I will be the first to admit that I am not the best rider, even at my strongest. Riding in the rain, half dead, distracted and torn in two different directions…Well, it wasn’t exactly my fault that I fell out of the saddle.

The mud was strangely inviting, almost warm against the chill summer rain, and I laid there for a minute gathering my strength to stand back up. I love the rain usually, but this rain was not natural. The iciness was uncanny and I knew that it was one of the many wards that had been laid as a trap. Further up the road, I could see that the sky was clear and if I could just get out of the range of the magic around the vineyard, I would have a much better chance at escaping.

I climbed laboriously to my feet, disgusted by how sticky the mud was and wiped my hands on my pants. They left long tracks of black and I sighed.

“They aren’t real anyway,” I said aloud to Sabra. “I can change them as soon as I feel a little better.” I checked that the damaged mace was still strapped to her saddle and bent to retrieve the glaive from the mud.

I swung a leg up to remount and felt the voice calling me again. It was louder, closer, more insistent. And the command had changed yet again.

Stay. I clenched my jaw and felt the anger rise within me. She had always treated me like a pet, commanding me like a dog. I pulled against the command but stopped myself. Why would I want to disobey? She was my mistress, she was all that I needed. She was above all else.

Good boy.

I spit in the mud and watched my breath stream in front me in angry puffs, the cold drizzle sluicing down my back. For a second, I thought briefly about how heroic I must look: a man wet to his skin, shirt see-through, glaive resting across his lap, reins held tightly. I shivered and the image changed: a man, naught but a dog, soaked and shivering, half alive, the seconds ticking by as he waited for his master to meet him. The second image seemed more accurate and I felt my spirits sink a little further.

The sound of two horses making their way through the gloomy rain brought me out of my own thoughts and I froze, my whole body tensing to see her again.

I would see her again, I realised with a shock. She had died but yet something incredible had happened and she was remade. It wasn’t possible but…

I waited, my body unable to move. Each time I thought of moving, my body would fight against me, holding me captive. I was torn in two: I wanted to obey at all costs and I wanted to run as far as possible. The seconds passed and suddenly she was before me.

I sat, still in the rain, while her and Mara were just on the other side of the magical rainstorm. I felt the water pouring down me, sheet after sheet of it drenching me while she sat perfectly dry just a stone’s throw away.

“Hrulinar,” Erin said with a smile. The love I bore for this woman, faded with time, erupted within me, bright, heady, and deadly. She wore a long blue dress the exact shade of the summer sky behind her and had on a hooded cloak in black velvet. Her long black hair was left loose, a rogue strand caught in the breeze, clinging to her rosy cheek. She lifted her hand, palm out and pushed the rain away from me, leaving me on the same side of the wall of water as herself and Mara. She nodded once and Mara rode forward, pushing the rain back, dispelling the ward that had been tripped.

“Rain is one of nature’s most powerful gifts,” Erin said quietly and she nudged her horse forward a few steps, sidling up to me astride Sabra. “But I don’t have to tell you that.”

Already, with the rain now cleared from me, I was feeling a lot more comfortable. The magical rain had had a slowing effect on me, and now with my mind clearing I could finally feel the thunderbolt of unease that rocked through me at Erin’s reappearance.

“How?” I asked, but my mouth was dry and all that came out was a croak. She was before me again, young, beautiful, everything I remembered.

“My darling Alira,” Erin said, her rich voice so lifelike that I felt the pull to touch her and resisted. Her voice was youthful, it was true, and her eyes sparkled like they had when she had sent me to do her bidding, so many years ago. The nights of terror cascaded across me suddenly, pulling me away from the present and I baulked, horrified, at her beautiful face.

“And Mara’s darling Noran, it would seem. I was bound to him, as you were to me, but he appears to have…died.” She said the last word with a delighted note. She reached out to me across the small gap between our horses and I couldn’t stop myself as I clasped her hand back.

“You’ve done so well,” she whispered and I felt tears, real tears, falling. “So very well, my sweet, handsome prince.” She leaned forward and I could not tell if it was my own will or her ever-present exertion on me, but I leaned forward to meet her and let her plant the kiss on my mouth. Her lips were warmer than I remembered them and suddenly, my body was alight with the devotion I owed her. I belonged to no one, nothing, but Erin for the second that her lips rested on mine. She pulled away and I felt the devotion fade.

