Valkyrie knelt, dabbing a finger in angelic blood. Then, rubbing her fingertips together, she closed her eyes and summoned the faerie fire through the prism left before her.

As the Witness sees, show me, she prayed.

Her fire obeyed, rising like soap bubbles.

An angel upon her throne

Archangel and Tempest, regal and beautiful

Measured in her rule

Tempered in her justice

Living ward against the Shadow

And this Queen of Malkuth held dear to her heart

The Spear that gave all she had to give to pave that way

In memoriam – forever

“But…Ali didn’t want to be Queen…”

As commanded, the bubbles continued to swell outward.

Oliver leaned over the bed, offering a hand

Belle laid back, exhausted

Tiny fingers wrapped around the mayor’s thumb

“What should we name her?” the mayor asked.

“Peace, I think,” the Wavespeaker answered.

Oliver laughed, rich and full. “Why can’t you name any of your kids something normal?”

Their hands squeezing together in memory of the first daughter

By whose grace might come the second

But that wasn’t right. Mother was barren! Only the Stormmother’s intervention had…

To her shame, Valkyrie realized that her excuse was born of pure jealousy.

That this echo should speak of another daughter loved as well as she!

We never truly leave behind our old selves, Rie counseled. Only tame them, and then only by uneasy shackles.

And that old self had once crowed to Lyla: Die young! Die pretty! Die blazing bright!

Excuses for bad decisions; they were too young and beautiful to consider the future. Time was something that only marched for normal people.

“This is Sebastian’s idea of kindness, isn’t it?” she realized. The Witness allowed this blood – this vision! – to provide solace to gird her for the duty.

The blood agreed, showing her glimmers: everyone so proud of her; people weeping as they called her name; a pyre raised in her honor in the center of the temple.

Equivalent exchange, the girl thought. Hey, Mom, your first kid kicked it. We’ll get Lynne to throw in a second.

She even saw the allure of it. The perfect exit stage left – heroine of the stars.

Heroine of sixteen million years, enshrined in youth and perfection.

Valkyrie’s shaking fingers yearned for any who would listen.

Her faerie fire flickered outwards, consuming the last of Sebastian’s blood to engulf her in a new vision. The shimmering bubble walls darkened to the liquid gold of a cockpit. At the center, bubbles congealed into a high-backed chair, a console like a grand piano, and Lynne the Stormmother clad in Azure blue.

The Stormmother straightened from her console and demanded, “Sebastian? What is the meaning of this interruption?” Listening, the goddess frowned. “No, not Sebastian. Not an angel at all…”

Scanning the room, the Stormmother caught Valkyrie’s eyes.

“Odd. You are marked as Spear,” Lynne mused, relaxing. “Far from the field of battle, aren’t we?”

“Battle?!” Valkyrie squeaked. Here was hope, and she cast herself at its mercy! “Stormmother, the radio says Ali destroyed Briarwood!”

“Yes? That is what one does with armies.”

The girl froze mid-thought. “What?”

“Ruhum has exhausted our patience,” the Stormmother explained. “All men claim grievance; all wars proclaim themselves just. My daughter exercised admirable restraint.”

She only killed the ones with weapons

“On the other hand, such a young Spear may be a different kind of cruelty,” Lynne murmured to herself.

Valkyrie balled her fists. “And I bet next you’re going to tell me that the weave of Light eating the whole damn planet is wonderful! Or that Sebastian asking me to…”

To…

“Ah.” The Stormmother closed her eyes, learning much in a few echoes. Smiling bitterly, she shrugged. “All Works have their price, my sweet child.”

“Who’s collecting?!”

The goddess shrugged again. “A Foundation of Entropy, perhaps? That every cost must be greater than its gain.”

“Then you’re going to let her finish this?!”

“To seal the Wyrm? Yes.”

Dear child, I know that Tempest weight

I birthed it

I know what she bears for our sakes

Yes, I will allow it

“And you would let me…”

“I would let you choose, dear child.”

As must we all

Blind and grasping

Praying that we choose well

Over and over and over…

Lynne sighed, smoothed her dress, and offered a smile. “The only advice I can offer is this: decide quickly and do not look back.”

With a wave, the Stormmother severed the connection; Valkyrie’s bubble burst and dumped her back to the hard ground.

Flopping back, Valkyrie squeezed her eyes against the Light now visible even at noon and despaired at immortal Powers powerless before Fate.

***

Alone again, Lynne sank to her captain’s chair.

