35. In Search of Aleiraah
Alistair
Debased by infernal shackles and invisible nether forces is a new low for me.
I’m physically healed, immortal once again, but my soul feels heavier than ever before.
I thought the worst that could happen was being molested by Raine while not being able to do a single thing to stop it. But discovering Aleiraah knew and prevented it from happening again—fighting for me while waiting for me to trust her with my pain—is so much worse.
I desperately hid behind my shame, and she helped me instead, silently, not asking for anything in return. Always patient, putting up with my dark moods. Even going to the lengths of involving Sunflare. It never even occurred to me.
Astonishingly, she forged a protective charm with her own heart's blood. I stroke the once-concealed bracelet reverently, swallowing the lump in my throat. Another way Aleiraah was protecting my pride. Selflessly.
Her love kept me safe all this time.
I find it increasingly difficult to live with myself, remembering how I repaid her kindness and love. While calling myself unworthy I debased her. Couldn't see past my idealistic bullshit. I don't deserve Aleiraah.
But I'm done wallowing in my own shame. She can reject me a thousand times, but I'll stand by her, even from the shadows, protecting her silently like how she's protected me all this time.
Anubis leaves us with a cutting remark, inadvertently thwarting Osiris's plans. We decide to follow him since he seems the most likely to lead us to Aleiraah.
With every step, the echoes of pain still reverberate through my bones. Did Aleiraah feel like this when she left us?
The dead-eyed look of hers made me panic even through the haze of pain. Like she'd already excised us from her heart.
I’m afraid the longer we’re apart, the more her heart would harden against us.
"We need Anubis on our side to win Aleiraah back. He’ll cooperate more if we swallow our pride.” I eye Baz, who’d tried to sass him while half-dead.
He grunts, while others contemplate.
The sandstone walls of the hallway stretch before us as we give chase. Anubis disappears round a corner and we follow, but skid to a halt as the hallway opens up to multiple passages. I turn back, and the same passageways stretch in the opposite direction.
"Fuck! When did this turn into a maze?" Zien tugs at his hair in frustration.
"Another ploy. Stick together. Don’t split." Azael suggests resignedly.
The sandstone lined passageways seem to stretch for days, narrowing and widening at intervals. A hollow pit forms in my stomach, “Will she even want to see us anymore?”
“I’ll never stop trying.” Silas growls to which everyone nods determinedly.
“How long have we been walking?” Ifrinn wonders aloud.
“Hours, days maybe? I just want to make sure she’s okay." Zien’s voice is lined with desperation.
Just then the wall before us shimmers away and steps appear leading to a glittering blue river. Finally!
"It's not another illusion, right?" Archie asks warily.
The ancient river's sparkling surface reminds me of the cursed oasis. I rub down the goosebumps on my arms, but what sends a shiver down my spine is the chimera that suddenly materializes out of nowhere.
Ammit blocks our way huffing in anger, her leonine mane flaring up, vertically slit pupils narrowing at us.
"No need to bully them Ammit. They've been through enough already." Anubis chides amusedly, appearing by the Nile's sandy shore. With his back to us, his voice carries over the breeze.
"I was wondering when Duat will finally let you out. It's been a few days that you've been trapped in that maze."
"I knew it!" Baz growls.
In retaliation Ammit growls back and snaps her crocodile jaws at us. We all take a collective step back despite having our powers back.
"She's very fond of Aleiraah. You mustn't hold it against her." Anubis drawls, turning his head sideways, arms clasped behind his back.
"We get it. Aleiraah loves those who others can't. We're a prime example." Archie tries to jest but his voice cracks at the end giving way to a poignant silence.
She truly loves the misfits and gets burnt everytime.
I swallow the emotions threatening to choke me and look at Ammit in the eye.
"Please let us through. I love Aleiraah so much.
I made a terrible mistake but I can't let her go.
I need to win back her love. I will be deserving, I vow this. Please."
