Chapter 46
Chapter Forty-Six
“Will I be able to create gigantic creatures? Or tiny ones?” Augustine wondered aloud.
“My Lady, we are whatever your mind wishes to mold from us,” Agor replied. Elarión started at the sound of his deep voice.
“Though I have little imagination. At this moment, at least, but I will make the effort. I don’t want to let my friend down.”
She reached out her hand and, with her fingertips, she snagged a fragment of shadow no bigger than an apple.
“Aeris, you are a night fairy.”
The shadow contorted before Elarión’s astonished eyes, and seconds later, it gave way to a tiny but perfectly formed creature.
It had lost the darkness of its original nature, becoming brilliant and stunning, as if it had stepped out of a fairy tale and into Augustine’s hands.
The little creature took flight like a hummingbird.
“Wow… so this, too, can be born from a shadow,” Augustine said, letting the creature perch on her shoulder. She approached Elarión slowly. “Do you believe me now? My Shadows killed the human and his A’aruin. They did it because I ordered them to. Alderian has done nothing to deserve punishment.”
Elarión clenched his fists.
“I see, you fear me now,” Augustine said, her voice dropping to a cold murmur. “I get it. You may leave.”
“Herald…”
He closed the gap instantly, his eyes burning with a raw passion and drive she’d never seen in him.
“Take me. Bind me to you, I’m begging you,” Elarión croaked, his gaze raw and stripped of all pride.
“What are you saying?”
“I want to belong to you. I crave for you to be the only one who vibrates the Threads of my fate. I am yours; please, take me.”
“But you have Ana, Elarión,” Augustine reminded him.
“Forgive me for saying this, Herald, but nothing matters to me. I know you can achieve what others cannot. Take me, allow me to be by your side without restriction.”
Elarión was right there, his anguish heart-wrenching, waiting.
For a fleeting moment, Augustine pictured how it would feel if Alderian spoke to her like that.
A surge of irresistible excitement and a hunger to tame him hit her.
But Elarión didn’t spark that kind of desire in her—not even close.
She didn’t close the gap; she just looked him straight in the eye.
“Alderian and I are in a relationship that is anything but platonic or innocent,” she said flatly. “We are lovers. I think you should know that since you are having those kinds of thoughts.”
“I assumed as much… and even so, I don’t care… how pathetic am I?” Elarión looked at her, unwavering and insistent.
“What do you want from me?” Augustine asked, looking beyond exhausted.
“I want everything.”
“I’m sorry, but my everything already belongs to someone else.”
Elarión closed the distance even more. “I will wait. You might hate me for saying this, but it’s possible you will never see Alderian again… and when that happens, I’m going to make sure you only have eyes for me.”
He left, and Augustine indeed hated him deeply at that moment, because he’d vocalized the exact same haunting thoughts her own mind wouldn’t stop looping.
* * *
It was night, and Augustine was scoping out the city from the peak of a massive hill in the middle of the urban sprawl.
From up here, the flicker of tiny lights and the neon glow of the skyscrapers felt imposing, far from the city’s mundane hustle.
She stood at a lookout where ancient walls were rigged with cannons—silent witnesses to a military history long forgotten.
Normally, she wouldn’t dare come up here at this hour. It wasn’t exactly a safe neighborhood for a woman on her own, and she used to be terrified of danger. But she felt different now. She figured—and she was right—that she was the deadliest thing in this place.
Her mind drifted back to Alderian. One thought kept looping in her head: for a split second, they’d actually been in the same room. His lips—his real, physical lips—had kissed her tenderly.
Her assumptions, therefore, were correct.
There was a time, a lost era, in which there was some kind of much closer connection between A’aru and the human dimension.
A time when the “angels,” the A’aruin, were part of the world, walking the earth often enough to be etched into history and art—even if now they were only remembered as fabled figures of myth or religion.
How many other creatures have been forgotten? How many more became part of folklore upon disappearing from the world?
“Aeris, come.”
The tiny fairy, brilliant and beautiful, manifested instantly, fluttering its precious wings like a celestial apparition.
“Am I creating you, or am I remembering you?”
Augustine did not know the answer. Apparently, neither did Aeris, who, unlike Agor, was voiceless.
“Do I have to imagine you with a voice so you can speak to me?” she asked without expecting an answer.
She’d hit the hill with a mission: to deploy her Shadows at will and push past her limits. Maybe then, they’d haul her off to A’aru to be with Alderian. But what was her limit, anyway?
“Emerge.”
With that single call, she unleashed every Shadow she’d been holding back.
She knew there were tons more—new ones joining the ranks every day—but nothing prepared her for the sight of them flooding past the hill and surging toward the city.
She didn’t stop them. A cloud of formless darkness began swallowing streets, high-rises, houses, and plazas.
They stretched further than she could see.
“They could be my army,” she said in disbelief.
“We could be,” Agor agreed at her side, staring at the sinister scene.
“I could destroy the entire human world, just to see if I can draw those Sovereign Guardians out of their cave.”
“You could, my mistress. A single word from you would be enough.”
“Can’t I send them to A’aru?” Augustine asked, though she sensed the answer.
“You are our connection to the world, my Sovereign. Wherever you are, we can be with you. A’aru, for now, is beyond our limits.”
“How many Shadows are still crawling out? I’ve felt them pouring in by the thousands lately.”
“We are an entire civilization that lost its form and purpose when we lost our monarch. As your awareness of us grows, more Shadows will claim their place in this world. And with the blessing of Your Word, they will recover their form, just as I have,” Agor said.
“Retreat,” she commanded.
The shadows instantly pulled back, vanishing once more beneath her feet.
“Just in time… The A’aruin are swarming. I figure they’ll finally consider me an anomaly big enough to haul me off to A’aru now.”
“My Lady, will you not take the advice the Guardian of Oblivion gave you? Even now, you can hide. We can hide you from the sight of a Sovereign Guardian, if that’s what you want.”
Augustine made a grimace of disgust.
“Believe it or not, I am taking his advice. From what I gathered, I’m a Sovereign Guardian too—or at least I have the potential to be one.
My awakening is mine alone. Playing it safe at Alderian’s expense just to get a ‘secure’ awakening, that’s not my style.
If he isn’t safe, I don’t give a damn about anyone else’s fate. ”
“Here they come, my mistress. Do you want us to attack, then?”
“I will handle the situation. No matter what happens, you have only one order: protect me.”