Chapter 19: Through the Void

What do you mean you gave me a gift? I don’t feel free, I don’t feel much. I feel the connection between us, but I don’t feel you anymore. You’re gone, but not. Where did you go?  

Year of Wrath 1232, Season of life D.53. Ilgor

  They sat talking for hours, taking a seat in the corner near that piano she loved so much. I tried to pay them no mind while they actually made genuine attempts to get to know each other. I couldn't help but overhear them expose some vulnerabilities about each other as the bottle slowly began to disappear. 

   Ilgor actually spoke up about her feelings about that boy, man, I should say. He was just young; everyone was young to me. But she spoke slowly about how she felt about Yvet, about how she still thought about him. I remembered him when I tried to claim him before Bhal had sunk his claws into him once more. It was all she could do without breaking down; her heart still ached. Several months were not enough time to move on, not when a future promised was so thoroughly ripped away. 

   Halgier spoke about his misgivings about Gjorn, which distracted Illy badly enough that she forgot her previous emotional turmoil. How he can't always trust what he does, he had always played his cards close to his chest, even when they were boys. Which prompted Illy to ask just how old they were, where I was surprised myself to hear that Halgier was nearly a hundred, though if they were comparing ages, he would be only a few years older than Illy herself. Where she had turned twenty-five, to his own people, he was just barely thirty.

   It did sound like he had many people ask questions about himself, as Ilgor peppered him with question after question. He was nothing but smiles as he answered her about his childhood, his father, and his mother. How he had ended up becoming friends with Gjorn, at the same time learning that Gjorn was born without being able to use magic at all. His mastery of the same kind of power the goblins used was an oddity in the nicest possible language. 

   It warmed my heart to hear Illy speak so unguarded with someone she had steeped herself in her own self-loathing for too long. Hoping that she would find some kind of happiness in whatever this friendship led to. She still blamed herself for all the deaths that had occurred and her inability to save Kari, especially with what she was learning now. But just as I thought it, the topic was brought up. 

   "Was Kari actually your Mother? I've heard a little about her, but I've never pried." Halgier asked, his words slightly slurred as a second bottle was brought out from Illy's own collection. 

   She poured herself another glass of the dark red wine. Downing the entire thing without answering, Halgier seemed to realize it was a sensitive topic and tried to move along. "Your healers are doing exceptionally we..." 

   She cut him off while staring at him, "It's not that I don't want someone to talk to about it, it's just hard." She said while setting a hand on his. "Just give me a minute." 

   To his credit, I was impressed by his patience; his eyes cleared a bit from their buzz as he waited for her to answer. Very few would have been able to sober up like that with just a few words, but it told me much more about how much he was paying attention. 

   He poured her another round, and she took a sip before answering him slowly. "No, she wasn't my actual ma. Her name was Ysry; she and my father died when I was young. But, she's the only face I remember when I think about my mother." His eyes sobered even more as she spoke, appearing to commit that to memory, not that Illy noticed as she stared at her glass. Though he stayed quiet, waiting to see if she would offer more. 

Eventually, she continued. "She taught me all the basics, taught me the medicine she knew, alchemy, herbology, and our own anatomy. She was the start of all that; she was a wonderful teacher. She just never told me that." A lump had formed in her throat. Which Halgier set a hand on hers now. 

   "You don't have to continue, maybe in time you will be able to tell me more." He said it with a sense of compassion that made Illy turn to look at him in a strange way. He hid from her look by taking a long drink from his own glass. 

By the time he had drained the thing and had no excuse left to avoid her gaze, he asked. "What? Did I say something?" 

   Something flashed across her eyes, smiling, she answered. "You know I can hear your heart beating faster when you said that, right?" She said with an impish grin. 

   "Now hold on, don't you take that the wrong way. I was just trying not to press you about something if it caused you pain." He stammered out. 

   "Are we women really such a great equalizer to all you men? But, you answered more than you meant to." She said while hiding her smirk with her glass. 

