Chapter 52 - Red Flowers

When Lazar blinked open his eyes the next morning, they landed on a familiar demon seated on the floor. Her axe rested across her lap as she crudely sharpened the weapon with a rough stone. The flesh eater looked up and grinned.

“You don’t look surprised to see me.”

“I suspected you would return soon.” The seraph shifted, rising from the ground and taking a moment to begin his usual morning regimen with a few stretches. He hadn’t slept in the bed once since arriving on the plane. Its soft mattress and blankets felt distinctly wrong to him—too much like sinking with nothing to truly grasp.

“When did you arrive?” he asked curiously.

Ciel shrugged. “Not that long ago. I ran into Madeline and Matilda on the way. They say they’re gonna be out today planning for some festival or whatever, so we’ve got free reign.” She chuckled. “An awful lot of faith, if you ask me.”

She paused, golden eyes shifting briefly over to the open note pages and diagrams still spread out across the desk. “Anyway, it looks like you were busy.”

Lazar glanced over.

“I informed Alaric, Madeline, and Matilda about our goals to ascend.” He nodded at the pages. “A friend of theirs ascended, and Madeline was kind enough to allow me to read his old notes.”

Ciel raised an eyebrow. “Wouldn’t think a human would know much more than a seraph.”

Lazar chuckled at that. “On the contrary. Humans have an entirely different perspective on magic than Elysium does. I’ve found the soul diagrams particularly useful.”

“Ah, soul diagrams. Blasphemous.” The flesh eater rose, casually setting the axe aside. “Well, did you figure anything out?”

Lazar frowned, one hand instinctively moving to the covered mark. After his conversation with Matilda, he’d found it surprisingly difficult to focus. As a result, he hadn’t made as much progress on the diagram as he would’ve liked. In an effort to remain efficient, he did attempt to manipulate essence to see if he could change its area of entrance.

Lazar had quickly discovered that the threads of essence in the home were just a tad too thin to truly draw in. Whenever he attempted more complex pulls, they would quickly dissipate and scatter.

His brows furrowed. He would likely need to return to the forest to practice, which limited the amount of time available due to the travel distance.

Even now, he could feel a dull ache in his soul. He’d likely overworked the previous day, especially given that the mark had just expanded. He would have to be careful. He suspected it was inevitable that the mark would grow again during his essence manipulation training, so he’d need to minimize the damage as much as possible.

“Not yet.” Lazar turned to face Ciel. “I believe I have a few leads, but I’ll need to test them before anything is certain.”

The demon hummed. “Back to the forest?”

“Most likely, yes. I’ll need a higher concentration of essence to work with.” He paused, frowning. “You don’t need to accompany me if you don’t wish to. I don’t want you to feel obligated.”

Ciel snorted at that. “Not like I’ve got much else to do. Those demon hybrids’ll keep me going for some time.” She grinned, cocking her head and tapping on the handle of the axe. “Especially when I’ve barely needed to do the flesh warping thing.”

The seraph nodded slowly.

“Alright. It’s just… Well, I don’t mean to slow you down.”

If not for the issue with soul damage, he probably would’ve already been able to cast a spell, and they could’ve ascended to the next plane. Ciel, he knew, was close to reaching the threshold herself. Perhaps she already had and simply hadn’t mentioned it.

The flesh eater shrugged dismissively. “You’re the one with the time limit here.” Golden eyes shifted pointedly to his covered mark. “Me? I’ve got more leeway to work with.”

She gestured at the halberd, still propped where Lazar had left it, the silver metal shining.

“Well? Ready to head out?”

Lazar nodded. He took the latest of the diagrams he’d made—still rough and with a few notable gaps, but more complete than his other attempts—and carefully folded and stored the paper away. Once that was done, he gripped the halberd in hand and replaced the cloth cover over the blade.

With a final sweep of the room to ensure nothing had been forgotten, the two exited, shutting the door behind them.

—

Carran was bursting with activity. Lazar blinked, slightly stunned as he took in the sheer amount of people outside. He’d thought the previous day had been more populated than usual, given the rare clear sky. And yet, despite the overcast grey clouds returning, today was even more alive.

All around the road, villagers moved about, some carrying stacks of colored fabrics, others hurrying to hang clothes to dry, to sweep the steps, to finish weeding and covering gardens.

Lazar saw a shop owner whistling as he wiped the front window, the sign flipped to “Closed” well early on. A few feet away from him, a woman balanced carefully atop a ladder, removing the hanging fabrics that had previously decorated the roof of her home and throwing them down into a tall basket.