Alira.

The voice in my head was my own, distant, recalling me to my new purpose.

“A problem we will rectify, worry not.” Erin patted my hand and nudged her horse forward. “Come, Hrulinar. We have so much to catch up on.”

She held both Sabra’s reins as well as my own so I resigned myself to follow my mistress.

We made our way quickly, Mara having already dismantled the spell for the rain, and by the time we got to the front door to the vineyard estate, the sun was drying the mud into thick cakes, the surface cracking already.

“Mistress,” Mara said softly as she approached our horses. “The hound has been released.”

“Hmm,” Erin replied but I could detect a note of annoyance. “And?”

“Should I look for it before we go down? It could be anywhere and we wouldn’t want it sneaking up on us.” Erin looked down at Mara and even from my angle behind her, I knew the look she was giving the younger woman.

“We don’t have time, Mara.” The tone was final and Mara bowed her head. The confidence she had wielded against Therin in her dungeon was gone, replaced by a subservience that alarmed me. If Mara was terrified of my mistress, something was surely amiss.

We dismounted, leaving our horses tethered with Mara’s and entered the estate home. The door was ravaged, as I had seen earlier, and I touched the large gashes with a hand as I passed the threshold, the glaive still held in one hand, ignored by the witches.

“I think we’ll find the hound afterall, Mara,” Erin said with a laugh. I watched her walk to the stairs leading downward and marvelled at her grace. She unclasped her cloak and as it fell she bid me catch it and carry it, but she did this without a word, merely a look, and I obeyed immediately. She brushed a finger down my cheek as I came up behind her and I shuddered at her touch, pleasure and delight coursing through me with an unnatural haste.

Erin had always withheld her affections, using them as small rewards. In my memories, all my advances, all my charms, all my wants were ignored and every caress and touch was used as leverage against me. She had kissed me thrice that I could recall, counting the one she had just bestowed upon me, and I felt like a man might if he had gone without water and suddenly was offered the vastness of the ocean–incredibly alluring but tragically undrinkable.

It was poison, this affection. With a slight start, I realised that she was desperately trying to attain that same connection. Her kiss had brightened the connection between us briefly but something was fundamentally missing and I sensed that she was trying to establish that reverence I had previously held by forcing a bond through contact.

I flung her cloak around my own shoulders, freeing my hands, and followed her down the stairs. The scene was the same as I had recently left it but the smell of the dead hound still made me cover my face in disgust. The acrid stench of its body slowly dismantling itself was overwhelming and only Mara didn’t cover her face.

“That’s upsetting,” Erin said succinctly as she stepped around a pool of the acidic blood. “I’m sorry, darling.” She stopped to touch my hand briefly and I noted that her nails were long, perfect, a soft pink.

“He was the imperfect first one,” I said dismissively. I had already mourned the loss of my hound, though. When I had left earlier, I had said a prayer over the corpse, touching its cold, leathery flesh as I bowed my head.

It had been a poor attempt at Unmaking on my part. I had no idea how to do it, afterall. It wasn’t my gift, but Shadesorrow’s, and to attempt to create this beast was blasphemy. But Erin had wished for it, and I had done it. As I watched the beast deteriorate, I was thankful for the gaps in my memory: I didn’t want to know where the soul I had used to create the beast had come from.

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

“And the others…?” Erin asked. She pushed the sleeves up on her simple dress and I watched her move with fascination. She was stunning, truly, and the shock of her beauty was only tempered by my understanding of what she was like on the inside. “Come.” I followed her into the portal room.

My hounds had left, as I had bid them, escaping into the vineyard, chasing one another. Their alien heads were thrown back as they howled in the rain. I remembered feeling a keen sense of loss watching them go but I knew that to retract my power from within them would be to doom the souls that they were created from to an eternity of unrest. Their freedom was worth the small loss of my power.

“Well,” Erin said and she rubbed her hands together excitedly. “They did a number on the portals but I see that the Soul Cage is untouched.”

“Incredibly good news,” Mara agreed as she conjured a broom and began to sweep up mounds of glittering glass. “I’ll clean up this side of the room near the table and we can begin.”

“Begin?” I asked and drew Erin’s cloak around me tighter. It smelled like her already, though she could not have worn it more than a few hours.

