*COMPLETE* Allayria promised to do what it takes to stop the Jarles, to make the ugly decision. She thinks, at last, she understands what the dynast meant. The lesson earned from the top of that lonely cliff and given the dark murky water below.
It...
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In the long shadow of the Tower there swells a dark mass of crawling, scuttling things, a wave of glinting, armored forms. They pace in the courtyard, something tensing along their shoulders, something directing their gazes back, over their shoulders and around, to the silent, dead air surrounding them. The monster in its black shell can taste it: the subtle shift, the quiet before the storm.
These Halften soldiers don't understand it, green from being kept in unhazed pastures, green from a lifetime of order and structure.
They don't know how to smell a storm because they've always been it.
The next gust from his visor is a grunt, a snort of a bull pacing in its pen. They eye him warily as he looms over them, his metal gloved hand gripping his black sword. The suns have begun their descent to the horizon and the horde is waiting at the high gates. Waiting to be unleashed.
A horn blares from somewhere deep, ringing in his ears, pounding—
"It's my fault, my fault—"
His vision swims, swaying with that voice, that echo, but his grip only crackles around his sword and when the gates creak open the soldiers swell around him, a herd following their steer. He can feel the current of Skill run around them, see it run through them, flickering and flaring like a low flame. Their faces are flat but fire kindles inside them, betraying their true intent as they march in pomp and grandeur.
They are out, out on the promenade, out in this cityscape, ruined and blackened as it may be. Behind them the shepherds watch, standing up on the terrace built over and around the Tower gates, that platform where traitor blood ran once before.
Another horn blares, a blast of purple and red confetti littering the sky, and then a surge of synchronized, regimented whooping. A battle cry made within the heart of the city, at the helm of it is the Halften commander, the one with the thin mouth, the sharp eyes—
You are exceptional, he had once said to the thing in this suit. And though his words had been praise, his eyes were still cold. Assessing. Searching. Where did you say you were from?
His counterpart stays on the terrace behind them—a gray woman in steel—General, General—and, lurking behind her, a thin, cunning fellow with dark eyes whose familiar image plucks at this creature's lungs, whose shouldered bow spurs something like a quick bolt of fury through him.
That is not yours, an old voice says inside its head, sullen and cracked from lack of use. You have no right to bear it.
The creature knows well enough now who the bow belongs to, and when the Keesark commander moves, leaning over to talk to an approaching guard, it sees her.
She's clothed in darkness, a heavy crown set on her brow, still in the dying sunlight. She's an obsidian statue, a would-be gargoyle but for the fact that, although she's clothed in gloom, although no current of Skill touches her, she still somehow shines so bright.
The horns blare, rippling through the moment, the mirage: the Commander Beinsho has given the signal at the head of the procession. It is time. Time, time for darkness, time for Skill, time for disappearing in the river of nothingness but feeling, instinct, that wordless connection, time for—
"Stay by the gates," she had asked, the lone voice in the twilight, clear like running water. "Come back inside when they go. Please, C—"
They march on but the creature in the mask jerks back, as if caught on a lead.
Stay with me.
He turns back as if hearing the call, turns back against the bloody glow of the sunset, gazing up north, across the bustling street, up to the balcony, to the woman standing there, waiting, staring right back at him.
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A/N: Hello, everyone! Just started the new job and I am tiredddd, but so much happier. I have Photoshop at work again 🥺❤️
Also I'm writing more—apologies for the delay, I'm at a big moment in the next part and decided to prioritize it over posting... you'll appreciate it when you get there, trust me. WELL, appreciate might not be the word. 😬
But why worry about that when you've got to deal with what's hurtling toward you right now? HAHAHA. Hold on to your knickers, everyone, things are going to get bumpy.
Chapter notes: Fae tries to claim fault in Prodigal's "A House Covered in Blood."