   "As a matter of fact, yes, without the balls of a god, we never know what we are going to get. I may be confident, but you are something else." He was backtracking in an entertaining way, I decided. He wasn't ruining anything, but he wasn't entirely aware that he was giving something to her. 

   "Oh, so you think I'm pretty? I thought you wanted to be friends?" She answered coyly as her own cheeks flushed. 

   Turning back to her, "I'd be a damn fool to say you weren't." Conveniently not answering her second question, I could see it on her face; she didn't miss it either. 

   The turn in the conversation brightened Illy, as she didn't press the issue. "Kari was a lot to me. She was my safe haven, my teacher, my guide. She taught me some magic through our prayers. But she taught me how to deal with things. She was, for all intents and purposes, the only thing I could have ever considered a Mother. In the end, she was."

   He seemed grateful to move the topic off himself, jumping on it like a man thrown a lifeline. "Tell me your favorite memory of her." 

   She smiled at his question, "When I was just a little girl, Kari handed me her staff." Jerking a thumb back at the staff behind her, hanging on a hand-carved wooden pedestal. "It was like an electric shock, my hands vibrated with the power of it. I remember her setting her hand on my head, and the feeling instantly stopping as she smiled down at me." 

Leaning back in her chair, her eyes growing distant as she recounted the memory, though the smile never left her face. Shifting her voice, trying to copy her adoptive mother's voice, with all the mock sagacity she could pour in it. "That staff has the prayers of a thousand days, the words said through broken lips; it has seen death and life in equal measure. It has meted out the hard decisions and easy choices, the blood of enemies and the love of friends. One day it will be yours, one day it will be what you have to remember me by." 

She turned back to him, returning to her normal voice. "I didn't know it at the time, but I think that was the moment she decided that I would become the next priestess. After that, she spent a lot more time with me instead of the other kids. She taught me to read, told me the history of our people, and taught me to use our prayers to channel power through either that staff or our own bodies. I didn't know that the prayer wasn't necessary; it was the rhythm, the sound that was needed." 

"I still remembered my hair puffing up from the power in it, like I had just walked through a humid day in a flash. Like being around right before lightning strikes. I looked like a dandelion as she laughed at me while she pulled me along to the stream and pushed me in. Though she joined me quickly enough, playing with me until my hair was soaked enough to get rid of the static." 

   Halgier was silent as he watched her smile, his chin in his palm. While she wasn't looking at him, lost in her own thoughts. I saw the look in his eyes, "I hope you don't break your heart, young man." I thought to myself. 

   Their conversation switched to lighter topics after that, but you could feel the seed of something that had sprouted. Whether it would grow or die was up to them; the eagerness in their voices made me smile. But that young man, he kept a distance that he didn't seem ready to close; the same could be said for Illy. In the end, they seemed to have thoroughly enjoyed their time together. 

   Illy led him to the front door, where Halgier pressed his lips to her hand. Only for Illy to pull him in closer and hug him tightly. For the battle-hardened King with the title of Warlord, he seemed at a loss for what to do with his hands. She still got up on her tiptoes and planted a kiss on his cheek. "You were sweet tonight. I enjoyed our talk. We should do this again sometime!" I smiled at the color on his cheeks. 

   By the time he stammered out an answer, I was grinning with the feeling coming through Illy's connection to our Tether. "I would like that!" He said with just a bit too much enthusiasm. "We should, yes! Would you like to meet here again, or would you like something else?" He asked with genuine interest. 

   "Surprise me," She answered sweetly as she shut the door and leaned against the thing, putting a hand on her chest. I could hear her heart racing as she sighed, pulling the oversized shirt off and throwing it to the side. Not having bothered with anything under it, she went to her desk again and downed the rest of her drink. I made myself scarce as she headed for her bed, reading her thoughts on what she wanted to get done. 

   Days passed as I watched her return each day, beginning her routines. Slipping into something more comfortable, settling down at her desk. Pouring over her tomes, humming new songs as she traced runes into the air. Practicing with her pitch, affecting the flow of the song around herself. When she wanted to practice further, she used all three of her vocal cords to make new effects. She was just scratching the surface to my eyes. 

