Realm of the Sun

Chapter 10

Yue sat silently, watching the world pass by through her window.

Sometimes she liked to play a game, which she creatively dubbed the counting game. How many of one thing could she count? Birds, moths, fallen leaves, people? Maybe the amount of headaches that had passed in her time staring through her window? She wasn't particularly picky.

So far, she had counted thirteen different species of birds that had flown by, none of which she could name. Despite Sylas' attempts to educate her on avians and their descendants, most of what he said went through one ear and out the other, birds weren't that interesting to her.

Out of nowhere, she began to feel dizzy.

She had long recognized the signs of a coming vision. Notably, painful headaches, blurry vision, dizziness, and the whole shebang. Sometimes faintness, the urge to vomit, disorientation, and other various sickly feelings. In short, she knew a vision was coming as long as she felt like Vischo was actively trying to torture her. She staggered towards her bedpost, clutching the spherical top as she submerged back into the vision plane.

Will Vischo make another appearance?

A soft chuckle in the distance. No, my child. We're here to observe. Of course, you may attempt to explore the rest of the time palace. I won't interfere.

That will be the last time Vischo appears. Yue, content with her god's response, allows herself to dream, and let the vision play out.

There is a battlefield. It is littered with battered bodies, empty weaponry, blazing fire, torn flags. There is Solarie, standing next to Roza and Gwen, battling against these humanoid shadow monsters. They screech, as Solarie summons a beam of light, projecting it towards the monsters.

Nicholas, King Magnus, and all of the other distant relatives of the crown are nearby. Not all of them are fighting- some physically cannot, or do not possess the power to do so.

Sylas and Ashlee are right on the front lines. Purple crackles rip through the air, the brief flash of light enough to dissolve some of the smaller monsters. Sylas doesn't watch his back- he is impaled by a sword, right to the stomach. Yue tries to call out, and stop the vision, but it changes, and morphs.

Now, she's watching as the group conquers the final flag, ripping it from its post. Solarie, Roza, Gwen, and Nicholas are standing there. Below, there is a body- one that looks vaguely familiar, a boy. Not Sylas, someone else. They dig a shallow grave, leaving the boy's body to rest, as they cover his body with the earth. This is a funeral.

Everything shifts again. This is no longer one funeral, but hundreds. It looks similar to the one they held after the fateful attack that killed her family, only this one is spread across the same blazen field. There are opium poppies, the ones that the healers use to sedate patients. The opium makes them rest, peaceful during any kind of operation. These poppies are symbolic- the people here are to rest, in an eternal state of peace with the poppies. The petals are blood-red, and the seeds are black. The colours of the Cai flag. This is a mass grave. A mass funeral.

There are some names she would recognize, had the vision not been partially obscured. Yue cannot read the names, but she has the feeling that some are people she knows today. The corpses beneath the gravestones are people that are living and breathing in the present.

The vision ends, but she is not forced to return. Perhaps she is learning how to venture towards the past of the time palace, to go along with the flow and ebb of time. There is no previous version of the time palace. The time palace only looks like what Yue imagines it looks like. Usually, she only uses one plane, mostly made up of white lines and a swirl of dark colours. This time, she is transported elsewhere, outside her vision plane.