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Mika longed to break contact. To pull away. Every memory struck her like a blade to the gut—as if by the act of witnessing it, it became truly her own again. Her own agony, her own despair. Her own children, stripped of their will, weaponized against her loved ones. Her own creations, warped into the tools of her people’s destruction. Still she refused to stop, refused to look away.

But it was Talus’s fate which almost broke her resolve.

She was in her bedchamber again. She had nearly exhausted her Singing, and her body was weak. But she carried on nonetheless, because if she stopped for so much as an instant, the others’ Songs would break them, and it would be over. Her guard had fallen already. Her two attendants—and closest friends—had exhausted their Singing. And so Mikanasha pulled herself from their arms to position her last remaining body between the pair and their eight human attackers. Raised her voice as she wove together the melodies for slowing and for blocking, her energy draining by the instant. She dare not attack, for she’d not enough energy to destroy them all…and that would leave them defenseless to the rest.

They had swords and shields, some of them. Others had halberds, and one—a pole-arm. That one was the most resistant to her Song, and was almost upon them by the time he appeared.

Her greatest love, her Talus.

Wounded. Haggard. But still standing. From between the human’s looming forms their eyes met for the briefest of moments. And then he was on them, roaring his Stormsong, transformed as he always was in battle—wielding wind and his massive bastard sword like a butcher gone mad. He cut down one after another of the humans—until suddenly his Song broke off and he choked, blood spurting from his lips as he fell to his knees. Only three of the human men still stood…one of them behind Talus, his spear thrust through the battered armor at his back. Lodged in his chest. In the next heartbeat, before she could so much as think, let alone act, one of the others charged the fallen orc—sword raised, swinging down in a great arc into Talus’s neck, and through it, and past it. His head rolled across the floor in a spray of blood.

Mikanasha’s Song shattered as she screamed, but only for a heartbeat. Before either of the remaining humans could take advantage of the fact that she was no longer blocking them, her shriek became a melody. The humans barely had time to scream as their organs burst, their bones cracked inward, their muscles tore, and their eyes bulged out. In the next instant, they were little more than tangled sacks of meat seeping over the stone tiles of her chamber.

And the last of her power went out of her.

Scrambling forward, Mikanasha dropped to her knees beside Talus’s corpse, sobbing wildly, drenched in sweat. Barely able to breathe. Her attendants ran forward, Elzibeth kneeling at her side to loop her arms around her shoulders while Almia made for the door. Two human women that had stood by her side, had taken up the mantle of traitor and the ire of all their people for her. And even then, she held fear and suspicion in her heart. Even then, she wondered if and when they might turn on her.

But just as Almia laid her hands to the massive latch and began to shove the door closed, the pounding of footsteps sounded from beyond, and it burst suddenly forward. The woman shrieked as she fell to the floor. But her cries were cut off in the next instant as one of Mika’s more human children put a boot to her throat, and another plunged his sword through her skull.

Elzibeth screamed in fear and rage both, lunging sideways to snatch a sword from the hand of a corpse, though she’d a dagger at her thigh. But as the woman rushed forward, Mikanasha threw an arm out to stop her.

“Please,” she said, peering up into the eyes of the child nearest her. He was three times her height, and she could not look at him without seeing Talus, though he had the luminous gaze of the Ulvari. He bore Theodor’s smirk, too, even as a tear slipped down his cheek.

“Please, she’s human. Just let her go. I won’t resist you…just…let her go.”

But Mikanasha’s words were drowned to nothing almost at once as another of her sons Sang out. Elzibeth screamed as her body broke and burst, as if crushed by some great invisible fist. She dropped wetly to the floor, and then was quiet.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

Mikanasha took one final look at the son who stood before her—into the eyes that were so like hers, the face so like Talus’s beautiful face—and withdrew her consciousness from her final living body. The last thing her first eyes saw was the raising of a sword.

The memories shifted. Became thoughts, feelings, darkness.

Mikanasha was trapped within herself, within the core. Theodor had overpowered her. She could no longer possess creatures or constructs, no longer look out upon her world through the senses of beast or mycelium nor even the energetic awareness of storm stone.