   She had seen Halgier a few more times as another week passed, while I stayed and read the notes on the things she had been hunting down. Following up on various trails, clues left to her by Gjorn or someone named Odeza. She was neck deep in researching anything about an event called the Dawn of Truths. Though picking my way through the various books in her collection, it sounded familiar. 

   I spent hours picking through them until I heard Illy just outside the door. Leaving myself fully visible, not making any attempt to hide in the song this time. She spotted me at her desk immediately, promptly shutting the door behind her. With a deft hand, she locked it and strode toward me with a glare. "Just what do you think you are doing?" She asked me with no small amount of heat in her voice. But she threw her hands in the air before yelling. "I don't know why I'm bothering. You haven't spoken to me in months, even though you've had a conversation or two with Azorez. She at least had the decorum to tell me that!"

Turning back to me, she jabbed a finger in my chest. "Now you're rifling through things you have no business going through." 

   "I am sorry," I told her while looking away. Her mouth dropped open, but she quickly shut it as she crossed her arms with a defiant look. 

   "That is all you have to say? You are sorry for dangling some truth over me, forcing me to feel some kind of connection with you. You gave me some kind of hope that I didn't dare have after the skirmish." Angry tears started welling up in the corners of her eyes. "I felt like I had found something worth chasing, and all I was left with was the dive deeper toward Bhal. Azorez says you are some kind of god. I thought that maybe, just maybe, I found something that I could follow." 

   "I was scared of you," I answered honestly.

   "What?" She asked, stunned. 

   "I was given some information that I believe is wrong, or you believe is wrong," I told her. 

   "That doesn't make sense. What are you talking about? Let us backtrack for a moment. You look much healthier. You never used to speak this clearly. What happened? Was that information why you wouldn't even bother to talk to me?" Illy asked quickly, shaking her head to clear her mind. 

   "It will, in time," I told her as I pressed a hand to her chest. Just hoping that my plan was going to work. In a flash of light, seeing the world through her eyes. 

*** 

Ilgor

   The Ghost had vanished, and a warmth grew in my chest; it was pleasant, almost euphoric. But with it was an immense feeling of loss, misplaced, off. Like it wasn't my own feelings, like someone else's memories filled my mind. I sat down heavily, falling to the floor as my vision faded to black. 

   The endless void encompassed me, not an absence of light, not a darkness. Null. There was nothing, only my own mental plane staring out into nothing. Looking down at my hands, they were not my own. Trying to speak, there was nothing. No sound, no concept of sound, null. Ideas flashed through my mind, but only the motes of those ideas faded throughout the void. My mind was that darkness; it was as much me as it was not. 

   Something shifted through the dark, only to fade away just as quickly. Feeling the skin tear away from my face, forcing my mouth into being. A sound ripped through my throat, pulsing outward into the infinite. The longer that sound existed, the less empty the void felt around me, the less empty I felt. I felt like I was dreaming, knowing that dreams could be whatever they wanted to be, for good and worse. "But, what is the difference between me and the nothing around me?" The thought passed by without much comprehension. 

   My throat burned as the sound continued on, filling the emptiness around us all. "Us?" The thought asked from somewhere deeper in the darkness. My voice carried further out, echoing against others. Rebounding back to me with equal force, like notes of a song played over each other. Discordant, yet whole. My voice filled the emptiness around us, as something moved in the darkness again. 

   Fear was not a concept that I understood at this time, "Time?" Another thought from the darkness asked. "What else moves in the null?" I thought to myself as the urge to scream into this place only heightened the longer I did so. With sound was my breath, filling this emptiness. For an eternal moment, this instance endlessly expanded outward as my air expanded further out. 

   "A song?" Another entity asked. With each passing memory from my being did the void feel less empty. Until the things in the null reached out and took hold of my sound. Shifting in the nothing, they toyed with the sound coming from me. Seeing nothing beyond the lightless place, I pictured a new dream, a dreaming dream that expanded the further it traveled through this place. 

