Chapter Two, Ill Begotten Runes

Hour ov the wolf

Once the participants dispersed and Kassan sent away his company, Gaahl ushered the ceremonial pair through a narrow pass. Azarra silently led Kassan along a winding trail that extended a good kilometer or so from the coronation site. Towards her special sanctum of the Oracles, Elderasil, they trekked beneath an expansive canopy of branches whirling overhead like witches’ fingers waving as they passed. Often as they went along the foliage forced the ursine lord to bend low his crowned head. At this his oracle for the eve suppressed smirks of amusement, chewing on the irony of this haughty warlord with forest horns being humbled by nature’s path.

All the while she wondered what sort of reading, she would give to him. How to fulfill her promise to Gaahl. What could she offer to sate him enough while parry bloodshed, she wondered?

The shading branches broke off and their trail opened to moonlit clearing by the cusp of the seers’ sanctorum. They passed beneath an ornate archway, somewhat remolded by the elements; itself a testament to the ancients who built High Ty-Drasil and her foundations. The shrine was humble in size yet spectacular in design. Stone amassed most of its bulk, with multiple statutes erected and pillars carved out. But the sides were lined with graven glass. Icons of deities, muses, and heroes of old all enfolding under collected myth. One such figure stretched tall, antlers atop human head scratching at the dome’s opening amid the ceiling, allowing celestial light to pour into the sanctuary wellspring.

The sanctum welcomed them. Atop the pool in the middle, a small flambeau floats, glittering over the surface. Its aura granted comforted even when troubled by dark and at befouled hour such as this. That hour which belongs only to the wolf and the witch. Azarra spun about the spheroid basin, surrounded by beacons in which she cast incendiary powders. Illumination revealed her bowl, wand and parchment as crimson moon-rays scintillated over the way, compelling its tide. In that gap betwixt dark & light, when the spirits transcend thresholds and gain shape on earth, her rite could begin.

She lit incense and sat down by the pool with seeing bowl in her lap. Looked up to her ‘patron’.

“Oh, Great Bear. Lord Keeper over Forest realms, tell me what you seek to know. Will you cast your worries, your wants to my runes as I cast them to read?” She asked, politely enough for a lone seer.

The lordly stranger looked at her with suspicion. After his scrutiny was sated, he at last spoke in a voice thorough and coarse with intent. “Since, as you so kindly reminded me, I am now crowned with holy horns, to be revered as master of the forest, it seems only fitting that I should see how wide the woods doth stretch… Hmm, I aim to reign over forest and more terrain than my Bears of land and sea can yet attain. A realm of Ursinium. To complete my crown there is one last bone to pluck for it. I must first defeat a thorn in my side. One who hinders my imminent domain through stubborn futility.”

I knew it! Azarra thought. Of course, he should ask for visions regarding his military feats. Perhaps it will be easy to gratify him on hunter’s game. I might send him on an endless search...

Kassan continued. “That foe in question is Lysander ov Sylvani et Astralis. The last great warrior among dual circles of his clan. Lysander and his blood-cousins entrench themselves near Hearthfarrow. Stir the village minds against me. Their troops harass my movements and petulantly try raids on my supply caravans.”

“So long as Hearthfarrow stands and that foe breathes, I cannot fulfill my march, the claim of this crown, to unify the tribes under strongest claw. Ask the Fates what must be done to ensure victory.” His eyes brandished the unspoken threat: ‘speak true or break thy oracle’s oath and suffer consequently.’

At the mention of Hearthfarrow and her father’s name dread replaced the gore in her veins. Jilting her with naught but flowing fear. My birth blood! My bygone kin of the House I lost as oracle!

While it was true that as an oracle Azarra had been forced to renounce all loyalty to her former tribe as to fully commit to the Divine and their celestial house, she could not help but feel a pang of horror. Terror at the thought of her hometown burning by the brutal hands of the man now before her. Knowing full well that Kassan’s attention was on her, she plunged her eyes deep into the basin. Appearing as if scrying instead of distressed.

