While things between my mother and I are smooth like sandpaper, all other preparations are going extremely well. We couldn't make as many riot spikes as we'd like, but every city should have more than enough to keep people safe from domineering mages. I'd like every person to have multiple, but we don't have time for that. No, we are moving today. The only thing that could buy Darian a goddamn extra hour on this planet would be a way to get to Sarafyna first. But I don't have that, so I hope he is enjoying his final breakfast. Well. That's a lie. I hope it's full of maggots and pears.
As I head up the group walking into the path through the Radiant Woods, I can't help but focus on Sarafyna. I dreamt of her again, last night. Or rather, I visited her. This path I'm walking on is proof enough that these dreams are real, somehow. That alone is more healing than anything she is doing to handle my cancer. In a way, anyway. It was going to be so amazing, sharing a home with her. It's still going to be, once I get my hands around those fucking stewards' throats. I want to get her out of there so, so badly. But every night she tells me to wait a little longer. Trusting her is easy. What is not easy is finding something to do with all this violent energy I get when I think about her in a cell.
What she has done here is amazing beyond words. From a cold, dark room where she has to shit in a corner, she reached across the planet and connected every city in Potestia to me, and anyone else who wants to visit them. She felt my need, our need, and while I failed to help her she tore through reality to make sure I had what I needed. Throughout all this, she is only growing stronger, and keeping my cancer at bay in the meantime. I adore her so fucking much. I owe her everything, and I will force the world to stop mistreating her if it costs me my life.
I need to focus. Almost four dozen people want to go back to their respective homes and help wrestle them away from the nobles in charge. To take them back and let them know destroying us won't keep them safe. But not just distracting, but killing Darian and Kallon is necessary to maintain any victories we earn today. I can't afford to be distracted. I don't even want to think about the inevitable meeting with Godfrey. It was easier to play at being friends from a distance. But neither of us has had the time to argue with the other for long. I doubt he was involved in this but... it's never safe to assume anything is too cruel for a man with a crown on his head.
Even if he wasn't, I can expect a finger so stubbornly pointed at me I might as well be north. I already know how my actions will be blamed for this atrocity. Well, perhaps not. It's hard to get a read on Godfrey sometimes. However it goes down, it's going to be extremely unpleasant. But for now, I will focus on the man I know is responsible for a massacre. These fucking riot spikes better work on him. There are still little patches of the Radiant Woods inside the city that will empower me, and my mana is feeling far more stable, but... It won't be enough. A battle of magic will almost certainly end in my death. But if I can get Darian and Kallon inside a riot spike, well. Then I can do some percussive maintenance.
Finally, the group arrives. We stand in front of a shimmering wall. It looks much like the Radiant Woods behind it, the unnatural trees blowing in non-existent wind. But unlike the threatening foliage to either side of us, the air is thick and light reflects at just the wrong angle. It looks almost like a desert mirage. The path to the world of Sarafyna, which will take us anywhere else we need to go. I look behind me, at all the volunteers. People I barely know, Henry's goofy smile, Edward's nervous confidence, Autumn's bit lip. I give them all a massive smile, then back into the portal.
Immediately I feel the warmth of the new environment. The shift is immediate, just like when I touch a tree from the woods, but the location is entirely different. The constant midday sun remains in the sky, but it shines through a ceiling of glass. In all directions, there are shelves, stools, and racks lining an endless maze of walls around wide passageways. On each of these are hats of every variety I can imagine. Or, well, every variety Sara can imagine. I don't know how it works. I recognize several from drawings I've made for her. I fucking love it here. It is so wonderfully Sarafyna. It still carries grief, saturating the air. But where it fills the Radiant Woods like humidity, here it's like sunlight. Gentle. Calm. But still relentless.
I love her. I pick a woman's tricorn hat with a feather lining along the brim and put it on. I'm coming for you next Sara. I'm coming and I'm pulling you out of there. In the meantime, I'll carry you with me as far as I can, in whatever way I can.
In the Radiant Woods, once you enter you enter. There doesn't seem to be a massive correlation between where you enter and where in the woods you end up. This is different. In the, uh, Radiant Hat shop? I don't know, I'll wait for Sara to name it. Anyway, in Hats R' Us here, however wide and endless the space may appear, everyone shows up from the same spot. Well, everyone from the same place has the same entrance. Kind of like, well, normal places. It's more magical than that, but groups similar to mine start emerging from different exits. I am not the only one who is angry, and an electricity fills the air as collective fury gathers in one spot.