What right do I have to second-guess my daughter? I who have leveled cities for less! She has met the Wyrm twice while I cowered. She shoulders the Tempest with a grace beyond my own. What are a few belligerent mortals, intent on immolation, before worlds?

Her fingers dug into her thighs.

Should I be remanded by a Spear barely into her bra?!

Yet her misgivings remained, and she pled with the flashing console. “Do not ask me to war against my own daughter…”

I have not the strength

***

Valkyrie spoke to her Whistler minder; to the Jungle mystics; to the Azure priestesses. From each she procured sympathy in spades. Several misunderstood her plight as some form of suitor and offered to take her away for the season.

Despairing, she found mercenary sorts drinking the day away at the base of the mountain. All were happy to entertain her need until the topic of payment came up. Then their faces closed and they shouted her away for wasting their time.

Hiking back up the switchbacks as afternoon waned, she doubted herself. If she wanted to go south, why not simply accept Sebastian’s offer? He would see her to the Bones in the blink of an eye. She could stand before Ali and demand this issue clear up head-on!

This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

But her heart squeezed with powerful certainty that this path led to ruin. The very air around her vibrated with the knife’s edge of Fate…

Sebastian came as Ali’s emissary.

No, as Tempest speaker

Quiet as this whisper was, it still seized her. What was its source? She did not hear the Song, but somehow…her heart quivered with the note.

Meanwhile, her guardian wandered her halcyon glade, muttering, Power and Principalities, inured to death. Are we but tourists upon their land? Stewards or kings…

As ever, Valkyrie wondered what alien thoughts ran through the mind of She Who Listens. How typically unfair that the guardian spied on her waking mind, and she received nothing in return!

“There you are!” her minder snapped from afar. The woman marched down the last switchback to seize Valkyrie by the arm like a truant. “I’d half thought you absconded!”

“To where?” she asked bitterly.

The woman sighed. “Child, you–”

“Spear!” she snapped, yanking her arm free. “The Spear of the Tempest and a witch on my own right!”

Her minder blinked in surprise. “…very well, Spear of the Tempest. It is my duty to accompany you in this unfamiliar land and guard you against its dangers.”

“The greatest danger is above,” she replied, “and your duty fulfilled. My only aim right now is dinner.”

Still the minder insisted on following her to the mess tent.

Is it our fate to be bound, no matter where we wander? Valkyrie wondered.

All attachments are thus, Rie answered. If we seek the utmost expanse of freedom, we must look to the Wyrm.

Shuddering, the girl waited in line for a serving of mutton. Then she escaped the crowded tent and perched on a rock outside.

Her minder sat down a polite distance away.

Time is running out.

Again, that certainty like a whisper – if she waited for Sebastian, she acceded to the inevitable.

Then what? What tools do I have?

She did not know the angels’ distance-defying art…

And I cannot teach you, Rie admitted ruefully. We Sing Yesod of dreams and Tipheret of beauty. Neither resonate with Distance.

Her riches in gold notes were still sitting in her bedroll in Ruhum! No help, witch or otherwise, cared for a wastrel’s problems.

I could call for Ali and demand an explanation.

And if Alisandra intended the same as Sebastian?

What hope would she have of defiance?

The only tool she spied at hand was the horde of sylphs nesting around the peak. Here was the largest flock outside the Jungle, nested for breeding season.

Then in the morning I will call them – as many as will come – and bond them…

She knew it for a fancy. Easy enough to lure a sylph with song, yet a proper bond was the work of seasons. The Care of Creation recommended half a year before beginning any strenuous tasks together, and first-time witches required at least twice that. In Waves, serpent bonding was a five-year apprenticeship starting no younger than sixteen.

Plus, the witches were unlikely to take kindly to her poaching from their peaks.

So I pull off a miracle, steal a sylph flock, and skip five years training.

Then…

What exactly?

Though the sylph was cunning and far-sighted – and smarter than half of Valkyrie’s former classmates – it lacked the raw power to grant flight to a human being.

Sure, a young witch can hurl themselves skywards. Less flight, more human cannonball. A maneuver banned in witching competitions because too many brash young men ate rock from forty feet up when their sylph tired.

That would get her a couple miles south on a good day.

“Might as well just steal a horse,” she muttered.

Hark! Valkyrie the Spear, she who escaped an Inquisitor prison with faerie fire and spit, is now defied before the open grassland!

The Witness was right. Whether she called for Ali or awaited Sebastian, her fate lay at the center of the golden weave. The rest was just the fancy of a child.

