbon holds you tethered.”
I say nothing. Over centuries, I have learned. Silence is safer than truth.
Zora huffs softly.
“You felt it before you entered the city,” she continues, her blue eye brightening until it glows. “The pull of the Riven's vow. The heir is lost, but the magic holds.”
"Not lost," I correct her. "But the ribbon was not given freely."
I feel no surprise at how she reads into my mind.
The Skywhisperer is a gift to the Nestings.
A child of the four winds. Only one is born in a single lifetime.
An old soul. Anything Elendria has seen rests within her mind as knowledge.
In my time, I have known her predecessors.
Though they have never been quite as rebellious as this one.
She turns to face me.
“You pretend otherwise,” she says, “but I have watched you circle the Sokar like a storm bird that refuses to land.”
My wings shift against the rock at the implication.
“You watch her. For years now, you have left my side—the one you profess to guard—so you may track her steps.”
My grip on my glaive tightens.
“You follow her through the districts. Through the Commons. Through the temples.” Zora tilts her head, studying me. “Did you believe I would not notice when the Riven suddenly took an interest in the habits of a dying star?”
“She carries my vow, but it is not hers to hold.”
Zora snorts. “At last. Some truth from one who cannot lie. But remember, Ro, truth is what we make of it. Your words are bound in the chains of your belief. The vow does not make you right, only opinionated."
The glow in her eye dims, and she turns away from me.
We continue our march, emerging in a ward chamber—or what remains of one.
Runes fracture the walls, their ancient geometry cracked and powerless.
An etched circle at the chamber’s center has been blasted apart, shards of carved stone scattered across the floor like bone fragments in the wake of a hammer blow.
I crouch, running my hand across one broken glyph. The mana is gone. Hollow. The blast reached even this far, pulling from the earth's reserves.
"They have created an abomination with this magic," Zora says. "Your people."
"They are yours, too, Skywhisperer."
She shakes her head, her feathers flaring. "They are not. Especially not after this."
Bitterness in her words. Frustration. Though I am not invested in the wellbeing of these Glasswalkers, I cannot help but agree.
The magic in the air tastes of the Sky, though I have never seen anything like it on this scale.
Whoever worked with the Solutus this day took many lives without reason.
This goes against the teachings of the Nestings.
Battle is for warriors, not Crafters and merchants.
"Go home, Riven," Zora says, pausing at a turn in the winding passage. "Your presence here will only make things more difficult."
“The ribbon belonged to the Lioness,” I remind her. “I am sworn to protect the wearer.”
“And so you shadow the Sokar like a thundercloud,” Zora mutters.
“She wears it openly.”
“Yes.”
“As though it were a trophy taken from the field of combat.”
Zora folds her arms.
“Or perhaps,” she says mildly, “it was given, and she wears it as memory.”
My head snaps toward her. “It was not. No heir of the magic would ever willingly give it to one outside the bloodline.”
“You are certain?” Zora studies me with infuriating patience. “And yet the magic still lives.”
My talons dig into the stone.
“If the ribbon had been taken by force,” she continues, “its power would have withered long ago. You know that better than anyone.”
I rise, my wings flaring in warning at her implication. At this obvious truth she can't accept.
“She stole it.”
Zora clicks her tongue in irritation.
“You have been stalking that woman across half this city for years,” she says bluntly. “If you intended to reclaim it, you could have taken it the first day you saw her.”
I return my gaze to the broken ward circle.
“You did not,” she continues.
Silence stretches between us.
“Why?”
My voice emerges low. “Because the magic still breathes, and I cannot harm her while it does.”
Zora's gaze bores into my back.
"But you will try, won't you?"
I don't reply. There is no need with the Skywhisperer, for she already knows my intent. Zora stares at me then shakes her head.
“Ro, the path you walk will lead you to ruin."
"I have heard the Sky's warnings before," I tell her.
"She is dying. You saw her today. She is deep in Veil Drift. I have not seen anyone so afflicted survive more than a few Cycles." She sighs. "So let her be. Once she perishes, you will have your freedom from the vow."
She straightens, her tail feathers swaying. "And I will be free of you, since you will no longer have the need to use me as shield for your obsession."
"Why do you stay here?" I ask her, genuinely curious. "You have seen the Pale Madness. There is nothing more to be done. It is a plague the Glasswalkers have brought upon themselves with their depravity and blood magic."