Perhaps Ammit realizes that faes don’t make promises lightly. After a moment's deliberation she steps aside, but bites Azael's trailing feathers, ripping off a few as he passes her.
Azael frowns for a moment as if just realizing that his wings were out. But doesn’t take any action except for solemnly staring at Ammit.
"Ammit is very lovable, thank you! Don’t put yourselves in the same category as her." Anubis scoffs.
"Archer didn't mean anything by it. Please excuse him, we are all a little overwhelmed." I try to smooth things over as we walk down the steps and halt at a respectable distance.
A sly jackal smile appears on his face, "Ah! The pacifist. Why don't you all come a little closer?"
"We're fine here, god Anubis." Silas rasps, looking warily at the water, then clears his throat.
"Don't tell me you all are afraid of a little water now?" He raises a brow and finally Azael speaks up.
"I felt Aleiraah leave this realm. Please help us locate her. She'd have told you where she was headed. Our home in Mytherra seems unlikely. We implore you to divulge her whereabouts."
"Why should I help you?" Anubis asks seriously, finally facing us.
Azael steps forward, "Because we returned the scarab in good faith believing it'd mend the rift between you and your father.
And because we love Aleiraah, deeply, in ways no one else ever could.
Yes, I compounded my mistake by asking about her past. But I'm trying to piece together everything—since whatever happened back then, is somehow tied to what's happening now.
We can't keep her safe until we have her back within our fold.
And knowing that she has you in her corner is reassuring to say the least. We've all failed her in different ways, but we want to make it right.
Help us, god Anubis. To find a road back to her, so we can beg for a second chance. "
Anubis studies him with narrowed eyes, then sweeps his gaze over us.
"Don't make me regret this, Aleiraah's mates. Your hallucinations––Duat didn't spin those out of thin air. She dug into your deepest fears. Remember, you need to exorcise your inner failings before you go after Aleiraah's."
Anubis's implication of having witnessed our ordeal at the oasis makes the atmosphere tense. But thankfully no one goes on the offensive.
He continues, "I believe she'll pay a visit to the mortal who's the last straw that broke the camel's back––your marriage in case you’re wondering. I'll let the Nile take you to wherever Aleiraah was dropped by the portal. From there you are on your own." Anubis waves us toward the river.
"She travelled through a portal in the Nile?" Ifrinn asks skeptically.
"Oh no! She took a portal that's reserved for friends and family only. Since you all are neither, you just jump into the river. Come on, chop-chop!" Anubis claps his hands.
The sunlit river turns my stomach, but this is the fastest way to reach Aleiraah. Everyone looks a little green. But one by one we get into the waist deep water.
I turn to ask Anubis where the portal is, but notice that the shore is empty. Suddenly a massive whirlpool opens up at the center and we get sucked into it before we can react.
Motherfucker!
Ifrinn
The whirlpool of doom spits us out into a lake near the western border of Mytherra. A wall of magic shimmering at a distance marking its boundaries with the mortal realm.
Anubis got his last hurrah, but I'm relieved that we finally left behind a lifetime's worth of purgatory.
Weaving a simple drying spell we glamour ourselves, mingling among humans. Questioning a few passersby leads us to the mortal's shabby looking cottage. Archer kicks the door open making the mortal run out of a side chamber. He squeaks loudly, falling on his ass as we drop our glamour.
“P-please! N-n-no!” He crawls away from us while begging for mercy and I see red. I descend on him, shattering his cheekbone with a single punch as he whimpers.
Soon enough he’s hanging limp in Silas’s grip, bleeding from every orifice as he wrings his neck.
“Don’t kill him yet.” Azael intervenes, voice like ice.
He heals Malakai enough before each of us take turns to beat the shit out of him.
The cycle repeats until the blinding rage has simmered down somewhat.
Azael heals Malakai halfway for him to start speaking.
Stuttering while pleading for his life, he spills his guts about the favor Aleiraah owed to his great-grandmother, the compulsion he was put under by seemingly goblins, and finally Aleiraah's plan to lure out the Goblin King.