Hearthfarrow was her place of birth and where family remained. Her mother, Melaena, and her father, Lysander, were respected leaders among their joined circles. Had she not been touched by the Divine, found for an oracle by way of the silver birthmark, she would probably be there now alongside her sister, Herrah. Peeks at a different life taunted her, as did knowing these familiar figures were so fleeting that their faces were near forgotten. Despite this Azarra still felt primordially bond with her family. She savored those times they’d been thoughtful enough to visit or sent trinkets.

Sylvani blood courses through my veins. I am of Astralis too, all the same. Even if I am bound to Ty-Drasil tradition. Melaena and Lysander gave me over to my destiny here. But am I now to give them over to harrowing death? I cannot let them be impaled by this horned devil! Still, it is not so simple as conjuring a dubious reading. I bet a man like this, if he has not a shred of sincere appreciation for the arts, will refuse to accept anything in the runes that doesn’t suit his whims. To have him see my trick of the Sight I could lose my head! Oh please, Great gods ov great pantheon! Spirits ov forest! Lend me your aid and fill this basin with signs of true deterrence for him. Ward all from this path & protect the speaker of your prophecy!

Azarra nodded to Kassan and a spark of solution. She grasped a handful of psychoactive powder from special urn. Normally a small portion of starry powder would be tossed into the spring and that smoke wafting from waters would combine with steam for mystic visions for oracle and patron alike. But she threw in heavy surplus & laced some spare hannabis oils in. In hopes that this excess would be enough. Enough to have his mind oscillate and be opened to her influence. She could shape the ghosts he sees and ensure he fears any fate that leads to her father’s hearth.

Having built up a tolerance to dense incense herself after lifetime of readings & rites, she feared no loss of coherence. But though she prayed for the bear to stumble, much to her dismay, minutes passed in silence and Kassan remained cognizant in the simmering vapors. He stuck the same semi-scowl, undented by dosage. Unphased and unpleased.

In acceptance that she had little choice but to complete the reading as demanded or perish Azarra dipped the bowl into the basin. Lifting it up, with her other hand she pointed her wand to the center of the steaming liquid. The effervescence there frothed into shapes and symbols which her mind, possessed by a state of intoxicated (even feverish) desperation, would be able to form a prophecy from. Flumes of her mind flowed forth as stream of words and images that she uttered to Kassan as omens.

“In order for the Ferali Jarl to triumph and find true Lordly throne, he must harken the runes: Await the next blood moon eclipse… Feed on patience to find strength, for a feeble launch too soon could see the Black Bear downed by the game he seeks… Saathar’s ringed orb, the stars and Selene’s red eye must review the right place, proper time…

The Fates seek an heir to follow behind the Bear. A Greatness that must first fester. Upon that Eve he must ride forth against the warriors of the Hearth with his own son in tow… Together they will slay their foes in glorious battle. All their circles shattered with their shields.

By Astarte et Bellieus: Behold Doom ov bold bloodlines, Astralis et Sylvani. They and their Farrowkin peers shall be prostrate before the Bear’s will and submit all arms to him & his cub.

The might of the Forest King and master of the many tribes will know no bounds. To reach the heights of power enough to shadow even the forces of Vizzari. To invade the Magistrate and carve a kingdom for his heir to rule over. To forge Ursinium from the coiled corpse of the Serpent’s dread crust…

Yet by the Hels, IF Kassan marches upon Hearthfarrow without waiting for his son to come of age and for the lunar cycle to again welcome the blood shed with crimson gleam then he shall perish that same night… In that swill of causality, the decided place that would be his crowning conquest will instead become his place of burial and the Ferali line will follow…”

Azarra let in a sparse, frazzled breath to quell her nerves and pressed on in prophecy.

“So sayeth the winds! So speaks the silver swathe of Selene in full redness of blooming knowledge!! So sayeth the messengers of all that is eternal; Spirits, Fates & the gods on high!”