   "This is a place, not void anymore." I thought to myself. As lights began to ignite in the distance, amorphous entities condensed the air I breathed into burning stars. The sound coming from my lips expanding ever outward in this place. This dream, this universe. Pitching my sound up and down, I became aware of my self. I was as much this place as I was me. I was everything and nothing. 

   The entities in the dark between light moved toward me, aware as well. Looking down at my hands again, they were gone. I was gone, I was everywhere, nowhere. The creator, the nothing, the source, and its end. My body was not mine; it belonged to this place, it belonged to me. It belonged to nothing. My sound rang louder as the entities worked my breath and sound into new things. 

   Stars moving together to form systems. Those stars died, expelling my breath again to condense into smaller things. Smaller things collided and created ever more. A rhythm I formed, as the others took notice to a greater degree, their sounds joined mine, seeking to emulate what I had done. 

   The forest above was a verdant green in the midsummer heat. The sound of the frogs in the creek behind me, the crickets chirping softly in the dark shade of those high canopies. The gentle rush of the wind through the trees was my lullaby to fall asleep to. Eyes closing on their own, as sleep took my tiny form into a restful dream. 

   "Illy! Illy, come on, Mother Kari made sweet bread again!" It was Ysry, the other children running by me as they all crowded around Mama. Hob and Yvet were the first ones to reach her; their legs were always longer anyway. Stretching and rising from the bed of moss I was using as a nest to sleep in, picking leaves out of my braid as I walked up to Mama. 

   The other kids had already gone back to playing in the forest by the time I reached her. The sticky-sweet treats still in their hands, when Kari noticed me, her smile was infectious. Kneeling down she wrapped me in a tight hug, fussing over my hair being in such a disarray. "How was your day, Illy?" She asked me, that smile never having left her face. "Have Hob and the others been picking on you anymore?"

   "No! Not anymore, I hit Hob with a stick, and Yvet has a fat lip now!" I told her proudly, puffing my little seven-year-old chest out in the same gesture I saw the boys use. 

   Her eyes softened a little, but her frown made me worried. "Now that wasn't very nice of you, but I know the boys are a little too rough with you girls. You did well sticking up for yourself, but try not to hurt them. They are all still Family." 

   "But!" I tried.

   She shushed me with a finger held to my lips. "No buts, we are all Family. We each belong to the clan, and we must make sure that we are all safe from each other. From the world around us. From the ones who would want to harm us." 

   "But, Hob was being a jerk!" I protested petulantly.

   "I know you think that now, but there will be a day when he has to learn the hard way. I only hope that it isn't by your hand again." She told me as she handed the last piece of sweet bread to me, wrapping me in a tight hug again. 

   Hob was lying on the bedroll in the caves, bandages over his eye. He refused to look at me, keeping the damaged side of his face away. "Mother was teaching me better prayers for healing. I can make a paste to make it hurt less." I told him, squatting down next to his bedroll. 

He still didn't answer me; he only pulled the blanket over his side so I couldn't see the bruises forming from where Yorm had beaten him. I still didn't like that part either; I felt bad enough about his eye. I should have pulled my swing on the spear during our fight, but I had to do something to force the rest of the crew to respect me as the Raid Leader. I just didn't want it to be at the cost of his eye. "Mother says you will keep your eye. When you were sleeping, I tried to help, fixing the sight. A new prayer Mother was teaching me, it's supposed to fix organs like that." 

   "I didn't ask you to help me. You left a reminder that I won't ever forget." The acid in his voice hurt. More than I thought it would, I was prepared for just about anything he might have to say, but that? I made a mistake, and I knew that, but I wanted to help him now. My vision grew blurry, getting up in a hurry. I left the caves before anyone could see the hurt in my eyes.

   The temple was below me as I watched her. That odd ziggurat that they built to amplify their voices outward. Clever, building amphitheaters into their sky-worshipping temples. Watching them for the last few thousand years, I watched my children grow. Expanding outward, having families of their own, their lineages growing ever longer as the years passed. 

