Year 259. The Star Bastion, The Spine of God - Khirn
GÍLA SENGHU
What could be said of the molten cores of iron that pelted the earth as the tread-cities of Tahrir made their way across the horizon of Alsofidor in their shattering of sacrament? What could be said of the battle cries that blew through the wind like horns, brassy and howling? What could be said of the fear that cowed the living army of the Runearch as the Bear Maiden and her joint force of Belanorians under the command of the Great Crusher ran them down with hammer and spear? What could be said of the great volleys of explosions and fire that skewered the earth and the hordes—rending apart an amalgam of flesh and metal like wet paper?
“A chance,” Gíla whispered as she wrenched the head of her hammer from the neck cavity of a Druyan warrior and gawked at the fire bursts that rained down with whistling screeches.
It was a Hell storm, a cacophony of roars and thunder that sent shockwaves and reverberations through body and land. Only the strongest, the sturdiest of foundations, could stand against the tide of destruction that tore open flanks and crushed bulwarks that had long been impenetrable. Gorgeous wreaths of flames enveloping shards of black metal heated orange, splitting open the Druyans and charring them to the bone. Mud, grass, trees—land reduced to pockets of ash and burnt roots.
A spectacle of devastation.
A requirement of sacrifice.
When it was done, after a time that even Gíla could not say how long it had taken, the defenders of the Star Bastion launched their counter-offensive against the recovering and dazed Druyans.
Among those encountered on the field that day, Goka Tur was heralded as commander. With impeccable skill, armed with a sparkling spear of sunlight and shield of reflective mirror qualities, Goka Tur the Sun Seeker dueled the Bear Maiden and the Great Crusher on his own and held them back as best he could. It was a titanic bout that split the earth beneath their feet. But for the Sun Seeker, the effort was for naught as he was caught by a dual attack after losing his balance on the weakened landscape and fell to the ground broken and headless.
Gíla Senghu kicked his body into the darkness of the split earth and let her spit follow after him.
In the days after the defeat of Goka Tur and his cohort, reports abound of the Runearch’s wrath began to spread, though whatever he had hoped to accomplish with that wrath was kept at bay as the tread-cities of Tahrir moved closer and closer with their volleys and forced him and his army back from the Bastion. During that moment of peace, a dignitary part of the largest of the cities appeared within the Great Hall of the Star Bastion without warning and without apparent use of any of the gates.
Their leader was a black-haired woman of golden brown skin and eyes the color of amethyst. Her clothing was vibrant and wealthy, bronze threaded with gold. In her hand, she held a rod of brass bejeweled with stones of perfect quality. If not for her kindly, almost motherly expression, the sheer presence she exuded would have forced all to bow to her in reverence. Instead, all present in the Great Hall stood at simple attention and awaited the first word.
For this was Rama-Celare of House Tahrir—the Prophetess Vasile. There was no question as to who this was. Everyone knew—a recognition planted in their brain on sight.
It was Yvon ne’Banuus who spoke first, standing up from her seat at the Lords’ table. “Your Reverence,” she greeted, keeping her tone low and wary. Gíla saw her eye the Prime at the head of the table, who minutely motioned with his hand to keep the Great Blade at ease. “It is-”
“I have no use, and you have no time for kind greetings or any such minced words, Belanorian,” the Prophetess Vasiles declared in a voice of blade-sharp nature. She took a step forward, powerful and prideful. Gíla felt a memory she did not have yet stir in the base of her mind. “We of Tahrir break our sacrament of peace to ensure that the madness of the Runearch and his master does not extend beyond Khirn. For if it does, all of this world will fall to his darkness.”
“Tahrir has long held itself as a pacifistic society to the point of aggravation,” the Prime spoke, refusing to rise from his chair. “I would have thought it would remain that way even now.”
The Prophetess locked eyes with the Prime. “The Runearch sent men into our homeland, and they breached our cities, something that has never been done before. At that, we realized how dangerous this war of yours has become.”
“So now that it affects you in such a direct way, you choose to break your pact of nonviolence?” the Great Wolf inquired with a laugh.
“Yes,” the Prophetess shrugged. Gíla had to respect the truthfulness of the selfish reasons. “We do not ask for anything in return from you. We offer our homes, our developments, our skills in mystharin , and our technology in the hopes that we may once more return to our lives unbothered by your brutality. Shall you refuse?”
“No,” the Prime answered for everyone.
