12. Chapter 12
Iawoke to everything awash in a bright, fiery light that I should have found comforting considering the winter that surrounded us and the chill that had made a home in my bones.
Yet, it was the heat of the light that made me wary.
It was a disorienting heat, so heavy that it stuck to one's skin like dew.
I opened my eyes and found myself surrounded by endless fire, a soft rain accompanying it, but not enough to douse the flames that consumed everything around me. Smoke stung my eyes, making it impossible to see just how much destruction had already been done.
I sat up, and found myself in the middle of the Alesi, flames creeping towards Rida as I stood, their heat consuming everything in their path. No nimid was spared, even the roots on the forest floor falling victim to their flame.
I could feel my heartbeat in every pore of my body, fear and smoke nestling deep within me.
I forced my way forward through the brush of the forest, my breath stuttering as I inhaled the flame's smoke, but I knew I could not let that stop me.
I had to get to Rida before the flames did, before the mainland men did, so I continued forward, my bare feet sinking into the frozen earth with every step.
Yet I did not feel its chill , only my endless determination to get to Rida, to stop the flames.
I ran as fast as I could, the path ahead of me unclear as I stumbled over the foliage and uneven ridges of the forest floor.
The roots that had not yet been consumed by the flames below my feet squirmed and reached for me as I ran, wrapping around my ankles, coaxing me down, enticing me to join them, to give up and become one with the forest. Their limbs were cool around my skin, a reprieve from the heat of the flames, but still I yanked at them, forcing them from the earth so I could continue forward.
But that was not my only obstacle. Mainland men came into view as I ran, their figures stepping out from behind the nimids that they burned, rejoicing in the destruction of the forests, and the ultimate demise of Rida, the demise of the Mother Blessed.
I saw them setting flame to the earth, burning everything the Mother Blessed had worked so hard to bring to the surface and to life.
I could feel their blame towards us for the imbalance on Yllsora, blaming us for the Shroud, saying our powers were unnatural, and that we were destined to destroy this world.
Destroying Rida would destroy the world, I wanted to scream at them. Burning the very heart of our world would do that.
But the words could not make it past my tongue, the smoke from the fire scorching my throat and stinging my eyes, nearly halting me as I ran further through the forest, the fire only growing larger and more wild.
Still, I kept pushing, kept running towards Rida, but her looming figure only moved further away the faster I ran.
Blisters burned the skin of my bare feet as I ran over the now-scorched earth, the wounds opening as I stumbled over burned roots, landing on my hands and knees, the impact knocking the breath from me.
I stayed there for a moment, my breaths wheezing out of me, the smoke from the flames still threatening to choke me.
A dark movement in my periphery caught my eye, and I looked up to find figures circling, surrounding me on all sides.
They looked like just any other man, yet where their faces should be, there was nothing but a deep darkness, a void where there should be life.
They danced through the flames, unaware of my presence, chanting something I couldn't make sense of.
The roots writhed underneath me at their presence, bending and hissing as I worked to scramble to my feet.
But the roots held onto me, drawing the attention of the revelers away from their celebration to me.
I froze under their faceless gazes, the roots continuing to undulate beneath me, their limbs wrapping around my legs in a scorched embrace.
I worked to brush the roots off me, not taking my eyes off the revelers, fearful of who they were, what they were.
I ran my hands over the roots' ruined surface as I brushed them off me, shards of charred wood breaking off at my touch, nestling under my skin, causing blood to drip down my hands.
It was in that moment that the revelers realized I was a Mother Blessed, for when I touched the roots, they pulled back, screaming, scrambling away, afraid of my power and what I would do to them.
Even devoid of features, I could see the moment snarls would have painted the revelers' faces, but only the sound reached me.
The crowd of revelers closed in around me, their cold hands groping for me, tugging at my hair, my clothes.
I scrambled back once more, pushing to my feet and shoving them aside with all my strength before I continued running, feeling their stares following me.
