The flight back to the cube ship graveyard was uneventful, which is more than welcome after the stressful sequence that led to our escape from the island.
As soon as the crippled ships of whatever lost race built that island come into sight, I abandon all restriction on my flames and engulf the closest one before Grímr can land. Śuri was rather greedy with his expenditure of my energy, and it’s left me ravenous.
Yalun whistles at the sight. “It’s one thing to feel all that energy within you, but another to actually see how far you can cover.” Her tiny squeaks are funny to hear from beneath my hood. She huffs when she realises I’ve taken amusement in the sound and returns to silence, which only makes me snort.
“What about you, Śuri?” I ask, turning my attention away from the sulking Yalun who could easily avoid such a situation by returning to her normal size. “With how perfect your control is, shouldn’t you be able to spread weaker flames further?”
“No,” he answers, having relaxed now that we are back within what is considered ‘safe’ ocean. “Unlike a certain someone, both my hottest and coldest flames cover a relatively similar area. In a fight, the only reason I would use lesser heat is if I have to be careful of who’s around.” His eyes flicker to Leal, who’s massaging her bootless feet.
The further we travelled from the island, the less intense the corruption’s influence. It didn’t recede from my friends on its own, but it couldn’t continue to oppose my flames. Thankfully, I removed the infection from both Leal and Grímr without issue.
It’s a relief. A chest warming gratitude fills me that nothing permanent mars their bodies. I already feel bad enough that they were put in a position that might get hurt in the first place; how could I handle the guilt if they’d been crippled?
“Are you okay?” I ask Leal, who looks up from inspecting the area her fingers were earlier drenched in that green glow.
“I am…” she trails off as her fists clench before her chest. I knew it; she hates me again. I tense, ready for her to declare that she doesn’t want to be around me anymore, but she suddenly grins. “Amazing.”
“Huh?”
“I’ve got so many ideas. So many theories to test. Everything they taught me back at the academy is limited and wrong. Not a single thing about the interaction between your flames and that strange hyle — no, that can’t be hyle — nothing about it is possible. I could never have asked for a better opportunity to analyse such an unbelievable interaction than feel it within my body.”
Wait, so her hunching over her hands and feet this entire return trip was just her analysing my fire kicking out that energy? I thought she was suffering or terrified of losing her limbs or something. A twinge of irritation flares in my chest, and I’m tempted to just fly off myself in an immature tantrum. I was dying from worry, and she was fine enough to waste her time on analysis?
“Did it not hurt?” I ask, keeping my voice even.
“Not at all. Well, my fingers and toes listened to me less with each hour and my fur thickened in the affected areas, but they’re fine now. Honestly, your flames were ticklish. Like an itch I couldn’t scratch.”
Now that she mentions it, the sections of her feet that her streams of water sheared free of fur have already regrown. So, after her initial panic at the spread, she was calmer about everything than I was. She could have told me, so I didn’t worry so much.
“Uh, Solvei? How much of the cube are you going to eat?” Grímr asks.
I look down to realise I’ve burnt my way through pretty much the entirety of the remaining lower section. In my agitation, I ate far past recovering my energy. Thankfully, the skeleton of the structure can withstand rather high temps, so Grímr’s perch remains uncompromised despite my inferno below.
With a deep breath, I extinguish my flames and let go of my slight annoyance toward Leal. It’s not her fault she didn’t realise my worries. Really, I’d been so concerned about how my intrusion into Leal’s body affected her that I’d been too scared to ask, and held myself back for hours.
“So, Solvei… you mind if I have some more of that fire?” Without me noticing, she unpacked her analytical tools and notebook. She holds her hand up, inviting me to flood her arm again.
Immediately, my irritation is back.
With a huff, I turn away from her, dropping my attention to Śuri burning away some of the cube for himself. I ignore Leal’s question of “what did I do?” to Grímr.
Now that I know I don’t have to be concerned about Leal, my thoughts return to the terrifying prospect that Armageddon isn’t a fabrication. If those Monolith Anatla truly reach our world — and aren’t as passive as Titans — then the destruction they could cause is unimaginable.
I know I saw the Void Fog through the window, so does that mean what already affects this world is only a part of a whole? Is the Void an Anatla just as Kalma said? The parallels between the Void and the green corruption are too great to believe anything else. The Void Fog spreads through those that escape its clutches, and while the otherworldly storm didn’t succeed in latching onto any of us, its spread through my friends’ bodies was too fast to ignore. What changes might it have inflicted had it dug into Leal or Grímr?
The rapid regrowth of her fur shows that the corruption was already attempting to change Leal before I could push it out of her body. Is it a change dependent on desire, like the Void Fog, or something else? Unlike the Void, this Anatla had consciousness, or at least the being on the other side of the window did, if the angered glare of the eye was anything to go off. Still, regardless if the corrupting green glow had direct awareness or not, it cannot be ignored that the green storm had at least some influence over it.
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If the Void Fog had that sort of awareness, then it would be immensely more disastrous than it already is. As it is now, it’s more like a natural disaster. It appears and destroys without intent, but is gone soon enough for people to rebuild. What would a world look like where it had free rein to spread and consume as it wished?
How did Kalma know?
That’s the question that stands out the most right now. She might be old, but so are my Grand Elders. Śuri only knew of the Anatla because of some old record.
“Śuri, do you know anything about an Armageddon?”
If his surprised expression is anything to go off, then he doesn’t. Does Kalma know where the barrier is? Assuming it’s an actual physical object and not some metaphoric concept like the barrier between worlds, is that where she came from before she began abusing the mermineae?
“-st ask something like that without elaborating.” I notice too late that Śuri is saying something. Maybe he does know something, and I was just stuck in my own head.
“What?” I ask, trying to get him to repeat himself.
