"You still have not answered my question! Either of you!" Forynda admonished Vorlan and Cyrona as they floated atop the now fully quelled Mount Pivox. The iron-coated plateau and lowlands below were still as jarring as the day Gorondos unleashed his atrocity upon the city. "I would have expected Omonrel and his followers to accept Nethron's false promise of the Silver Aura, but those who purport to follow the teachings of Ceuna? This is a menace that must be eradicated at once!"

Cyrona, sensing that Vorlan was too depleted to engage with Forynda at the apex of her fury, decided to offer the explanation that they had avoided up until that point.

"It was our allies' choice, Forynda," she said quietly. "They feared being outmatched if they did not at least attempt to learn the attributes of the Silver Aura."

"It is not possible for any to reliably wield it. All should have understood that without my presence being necessary to repeat the point," the High Angel declared. "Are there any still alive who were responsible for this?"

"Are we defining responsibility narrowly or broadly?" Vorlan, somewhat slouched, mumbled.

"Narrowly," Forynda sighed, her bright golden eyes dimming slightly. "I do not wish to condemn all who simply acquiesced out of desperation. The Emperor and Empress thought they needed to match the depravity of their opponents. Vile as that is, I trust that they will learn from their errors."

The Water Angel avoided appearing too relieved at Forynda's surprising clemency. Given the High Angel's earlier rage, she feared that a far more sweeping verdict was coming.

That could have been much worse, Cyrona mused, almost smiling.

"You managed to destroy almost every practitioner of the Silver Aura the enemy had when you arrived. Emperor Rohmhelt's mages who knew how to employ it were utterly destroyed beforehand," Cyrona said. "There is, however..."

"I can feel the stench of it nearby, but the chaos unleashed on the Auras clouds my vision. It is close," Forynda interjected.

"As I was about to say," Cyrona laughed, which drew a cutting glare from Forynda, "there is a man we are aware of in Rohmhelt's service who himself knows the Silver Aura and trained many in its use. He yet lives and is in the command staff of the Emperor's army."

Forynda tightened her grip on her rapier as her eyes flashed intensely. Vorlan's face stiffened into a mortified stillness.

"Bring him to me," she commanded.

"I would suggest that any judgment upon him be done in the presence of the Emperor and Empress. They both have relied on him for various purposes, problematic though the man indeed is," the Earth Angel swiftly intervened, a hint of panic in his voice. "I think they are owed a chance to offer their own judgment on the matter."

"Very well," Forynda conceded. "I will evaluate this man before his rulers. However, I will not defer to them if I find this man to be unrepentant with continued ill intent. The Silver Aura's use must be wholly eliminated."

"If I may ask, Forynda, since none were using it to bring the dead back to life, but rather merely as a devastating weapon of war, are we certain it deserves such a severe treatment? What I mean to say is that should not its practice be judged on similar terms as..." Vorlan prodded, floating closer to Forynda as he did.

The High Angel's eyes flashed brightly and her face deeply soured. Cyrona floated slightly further away from the High Angel to be spared her full wrathful response.

"I know precisely what you are attempting to say, Vorlan, and it will become no less foolish if you restate it a thousand times!" Forynda bellowed. Vorlan recoiled, his posture tightening inward as he braced for her next lash. However, she paused for a moment, and relaxed her furious demeanor. "There is no reason you would know this as I do. Beyond, of course, the risk that mortals will continue to arrogantly try to shatter death's veil, it is nothing like the other Auras in its use in war. Its effects are far graver."

Forynda stopped speaking for a time to close her eyes. Vorlan and Cyrona exchanged curious glances before the High Angel again looked upon both of them.

"The Communion of Souls represents a pact made with the mortal world so that mortals need not labor under the terror of oblivion. Those whose souls are not laden with foul deeds may join those they loved in life for all eternity," she calmly stated, but then she grimaced. "All except those slain by the Silver Aura."

Cyrona and Vorlan jointly jolted.

"What?!" Vorlan gasped.

"As the mortals have tried to use it, the Silver Aura is distorted beyond any recognition. They think they are wielding the Aura itself, as though it is something that now belongs to them. This is hubris. They twist, fray, and otherwise mangle its natural state, leaving any mortal being killed with it a nearly impossible path to the Communion of Souls. Their journey relies on the natural path granted by the Silver Aura in its innate form," the High Angel mournfully sighed. "Once that path is destroyed, it cannot be recreated. The reason that abominable spell used in battle here continued strengthening was that it consumed the paths for the souls of the hapless mortals it slew. It obliterated them, utterly. I have devoted more time than any can possibly fathom trying to direct the wayward lost souls across the divide from this world to Ceuna, but I have succeeded only six times. Out of thousands."

"Surely it cannot be final! There must be a way to undo what it does or at least provide another path!" Vorlan, exasperated, threw his hands about.

