SYBIL

When the light of the farmhouse reaches me from where I sit atop Henry’s shoulder, I understand a few things with the intensity of a drunkard being sober for the first time. First, that my lover is missing, and we are certainly, without a doubt, going to war. We’ll need to figure out where they’ve taken Soleil. Maybe Tony and Simon know, based upon their recent career endeavors as prisoners. Second, I have a lot of explaining to do when we cross the boundary onto my farm. I already know that I have cast off the threads that bind me to my constructs: if Simon has not bound them to his magic, or Tony – then certainly Via has. That was probably the most effective, and therefore likely, scenario. When Henry’s large feet skid across the dirt around the front of the farm house, I was confronted by a large semi-circle… well, mob is the best term for it, they are all waiting for me. Via stands tall and strides forward. “Sybil Whitman.”

I blanch and realize a third thing: I am an absolute coward. I ran away from the crown while my family was slaughtered around me; I chased away death to try my hand at another life; I fled from the only family I’d ever known, and I didn’t learn my lesson with the found family I’d gathered along the way. It was my fault Soleil was gone: I wasn’t here to save him when he needed me most. I threw my responsibilities to my bone family into the ground and took off when the slightest provocation arose. I’d been running my whole life.

Henry helps lower me to the ground and stands strong behind me, my rock. “Via.” My voice is strong. How I got it there, I’ve no clue. I’m ashamed of myself, but also… invigorated.

And terrified.

“I have bonded with your bones,” the little goddess says. “Which means I’ve revealed quite a bit more of myself than I’m particularly fond of.” She eyes her fingernails and shakes her head over them. “You’ll be compensating me appropriately.”

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“Of course.” I bow my head. “Thank you.”

Tony steps forward beside her with a confidence I haven’t witnessed. I straighten, and meet him halfway. “I have to break my promise,” he tells me.

“I’ll break it with you,” I return with an awkward smile. “Honored to do so, actually.” I kneel, pressing my arm over my knee in a show of fealty I wasn’t sure was entirely the correct decorum. I hadn’t met a king before.

He clasps my arm and pulls me up. “It’s an honor to fight alongside you, Whitman.”

I smile. It’s a cracked thing. A broken thing. I’m dragged back to standing on the gallows wondering about what the man who had sentenced me to death truly looked like. Turns out he has gentle brown eyes and darkened skin–and a hell of a way of recognizing and righting his own wrongs: something I had to learn.

I look around at the rest of the bones and beastmen and necromancy sympathizers, and raise my shoulders. “Ready to go do a war?”

They lift their arms in a loud cheer. And I nod over at Tony. “Well, there’s your army, kid.”

He smirks and straightens his shoulders, raising his voice to address the crowd that has gathered: “I will be honored if you were to join me in fixing what I got wrong. I know it’s too little too late, but if we can get Soleil back,” he nods at me, “And I can usurp my brother from the throne, I can position myself back into a place of power to abolish the rules I’d enacted and put Led back to the way it was.” He swallows and lifts an arm. The rest of the group falls silent, eyes watching him: bright and hopeful. I feel my own heart skip a beat. “I cannot promise you safety. I cannot promise that this endeavor will not plunge Led into another war with my father’s empire, but I will promise that the defense starts here.” He stomps his foot into the ground and roses erupt, flowing out from his feet and cascading over the ground. “And we will not back down.”

The fourth thing I realize–as the cheers rise up around us and a swell of pride fills my chest, of which I had no right to feel, is that I had fully knocked the timeline off of its already tenuous ground, and Arceme would have to take me out of this timeline themselves.