Chapter 36: The Son of AshThe forest, so recently a haven of dappled sunlight and crisp autumn air, had soured. The world around them had fallen into a thick, oppressive quiet, broken only by the crunch of leaves under Amber's heavy paws and the metallic whisper of Beldonna’s bdes being drawn and sheathed. An invisible, humming weight pressed down on their skin, and the sickly sweet smell of decay clung to the air, thick and cloying. Donny walked with a grim-faced purpose, her boots sinking into the soft, loamy ground. The color had leached from the world here, leaving everything in shades of muted green and sickly brown. The trees, once a vibrant tapestry of autumn colors, were now a skeletal ttice of gnarled branches, their leaves shriveled and bck.
Amber’s senses, however, were on high alert. The smell of fear hung in the air, a scent she had grown to know far too well. It mixed with the putrid scent of the Bckpon Thicket, a smell that turned her stomach, and underneath it all, the scent of blood, a coppery, almost electrical smell that made her teeth ache. Her keen eyes spotted them first—the drag marks. They were everywhere, deep gashes in the earth where human bodies had been pulled along like sacks of grain, leaving a trail of broken branches and trampled flora. It was not a single path, but many, all converging on a single point in the distance where the oppressive heat was at its strongest. The scent was dizzying now—a mix of human fear, the scent of the fey and something else… something foul and monstrous.
Beldonna, attuned to the nd in a different way, felt the sickness in the soil. It was not a physical ailment, but a metaphysical one, a cancer of the soul that had begun to fester here, growing from the roots up. She felt the magic in the air, a corrupted echo of the life and vibrancy that should have been here, and she felt the creeping chill of it trying to work its way into her heart. She was a woman who had spent her life bottling up her emotions, stuffing them into a locked box deep inside her soul. She had learned to be a stoic mask, to show no fear, to show no weakness. But the Thicket was a pce that preyed on just such things. The air was thick with it now, and she began to sweat, not from the heat, but from a cold, creeping dread that had begun to take hold. Her hands tightened around the hilts of her bdes as if to physically hold herself together.
Amber felt it too. She could see the shift in Donny's posture, the subtle trembling in her hands, the way she kept gncing over her shoulder at nothing. The knight's breathing had grown shallow and ragged, and a thin sheen of sweat covered her brow. Amber wanted to reach out, to reassure her, but she couldn't. This was not a physical threat that Amber could fight. This was a battle being waged in Beldonna’s mind, and Donny had to face it alone. She had to be strong for both of them, even as her own heart ached with fear and a desire to protect her knight.
The path ahead was growing darker, the trees closer together, their branches like skeletal fingers reaching down to grasp at them. The drag marks were fresh here, and the scent of blood was overpowering. They were close. The heat was becoming unbearable, a sweltering humidity that felt like a physical weight pressing down on their lungs. Donny’s eyes had a frantic, unfocused look to them, and she kept whispering under her breath, a name that Amber didn't recognize. The sickness in the air was a physical assault now, and Amber could feel her own power trying to sh out, to protect her, to scream and to howl at the injustice of it all. But she held it in check, her mind focused on one thing, and one thing only: her love. It was the only thing that could anchor her to this reality. She watched her knight's form tremble and her head whip around, her eyes wide with a paranoia that was both foreign and devastating to see.
The whispers began as a faint, distant murmur. They sounded like the rustle of dry leaves, the hiss of a dying fire, a thousand tiny voices speaking a nguage she couldn't understand. Then, they sharpened, coalescing into a single, terrifying sound: the piercing shriek of a horse. Amber’s blood ran cold. The shriek was followed by a chorus of whinnies and neighs, but they were not the sounds of horses in fear. They were something else, something corrupted and unnatural.
A figure emerged from the twisted trees, its silhouette a grotesque parody of a knight on horseback. The horse was a nightmarish thing, its hooves made of bone, its mane and tail made of writhing shadows, its eyes a dull, glowing red. Upon its back sat a rider of pure smoke and fme, its form vaguely feminine, its voice the source of the terrible whispers. Beldonna stopped dead in her tracks, her face draining of all color. Amber growled, a deep, guttural sound that rumbled in her chest, her hackles rising. She was ready to pounce, to tear the thing to shreds, but the rider wasn't looking at her. Its gaze was fixed on Beldonna, and its voice, a melodic purr of pure malice, spoke a single word.
"Beldonna."
