The day she changed the world arrived without fanfare or distinction. As always, the morning aurora came with the tide to brighten the sky in pastel waves. The tide was a gentle one that day, befitting the calm weather so typical of the season, and the sweet spring breeze that accompanied it carried a new crop of coral spores to dance on the cool updrafts in shimmering, immaterial clouds as they made their languid way to the atoll mountains above the city.
Gabriel intended to oversleep that morning, but a lifetime of punctuality saw her awaken with the tide as she had every day before. Unlike every other day before, she lay on her palette after awakening, unmoving, as she contemplated the rebellion of returning to sleep and counted all the reasons she did or did not need to rise at that moment. She lingered as the dawn broke outside, illuminating her chambers with the dreamlike reflections of the colours above and, almost accusingly, bringing to light the wall-sized painting of the capital city that hung opposite her palette.
She had painted that image herself well before the room it now hung in existed, back when the city was little more than a dream she intended to see realised. For many thousands of seasons now, it had been a flawless depiction of what a flight over the main city would show. Not a single detail out of place in the painting, not a single detail changed from her initial vision. Gabriel rose to begin her morning routine before the dawn’s light could reach the top of her walls, as she had every day before.
Her first act of the day was, as always, to retrieve the journal in which she logged her nightly dreams. Gabriel settled at her writing desk with the logbook, opened to the appropriate page, and, after gathering her trailing sleeve in hand so as not to smudge the ink, marked the date on a fresh line and wrote her daily entry, which read, in its entirety: ‘As expected.’
Every previous line on the page read the same, barring the date, as did every preceding page in the journal. That duty thus concluded, Gabriel returned her brush to its holder and the journal back to its place on the bookshelf, alongside the hundreds of identical filled logbooks. It had been several dozen journals past since Gabriel had dropped the initial three words of her account. Shelf upon shelf contained logbooks with pages of long-passed dates and the same concision written over and over in her precise hand. ‘The day proceeds as expected.’
The rest of her morning routine endeavoured to prove that statement accurate. Gabriel dressed and broke her fast in her private courtyard per the allowance of the cool, clear weather. The meal was excellent, as always, and accompanied by her favourite tea, perfectly brewed. She turned the cup in her hands in a show of contemplation as she sipped at it, but if pressed would have to admit she barely tasted the flavour. The soft frond trees decorating the courtyard were beautiful in the morning light, the pastel pinks of their gently undulating branches catching the reflected colours of the aurora in a way that was most aesthetically pleasing even without their blossoms in bloom, but that was the reason they had been chosen for this location.
The morning council with her court offered no surprises. Gabriel was the first to enter the council chamber, as was proper, and took her seat on the high throne at the head of the room with faultless grace. As soon as she settled herself, drawn her silks around herself in the tasteful arrangement, her Saerim filed into the room to take their places, arriving in the order they did every morning. Gabriel’s expression never faltered as they greeted her with the appropriate respect and she granted them leave to take their seats. The opening niceties were observed yet again, and without wasting any further time, her Regent called the meeting to order.
The daily reports were not worth Gabriel’s commentary, so she kept her silence, observing her Saerim and listening to their accounts with placid complacency.
“We now have the results from the spring census,” Regent Haziel said, seemingly unaware that she had just spoken the first words of the day repeated on a seasonal basis rather than a daily one. “The results are as follows: Population growth within the capital remains stable, as predicted. The number of fadings within the past cycle was within the single digits, as predicted. The number of new Source-born admitted to the Nursery was as predicted. No new Union-born this cycle, as predicted. The number of admittees to the Academy was as predicted. The number of graduates from the Academy was as predicted.”
And so it went. Gabriel shut her eyes as she listened, seeing the statistics to be listed well before their categories were reached. The world reduced to little more than predicted outcomes of scenarios she had foreseen long ago. She had endeavoured to chart the most stable course for their future and in that there was no doubt she had succeeded.
“The capital’s long-term food storage vaults are at maximum capacity following the season’s harvest,” Regent Haziel reported midway through the supply accounts. “Seeing as this season also marks the suggested expiration date of the earliest deposited supplies, we now find ourselves with a high surplus of perishables, a number which is set to increase dramatically now that we will no longer be able to divert the majority of our unused produce to the vaults.”
Gabriel opened her eyes to observe her Saerim’s reaction to this news.
