201 — Book 4, Chapter 45 — Past, Present, Future, Pt 3

Yra had destroyed the Red Mother so thoroughly that her remaining essence was nothing more than a grotesque splatter on the walls. Judging from Yra's heaving breaths and the way her feathers trembled, the fight had been deeply personal, though Flia suspected she wouldn't appreciate being asked to elaborate on the matter.

"Are you alright?" she asked instead, and Yra had turned to look at her, eyes blazing with fire at first before slowly dimming in recognition.

"I am fine," she said shortly. "Sivis has been defeated, and her influence over these Abyssal Ones will soon dissipate. I believe you wish to save them?"

"I do."

"Then do so. Your window of opportunity is short." Yra's eyes flicked to the walls, where the remains of the Abyssals still lingered; she made as if to leave, then hesitated, glancing back at Flia. "...Do you need instruction?"

"I would appreciate it," Flia said, both because she suspected that Cale and Headmaster Akkau would want to keep Yra around and because she did not, in fact, know what she was doing. Creatures like Abyssal Ones were like elementals in that they weren't very closely tied to their physical forms, but even still, being scattered like this was very much a form of death.

Among her own people, many would allow themselves to scatter to the winds when they were tired of experiencing life as they were. Perhaps they would reform again, after decades or centuries had passed, but if they did it would be as a different element—one of wind, perhaps, or of cloud or soil. That new life would hold none of the memories their previous selves had.

The Abyssal Ones here had not chosen this form, however, and Flia could feel their individual selves clinging together, trying to remain coherent in the cacophony of magical noise created by all of them singing together. Their voices were lost and scattered, pieces of them strewn about and through one another.

How could she even begin to make them whole? She could feel how desperate they were for it, how much they were struggling to hold on to themselves. It resonated with the Spark in her core, that fragment of the Leviathan's power that she had made her own.

They didn't want to be left behind.

"You truly care to save them," Yra said after studying her for a moment. She took a deep breath, and some of the blazing, saturated red in her feathers began to fade; the temperature of the chamber cooled noticeably as she did. "Very well, then. I will lend you my aid."

"Thank you." Flia bowed, though the gesture was a little awkward.

"Think nothing of it." Yra waved a wing dismissively. "To tell you the truth, it is my duty. If you were not so determined to save them, I would be forced to linger here and gather their remains myself. I do not wish to do so. I wish to put as much distance between myself and this realm as possible."

That was probably fair, but Flia's brows furrowed slightly as she puzzled over the words. "Your duty," she echoed. Come to think of it, Yra must have had a title before becoming the Red Phoenix. "What exactly is your duty?"

Yra eyed her for a moment, then sighed. "Your window of opportunity is short," she repeated. "Suffice to say that I am part Abyssal myself. The mechanics of my existence are... complicated. I am the last of my kind, turned halfway into a creature of the Abyss. My magic is corrupted and unable to rejuvenate me, nor will it let me die. For this reason, many of the elder Abyssal Ones consider me their Queen, and I wield a great deal of my power for their sake."

She was half Abyssal? Now that Flia thought about it, it made sense—though each of her feathers shone as brightly as the next, about half of them shimmered strangely with the power of the Abyss. "Did the Leviathan send you here?"

"I will not speak of my relationship with the Leviathan," Yra answered, something complicated flickering through her eyes. "Now then. Flia, Avatar of the Law of What Lies Between, who wields the Spark of Those Left Behind: I invoke your name to invoke your power."

The air between them warmed, and Yra plucked a feather from her wings without even the slightest flinch. The feather shimmered with the power of the Abyss, then began to glow with the heat of Yra's own magic, until its tip glowed a near-white; with that tip, Yra carved a circle into the air.

It hovered strangely, a wound seared into reality by her magic, and Flia felt something within her core begin to resonate—the small fragment of the Leviathan's power that she had claimed as her Spark. It was that fragment that bled into her magic whenever she cast her spells, that fragment that had caused the water she conjured to bleed through the Veil into the Abyss.

For a long time, she had considered it a curse, though she hadn't known the cause. Ever since she had learned why she had it, though, she had grown to accept it. It was the power of her Spark that allowed her to commune so closely with the exotic and the strange, with all those that risked being left behind or forgotten.