The energy was frenetic, almost. Everywhere the seraph turned, there was someone moving, a voice calling or a child’s laugh ringing out. But it was the positive sort of bustle, the same kind he’d seen from the distance that day before Julius’s ceremony.

His fingers tightened around the metal of the halberd, and he shook his head, pushing the thought away.

Lazar glanced back at Ciel, who was watching the villagers with keen gold eyes. He frowned. The demon’s expression was blank, utterly unreadable to him. The impassiveness looked strange and uncanny on the flesh eater.

Before the seraph had a chance to ask about it, however, something bumped into his leg.

Lazar’s muscles tensed instinctively, and he jerked around, halberd nearly swinging back before he caught himself at the last second. Peering up at him, one of the children playing ball blinked up. The seraph forced himself to relax, glad to have stopped himself in time.

“Are you alright?” he asked. The child nodded, and without another glance, she turned and ran back to her game.

Lazar breathed a sigh of relief. When he looked up again, however, his eyes met Alaric’s. The seraph stilled, but the man looked as stoic as ever. He likely hadn’t noticed what the seraph had nearly done. In contrast, Lazar could practically feel Ciel’s knowing look boring into his back.

The human strode forward, nodding at villagers as he passed.

“Good morning. I’m glad to see you’re well,” Alaric said. Lazar nodded.

“Likewise.” The seraph glanced around. “Madeline told me about the festival yesterday. It seems quite busy.”

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A small smile passed over the man’s features. Dark eyes gleamed with fondness as he gazed out into the bustling streets. “Indeed. I assume she already invited you and Ciel to join?”

“She did.”

Alaric hummed. “I see. If you don’t mind me asking, are the two of you busy?”

Lazar exchanged a look with Ciel. The flesh eater raised an eyebrow.

“Never are,” she drawled. “Why?”

The man frowned a little at that, but kept going. “If you recall our conversation yesterday, I wanted to show you something I believe may be of use.”

That made Lazar pause. He assumed it had to do with their discussion on ascension. Ciel hadn’t been present for that, and the demon simply shrugged at him. He turned back to Alaric.

“That would be wonderful, thank you,” he said. Alaric nodded, and he gestured further down the road towards the center of the village.

“It’s this way,” he said, and the three turned and began to make their way down the street.

It was significantly easier to navigate around the crowds with Alaric leading the way. Most villagers naturally stepped aside out of respect, nodding or waving at the man as they passed.

It was even busier near the heart of Carran, and more than once Lazar had to dodge past a rushing villager or sidestep a particularly rambunctious child. He was sure to keep his halberd close, not wanting any accidents to happen.

Finally, the buildings grew sparser, and Lazar carefully took in their surroundings as they exited through the other side of the town. He and Ciel had visited here briefly when purchasing supplies, but they hadn’t actually left the village’s perimeter. Behind them, the light of the realm gate was the furthest it had been so far since arriving on the plane.

As buildings gave way to barren earth dotted with a few scraggly grasses and a treeline grew on the horizon, Alaric’s pace slowed. The distant forest immediately made Lazar tense, his eyes flickering between the bare trees for any signs of more warping. From where they stood, it appeared silent—lifeless and still in a way that the forest encroaching on the other side of the village was not.

Carefully pushing a few branches aside, Alaric stepped into the forest proper. Lazar was just as careful, though Ciel had no qualms about roughly snapping branches as she attempted to navigate around the low canopy.

Finally, after another minute of walking, Alaric came to a stop.

A few feet away, surrounded by dead grey trunks, stood a single tree towering above the others. Thick branches fanned out towards the sky, stretching like reaching hands. Clustered around each branch were brilliant red flowers. Rich and vivid, they were the color of a burning sunset—vibrant and all consuming. Contrasted against the colorless surroundings, they were nearly as painful to look at as they were breathtaking.

A wind blew bast, rustling the flowers and scattering a few in their direction. Lazar silently caught a stray petal. It felt soft and fragile between his fingertips.

Ahead of them, Alaric gazed up at the tree, distant nostalgia clouding his eyes.

“This tree contains more concentrated essence than anywhere else near the village,” the man said, not taking his eyes off the red blossoms. “If you wish to practice magic, this would be the ideal place for it.”

Lazar blinked, and sure enough, the thin silvery strands of essence, so sparse everywhere else, all streamed towards that tree, tangling and curling together until they coated the branches like translucent snow. There was more essence here than in the forest he and Ciel had taken to training in, more even than on the barren field directly surrounding the realm gate.

“...How?” he found himself asking. While essence wasn’t perfectly evenly distributed within a plane, this degree of difference was unusual.

Alaric was quiet for a few moments. Then, as though reluctant to tear his gaze away from the red, he crouched down and gently placed a palm flat against the earth.