Forynda's eyes dimmed and she looked down directly at crater of Mount Pivox from where Gorondos's eruption and burst.

"There is none," she murmured. "As I have tried to tell you, Vorlan, there are truly things that cannot be undone where no amends can be made. Bear that in mind all the more from this point forward. I will not repeat my warning."

He nodded, as did Cyrona, though she had not yet fully recovered from the shock of the revelation. The thought that those tens of thousands of soldiers who met horrible ends at the hand of the argent wave were simply now lost forever was too terrible to contemplate, much less accept. Yet, if there any denizen of Ceuna would know this answer definitively, it would be Forynda. On that matter, there was no other authority.

While Vorlan and Cyrona remained in their stunned state, Forynda floated closer to Vorlan, intently staring at the Earth Angel.

"Your wound from Myrvaness never fully healed, Vorlan," she said and reached out her right hand with two fingers glowing as brightly as a star in the night sky.

He stayed still, plainly confused by Forynda's actions but also not inclined to resist. She drew a circle around where the blades had penetrated his chest. She clenched her hand into a fist, causing Vorlan to spasm. Swirling and hissing purple and black tendrils of the Abyssal Aura exited his body. Forynda immediately wrapped them in a cocoon of blinding light and collapsed the cocoon into nothingness.

Vorlan gasped and then straightened.

"I had thought Simel purged all of it after we fought Myrvaness," the Earth Angel said, greatly more energetic than he was just moments earlier.

"You have become too used to its presence. The Abyssal Aura is everywhere in this world and its corruption is insidious," Forynda warned. "It obscures a great deal, even itself. Parlon's manipulations were how Gorondos so easily evaded us to destroy this city and its people. It corrupts, conceals, and destroys. You must wonder, then, why I do not condemn it in the same manner as the Silver Aura?"

Cyrona decided to take pressure off Vorlan and floated forward.

"I had wondered that, in fact," the Water Angel said.

Forynda nodded lightly and pointed out toward the camps of Rohmhelt's army sprawling out to the east.

"Ultimately, it is what drives their passion, for good or ill. That can carry their peoples forward or drive them into ruin. Wish as I do that Nethron had never unleashed it in its untamed form, there is naught that I can do to reverse that now. Unlike the Silver Aura, its uses are not wholly destructive when wielded by the mortals. I fear far more how it might be employed by our own kind," the High Angel declared. "Now, Vorlan, go and bring this man who pursued the Silver Aura so intently to his rulers. I will join you once you do."

Without saying anything more, Vorlan descended from Mount Pivox toward the mortal camp. Cyrona glanced at Forynda, who stared off at the mortals below, and wondered what she wanted to discuss with her in confidence.

"You ponder why I did not send you with him?" she asked, slowly turning to look at Cyrona. The Water Angel nodded at once. Forynda grimaced and looked back out toward the east. "I cannot bring myself to face Elaous again. I cannot contain my rage at him for his betrayal, after all the time that he was loyal to Ceuna. Should I see him again, I would lay the half the world low if that was what was necessary to vanquish him for what he has done."

Her confession struck Cyrona speechless. It did not seem that Forynda even sought a response.

"In that case, I will fight him in your stead," Cyrona offered, her voice unsteady.

The High Angel's eyes flickered briefly with the most infinitesimal smile forming across her face before a pained grimace overwhelmed it. She was silent for some time, her gaze turning away from Cyrona and back toward the east.

"By one path or another, he will be beaten," Forynda muttered. "Of that, I am certain."

In that wake of the tone and circumstances of that cryptic declaration, Cyrona's waters ran cold, far more frigid than the icy winds above Mount Pivox warranted. They were impossibly cold and... empty.

~

Lyfress spent time with her father and Matriarch Yldrina praying for the lost souls of Karmand, praying that they would all find comfort in Ceuna in the Communion of Souls. Yldrina, even for her advanced age, had been unsteady following the battle, walking aimlessly at times and muttering to herself, but during the prayer she recovered her lucidity.

"I'm now a matriarch without a home," she commented through a wheezing cough. She pointed toward the moonlight glistening off the hardened iron and lava flow down from the mountain. "I was born there. I came up there. I found my way to Forynda's service there and served her faithfully for decades. I thought I'd die and be buried there. So many, so much younger than I, were instead. I saw so many of the atrocities that awaited us, even glimpses of this one. It was this one I never fully believed would come to pass."

Cesord and Lyfress exchanged a few mournful glances before deciding to offer comfort to the Matriarch.

"There've been so many things that were inconceivable when all of this started," Cesord coughed through some thick strands of phlegm in his throat. "Each thing that happens seems more drenched in madness than the last."

"Drenched in madness," Yldrina laughed in her raspy voice. "That's a fine way of putting it. Quite a fine way."