“Oh, yes, sweet one. We have very little time to waste!” She twirled to face me, her skirts billowing around her ankles. “Shadesorrow has given me this beautiful new body, restored me to what I once was–almost. I just need a few finishing touches.” She clapped her hands and lights left her fingertips, igniting the candles all around the room. The glass on the floor was glitter, reflecting the candlelight and casting rainbow light all around us.

“Shadesorrow?” I asked. I sounded stupid even to my own ears. I felt distracted every time Erin moved, her presence like a drug to my overwrought mind.

“Yes,” Erin said, her bright eyes glittering. “You remember when Alira so foolishly tried to scry for my soulstones? Shadesorrow saw her chance and took it. She escaped Alira’s body and using my soulstone as a tether, reformed with Mara and Noran at the Temple. It’s good that I had kept samples of my blood and hair there. I thought you’d have to recreate me, but really, Shadesorrow was much more forgiving than you’d have been, I’m sure.” She spun again, facing the cage in the middle of the room. I let my eyes trace the lines of her body.

“I couldn’t have done it,” I said, leaning up against the table along the wall and crossing my arms over the glaive. “I’m too weakened.”

“Well, once we retrieve your power from the syphon, you’ll be almost as powerful as you used to be, darling.” She clapped again and the candles floated, distributing themselves evenly around the central cage, bobbing in the air gently.

“Syphon…” I said slowly but a memory of intense pain shot through me. I gasped, feeling the blank memory fill with colour suddenly, yet still unfocused. She had shackled me atop that damned plateau. I remembered that very clearly. But something about being there…

“The memories will return with your gifts, sweet one.” Erin nodded to Mara who had opened a book and laid out several things on the table. I frowned as they communicated without words, a nod or a glance enough to tell Mara what to do.

“Telepathy is a new gift from Shadesorrow,” Erin said and with a shock I understood that she could read my mind as well. Instantly, I threw up a wall of leaves, barring her from inside my mind.

It doesn’t work like that for us, I’m afraid. As she spoke inside my head, the wall cleared, leaving me exposed.

“And my other gift…” she closed her eyes and lifted her eyebrows and then sighed. “Still blindfolded.” She turned to Mara. “He’s clever.”

“Yes, almost to a fault, honestly.”

“And so hopelessly in love with his own brother,” Erin said with a wicked laugh. I understood them to be speaking about Noran.

“Adoptive brother,” Mara said with a grin and a mock shake of her head. “So, really, no relation at all.”

“Still,” Erin said, shaking her own head. “How sad.”

“Tragic,” Mara said and returned to the table, rearranging the crystals and bunches of herbs she was drawing out from a pouch at her waist.

“What about Noran?” I asked finally, assuming they would ignore me.

“What? Oh,” Erin turned her head as she wove her hands in a complicated gesture, rearranging the candles again. “When he died, I thought I would lose his connection and the very beneficial magic he lends me but somehow he was brought back and Shadesorrow recaptured our bond, strengthening it for me. The byproduct of this new bond is that I have Witch’s Sight–I see what he sees.” She turned back to the cage and held her hands up again. “But the bastard has blindfolded himself.”

I remained silent, thinking. If Erin, who had a human spirit, could bind so completely with another to share vision, what could I do with Alira’s own senses? I was, afterall, the son of a god. Shouldn’t this gift, this Witch’s Sight be something I could attempt? I sent a drip of myself down the bond between us and immediately heard Erin’s voice interrupting me.

“No contacting her,” she said sternly. “In any way.” The words were a command and I withdrew from the tether between Alira and myself with regret.

“What else?” Mara asked as Erin approached the table to inspect what she had laid out. “I thought maybe three bunches of monkshood but I brought four, just in case.”

“Four. To be safe.”

“We aren’t worried about death?”

“Not particularly. We’re talking about the Divine, Mara. It’s just to interrupt the corporeal form long enough to weaken.”

“Yes, Mistress.” Mara bowed and withdrew another small bundle of herbs.

“Begin brewing and I’ll join you shortly.” Erin pressed a kiss to Mara’s forehead and I felt the pang of jealousy, diluted by my own awareness, pass through me.