“Construction of the primary infrastructure on the southern archipelagos has been completed, leaving the area prime for expansion,” offered Saerim Yunel. “With the construction crews idle in the area, we could begin work on another series of vaults ready to begin receiving supplies within a season, if desired.”
“With all due respect, but to what end?” asked Saerim Balthiel. “The vaults in the capital alone are capable of caring for our entire population for a minimum of several hundred cycles, assuming any new production is stopped entirely. Each season we produce triple the supplies needed to care for our current people. We will not have the number of citizens our infrastructure is slated to support for many cycles to come. My Aeon, I do not question your foresight, for to do so would be the basest stupidity, but is continued expansion at this point truly necessary?”
Gabriel inclined her head ever-so-slightly at his question, her expression as placid as always as she held his gaze. “Patience. All will be clear in due time. Remember that it is oft less harmful to prepare for the future than it is to attempt to force a change.”
Saerim Balthiel ducked into a respectful bow to hide the flustered tinge in his cheeks. “Of course, my Aeon.” He would not speak again for the remainder of the council.
“The southern archipelagos are finished for now,” Gabriel continued serenely. “There are no new projects to begin. All idle construction crews will be relegated to maintenance duty, beginning here in the capital and working outwards. Particular attention shall be paid to structural stability as well as the integrity of the waterways. All appropriate measures will be taken to ensure the continued stability of the island foundations. Any units that cannot be reasonably assigned to this service will be placed in reserve.”
If Saerim Yunel felt any surprise at this order, for there had never been a time when the primary construction crews were instructed to idle on maintenance work, she kept it from her countenance well. “It will be done, my Aeon.”
“Beginning next season, food production will be scaled down to just more than one-third of maximum potential, precise numbers to follow, though the full fields are to be maintained at all times,” said Gabriel. “Use this season’s production to replace any foods in the vaults set to expire within the next tencycle. Any surplus, as well as supplies removed from the vaults, may be used to throw a grand feast for the people.”
“Is it prudent to indulge in such excess outside of a festival?” Regent Haziel asked.
“It would be a far less prudent show of excess to allow those supplies to go to waste without seeing use. A citizen council must be arranged to discuss the relocation of those who will be removed from agricultural duty, as well.”
Regent Haziel nodded. “Yes, my Aeon. It will be so. Moving on to the non-perishable supplies, the census reports are as follows.”
Gabriel brushed a hand down her skirts, perfectly smooth though the silk was, as it always had been since the moment it was first woven. The reports continued, to a fault as predicted.
Following the dismissal of the morning council, Gabriel left the palace for her daily constitutional, accompanied, as always, by her handmaiden Sunel. The one break in routine was Gabriel’s request for a parasol despite the mild weather. If Sunel thought it odd that Gabriel requested a parasol on a cloudless day only to carry it unopened, she said nothing of it. They passed under the painted main gates of the palace in unhurried silence, following a path that had been taken countless times before.
The morning was in full swing as they walked through the city. The polished coral of the unpainted flagstones they trod on reflected the brighter swatches of blues and purples from the daytime aurora overhead. The waterways wending through the buildings and under the bridges were crystal clear, as always, and filled with schools of ocean fish brought in with the tidal influx, bright and fantastic against the white sand floor. They passed a fair number of daeva as they went, the average number of citizens out on their morning routines, each of whom greeted her with the appropriate level of respect and cleared the path ahead of her. Gabriel saw each of them, knew many of their stories without ever having spoken to them directly, but none of their faces registered in her mind. She knew them well, but she would not have been able to describe a single face from memory.
Gabriel followed a winding, seemingly arbitrary path through the districts surrounding the palace, maintaining the same placid pace throughout. In time she made it to the edge of the city, to a small, seldom-used pier overlooking the ocean surrounding them. The waters were clear, the slight swells sparkling as they rolled in to lap at the land’s edge, a soothing, eternal melody to her ears. The taste of the sea permeated the wind that tugged at her as if in greeting; it threatened to undo her hair from its elaborate twist, but she had planned accordingly and little more than her bangs were ruffled. A bloom of airborne jellyfish milled above the swells, drawn in by the mass spawn of coral spores seeking the wind to travel inland. A sea dragon circled the water under the jellies, a rare sight this close to land, though it was currently impossible to see from the shore. In a few moments, it would breach to snap at the lowest of the jellyfish, but staying long enough to witness it would be a mistake.