“It would be so easy to rip your guts out.” Rhazien says menacingly as Malakai cowers, half-dead, snot and blood running down his destroyed form.
“Thank your lucky stars, worm, that Aleiraah has tasked you with something.” Baz breathes, smoke coming out of his nostrils.
“Your days are numbered.” I spit at him as he curls up just like a worm. The urge to just snap his neck for touching my Flame is riding me hard.
Alistair has to practically drag me away. He and Baz leave behind protective charms around the house to shield his siblings from any goblin attacks. They are innocent afterall.
"It's a good plan, but she's crazy if she thinks we'll let her do it all alone." Rhazien looks one breath away from tearing something apart as we enter Mytherra.
"That filthy goblin––Vroc, is targeting her and we've no idea about her whereabouts. Fuck!" Archie paces agitatedly.
"The more I think about it, this seems like a ploy to separate us from Aleiraah, isolating her so she's vulnerable. Until now she was protected by us and then by Anubis in the Underworld."
The others exchange surprised looks and study me closely.
Yes, I'm capable of deducing too! Assholes!
"Can you track her, Azael?" The thought of her out there by herself grips my heart in an icy fist.
He shakes his head. "Let's ask around if anyone has seen her. Rhazien, can you take a portal home in the meantime? Check if Aleiraah is back. If not, meet us here. Use my feather to mind-link."
We split up and search but no one’s seen her.
Maybe she used glamour to cloak herself?
It's a dead trail by the time Rhazien returns and confirms something that we all know, Aleiraah hasn't returned to our home.
Where are you, my Flame?
After a few days our anxiety is at an all time high. Everyone's tense and a hair trigger away from losing their shit, not knowing where Aleiraah is. Everyday, we’ve searched from dusk till dawn but there’s not even a whiff of her.
Meanwhile, reports of missing nymph children keep piling up.
"That gutter rat, Vroc, has been targeting innocent children. I'm sure of it!" Rhazien explodes out of the couch, unable to sit still.
"Maybe the fact that Malakai's siblings are human, spared them so far." Silas adds solemnly, looking haggard.
We’d been investigating the disappearances for years, but lately, goblin-led unrests started happening around the same time.
“But to what end? What’s he doing with those children?” I wonder aloud but except for a thoughtful silence there’s no definitive answer.
A little later Rozalin arrives enquiring about Aleiraah's appointments, and an idea strikes, stopping my restless pacing. "Why don't we go and check with her long-standing clients? Maybe she's contacted them for help or perhaps staying with one of them?"
"The idea has merit, since Aleiraah doesn't have a trusted friend circle—given all the backstabbing in the lust-demon faction." Baz remarks, intrigued. Fresh shame gnaws at my gut realizing we're her only confidants.
Rozalin is hesitant at first sharing information about Aleiraah’s benefactees but we convince her citing Aleiraah's safety is at risk.
Baz and Silas pour over the records pointing out the regular ones. A brownie, a couple of grim- reapers, a banshee, a nymph, and the Nephilim king––Ispahan.
That fucker!
Out of the lot he's the most powerful. Knowing Aleiraah, she'd be seeking a strong ally amid the goblin threat.
"It's time we paid that degenerate Nephilim a visit." Rhazien cracks his knuckles.
Just hold on, Flame, I’m coming for you. I’ll beg at your feet until the very end.
Packing light we're ready to head out when Rozalin enters bearing a scroll with the seal of the Supernatural Council.
"A member of the Council just hand-delivered this. Said it's urgent and needs a response within a fortnight's time, failing which there'd be...consequences." She hands it over to Baz and leaves. Brows knit tightly at first, his face gives way to shock by the time he finishes reading.
"What does it say?" I ask impatiently.
"It's a decree for separation." He glances up from the scroll with a devastated expression. "Aleiraah wants to officially dissolve our marriage and the Council has approved her petition."
Fuck!