“More mischief?” I said softly as Erin approached me. My breath was uneven as she stood so near me, her beauty distracting in an unnatural way. I had always been like this when enthralled to her, but something about this new form was overwhelming me, possessing parts of my being that I used to control with much more ease.

Humanity is your weakness. Erin’s voice was inside my head but I barely heard it as she came closer.

“Always, darling.” She laughed and tossed her long black hair and then she was standing before me. Unthinking, I unwrapped an arm from around Roshan’s glaive and brushed a knuckle along her cheek. As a flush sprang up across her face, my eyes widened and I drew in breath. She cupped my hand that touched her face, clasping my hand and pressing my skin to hers.

“I’ve always loved when you were forward,” she whispered. “Presumptive of you, but so…affirming.” She stared into my eyes, on level with her own and smiled. “You look like you’ve never seen me before, Hrulinar.”

“I’ve never seen you blush,” I said, blinking in my surprise. “Never.”

“I was distracted before. And I was being careful,” Erin admitted, her eyes dropping to my lips. “But we’re almost done now. You’ve done brilliantly.” She whispered the last word and her eyes fluttered closed. I waited to see if she would lean forward and when she didn’t, I did, greedily. I dropped the glaive with a clatter and took her face in my hands. Hungrily, I pressed my mouth to hers and kissed her.

With a thunderbolt, she was torn from my arms and I was inside the cage.

“You’re more human than I thought,” she said, wiping my kiss away with the back of her hand. “Shadesorrow said it was only a matter of time, but my goodness, Hrulinar. How very masculine you’ve become!” The two witches laughed.

The mirror behind me began to hum ominously and I clutched at the bars.

“What are you doing?” I asked, my skin cold suddenly in the wake of her kiss.

“Guess,” Erin commanded and I felt my knees buckle but I held onto the bars, refusing to drop. “Tell me what you think we’re doing, Hrulinar.”

“You’re going to lure Alira here.”

“And?”

“And…” I felt my knees buckle again and this time I couldn’t help it and I fell. “Kill her.”

“You see, pretty Hrulinar,” Erin purred as she stalked closer to the cage. “I’m still technically enthralled to her. An unfortunate consequence of me shattering my soul on my path to immortality.” She knelt before the cage and reached into it, running her hands through my hair, catching a fistfull and yanking my head back to look up at her.

“I can see how you feel about her. While I could sway the human side of you, unfortunately I’m aware that my daughter,” she spat the word, “has the son of Aethra worshipping her and we can’t have that. She is nothing, Hrulinar.”

Erin pulled my head to the bars, crushing my face into the metal.

“The Light can’t live while Shadesorrow wishes to rule,” whispered the most beautiful woman to ever live. “And unfortunately, your adoration for that girl is what is fueling her Light. She doesn’t care enough about herself to summon a shred of that power, but for you? Oh, for you she would tear down mountains. She’d rip me apart to save you.” She pressed her lips to my nose and threw my head back, releasing me so I sprawled against the mirror.

“The Daughter of Man was supposed to join you, Son of Nature, to release Shadesorrow. She was not supposed to become her own version of Divinity. I’m afraid you’re to blame for that!” Erin turned and returned to Mara at the table, still talking.

“When you killed her, and trust me when I say I had never been more furious when I saw that you had done that, you broke her human spirit. And when she abandoned the last tether to that humanity and allowed you to fill her every pore, when Shadesorrow burst through her flesh, mixing with your power and the innate Light that Alira had, a new Divine lineage was created. A new threat to Shadesorrow’s throne.” Erin turned to face me, a dagger in her hand, a chalice in the other. “A threat to my throne.”

Time slowed for me and memories flooded into my mind.

Alira, broken, her body limp and still in my Divine arms.

Her soul, fleeing as I held her…And my sudden panic that I had doomed not only myself but all of Man by killing her.

Impulsively, I flooded myself into her body, condensing what was left of myself to invade her every cell, reanimating her.

Something about that act…

My reaction to her death…

I remembered Aethra’s voice in that moment, pride and joy and love echoing from her as her own prophecy was fulfilled, her last act as she faded into the Nothing Beyond.

Daughter of Man,

Gifts of Light and Dark

Ignited by the Mother and Twin,

Sustained by the Son’s sacrifice,

Ascension begins,

The First of Her Line.