Songbreaker

Chapter 15: Upturned

Thalleous, Achillean and Yvana make it back to Ataraxia.

At least, they thought it was Ataraxia; just like they thought they could trust one another

****************

They could spot the destruction before they had even spotted the mountains. They could feel the destruction before they could feel the mystic air that surrounded the region of Ataraxia. On looking up where the floating isles should have been, they saw only empty space, engulfed in clouds of smoke and dust, choking the atmosphere. The sky was blue everywhere except where Ataraxia should have been.

Where Ataraxia should have been.

They reached the lake where the Guardians once resided, and it was barren. The water, once transparent and magical was now murky and forgotten – the Guardians' temple was destroyed and pieces of prismarine stone floated along the life-choked lake. They needn't dare look too far ahead for they couldn't even imagine what could have come of a once prosperous, tranquil city to have fallen out of the sky, if the Guardians' passage were anything to go by; they simply had to hope that there were survivors – and hope that Galleous was one of them.

After wading through the lake, Thalleous ran on ahead to get a better view of what could have been, but as he ran, the sudden buzzing of what felt like lightning graced his ears and they were all suddenly swamped with remnants of Mobillium energy racing past them like a thousand bees. Lightning fractals littered his walk, rising from the charred ground. Along the mountainsides and cliff ridges, much the same thing as Felden had happened – shapes and outlines in ash were plastered across the stony walls and the ground had been lifted where trees had been uprooted from taking the Song blast. Between each Mobillium streak that brushed across the Sendaris' face, Thalleous couldn't help but wonder when it had all happened. That was what stung him more than the destruction of the city.

At least, at first it was.

His mind raced like the energy beside him, and his knees grew weak as he grew ever closer to the destruction. He shivered.

The closer they got to where the floating islands should be, the louder the eerie whispers of Songs became. The more it drowned out their thoughts, the more they didn't want to believe it. At the foundations for the first bridge onto the islands, it was worse than even their minds could have imagined in their wildest nightmares. From afar, the islands were not visible in the sky – at the time, they merely wished that they were mistaken.

Alas, they were not.

Crashed in the waters below, scattered within mountain crevices and wedged in the undulating grounds, laid the once-floating isles of Ataraxia, parts of the stone burning and simply smouldering as the water they laid in ran dirty with debris, wood soaked and destroyed and the once vibrant glowing lanterns that lined the sides, shining bright at night all smashed. Not a single dwelling remained intact. Not even the Ardoni Shrine was identifiable in the scattered rubble. The three Ardoni looked down the cliffside in horror as the Ardoni's safest city was laid crumbled in smoke and disaster. How they had not heard the islands fall was but a mystery to them.

However, there was the mystery of the fire that didn't make sense to Achillean. There was a strange aura around the rubble that was all too familiar to him, and it sent shivers down his spine, although he couldn't yet quite place the feeling. He continued to let it gnaw away at him, forgetting the reason that they were trying to return to Ataraxia in the first place.

He didn't know for how much longer he could hide it.

Yvana started whimpering, fighting back tears and she bolted for the mountain pass to get down to the riverside, her breathing ragged and struggling to remain calm. All Thalleous and Achillean could do was exchange glances with one another and follow. Words were not going to be of use, here. Not for a long time. Yvana was wading her way through the rubble-filled waters in the canyon below long before either of the other two could comprehend what it all meant to her, having grown up here in the absence of her own family, killed during the Great War.