“What did you mean by Armageddon?” apparently he’s not the only one worried by my words. I already told Grímr about Kalma’s insane ramblings — or attempts to fool me — but even he tilts his head back as the others look at me with concern. Right, I guess that might be a worrying thing to bring up after we just had a close call with two incomprehensible beings.
“Kalma warned that the Anatla would destroy the world. Well, warned wasn’t exactly how she intended it, but she said the barrier separating them from us is going to collapse.”
“Kalma… as in the Kalma who fought you and this Tore friend of yours?” I’d told him much about my life outside the wasteland, though downplaying exactly how much the other races have seen me burn through armies and fight against elites. Well, I tried to make it seem like I had less impact than I probably did, but I have a feeling he might have seen through me, making the entire effort pointless.
“Yes. I didn’t think it could be possible,” I say as I look back toward where the island is hidden by the storm that I idly realise is a lot stronger than it was when we were last at the graveyard of cubes. “But if that thing is an Anatla…”
“I see. Then we have another reason to hurry back to the Agglomerate. If anyone knows about some prophecy like that, it will be Hraun.”
“Hraun?” I ask.
Śuri’s eyes rise to the hidden Yalun. “Really?” he deadpans. “She’s been with you how long and you never mentioned Hraun?”
Despite the cloth blocking sight, she turns away with a huff. “Why would I teach her about anything unimportant?”
“You don’t think the grand elder most likely to push for her punishment is relevant?” He shakes his head in disbelief and addresses me again. “Elder Hraun is the oldest of us. He’s the strongest opposition we will have at the conference, but his insight cannot be ignored.”
Oh, right. I still have my upcoming judgement. I’d almost forgotten, what with everything that has happened. There’s not much I can do about it besides wait and see. If I were to run away and avoid punishment — whatever that might look like — then I can say goodbye to living amongst my people again.
Then again, if Kalma’s predicted Armageddon is true, then that’s hardly something to worry about.
I shake my head of that thought. That’s not funny. Even if things don’t go how I want at the conference, thinking light of what will be millions of deaths if the Anatla cross over is something I should avoid.
There’s so much I still want to do, from being taught by my elders and returning to my team back in the pact nations. I can only hope whatever punishment they decide on for me isn’t so restrictive. On that same hand, hopefully Kalma's knowledge of the Anatla was just feeding her delusions and there isn’t actually an end of the world approaching.
Denial is nothing if not attractive of an option, but ignoring the possibility would be beyond foolish. If there is a way to stop it, would anyone not try?
Really, the only relieving thing about the possibility, is that Kalma was old. Like my grand elders, her sense of time was warped. When she said Armageddon was coming, even if she thought it was soon, that could still be a hundred years away. We can search for the possibility that they may breach some barrier, but without anything concrete to focus our efforts, there’s no point stressing over what-ifs.
My judgement is completely different. Not only is it confirmed to happen, but it is going to occur the moment we return to the Agglomerate. No what-ifs about it. That’s why — in my defence — it is okay for me to worry.
Even as we restart our flight and Śuri continues his efforts to help me train my presence, my mind stays in the clouds. I don’t know whether I’ll be banished, executed, or worst of all, imprisoned. It is so bad that I don’t notice the concern growing on the faces around me until Grímr expresses it in words.
“The storm did not extend this far out before, did it?”
“No,” is Śuri’s instant reply.
I gaze ahead to find we’ve made landfall again… only the thick clouds above spread far over the desert sands where they didn’t before. Where they couldn’t before. They spit out their downfall, but the sands consume the water long before it can touch the earth. It means we’re no longer suffering from the uncomfortable rains, but there should never be rain here in the first place.
Below, the waterfalls where the ocean touches sand are far larger than previously. More than just a little as well. Unlike earlier, which looked like a trickle of water flowing over a ledge of sand, there is a mountainous volume of water now flowing over dunes.
Śuri doesn’t wait for Grímr to land. He leaps off and lands at the edge of the coast. Yalun finally leaves the confines of my hood and changes back, but waits for Grímr to bring us down besides Śuri.
“The encroachment has increased,” Śuri says as Yalun and I hop off Grímr’s metal feathers.
Yalun doesn’t respond. Instead, she inspects the waterfall before us as it ever so slowly creeps forward. Each centimetre of sand it takes, it doesn’t return.
“A metre a minute!” Yalun is shocked. We each take a step away as the water momentarily accelerates down the slope, snatching the sand we were just standing on as if challenged by her words. “This can’t be possible.”
“We are leaving.” Śuri brooks no room for argument. “Yalun, I want any eagle you can spare watching the coast.”
“Understood.” Her voice is more stiff than I’ve ever heard from the grand elder. Before I can say goodbye, she’s already morphing and speeding off to the north.
Replicating her haste, Śuri sweeps me up in an arm and lifts us back upon Grímr. “I apologise for asking this, but get us back to the Agglomerate as fast as you can.”
Grímr, as reliable as he is, peals into the air without delay. His air inscription snapping into place along his feathers. I spread my flames across his body to assist his flight, apparently beating Śuri to it, who was in the motion of doing the same. I can’t be so wasteful as to use physical flames, but only this should be easy to manage for the few days we’ll need to travel.
“Why are we in such a hurry?” I ask. If there’s anything I’ve learnt after coming back to the wasteland, it’s our kind’s reluctance to use our energy wherever we don’t need to, and Śuri is letting me boost our speed without the slightest opposition.
“For over a thousand years, the ocean has slowly swallowed our wasteland. In only a few moments, we lost a day’s worth of sand.” Śuri’s tone is grave. “Ironic that our efforts to stop it have done nothing but accelerate the ocean’s dominance.” He lets out a spiteful chuckle. “Maybe this is the beginning of Armageddon, as you say.”