The Shattered Oracle

1 - In the Refuge of the Azhemyra (Revised)

"While I'm gone, Thraya, it will be your job to take care of your brother and the twins."

Thraya sat with her wrists crossed over her lap. She gave a single downcast nod. She held her eyes on the ground for a moment and then cautiously looked up through her long, auburn hair at her mother.

Despite the length of hair, she hid her features beneath, her brilliant blue eyes managed to pierce through the shadow. Tears had begun to well up, giving her eyes the appearance of shimmering ice.

"Please don't start. It's only two years. It may seem like a long time to you — being so young — but the time will fly and I'll soon be home."

Thraya's mother reached forward from her chair. She lightly grasped her daughter's arm with her left hand, a show of both command and assurance. With her right, she gently moved Thraya's hair from her face and tucked it behind one of her ears.

Thraya raised her chin up fully. A single tear ran down her high cheekbones and over the myriad freckles that adorned her young face. She remained silent and held eyes with her mother.

"I need you to stay an extra year in Neshran. You remember that I told you this, earlier? It's not a punishment, dear. I need you to know that."

Thraya gave another single nod. Her eyes dropped again, as did a few scarlet locks of hair. She gave a heavy breath — a sigh of reluctance with her mother's wishes — but the breath held no sound.

"I don't know if I'll have finished the rituals before you and Serranos head off to Morrthault City for your education. I do hope I will be back before then. It means the world to me, please remember that."

Thraya's lower lip began to quiver despite how calm and resigned she seemed. Two of her fingers crept up to tug on the fingers of her other hand.

"Serranos."

Thraya's mother turned from her with a slight groan from her old and worn wooden chair. She made eye contact with the young boy sitting on his own chair beside Thraya.

"You take care of your sister and the twins. You follow what your father says while I'm gone. He is the master of the house."

Thraya's eyes looked up and beyond her mother to her father standing near the entrance to the dining area. He gave a sardonic smile at these words while rolling his eyes. She wanted to smile at her father, but she couldn't muster the energy. Thraya turned her head slightly to look over to her younger brother.

Serranos met her eyes for a moment. His blue-green eyes were always comically magnified, given the large spectacles he wore. She could see his eyes welling up with tears as well. Far more than Thraya, given how young and emotionally sensitive he was.

"I don't want you to go."

The tiny voice was like a faint whisper on the air. Serranos adjusted his glasses with a single hand, letting the tears flow beneath the rims and down his face. He reached out for the gray robes draped over his mother's leg before him.

"We talked about this earlier, Serranos. I have to. It's not just a matter of duty, but..."

Thraya's mother reached out to hold Serranos' hand above her robes. She turned her head to share a look with her husband at the edge of the room. They both nodded to each other, agreeing to some question and answer that was beyond words.

"This is a matter of the future of our people. Do you remember that tale I told you of Boulka the Warrior-Queen?"

Serranos gave a nod and a long sniffle. He lifted one of his ill-fitting sleeves to rub at his nose.

"Well, Boulka couldn't have saved the old Morthavi Empire from the Demon-King Vholgisaal without the help of the prophecies. You do remember the old Morthavi prophecies from the Book of Talmuis, right?"

Serranos managed to clear his nose with another long sniffle. He raised his head up; his interest piqued and his emotions momentarily suspended. He was like his father and loved old lore and fables. He opened his mouth to reply, his tongue rolling around for a moment and then his jaw shut.

"Well, what I must do is write those prophecies. I fear that another great war will happen soon. It's my job to write down the information that a new Warrior-Queen, or Warrior-King, might use to save all of us."

The words were followed by an exaggerated nod and Serranos took a moment of quiet contemplation to think on his mother's words. His eyes darted through his glasses up to his father. He turned his head to look at his sister once again. He then returned his eyes to his mother.

"Someone else can do it. I want you home."

The tears began anew and Serranos pulled his hand from his mother's grip. His chin danced on his face and he muttered quiet cries under his breath.

Thraya, without thought, reached over with her left hand to grab the boy's chair and drag it close to her. She lifted her right to grab him at the base of the neck. With a light touch, she brought her brother's face into her arm and chest to comfort him. The boy began to wail softly into the fabric of her tunic.