Yet her breast ached with mourning for more than just her own fate.

“I wish I understood this feeling, Rie,” the girl mumbled, touching two fingers to her breast. “This yearning…”

Like a voice I once knew

Shouting down from just beyond hearing

Praying for me to…to…what?

Rie stiffened. A voice shouting down from above? Guiding your deepest heart?

“I guess.” Valkyrie sighed. “Tch, mutton’s getting cold.”

Though the mutton tasted like rubber, she finished her meal as the sun sank towards the horizon.

Still bright enough to read by thanks to the Light above…

Valkyrie rose to search the camp for any hint of hope, though all she found was more hare-brained schemes.

***

The Whistlers hosted a soiree of herbal concoctions as the evening wore on, but Valkyrie retired to her tent early. She lay on a bed of soft, musky furs and watched the faint pulse of shimmering Light across the clear night sky pulse blurred colors through the tent’s canvas.

She hovered in place a long time, floating on the furs.

Floating higher after a while…soaring over the ripples of sheepskin and dipping between the valleys of their folds…

Stretching herself, aching for the freedom of the high sky, trembling with the fragile air beneath her pinions.

Over the peaks and across, into the valley, following the water towards its fall in the center of her heart – the granite cliff where she met her other. Met the one that left this golden cage – the one that suffered the cold.

Pressed down her wings, sensing her approach; sensing the delicate balance like a strand between them; and yearning – always! – yearning for the silence to break and…

Valkyrie jerked awake. Or asleep? Where was the line?

Was there a line?

She lay on the granite cliff, one foot over its edge.

Behind her, a rush of wind announced the arrival of her guardian.

Tentatively, Valkyrie rose to face her.

Rie waited, hands pressed to her stomach like their mother – a pair of sleek, peregrine wings pressed tight against her back.

Other than the wings, twins meeting face to face.

“You traded in your sword,” Valkyrie remarked, too glib even to her own ears.

“I no longer know on whom it should be turned,” the guardian answered.

Valkyrie stepped closer. For the first time, she noticed how they stood eye to eye.

“It was all so clear before,” Rie said, pressing her palms tighter. Her wings shivered. “What did I understand? What could be understood? My feet trod a well-wrought path.”

“You resided among the Chorus.”

“Yes.”

In this dream where their thoughts seemed to pour back and forth like two chalices, Valkyrie reached out a hand to brush those smooth, peregrine feathers…

As her fingers brushed, a shock ran up her own back – echoes of soft wings and the kiss of the sky!

She stumbled back, for a moment unsure if whether she felt her own skirts or the guardian’s white dress…

“I have failed you, Valkyrie,” Rie admitted. “I have scorned the Chorus. I hear only the wind. What wisdom have I to offer?”

A vessel left emptied

Stripped of terrible authority, Rie looked so young.

“We escaped prison together!” Valkyrie retorted. “We’ll get to the Bones!”

The guardian laughed. “To fulfill the very same duty that the Chorus demanded of me.”

To complete the ending of a mage

“How well arranged,” the guardian marveled. “That I rebuked Fate, turned on my heel, and beheld the same gallows!”

“We’re not going to the Bones to die!”

Rie bristled, wings flaring. For a moment she towered, darkening the sky with her pinions. “Then we would choose ourselves over a million generations of peace? Cherish our fire above all other?!”

“No!” Valkyrie shouted back.

But it doesn’t feel right!

Her echo caught the garden and cast it anew. Suddenly they stood atop the highest peak, surveying the curve of their world.

Again, face to face.

“Would we defy the Song itself?!” Rie sobbed. “The very Will of God?!”

It is so cold here

Beyond the Chorus…

Are we to wander in this silence until the end of days?

Defiance sharpened in Valkyrie’s breast, a spark catching.

“The Will of God? Why would God Will us to martyrdom?!”

“For the sake of the Greatest W–”

“And God told you that?! The Song told you that?!”

Again, the garden shivered. Now they stood somewhere Valkyrie was not supposed to remember.

A broad, golden boulevard before a towering Throne so inundated with the innumerable Cherubim that nothing could be seen beyond its base.

“W-we were born here!” the girl argued. “We were part of that Throne once!”

Cast forth like forged glass to orbit and bathe in bliss and Sing themselves.

Remembering, her heart ached near to breaking. Before the promise of heaven, her resolve nearly broke.

How insignificant the pain of parting – a single icy gasp!

Then the glory of my offering and the bounty of…

Suicide by heroism, all the quicker to return to that comfort!

