Lillith
I groan as I wake up in a familiar bed. The world is blurred around me as I try to get my bearings. The last thing I remember was speaking with Sara. She was expanding the roads to her hat shop and we were discussing what it should be called. Nothing fancy like 'Radiant Woods', just 'the hat shop'. That's how she thinks of it. Not as an impossible extradimensional space entirely in her control. Just as her hat shop. This is incredibly cute, truth be told. In fact, the last thing I remember was considering how furiously attractive that was and... I must have passed out. I suppose the moment of relaxation was the opportunity my body needed to force rest. Sara must have princess carried my ass back here.
But... I wasn't done. There were so many people all across the country I could still have helped. My brothers, for one. Visenar needed more than a little attention. Yeah, I managed the violent bits but there is a lot more work to do than that. I suppose I was in no shape for it. Sara made the right call. I rub my bleary eyes with both hands as the world starts to take shape. Moonlight fills my room and I feel well rested for the first time in a long time. To my left, Ed is asleep in a chair while Clarisse writes in a notebook to my right.
"Evening," I greet and she smiles without looking at me.
"Glad to see they are working for you. Dominic said the new circle interfered with his control. I had a feeling they might. You have a tendency to break the rules with these things," she replies.
"Huh?" I ask, rubbing the back of my neck as I sit up. "What do you mean? No, never mind that, what happened in Potestia? How many people made it back safely? I need to go back." She shakes her head.
"One thing at a time. We need to see how your body responds to the prosthetics first. Your body was in pretty bad shape when you got back, and you are remarkably resistant to Sarafyna's healing. Now, wiggle your toes for me. Can you feel them?" she says, stopping me from climbing out of bed. I pause for a moment and pull my hand from behind my head, giving it a proper look for the first time since waking up. It is... not my arm. It is, but it's not my original. I mean, I guess the last one wasn't either. I am fitted with a prosthetic like the boy I had seen a couple of months ago. It's... amazing. I channel mana through it as easily as my own flesh, and it moves with zero latency. I didn't even realize it wasn't my real arm.
I feel it, under the surface. A complex arrangement of thin metal fibers and cables simulating muscle. The top has some sort of only slightly opaque material that feels almost exactly like skin. It doesn't look like skin, but it feels like it. I lack fingernails, and I look a bit like a half-finished terminator, but the feedback I get from it is indiscernible from my left side. "This is... amazing," I admire. Clarisse looks over her glasses at me.
"Toes," she reminds. "Wiggle them." Oh right, she did tell me to do that. And I do. I can see the slight movement under the blanket. With them covered I almost have a hard time believing they aren't real. Well. This is a slight upgrade from the little steel self-torture devices I was trying to use. The woman really was wasted teaching basic math to a bunch of kids. Magic itself has been wasted for generations. This is incredible. It seems to run entirely off of mana, and it somehow feels like it has grown into my flesh. It is not seamless, but this is legitimately part of my body now. Nice of her to bother giving me toes.
"Wiggling away," I reply and she smiles.
"Amazing. You know the arm we gave Dominic only worked once we removed the circle, but all of yours work perfectly. Fascinating," she muses. That's right, she mentioned Dominic again. And a circle.
"Dominic is here?" I ask. "Also, what circle?"
She begins writing furiously in her journal again as she answers. "Yes, he and your brother came back together. Seems he has decided to defect to our side entirely. The last nail in the coffin of Potestia, I suppose. The most powerful mage left alive is now standing in opposition to the monarchy. Truly amazing. As for the circle, can't you feel it?" she questions, nodding to my arm. I examine it a little, but fail to see anything. Then, I probe it with my mana. It... it is gathering mana, like it is inside a circle. My right leg and left foot seem to be doing the same just like my body. Wait... no, my body isn't anymore. That is strange. "Finally noticed, did you? Yes, it seems you took a severe injury to your former circle, despite the apparent thickness of your skin there. Clever doing that, but it wasn't foolproof. Your original circle has officially broken. But..."
"But my new... pieces aren't made of blood and bone," I finish. "They have never entered a circle before now. So you adapted my old circle to this new material, and are using it to gather mana where my body has stopped. That's... brilliant. But, it shouldn't work, right? Don't you need a unique design to enchant this to work as an arm at all? How are you using it for two things at once like this?"
