Chapter One
Blossoming, Blooming; Efflorescence
‘Brambles, briars, thorns and roses. Ever growing, ever consuming.’
* Muttered under the breath of a passing pilgrim, spoken as if in prayer.
Ten years later
Nine stained glass windows, gently backlit from above by the vibrant blue hues of far away lightning, and below by a burning city. Tifenn had come to love these nine stained glass windows, and had come to be enthralled by their ostentatious designs. This room had always been her favourite. Its massive arched ceilings and unassuming stone walls sat at the very back of the complex, and despite its spiritual significance it was often empty. It had given her space for quiet contemplation in times of worry, and respite in times of stress. Its centrepiece, the glass before her. She knew every inch of their design, every hue that they conveyed and every scene that they depicted. Her mind, despite its limitations, never failed to continue to capture the elegance before her. Once they had been the gilded doors to an unbreakable cage, now, they would be her salvation.
The Ised Cathedral was the heart of religion in the Crucible. It was also the only home Tifenn had ever known. The only home she could remember. It stood as a shining beacon in the very centre of the sprawling city-scape and woodlands that lay around it. Blue and white walls stark against the otherwise gothic colours of the buildings closest to it, the cathedral spanned nearly a mile in length, and half that in height. From the outside, raised above trees and ever glowing thanks to strategically placed imbued lodestones, it stood out as a fragment of the divinity it represented. Warm, welcoming, and holy, it embraced the skyline of a dark city, and bathed those under its charge in the light of a being fated to protect them. Ever present, ever watching.
Tifenn thought it to be a farce, in all of the worst ways.
The very root of the organisation that she had been born into was corrupt. The bouquet that she had once hoped to be a part of was infested. Bribes, lies, and deceptions; Tifenn had seen it all with weary and tired eyes. Even as a youth, she had sensed that the unconditional mirth it pretended to exude was a lie. Her mind had begun to develop an apathy for those that stood to benefit from the system that held her. That apathy would grow over the years, and even with a full but empty mind, it had become steadfast, apart of her. It had become so strong, that when the opportunity arose for her to shatter the shackles of her home, she had tried. It had failed, miserably. They had tried to take everything from her. And in the end, only managed to damage her already wispy mind. They had stolen from her memories, but an exuberant wanderlust remained prevalent, an ancient beckoning to older shores, to hold brittle bones of those long past.
Standing in front of the glass, everything behind her felt arbitrary. They had never allowed her the opportunity to lleave as they often did the other Acolytes of her tenure, and she couldn’t force her way out, for all the plans she made slipped between her fingers like sand. Nearly a decade of further service, subservient to monsters that cared not for the faith they inhabited, but for the wealth they could extort from those that would never know better. Tifenn had never progressed any further than that of an Acolyte thanks to her unsuccessful escape attempt. She’d gone on to remain unassuming, forgotten, and unwatched. In the end, she knew these things would be the undoing of her cage. The key to her freedom. Tifenn had grown since that day. A hidden strength fostered in her unusual physiology. Her body was small, too long in some places, too short in others, it hadn’t grown naturally, but it had still grown. Deep within her arms, her legs, her muscles, strength had bloomed, and although her body was physically underdeveloped, incapable of handling it to its truest extents, it was still there. She was as sure of it as she was of the horns on her head, and the wings on her hips.
A new opportunity had arisen for her, a far off siren song that beckoned and called her once more to decisive action. She had heeded it the second it had graced her ears. Wanderlust inescapable. Today Tifenn would escape her bonds. The storm above and fires below heralded her a single chance.
When her mind returned to reality, drawn back in by clashing thunderbolts and far away screams, the faint sounds of approaching footsteps tickled the edge of her ears. Tifenn’s brain wound around itself as a brief panic set in. Who had she told to meet her here? Her frozen body betrayed her mind, and before she had the chance to move, to hide, a wooden door opened. Hidden within the nooks of the room and forgotten to all but the Acolytes, Tifenn’s keen hearing picked up what would have been an otherwise silent entrance into the room. A gift of her ancestry. A curse of her unknown blood. Tifenn couldn’t bring herself to move, but the voice that carried out into the room staunched her fear.