   This one, though, she was different. While they all could hear my song, the original one from the void, she could hear it for what it was. Slowly at first, hearing the faintest whisper of words. The notes to the symphony, one by one, she was beginning to pick them apart. High priestess to her people, the champion among them for her magic. Her mind is sharper than any blade, fluid and adaptable. 

   When she sang today, though? The wait was over; she had understood the words behind the words. The flow in the world around her, my words in the breeze, on every wave in the sea, every movement of their world. In the laughter of their children, in the music that drifted through their lives. She sang to me. For me. 

   A chill ran up my spine; her eyes locked on where I watched her from. Singing my own song back to me. Reaching down to her with a hand of my own for the first time, I took her form, in it's everything. "Rythia."

   This body wasn't mine, with little claws on my feet, my skin turned the shade of a midsummer forest. Standing atop a pool of water, my face wasn't my own. Sharper, fuller cheeks, nose upturned like a button, but the eyes were the same. The deep purple that seemed to draw my own soul toward them, reaching down, I felt another hand press against the surface of the water. 

   "Do you want to see?" My reflection asked me. 

   "What do you mean?" I asked. 

   "Do you want to feel the earth move below you? Do you want to feel the wind through your hair? Do you want to be free?" My reflection asked, a smile on her face, where mine hadn't moved. Her voice grew louder in my ears with each word.

   "Wasn't I always free?" I asked, not letting my hand drift from the surface of the water. 

   "Freedom by illusion. An illusion you can feel." It told me. 

   Staring at the water's surface, my reflection vanished to be replaced by a different creature. Something that looked like me, her skin like the night sky. Stars slowly moving across the surface of her body, a long tail curling out behind her. "Is that what I am?" My words flowing into the water. 

   "Like the water's reflection, the surface. Look once more." It told me, as fingers curled around my own from where ours met at the water. 

   Something like a dark vine was wrapped around my arm. "How had I not noticed that?" I thought idly, as the creature in the water shifted again to show me my own reflection. 

   Letting go of the thing in the water's hand, a horror sinking into my skin, sitting lower as a pit formed in my stomach. It wasn't a vine, it was my veins, filled with some black fluid. Roughly removing the clothes from myself, the black veins only revealed themselves more and more. They pulsed with my rapid heartbeat, breath growing short. Up my arms and legs, along my chest and stomach, it was everywhere, inside me. 

   Feeling it deeper, I knew that it was in my muscles, my bones, my organs, everything. That creature's arms emerged from the water, lifting itself out as if it were on a solid surface. But that thing's presence somehow made me feel a little calmer. It looked like a goblin, but just different enough for that fear to set in. For it to take hold, for a seed of doubt to grow. 

   "That is his doing." It spoke with a voice I knew, one I had heard on several occasions. But this voice was clearer, more potent, real. 

   "You are the ghost," I told it. The black marks running up and down my body made me feel dull. My eyes felt heavy the longer I tried to keep them open. "Why do I feel tired?" 

   "Because you are becoming aware, like he doesn't want you to." She said while walking slowly toward me. 

   Trying to back up, tripping on something under the water. Falling hard against something that opened a cut on my arm, pouring that black fluid into the water around us. A panic was starting to set in, but forcing my tired eyes toward her. "What are you? Why have you been following me since I woke up from my ceremony?" I growled at her. 

   "I must first point out one thing to you, then ask a question." She said patiently. 

   "Just what is that?" I barked at her as I got to my feet. Not quite registering that I was standing on water. 

   "That you are waking up." With a small motion of her hand, "And this."

   A multitude of threads connected us together. The darkness in my veins flowed toward her, while a purer thing flowed toward me. It wasn't the same kind of darkness; it wasn't fluid, it wasn't rotten looking, like what was flowing to her. It reminded me of a clear night sky, a phantom cool wind from the chill of the evening brushed across me. Before I could even ask, she was standing in front of me, those threads laced between her fingers. "This is why I was scared of you. I was scared that you would hurt me. I was scared that I might be dying when I did this." She gestured the threads in her hand once more to emphasize her meaning. 