Following that fateful day, the war against the Runearch became much more intense as the Tahririans took up positions on the southern banks of the mountain range. There, they provided both ground support and ranged support from their cities, each of which was comparable to the size of Acocaea—though the largest and the furthest away from the carnage was comparable to the size of Heracla. When questioned about how these monstrous things could even move, the architects and engineers of these cities were keen on providing just enough information that, to Gíla, essentially boiled down to usage of the history found in their archaeological digs. As each dig was a generations-long undertaking, it made sense to the Bear Maiden that they would have gathered enough from the first to have created these things.
She could not have guessed just how useful they would have become in the future, nor why she had the memory of inclination to their advanced uses. It had not formed yet.
Unfortunately for Gíla, the Tahririans, for all their marvels and skills, could not save everyone.
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Year 261
On the eve of winter, at the end of the Year Two Hundred and Sixty-One, the Druyans had finally broken into the Bastion by way of the Red Demon. After the events that followed the Druyan’s break-in, in which she was accompanied by five hundred of her finest warriors, five hundred of her finest mystharin mancers, and an untold number of undead, Gíla Senghu would no longer believe in any of her allies or herself.
In the centuries following the disastrous end to the story in Khirn, very few of those who knew her best would fully blame her, even if they found her actions utterly reprehensible.
On that eve, the warriors of the Star Bastion had settled down for a feast. All had seemed well and good, and the Bear Maiden was as in high spirits as she could be despite her consistent arguments with Jira ne’Jiral over the whereabouts of Silof and the lack of change despite his mission and absence. The Prime, still holding on to the Spellblade of Kin, remained conspicuously absent from the festivities, as did the Great Wolf, the Great Brutalizer, the Great Snake, and the Great Bow. Joining the festivities were those of a happier mind, such as the Great Crusher and the Great Blade—although the Great Peril, despite her name, was quite evocative of the jubilation one should feel at a feast.
Through the height of their excitement, the roar of the tread cities’ constant onslaught on the Runearch’s positions echoed in the whipping mountain wind.
“We’ll be done soon,” the Great Peril said before drinking heartily from her mug. “I’ve seen countless battles and sieges last long and end in a snap of a finger. We’ll be home and counting the prisoners before we know it.”
“Have you ever partaken in one that’s lasted forty years?” the Bear Maiden asked with a smirk.
The Great Peril snorted. “No. I have not. But with the Tahririans, I feel that we will be done soon.”
An unformed memory told her that this was the truest of statements.
Drinks were shared throughout the Bastion. Food too. She conversed for a time with Yvon ne’Banuus and the other Greats, confirming strategy and engaging in theory regarding the Tahririans and the true nature of the Runearch’s power—namely, why he had yet to use his newfound might against the bridges or the fortress itself. When no answer could be developed, Gíla pardoned herself and made her way to her father’s bed chambers in one of the fortress’ more elaborate living quarters in the Keep. There, she found him on his bed. Old, crippled, and wheezing. Crippled. The word was too kind to describe what he looked like. She was the only one allowed in his room to see him as he was.
An artist’s painting slapped against the canvas as wet pigment after the outline was made so perfectly. Only for the canvas to then be stabbed and burned.
She felt pity and love and hatred for the man. She could not forgive Silof for what he had done to her father, even though she had to admit that the old bear had brought it on himself.
“Father, I’ve brought you some ale.”
“Eh,” he grunted, opening his eyes and slowly turning his head to gaze at his daughter. “Oh. From the...from the feast outside?”
“Yes,” she said with a sad smile, moving to his bedside and placing the frothy cup on the table. “It’s chilled. You need to drink something.”
“Ah, what for?” he asked. “It won’t change what I am now.”
“It’ll wet your throat and make breathing less painful.”
“No, it won’t. Look at me. Drink won’t make this less painful, daughter.”
“Let me believe that it will,” she chuckled.
He tried to shake his head. It caused a trickle of blood to run down the corner of his mouth. “No. I won’t let you believe something false. I shouldn’t have let you believe the others. I shouldn’t have bent to them.”
She wiped the blood from his mouth and took clumps of hair with her. He was getting worse. “I...we all make our choices, father. I have made mine.”
Helgol snorted, and part of his nose split. “You have made yours...huh...and what has that gotten you? What has that gotten me? Your brother is dead. Your mother won’t even see me anymore.”
“Father-”
“We could have kept this place safe if you trusted me.”