"Three things, actually. Ember worked with me on it. They work like your bracelets as well, balancing and gathering excess mana in your body and preventing the spread of cancer. And yes, you are right. It shouldn't work. We tried a less complex version on Dominic and his arm simply didn't move. You are something of an anomaly. A mystery in all things. Just as we still haven't confirmed our theory of why your cancer took so long to manifest, we only have theories about why this works. I believe, and this is why I bothered to try, I believe it has something to do with your body remaining something of a mana space itself. We'll want to study it for a long while before you do anything dangerous," she explains. I flex my fingers and turn my new hand around.
"A lot of guesswork for something you attached to my body while I was sleeping," I poke. "Actually, how did I sleep through all that?"
Clarisse shrugs. "Talk to Sarafyna about it on both counts. She is the one who assured Victor, Ember, and me that it was safe to do. As far as your continued sleep and consent, that is," she shrugs. I want to contest this. I do love Sara but unless I'm actually dying she can't actually make that decision for me. On the other hand, I have to pause. She did answer exactly how I would have, which isn't enough on its own but... I somehow managed to visit her in my sleep before. I'll ask her about it later, but maybe she did ask me somehow. It worked out this time so I will worry about whether a boundary was crossed or not later. Right now, I need more information.
I manage to rush her through the rest of the conversation about my new prosthetics. It is interesting to learn they are actually considerably physically weaker than my organic arm while being stronger magically. But what I really want to know is what happened in Potestia. Finally, after what feels like an hour, I get Clarisse to give me the run-down. Apparently, all things considered, we won. Visenar was the bloodiest battlefield by far, and almost every city in the country has ousted their former lords. It is only a matter of time now. The kings are gone. The support. The magic. The volunteer fighters have been relieved by people spreading food, rebuilding shelter, and establishing communication.
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Visenar, however, had a death toll in the thousands. Everywhere people lived where a dispersal circle aimed at me existed, people died. It makes me sick to my stomach. So many things could have prevented this. If just a couple of them had fallen into place I could have stopped this. But Potestia is free now. It will never be ruled by a king again. "Where is my family? And Sara?" I finally ask. I know Ed is still sleeping a few feet from me, but I'd love to see Henry and Mom soon. And Sarafyna. The time I spent with her was far too little. I don't want to spend the next month just admiring her and giving her back rubs. Clarisse flinches.
"You've been asleep for over a day now. Unfortunately, we all had work to do in that time. Sarafyna is in the Woods. The traitor... the traitor was Charlotte. I don't know why. But... Leo found out, which is the only reason you found out. There was a struggle and... they fell into the woods with a couple of the others. Sara is looking for them." My heart is ice. Charlotte? Why would she? The Woods? Fuck, no wonder Sara didn't wait around. I hate the thought of her on her own again, but she would never leave them there. Not if she could get them out. I just wish I had been awake to go with her.
"Fuck," is all I can come up with.
"Lily..." Ed says, nearly startling my new limbs off my body. When did he wake up? "Lily, you are awake." I look at him.
"Hey, Ed," I smile weakly. "Everything alright?" He looks at me with a funeral in his eyes.
"No," he replies coldly. "Everything is not alright. After you disappeared... After you disappeared there was a lot left to do. A lot of people who still needed help. Dominic stood by me, and we both did what we could. We found as many survivors as we could but... but then we found Autumn."
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Autumn
The sky is on fire. Lillith is up there, fighting a man who is willing to kill us all and I have never been more terrified.
"What does she mean about the torches?" I ask nervously. "How is she going to stop this? What do torches have to do with anything?" I am breathing heavily as we walk through the city. Henry ponders as he listens to Lillith's voice through the whisper sphere.
"Well. I don't know how she is planning on doing it, but... I think she is going to try and catch all of that before it hurts anyone. I believe she mentioned the torches using magic where possible, and fire where light mana was dispersed. Or rather, where the circles Godfrey put in place to catch her are drawn. If I know my psycho sister, she is considering a contest of mana up there. Come on, let's go," he says. I look around.
"But... the torches here use mana stones? Shouldn't we be safe?" I ask. I don't like this. Something about this feels wrong. Like bugs, burrowing under my skin. I have to fight back tears I don't understand. Not the tears of my fear. Not the tears of despair. Something else.