Thraya's mother pulled back and pushed on the wooden back of her chair. She gave a nod to her daughter, knowing that she would take care of Serranos. They had always been close and Thraya had always watched over him like a mother authroc to her chick. Thraya's mother's eyes began to well with tears as well.

"As for you two..."

Thraya's mother quickly stifled her emotions and turned in her chair to look at the twins playing on the floor nearby. Both stopped their play to look straight up at their mother's face. Unlike the rest of the family who had auburn hair like their mother, the twins had stark white hair from birth.

"You two understand. Correct?"

The twins held eye contact with Thraya's mother for a moment. They turned to look at each other, seeming to speak a language without words; complex thoughts beamed into each other's tiny skulls. They momentarily came to a consensus and then returned their eyes to their mother. No words were spoken but the air seemed to dance with a strange energy.

"Good. I know you two will behave. All that I ask is that you start learning how to speak more. Once you go to school, you'll unnerve the other children."

One of the twins seemed to squint for a moment, picking up something from their mother. Both soon shrugged the sentiment off and returned to playing with their toys.

Thraya's mother turned to look up at her husband, now leaning on the wooden doorway with his arms crossed. His eyes turned to the twins and then back to his wife's eyes.

"You can handle them, right? Who'd of thought the youngest would be so adept at Haeth. They'll be oracles in no time."

"Just like their mother."

Thraya's mother gave a warming chuckle at her husband's words. She held her eyes on him, again saying something that words couldn't properly express. Although they both came from very different life choices and from different castes, they had always loved one another and took great pride in their family.

"I'm not going to Morrthault and joining the Authrak to spite you, mother."

The words crept out like dry and crackling leaves from Thraya's throat. She gave a hard swallow and a deep breath. She felt Serranos stop his sobbing for a moment and then his arm lifted up to hug her under her ribs.

"I know, Thraya. I don't expect you to follow in my footsteps and join the Sharr-vhult. You must choose your own path. I am thankful that you're going with Serranos to Morrthault City upon both of your graduations. He will need help and guidance when he starts his training with the Guardians."

Serranos stopped his sobbing and pulled away from his sister. He shuffled back into his chair and then looked up at Thraya skeptically through the corner of his glasses. He seemed to be more resolved now. With a few wipes of his face on his sleeves, he had gotten his composure back.

"If you must go. I want you home before we leave. I won't become a Guardian without you."

Thraya's mother pulled her head back in a mock sense of disbelief. Her eyes went wide with an exaggerated sense of awe at the command her son was now displaying. She softened her features and leaned forward, grasping his small hand in hers.

"I can't promise such. Understand that I want to. It is my place to know the future fates, but beyond my departure to the Ullthosian Sanctum, I can't see further. I will do whatever it takes to be back before the two of you depart."

Serrano's resolve quickly faded but he tried to remain strong. He gave a sideways sort of nod.

"More than anything else, whether I can get back or not, please remember one important thing."

Thraya's mother's eyes began to well up once again. She grabbed Serrano's hand tightly in her left hand and then reached forward to grab Thraya's with the right.

"I love all of you. No matter what happens. No matter if I'm here or not. No matter what might befall us in the future. Always remember that I love you. It is for your future that I do what I must do now. I'm going to the Ullthosian Temple to find out what will befall our people, and it is my duty to ensure the safety of the Hoelath Empire. But all I care about are you. Serranos. Thraya. Jhulessi. Nesbinet. And my dear Jornath. I love you all."

Thraya's mother turned her gaze from each of her children and then up to her husband. Tears ran down her face and Thraya's father returned the sentiment. Thraya had never seen her father cry before and this made her want to as well.

Thraya had to turn her eyes away or else she would begin sobbing. She looked over to the twins to make sure they were okay. Both had stopped playing with their toys to stare silently up at their mother. It only took a moment for each of their midnight-blue eyes to well up with tears as well.

"I love all of you so very much. Not even death would tear me away from you. Always remember that I'm with you, no matter what. I am a part of you, as you are all a part of me. I will always be watching over you."

***

Many things had changed over the last two decades of Maenthrai's life. One of such was that she no longer acknowledged her childhood name of Thraya. She had discarded the childish name her mother had given to her long ago upon becoming a woman, relishing the abandonment as much as she could.

