Chapter 10
Chapter Ten
Auster was sitting on the little rise where Boreus and Autumn planned to build their home, sitting and trying to think up a new facet to his plan. Autumn, he hadn’t seen her in almost two weeks, but Boreus saw him most days and didn’t seem worried. He seemed lonely, but not worried.
So he was sitting on the rise in the middle of the night, listening to the crickets sing under the moon and clinging to a memory of dancing with Eleni in the long grass outside her temple. Some nights, when the moon was high, she would sing for them.
To hear Boreus tell it, that was when it had been Autumn, but Auster couldn’t see it. He couldn’t see Autumn in what had only ever been the woman that he loved.
But she’d suddenly aged backwards, that was true.
She had been an old mortal once, lined and slightly stooped as she lifted their names and celebrated their aspects.
Auster had taken her for granted; he’d taken all of them for granted until they had started dying to a plague that seemed to have no cure.
Then he’d panicked, but there had been no way to save them, so he’d stayed away in shame. But there had been one that had survived, somehow, and he remembered Eleni. Remembered her from before they’d fled from the shame.
Auster had been the first to go back, the first to dance with her under the moon. The others had come later until they were all dancing with her. And then they’d fled again, having fled not being able to support her as she mourned her sisters.
She’d called for them for years, but none of them knew how to go back, how to apologize for leaving in the first place.
And then she’d stopped believing, leaving them adrift and facing being forgotten. Auster and Skirion had chosen Charan, leaving Boreus with enough to hopefully find her and convince her to help him bring them back.
Auster had lost track of time in Charan, fighting endlessly to keep Skirion safe and to remember Eleni. Charan was designed to sap memory, to sap hope, but he would never forget her eyes as they danced in the field under the moon.
He jolted when the sky opened and Eleni stepped out of the tear to land gracefully next to him. He was on his feet in an instant, pulling her into his arms and?—
It was Autumn.
He practically shoved her away, making her lose her balance and land in a heap in the grass. She laughed, but it was a joyless, flat sound as she picked herself up and turned from him, walking away down the slope without so much as a backward glance.
Auster watched her go, watched her move through the grass and saw Eleni, reaching back for him, asking to be saved. He pulled the Prism Blade from its sheath and launched himself down the slope towards her.
There was a screech, loud and sharp enough that he dropped the blade and collapsed with his hands over his ears to block the sound that was unending and loud enough that he felt his eardrums on the verge of rupture.
Autumn turned, but not to look at him. To look at a human-shaped piece of the Void and smile before she started to sing.
There were no words in the music coming from her, just a fall of silver notes trying to soothe the piece of the void.
He didn’t understand the song, but he understood it perfectly.
It was a piece of the song that Eleni had sung to them.
Horror crashed into his gut, and he was nearly sick there in the grass as the screech started to fade. It wasn’t Eleni singing; it was Autumn singing, but the song was the same as it had been all those years ago.
The exact same; there was no variance in it at all. Which meant that it had been Autumn singing to them, not Eleni.
The screech faded out, leaving Auster in pain and confused there in the grass. Wondering how many other parts of Eleni had been Autumn and what that meant.
As the screech faded, the song modulated, becoming golden and kind. Thanking the piece of void for being her friend, telling it that she was safe now, and that she would come and sing with it tomorrow.
The void sang back, happy to help and then it sank under the earth and he felt it slide back, but not far.
Autumn turned back to him, looking at the blade in the grass and then at his face. “Your ears are bleeding, East Wind.”
But that was all she said, turning from him and resuming her steady march away from him and down the slope. There was nothing to be seen in her now, no emotion, no sorrow or joy or anything that he could look to and Auster had the sudden, terrible realization that he’d made a terrible mistake.
He tried to stand up, but the world spun in the wrong direction and he collapsed back to the earth, one hand reaching for the Prism Blade as though it had an answer for him.
But as he picked it up, the blade shattered. Falling in crystalline bits to the earth and vanishing into nothing. He’d held that blade manifested for years, protecting the ones that he loved, and it was broken.
He tried to stand again as the haft vanished from his hand, like smoke in a high wind, and fell again. The world was strange now, like looking through a sheet of bad glass. If he could just lay down for a while, he would be fine, but he had to make the villa first.
It took him most of the night, falling and rising over and over, before he made it to the door of the villa. Auster staggered through the door and collapsed onto the couch.
It took him a good few minutes to realize that he was not alone. That the room was lit, when there wasn’t enough sun in the sky to light it, and the light was coming from the wrong direction.
He made his eyes focus, only to see two of the Highest. One was Courage, with his ebony blade in his hand, and the other bore no weapon, but she didn’t need one. She was bleeding sharp, angry light and was looking at him with dangerous disapproval.
“Highest,” he said faintly, sliding from the couch to kneel on the floor and wait to be destroyed by that light.
“East Wind,” the words were tight and angry. “You will explain.”
He didn’t have to ask what he was supposed to explain. “I cannot,” he said, holding out his hands. “I accept the punishment, Highest.”
“I will have you understand first.” The Highest nodded to Courage, who went to the door and opened it. Admitting a furious looking Boreus, angrier than Auster had ever seen him and an Autumn who was so carefully blank that he knew she was fractions away from shattering.