"A Spark begets a Flame," Yra murmured, her eyes focused on her magic. She spoke with a clear voice that began to resonate with power as it passed through the circle. "And the Flame must be sacrificed to form a Forge. Through the Forge we build a Blade, and through the Blade we carve a Mark unto the realms. The Mark, once fed, blooms into a Herald; the Herald calls upon the Waning Moon..."

Flia did her best to pay attention, certain that these words had significance, but she lost track of what Yra was saying quickly. The words buzzed with power, fractured in the air, became something potent and unrecognizable. This was a ritual beyond anything Flia had ever seen, perhaps because Yra's magic made no use of the Gift nor any other form of magical focus. This was old, raw magic, of the kind cast in the earliest days of the Great Realms after the fall of Yggdrasil.

Perhaps it was unwise of her to let Yra do as she wished. It was well within her rights to stop her and ask what she was doing. It was clear the ritual was targeting her and that it had something to do with the Spark she carried, but what it was trying to do she had no idea. What sort of mage let a stranger cast upon them a spell, not knowing what it did?

Cale, obviously. And Flia would have scolded him for it, too, only now she was doing what she knew she would have warned against.

It was instinct that guided her, more than anything else. Instinct told her that Yra wanted the same thing she did: that though she wanted nothing more than to leave Utelia behind, she had stayed to ensure that the Abyssals here would be brought home safe. It was only because of this that the bond of magic between them could resonate and all, and through that bond, Flia knew with certainty that if they had not shared this—if they had not each wanted the best for the Abyssals that remained—the ritual would have failed entirely.

"To your name, I add my own." Yra spoke loudly, her voice singing with power, each syllable crashing against the magic already pouring into the room. "Yra, Halfling Queen of the Abyss, last of my kind—"

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There was something else she said, but it was drowned out by the already-overwhelming resonance of the ritual. In the next moment, Yra slashed forward with her feather, cutting through the sigil she had drawn in the air.

All at once, the chamber fell into perfect silence.

Flia felt warm. Her Spark was singing within her, more prominent in her magic than it had ever been, and yet it felt no stronger than it had been before.

"What did you do?" Flia asked.

"I have granted you the right to draw upon my name," Yra said simply.

Flia stared at her, not entirely certain she was telling the truth—the ritual had felt so much more grand than that, so much more important, and even now the Spark she carried seemed to be calling out. "No offense, but... are you sure that's it?"

"My name has more weight than you know." For the first time, Yra smiled at her, perhaps understanding she must have been overwhelmed. "And I give it to you freely, if only so that you can better understand the magic you wish to cast. It is the only means I have to aid you."

The phoenix took a step back. Her feathers seemed dimmer, now, exhausted after the magic she had spent on the ritual. "My magic is that of rebirth," she said quietly, "and it is corrupted. It cannot bring these Abyssals back. Were I to do this duty, every Abyssal I gather would be given a new mind and a new form, and they would be touched by the madness of my magic. They would survive, but they would not be themselves.

"You, on the other hand... you hold within you a Spark. A fragment of the Leviathan's power, who bears upon her back all the Great Realms. She is everything that lies between, everything that separates one thing from another. With your Spark, you can draw upon all that lies between each fragmented Abyssal and pull them together.

"But you are still young. You do not possess the power necessary to bring together what has been rendered to dust. So I lend you my title as Queen, such that you do not need this power. You must simply command them. Guide them, if you would, to become whole again."

Yra's gaze was intent, and Flia met that gaze without flinching. "How?" she asked.

"That," Yra said, "Is something you must solve yourself. I have done all I can, but there is a barrier within you yet, and it is one you must overcome yourself."

Well, that figured. Yra must have seen her expression, because the phoenix chuckled, the sound surprisingly bright in the dimming light of the chamber.

"Your window of opportunity has widened," she said. "With my name behind yours, the Abyssal Ones here sense a power that can restore them, and so they hold themselves in wait. You need only find your way to that power."

Flia sighed. She had known, of course, that nothing about this would be easy. Even with an ancient power guiding her, there was a step she needed to do entirely on her own.

But she had known that for a while now, hadn't she? She had achieved palewater, and the purified mana cycled through her core now, but she could feel how much it could still be refined. The intent within it was conflicted, pulled within a dozen different directions and a dozen different interests—between Sabri and the rest of the critters at Brightscale, between her apprenticeship with Cale and her work with Professor Tarbloom, between her studies and her calling to find and help the Abyssals that had been stolen from their homes.