That wasn't the only of her names that had changed; she had gotten married during her early adult years in Morrthault City. She had taken her husband's name upon marriage instead of preserving her own. It seemed fitting to throw away the family name of Haullpent so as to replace it with her inherited family name of Ahlmunast. The ties that held her to her blood name had been destroyed in her younger years. Putting some distance between her and her past had let her focus on her own life, her own family, and her own path as an oracle.

It had been an arduous two decades since she left her childhood home in Neshran to move to Morrthault City. She remembered the hope she had on that day. She was brimming with pride at her studies and felt like the whole world was opening up for her. She was dismayed that her mother hadn't managed to make it for her last day with her family. Perhaps if her mother had of made it, the path that Maenthrai's life had taken would be vastly different. It would have saved her and her brother more sorrows than they could currently endure. It would also mean that the rest of Maenthrai's family might still be alive.

With a flurry of anger, Maenthrai lifted her right hand up from the wooden table in front of her and crushed her fingers into a fist. In sympathy with the motion, a piece of parchment fluttered up from the table and crumpled into a ball, violently. There was a crackle in the air as she did so; a feeling like at any moment lightning might go off. A guttering candle at the edge of her writing desk flickered under the strain of the emotional energy as if struck with momentary fear.

With an exaggerated throw of her hand, she let the crumpled ball fly from the air in front of her and out the opened balcony doors, slightly to her right. She gave a grumble under her breath, seizing a small wooden writing stick in her left hand and then setting back to a fresh piece of parchment before her. Her long fingers wrapped around the writing stick and set it forth, frantically scratching runes in horizontal lines down the leftmost two-thirds of the parchment. She scrambled to get her thoughts out, feeling the pressure of time and obligation to do so.

Her emotions were running high and every now and then a trinket from inside the room she occupied seemed to shift as if jittered or moved by unseen hands. Her powers were bleeding into the very air of the room. Such was the price of a powerful oracle. With fevered emotions came the unfocused blasts of her telekinetic or telepathic powers. Given the emotions that were flying through her at this very moment, she had now become a whirlwind of disjointed energies.

Beyond where she sat — outside the rusted metal-trimmed balcony doors and beyond the stone balcony just outside — the world was cast in shadows. There was a light that crept in despite the darkness; a mix of shimmering reds, blues, and deep violets. These colors mixed and moved in strange ways like all three were caught in a hypnotic and tranquil sort of dance. The light was dim and pulled at the edges of perception with a strange and uncanny sort of brilliance.

The warm and harsh hues of reds crept inside the room from the churning rivers of molten rock that dripped around the edges of the outside city; these flowed into rivers that wound their way through the crumbling ruins beyond. The shades of blues came from the refracted light shimmering gently off the immense layers of ice that encapsulated the domed roof and the many walls of this subterranean city. The violets were born from the eternal silver and indigo flames mounted outside that illuminated this once thriving city; the same flames that lived on despite the people who had once used them for light so long ago now being nothing more than ash.

Maenthrai continued to scratch out her runes upon the parchment before her. She sat at her small wooden writing table at an arm's length distance from the rusted metal and crystalline doors of the balcony. She remained hunched over her desk and took a slow pause to gather her thoughts. Her left hand fiddled with the writing stick; a flurry of activity that seemed to keep the stick held above her long and slender fingers. Her right hand held her head up; occasionally breaking contact with her jaw to rub the tensed muscles and sinews of her neck and shoulder.

The guttering candle that perched at the far edge of her desk seemed to peek over the melted wax cautiously while she mulled over her thoughts for a moment. The light from the candle was adequate, yet — oddly — seemed to be dwarfed by the dazzling light that came in from outside the darkened and otherwise disused room. As soon as her thoughts caught up with her and she returned to scrabbling out more thoughts upon the parchment, the flame hid back behind it's melted castle of wax, flickering once more.

Maenthrai's sharp elbows seemed to dig into and pull on the chipped and aged wood of the table. With every rune, the table creaked and moaned on its carved lion-like legs. The metal filigree around the edges of the desk was heavily rusted, yet each segment held its place with remarkable perseverance. The lacquer that once preserved the rich wood had begun to peel in places, but despite a few chips on the surface, it remained smooth on top.