“I kn-”
Helgol’s eyes widened, sunken and black, and what remained of his arm latched onto Gíla’s shoulder. She screamed, startled, but did not move. He sat up, his spine popping and skin stuck to the bed, and drew close to Gíla. “Daughter, you must not let the cycles continue.”
“Father, what are you talking about?”
His breath reeked, and his black eyes brightened to an incandescent yellow-white. “We were close to finding the truth here. I was close to finding it. The Guch’di were in the way, but I was close. Had Silof not been there, I would have succeeded in ridding them myself. I failed because of you, but you can right your wrongs, daughter.”
“What wrongs?”
“Right the wrongs of the cycles. Do not let them succeed. Do not let them succeed. Tʼu aw chʼa d’ed du."
The screaming started, and Helgol melted to ooze and bones in Gíla’s hands. For a majority of the first half of the surprise attack on the Bastion, the Bear Maiden sat catatonic as parts of Helgol absorbed into her palms. She blinked and came to as three Druyans broke into the bed chamber, bloodied and snarling with battle lust. What Gíla did to those three Druyans was as horrific a thing as anything Runearch had done up to that point.
Into the inner bailey did she march, weaponless and clothed only in her common clothes. It mattered little for those caught in her gaze and bore the mark of Druyan. As the Belanorians and Aslofidorians slaughtered and were slaughtered, Gíla massacred. Any who tried to slay her ended up devoured, crushed, snapped, burned, or simply driven insane by the sheer intimidation that she exuded in her mindless march throughout the outer fortress. She cared little as to how the Druyans ended up inside the Bastion—a later investigation after the survivors made their way across the Jade revealed that a pair of young, sleep-deprived guards had accidentally left one of the upper gates leading to the internal fortress unlocked—she only wished to kill.
For hours, she did. And for hours, her friends died. And for hours, the Tahririans did nothing. No firestorm upon the Bastion. No reinforcements with their warriors. Nothing.
The Star Bastion, once a haven of safety, became reminiscent of all other sites of the war’s sieges. Blood-flooded, dotted with mounds of gore, and burning with fire. She came upon the corpses of Reses and Rodas Peral and, beyond them, the bodies of Astera Rodel, Praxis the Brambleheart, and Naulan Hiko. She found Orlantha Xathia cradling an unconscious Thania Komone, Markos Perulis weeping nearby. She found Prokos and the thing that was Sodon fighting to defend the dying Nirian Gertokon, supported by the enraged Phoibun Tharene, Nikias Dalina, Beles the Hamfist, and Oeagnus Harus.
The Great Peril fought tooth and nail against a horde of undead, only to be drowned in their swarm, ripped apart, and devoured. The Great Brutalizer, having emerged from his hideaway, fell just as soon after, his jaw ripped from his face after claiming three hundred undead to his count. The Prime led a counter-offensive with the Spellblade of Kin in hand and laid waste to all who opposed him with the greatest of ease, roaring in defiance and weeping at the death of every Belanorian.
And still, the Tahririans did nothing.
By the later half of that battle—coated in crimson, a half-hundred minor wounds, and a dozen grievous injuries—Gíla came upon the Red Demon herself. Yola Tal was comparable to Orlantha Xathia, and their fight added even more credence to this claim. Supported by no one on her own demand, Gíla was dominated by the Red Demon for a good portion of the fight. Every chance she had to strike the Druyan, she found herself outflanked, outmuscled, and outmatched. Her injuries held her back. Her rage was her weakness.
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The Red Demon saw through her blind tactics.
Yola Tal tripped, sliced, wrestled, stabbed, gouged, punched, kicked, threw, slammed, and hammered the Bear Maiden until she felt like her father had looked. Yola Tal grinned and stuck her spear in the Bear Maiden’s thigh, pinning her to the ground.
“Is this the fabled Drayheller of the Star Bastion?” she called out. “Is this who has put such fear in the hearts of my men?”
The defenders of the Bastion circling the impromptu fighting ring moved closer, stopping only at the pleading roar of Gíla, who attempted to wrench the spear from her leg.
Yola Tal kicked Gíla in her face, crushing her snout and rendering her woozy and nauseous. She yelped as the spear was pulled free, hands clasping at the wound. Her eyes gazed up. The Red Demon twirled the spear and lunged at the Bear Maiden, piercing through her collarbone. Darkness filled her vision. Her father’s voice filled her mind.
“Right the wrongs of the cycles. Do not let them succeed. Do not let them succeed. Tʼu aw chʼa d’ed du."
