After Alira had rested for a while, she rose and packed up her small camp. She had not truly slept, for Shadesorrow was an ever-present disturbance, distracting her beyond mere noise. Her constant thrashing against the bands of Light were draining for the young witch. Her mind could not settle as long as Shadesorrow was present. Her vigilance was mandatory.

The forest behind her was loud with her new hearing. She could hear the clomp of the mare’s hooves as she grazed, the creak of the trees as they moved in the breeze. The leaves were talking to her, it seemed, welcoming her attention.

Hrulinar had bled back into her and she noticed that him being separate did not drain her as much now as it did before. Perhaps it was her constant acceptance of the invigoration of his power. Or maybe it was the knowledge that they now trusted each other implicitly. Occasionally, she’d feel the brush of his ghostly fingers along her mind, the whispered touch of reassurance and she’d bask in the warmth of the comfort.

It would have been like this sooner. He whispered to her and she felt her lips lifting in a sad smile.

You killed me. She reminded him and he fell away from her, twining tightly around Shadesorrow’s form. She didn’t feel any waves of regret, only annoyance. Perhaps it was against his nature to feel remorse for his own actions. Alira ignored him, checked her bond on the dark goddess and returned to her task at hand.

Without discussion, without the Princeling questioning her, Alira saddled the mare and slowly picked her way around the enormous plateau. She wanted to end up on the other side of it, where she had climbed when she had escaped. She felt the Princeling’s agreement with her unspoken plan.

He showed her his memories of her, how he had watched her climb to the top of the Plateau. She felt his worry at her appearance. In his eyes, she had looked skeletal, her hair a dark tangle. Her eyes were sunken and glittered with a fear and determination that scared her. As she watched herself struggling to survive, she realised with a sharp shock that she could see her mother in those burning eyes. The same determined will to live, regardless of the cost.

That felt so long ago now. Years, decades. Time had lost its sense of linear march in the tangle of all she’d been through.

She was just as fierce. Hrulinar said and she felt his sadness again.

The sun was high as she came upon the spot she had first reached that fateful night. Still mounted, she craned her neck and looked up the towering rock face. She could just make out the dark outline of the small cave.

They have to be here, someplace. Hrulinar said. She didn’t leave me here for two decades for no reason. Her soulstones are here.

Why are you so certain? Alira asked, but she was not doubting him.

Well, Hrulinar began slowly and she got the impression that he was scratching his head, thinking. She’d visit me sometimes. And she always insisted on climbing up, though I could have whisked her to the top. She insisted on that solitary time, when I knew she was near but could not move from atop the plateau.

How do you think she kept you from suspecting all that time? Alira slid off the horse and, checking that her daggers were carefully tucked into her belt, she began to run a hand along the stone of the rock face.

My own stupidity. Hrulinar offered and Alira sighed.

So you don’t know. She said and he fell silent. Do you?

I loved her, Alira. Was all the spirit said and then he fell quiet. Her heart sank at his withered response, his deflated answer so incongruous with the anger from before. She almost preferred his rage to this…nothingness.

Waiting for a response, she stretched her new wings, the dark leather of their flesh tight. With a few flaps, she felt herself lifting off her feet. With the gift of flight she felt Shadesorrow gather in her darkness, relishing in the use of her own power, the shadows swirling tight against her bonds. With horror, Alira snapped her wings shut, tightly to her back and dropped to her feet.

I suppose I’ll have to climb then. Alira said to Hrulinar but he was still quiet.

His mood had dipped low and she gently patted the space where he curled. She gave him time, letting him be as she found the hand holds she had once found in the dark. The climb felt good, the warm rock soothing on her tired body. Her hands ached as she finally reached the cave.

She sat and dangled her legs over the edge, eyeing the forest below. She could see pillars of smoke some distance off and wondered if it was something to worry about. She shook her head and turned around to give the cave a good look. With her wings tucked as tightly as she could to her back, she was still able to fit inside the small cave.

The hole in the wall was still there, the chest exposed but shut. When she opened it to look, the things she had left were still inside. She felt the Princeling uncurl and engaged with her senses.

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Well? Alira asked the spirit inside her. What should I be looking for?

Hrulinar seeped from her, crowding close, illuminating the small cavern.

“What do you think you should be looking for?”

Alira sighed in frustration but closed her eyes and thought.

“I’m assuming…”

“Dangerous to do, pet.”

She opened her eyes and glared at him. He held his hands up in surrender and smiled. She drew the blind dagger, the one she had cut herself on, and closed her eyes again.

“Clever, but how do you propose–” but Alira cut him off as she began to glow with the same golden Light that Therin had used. She tapped into that power she had unlocked and let it trickle into the blind blade. It sputtered, glowing purple but in fits and starts.