The chair that Maenthrai sat upon was covered with rich and decadent fabrics. The upholstery had begun to fray and stain in places. Some sections had been gnawed at or worn down by pests who had once called the room home during several centuries or millennia before Maenthrai had occupied it. The stuffing had become brittle, causing Maenthrai to pivot her hips at regular intervals. This strained sort of dance made her all the more frantic with her scrawling. Despite this, she gladly suffered her minor discomforts, much preferring the chair to the alternative of sitting on the chilled, stone floor.

The room around her was a bedroom belonging to a person of some renown who had once lived in the ruined and forgotten city. Despite the harsh extremes outside the room; the churning heat of the magma and the frigid chill of the ice, all the furniture as well as the ancient accouterments, filling up bookshelves and niches, had survived the passage of time quite well. The city had sat abandoned for untold amounts of time, and it was no doubt due to the supernatural skill of the artisans who created the entire city that what was left of it was well-preserved.

Behind her, by a dozen steps, lay the bed she had been using during those few hours she could pull herself away from her studies or her magickal weavings to sleep. The bed was equally as decadent as the rest of the room. The mattress was sophisticated and showed the craftmanship that the previous occupants of the city had used in all aspects of their life. Those supernatural artisans were the esteemed Azhemyra artificers of the ancient Morthavi people. Each of whom had called the ruined city home, once as a place of pride and later as a place of refuge when their Empire ended so long ago.

The mattress had been the first that Maenthrai had ever seen that contained metal springs inside of it, as well as the fine, ancient feathers of the Authroc birds that the old Morthavi had bred as pets and beasts of burden. Those birds, almost extinct now save for a few places in the far-off lands of Jolant, were said to be bred from the truly powerful Authrumokra Phoenixes of old. Those magical birds who could once speak human tongues, weave elemental magicks and live as peers with the Morthavi before they all fled to the farthest corners of the world plane. Perhaps their flight, as old books filled with lore surmised, was due to some long-ago slight the Empire of old had thrust upon them.

The bed, much like the strange feathers within it, was enchanted. It was able to conform to the dimensions of those who laid upon it as well as warm itself according to the conscious desires of its user. The entire contraption had a seducing sort of comfort to it as well; one that Maenthrai had noticed quite early on, which was why she avoided the bed as much as possible.

The previous occupants of this ancient, forgotten, and ruined city had led very comfortable lives. They should have, given that they were all descendants of the first artificers that had given the earliest forms of technology to humanity. They had begun their work in the first centuries of the exodus, right after humanity had left the fabled lands of Hoelv to start anew in this world. They were those of the ancient Morthavi people who remembered how to harness the subtle energies of magic and the commanding energies of nature in equal measure. It was they who crafted the earliest and the greatest wonders that even mundane persons, with no aethyric aptitude at all, could use in the betterment of their lives. Wonders that were slowly becoming lost to the Hoelath people who had followed after them in this faltering age. If it wasn't for the Azhemyra's duties, their uncanny abilities, and their constant demands for perfection, the early human settlers of this world would have surely perished.

The rest of the room sat in the same chilled darkness that it had most likely remained in for all the time since the last of the Azhemyra that once called this place home, had died. That is, to the point in time when Maenthrai and her cabal had once again started to use the place as a refuge. The only disruption in that veil of ancient neglect draped over the room came from the very slight shuffling and rustling coming from the far corner. There, half-hidden in the darkness, with a reddish light setting a subtle contrast to his features, was a man reading a book.

He was covered in heavy leather armor from the high collars around his neck to the worn leather of his boots. He remained still, pushing with his feet and balancing himself on the back legs of another ancient chair. He remained quiet, save for the occasional groaning of his armor or the rustling of parchment as he flipped a page. The book itself sat suspended in his fingers just a few inches above his lap.

Despite his relaxed demeanor, a sheathed — yet readied — sword swung between the arms of the chair and the floor. The sword occasionally coming within half an inch or less of scraping the ancient stones below.

Maenthrai took these moments to dwell on the tired details of her room while she thought out the last few runes she must scratch into her letter. As she did so, her attention was pulled through the crystalline-windowed doors before her and out into the ruins of the city beyond. Much of the city still sat disused and abandoned, yet there was a small spark of bustling life near the center-most area of the city. She could feel the energy there being harnessed by those last descendants and students of the ancient Azhemyra. It was she that had found and brought them here after being alienated for so long from their home.