The flames continued to lick at my ankles as I ran through the forest, searching for something, anything, to stop the fire from spreading to Rida, my eyes blurring from the smoke.
The river Malik and I had been following seemed to have dried up, the sound of its trickle nowhere to be found as I kept moving through the forest, the path seemingly endless and winding.
I wondered for a moment if this is how all common men felt as they traveled through the Alesi.
Disoriented and at the mercy of something they couldn't fully understand.
I don't know how long I ran. Trees blurred into one another, the smoke masking the forest in a haze that seemed never-ending.
But even with no end in sight, I ran, pushing past the burn in my body, not stopping until I stood before Rida, her energy pulsing towards me, my body absorbing her power, the strength of it flowing beneath my skin, threatening to burst if I did not release it soon.
Everything was a blur around me as I gazed at Rida's figure. Mother Blessed appeared from the smoke, running towards Rida much like I did. All of us stood there, staring at the very thing that made our existence possible, until the revelers emerged, their darkness and rot with them.
The Mother Blessed screamed as the revelers found their way towards Rida, before falling to their knees, their hands blackened from the use of their power, life draining from their eyes, their bodies going cold next to me.
This is the future if you do not save Rida, the Mother whispered in my ear. The future we will have if you do not stop those who control the rot. These revelers wish to see the Mother Blessed suffer. They want to see us die at the hands of their rot.
A reveler appeared before me then, its silhouette lit up by the fires that raged behind them.
The roots moved at its feet, yet did not attack them.
They danced around the figure as if they were worshiping it, their movements celebratory, a far cry from the slow slither and fear I had known since the Shroud.
I watched as the reveler raised its hand, the roots succumbing to its power, turning into black, slithering vines that led towards Rida.
Again and again it did this, a crowd gathering as they continued it ministrations, its power mutating the roots, injecting them with the sickness that had spread beneath the land.
It was odd, watching the rot spread across the roots in real time, the very thing that had haunted me for the last ten years, and yet, here I stood before it, unable to do anything to stop it, frozen in terror, with a strange sort of relief layered in.
I no longer had to worry if the rot was because I was doing something wrong, for now I had my answer.
The rot was being manipulated by something else, someone else.
The crowd was in awe of the figure's work, dancing and chanting around them in reverie. And as I watched, I felt icy cold sink into my veins, as if the very rot they commanded took root in me as well.
My…ael…la…my…ael…la, the revelers chanted, over and over again, the melody of their voices rising to an overwhelming crescendo. More revelers continued to appear, all of them sending their rot below the surface, all of them chanting and celebrating at this practice.
I dropped to the ground, my hands digging into the dirt, desperate to unearth the roots, to save them from whatever it was the revelers were doing to spread the rot.
The frozen earth split my nails the deeper I dug, yet I felt no pain.
There was nothing inside of me except for the unending desperation to save the roots, to save Rida, to stop the people before me who wished to destroy everything the Mother and the Mother Blessed had worked so hard to build.
Shivers racked through me as the wind picked up, the fire spreading in its wake, its piercing cold intensified by the mist that hung in the air.
This is the beginning of the balance, that cool voice from Sorrel said, appearing once again. The antithesis to everything the Mother Blessed are. It is what this world needs.
A sob escaped my mouth at the words, at the fear of what they implied.
Was this the Mother Blessed's punishment?
Is that what we were now condemned to for our entire life?
It was would be easy to give up, to give in and let this happen, because maybe I deserved it for failing Sorrel, for not knowing the Shroud was coming and not protecting the place I called home.
But a part of me forced me to continue to fight. And I continued to dig deeper, faster, at the words spoken by the cool voice, refusing to believe it, the thought of Yllsora becoming nothing but a memory spurring me on as the undersides of my nails filled with blood and dirt.
Yet all my work was for naught, as the people around the figure cheered as the roots died at their will, not even noticing the ones that now slithered my way.