Greedy embers embers crept onto a small, crumbled parchment. A single flame erupted forth, turning the white paper black. Ramira watched until nothing but ash remained before sweeping the furnace and washing it down the drain.
Her gaze wandered over the assortment of items she had collected and crafted over the years. While she might hate living in the Cult’s Undercity, she did enjoy her profession. This one, at least. Shame that everything would have to be destroyed eventually.
Ramira would have to pull all her strings to be the one conducting their Cleansing. If information about them leaked out to the Cult, years of work would be for naught. She couldn’t let that happen.
Ramira pitied the newcomers. They had little to do with all this, yet they would have a part to play. She just wished they’d be able to know the truth and still do it willingly. No. Too much was at stake.
While a few lives lost might be tragic, countless people died under the Ascended’s rituals every day. Ramira went out of her atelier and pretended to pay attention to the people browsing through her wares on display. These days, few people appreciated her more sophisticated works, anyway.
Once the so-called Eleventh would be lured to the surface, the Empress could finally confront the Eleventh and bring her to justice. With Aqueel’s invention in the Empress’ possession and the Ascended defeated, nothing would stop the Empress from conquering Bounty’s Reach and stopping her people’s plight. They had suffered enough.
Ramira couldn’t wait for the day she’d be able to see the sun again. Not a single day had passed where she didn’t curse her choice to act as the Empress’ eyes in the Undercity.
Yet, she knew it to be necessary. The Ascended’s vile rituals had to be stopped. When all this was done, no one else would have to die a painful death as their bodies rejected the so-called “boons” from the Matriarch. There would be no second Yanja.
With the Eleventh’s death, the Cult of the Ascended would be no more, and it would be herself who set it all into motion. Ramira liked that thought. She liked it very much.
***
Imira stared at the ceiling of her cell. If she looked long enough, she could discern patterns in the stone, shifting faces and grimaces mocking her from above. She should have been more careful. It had been just one mission of many, a quick hit and run on Mirza’s factory. If that cursed laborer hadn’t escaped, no one would have known. Now, she had to face the consequences. Imira didn’t regret her choices. She just wished Ashnur wouldn’t have to grow up without a mother. They had lost so much, already.
Taking a breath, Imira calmed herself by the familiar presence of the Matriarch’s power in her Landscape. A smoldering flame of Dragonfire sat within the centre of her Landscape, marking her as one of her Chosen. An Ascended of the second circle, Imira had achieved more than many at her age could have ever dreamed of.
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Yet, if were to activate her boon and transformed, this cell would hold. She had tried, more than once. Sadly, there were limits even for her kind. Imira had no allusions of getting out of here alive. She had accepted her fate the moment the guards had taken her away. They wouldn’t take too long, now.
After a hasty declaration of her perceived crimes, she would be beheaded like cattle and thrown into the sea. The ultimate disgrace for any Drakhonian. Yet, through it all, the Matriarch’s calm power stayed with her, warming her from inside. Imira reveled in it, for she knew it would be the last thing she felt before they took her life.
***
There was a certain peace to the woods. In the midsummer night heat, an old man sat in front of his small wooden cabin, gazing out into the peaceful dark. He stretched his legs with a groan. In this forest, nothing and nobody escaped his perception. Apart from one tree, that is. The man shook his head. That boy had no idea just how lucky he was.
For the umpteenth time, Elusco’s Magesight peered below the earth of what had been named Bane’s Hill. By now, nothing but a few stubborn bones remained.
Twenty-three Mages, each one dead by his hand. Twenty-three Mages, sent by the Archmage to act on the decree by the Council and kill the Bane of the Sadmora. Each of them had been a fully-fledged Wielder, four teams of five Mages acting in perfect cohesion. Elusco had only given them the mercy of a quick death. But that had been long ago. Nowadays, most people had already forgotten he existed. His name had already faded to myth and story; his book, his life’s work, banned throughout the continent for the truths it contained.
Some things were just not worth fighting for. In the end, it had turned out people just didn’t care enough. With their lives passing by in a matter of decades, Elusco couldn’t blame them. Not much, at least.
It had been peaceful, these last few decades. Yet, the pulse coming from the Spine had been unmistakable. With Al-Talash rediscovered, the Matriarch awakened, and the Merger Gods knew where, that was bound to change.
He didn’t owe it to anyone, he reminded himself. How many times had he tried to do good, only to be hunted down like a common animal? He should let them all burn in the Matriarch’s fire.
A face flashed before his eyes. The night deepened, and the entire forest held its breath as nature simmered in cold, suppressed fury. From the foot of the Spine all the way to the edge of the forest, animals went into hiding as an overbearing presence descended. Plants withered and died, only to grow anew a heartbeat later.
The old man shook his head, and the forest breathed again. Had it not been enough? Had he not tried, time and time again, only to be disappointed by people’s inability to grasp what was right in front of them?
Elusco was wrong, he realized. He couldn’t allow himself to continue to sit idle. If the Matriarch had the Merger in her possession, nothing would stop her from claiming the other two as well. And then, nothing and nobody would be able to stand in her way, justice forever out of his reach. She had to be stopped. Not for the first time, Elusco wondered why it had chosen Silas. Either way, his apprentice wouldn’t be able to draw himself out of this one. Elusco just had to make sure Silas stayed on the right path. The boy was still young, after all.
The old man stood up. He might not be able to prepare the people for what was to come, but he did owe it to both of them to at least try. One last time. And even though the world might not be ready for the return of the Bane of the Sadmora, none of that would matter if the Matriarch was finally brought to heel.