She had scoured a sizeable chunk of the Hoelatha Empire to find those still skilled in the arts of artifice and enchantment to help her. Although their numbers were few, they were devoted people who had traveled with her across the northern lands to re-settle this ruined city. They jeopardized their safety, knowing that by helping her they faced the same horrible monster that stalked the ruins of the north trying to find her. They had done so much in such a short amount of time and if the news that came to her was true the last of their efforts were now before them.

Maenthrai let her attentions come back into the room. She placed a series of more runes upon the parchment and then pushed herself away from the table. She lifted her right hand limply and in response the parchment raised from the table to float just before her face.

The parchment remained suspended between the light of the candle before her and her eyes, allowing bits of the flame's light to seep in through the fine vellum. Her eyes scanned over the runes in High Hoelatha script. The page was almost filled with horizontal scrawlings, with only the right-most third of the parchment holding much more complicated vertical runes. These extra runes held the notes for her courier who would take the letter to its proper destination. Her eyes, glassy with strain, flowed over the runes while skimming the words contained within. She didn't really take any of the information in, but she felt that it was far more satisfactorily written then her previous attempt.

She gave a long sigh and allowing her will to ebb, the page dropped to the surface of the table, once more. Feelings of longing and emptiness welled up inside of her and were soon corrupted into a sense of impending dread. She let the writing stick fall from her fingers. The object rolled to the edge of the table where it wavered for a moment before finally falling to the stone floor. She pivoted her hips one more time, turning sharply to look over her right shoulder and back into the darkness of her room.

"I have your word — Jephrin — That this missive will reach my husband in two weeks?" Maenthrai lifted herself from her chair, getting up to idly approach the crystalline-windowed doors between the bedroom and the crumbling stone balcony beyond. She rested her hand on the metal trim of the doors causing a popping sound and rusty creak. She kept her eyes focused on the darkness at the other end of the room. "This is very important to me. You know that."

The shadowed figure let his feet drop to the floor with two almost inaudible impacts. The scabbard's metal tip finally scrapped for a moment along the dusty stone. The figure looked up, closing the book in his lap and gave a single nod. The figure of Jephrin otherwise remained silent. That attention and his simple motion were enough to satiate Maenthrai's inquiry.

"Good. I will hold you to that." She gave a lighthearted chuckle and pulled away from the rusty door. A few steps and she was back at her desk where she sat down to loom once more over the table.

She seized the parchment once again and framed it with both of her hands. Her eyes scrolled through the lines one last time, this time reading the missive in full. The runes she had written in her cursive style rolled in front of her eyes as she made absolutely certain that all of the thoughts and feelings she wished to convey were properly trapped within.

My love, Kaisos,

I hear from the lead Azhemyra here at the refuge, that the work being performed on the artifacts I've asked them to create is almost complete. By the time you get this missive, it should be just a few more months and then I can finally return home to you.

If the completion date is as Thaellon and the rest claim, it seems somewhat auspicious that it should be done twenty-two years — almost to the day — since my mother first caused the calamity we must now endure. There isn't a day that goes by that I don't feel the blood-ridden guilt inside of me for her actions.

Before that fateful day, so long ago, she was always a kind parent. I have no doubt that she loved my father, my siblings, and myself dearly. Because of this, the actions she did when she returned from the Ullthosian Temple were all the more monstrous in contrast.

I always looked up to my mother, you've heard that so much since you came into my life. You know well that I wanted to follow in her footsteps and become an oracle. Not of the Sharr-vhult, as I found those mystics to be stuffy and too familiar in my youth. I always wanted to create my own path, my own way of doing things. I wanted to join the early Authrak Order. Well, I forget, you know this well. After all, you've endured me for so long.

I know you fight me on this, but I hold it to be the truth since the very moment I heard about what my mother had done and what horrors she unleashed on this world. When I had to go into hiding with Serranos, and when your family took us in despite the dangers. To think, the woman who brought me into this world would become such a monster. That she could be capable of slaughtering my family and hunting Serranos and me to the ends of the world-plane. Moreover, that she would dare to purge the world of the oracles who might one day save the world from her depredations.