“Some smear or rust must stain thy scrying Sight, little witch.” Kassan cursed, dissolving her pseudo-trance.

He stroked his chin, itching with irritation as he pondered the value of the young woman’s Saying. His chest expanded, a rising plate with quaking earth & fiery blood beneath. “If thou should See true: why, o why would the gods above and threads of circumstance demand so ridiculous a wait while I am already at the threshold of fulfilling my oath to take Hearthfarrow? Why need I a son in their lordly insight when mine own might could raze their village in a fortnight, were it not for the wolf, Lysander?”

“Could you not beseech them in your witchery to afflict a bane upon him from afar? Ease the trail of blood leading into that hearth? Unless the gods wish to see more spilt before then? Hmm, in sooth, am I some fool to be swindled? Am I sold lies, dear girl?”

“-Oracles swear to the spirits to favor no tribe! I dare not hide from you the consequence of that red moon – the call of her cycle!” Spurted Azarra in paltry plea against the coming waves of his rage. “You chose the crimson shade for your crowning! So too must it witness this ascent if it is-”

On his brow, the brunt of righteous indignation. A sliver, a crack, at first. Then soon that slit turned a crag fuming with rancor. Kassan’s cold mask slipped away. Behind it, smoldering spheres, blind with acrimony towards the oracle who had made the pivotal mistake of denying a ‘lord’ at his hour of coronation.

“TWENTY YEARS?! You dare to state that I, alone, cannot crush my foes? That I must rely on some bastard boy yet to be sired?! Or invented as excuse to dissuade me, trying to chase me from the forests when I am their Lord? Slave! Defy my will with viscous lies… I can tell that your fickle girlish heart is a-bursting with wishes and prayers to see me dead… How infirm, her virtue! Yet how supple her emerald form!”

Bear’s brawn bruises her bones, crumpling her shoulders. “Why should I tolerate this insult, to me and the ‘gods’ and not rip out your skinny guts to offer up before the blood rays?! Why not flap your wings, o bird of Sight & Song, to seek the Lord of your visions out before the vicennial window of this fresh eclipse passes us behind? Indeed, I should sire a bleeder of a boy and name him after this tempering augury, ‘Vicennius’. When I hath slaved in the shadow of patience for twenty years waiting for the bitch in the moon to bleed again I will watch him unleash wrath and steal glory that could be mine on the morrow!”

Hulking shadow, a dual-faced daemon, Kassan became. His horrid shape sprouts a second head, birthed from the eyeless, antlered likeness glowering from the glass. The hot spring spouts fulgent gulps. Emanations of the basin giving gorgon dimensions to him. Azarra’s iris palls black and hedges away from the monster’s multiplying eyes. Orbs of revulsion levitating in enkindling mists. Penetrating through the sultry sheet into her essentia, her materia. Sundry tongues of hateful wraiths vent through his larynx.

“Let us make some fresh luck for ourselves instead! Even if that vision be wholly from the spirits and speakers of fate, well, I say we make them blush by taking fortune as our own. We will leave the sleepy Fates tied to their beds, waiting for all to remain as it is written while we write a new Will of flesh & fire! O, I bet you wish me to catch the plague, fall from the side of steed down troublesome terrain or much worse! I will divine a prophecy of you. Proper pain shall test your truth! O, night-spouse: SUFFER!”

Time tilts to eclipse. Kassan heaves one of the beacons, yanked from splintered seal, and hurls fire at Azarra. The stone floor resists the flame, but several crashing embers fly to singe her hands and feet. Screeching with every sinew & cord.

“Cry! Scream! Plead unto the empty skies, WITCH!” The brute exclaimed, nearly pulverizing her windpipe.

That lecherous lour bore into her. The destitute seer’s pupils dilated, seething from steam & sweat as he wrangled her with wrath of denial. He tossed her into the basin. A caustic splash seared her wrist & knee as a cry washed from her throat. She lurched from the pool, helped along by a hard shove against one of the dead columns. Tears streamed past her cheeks, clutching at her heaving chest in desperate consolation. Quickly his grip quashed her bawling, not permitting her any more than muffled whimper.

