D’Argen remembered he had a body and he felt for it. His mahee was draining too fast, too much of it freezing over even as the ice that was Thar grew larger and larger. The waves tried to fight, tried to break the ice apart into pieces small enough to melt, but the moment those pieces sank they crystalized and froze the water around them. The rest of the ice took to the air, freezing the splashes into an ice rain that pierced the waves like needles. The waves continued to churn, growing bolder and larger, and the ice rain softened, turning to gentle flakes that did not melt when they touched the surface but allowed themselves to be taken under where they grew.
The ocean had no control at all. The ice decided how much it would take and give.
D’Argen forced his eyes open, hoping that the break in the meditation would break the connection, but all he saw was pure white. The cave they were in, the formation at his back, the ice wall with dark veins running through it… even the ground under him was gone. He looked around to see nothing but white, white, white in all directions. He looked down and realized he could. Thar was not there and he was not sitting down. He was standing on nothing at all and his dark robes contrasted the white around him to the point where the line between the two was hurting his eyes.
A single step revealed the white under him was solid enough to hold him. Another step and the white around him shifted, a ripple through it like cloth falling away. Then he saw black and D’Argen was still too surprised to feel joy, but he smiled.
Thar was looking at him. The man’s white robes were pristine once again and blended into the surroundings so well that if not for the thick dark outline of his iris and even darker pupil he would have faded away completely.
“Are you alright?” D’Argen asked and his voice echoed like they were in a cave then stretched out and came back to him like they were underwater. His question repeated in the white around them in different tones and volumes, different accents, different languages, and then finally settled until there was no sound at all.
D’Argen was afraid to speak again.
Thar’s eyes were scanning the white around them. Without a word, Thar held his hand out toward D’Argen. Since there was no actual surface under him, D’Argen was not afraid of the shuffle of his feet making noise so he did not bother to be careful as he rushed Thar and grabbed his hand then stepped closer still, right into Thar’s personal space. Only once he did, did he realize that his leg was not hurting. A look down revealed that his trousers were clean, with a sharp edge ironed into the front, and not a speck of dirt on them. He shifted his weight on the spot and his hip did not protest either. His ribs were fine when he inhaled deeply and twisted his upper body and the only reason why his head was itching was because his ponytail was tied to tight that it pulled at the skin of his scalp.
A look at Thar from head to toe revealed the other was not only completely clean too but that his clothes were different. They were still completely white but the sparkling snowflake motif he had worn for the last few centuries was gone. The outer cloak was heavy with a high collar and there was a thin silver plate connecting the collar right in front of his throat. Protecting it. The ribbon Thar used to hold his hair back and out of his face in a small braid was now across his forehead, there to collect sweat as he fought.
Thar looked the exact same as the day he was stripped of his title as God of War. The day Acela called them all to the great hall in Evadia and made them bear witness as each of the First Five wrapped chains around Thar’s mahee. As Thar was given his sentence and banned from Evadia for a thousand years.
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As if the thought alone was enough, the white around them shimmered. D’Argen startled and stepped closer into Thar’s embrace. The shimmering and rustling was quiet but when the first form appeared in the white, D’Argen recognized Acela. He called out to her but this time his voice made no sound at all and she did not respond to him. Beside her appeared Zetha, his face clean-shaven like he was before D’Argen last saw him. Darania’s small form was next, then Vah’mor and Upates appeared. Then so did each of the hundreds of Never Born and the marble floor under their feet, the pillars of the great hall, the large windows that lined one side of it, the small dais with five steps leading to the top where the First Five stood and their chairs appeared in a neat line.
When Thar’s form, dressed for battle but without a spec of blood on him, appeared in front of the dais, D’Argen clutched at the figure he felt at his side. He could not look away as the God of War raised his chin and closed his eyes, his entire face one of resignation. He felt an arm snake around his waist and pull him in tight into a firm chest and he clutched the robes there. But he could not look away.
The chest under his hand vibrated and the entire scene of the hall shuddered, shimmered, swayed, rippled like ice rain falling on a calm surface lake, and then faded away. But it did not fade away into the white that had surrounded them earlier.
Instead, the God of War’s form turned into a statue and grew, the pillars shifted and their patterns changed, turning into heavy carvings that told stories, more of the statues appeared and the windows turned into a wall with mirrored pillars and statues.
The worship hall.
D’Argen paled when he realized what he was looking at. All of the statues were featureless, but he did not need to see their features to know who was where. These were their fallen. Each and every Never Born to ever die in the mortal realm had a statue created for them. Each of those left behind, the living, was there to help build those statues. As D’Argen thought it, he remembered Abbot pushing his fingers down to shape a nose out of soft clay. The statue in question gained its features, revealing a crooked grin and a slight bump to the nose that Abbot never did get to straighten out after D’Argen mushed it together.
“What is this place?”
D’Argen was not sure if he was startled that Thar had spoken or the fact that the man’s voice did not echo and change as D’Argen’s question had earlier. He refused to let go and felt a strong heartbeat under his palm. The hand around his waist was like a vice and he was glad it was there to support him. But he had no answer. Not one that would make sense. Because it was impossible for them to be back in Evadia. No. They were in a cave under—
The worship hall shimmered and darkened until each of the pillars became stone and ice formations connecting a rough rock ceiling to a ground not threaded by feet before them. The statues faded into shadows and then disappeared completely and the marble wall behind them started shining and reflecting light, its dark veins making it look like marble even though the rest of it became translucent like the ice it was made of.
D’Argen turned on reflex within the tight hold and noticed two figures leaning against one of the structures. Thar was barely breathing where he rested on D’Argen’s chest. D’Argen’s hand was on Thar’s chest and clutching tight, but D’Argen himself was barely breathing as well.
The ocean waves were not sure if the figure sitting on the ground or the one standing in a cold embrace was its container. The ice crawled down off the wall and reached for one pair while the ocean spilled from one of the tunnels and drowned the other.
D’Argen wanted to scream and though one of the containers opened its mouth to do so, the sound came from all around as a rumble that shook the ground. D’Argen felt a heavy weight on his chest even as a vice tightened around his waist. He felt his arms wrapped around a warm figure and a slow heartbeat against the back of his head. The ground shook and the structures broke, the ceiling fell, and each rock and piece of ice that shattered on the ground painted it pure white until everything stopped.
With hands over his head to protect him, it took D’Argen a while to realize everything had stopped. He dropped his arms only to realize that Thar had done the same though kept one arm still around his waist while the other was over them both. The white around them shimmered and rippled but did not change again.
Not until a single figure ripped the white apart and stepped toward them with a wide grin.