Donny froze, her body rigid, her eyes wide with an ancient terror. She saw not the shadowy rider, but a woman she had once known, a woman with a kind face and a wicked smile. A woman whose life she had ended. She felt the past and the present blur, the air around her shifting and shimmering as the Thicket’s magic brought her greatest fear to life. She saw the familiar form of her old master, a form both familiar and terrifying. But then, as the figure drew closer, it shifted again. It became her mother, her father, her sister, all of them with a familiar, disappointed look in their eyes. The whispers grew louder, each one a memory of a failure, a disappointment, a moment of weakness that she had tried so hard to bury.
Amber watched, helpless, as Beldonna began to fight a ghost. The knight's bdes moved with a frantic, desperate energy, sshing at the empty air. She screamed and cursed, her voice raw with a fury that Amber had never heard before. Her face, a mask of cold, hard resolve for so long, was now a portrait of utter desperation, her eyes filled with tears that streamed down her face. She was fighting a foe that Amber could not see, a foe that existed only in her mind. Beldonna's bdes were a blur of motion, her movements a frantic dance of death and rage. She was fighting to protect herself, to protect Amber, to protect her sanity.
Amber knew she had to intervene. She couldn't let Donny be consumed by this. She stepped in front of the knight, her silhouette expanding rapidly in the gloom. A low, warning growl started in her human throat and ended in a bestial rumble that vibrated the ground. Her fur bristled, shooting out like needles as her skin toughened into hide. The familiar crack-pop of her spine elongating was a comfort now—the sound of the safety coming off a weapon. She accepted the sudden, blinding migraine of her skull reshaping without a whimper, focusing entirely on the threat ahead. When she unched herself at the shadowy rider, she was a blur of pale fur and muscle, a physical impossibility made real by love and rage.
With a single, powerful roar, she unched herself at the shadowy rider, her body a blur of pale fur and muscle. She was a force of pure, untamed power, her mind and her body finally in harmony. She smmed into the apparition with all the force of a train, her body passing through the smog and fire as if it were nothing. The illusion dissipated like a puff of smoke, and the terrible whispers died down to a faint, echoing silence.
Beldonna, released from the Thicket’s hold, colpsed to her knees, sobbing. She was shaking from head to toe, her bdes cttering to the ground beside her. Amber, her heart aching, nudged her with her nose, a soft, comforting sound escaping her throat. Donny reached out a trembling hand and buried her fingers in Amber’s fur, clinging to her as if she were a lifeline. She was still crying, her body wracked with tremors, but she was with her. She was here, in the present, with Amber.
"I…I'm sorry," she whispered, her voice hoarse. "I’ll expin everything. Later."
Amber let out a soft huff of acknowledgment and leaned into her, a silent promise of support. This was not a fight she could win, but it was one she could help her through.
The trail of broken branches and trampled earth ended abruptly in a clearing. It was a pce of impossible heat, the air shimmering and distorting as if viewed through a haze of fire. At the center, a raging inferno bzed, its fmes a sickly orange and brown that pulsed with a foul, unnatural light. The fire was contained within a ring of a dozen standing stones, each a twisted, screaming face carved from obsidian. The smell of decay was at its strongest here, the air thick with the scent of ozone and the stench of burnt offerings. It was a smell that promised ruin, a smell that promised obliteration.
A crowd of men and women, their faces a mix of fanaticism and terror, knelt in a circle around the fire. They were dressed in simple robes of a faded gray, their heads bowed, their hands csped in front of them in a gesture of supplication. At the edge of the circle, a handful of human sacrifices, their bodies pale and thin, were bound and gagged, their eyes wide with fear as they watched the horrifying dispy. Seraphina stood at the heart of the ring of kneeling followers, her arms outstretched, her head thrown back, her hair a wild cascade of fire. Her face was flushed with a terrifying euphoria, and her voice, amplified by some unseen force, was a bell tolling for the end of the world.
She spoke of purity and a new dawn, her words a chilling sermon that promised salvation through fire and blood. Her eyes, two pinpricks of bright, fanatic light, swept over her followers, her voice a soothing balm that promised them a future they alone would inherit. Amber watched in horrified silence, the sheer weight of the abomination pressing down on her. Beldonna, however, felt something different. She felt a profound and terrible sadness. She saw the faces of the sacrifices, and she saw the faces of the followers. She saw the desperation and the fear in their eyes. She knew these people. She had walked among them, she had eaten with them, she had sworn to protect them. And now, they were willing to sacrifice themselves and others for a lie.