Horns blasted from about half a mile away near the center of the army's camp, drawing the attention of all three of them.

"That must be a call to the start of Commander Dastov's trial by the High Angel," Lyfress said. "We should get going."

"Forynda purging the army of the traitor Nethron's taint will bring us closer to victory, I'm sure of it," Yldrina declared, rising from her knees and grasping her gnarled cane. "This is something that must be done."

During their walk to the clearing surrounding the venue for the trial, Lyfress tried to pick up what gossip she could, but there was almost nothing useful. Idle speculation, fantastical claims, and more than a few things that simply couldn't be true. Her father struck up a conversation with young archer who was trotting toward camp's center to see if he knew anything more than the vague rumors they'd all heard. The young man simply said, "No one knows anythin'." Dastov was such an infamously inscrutable figure within the Emperor's army that it was only fitting no one knew anything.

Lyfress had only seen him a handful of times and never had any reason to speak to him. Whenever she had, he was something of a void, creating no impression in her mind whatsoever. It was such an odd thing, given the man's reputation.

"If he's unworthy, Forynda will set this right," Yldrina declared to one in particular as they neared.

Owing to Yldrina's esteem within the army, the thick lines of soldiers and officers allowed the Matriarch and her escort, comprised of Lyfress and Cesord, to come to the front ranks. Within the clearing, the Emperor and Empress sat in chairs off to the right, flanked by a squad of the colorfully armored Solnahtern. Standing opposite them some distance to the left across the open clearing was Commander Dastov, dressed in an unusual white robe with a gilded black trim. There were lightly armored spear-wielding soldiers on his either side, but they caused him no distress. He just patiently rested his hands on his long black lacquered cane while he waited to be summoned.

Between Dastov and the Imperial couple to the rear of the clearing, the High Angel herself floated, rapier in her right hand and shield in her left, as she impassively observed the growing gathering. She glowed white, adding her glorious white light to the dull orange torchlight ringing the clearing. The Mind Angel Simel lurked just behind her, almost invisible within her radiance.

After only a brief wait, Emperor Rohmhelt rose to his feet and commanded the gathering to silence with his arms raised high.

"As we are all too aware, the horrors of the Silver Aura took the lives of tens of thousands of our comrades on the fields not far from here. Had the High Angel not intervened, the wave of this terrifying force would've kept progressing and killed us all," he began, his voice straining to project to the whole gathering. "The High Angel has commanded that every willing practitioner of the Silver Aura be brought to justice across the entire world. It is a price that must be paid for embracing a false promise offered by the traitor angel Nethron. I bear responsibility as well for believing, in my desperation to win this war, the false promises of what the Silver Aura could offer us. Before Commander Dastov is judged for his deeds, I would offer myself to the High Angel for my own complicity."

Gasps rolled through the crowd. Lyfress, who helped Yldrina maintain her footing, jolted at the Emperor's offer.

"Don't worry, child," Yldrina said softly. "This is theater."

Forynda barely even looked upon Emperor Rohmhelt as he dropped to a knee before her.

"The mistakes of the ignorant are ghastly, but nothing like as vile as those who intended to deceive," the High Angel boomed, her voice overpowering every other sound that evening. "Your complicity, Emperor Rohmhelt of Methrangia, is forgiven on the condition that you do not err again."

Relief washed over the multitudes, including Lyfress and Cesord. Yldrina, meanwhile, laughed and nodded her head.

"The true offender , however, is the practitioner who convinced you of the value of this abominable power," Forynda continued. "Bring him forth."

Dastov motioned to the guards that he would advance willingly. As Rohmhelt returned to his seat beside his Empress, Dastov first languidly approached them and bowed. His graying blue green hair took on a most peculiar appearance when illuminated by the torches and Forynda's own light, almost the same iridescent silver of the Aura in question. He then grasped his cane more tightly and pivoted to approach Forynda.

"I stand ready to answer for my actions," the spymaster said, his somewhat high and raspy voice being an odd fit for a man of that height.

Forynda's golden eyes intensified their previously merely warm glow. Now they were as fire.

"Do you deny that you were the principal figure in Emperor Rohmhelt's army encouraging the use of the Silver Aura?" she inquired, her tone unnaturally even and placid.

"I don't," he immediately answered.

"You were fully aware of the provenance of the Silver Aura and its intended purpose by the banished traitor Nethron?" Forynda continued.

"That he intended the 'conquest of death', as he put it? Yes. I was aware of that aim and that it was the reason so many had an interest in the Silver Aura," Dastov riposted. "He hadn't kept it a secret, after all. Every single person in the entirety of Vorlanys heard him say it."

Murmurs broke out across the crowd. Emperor Rohmhelt and Empress Evinda whispered to one another several times before the chatter around them quieted. Forynda, without moving even the slightest amount, resumed her questioning.