Perhaps the murder she gave to my youngest siblings and to my father was a mercy. I do hope they passed quickly and without suffering. She wasn't as merciful when she destroyed all of Oerstav Caelii in her wrath. She managed to reduce the entire city of Neshran to nothing but ruins and ashes in a matter of days. At least, that's what I heard from a scant few survivors in the port cities of the Morthav Highlands when I began this journey here with my students.

I've always wondered what visions my mother saw that would drive her to such madness. What were powers there in that old and musty temple that might turn a mortal woman into such a fiend? What could corrupt her so thoroughly that she would make a pact with a demon and become such a creature?

Despite your continual warnings, I will soon find out. You know that I have not been able to return to Oerstav Caelii since my last day there in my youth. Many of the oracle students I have saved and trained to be here with me state that to return to my home would be suicide. My mother, it is said, still, roams that land in search of Serranos and myself.

I recently sent some members of the Guardian Knights and a few trusted students of sufficient abilities to look into the ruins of the Ullthosian Sanctum and the Temple nearby. They've just returned with shipments of strange artifacts and unearthly stones from that place. The Azhemyra are using those artifacts and stones to create the devices I requested. We will be able to use the energies of those artifacts, along with the post-cognition abilities I have been perfecting, to reach through and pierce into the time that Merithault, my mother, was there.

I will finally be able to see what my mother saw all those years ago. When the enchantments are completed, these orbs will be able to store and hold all the memories of the oracles. We can use these to keep our culture alive when the world dies. I know you doubt the visions of old diviners, but I must assure you, this will come to pass. The horrors that my mother let loose will tear this world asunder. We exist in the calm before the storm, and as such, we must seize this time to prepare.

Please give my love to our children, Isyn and Loelan. I know, it is painful for us all to be separated like this for so long. I understand how hard this must be for our children, as I endured the exact same when I was young. Please know that this must be done. Know — most of all — my love, that this is all we have left.

Keep the children safe. Let them know that I love them dearly and I can't wait to be at home to care for them like a mother should. I miss all of you more than I can ever express.

With all of my heart and soul, eternally yours,

- Maenthrai

As her eyes passed over the last lines of runes, tears began to well up in the inside corners of her eyes. It felt strange for her to cry after so long. It had been over four grueling years since she had seen her husband and her children. In that time she had only ever heard of her family through the many letters her husband sent to her. It was hard for her to think of her young Isyn becoming a man at last. The last time she had seen Loelan was when she was still in swaddling clothes. It had been far too long a separation.

Maenthrai let her eyes rest on the runes of her name while she pinched the bridge of her nose, hoping to stop the tears before she started gushing. She wiped at her eyes with both hands and then settled her focus on the flickering candle flame before her. The flame seemed to console her despite her earlier tempestuous energies. She let her self wax poetic in her thoughts while staring at that single, vulnerable flame. She imagined it to be the last light of the world; the last beacon of hope before all things were snuffed out in the darkness that her blood brought forth into this world. That light was a symbol to her in this moment of what she was trying to accomplish — the very reason she had been separated from her family for so long — the last memories of her people that she would try and preserve within the artifacts that Thaellon and his Azhemyra students were busy crafting at this very moment.

It seemed that due to the capricious whims of fate, she had become very much like her mother when she was young. She had abandoned her own family, her own children, to seek out secrets in order to protect her people. Her sadness turned to a flash of anger. Her hands clenched into fists on the writing table before her. A wind began to howl and tug at the rusted metal doors to her balcony.

Breaking this shot of anger was a hand upon her shoulder. This jarred her away from her overwrought thoughts; from her sudden rage and her sadness to be anchored back into the moment. It wasn't an overly familiar gesture, but it was one she welcomed as soon as she calmed herself.

Jephrin had been in her service as shoanvyr — a personal bodyguard issued by her husband's house — since she was a teenager. Those few who were still loyal to her family and took Serranos and herself in after her mother's inhuman change had provided young warriors of worth as well as courage to take care of them. Kaisos' family had selected Jephrin who had sought a life of dutiful service after being a bit of a rogue. He sought redemption and used his oath well. Jephrin was as much a part of her as her own brother, although he led his own life in those few-and-far-between times she hadn't needed his service. In all those years, he was a silent companion, a strong rock of support, a skillful cohort, and a friend when she was away from Kaisos and her children.