“...shall be only tread by human feet. The nd will be worked by human hands alone and all will be right. Join us brothers and sisters, allow yourself to be reborn so you might be there on the other side when all is right in the world. When our dawn is pure and unsullied by any dark clouds that may cast even the sliver of a shadow. You deserve that future, your children deserve all tomorrows, and your children alone. All others will burn away to ash to fertilize their fields. Let all unworthy turn to ash as we bask in our glorious mother's fmes. Feel her warmth, drink in her love. Now is our time!"
As the st word echoed in the clearing, the fire fred up, an inferno of pure, unadulterated hatred. The fmes licked at the standing stones, and the screams of the faces carved on them seemed to grow louder. Seraphina's eyes, wide with a divine madness, found Beldonna. A smile, a thin, cruel ssh of a thing, spread across her face. "Welcome, little knight," she purred. "You are just in time for the sacrifice."
Beldonna froze, the cold, hard logic of a warrior kicking in despite her emotional state. A thousand pns raced through her mind, each one a desperate gamble. They were outnumbered and outmatched in this pce of corruption. She could rush in, hoping to disrupt the ritual and save the sacrifices, but the crowd would be in the way. She could try to fnk them, use the twisted trees as cover, but the oppressive magic of the Thicket made every step feel like walking through sludge. She could…
But there was no time for strategy. Seraphina had seen them. The fanatics in the clearing turned as one, their faces a mask of deranged devotion, their eyes fixed on Amber and Beldonna. A low growl rumbled in Amber's chest, and a primal rage, a fire she had kept in check for so long, fred to life. She didn't care about strategy. She didn't care about numbers. She didn't care about anything but the fact that this woman, this monster, had dared to harm her knight. She was a beast, an animal, a force of pure, untamed nature, and she was not to be trifled with.
Beldonna's hand shot out, a desperate attempt to restrain her, to beg her to wait, to think, but it was too te. Amber was already a blur of motion, a streak of pale fur and muscle that shot through the air. The knight's words of caution died on her lips as she watched the sheer, terrifying speed of her beast Amber was no longer just her beloved companion; she was a whirlwind of righteous fury, a force of nature unleashed.
The crowd of fanatics, lost in their ecstatic devotion, were not ready for her. Amber smmed into them like a battering ram, her powerful body scattering them like bowling pins. She didn't stop to fight, didn't stop to bite or cw; her momentum carried her straight toward the center of the clearing, toward Seraphina herself. The roar that tore from Amber's throat was no longer the deep, warning growl of a beast; it was the enraged howl of a true alpha, a sound that shook the very ground and seemed to curdle the air itself. The sick, oppressive heat of the Thicket seemed to recoil from her, and for the first time since they had entered, Beldonna felt a breath of fresh air. It was a sign, a promise that Amber’s very being was an antidote to the corruption of the Bckpon Thicket.
Seraphina, caught completely off guard, stumbled back, a look of pure, unadulterated shock on her face. The fire at the center of the clearing fred, a wall of pure fme that rose to meet Amber. But she did not stop. She had faced a monster made of smoke and shadows, and she would not be stopped by a simple wall of fire. Amber smmed into the fmes, her body a beacon of white light against the sick orange and brown. She didn't burn. The fmes simply parted around her, leaving her fur untouched, a living testament to her true nature.
Beldonna watched, her heart in her throat, as her beast burst through the fmes, her focus locked on Seraphina. The knight knew that her only chance was to follow Amber's lead, to disrupt the ritual and save the sacrifices while Seraphina was distracted. She gripped her bdes, her heart hammering in her chest, and with a guttural cry of her own, she charged, a shadow moving in the wake of a storm.
The ground began to shake. It was not the violent, jarring tremor of an earthquake, but a slow, sickening heaving, as if the earth itself were having a seizure. The standing stones around the inferno groaned, a deep, resonant sound that was both a sigh and a scream. A crack, thin at first, snaked across the ground from the base of the fire, splitting the soil and releasing a plume of dark, oily smoke that smelled of sulfur and fear. The air grew impossibly hot, the heat so intense that Beldonna's armor felt like a branding iron against her skin. The kneeling followers, their chants now a chorus of terrified whimpers, fell to the ground, their faces melting into a horrifying parody of agony. The human sacrifices, their eyes wide with a terror that transcended fear, thrashed against their bonds.
