There they stood, dancer and farseer, facing off against a god chained to the choking, bleeding witch that laid on the ground behind them. Tallie was no longer a threat, too damaged to get up and fight with them anymore. The only thing they needed to do now was sever the bond between her and Lukrinael.
Amidst her wheezing, Tallie managed to maintain her maniacal laughter. “You can’t stop him, nor can you stop us,” she coughed. “You asked why I and my people believe the way we do? Why we were behind every catastrophe known to elvish history? It’s because of your god, Ayela. You’re R?k. He created a universe damned, and many more beyond it. And us… We were subjected to its horrors! Don’t you see? My gods want to free this universe from his cursed grasp! We want to be free, no longer told that we’re imperfections! And we will stop at nothing to take what’s ours away from him!”
“Majjai, ignore her! Don’t listen to her! She’s manipulated by the Towl?l!”
“Yes, Majjai – oh leader of the new Tribes of Enthedrill – don’t listen to me! Listen to the god you hope to free! What do you think he’ll do once he is free?! He’ll want revenge!” Tallie spat. Ayela looked on at the glowing eyes, and for a moment, she thought she saw sadness in their bright illumination.
Free him.
A voice whispered into her mind, familiar and ancient, loud but silent. A voice that carried the humility of one unafraid to admit their mistakes, but also as ancient and powerful as the god she believed in. It had to be. It must have been Hashem. It was the only way her god spoke to her – a gentle whisper behind her mind, reassuring her and comforting her.
“I don’t trust you,” Ayela declared.
“I know you don’t, but you don’t have to,” Tallie continued. “The world will fall under the control the Order, and then the universe will fall, the universes beyond, and then all the Blind Eternities in between all universes will be subject to the will of the Towl?l!”
Then Kacyn faced her with clenched fists. “You understand nothing! Don’t you see?! The Towl?l aren’t the gods you think they are! They can’t conquer the Blind Eternities any more than they can conquer R?k!” She yelled. “The Blind Eternities are R?k!”
Ayela knew what they were talking about, but she just couldn’t wrap her mind around it. The Blind Eternities were the heavens that R?k and the gods all dwelt in, but with Kacyn’s declaration, she no longer knew what to believe. Was it true? Was her god the all-encompassing heavens that reached to the horizons of infinity? The revelation was so profound to Tallie, though, that she could see the despair and distress wash over her like water.
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“You’re wrong!” She cried. “You’re wrong! I devoted my life to the Order – no, to the Towl?l! You’re lying to me!”
“Ask the god you bound! Ask one who can’t lie!”
They faced the god altogether, who watched them in amusement.
“The irony, mighty witch, is that you believe your dark gods ever cared about the dealings of mortals like the aethril do.”
His declaration given with a voice of thunder shattered Tallie’s entire world, and they could see it all over her face. She coughed as she tried to stand up, but could only manage to get up to her hands and knees.
Then, at her lowest point, she let out a heart-shattering wail, as if she’d lost everything she’d worked her entire life to get. Ayela began to pity her, and looked away as the witch sobbed and cried harder than she’d ever heard anyone cry before. She knew why, though; Tallie’s entire life had been a lie. Everything she did, all she accomplished, the dark order she supported – it was all for a lie.
Kacyn placed a hand on her shoulder, pulling her from her thoughts. “Tallie was like me… Her childhood was taken from her by her parents. She comes from a long line of warlocks, and just like them, she was indoctrinated and raised in the Kult since she could walk.”
“…I want to have empathy for her… I want to forgive her… But I can’t forget what she’s done…” Ayela said.
“So don’t forget.”
The words pierced through Ayela’s heart like an arrow. “You don’t have to forget to forgive. That’s not the point. You just need to let it go. That’s how you show her you’re different,” Kacyn said. Ayela took a deep breath and let her own tears fall, then turned towards the aethril once more. “I can show you where to strike.”
She gripped Ayela’s shoulder firmly, and suddenly her vision changed. No longer was there darkness or illusions. She could clearly see the clouds of the storm, twirling around on themselves. She could see the aura and energy surrounding each of them, highlighting them in clouds of color. Most of all, though, she could see the aethril as clear as she could see everyone else.
It was a haunting image that would stay with her the rest of her life.
“Just above the shackles on his wrists and ankles. Now. While you have the chance. While the witch is grieving,” Kacyn urged.
She obeyed, picturing in her mind blades of invisible energy, sharp enough to cut through any material. She pulled from her memories the most graceful of dance routines she’d learned from her own people, and she reached from the deepest parts of her inner being to fuel her divine logic. In her final spin, she flung the energy at the god with a pained cry. She watched as the telekinetic blades, now visible, like cleavers made of the smoothest glass that soared towards his limbs that he held out like an ancient slave ready to be free of his bonds. The god cried thunderously in pain as his hands and feet were severed, and as he began to dissipate into nothingness, he smiled and said, “thank you, logicians.” Lukrinael was free at last.
The storm began to vanish, and the fires slowly fizzled out from the destruction they wrought. Soldiers began to flee from the wreckage, while their pursuers – the townsfolk led by Thillan, Asher, and Kamille herself – chased them back to their drop ships. Ayela and Kacyn reveled in a sweet victory they were not expecting to achieve.
A victory that was darkened by the angry cries of a scorned witch…