"Was this your intent for pursuing the study of the Silver Aura and spreading knowledge of its use?" the High Angel further inquired.

"Originally? Certainly. And I know a great many here would find that shocking, but we all know that's why we were interested. Initially, there was the promise of being able to endlessly restore our armies," he explained calmly and pointed his cane over toward the newly created Chancellor Agrehn and Grand Commander Kordov. "As many here might recall, when the High Angel departed following the destruction of Zarmand, we were left with a horrible disadvantage in manpower and an enemy that didn't exactly shy away from pursuing the Silver Aura themselves. They already had us so badly on numbers, what if they could make it work, bringing their dead back, and we didn't even try? It's for that reason I looked into it. I found it seemed impossible and that Nethron's promise was hollow."

Lyfress squinted at Dastov, her mouth modestly agape. What's he doing? she pondered. He's coming very close to being defiant to Forynda to her face.

"And yet you continued to pursue the Silver Aura once you determined Nethron's promise was a lie?"

"Ah, that was for a different reason. I saw its potential as a weapon of staggering power, one that could bring whole armies low and defend against a fair number of things, including itself," he answered, leaning on his cane to allow him to tilt slightly to the right. "On that front, I think we need only look at what some called the 'argent wave' here on these fields. Because I had mages trained, they were able to stop it for long enough that we could save at least some of our troops. I'm sorry it wasn't more, but they performed admirably. I'll gladly answer for what they did."

An uncomfortable pause then gripped the proceedings. Simel floated forward to be almost directly behind Forynda, but slightly off to the left. His inscrutable metallic eyes locked on Dastov, but he said nothing aloud. Whatever he needed to say to Forynda, he did through the angels' methods.

"You attempt to present yourself as open and honest, and yet this is itself an act of deception," Forynda eerily declared. "You are hiding your thoughts from Simel at this very moment, despite your consent to be forthright. What are you hiding?"

A swift wave of whispers cascaded over the crowd, but Dastov silenced them by immediately responding.

"I'm not foolish enough to just offer everything, not even to the great angels of Ceuna," Dastov smirked. "And how I'm evading Simel's admirable efforts to probe the deepest corners of my mind, I'll never tell. Why am I doing this? I'm not going to willingly surrender the locations and names of the two most skilled practitioners of the Silver Aura on Vorlanys today knowing that doing so renders my life forfeit. I'm willing, however, to hunt them down for the angels of Ceuna and the Emperor and Empress. Spare my life, and I'll ensure they're hunted down and destroyed. Kill me, and they're too skilled to fall into your grasp. You'd have to destroy the whole world to be sure you've got them and anyone else they've trained. I can snare them for a far lesser price."

"How do we know you would not simply ally with them if you found them?" Forynda asked, not missing even a second after Dastov spoke.

"Because they betrayed a personal promise to me that they wouldn't run. I don't forget such things and I must assuredly don't forgive them," Dastov laughed. "Ask any of my comrades about that."

Again a chorus of murmurs and whispers broke out among the thousands gathered. Lyfress and Cesord exchanged confused glances over the hunched back of Yldrina, who alternated between nodding and shaking her head at the display. Simel moved out from the shadows, still closer to Forynda. He locked his eyes so squarely on Dastov that Lyfress wondered in the Mind Angel intended the commander harm. After a time, he briefly turned his head toward Forynda and gave the faintest of nods. The High Angel, betraying nothing in her demeanor, glared at Dastov for what seemed an eternity even if it was only seconds.

"From this point forward, all knowing practitioners of the Silver Aura are to be condemned to death so that we may drive this corruption into oblivion's cold clasp," Forynda boomed, looking over the whole crowd. She then looked squarely at Dastov again. "Those who previously embraced this greatest of evils may find forgiveness if they seek to aid us in completing our edict of extermination. Do you pledge yourself to this task?"

Dropping his cane to his right, Dastov fell to both knees and bowed to Forynda.

"Until my dying day," he said, his voice muffled by speaking almost into the ground.

"I will hold you to that," Forynda boomed and then vanished in a flash of white light.

The crowd exploded in gossip the instant the High Angel departed. Yldrina tapped both Lyfress and her father on their arms to be escorted out of the gathering. Once they managed to jostle their way through the endless ranks of those gathered, they found a quiet enough place in camp to rest. The elderly Yldrina leaned against her cane while Lyfress and Cesord caught their breath.

"She must see a purpose in that man that I can't," Yldrina wheezed. "And I won't question it."

"Where do you see the danger?" Lyfress asked, entirely devoid of a view of the immediate looming threat herself.

Yldrina looked to Lyfress, her sagging eyes brightening.

"Wherever there is anyone as sure of himself as Dastov is, we're doomed to calamities," Yldrina said. "And he was no less sure of himself tonight than he's ever been. In fact, it was worse...."