Seraphina, a wild, delirious smile on her face, reached down and dipped her hands into the inferno. She did not burn. Her hands, when she pulled them out, were slick with a dark, glistening fluid that looked like liquid shadow. With a final, triumphant shriek, she plunged them back into the fire, and something monstrous began to rise from the depths. It was a thing of impossible contradictions, a grotesque fusion of life and death, of fire and shadow. It was a premature birth, a divine being forced into existence before its time.
The creature was a nightmare of half-formed limbs and a core of pulsing, raw energy. Its skin, where it existed, was a pale, gray-green, stretched taut over a skeletal frame. But in other pces, there was no skin at all, only glistening muscle, raw nerves, and veins that pulsed with a foul, sickly yellow light. Its eyes, if they could be called that, were not on its head, but scattered across its body, small, dark voids that seemed to swallow the light. Its head was a thing of pure, unadulterated horror, a misshapen skull with no jaw, its mouth a gaping, bck chasm that seemed to drink in the very air around it. It had no wings, no arms, no legs, only a pulsing, writhing mass of corrupted flesh that flowed and shifted like liquid metal.
It was not of this world, and it was angry. It had been pulled from the womb of the divine, a process that should have been slow and deliberate, and it was furious at the pain of its premature birth. Its rage was a physical force, a shockwave that smmed into Beldonna, knocking the breath from her lungs. It let out a shriek that was not a sound, but a feeling—a feeling of pure, unadulterated hunger. It thrashed, a wild, furious thing, its form shing out at anything that moved. Its tendrils of corrupted flesh shed out, spping the standing stones, causing them to crack and crumble. It turned its terrible, eyeless gaze on the kneeling followers, and with a terrible, slurping sound, it began to consume them. Their bodies dissolved into ash and smoke, fertilizing the ground that it had been born from, its form growing more solid with each soul it consumed.
Beldonna, her mind reeling from the sheer impossibility of what she was seeing, felt a cold, hard resolve settle in her heart. She couldn't fight a god, not this way. She had to find a way to stop it, to put it back in the womb it had been so rudely torn from. She looked at Amber, her beast, her protector, a creature of light and life, and knew what she had to do. They would fight together against a god of ash and fire.
Amber didn't hesitate. Her first, most primal instinct was to attack. She was stronger than any mortal being, a physical force that could tear through solid steel and stone. If brute strength could fell a god, she would be the one to do it. With a roar, she unched herself at the thing, her cws extended, her fangs bared. She smmed into its writhing, liquid form, her paws sinking into the raw flesh. But there was no resistance. Her cws passed through it as if it were water, and a sickening shock of cold, raw energy smmed into her, a feeling of utter nothingness that turned her stomach. A tendril of the thing's body shed out, a thick, slimy whip that wrapped around her neck and squeezed. Amber thrashed and cwed, but it was like trying to fight a river. The tendril tightened, and for a moment, she felt the horrifying sensation of being suffocated by an empty, hollow presence. She felt it trying to pull her in, to consume her as it had the followers.
She snarled, a low, desperate sound, and focused her will, not on her body, but on her magic. Her form shimmered, and for a brief, fleeting moment, a perfect illusion of her human self stood in her pce, her face contorted in a silent scream. The tendril released its hold, tightening on the illusion instead. Amber, in her true form, fell to the ground, gasping for air. The tendril, as if confused, thrashed for a moment before snapping back to her. But she was ready. She unched herself forward, her mind a frantic, desperate kaleidoscope of pns. Seraphina's ritual had been an act of desecration, a perversion of a divine birth that had created this hungry, angry thing. But the creature, Amber realized with a jolt of empathy, was not a monster. It was a victim. A short life, born only to feel pain and to sh out in fury. It never should have been born, never should have had to suffer. She felt the tears well in her eyes inside her lycanthropic form, and a new kind of rage, cold and focused, settled in her heart. Her anger was not for this poor, broken thing, but for the woman who had created it.
Amber had to end its suffering. With a powerful burst of speed, she raced toward the edge of the clearing, toward the small stream that fed into the Bckpon Thicket, a pce where the water was still clear and pure. As she ran, she cast another illusion, a field of shimmering mirages that looked like a herd of deer grazing in the twilight. The creature, distracted by the sudden sight of a feast, thrashed and shrieked, its body shing out at the phantom deer. It began to follow them, its terrible form flowing and shifting as it moved, its speed unnatural and horrifying. Amber led it, a silent shepherd, toward the water.