Valkyrie recoiled, gasping. “Oh…God…this is why mortals aren’t allowed to remember…”

Blind and frail and adrift, flesh rotting, cast out from the warm glow of belonging. Severed from the gentle hug of home…

“Yes,” her guardian answered.

If Rie had not been there…if Valkyrie had faced this alone…she might have buckled.

But standing beside Rie, she felt the ghostly weight of wings tucked against her shoulder blades, knew she was not alone, and found she did not yearn for heaven.

“You carried this weight this whole time,” Valkyrie breathed.

Finally beginning to see her counterpart.

“You always remembered.”

Rie nodded.

“And you endured it for every moment of my life – of our life.”

“Yes.”

Each time that Valkyrie faced death, Rie had known that she could go home by simply allowing the natural course of events to follow.

“But still you chose to help me!” the girl realized. She caught glimpses of Rie’s durance in that awful classroom and heard fragments of the Chorus demand mortal death. “Even knowing the terrible fates a mage can bring, you chose me. Why?!”

Why?!

Valkyrie’s demand cracked across the mountains, cleaving peaks.

Its echo returned in Rie’s voice, full of despair.

Why?!

Why must the Chorus demand blood?

Is it not God’s Will?

Are not all things arranged as our Father ordains?

And the next rebound mingled their voices.

What sort of parent carves only one path for their child?!

Lays hands upon a son and says – behold! He shall play baseball as I did – second base and seven innings!

To yank away the boy’s guitar and his sketchbook in the name of that path!

Look me in the eye and call that Love!

Like a dam burst, Valkyrie found more strength with every new defiance.

“What sense is there in that Chorus? Why would an infinite, loving Being craft – of every possibility within Their power – a straight line?!”

Chorus masquerading as Song

Pretending to authority no different than the deacons

Even old souls err!

If God has such strong opinions on the matter

Why doesn’t He come down here and tell me to my face?!

“And why would…” Her voice quivered. “Why would he set us against each other, Rie?! Why is it the mage to steal and the guardian to punish until one of us destroys the other?!”

Until the guardian consumed her, or she became a monster worthy of Eleos.

Why does someone always have to die for power?!

“I’m bloody well sick of counting coins, Rie! Measuring magic by the crimson droplet! I thought this faerie fire was supposed to help people, not curry favor with angels and trade secrets with witches! What stinking good is magic if the only thing it can buy is power and riches?!”

And when we’ve spent ourselves

What changes?!

Rie bent her head. “How fitting that She Who Sings should hear the Song better than I.”

The guardian’s echo answered.

Nothing

Nothing changes

Not even the Mighty are free

“Then what was the point?” Valkyrie wondered.

With nothing to spend her defiance on, the girl sagged. Heart empty, she sank to her knees, stared over the private sanctuary of her soul, and wondered: why even be born at all?

When everything is all measured and accounted for?

When every good is just a notch down the list.

Rie towered over Valkyrie, staring down like the falcon at her prey.

Here was the guardian’s chance to offer swift mercy.

Instead, she asked, “Would…you tell me about the voice you heard? The one shouting down from above?”

“I…don’t even really know if I heard it,” the girl confessed. “Just a feeling, I guess. This isn’t right.”

Rie could no longer hear the Song; could no longer hear the Chorus.

Yet she heard two voices, above and below.

It wasn’t what we wanted

One she knew from heaven’s sweet boughs.

And the other…the other she did not know at all. A voice never once heard by the cherubim…

Oblivious, Valkyrie muttered into her arms, “Does it matter? What’s in heaven stays in heaven.”

The girl slumped, spent. Like an exhausted mule ready to be led to slaughter.

Yet Rie had surrendered her sword, and the guardian found she did not now desire it.

“Words found only in Silence, aching of Grief,” Rie wondered. She touched her fingers to her breast, bowed her head, and dared to wonder.

How might we find the strength to Sing?

Rie thought…thought she saw a way.

The mountains melted away. The girl and the guardian floated skyward, enveloped in clouds.

Retreating together into deepest fog.

Rie slipped closer, spreading her wings to steady herself, and found Valkyrie’s gaze.

Their eyes the same color.

Their eyes alight with the same fire.

The guardian offered one last out. “The Gate would be a Mercy, I think.”

“For us, maybe,” agreed Valkyrie.

Both thought:

And what of all those left behind?

Rie extended her hand to her other half and asked, “Valkyrie…would you believe in altruism?”

I do