Closing her eyes, Gabriel allowed herself to wallow in the closeness of the ocean. It had been many thousands of seasons since she had seen a sea dragon outside of dreams. Irresponsible though it was to consider, at that moment it was a very real temptation to linger. She saw it in her mind’s eye, the shining silver of its scales gleaming in the light, its translucent fins breaking the surface foam as it swiped at the luminescent jellies it sought. Ten breaths longer and that sight would become a reality. Nine breaths longer and she would be too late. The sea truly was lovely today. She had yet to see the edge of it or the full scope of its depths. Perhaps the boundaries of it did not matter, perhaps they did not exist. Hopefully, the day would come soon when she would be able to answer those questions. Four breaths to go.
Gabriel turned from the pier to return to the city, no part of her countenance betraying her thoughts. Behind her, the distant splash of the sea dragon breaching and playing in the surface waves echoed over the breaking surf, but she did not turn to see it.
This time her course had clear purpose, though it remained winding and she kept a steady, seemingly unhurried pace. She headed for the residential district on the southern edge of the Academy grounds, where the low buildings had wide canals between their gardens and many of the doors were painted according to the preference of their inhabitants. This city was her pride and joy, the result of immaculate planning where no detail was left unaccounted for. As she walked, Gabriel pondered at when, exactly, that pride had ceased to impress her.
A modest square stood watch at the boundary between the residential area and the Academy grounds, if one could call it a ‘square’ in the traditional sense. It was a junction of three major walkways, wide stretches of polished coral that arched over the canals to form an elevated platform suspended over the waters, hosting an elaborate statue and ringed by low benches sheltered by more of the same soft, tree-like corals favoured in the palace courtyards. The statue was of little interest to Gabriel - in fact, it was of her, standing with her eyes closed and hands clasped before her as if in slumber while a pair of sea dragons rose from the waters below to twine around her - but the local daeva had adopted it as both a meeting place and a token of good luck to visit before major life events. Students from the Academy, in particular, visited it with such regularity to place a hand on the base of the statue in a naive search for guidance that they had worn a shallow but lengthy dip into the path in front of its base.
Gabriel approached the statue at the same measured pace as the rest of her stroll, by all appearances unaware of her surroundings for all the attention she paid them, Sunel three paces behind her, as always. She rounded the base of the statue to reach its front at the same time as a young daeva from the Academy; the boy had run ahead of his group of friends, the rest of whom were still laughing and chattering amongst themselves as they approached the northernmost bridge accessing the square. Whatever they had been discussing was still in the front of the boy’s mind, for he was looking over his shoulder at them, laughing, while he ran, only looking forward at the last moment to avoid running into anything.
He skidded to a stop just in time to avoid colliding with Gabriel, at the outer edge of the shallow dip in front of the statue. At the realisation that he’d nearly run into someone, he clasped his hands together apologetically, bowing quickly even as he was unable to dispel the grin from his face. “Pardon me, Elder, I meant no disrespect, I was merely…” A glance at his goal, the statue, midway through his sentence stopped him from finishing that thought. His grin vanished. His eyes widened. He bowed again, properly this time. “M-my Aeon! Please, I beg your forgiveness, I -”
Gabriel silenced him with a slight wave of her hand. She had wasted too much time this morning to indulge in pleasantries now. Instead, she held out the parasol she carried towards the boy. “Carry this two steps to your right.”
The thought of questioning never appeared to cross the daeva’s mind as he took the offered parasol with trembling hands. He clutched it to his chest as he moved where she had indicated, in the process setting himself in the nadir of the ditch. Overhead, a pair of daeva flew low over the buildings with a polished stone table suspended in a sling between them. To the north, a second, more lively group of Academy students were joining up with the group the boy had broken away from, a pair of them passing a ball back and forth as they laughed. From the south, a gaggle of young children were being herded across the bridge by a supremely even-tempered Nursery attendant. Gabriel shut her eyes and took a breath, remembering each of these details before they had a chance to play out.
“Just so,” she told the boy. “Now, hold steady.” She flicked her hands free of her trailing sleeves and held them up for the boy to see. Once he had turned the proper angle to face her fully, she clapped her hands together once.