The Black Bear wrenches Azarra close. He brings her mouth and eyes to cinch against his. Spiteful breath mists her frightened face. Yet on the cusp of collapse, she refuses to cede. “Very well. If you say I must have a son to crush the curs, let it be so. Dear witch, I want to make certain this prophecy of yours is accurate. Let us ensure it is so, with carnal pact! Grant me something to warm me through the cold gap of waiting!”

His paws lift her off the ground. Choking the breath and strangling her speech. Broiled spit & sweat leaks from the Bear’s mouth in sleet. “The spirits stop me not, even as they stir. Perhaps they leave me a Muse in you? Let the Hels hear us! Thou, oh pitiful and pretty bauble of mine, cannot flee from this fate! I deem thy life bound to mine!”

The faceless colossus blocks the paltry crescent of light looking into their sanctum as his shadow falls upon her. The dawn’s flare extinguishes forever for her. Eos drowns. This night ravages her, ensnared her in its evil breadth. Baleful gravity yanks the stars & planets from their aimless rounds across the firmament. Bids them plummet with relentless abandon. The weight of the cosmos crashes atop her as her frail frame collides with the gorgon’s.

Abrasion at his touch. Scarifying her skin, in mind, with lacerating daggers. Breaching, cutting into every filament of her humanity. Azarra convulsed with rage & disbelief. The venom of his biting touch burnt through her marrow. Gnawed muscle & bone with paralysis. No reprieve left to her but to renounce her very mind. Flee the shell of identity and forget herself entirely. That she could be liberated from this abduction of innocence, if only through detachment. But no deserting flight of spirit came to her. Instead, abhorrent lucidity confined her to the writhing. The only impetus Kassan’s wretched thrust against the depths of her core. Recoiling, she was lashed with harrowing lesions.

Azarra’s heart collapsed, the vital essence therein giving way to entropy and withering disintegration. The remnants of her pith sacrificed to encompassing nightmare.

Wake of Woe

End of Wolvsmoon

Azarra dipped her face into the cool basin, drifting from the casing of wretched awareness. She sought to sift away as vapor, like the effervescence which glided up her ashen, sleepless face from simmering concoction of herbs by the greater pool. But when her thoughts did turn from that which afflicted her mind’s main fiber it was into a moribund darkness which drowned her soul and left no trace of tranquility.

Pulling away from the water she spied how she’s seemingly aged two cycles in a fortnight; how her unkempt blonde strands at the front have turned a pallid grey. Her reflection flickered on the surface before spurting out water silhouettes. She gleaned no sign from that murky oblivion.

Please, o heavens, if thou art not deaf! I ask only of thee a sign, some semblance of thy reason & eminent grace to know I am not forever damned. Give answer unto to my cries! Heal this desolation! If thou art even there to see with thine eyes mine earthly torment and care for my suffering… Do not abandon me to this perdition! Do not condemn me to undeserved agony!

The water darkened. Herbs & pockets of powder on water-plate conflagrated, the cinders beneath the bowl spout amorphous soot. The scrying spray spit back meaningless miasma. Nothing to be found in the murk, Azarra became infuriated. Fury at herself & her inability to use the Sight to save her grace. How it failed at the hour of abandon, when countless times before it served the requests of so many sojourners. With her talent she glimpsed prophecies unrevealed to her oracle sister yet saw naught a warning that night. Cursed that it should fail her, that this would be her course.

Azarra’s curdling rage rivaled her sense of impotency as she spilled the seeing bowl over. Simmering liquid licked her lap. She stood in caustic frustration to pace the rim of the reservoir. Placing one hand over her belly, the other withdrew a whetted athame from her robe. Its sharp pointed with mortal fixation that was both a wink and a grimace.

