I lived in her grace,

Heard her song,

And felt her embrace.

-The Gospel according to the Holy First Handmaiden

Celeste was embraced by the warm golden light of sunset. Or was it a sunrise? No longer did she stand on hard, cracked marble in that cold courtyard, but in an ankle-deep pool of water that seemed to stretch on into eternity before her. That sunset seemed to light this place perfectly, not a shadow in sight. But with no sun in the sky Celeste was unsure where the light came from. Peace and tranquility greeted her here though, as though no danger could ever touch her here. A place in antithesis to all the suffering she had just born witness.

Celeste spotted structures in the distance. Arrayed in a circle, ten marble pillars of various colors jutted out of the low pool. Each pillar rose at least twice her height into the air and was topped with a throne carved of metal, formed with both subtlety, taste, and precision. They stood like beacons, brilliant and glowing in the golden light, all save one.

A single black marble pillar lay crumbled in the water. A pained sorrow washed over her at the sight of that pillar, as though some great loss long forgotten had struck her. This is wrong, a thought sprung up in the corner of her mind, why are there ten thrones?

A flash of movement caught her eye. Glancing up, Celeste searched between the pillars, and found a wide marble bowl at least 20 paces across. It seemed to be filled with a liquid of sorts, but images flashed across it, as if misty figures stood over the structure.

No, not misty, shifting. Ever changing figures that never kept the same appearance for long.

“Celeste.” A voice called from behind her. A voice like the first rain of spring, like a cool night spent next to the one you love. The voice echoed like children playing in the street, and it echoed clear and cool in Celeste’s ears. Celeste spun, twisting to see the Goddess.

The world bled away around her.

***

Gardinal’s eyes flashed open, lungs filling instinctively with one massive breath. Then he felt it, the First Mother’s grace rushing through his veins like a torrent. It crashed over him like a summer storm, soaking Gardinal to the bone in radiant light. He felt exuberant, he felt like he could stand against an army he felt…

He felt like the first time Her Radiance had ever healed him. Gods that first time, he could remember it like… Her Radiance. He thought, memories of X, of the fight, of the Prophetess in danger, flooded into him.

Gardinal searched frantically for the girl. Eyes darting around the courtyard he felt his throat tighten in panic. It was as bright as mid-day now, how long had he been out? But no, he realized, that silver-teal light that banished every shadow from the temple courtyard was not sunlight.

Rising from the ground, he stared at Her Radiance in awe. She was pure light, floating above the ground in what he could barely make out as the shape of a girl. So bright it hurt to look at, and yet he could not tear his eyes from the girl. A sound echoed out of her as well, pulsing alongside the light like a heartbeat. It was a gentle sound that seemed all encompassing. Like a low hum, but so loud it seemed to cover everything. So overwhelmingly loud, yet it comforted instead of pained.

“NO!” A sickly voice like a forge bellow screamed, the desperate shout somehow forming a harmony to the thrumming that echoed from the child formed of light. Turning to the source of the scream, Gardinal clenched his fist white knuckled.

X moved slowly with hand held out to block the light of Her Radiance. Slowly he pressed toward her, shoved bodily back by every rhythmic pulse of the girl’s light.

Reaching for where he normally kept his hammer, Gardinal felt his hand clink against metal. Looking down at his hands Gardinal blinked in shock. His gauntlets had been destroyed by X’s explosion earlier, but now he wore new ones, seemingly formed of that silver-teal light. Not just gauntlets, he realized looking past them at the rest of his body. The silver-teal light of the Mother covered every inch of his body, forming into an armor that glistened.

Locking his eyes back on X, Gardinal narrowed his stance.

“Ethinia, nos Lesara as theleshenya” Gardinal sang low, and in a heartbeat his shield appeared on his arm, glowing brilliantly as well. The tree that ran up the front of the shield radiating in rhythm with Her Radiance.

But X still moved toward her.

Digging his feet into the marble below, Gardinal could feel as it cracked beneath his stance. Pushing off, Gardinal exploded through the air. All at once he leapt clean across twenty paces, the shattering of the marble floor echoing behind him.

With a roar, Gardinal raised his shield and brought it down into X, using the momentum of his massive leap to strike the man with a force that sent him careening to the ground and skittering into a pillar thirty paces away.

Rising up from a lowered stance, Gardinal breathed out deeply and glared at X. The pale Korek braced himself against the pillar that had stopped his roll and gawked at Gardinal with clear fear in the heretic’s mismatched eyes.

“Y… you? How?” The cult leader spat blood onto the ground, then sneered. “Why won’t you just die?”

X leapt to his feet and rushed at Gardinal with his black dagger in hand. The glow of Her Radiance illuminated them as X’s blade met Gardinal’s shield. The clank of steel on steel fell into a rhythm as the Korek beat against his shield, a steady beat that matched the thrumming of the girl. Gardinal fell into that rhythm, danced in it. Every blow attempted by the Chaos-taken man was easily batted aside, his furor draining him. Then, when X had begun to slow from exhaustion, Gardinal struck X with a gauntleted backhand.

X took the blow, then struck into Gardinal as well. The man was fast still, even with his one clawed hand turned to ash and his body constantly being beaten against by the light. But if it was a battle of endurance, Gardinal knew he could fight like this for as long as he had to.

A falcon’s screech echoed through the courtyard. Stepping back, Gardinal looked up in awe as a massive bird wreathed in silver and gold light -nearly as large as him with a wing span wider than most carts long- swooped down and dragged claws across the shoulder of the half-Korek, half- daemon. The glowing bird’s strike seemed to sever muscle from bone as the Korek’s already singed arm fell lame to his side. The man stumbled back once more.

The bird, swooping back around, came to a hover next to him.

“Ch… Charlotte?” Gardinal asked, disbelieving his eyes. She cooed in that familiar sound. If Charlotte was still here, then perhaps…

An arrow flew past Gardinal’s ear, striking X in the lame arm and pinning him to the pillar. An arrow that seemed made out of shadow, the dark twisting shapes bleeding to the ground. Despite its appearance, Gardinal could not sense any Chaos in the arrow. In fact, he could not sense anything about it at all.

Searching back to the source of the arrow, Gardinal tried squinting to see. There was a shape, or the outline of a shape, dark as the deepest cave within the torrent of light.

Is that, is that Vallerian?