The adolescent enthusiasm from the Academy students to the north reached a crescendo when a playful jostle resulted in a two-man tumble to the ground; the second student fell on top of the ball, which shot out from underneath him, ricocheting off the railway of the bridge and into the square proper, where it slammed into the shoulder of the boy Gabriel had given her parasol to. He staggered to the side with a shocked squeak but managed to keep his footing as the ball bounced from him to slam into the statue at precisely the right angle and speed to snap a front foot off of one of the two dragons depicted. The severed claw sailed free and embedded itself, point-first, into the handle of the parasol the young daeva clung to, the sharp tip of the severed part held at bay from his neck by a scant fingers width of perfectly positioned lacquered wood.
For a moment, no one moved. The ball landed harmlessly beside the boy, rolling to a stop in the shallow ditch by his feet. The two daeva carrying the table overhead passed by without stopping, unaware that anything had taken place below. The boy gasped sharply as his sense returned to him at last, turning the parasol in his grasp with shaking hands to better look at the dislodged piece of the statue that had nearly removed his throat. His mouth opened and shut without producing any sound, his eyes darting between the claw, the statue it had come from, and Gabriel in a frantic, repeating circle as he struggled with his shock. Gabriel pointedly tilted her head to look behind him. The boy followed her gaze, turning on his heels to see the group of Nursery children milling through the square, taking particular notice of a young girl no older than her fourth cycle in the direct path the claw would have flown in had no one stopped it. When the daeva turned to face Gabriel again, he was nearly in tears.
“M-my Aeon,” he stammered, his awe so palpable it nearly stirred her sympathy. “How can I ever…”
“I would have that back,” Gabriel said, inclining her head to the parasol still clutched in his grip like a lifeline. Once the boy complied, she plucked the severed claw from the handle of her parasol and placed it on the base of the statue, at the curled tail of the dragon it had been split from. Next to the polished dent where daeva frequently placed their hands to ask for guidance. Almost as if an afterthought, she told the boy, “Your exam will go well so long as you keep your head. You’ve studied adequately to know the correct answers, provided your mind is not clouded with panic.”
The boy squeaked again, seemingly unsure how to take this news. “Th-thank you, my Aeon.”
With nothing else to say, Gabriel opened the parasol to keep the coral spores from her hair and left the square, Sunel following behind her as always. The rest of the Academy students hurried into the square to check on their friend; the first one to recognise her stopped the rest of the group in their tracks. Gabriel barely heard their greetings, her mind already elsewhere as she set a course for the centre of the city.
“My Aeon, if I may be so bold as to ask, what was the alternative?” Sunel questioned once the square was behind them.
Gabriel did not turn to face her handmaiden, spinning the parasol in her grip to feel the break in the wood passing under her skin. “Seven lives four summers from now, six of them before their fifth Nameday. Were its course not interrupted, the ball would bounce off the statue to hit the daeva moving the table overhead. The table, in turn, would break upon striking the platform; a fragment of the leg would kill that young girl, while the main body would hit the platform at just such an angle to create fractures in the base and splinter two of the supports below the waterline. It would go unnoticed till the summer solstice, the night after a storm when the platform would shatter during a Nursery outing to decorate for the festival. In the chaos, several children would be trapped under the rubble or swept into the canal pipes. Furthermore, that boy will now rededicate himself to his studies with renewed consideration to his path. In time, he will be instrumental to the development of the southern archipelago districts.”
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“What a relief that such a tragedy was avoided,” Sunel said. “Shall I send for someone to see to the statue, my Aeon?”
Gabriel thought of the sea and of the sea dragon she had almost stayed to witness. Her fingers dug into the hole in the handle of her parasol, probing the depths of the wound. “No need. It will be cared for when necessary.”
Sunel did not argue with her.
A wide lagoon claimed the centre of the city, an elevated basin of crystal clear water ringed by a crown of coral and white sandbars. From the heart of the lagoon’s still waters rose a tower, and from the top of that tower, a blinding pillar of pure light cut to the top of the sky. The thrum of its power was tangible even from across the lagoon. It hummed in the back of her mind and caused her fingers to tingle. There was no path across the lagoon, no bridge over the water, but Gabriel did not alter her course.
“Sunel, you are dismissed from your duties for the day,” she decided, quite on a whim, as she approached the water’s edge. “Enjoy your afternoon and I will see you at the palace tonight.”