Gíla grabbed the spear’s haft through the darkness and rose. Yola Tal made a noise and tried to pull the weapon back to her. Gíla snapped it in half, pulled it from her flesh, and reached for where she believed the Red Demon stood. She heard the Druyan growl as the Bear Maiden’s claws snatched her neck.
“Release me!” the Red Demon roared.
Silently, blindly, the Bear Maiden shunted the Red Demon’s spearhead through her nose and into her brain. Yola Tal collapsed with a gurgle. Cheers erupted in the Star Bastion, and Gíla followed after the Red Demon and fell to her back, bleeding and gurgling. The Bear Maiden would remain unconscious and healing for the next half-year as the Star Bastion fought to regain what it had nearly lost that night. And through each second of that unconscious darkness, she heard the repetition of her father: “Right the wrongs of the cycles. Do not let them succeed. Do not let them succeed. Tʼu aw chʼa d’ed du."
And still, the Tahririans did nothing.
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Year 262. The Star Bastion, The Spine of God - Khirn
GÍLA SENGHU
“And that brings us here,” Gíla finished recounting the past forty years, at least the most significant bits that she felt were necessary to make her point to Erik Apa. Forty years of constant battle, death, and chaos.
Nothing about it was changing. Even with the Tahririans added into the fray, all that remained was more death. More desecration of nature. What was the point?
“Well, that was all very well and good, Bear Maiden,” the Runearch said with a small clap. Around them, the less ruined corpses began to stand up. “But I’m not sure how that is to convince me that...oh...wait.”
“Tohyi?” Akma Yal asked.
“I see.”
“See what?”
“Nujant Chhank are storytellers. Can’t help themselves even when they need to make a point quickly.” The Runearch knelt on the Bear Maiden’s chest, slipping the spear to the ground and using it for support. “And the point you were making to me...is that you...want to help me?”
“That cannot be,” Akma Yal protested. “There is no way she would want to help you; she still fights against you.”
The Runearch held up a finger. “Only because we haven’t spoken one-on-one yet, Akma. That’s it, isn’t it? You’ve lost faith in your friends...because of whatever is going on inside your head...and whatever the Hell is going on with this Silof fellow. You want to join me and see this world change for the better.”
Gíla was fast, faster than she had let him know when he appeared, and gripped the spear, moving it away from her chest and shifting her weight. Stronger than she had let him know than she was. Within tenths of a second, the Runearch was on his back and had his head caught between Gíla’s hands. He tried to fight her. She applied pressure, subduing him within those tenths of a second, and fear crossed his face as he realized Akma Yal was too slow to stop his head from being crushed. No matter how quick he was with his own power, he was still doomed to die if she so wished it. So he waited as normal seconds began to pass and shuddered his breaths, holding his hand up to his brother, knowing there was no point in wasting the effort.
“I am not helping you,” she seethed, spittle dripping onto his face. “You, Erik Apa, are a disgusting leech of a human who I will gladly do away with at the end of all of this. You are a foul worm, a carrion feeder who will die alone and whimpering and scared. I am only letting you live because you are the nexus to the one I wish to speak to, the one worthy of words beyond threats. Now, you will call them and bring them here so that I may speak to them. And if I get so much a sniff of an attempt to kill me, you will spend eternity in whatever afterlife awaits you with your head buried in your chest. Do you hear me?”
“If all you wanted was to speak to Blackstone, all you had to do was tell me,” the Runearch grinned.
“Would you have believed me had I not told you a story?”
Erik Apa considered her question and laughed. “No. I wouldn’t have.”
“Exactly my point. Now...call them.”
The Runearch laughed, loud and long and thunderous, so much that the furthest point of the Spine of God rose from the ground in reaction, joining the mirth. Gíla looked and saw that it was part of something fleshy. Something prehensile.
When she looked back at the Runearch, she saw eyes of gold that shifted to visions of a spectrum of colors that didn’t exist. She was driven to the peak of knowledge, staring at those eyes, the height of nihilism and then the apex of creation.
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Year of Rebirth. Court of Dead Divinity - The Devoid
And then she was standing before a pantheon of revenant gods from all time and all realms, sitting in marble thrones clad in armor and togas and whites and blues and golds and bronzes, wielding swords and axes and spears and shields and hammers and clubs and bows and daggers. She stared at each one and recognized them as things that had been dead. She stood in an outstanding open-air courtroom lit by five orbiting miniature suns in the starry sky above, oval in shape, each god sitting down in velvet chairs surrounding her as she was on the floor of black dirt.