That haunting feeling – trickling primal intuition – that something wicked grew within her stomach spread as some deathly sickness. Some writhing worm infected her at the deepest level. The parasite’s appetite eroded her innards and feasted as a fetal curse. Its gnawing blared the death toll for her vows & life, this curse of immurement.

From glances at some formulae outlines in the hidden tomes Azarra figured there must be a root or residue which would rid her of the rot. Kill it before its birth could split her asunder. But that would not do. Something sharper, swifter, and deeper in its cutting point was needed for her rescue from this pregnant perdition. With dagger in hand, she tried to siphon reserve to gouge out her innards to end what would come before this, her destruction, could be born. Chilled tremors seized her nerves as the nightmares surged to the forefront, recalling those nightly terrors of a horned devil tearing her in twain.

First the sodden monster’s vile poison taints me with unwanted sprout… What was promised, purified & preserved in the gods’ sight is stained! O Fates! Why was I not granted the mercy of death? Why this waking hell of festering horror? What future is there to be gleaned by bloody & bruised divination?!

The dreary woman’s body ripples with tension. Thin strands stiffen as her somber spell of solitude shatters by the arrival of a soft, but unexpected, hand cupping her shoulder. Azarra’s athame slides from shaky hand into the seeing pool. The splash of fall waves water resemblance of familiar face. Delphine’s blush cheeks brush against herd, grazing cheery hue like the sun kissing the sky. Her rouge hair, so vibrant that it brought surprise appreciation for some aspect of life. There was something still to savor in the world, even if it were just her friend’s muse.

“O Azarra! Sweet sister of Sight! I hath not seen your inspiring visage for nearly a week now and how it stirred such anxiety in me! But I’d hope to find you in the forgotten folds and am glad to find you safe. Something perturbs you so?”

How long had time been stilled while she searched for strength in Delphi’s emerald eyes Azarra could not tell. But when she broke from their gaze tears rained from her. Such wet pain stung with every drop and yet the suffering girl pushed through her tormenting fears and opened herself to truth & trust.

Delphine imbued in her friend a golden faith. Knowing that she alone, in this wicked world, could be trusted to know what evil befell her. Summer-kissed and honest aura wrapped around her. No one else could understand what eclipsed her being. She held to her friend as a mast in a raging whirlpool.

Sobbing slightly, Azarra rested her brow against Delphine’s shoulder. That luscious mane of orange & crimson illuminated her countenance that she seemed to shine like a Valkyrie. She was then – and perhaps forevermore – her ethereal guardian made manifest on this ashen ground and truly the loveliest heart in any & all worlds which could be imagined. This mutual trust which had long been her foundation for sanity gave to her the courage to speak the bleak truth. “I was… I almost… I was going to end my life this malfeasant morn. I was ready to spill my blood into the pool or drown my doomed self in the lake. Delphi! My wits are ravaged!”

Delphine cupped Azarra’s face and gently caressed her ear with an ardent whisper. “My friend, loveliest light of all Sight… I could not envision any world, any life, any day that I awaken, and you do not. Pray tell this dire woe. Let me avail you all I may!”

“Kassan… the ceremony… I-I was defiled in the worst of ways.” Her tone came icy & aloof, perhaps to distance herself from the torrid surge behind her words. “My oath, my bond, my link to the gods: severed & perverted because of one sick sodding fiend! I am damned, Delphine!”

“Damned to die, abducted by Malderath’s envoy; to be cast out over an atrocity forced upon me which I can never escape… I am trapped as a shell for his parasitic seed. What of me was given only to the gods, ruptured by pustule of a man! What am I to do?” Azarra barely dammed sorrow’s swell. “O, nimble flower, killing me now would be the softest mercy.”

When Delphine’s eyes once more adjoined with hers, the hurt behind her aching iris was finally understood. She absorbed the pain as if her own. The crimson maiden trembled as tragedy took full affect in a moment of malevolent rapture. “Listen, Azarra…” she leaned in and whispered in a voice which instilled something utterly unnamable within her own core. “Kassan will suffer. We are going to impale him with the stolen relic of his arrogance. But to see that day you must kindle that indomitable pyre within! That soul of yours that draws & warms mine must endure, at least until then!”

