Chapter Twenty-One - The Chasm of Souls

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Estra saw her opportunity and took it, planting a foot in the ground to veer towards the sorceress. Just as she went to lay her death blow upon Elmont, Estra lay one of her own.

For a second time in only a handful of moments, another scream rang out. This one was easily more anguishing than the last. It sang of a depthless torment being released, years of suffering coming to an end, and tears that had never been allowed to see the face of the world. It took Estra a moment to realize that this roar was her own.

There was thunderclap as the second colossus came crashing down, then the room grew silent in the face of what it bore witness to. The sorceress looked down at the blazing steel plunged in her stomach. The darkness of her veins began fading away as the black blood poured over Estra's hand. The Blade Witch stood over the woman, sucking in loud gasps of air, digging her feet into the ground to twist the blade deeper. A strangely timid whine came forth at her efforts, something that Estra could have almost mistaken for a display of humanity.

A shuffle of movement next to her foretold Elmont's survival. "Estra, you've got to destroy the Gate," Elmont said, dropping a heavy hand on her shoulder. "Now or never. The corrupted are likely to be headed this way. We should be long gone before they get here."

Estra pulled back, releasing her sword to examine the Defiler. She watched, waiting for the closure she was so justly due, but the sorceress didn't seem ready to die yet. That was fine with her. There were still questions that needed answering.

"Leave," Estra tried to speak without breaking her eyes away from the broken woman crumpled on the ground at her feet. Her words coming out in a senseless moan, but Elmont got her meaning. A long silence hung in the air before Elmont responded with a grunt that Estra knew to be agreement. He patted her on the shoulder and made his exit.

As Elmont's footfalls faded, Estra made her way towards the red light, staring into the depths of the unknown. She walked up to the gateway, not needing to offer it any blood since most of what her body held was already flowing between her fingers. The gateway drank its fill, accepted her sacrifice, and showed her its secrets. Before Estra the doorway parted, giving her the full view of the Chasm of Souls.

The undying souls of the ancients trapped on the other side loomed in front of her, their ethereal forms beckoning her to step in and join them. They spoke to her with images instead of words. Playing their knowledge across her mind.

First, she saw the realm the corruption had come from, what she could only discern to be the dark voids of hell itself. Estra demanded to see another sight and the chasm relented. She saw the land of the gods, where the Enlightened themselves roamed. She saw the truth of the cataclysm that had brought about their ascension. The tortured souls told her the secrets of Eldrin and the realms beyond. She saw all things, more than her mind could possibly consume. Of all that she learned, nothing was more pressing than the last of them. The second cataclysm was nigh, and the dance with gods would soon begin.

Estra's golden irises were forever stained ruby, marking her as one who had witnessed. When she was sure madness would overtake her, Estra commanded the chasm to close, this time forever. The souls trapped within obeyed her fervently, almost seeming to praise her for ending their millennia of suffering. The light faded away as the doors crumbled to dust and left behind nothing but a blank wall to mark its place.

Estra had no idea how long she stayed rooted in place, it could have been minutes, or hours, though she was sure she would have bled out by then. Eventually, she found herself alone with Helena, silently reminiscing over how their roles had switched. When they'd met it had been her who'd laid on the ground, helplessly suffering in agony while the older woman watched. Now they stood at exchanged ends. Ashah to Sorceress, the Blade Witch to the Defiler, mother to daughter; it almost seemed poetic.

Estra fell to her knees next to the sorceress, still a full head taller than her mother. The Defiler looked up at Estra with the strangest of expressions, as if an epiphany had occurred in her dying moments. The soulless red that ruled over her eyes began to fade away, shrinking back until the whites could be seen and they returned to the dark emerald shade that was natural to her. Slowly the woman began to take on more human qualities that revealed some semblance of the person she once was.

There was a question on Helena's raised eyebrows, one that brought tears flowing freely from her eyes and a depthless sadness to her face. A mother's hand reached towards Estra's face and Estra allowed their skin to meet. She waited for an explanation, hoping that all her lifelong questions would be answered. Instead, Helena looked into her eyes with a single word planted on her lips as she stroked Estra's with the most tender of touches.

"Sannishka?" The sensation of flesh stitching itself back together passed over Estra as Helena's hand fell from her face. That last puzzling statement of her true name was all the Defiler uttered before her body fell limp.

Finally, Estra's years of training had come to fruition. All her torment had been paid in full. All her suffering had been avenged. Yet Estra experienced no feelings of glee or fulfillment. This was no moment of triumph that the storybooks spoke of. No angels sang songs from the sky, and no divine light washed over the dark cavern to mark her grand accomplishment. There was no sudden sensation of closure. For Estra, as lay on the cold ground looking into the face of a woman who still smiled though there was no life in her, the mother she'd just killed, this only felt like a sin.

Estra shut her eyes tightly, knowing that she didn't have it within her to open them again. She wondered what she could have been. She'd spent her entire life in service to the Faith, doing her best to live a faithful, honest life. They'd rewarded her with a life of eternal suffering. In the end, it seemed that her fate would be met in a dark place hidden beneath the surface of the world.

She saw nothing, felt nothing, but there was still some life in her hearing. She could faintly hear the roars of a man and the shrieks of dying things. The sounds of a hammer crushing stone came to mind. It danced with the wet noise of a steel being pulled from a body. Inhuman footfalls were the only sound in the silence that followed. Something gripped around her leg, dragging her across the floor as easily as a child would a doll, back to whatever corner of hell it had made its layer in. Estra allowed herself to slip away into the void, giving into the sirens calling her, then she waited to die.

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