Them, the jury.
Her, the accused.
The judge, Blackstone, sitting on the highest throne made entirely of smoke and mirrors.
They were a ravishing thing. A thing of mortals for mortals. That is what her unformed memory told her as she gazed upon a creature of such power that she was not even an insect in its eyes. Dressed in blacks and whites, Blackstone’s body was made of smoothed stone like they were a living statue. And when they spoke, they spoke resonantly, tearing apart the creation of years, thoughts, seasons, and concepts.
“You are Nujant Chhank,” they said, leaning forward on their judge’s bench. “You are granted an audience.”
"I am Gíla Senghu," she said.
“Senghu,” a few of the revenants whispered. “Senghu. House Senghu. Creationists. Changers.”
“Ahh, of course you are. Picking up the mantle of your father,” Blackstone said with a smile across their statue face. The face sculpted itself to resemble that of a Nujant Chhank. “Coming here to bring about what your allies cannot.”
“I am here because I have nothing left. We have nothing left. Soon, we will die. And I hope that reasoning with you...will be easier than with him. And if this ends in my death, at least I tried something.”
“You are here because you are incapable of trusting yourself anymore. You are incapable of trusting your friends and what you have been led to believe all these years. You are incapable of anything. You are here because you have finally opened yourself up to my words.”
“Then let me hear them.”
“For so long, you believed that all you had to do was trust the word of Kar'ult, that cretin. Of yourself. Of those metal creatures. Of the books you read. Of the artifacts you found. Trust them, and change would come to the endless chaos. But how long have you been without that change? How long have you seen your friends die?”
Gíla snarled and reached up with her hand, pushing each of the blades at her neck away without issue. She stepped forward again. “Far too long. And I stopped listening to Kar'ult. Silof, whatever his name is. I know that his actions will make things worse. I just... don’t know how. I don’t. Father told me that I could not let the cycle continue. I want to know what that means.”
“More than you can fathom at this time,” Blackstone said to the revenants' murmuring agreement. It is why you are now here to learn your purpose.”
The Bear Maiden took a step forward on the black dirt. Winged creatures made of steel dropped around her and unsheathed their swords, placing the edges against her neck. She swallowed hard. “And that is?”
“To herald the coming of the new age. To herald the healing of creation. To ensure that my kin cannot again capitulate faulty designs.”
Gíla looked around the court and eyed the dead gods. “And them? What of them? What is their purpose? Is their being alive again not going to ruin your plans?”
The court blinked and became a graveyard that stretched much too far and much too wide. Crius was at work, digging up the graves of the gods. He waved and smiled. “Their purpose is simple. Their purpose is base,” Blackstone said, appearing beside the Bear Maiden. They towered over her.
Gíla knelt and brushed off the dirt covering the name of a gravestone. Hadon, a God of Luck from something known as the Second Dream. “And how useful will I be in comparison to a deity?”
“Far more,” Blackstone whispered.
“Am I going mad?” Gíla nearly wept as the overwhelming nature of this meeting finally settled on her.
"No."
The silver knight, or rather an image of the woman, appeared before the Bear Maiden, digging up the graves alongside Crius. “Jira? What does she have to do with this?”
Blackstone was behind Jira. “She is the knight of secrets. Do you know what her mission was?”
Gíla shook her head. "No."
Blackstone smiled and sighed. “Survive what is to come when you reawaken. Join her to Aqella. And you will find out the truth. From there, we will speak more.”
Gíla gulped. Her chest was tightening. “Am I not to serve you like Erik Apa? Are you not going to shatter my mind and remold it into something useful?”
Blackstone’s face cracked and frowned. “I would not demean you, Gíla Senghu, so as to turn you into a conqueror. Erik Apa is my child for war. You are your own soul, designed to do as you will.”
“What are you, Blackstone?”
For eternity, Blackstone was silent. For the span of nothing, Blackstone was roaring. The graveyard vanished, and all became a swirling vortex of color and physics. “Tired,” the voice resonated.
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Year 262. The Star Bastion, The Spine of God - Khirn
“Gíla!” Jira ne’Jiral screamed, awakening the Bear Maiden on a cold metal floor. The sound of ocean waves hit her as much as the smell of salt, as did the distant rumbling and cracking of the earth. “Heaven above, I thought you were dead.”