But she was not powerless. Far from it. The core was her and she was the core, despite Theodor’s tyranny and violation. From the depths of the silent darkness where he dare not look, she worked her changes. So gradually, so discreetly, that Theodor—who’d assumed she’d given up and gone dormant—did not even notice. Not until decades had passed, the triggers she’d so carefully crafted were pulled, and the chain-reactions hit.

The constructs turned first, initially, refusing all human attempts at control and often even outright attacking their users. Then came the blightbeasts—corrupted shardbeasts which made monsters of anything with human blood unfortunate enough to make contact with their spraying biles. And the great Shardwrym which had once been guardian to all peoples of the Rend now turned on anyone who dared touch so much as a brick of sacred Ulvari architecture. That one had gotten away from her, consumed and manifested her impotent rage in ways even she, in her weakened state, could not control.

Next went the Mists. They’d been Mikanasha’s own revolutionary invention to begin with. A form of Boundary that not only made broad daylight bearable to Ulvari eyes, but provided inoffensive illumination in the darkness for the facets of Ahvar who lacked the capability for echolocation. It even provided some of the nutrients, and much of the light and moisture needed by the diverse ecosystem she’d cultivated in the Rend—varying from region-to-region as needed.

It pained her to turn it to so vile an end. But it fed the riotous fury in her, too. For by the time the humans of the Rend began to notice they were changing, it was too late for them. Like all of Mikanasha’s alterations, once the warp was triggered, it was sudden and overwhelming. Humans—every full-blooded human who touched so much as a particle of the Mists—became monsters.

And she was able to see them for herself, because Theodor was one of the first to go. His primary consciousnesses, unlike hers, was still housed in its original body. And when that body became more insect than human, he lost much of his power over her. The echo of Theodor still fought her every step of the way. But he could not stop her from watching through the eyes of one of her un-corrupted shardbeasts as all through the Rend, the humans were revealed for the invading vermin that they were.

A part of her wondered how many of those she changed had been like Almia, or Elzibeth. And a part of her didn’t care.

Her final act of sabotage had been, perhaps, her most cruel of all. Theodor’s primary goal in his coup had been the creation of what his faction considered the Holy Grail—a princess so human that barely any Ulvari traits could be discerned in her whatsoever, save that she possessed the ability to create a core. A human core.

And by the time they were forced to flee the Rend, they had succeeded…mostly.

The human princess was perfect in almost every way, save three vital flaws. Firstly, she would be unable to grant humanity new Songs, as they had surely hoped she would. Secondly, she and her descendants would create only one princess for each generation.

Thirdly and most damningly, Mikanasha had planted within her an extra seed. A seed of undoing which would only make itself known generations from the day of her Quickening. Only once the humans were entirely, desperately dependent upon the support and power of cores. And when that day arrived, when their whole world came crashing down around them…they would come for her. Whatever iterations of Mikanasha that still existed then. Whichever they could get their hands on. To repeat the entire process.

And that’s where you come in. This time, though the thought was still only the ghost of a memory, Mika knew that her past self was again addressing her directly.

The humans will be forced into the Rend, to seek out the ancient tunnels, to capture you. I will have gone dormant by then, but, if I am still alive…so too will be the Mists. Though that will not stop them entirely, and not for long. I have seen into their hearts. I have seen their lust for dominance. I beseech you. Quicken your core. Merge with me. Take this place back, for both of us. And then, when the humans come, we will be prepared. They shall become the fuel in our machine of war, and we will strike such a terror into their souls that they will never again dare to covet what is ours.

The memory echoed and then faded into darkness and silence. Gradually, the outside world—the present day world—broke through, and Mika pried open her eyes. Someone was shoving at the chamber door. Grunting in pain.

“Mikanasha!” The voice was muffled, but by then she’d have known it through three doors, let alone one.

“Uthur!” Mika shouted back. The black roots lowered her to the floor, and as she sprinted over to the entryway, they pulled the door open for her, too. Uthur had been just about to shove his shoulder against it again, and nearly lost his footing as he stumbled to a stop. Mika’s blood went cold with horror as her eyes fixed upon his chest—nearly bared now as much of his armor and tunic had been ripped away. To a spot just to the side of his heart, where something luminous and violet pulsed, glowing from between the cage of his ribs.