Chapter 55
Chapter Fifty-Five
Alderian’s vision blurred, but he could distinguish the dark, lethal black whip that emerged from Augustine’s feet, darting directly toward the neck of the Guardian of the Threads. Immediately, the tension around his own neck gave way, and with clumsy movements, he freed himself from the binding.
He heard the death rattles of the Guardian of the Threads as she struggled desperately against Augustine’s Shadows. Aldana’s wings were taking shape. Barely there yet, but visible. Augustine was dying in the human dimension, and he would soon disappear without even being able to say goodbye to her.
He approached cautiously, knowing that Augustine was currently in an altered state of consciousness. She wasn’t his Augustine, but she wasn’t quite Aldana yet. It was his woman protecting him, beyond all reason. Would his voice be able to reach her?
He ignored the shouts and the chaos reigning around them, the struggle between the Guardian of Order and the Shadows, the warriors rushing to defend the Sovereign of A’aru. None of it mattered. He saw her only. When he was close enough, he took her hand gently.
“Forgive me, my love… in the end, I could not protect you. My sweet, sweet Augustine. As a human, you changed me forever. Now that you return to your original form, now that you will be Aldana… if you can… only if you can… remember me.”
His own hand was already translucent. It was his spirit seeking a human embryo to enter. The sun was setting, and the moon was rising, never to be together under the same sky. He had little time left.
* * *
Augustine felt the warm touch of Alderian’s hand against hers, but he looked strange—like a misty dream.
His presence seemed less real. Why was he asking for forgiveness?
He had done nothing wrong. The only one who should plead for mercy was that ruthless woman who had tried to subdue him.
Maybe she should tighten the whip around her neck just a little more.
Immediately, the Shadows executed her wishes, forcing a guttural sound from the woman’s throat. Guards approached stealthily to attack Alderian from behind while he was oblivious to everything, but a shield of shadows made them vanish before they could even touch a hair on his head.
“Augustine, don’t do it!” she heard a child say, watching the scene with horror.
Who is Augustine? Her mind felt confused, as if she were viewing reality from afar. She loosened the pressure of the whip upon seeing that the woman was no longer a danger to Alderian. She wasn’t dead, but she was no longer an opponent.
Alderian wrapped his arms around her waist. His beautiful golden eyes were the only warm thing in that inhospitable place.
“When I disappear, perhaps you won’t remember me,” he said as he stroked her face, very close to her. “You will be alone, and they will try to subdue you violently. Use your Shadows to flee, my precious Augustine. Plunge A’aru into absolute darkness if necessary.”
“What would be the point if you weren’t with me?”
“I will find my way back to you eventually. I cannot defeat the Oblivion like you, but somehow, I will return to you,” he said vehemently.
His warm lips pressed against her forehead as a last goodbye. Suddenly, she remembered her own name.
Aldana.
With renewed certainty and lucidity, she looked at Alderian again and recognized him.
She remembered him. She remembered the human she had protected for hundreds of years—a love that could not be reciprocated because she never truly existed for him.
She remembered that in his last life, she committed a great sin by allowing herself an intimate encounter with him in his dreams…
And she remembered… she remembered things from an incomprehensible past. A past she didn’t know existed. How was it that this same Alderian was here, kissing her forehead, holding her as if he loved her?
He was disappearing; he had already found a human embryo in which to incarnate. She decided to try it. To try something she had seen in her strangest memories.
“Alderian… we were, we are… and we shall be,” she whispered urgently.
He looked at her with a sweetness she had never dreamed she could receive from him. Her heart melted before the love emanating from him.
“We were, we are, and we shall be my beloved Aldana.”
What happened next was exactly as she had seen in her memories.
From the chests of both, a golden light emanated, and like a river of gold, the light tinted the Silver Thread that united them.
Although she had the memory of having seen this union of souls in a lost past, nothing prepared her for the feelings of joy and fulfillment she experienced when the Golden Thread completed its metamorphosis.
She could almost “touch” Alderian’s spirit, which she now felt as an extension of her own soul.
“What is this feeling?” he said. “I feel so much happiness that I want to laugh and cry at the same time.”
His words faithfully described what she herself felt. Above all, the permanent void—that unfathomable loneliness—had vanished. Alderian had regained his materiality, which was a completely unexpected effect. What exactly did the Golden Thread mean?
The prevailing chaos allowed no time to seek answers. Alderian pulled away from her slightly, surprised to see he had regained his body.
“Augustine?” he asked doubtfully.
Aldana shook her head. “If you seek my human presence, it has already vanished. My human body has already stopped breathing.”