Beldonna, seeing the strange dance, understood instantly. She ran to the sacrifices, her bdes a blur of motion as she cut their bonds, her hands gentle as she guided them toward the safety of the trees. The followers who had fallen were already gone, their bodies ash, but she could save these. She looked at the raging inferno, and at the horrified, terrified face of Seraphina, her divine euphoria repced by a look of pure, unadulterated horror. The woman watched as the thing she had so desperately sought to control left the circle of fire, the source of its power.
Amber reached the edge of the stream and, with a final burst of speed, leapt over it, her body a beacon of white light against the dark, corrupted water. The divine being followed, its hunger overriding all caution. It plunged into the stream, and a terrible, sizzling sound filled the air. The water, a symbol of life and purity, met the creature, a thing of death and corruption, and a battle of elemental forces ensued. Steam rose from the water, a thick, choking cloud that smelled of sulfur and ozone. The creature shrieked, a sound of agony and rage, as its body began to dissolve. The water, a cold and merciless force, was anathema to its burning core. The being thrashed and struggled, but its form grew heavy and sluggish, its movement a slow, grinding crawl. Its pulsing light dimmed, and its terrible, eyeless gaze lost its focus.
Amber watched, her heart aching, as the creature sank to the bottom of the stream, its body a hollowed-out husk of raw pain and suffering. She had not killed it. The water had. She had only guided it to a peaceful rest. The thing never should have been born, never should have suffered. It was not a monster; it was a victim, a divine being that had been perverted and turned into a thing of terror. Amber felt a single, solitary tear fall from her eye, a single drop of clean water on her pale fur, a silent elegy for a god who had never known a single moment of peace.
Beldonna, having freed the surviving sacrifices, came to stand beside Amber. The knight's face was streaked with soot and tears, her armor dented and scarred, but her eyes held a new, hardened resolve. They looked back at the clearing, where the sickly orange fme had sputtered out, leaving only a smoldering, bck scar on the earth. The air, no longer heavy with a divine presence, was merely thick with smoke and the smell of ash.
"She's gone," Beldonna said, her voice hoarse. "Seraphina. She used the chaos of... that thing's birth to flee. I couldn't stop her."
Amber let out a low growl, a frustrated rumble that vibrated through her chest. The anger, so recently a cold and focused thing, now burned with the heat of unfulfilled vengeance. The woman who had caused all this, who had maniputed her, who had birthed this victim and sent it into the world to suffer, had escaped again. The threat remained. Seraphina was still at rge, and the Kimoran influence had only festered. Beldonna pced a hand on Amber's massive shoulder, her touch a grounding presence. The knight’s hand was trembling, but her gaze was steady.
"It's not over," Donny said, her voice a promise. "She'll be back. And when she is, we'll be ready for her."
Amber let out a huff of agreement and nudged her knight with her head, a silent acknowledgment of the knight’s courage and resolve. The remaining sacrifices were huddled at the edge of the clearing, their faces a mixture of gratitude and terror. There was nothing more to be done here. They had to get back to the keep. They had to report what had happened. They turned as one, leaving the desecrated clearing behind.
As they walked away from the Bckpon Thicket, and the forest began to return to a sembnce of its former self, Amber gnced up at the night sky. The moon, so recently a full and luminous orb, seemed to flicker and dim. The light, the power that had been a part of her since she had been changed, seemed to wane. The moon's gentle, steady glow slowly faded into the gentle protecting light of Poris. And with it her form began to shrink away and in, returning to her original state. Leaving Amber nude in the forest save her emerald neckce, body gleaming in the starlight.
“Why are you naked?” Donny said as she offered up her cloak to the thin Lynanth. Amber couldn’t help but chuckle a bit.
“Rarely am I given a warning before the transformation happens and well…I didn’t want to ruin that outfit.” She looked into Donny’s emerald eyes, feeling the warmth of her body and fur as they held each other while walking. A true warmth sprung up within Amber. “Not like this is the first this has happened, I’m used to hiding my dignity beneath your cloak. Thank you for rescuing me, again, My beloved knight.” Amber leaned in and gave Beldonna a long kiss, one she had wanted to give when she first saw her in that dungeon but held back. A deep, intimate connection that said every bit of gratitude in touch where words would fail her. They kissed, embraced, and walked back towards Compass Keep hand in hand.