While no doubt surprised by this unprecedented order, Sunel kept her composure well. She bowed to cover her hesitation. “As you say, my Aeon. Please, have a nice day.”
A response that could only be described as expected.
Gabriel did not respond as she stepped onto the lagoon. The water rushed up to support her steps, and her walk across the surface of the lagoon was as easy and unhurried as her stroll through the city. Under the glassy surface, the lagoon came alive in response to her presence. Thousands of fish in hundreds of colours schooled through the calm waters and the swaying plants. The braver of them darted to the surface to investigate the ripples left by her trailing hem, only to scatter at the approach of a giant silver sea turtle. This creature, at last, Gabriel acknowledged: she retrieved a biscuit wrapped in dried seaweed from her inner sleeve and dropped it into the water. Such was only polite; the turtle had accompanied her for this crossing every day for over two hundred summers. Though there were few visible signs of its venerable age, Gabriel knew its spawn would soon return to the lagoon, and, in time, one of those spawn would take its place, as it had taken the place of its parent before it. Many generations of turtles had passed since she had stopped naming the individuals.
Her companion left her when she reached the base of the tower, the thrum of power near the Sanctuary too overwhelming for any animals to approach. Gabriel opened the door with a touch, setting aside her wounded parasol at last as she stepped inside.
The Sanctuary tower was lit from below by the pillar of light that rose to the top of the sky to mark the heart of the Sphere, the mark of her eternal covenant with the Source. It filtered through the water below, casting soothing waves of refracted light through the glass floor to play across the walls and ceiling. The walls of the entry room were painted in a complex branching pattern that wrapped around the room in an endless spiral. To an outside observer, the missing segments might have appeared random and the pattern meaningless, but Gabriel saw every potential future, every possible choice each branch represented. She trailed her fingertips over the one branch out of many on the wall as she made her way to the stairs. Her choice to send Sunel to her own devices had no doubt impacted this chart; determining the scope of that impact likely ought to be her focus for the day. Gabriel ignored the stairs leading down to the reservoir containing the Sephirah Yesod, instead climbing up to her private sanctuary on the floor above.
Calling the room a ‘sanctuary’ was a misnomer she would never utter before another soul. It was unlikely such a conversation would ever take place, however; no one else was permitted to enter the tower, and from the outside, her private sanctuary was hidden by the curtains of water cascading from the top of the tower. It was a simple enough chamber, lacking even solid walls; careful application of open piping and gullies atop the domed roof encouraged the water to ring the room. Most of the floor was taken up by a shallow pool of still water host to painstakingly curated white lotus plants. No noise from the city reached this place. Only the melodious sounds of falling water and the eternal, comforting hum of the Sephirah.
Gabriel shed her slippers and left them by the edge of the pool, as she did every day. She made her daily round inspecting the flowers, diligently pinching off any petals or leaves that were soon to wilt and setting what she removed by her slippers to be taken with her when she left. Her breathing was even and slow as she worked, her mind blanking easily as she prepared for her meditation. The bright pattern painted onto the ceiling was clear in the still water, but she took no notice of it. Once finished with the flowers, Gabriel knelt in the centre of the pool, facing the Sephirah’s light but not seeing it.
She heard nothing but the silent song of the Sephirah Yesod now. It beckoned to her as it always did, the sound of the heart of the world, her very soul singing for her attention. There was no reason to ignore it any longer. The water around her shone as her eyes shut and her body ceased to matter.
She was unmade, returned to her basest components and reborn. The waters of the sea of futures swirled around her, infinite in every direction and alight from within with the glow of eternity. Yesod was everywhere and everything; the waters were her soul and every branching current a future she had yet to think into being. Entire worlds were made and erased with the changing tides, paths not taken and choices left unmade altering the course of all that came after them on a cosmic scale. She witnessed all of them, the choices long passed, the alternatives that had not come to be, and the branches yet to come.
At the centre of everything was, as always, the awesome and terrible power of the Source binding all else together. It was the sole constant, the unchanging foundation in this ever-shifting dreamscape, the point from which every thread began. It was the force that pulled the tides, the winds that stirred the waves, the power that gave her life and called her to action in a language that transcended words or meaning. A shadow of Its power brushed over her head in greeting, the softest trace of It alone more tangible than any of the possible futures surrounding her as she was welcomed.