This calloused and strong hand on her shoulder was one to shake her away from her thoughts. He wanted her focused on finishing the letter and her duties. The hand slid by her arm for a moment, bending towards her wrist. Once almost on her right hand, he detoured sharply and quickly snatched up the parchment before her. Jephrin lifted it away from her, giving a single glance at the runes upon the page. He gave a half-audible grunt, then folded the missive into thirds. He gave one last glance at the courier notes scrawled on the exposed last third of the page, then tucked the parchment away into a small pocket above his breast.

"Thank you for doing this." Maenthrai pushed the wooden chair away and raised up to her feet. "I know you have your reservations about my safety." Her eyes darted around the room for a second and then rested upon the dimly-lit face of Jephrin before her. Blotches of green and orange danced around his features, obscuring them. She had stared into the flame for too long.

"...Like you said." Jephrin took a deep breath, allowing his shoulders to lift up into his drawn collar. It was more of a shrug and sigh than a breath of air. "Getting to head home would be good for me. I deliver your letter, and I get to see my dear Hyalbrinn." A wry smile crept across his stubbled and weathered face. His brown eyes, peering at her from beneath his dark, brooding brow looked at her with hesitation and longing. He didn't want to leave her side. She knew he thought it was a mistake. "I'm only spending two nights in Morrthault City. Just enough to rest from the road and get proper provisions. I'll be back before the hither-month is complete."

"There's no need to rush, Jephrin. No one knows we're here." Maenthrai lowered her eyes to the floor and began to tap on the ancient wood of the table with her long, aristocratic fingertips. She gave a short rap and pulled her hand back up to her chest. "We've made assurances to hide our magicks. The scouts that returned with the base materials were not the scouts that went to Oerstav Caelii. We've used double-blinds and secondary agents to make sure no direct path in or out of this place can be traced."

"All except for me." Jephrin began to pull his riding gloves over his hands. He turned his gaze from what he was doing to give Maenthrai a sideways glance. "I will be leaving here and heading straight to your family. You know I don't agree with this haste." Once both gloves were on he wiggled his fingers to make sure they were secure.

"That is why you're going to spend the next two hours undergoing a cleansing ritual." She gave a soft smile to Jephrin and then turned away from him to stare out the balcony doors. "Before you leave, you need to go see Mileana. She should be nearby where the Azhemyra are working in the Hestumarch. She will remove my stink from you and the letter your carry." She gave a soft chuckle to herself; that her aethyric energies may actually have a smell. "She'll escort you to a dummy location before you leave. She will also present you with some instructions on how best to return. You'll get a scenic route. You may even enjoy it."

Jephrin gave a dissatisfied grunt and then pulled the insides of his gloves tighter on his fingers, pressing into the spaces in between. He walked over to the chair he had previously occupied and gathered up the book he had set down upon it. He lifted it up, thumbing through the pages to where he was previously. He read one last line from the page, replaced a torn segment of parchment into the book to lock his place, and then threw the book onto Maenthrai's bed.

"It's a good story. A bit heavy in parts." He turned his back towards her as she turned to see him walk away. "Thank you, for letting me read it. Although, I'm not really into all that romance. The adventure elements are worth the slog." His leather boots padded softly across the stone floor. He wasn't a light man by any means, but his movements were graceful and muffled through refined skill. "Keep my page, until I return." He turned on his feet near the far door out of the room and gave her one last stern look.

His eyes met hers and she knew exactly how he felt without him needing to say it, nor with her having to pierce into his thoughts with her abilities. The eye contact was enough. The look was a warm, but reluctant goodbye. He had severe reservations about leaving her side. He grumbled them to her loudly, every chance he could, for the last three weeks. He left the room quickly, like a gust of wind, shutting the door quietly behind him.

Feeling the most alone she had in years, Merithault turned her eyes back to the darkened, ruined city beyond her balcony doors. She hoped that Jephrin would make it safely back to Morrthault City. She missed her husband and her children. The pain of their absence tore through her very being. She began to wonder for a moment if this is how her mother felt when she left her family all those years ago. When she abandoned them to become an inhuman monster.