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I scan the crowd. The room seems to be opening up somehow as more people arrive. Making space. This room feels like war. I can see it. In every twitch of the hands, every silent glare. These people are ready to fight. I approach the middle of the room while Ed, Henry, and Autumn start to help distribute riot spikes to different wagons and bags. Every eye in the room is on me. All of them are ready. A few faces present surprise me. Even Leo came to help. Leo and Charlotte.
I almost want to cry seeing them at all. But seeing Leo, out of his room and ready to fight back... Something must have happened with him in all that time. He looks nervous and still presents... differently than when I met him. But he is here, and that is amazing. I'll have to see if he is finally up to talk to me before we go. But first, I have to try and rally a crowd before we burn the country they grew up in. I am better at putting the fear of, well, not god in people but fuck it. I'll lean into that.
"Thank you, everyone, for coming to help," I begin. Then I realize I am still wearing a silly hat, consider taking it off, but simply tip it up to reveal my face instead. Let Sara join me in this. "Everyone knows what happened. Two weeks ago, Tumult was destroyed. People's home. Family. Children. A massive home turned into a mass grave of ash. To teach us a lesson. Me, you, even the nobles ruling our cities. To teach us to submit. To prove that standing up is too dangerous. That the only safety we can ever expect, ever deserve, is one we beg for at their feet." I spit on the ground, which quickly cleans itself. Oops, sorry Sara.
"Darian knew this would hurt us. Not just the people still in danger, but all of us here. Everyone across the world who escaped them. He didn't just want to beat us into submission. He wanted to punish those who left. He wanted to punish every single person who ever told him no. He wanted to crush our will to live our lives without us groveling at his feet. But you know what? Fuck him. Fuck him, fuck Kallon, and fuck all their little friends. They have so much power. So much strength. Enough power that they’ve never felt unsafe. Have any of them ever asked what might hide in the darkness? Why someone might follow them too close at night? What prowls in the tall grass?
"Of fucking course not. They don't know the instinctive fear of living in a world of predators. They don't understand fear at all. They think it’s a lack of satin, or sugar, or women to pour it in their fucking mouths for them when they’re too tired to gorge themselves on our labor with their own hands. Their greatest fear is a cold fucking bath. So easily they crush. So easily they tear. They beat us, they take our homes, and they don't know fear. They put collars around our necks and brands on our skin, and they don't know fear. They take our names and our minds, and they still don't. know. fear. They think if they push just a little harder, threaten us a little more. They think if they massacre our loved ones, and taunt us with their corpses, that we’ll finally bend the knee and beg for forgiveness? That we'll be too afraid to fight back? They think they can rule us with fear, while they don't know it themselves?
"No. No. Fucking no! They want to find out how far fear can get them? How far they can push us? Well. Let's teach it to them. Throw it through their ornate windows. Burn it into their extravagant gardens. Paint it in the streets. No man with a spear will tell us whether we deserve to eat. No knight will barricade our doors. And no Lord is going to decide on our laws. Absolutely not. We will teach them fear. We will teach them to cower. We’ve long since learned how to be afraid. They spent their lives, your lives, teaching it to you. Well we learned. And every weapon they used to do it? Every tool of power and death and control? We'll choke them with each and every one. It’s our right.
"As for the kings? Not just the current kings, but every man, woman, or anything else that tries to put a crown on their head and call themselves our ruler? We'll show them too. What happens when they put their boots in the wrong place and press too hard. We will suffer no fucking kings."
The speech doesn't exactly inspire a cheer, but these people are too angry to cheer. Too sick with grief. And I don't need a cheer. I need people who are prepared for incredible violence. And this group is. But fear remains behind their eyes. A man speaks from the crowd, cutting the furious, nervous energy. "They are right, though. They are too powerful for us to fight. Few of us know any combat magic. Few of us know any combat at all. Show us these 'riot spikes'!" he demands. There are some murmurs of discontent but I nod.
"No, you are right. You're as right to be scared as you are to be angry," I answer, looking through the thick crowd for the speaker. I can't find him. "I'm sorry, I don't know who spoke, but uh, the commentator is right. You are all right. So let me show you." At this, I flare my mana. Even in Sara's space, this is still a part of the Radiant Woods in a way. The grief of the area. The grief of all these people. Sarafyna's grief. I feel it all flow through me, enhancing my aura. Around my right arm, the mana bends the light almost like Godfreys. But this is the aura of their grief. It can't hurt them. Instead of oppressing them, each person in the crowd stands just a little taller. Not with pride, but like a weight has been eased.
"This," I announce, pulling a spike out, "Is a riot spike." I channel mana into it and in a blink, the aura vanishes. "With these, if you can reach them, you can make them bleed."