In that moment, she knew true peace. Here was the root of her purpose, the very meaning of her existence, the origin of her Word, her soul. The moment passed, as it did every day, and the Source illuminated the waters around her, ready to guide her power as It had countless times before. It was time for her to study her choices, to chart the consequences of her actions as she had every day since the dawn of time.
That day, however, she had a request. It rose to her mind unbidden; how long it had lurked beneath the surface, ignored by routine she could not say. As she stretched her hand over the waters, ready as she always had been to fulfil her duty, her plea was quiet and heartfelt. “Please, show me purpose once more.”
The response was instantaneous. The sea of futures lit up with all the colours of the daylight aurora, bright enough to illuminate the empty, endless Void overhead. In the depths of the Void, eight points of light burst into being, so far away they appeared small enough to fit in her hand and yet too bright to look upon directly and growing brighter by the moment. Her heart fluttered at the sight; the other Sephiroth, her fellows, were as familiar to her as her own soul, the Sephirah Yesod, though they had never been this close before. The sky lurched above her, drawing the others closer still and revealing what distance had previously obscured: delicate threads of golden light stretched the impossible distances between them, binding them to each other. More of these threads rose from the sea around her, interwoven chains made from the purest aether linking Yesod to the neighbours she had never met. How she had failed to notice the link before, she could not explain, but the sight of them now brought laughter to her lips.
The other Sephiroth were so close now she could almost hear them, could almost make sense of their scattered thoughts and half-forgotten dreams. The childish want to reach for one gripped her better senses, and she reached out a hand towards one of the two she was bound to as if she could stretch across the Void itself and introduce herself; of course, the distance was too great, no matter how large in the sky the other Sephirah appeared, but she was delighted to find she could feel an echo of them even so, a powerful warmth so intense it turned her touch away even from such a separation.
If Yesod alone was a song, the nine of them connected in tandem was a symphony, a collection of seemingly disparate pieces that balanced each other perfectly to create a harmony beyond description, beyond scrutiny. She revelled in it, this moment of perspective, this reminder of scale.
Her awareness of the sour note undercutting the song was gradual. It was not a scream, nor was it a cry, not here in this place that defied such physical things, but that was how she would have described it if pressed. A note of fear, of pain, of hatred sung at the very edge of her awareness so intense it froze her breath in her throat. She had to find where its origin was.
A Sephirah hung in the Void overhead, suspended in a web of golden threads, so low on the horizon that at first glance it appeared to be falling from the sky. A river of the golden threads hung limply from it, the exact colour and light of fresh blood; it might have been disembowelled, were it possible for such a thing to happen to a Sephirah. The severed threads fell to Yesod, falling into the sea of futures and mingling with the water like blood in the currents.
She hurried towards it, seeing the way every thread changed every possibility they touched, seeing the future reshaped and remade before her eyes. The sour note grew louder as she approached the wounded Sephirah. It grew sharper, more painful to listen to until it drowned out the rest of the song entirely, but it carried no meaning, no words, no warning. Only raw suffering and bitter, fearful hatred.
A bundle of golden threads shimmered in the waters before her, an exposed, raw nerve dragged into the light and altering the flow of the current around it. These were her waters, however, and she knew how to gleam answers from them. She knelt and dipped her hands into the water over the golden lines, willing the current to show her where it was being led.
A chain of golden light burst from the depths of the water to wrap around her neck. She clawed at it, struggled to remove it, but her fingers slipped through it as if it were not there. She could not touch it, but it could touch her; it tightened into a collar, heavy and burning on her neck, as eight more chains erupted from below to fasten to the collar. The chains tightened. They pulled down. She could do little more than gasp as she was pulled under the surface of the water and the world became black.
White-hot agony coursed through her as the chains wrapped around her. They drug her deeper into the blackness, further away from her purpose until the song of her own Sephirah was nothing more than a distant, wishful dream. That terrified her more than the pain alone. What would she become without her soul, her link to the Source? Her bonds tightened once again, crushing her slowly. A force pressed against her forehead, hot as a searing brand and bright enough to blind her. With it came a new type of agony: piece by piece, her mind was stripped away and burnt to nothing. Her memories, her plans, her hopes, her very Name were being taken from her. Throughout it all, the wordless, keening cry persisted.