That last one, at least, was finally solved. Flia had felt it the moment the Grand Magus vanished and Cale explained what had happened. There was a flicker of approval from the Leviathan, a loosening of the mana within her, a distillation of intent...

A message from the Gift.

You have enlightened your Spark!

That was it, though. No hint had accompanied it on what she needed to do next, and nothing about the description of the Spark had changed. Flia suspected she knew why: it was only a hint that she was moving in the right direction. She needed to figure out the rest of it on her own.

She sat down on the floor of the temple, closing her eyes and blocking out everything around her except for the feeling of the Abyssals, waiting to be saved. She had not yet tried to draw so deeply upon her Spark, but now it was the only chance they had of returning whole to their homes.

Flia would not entertain the possibility of failure. She had endured it once already, and she would not allow it to happen agai—

Something within her shook, like her Spark was protesting against the very idea of it, and she froze as the resonant buzzing from it seemed to weaken.

No. That was the wrong direction, then. She abandoned that train of thought, casting out for another one.

Failure... She had allowed it to define her, when she returned from the Bitter Path. It was bitter indeed, and she still remembered the look on Elizabeth's face when that dragonfire had pierced her heart. She doubted she would ever forget it. But her Spark seemed to reject the idea of never allowing this to happen again. Why was that?

The answer came to her.

Elizabeth had not been left behind. Flia had stayed by her, and in staying, she had upheld the most important facet of her Spark. It did not only represent those that were lost. It represented also those that could be lost, both the people and creatures that could be left behind and forgotten if no one took action.

She had taken action, and so she upheld her Spark. There was no failure in what she had done. She could work to do better, but that would always be true. It was a task she would keep in front of her, a path she would always continue to walk.

Her Spark warmed in her breast. The palewater she carried seemed to flow a little smoother, a little cleaner.

It was the same for the Grand Magus, for whom Flia's ire was not spent in the slightest. What he had done, the lives he had used in his quest for power... those things disgusted her to no end. She itched, still, to inflict some form of punishment upon him. What he suffered now was not nearly enough to equal all the suffering he had inflicted.

And yet he did not matter, to the Spark, and Flia found to her surprise that if she cast aside her anger, he didn't matter to her, either. What little she had seen of him indicated that he was a lonely, pathetic existence who hid behind others, using his knowledge to push them to do his bidding. Once his Hunters were taken from him and his implements rendered useless, he was nothing but a coward.

The Spark felt no sympathy for him, given all that he had caused, but neither did it care what happened to him so long as he could not continue his work. Alexius Kevonan had status and power, and yet despite those things he was small and irrelevant.

Flia had thought that she needed to destroy him to fulfil her duty to the Leviathan and to make progress with her magic, but that wasn't the truth, exactly. She only needed to put a stop to him. What she was really here for...

...were those that had been left behind and abandoned in his endless quest for power. The Abyssals who had been ripped from their homes, but not only them. The Red Phoenix, too, who was the only one left of her people; the Red Beast, for despite his words, Yra had indicated he had been bound against his will. A few of the scattered Hunters who had been forced into their positions and no longer knew if they could face their families. Cale had been careful to spare them, despite his rage, and at the time Flia had not known why.

She wondered now if he had understood, even in his anger, that she would regret their deaths. He had glanced at her once while they were planning, his expression unreadable, and at the time she thought nothing of it. But she wouldn't put it past him, really, to know what she needed before she did.

Flia opened her eyes again, her Spark fluttering brightly, and saw the world colored in breathtaking hues of blue and green. It was like a sea had formed around her, an Abyss of her own.

Except it wasn't. Yra stood there, watching her, and she was glowing, too. The walls were bright with Abyssal dust, and thin lines emerged from each speck to connect with a thousand others until the chamber seemed alive with those connections, with the shape of things that should have been.

"Gather," Flia whispered. She pushed her Spark into the word, imbuing it with the power that Yra's title carried.

All across the temple, the broken fragments of the Abyssal Ones remembered what they were supposed to be. Brilliant motes began to drift through the air, obeying her command.

So it was that they gathered into the shapes they had always worn and were always meant to be.