Zora shakes her head. "No, Riven. This is something else. And I would have agreed with you. A month or so ago, perhaps. If I had not seen the Sokar touch the children with her silver light…"
My wings shift behind me as I recall those moments. The woman's eyes had glowed, her fingers bleeding starlight into the skin of dying fledglings.
"She did not cure them," I correct Zora.
"No, but the disease receded, even if only for a short time." Her wings stretch out, then fold back in. "I cannot leave. Not just yet. There may still be an answer to all this."
She looks back to the direction from where we came. "And now, the most impatient—the most reckless of the Nestings—have ripped apart the heart of this Crystal City with their greed. That device and its corrupted magic will poison the Daesa Major for years to come."
"Even more reason for us to depart," I tell her.
She looks at me, her golden eye glowing this time. "If you attempt to kill her, you will die. That is the vow."
"I will have my freedom," I tell her. "I will not be bound to a thief."
Zora smiles. Bitter.
"In the Nestings, she would be called a conqueror. It is your pride speaking now, Ro. Your fear that the Riven has been bested…and is now bound to something other than the Sky."
We continue down through the tunnels of the Cataclyss, but we do not make it far before Solutus horns wail through the darkness. Beside me, Zora tenses.
"The children," she hisses. "Ro, move us quickly. They must have found the nest, even with my wards in place. Or perhaps the blast—"
I don't wait for her to finish, shouldering my glaive and summoning mana to my fingers.
Violet light pulses in the air as I chant the spell for quickening.
The bloodline of Eternal answers, and I lift Zora against my side, flying forward through the murk.
I cannot unfurl my wings here to their full breadth.
With each motion, my feathers scrape the surrounding stone.
With each heartbeat, the horns grow louder.
In moments, we reach a vaulted chamber, the walls shaking with the ear-piercing blasts of the Solutus and their raucous shouting.
Rows of small cots line the circular walls.
Now empty. Children scream as men in robes and white masks drag them from the warmth of the central fluxhearth, twisting ropes around their wrists and covering their faces with filthy linen sacks.
I set Zora down and jump into the fray. Careful not to maim small bodies, I slice my glaive in a wide arc, cleaving an entire row of Solutus in half. Red blood sprays with more violence than a river bursting from a dam. It smells of treason. Of sickness. Of vesh'tera.
They lunge at me, but they may as well be clumsy fledglings with toothpicks in their hands.
Their movements are slow. Their arms and bodies weak and frail.
I cut them down, ploughing through flesh as I would plough through wheat to harvest it.
One manages to avoid my glaive, and I crush his head in my fist. Another comes for my flank.
I whirl around and pummel him with my wing.
He flies back, hitting several others on the way.
His momentum carves a path of death through the others, snagging three more men.
As their bodies collide with the wall, the force pulverizes their bones.
The scent of rain and Sky fills the air. Zora's magic. She cannot fight as I can, but she moves with grace through the chaos, gathering the children, ripping the bags from their heads and cutting the ropes around them. She leads them to a corner, warding the group of shivering, terrified forms.
This is good.
It gives me room to breathe.
To cut, and rend, and eviscerate every living thing not inside the ward.
Then silence.
Quiet settles over the chamber as blood pools against stone, and ivory masks lie shattered at my feet.
I turn to the Skywhisperer, and the children around her shriek in terror as I approach. They clutch at her clothes and press close. I pause, setting the end of my glaive against the ground with an echoing thud.
"We cannot stay here," I tell her in our native tongue. "Gather your wards and supplies."
This chamber has been Zora's shelter—a place of healing and research—for nearly two cycles.
The Solutus steal children from the temples above to convert them to their zealotry, and Zora takes them back.
Not to the city, but to the parts of the Cataclyss where those who have escaped the bondage of the Flaeme survive in groups together.
She is a creature of order, but in a single moment, months of toil and research have been set aflame.
Her alchemy bench lays ransacked, shattered glass and glowing potions a testament to loss and futility.
These barbarians—these ignorant creatures that live in this dead earth—know nothing of equivalent exchange. Of balance.
"There is nothing left to gather," Zora says, her voice hoarse.
I glance at her. "Then you will build again. That is what you do best, is it not?"
Her golden and blue eyes pierce into me. "The Riven speaks only truth."
"We must find another chamber." I glance at the children's' terrified faces. "I will go ahead. Do not let down your guard, Zora'ethra. More Glasswalker blood will stain my talons this night."