‘The riots have escalated, we couldn’t ask for a better chance than this.’ It started with a hushed urgence, ‘If we’re going to go, it’ll have to be now.’ It said, full of casual familiarity.
Tifenn forced her body to turn to face the room, allowing the grandeur of the glass to fade, and could see that standing between the faraway most pews was the stern form of a man she could only faintly remember. Like her, he was another unassuming Acolyte. Tall, conniving, and boyishly handsome, his hair hung over his face in unkempt waves, and his eyes darted around with a caution that Tifenn could feel in the pit of her stomach. He was half elven, his ears coming to softer points than hers, his facial features slightly sharper. Tifenn remembered that his name was Duncan. She remembered that he was the one that was going to help her get out of here. She remembered that he was a good friend, and perhaps her only confidant.
‘Riots?’ Tifenn asked, her attention returning to the stained glass behind her. ‘I thought the riots hadn’t…’ She waved her hands in the air, searching for the words. ‘I thought there wouldn’t be riots this year. The Sprere claimed to have caught the worst of the dissenters months ago.’
Duncan sighed in a way that told her he’d already mentioned all of this to her, but she had forgotten again. ‘They also said that cult agents had somehow worked their way into the city and freed the worst of them. You speculated that they might be trying to incite riots for a specific reason… remember?’ Tifenn shot him an apologetic wince over her shoulder, so he pressed on. ‘Look, that doesn’t matter. The temple guards have nearly all moved down onto the edge of the greens. We have to g–’
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‘Go. I understand.’ She said, cutting him off. ‘I heard it again today when the windows turned orange and red. The song. I thought it might have stopped for good last month but it started up again. Perhaps this is also a sign that we must move.’
Duncan nodded as if her ramblings made sense to him, bringing forward a large sack, perhaps once used for grain, that she hadn’t seen him carrying. He set it down on the altar in front of her, and began to take things out. ‘I grabbed what I could off of the list you gave me but… well you had repeated a lot of the items, and a few things were missing. I did manage to scrounge together everything we’ll need to get out, and then blend in.’ He pulled out two sets of clothes, one for him, and one for her. For him, a simple tunic and trousers, modest and frayed at their edges. For her, he had managed to procure something slightly higher quality. ‘With all of your extra…’ He waved generally at her wings and horns, ‘appendages’n’the like, I didn’t think it would work if we stuck you in something simple. So,’ he unfurled the pooling swathes of silk into a modestly long dress, which she could see would rest just above her feet. ‘I got a hold of something a little more high society. Cost me three months worth of our allowances, but this stuff is what we’ve been saving it for.’ He scratched his head. ‘Everything else is in the sack.’
Tifenn nodded at him absently, almost disregarding what it was that he had said to her, and took the sack from his hands. She stuck her hand in, searching for an item that she did remember asking for, and when her fingertips graced the cool faceted surface of what she knew was a lodestone, she smiled.
‘I assume,’ she said, removing it from the sack to study it, ‘That this was properly….’ Tifenn felt her face sour, as she realised she had lost the word.
‘Properly imbued? I’m not sure.’ Duncan said, unfurling a map across the floor. ‘You know I don’t have the ear’for it that you do.’
Tifenn found herself opening her mouth to ask what it was that he meant, before her memory was jogged and she realised he was right. She could hear things that he… no, that a lot of other people couldn’t. Tifenn sighed at herself, a mild embarrassment creeping into her cheeks that filled her further with a fiery annoyance. It was one of her intrinsic abilities. Yet she could only remember it fully when prompted. It was as if her psyche refused to allow her to grasp its full connotations, while her body continued to use it subconsciously.