“Shame you don’t know any mantras,” Hrulinar said quietly but Alira knew that without the devotion that the monk had used, the words he had spoken would be useless. His conduit to his Light had been his words. Hers was within her.

She drew her mother’s blade, the one that held the blind blade’s gems, and crossed them, letting their energies see each other. In her mind, the blades seemed to talk to each other, acknowledging that one was part of the other. It wasn’t a true consciousness, just a feeling, a flicker of intelligence.

Alira’s consciousness jumped into the blades she held and she acknowledged the part of her that that blind blade held, the sliver that knew her. The drop of her blood that had created that bond welcomed both the Light and her own darker power, that of the Morinn.

Show me where she is. She pleaded. Her mother’s blade flared in response and the blind blade lit as well, dimmer but seeming to draw on the power of her mother’s knife.

The blind blade seemed indecisive, images coming too fast to register well.

Her father’s tomb, now flowering and beautiful. The image wavered, dimming, as though the blade couldn’t find what it was searching for. It flashed again, someplace new.

Her mare below, still saddled, still bearing her pack and now her father’s tabard with his treasures rolled up inside. The image rotated around the horse and got brighter, seeming to acknowledge something.

The image jumped and it took Alira a second to focus it, to understand what she was seeing.

Therin’s face, creased with worry as he bent over something in his hands.

The blade flared the image brighter, bringing it into focus. His golden curls were dirty, his face unshaven. He looked haggard. The image flashed again, this time back to where she was.

Show me. She told the blade and she was inside the burial mound, flying past tomb after tomb. She lost count after she reached ten and the blade pulled her upwards through the Plateau, finally landing on an empty chamber, the burial chest smashed and empty. Littering the floor were the remains that had been interred there and a gaping hole that looked barely big enough to fit her straight through the stone to the outside.

The blade’s spirit spun her around, looking through the destruction until it landed on a single black feather. It pounced on the feather, seemed to glean some sort of information from it and then it leapt from the tomb, flying.

Over the trees, flying faster than her human mind could fathom, she followed the blade. The trees gave way to craggy, rocky ground. The vegetation turned from verdant to a dark, oily green that seemed too alive, somehow. Massive wild bushes bloomed, their thorns enormous and dark.

Something ripped inside her, far away. Distantly, Hrulinar roared her name and she felt him straining against their tether. But she was attached to the blades and they spirited her forward.

A temple of black stone rose into view. It was clear to Alira, in a single glance, that this had once been a beautiful church, the stained glass windows still colourful. But the stone was black now, greasy looking, somehow burnt.

The dark spires pointed to the skies, inviting images of impalement and torture.

They were now inside the Temple of the Morinn and sinking through the many floors to the lower levels. They passed chamber after chamber, melting away to the dungeons.

Soon, a familiar face loomed in her vision.

Pale, his silver hair plastered to his pock-marked forehead with sweat, Noran thrashed against leather bindings. A long haired blond figure in red robes stood before him, gently petting his cheek. The blind blade zeroed in and the pommel of Noran’s dagger glimmered, recognizing Erin’s blade which had piggybacked on the blind blade, powering it.

The blond figure froze, watching the glimmering light of the red gem. It pulsed like a heartbeat, slow, steady. With a hissing gasp Mara clapped a tiny pale hand over it and Alira’s vision went black.

With a silent cry, Alira felt a shock shoot through her and her blades whimpered in pain. The blind blade went dark, her mother’s flickering and finally fading.

With a shuddering gasp, she returned to her body and felt the chilled sweat dripping down her body. Shaking, she turned to Hrulinar.

“I saw it,” she gasped and bent double, sure she was going to throw up. Panic raced across Hrulinar’s handsome face and for an instant, Alira wondered how bad she looked.

As she toppled over, his spirit hands caught her, lowering her gently to the sandy floor of the small tomb.

“Noran,” she said, wheezing. Her lungs could not get enough air. Blackness creeped into the edges of her vision. She gasped, gaping, but her lungs would not work fast enough.

His eyes still wide in alarm, Hrulinar pressed his cool lips to hers, stilling her breath. Suddenly her heart started beating again.

When had it stopped?

Hrulinar pulled away from her, his green eyes blinking in shock.

“When you left your body, I wasn’t inside it to–”

And that’s when Alira felt the void.

The enormous hollow inside her mind.

The space that had been made to contain a darkness so vast it was endless.

Trailing from Hrulinar’s form were the invisible tethers, one firmly attached to her.

And the other empty.

“I couldn’t stop her. I wasn’t fast enough,” said the Prince of Beasts. And it was then that Alira realised her wings were gone.

Shadesorrow had escaped.