“We often find bodies near Carran,” the man spoke quietly. “Many travelers do not make it to their final destination, whether killed by demons or by nature, and we have no way of identifying them or returning them to their families.”

Carefully, he removed his hand and rose to his full height. “It became a custom for the people of this village to bury those unnamed souls here.”

Lazar stared down at the ground. While it was about as dry and bare as everywhere else in the forest, if he looked closely, he could indeed see areas where it appeared more recently overturned than others. Splotches of darker colors marking the earth’s history.

Alaric gestured at the flowers. “We’re not entirely sure why, but it’s believed that the tree absorbs the essence and souls of those buried here, allowing it to bloom where no others can.” He smiled fondly. “That’s what my husband used to say, at least.”

The seraph eyed the man carefully. “…You mentioned that he’d passed away, correct?”

Alaric nodded. “Killed by an ascended flesh eater.” Something dark passed through his eyes, bitterness tracing his words, but he shook his head and the emotion was gone as quickly as it had appeared. “He’s buried here as well, actually. That was his last request.” He turned to face Lazar and Ciel.

“This area is closer and safer than venturing into the forest every day. Of course, in the end it’s up to you to decide where you’d prefer to train, but I thought I’d at least present it as an option.”

It would indeed be much more convenient. Still, as Lazar eyed those scarlet blossoms, the hints of the roots jutting out from the ground, he hesitated.

“Is it really alright? This place seems important to you.”

Alaric chuckled at that. “There’s no cause for concern. If anything, I believe if my husband were still here, he would be the first to help you ascend. He used to always nag me for choosing to stay on the first plane,” he added with a fond shake of his head.

Behind Lazar, Ciel raised an eyebrow. “What, did you stay for love or something?”

“It does sound rather sappy when you phrase it like that,” Alaric admitted. “But yes, that’s not incorrect.”

Lazar studied the man closely. From what he understood of his background, choosing to remain on the first plane would’ve been treated as desertion, based on the second plane’s strict laws regarding travel between realms. The man had been a knight and high up enough to have learned some magic, so he would’ve had a set life and career ahead of him. It must have been a complete change to move to the first plane; barely anything of his former life would’ve remained.

“Do you ever regret it?”

The words came out before the seraph could stop them, but Alaric didn’t hesitate to shake his head.

“No. I would be lying if I claimed I never thought about what would’ve happened had I chosen to stay in the second plane.” His brows furrowed, dark brown eyes shifting downwards. “I’m sure it would’ve been easier, in many ways. Less painful.” The final part was spoken quietly, barely above the sound of the wind.

“Still, I don’t regret my decision.” Alaric raised his head again, reaching out a hand and catching a falling blossom lightly in his palm. “Even if our time together had been further shortened, I think I still would’ve made the same choice.”

Lazar gazed silently up at the red blossoms, rippling in the wind like waves. The way the petals scattered reminded him of the Cloud Forest of Elysium, but the color, so vibrant and burning, brought to mind those flashes of memory, that scarlet sky. The mark of the fallen ached dully in his chest. He exhaled.

“I see.” The seraph turned and met Alaric’s gaze.

“Thank you for showing us this place, and for speaking with us,” he said quietly.

The man shook his head. “It’s no trouble. You’ve already done this village a great service by warning me of that—that place.” He stumbled uncharacteristically over his words, unable to find a way to sufficiently describe the strange, unnatural warping and colliding of planes. Lazar suspected the man was still trying to process it.

Clearing his throat and recomposing himself, Alaric straightened.

“I’m afraid I must return now. Festival preparations are rather involved, as you saw. I will leave you to train in peace.”

“Please let us know if we can help with anything,” Lazar said.

Alaric nodded, and with a final wave, the man turned and departed the area, soon disappearing behind the barren branches of the forest.

Another gust of wind blew past, and a few more petals fell, swirling in the air before landing softly atop the ground in a steadily growing carpet of red. A few feet away, Ciel stared down at those petals, the demon’s expression a blank mask.

Lazar took a few steps closer to the tree. He carefully set his halberd down and reached for the diagram, spreading the page out and smoothing the wrinkles that had formed. When he breathed, the air itself felt crisper here, as though his lungs had never truly been full before this.

“Starting?”

Ciel spoke from the side, the demon having found a particularly flat boulder to lounge on. Those golden eyes studied him, sharp despite her otherwise casual movements and voice.

Lazar focused, allowing the essence strands to weave across his vision again. He nodded at the flesh eater, then turned back to the red blossoms and the silvery tangle of strings.

When the next gust of wind blew past, the seraph inhaled, concentrating on the faint presence of his soul, and reached out.