“O Delphi… I love you and your eternal optimism. Were it not for you I would long be rid of this mortal shell… But what of the foul penumbra cast by his sin?” Azarra twists away, concealing contortions of baleful burdens along her countenance. “My last chance comes through a desperate ploy: drinking the Draught ov Nocturne and praying it only kills that wretched seed which corrodes my being. If the toxins end me, ‘Twould be preferable to facing the Sages. I do not seek to be scoured and burnt by their judgement. ‘Twould be futile to conceal this gestating growth. Would only extend, worsen the humiliated end they would engineer for my ‘sacrilege’. No matter where I look or how far I imagine myself from this crumbling cell darkness oppresses mine eyes!”

Silent tears fled from her ducts down into the basin. She crossed her arms over her chest, attempting to subdue the pressure berating her heart. At least Delphine will not suffer in confusion for not knowing why it is that I must take flight from this forsaken plane. To leave her alone in this despicable place is cruelty but not near as that which was inflicted on me. Why I must shed life’s gift into grave waters… But as she aimlessly circled the scrying pool, she found her hopeless cycle of thought disrupted by Delphine’s hug. Her hold firm with more than hollow consolation.

“Azarra, look up.” Delphine tilted her despondent friend’s head gently towards the firmament where the glittering constellations gazed upon them as the heavens dawned.

“Do you recall what wisdom Gaahl bestowed on us when we first arrived here, taken from our tribes as wounded little acolytes? Remember how he told us that every curse, every affront of circumstance or fate, can be transformed into a boon if you offer it to change. Let me speak in sooth of what change I mean for this awful curse:

“See how the star sign of the great pantheon aligns at the peak above where we stand? Astralis-Drakonis! ‘Tis the jeweled premonition of our Great God, Drakkon, the Lord of Living Light. The astral insignia of our world’s creator and the slayer of Dread Serpents. Why else should the most eminent of cosmic seats look upon us if not to offer signet of change? Methinks the Pantheon is awake and watchful from their realm. Wanting us to see inspiration in their alignment. Those rays sing transformation.”

Delphine channeled her optimistic enthusiasm through eyes that remained lost to all else but her friend, who suffered so greatly, shaking with the fervor of friendship and a desperation to convince her back from the mortal ledge. “They shine a way out from this pit. If you can climb from these depths, I will be with you the whole of the way to see you to a better place. Pull through, ascend along stellar path of Living Light laid out, and you can twist Kassan’s knife back into him!”

Azarra stared emptily up at the constellation, her head unwittingly shaking to and fro. But, seeing her doubts harden, Delphine did not surrender this rescue of her closest companion. When their eyes then locked, a subtle gleam split her green iris with sun fire of inspiration. Or delusion.

“Remember the tale of Oracle Eris which Shaman Ligeia told us when we were yet still wetting our feet in the ways of the spirits? She took the same oaths as we and was of our caste. Yet Eris’ pregnancy and birth of her children are hailed as a fable of hope & rebirth for all our order. Even here, where ‘carnal collisions abjure sanctity of spiritual life’ in sagely sight they hold to how the stars paved her triumph. For the twins she brought into our world were no mere seeds of man but the incarnation of the Forest God, Bellieus in her son Ferion, and the Star Goddess, Astraea in her daughter...”

“You suggest I lie? That I claim this seed is some divine child? That I simply ‘push through’ the threat to my life the sages flail upon me by saying that Drakkon’s ‘astral insignia’ hovered over us during the ceremony? That I insist it is of His seed? Hmm perhaps ‘tis better than letting it be known what the devil did to me… But to transmute his curse into sapling of ‘Living Light’?”