She allowed herself a silent moment to concentrate on letting her senses still, and found that even with time it refused to come. Tifenn’s mind had been turbulent, as of late, and all it served to do was further compound upon her inability to grasp her memories, to control and force her thoughts to yield. When she sighed aloud once more, exacerbated and tired, Duncan's voice found her ear from behind her.
‘There is melody, within magic. Tifenn.’ He said.
There is melody… within magic. She thought. Another familiar term that existed on the edge of her mind, not quite forgotten but never fully internalised. Melody within magic. Songs, within the stone. When Tifenn held the lodestone close to her ear, she could feel a faint buzzing against her skin, and a warmth that spread towards her head. With it came a brief clarity, a memory. Somehow connected to her species' keener hearing… no. Somehow connected to her keener hearing, was the ability to hear magic, to sense the tones and notes of Aether itself. That is what would tell her if the stone in her hand was right. When her mind finally keyed itself in, she found that the sounds were so small and delicate that she almost missed them. The song was angry and forceful, each cresting note crashing down with the force of a thunderstorm. It crackled and popped with a rage that needed to be satiated. It was sporadic. Evocational magic, she assumed.
‘This sounds right… I think.’ Tifenn said. ‘If it isn’t… does our plan hinge on this stone working? I only remember asking for it, I don’t remember why.’
Duncan stilled, ‘Do you want to go over the plan?’ He asked. ‘Just to make sure you know exactly what it is that we’re doing.’
Tifenn gave him a sidelong glance, a slight anger simmering in her chest at his prod towards her memory. But he was right, she had forgotten parts of it.
‘Yes. I suppose.’
He reached into the sack and pulled out a semi-crushed map, hastily sketched by a temple guard not a day before because Tifenn had complained aloud about constantly getting lost. He rolled it out across the floor and began pointing. ‘We’re here, obviously, in Aux-Wing Prounks, room 4-b, the back most room of the cathedral. The first floor entrance is here,’ He said, tapping an x on the map marked entrance with a dirty fingernail. ‘We had two choices. We could have pushed off from this room and moved up in the cathedral towards the teleportation circle on the Mandators floor, or,’ He continued, ‘We could instead push forward across the first floor to the main entrance, and attempt to force our way out. That’s why we spoke about the riots earlier, I suggested the latter due to the possibility of a lessened guard presence.’ He rolled up the map before gently tucking it away into the sack. ‘Curfew came earlier than usual, so I haven’t had a chance to actually go and look at the front doors… but from what I heard from the west-wing guard station they should be gone. I only caught that because it was on the way here though.’
Tifenn pulled at her face, ‘Our entire plan hinges on second hand information, and our ability to improvise.’ Her chest tightened at the thought. ‘Look I know I roped you into this but you’ve really helped enough.’ She pushed down on her thumb, her mind aching with effort. ‘You don’t have to come with me– I’m sure I could do this part alone. Probably.’
Duncan shook his head, a small, but handsome, smile graced his lips. ‘No. You wouldn’t make it very far without me. We’ve both committed to this.’
Tifenns’ fingers tapped a small beat against the lodestone. Each clack of her sharpened nails hitting the same rhythm as the magic within. If they didn’t get this right– if she forgot some part of their plan they’d never get out. They’d never be free. And she would never find her way.
A soft hand on her shoulder grounded her. A firm voice reinforced her. ‘I know that it’s scary. I know that a lot hinges on us getting everything exactly right. But I have faith in the Ised, in his protection and guidance. You hearing that song again after so long is a sign Tifenn, and a good one at that.’ He held up his clenched fist to her, knuckles white around the holy symbol that they shared. ‘He watches us now more than ever.’
When she looked at him, she could see his eyes soften. Her worry evaporated if only for a moment, and she felt a renewed sense of purpose. Determination unbridled.
‘Let’s go, Duncan.’ She said.