It was only once her sight was taken from her, once she was broken and split open and held in place deep in the darkness and still horribly aware of it all that she understood what that cry meant. The words leapt to her lips unprompted, a quiet whisper repeated with the last of her fading strength. “What did I do wrong?”
A presence watched her from the dark, the source of the hatred behind the pain and fear. She felt the pressure of it on her chest, shoving her away, straining against the bonds. The chains snapped. The trance broke, and she could breathe again. The waters of Yesod rushed to comfort her, quick to wrap around her and ferry her to the surface, holding her aloft to allow her to catch her breath.
The face of the sea of the futures had changed completely. The previously calm waters roiled in upheaval. Futures that had been set for thousands of seasons vanished without a trace. Their replacements were yet too volatile to show themselves, little more than a chaotic jumble of changing possibilities. The other Sephiroth in the Void were so close now their gravity pulled at the waters, further churning the surf. She threw herself into the sea, wading through the heaving waters in desperate search for anything familiar, for any point stable enough to orient herself with.
There was none. An odd smear reflected on the surface prompted her to look up. Behind the other Sephiroth, an impossibility hung in the Void: an indescribable, barely there weakness in the very fabric of the world, all but imperceptible even as she strained her senses to perceive it. Reality itself strained under an unknown pressure as she watched. The pressure worsened, creating gaps through which thick, tar-like darkness oozed.
The world broke open with a sickening lurch. The darkness between the Spheres exploded, tearing through the Void and descending on the Sephiroth themselves. She could do nought but watch as it struck the first of them, devoured it from the inside until a lifeless husk was all that remained, and then used the threads binding them to move to the next. Each one lost cut too deeply, a vital piece of the world gone forever, and they were falling too quickly.
The threads bound them to Yesod, as well. She remembered that with a horrified cry too late. The others resisted the darkness - she could feel them fighting it, feel them failing - but it was only a matter of time before they too burned from the inside. She ran for the nearest anchor connecting her to her neighbours, unsure what she could do but knowing she must try, but for the first time in her life, the water worked against her. Drops of the black sickness were already falling into the sea like rain around her, polluting her waters to sickly sludge that congealed around her legs and made every step a struggle. She could do nought but cry as the last of the others fell and the darkness took Yesod.
The shock of it, icy and cold as it devoured her piecemeal, dropped her to her knees. Her hands fell into the sea of futures and, corrupted and disturbed though it now was, it responded to her presence as it always had. Fragmented glimpses of this new future pressed upon her no matter how she turned her eyes. The Spheres were dying husks of their former glory, their purpose lost and abandoned. The Sephiroth had shattered in the overflow and darkness, irreparably broken under the strain of their own failure. The people were dead. The sky was burning. The wounded child who ran from her for her own safety. The dying bird who must be reborn in its own ashes. The betrayal that ought to have been obvious which ended them all. Two distant figures stood before a great rip in the world, behind which lay only destruction and death. The world was dead. She had failed them all.
She felt rather than saw the corruption take root in Yesod, her soul. Her sight dimmed at last as a coldness beyond what she had thought possible settled in her. The numbness brought with it may have been a kindness as her awareness of the shattered remnants of the world faded at last. She was no longer coherent enough to know if she was relieved or utterly terrified as darkness rose from the depths to drag her under.
A trace of the Source ghosted around her head, comforting her as she waited for the end. Its presence brought her to tears, pitiful, helpless sobs as she was slowly consumed. She had tried to build a good world, she really had.
The words reached her even through her blind terror, forceful as a peal of thunder and tender as the sweetest kiss, the first words the Source had ever Spoken to her: “Stop. This.”
Then, she understood. She saw the nine Spheres, brilliant and connected and alive, overtaken by a shadowy sickness. She saw them fight against it and fail. She saw them ripped apart and defiles. She saw that if this course was left unaltered, they would not survive.
Most importantly, she thought as the blackness of oblivion overtook her and her last breath was stolen from her lips, she saw that it was coming.
Gabriel awoke from her trance with a start.
She pitched forward with a sob, catching herself on her hands only by instinct. For a terrifying moment, she did not know where she was. Pervasive numbness held her body, as was typical following a vision, save for an unexplained burning in her throat. Physical awareness returned to her slowly, as did her bearings. She stared at the clear water rippling around her hands uncomprehendingly, unable to understand how her sudden movements had disturbed it. Even once she had stilled, a steady drip of water droplets upset the surface, blurring and distorting her reflection into something unrecognisable. Tears, those droplets were tears. She was crying? Behind the blurred, dark reflection of her hair, a bright pattern twinkled down from the ceiling above.