She scoffed through sniffles. “Hels, just thinking of how that despot prick tainted the memory of Bellieus by stealing the horned crown only to then taint my body & paint my soul with his poisonous sign makes my blood burst!” Azarra clenched her fists and sealed her ducts from releasing more bitter tears. “Eris’ tale occurred nearly three centuries ago. Nowadays there are no miracles left to believe in, Delphi. And don’t you recall more recently, couple years before this when oracle Ulva and sentinel Ulman were caught with frivolous love and their ‘oath breaking to the gods’ was answered with his castration and her immolation?”

“No, not lie. Rather, transmute the truth a bit. Sublimate it to serve a higher purpose and grant rescue you from this damnation.” The coming of dawn cast its warm, reddish, rays upon Delphine, further illuminating her otherworldly beauty & angelic innocence.

“Many gluttonous & greedy sods still pass as sages, yes. Yet while they might wish suffering on you for surviving, for shaking up hierarchy, you know how deeply the Elder Shaman, their Keeper, yearns for a torch of hope. You could bring him a babe as beacon of revolution. Please, Azarra, just let this arrow of life fly once to this target. Aim at redemption, revenge even, for you.”

Delphine’s rosy hand held Azarra’s wan one, hovering over her chest. Beating against touch, friendship’s fiber strings through shared pulse. “Let us speak to Gaahl soon. Bring this revelation to him. With his understanding and blessing we can redirect blighted curse. Secure fresh future! His respect and empathy will help you bear retribution into form.”

“But you must endure. Do not loathe yourself for what is no sin of yours. This world must not lose your gorgeous flame, your inspired spirit! Nor will I wish to see any evening or dawn in Ty-Drasil or abroad without you there. What could I do without you? If we must fail, though by my love and the stars above it will not be so, then I only ask to let me join you to the end. Whether we flee as apostates, become herbalists in feral heaths or whether we take athame against flesh, I wish to be with you. But let us be together in finding path to life away from colorless routes to ruin.”

Azarra’s inward levies broke with flood of churning reprieve. Her chest wrought by intermittent spasms as alchemy of grief & relief fled through her pores. She brought her dear friend as close as she could. Yet the pangs of doubt & self-reprisal were long, and their last throes rippled aloud through quivering throat. “I love thy confidence as I do thee, Delphi. But what of Kassan and his deed, will he not realize part of his seed is in this fetching plot?”

“Let life be your revenge. That you live on will win against him.” Delphine’s encouragement brushed back tufts of worries.

“Men like Kassan hold hubris so high it conceals all from them not concerned with their conspiracies of ego. A sad yet exploitable truth of his callow character, that he likely has not given his acts a single second of reflection since that damnable eve. Let his arrogance hold him in ignorance. We will prosper above his dark designs. We’ve each other and together can turn the Elder to our tune, help him sing our redemption. While the beast makes for more war, horror & follies it will forget itself. So too will it forget the trap & blade we ready for it until its skittering leads it unto a blind beast’s death.”

Azarra mouthed overwhelming thanks, only managing a few squeals & unintelligible whimpers of gratitude. The whole world spun in dizzying orbit. But she centered herself in the sphere of her radiant Delphine. The sun itself shined onto her flowing mane. Solaris’ beams thawed through human conduit of her greatest ally. The desperate young oracle regains the reins of her speech and strikes spiritual tinder as her beacon re-ignites. Sudden fire surges from these words of confidence hummed into those red, ruffling locks.

“Together, Delphi, we shall surpass the danger. Survive to rise atop our own mountain. And from that pinnacle we shall glare out and curse the ghoul and his wretches. There is light in you, o cherry daughter of the orchard! I love that light as I love you! You show there is no need for grave bindings of a death pact just yet. Now that life itself speaks to my wounded soul through your tongue. How holy wisdom moves from thy lips! Thanks for sharing in this dark hour.”

“Always.” Delphine whispered back as the winds’ brush meshed their manes into one. “I will share in your darkest burdens through the dread hour of the wolf. So long as I can share in the grace of your company. I adore you, Azarra, and my light shines for you for in your face I see all that is worth standing for on this bleak rock which we have been planted. We shall pluck these weeds given time and see a garden bloom.”