"Yes," he agrees, "But lots of places aren't and not everyone will hear this message. We need to warn people before it's too late." He is right. Of course he is right. I don't know what I was thinking. I look up again. I can feel the heat from here. Liquid fire, ready to kill everyone in the city, and my twin brother's hopeless crush is floating in the sky trying to catch it. It's too much. I know what this feeling is, too. I know exactly what it is. I didn't a moment ago, but as I look up, as I feel the heat of death sear into my skin, I know.
"How... how long do you think it took Godfrey to draw these circles?" I ask. Henry shrugs.
"He used to do nothing but sit around reading romance novels and making Lillith sell his books for him. After that, he just did the same but... with more money I guess? He's had a lot of time on his hands. Still. There are a lot of them. He must have known he was going to need to capture or kill Lily for years now. Maybe as soon as he got to the Capital. No other way it gets this extensive in time. Guess Lily slipped up somewhere," he guesses. My heart sinks.
"And all these people... all these people are going to die because he did, right?" I ask. He pauses, a dark look on his face.
"... Yeah. People are going to die because of him. But, you and I can save a few. Think about that. And hey, at least we aren't being sent to collect my sister's limbs anymore," he jokes, trying to lighten my mood. It doesn't work. People are going to die because of him. People are going to die because of him. People are going to die because of me. I break into a sprint.
"Come on, we have to warn as many people as possible! I scream running ahead of him. He catches up easily and I begin screaming through the streets as we finally reach a border where the torches change from stone to oil. "Run! Run, to where the lamps are stone! It will be safe there! It will be safe!" I cry. That's all it takes for most. Everyone can feel the heat. Everyone can see the sky. It may seem like an empty promise, but many were already reluctantly wandering from their homes. Many, but not all. Lillith sent sound mana all throughout the city, but some people just don't hear the warning, or don't take it seriously. That is where we come in.
More and more people, further into what must be a dispersal circle, begin to flee toward us. People are desperate for any hope at all, even one they don't understand. A mother runs toward us from too far away, holding a child in one arm and dragging another behind her with her free hand. Then it happens. The sky of fire begins to fall. I can see it. Only in the circle above us, it starts to fall. I look at the mother and her children and my eyes bulge, but Henry is faster than me. He runs before I can even process it, into the falling death. The woman moves too slowly, held back by her struggling son.
Henry meets them halfway, scoops the second child up, and runs alongside the frantic mother. Sped up by his aid they approach us faster, and faster. The fire descends upon us; I can feel its heat trying to push me into the ground. I look back at Henry and time slows. He is practically dragging the woman now. The sky falls. Henry runs. My heart beats. Then, finally, he passes into safety a breath before the liquid fire collides with the ground. I am worried it will splash, but it cools immediately into some kind of strange stone wall as soon as it does. Henry is safe. So is the family. They are alive. Henry grins at me.
"Sorry to scare you!" He beams, putting the boy down as the woman next to him falls to her knees, pulling both her kids into an embrace.
"Thank you, thank you so much, thank you thank you thank you" she practically begs.
"Hey, I'm happy to help. I'm just glad you all made it. And hey, I have drugs too, if you need to relax now. I know I do," he offers. The mother is too frantic to care about his stupid jokes. I sigh. He and his sister both. Never serious enough. But... I appreciate it, and he knows it. I love him so much. I'm glad I met Lillith if only because I met her brother. For a moment of inappropriate silliness, I forget about all the other deaths. For a moment. The weight of it may crush me if I think for any longer than that. For now, I just sigh and admire the man I love.
Sharp stones fly past me and Henry both, colliding with the strange wall behind him. Piercing it. Cracking it. A man I vaguely recognize runs past me. I had a class with him, I think? My mind fails to process what is happening as the boy tackles Henry into the now cracked wall. I can't process it as it shatters behind them. I don't understand it as both disappear into the still boiling fire beyond. I am still standing still, thinking about my love for Henry as the hot liquid again cools when it reaches the boundary of the circle.
I stare at the cold wall. Why did everything go quiet? I can't hear anything. What is going on? Where did Henry go? Why? Why is he gone now? What happened? I fall to my knees before I know why. No. No no no no no. I don't understand. I am speaking, I think. "It's my fault. It's my fault. It's my fault. It's my fault."