Alderian’s pain pierced her deep inside. A black anguish invaded her chest and made her lose her breath. What had Alderian felt for her previous human form? A mixture of jealousy and unease made it so that this time, it was Alderian who looked surprised.
“Are you jealous of yourself?”
Aldana, embarrassed, looked away. “We have no time to lose. We must get out of here.”
Alderian quickly evaluated the situation and nodded.
The Guardian of the Threads lay unconscious, tended to by service spirits.
The Guardian of Order shouted instructions; the soldiers under his command surrounded them fearfully, unable to get closer than three meters.
They were stopped by a dark fence—impious Shadows that irremediably absorbed anyone who dared try to approach either of them.
The Guardian of Oblivion watched the scene standing, silent. No, he wasn’t watching the scene. He was looking only at them. An infinite sadness seemed to emanate from his gray eyes. When he saw her looking directly at him, he faintly smiled at her. Unlike the others, he did not seem surprised.
“Go,” the Guardian of Oblivion said, merely gesturing, modulating clearly so she could read his lips from a distance.
Aldana took Alderian’s hand. Just feeling the contact of his skin was enough to experience a wave of emotions difficult to suppress.
“We must leave now,” Aldana warned. Alderian took her by the waist and spread his black wings.
“Make your Shadows follow us as they have until now. Let them form a perimeter around us to secure our exit.”
Aldana didn’t know the Shadows were there because of her. Everything that happened while she had the consciousness of Augustine, her human incarnation, had vanished from her records.
“How do I make them follow us?” she asked, setting aside her apprehensions.
“I’m not sure, but I believe they respond to your desires. Although I saw Augustine speak once, I don’t know if it’s necessary for you to say anything out loud. But try it.”
Aldana took a deep breath. “Shadows, protect us. Be our shield until I command you otherwise.”
The Shadows responded with joy at her command. She felt their enthusiasm upon hearing her voice and the adoration they felt for her. Alderian looked at her, surprised. He had felt it too. What on earth did she do while she was Augustine?
The three possible exits out of the Lotus Flower were blocked. Aldana resisted absorbing the noble Warriors of A’aru.
“I don’t want to hurt them,” she said, confused.
“Neither do I,” Alderian agreed. “When you were Augustine, your Shadows told you these doors were not yours. I believe this power you have manifested responds to one of the lost powers of A’aru. I wouldn’t be surprised if you can open one of the other doors.”
Aldana looked around. There were four closed doors leading outside.
One door had hourglasses carved with sand falling, but the sand was suspended in its flow, as if time had stopped; another door had the River Lethe carved on it, but its water seemed to ascend instead of descend.
She felt a tickle in front of that door, but nothing definitive.
The third had a rising sun, as if it were dawning.
The fourth and final one had creatures of all kinds carved into it: dragons, fairies, elven figures, centaurs.
Her heart skipped a beat, and she felt a visceral calling. The Shadows screamed in ecstasy.
That was her door.
Alderian seemed aware of this sense of recognition. The Golden Thread connected them in such an intimate way that it was confusing.
“Try it,” she heard him say. “I will step out of the perimeter to avoid more unnecessary deaths. I will face the warriors without hiding, so you can just focus on what you have to do.”
“I don’t know if I can focus on the door if you are in danger.”
“Trust me, I’ll be fine.”
Alderian looked gallant and majestic, like a legendary warrior. Something had changed in him as well.
“Live, and I shall live. Die, and nothing shall endure after you,” Aldana declared seriously.
Alderian smiled. “That’s my girl,” he said, winking at her before moving away.
She felt strangely comforted by Alderian’s playfulness at a moment like that.
She turned her back to him and faced one of the sacred doors of A’aru.
Every step she took seemed to stop time.
The sound of clashing swords, the frenzy of her Shadows, her own held breath…
everything seemed distant and insignificant next to the imposing closed door rising before her.
What was she supposed to do to open it? She took a moment to contemplate the images of the creatures carved into the wood.
Their eyes seemed to stare at her, as if they had been waiting for centuries.
She extended her trembling hand toward the doorknob, whose lotus flower shape reminded her somewhat of the knob on her own room’s door.
As soon as her fingers touched the metal, the movement of the carved creatures startled her.
Screams, howls, whistles were heard all at once, as if they were announcing their monarch.
“The Guardian of the Creatures has arrived!” The announcement came from the door itself, filling the hall with a masterful silence.
Without looking back, Aldana crossed the threshold and assumed her sovereignty.
Thank you for reading The Silver Thread. The next volume, The Golden Thread, will be available in December 2026.
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