“W-what?” Gíla blubbered, sitting up and shaking her head. Something was wrong. She felt like they were moving, yet she could hear no horses. “Where the hell are we? What happened?”
“She alive?” Orlantha asked as she came into the Bear Maiden’s view. Prokos and the Sodon-thing trailed after her, as did a limping Thania and one-armed Hamfist. “Oh, good. You are. ‘Bout time. You almost missed it. Doubt you would, though.”
“Missed what?” Gíla asked angrily. “What is going on?”
Jira and Orlantha helped her to her feet, and when she was standing, the Bear Maiden realized where they were. Tahririan architecture and faces surrounded her, and Tahririan voices filled her ears. They were on a tread-city. And it was moving, fast, across the surface of the ocean. History used from archaeological digs. Ancient technology that defy the current year.
Jira took the Bear Maiden’s hand and dragged her through the streets of this mobile city. As they walked, it dawned on the Bear Maiden that she could no longer see the eastern horizon. It was simply black. “Come on, we have to show you what you missed.”
At the railing of what looked to be the thirteenth story of this city, Jira had Gíla look out onto the waves of the Western Jade and gaze at what should have been Khirn. There was nothing there—only darkness and rushing, sinking water. “What happened?”
“The mountain rose up,” Orlantha said, taking a place next to Jira. “All those barrages from these cities. We think all that fighting, all the chaos around it, woke it up. Now, we have that. Just darkness. No idea what it is.”
Gíla looked at the darkness closely. She was trying to make out anything. A shape. “Where are we going?”
“We’ve convened with those that made it onto the cities in time that we’re taking the long way around to Aqella,” Jira explained. “It’s southern coasts are the closest option we got past this. The Belanorians don’t have much argument left. They’re struggling as is. The Prime is doing his best to keep them wrangled, but it will be a long trek.”
“And what are we doing at Aqella?” Gíla asked, recalling flashes of that court and turning her gaze to Jira.
“Whatever we can,” Orlantha said. “War in Khirn is over. We lost. The next step is figuring out how to make sure that Erik Apa doesn’t recover.”
“That’s going to be a long, long mission,” Gíla said. “We might-”
Whatever thoughts. Whatever words. Whatever beliefs. Whatever faiths. Whatever hopes. Whatever doubts. Whatever fears. Any of those concepts of mortality that the people on the tread-cities of Tahrir held meant nothing at that moment. As they all conversed about the plan to survive and snatch some victory from this catastrophe and plotted out the course across the Jade, they were all beholden to something that changed the fabric of what they knew to be true. Many who saw what they saw would remain mindless drones needing to be directed to perform the most basic tasks to keep the cities running in the years it took to cross the ocean. Many who retained their faculties would form cults in the depths of the cities in devotion to what they saw. For Gíla, Orlantha, Jira, and many others like them, it only emboldened them that their quests needed to be completed. That they needed to find victory.
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Year 8540. Shtarym - Veirn
The Bear Maiden’s students stared at her slack-jawed and dumbfounded as she finished her tale, drinking the rest of her tea and sighing in contentment. Silence was the only noise present for the longest time, well into the night.
Pinnacle spoke first. “So...what happened? What did you all see? What happened in Aqella? You never got around to what happened to Jira and the beginning. And what of the Runearch? And Blackstone? And what was going on with your father and Blackstone? And where was Silof? And what happened with Jira? And Orlantha? And Alden!”
Gíla laughed and settled onto her creaky bed, motioning for the others to do the same. “My dear students, that will be another story for another day. As for now, I am exhausted and need some much-deserved rest.”
“You can’t end the story like that!” Or’Demp squawked. “We need to know what happened.”
“Soon, Or’Demp,” Gíla smiled, pointing to his bed. “Soon. You will find out what happened.”
“They’re not going to like it,” Revenant grunted, taking to his bed. “At all.”
“They will, in their own ways.”
“I doubt it,” he muttered as he crawled under his blankets. “Too many bad things happened. Atrocities. All because one bastard woke up.”
Gíla cautioned him with a stare. “They will know in time, Revenant. In time.”
“In time. Sure.”
The students would mutter and theorize for an hour before sleep took them, eventually replacing words with snoring. But Gíla could not find rest. She would remain awake for that entire night as she recalled exactly what she and the cities had seen that day. She recalled why Revenant felt as strongly as he did about that time.
How could she blame him? How could she blame anyone for thinking that?
For the darkness that had once been Khirn had opened its eyes and glared them all.