Heedless of the tears still streaming down her face, Gabriel rocked back to look at the mural of the cosmos she had painted on the ceiling of her sanctuary long ago. The pattern of the nine Spheres stared back at her, illuminated by the eternal pillar of light marking the Sephirah Yesod casting bright spots along the walls. She had drawn the pattern with bright golden strings tying the Sephiroth together.
Gabriel leapt to her feet as fast as her silks would allow and hurried to the outer wall of her sanctuary, a thin sheet of falling water all that stood between her and the world outside. Lifting one hand to the cascade, Gabriel created a small part in the curtain to reveal what lay beyond.
Yesod spread out in all directions before her. The morning was in peak form, cloudless and untroubled as any that had come before it. The lagoon surrounding the tower was the same as she had left it, the daylight aurora lending the distant waters a play sheen of colour. The city beyond the lagoon remained standing. It had not changed in over a hundred thousand cycles and seemed disinclined to begin changing now. The blinding pillar of light which marked the location of the Sephirah Yesod, her eternal link to the Source, thrummed with life in the Sanctuary beside her. The Sephirah itself hummed in the back of her mind, as it always had, a soothing, untroubled constant.
In the sky above the city, barely visible behind the omnipresent vibrancy of the aurora was a twinkle of light. Due to the season and time of day, she knew it to be Hod, one of the two closest neighbouring Spheres. She had dreamt of Hod in passing perhaps a handful of times. She had sent messages warning of avoidable troubles to them twice. Logically she had always known they existed, that they lived lives no doubt similar to those of her own people. Yet that was as close as they had ever been. With an uncrossable Void between them, she allowed their lives and their problems to feel less important than those of her own Sphere. They may have been bound in purpose and origin by the Source, but that only meant so much when they could never meet.
The darkness had found a way to cross between Spheres. Gabriel shuddered, her hand dropping to her side and allowing the falling water to once more block her view of Yesod. Every future she had planned for died the instant whatever sickness she had foreseen found a way to cross freely between Spheres.
If there was a means of traversing the Void, only one of them would know of it. Her course decided, Gabriel unfurled her wings and stepped through the wall of water separating her private sanctuary from the outside, taking flight back to the city.
Her Regent met her at the steps to the central district’s communications centre, no doubt alerted by the reports of Gabriel’s odd behaviour. The Regent of Yesod wasted no time with unnecessary pleasantries in light of the atypical scenario, falling in step behind Gabriel with an appropriate bow. “My Aeon, is something amiss?”
Gabriel did not break stride to turn and face her, focused as she was on her goal. “Regent Haziel, I have had a vision. The future has changed. It must be changed once more.”
Regent Haziel let out a soft breath. Gabriel presumed it to mean she understood the gravity of that sentence. “What must we do to aid you, my Aeon?”
“I require all information pertaining to crossing the Void brought to my study.”
“My Aeon, we have no such information,” Regent Haziel reminded her. “No one has made it past the auroral curtain to enter the Void, much less cross it. The very attempt is lethal.”
This gave Gabriel pause. She had known that, of course. Her urgency was clouding her clear thinking and causing her to issue unnecessary, counterproductive orders. That would not do. “I require all information, not merely official studies. Idle speculation will qualify. Furthermore, I require all information we have pertaining to the other Spheres and any darkness or illness that may have afflicted them.”
“Shall I include the writings pertaining to the Golden Legend and the Shattering, my Aeon?”
The Golden Legend. It had somehow escaped Gabriel’s consideration. That it could be related to her vision was a dire thought indeed. Yet another reason her first instinct had been the proper reaction. “Yes, you shall. Regent Haziel, you will speak of this to no one.”
“I will not, my Aeon.”
“I am not to be disturbed before I return to the palace unless it is an emergency. Use your discretion to determine if your findings qualify as urgent.”
“Where will you be, my Aeon?”
There was only one place she could be, now that her new course was set. Gabriel held her head high, keenly aware that she had left her slippers in her sanctuary and that her hands were still trembling. Hidden away under the lengths of her silks, no one would know. What mattered now was her actions, more than perhaps ever before. “I am to send a message to Most High.”