   "But, what is it? What did you do?" I asked, taking the threads in my fingers as well. They were warm, like feeling a part of my own body. 

   "A sort of soul linkage, you might say. I did this when you first dreamed of me during your ceremony, your voice called so strongly to my mind while I drifted along in a despair that I thought eternal. I linked myself to you like so, that is why I follow. I must maintain this; you maintain it as well, even if you don't know it yet. If you truly hated me, this would wither and decay, no matter how much I tried to save it." She explained. 

   "But what is it?" My question still being unanswered. 

   She brought a finger up to her lip in a gesture that made me think she was deep in thought. Looking back into my eyes before answering, "It is called a Tether. To simply put it, a Tether is a reciprocal connection that strengthens and emboldens both parties." 

   "I've heard of that spell before, but I've only ever heard of it in Human Marriages." Dropping the lacey threads from my fingers. 

   "Ah, spontaneous Tethers can develop between two people who care deeply for each other, yes. But that is only a single case of it. A Tether can be formed between any parties or any number of parties. I once maintained trillions of Tethers long ago. Now, I would only be willing to do so with a few thousand." She told me. "You seem far less concerned than I thought you would be, seeing all this." 

   "I am concerned, but I'm trying to stay level-headed while being terrified at this shit in my skin, and whatever the hell this is," Lacing my fingers through the Tether again. "To top that off, I am still furious with you for being so silent with me these last few months when all I wanted was someone to talk to. And why do you know Rythia and claim to be her mother?" 

   "My question first." Was all she said, looking at me expectantly. 

   Sighing, figuring that resisting this ghost would only drag things out longer than they needed to. "What is it?"

   "Do you want to be free?" She asked simply. 

   Cocking my head, I crossed my arms. "What do you mean? I don't know what you are talking about, my mind, my body have always been mine to choose what to do with. Apparently, my soul isn't as free as I think with this thing." Gesturing to the Tether that had seemed to lessen in its slack as it was absorbed into both our bodies with the lessened distance. 

   She touched a finger to my arm, and the black fluid in my veins began to clear. My breathing felt easier, and my arm felt lighter where she touched me. "You are not as free as you think you are. That black fluid, as you call it, I see in everything. Every tree, every plant, swirling through the air, every animal, big or small, every insect and fungus. It is in them all, except for me, and the others like me." 

   Slowly, I asked, and what she said slowly started to sink in. "What is it?" My words were controlled, but they too were slow as the wave of exhaustion washed back over me when the fluid reentered my veins. 

   "The infection. A remnant of a conflict that had far-reaching consequences that we never foresaw." The sadness in her eyes was genuine, the way I saw it. "It changes those it touches. Anything it touches. It took my children, my child, who stands in front of me." 

   "You said you were Rythia's mother, now you are saying I am one of your children as well?" Not quite believing her claim. She only nodded. "What are you?" 

   "By my own name, I hope this works here. After sharing so many memories with you, surely you shouldn't be held to my dear sister's curse. I am one of the Quartet. I know that doesn't mean much to you now. But, please, be wary of who you say that name to." She said.

   "What is your name?" But even before she said it, a flood of memories washed through my mind as the Tether grew brighter, as the threads flowing to her ran clean for a moment before returning back to the black fluid once more. 

   "I am someone you have always known, yet have never met." The smiling faces of people who felt familiar looked back at me. Millions of moments shared with three others. Countless prayers were offered to me, innumerable lives that I helped guide down their own paths. "Vilorlith is my name, I am the Great Mother." Even as she said it, memories still flashed by. 

   "Are these yours?" I asked breathlessly, as they refused to stop coming.

   "I have lived a very long life." She said distantly, "Long enough to learn love, sorrow, regret, loss, and now hope. Hope in you." Turning to look me dead in the eyes as the memories abruptly stopped. Images of my own life flickered across her eyes. "Do you want to be free? Free of the infection that holds you back. That suppresses you from being like me? Break that chain that holds you back from your full potential. Do you not find it odd that since your ceremony, you have excelled at nearly anything you've set your mind to?"

"Yes, you have always been clever, smart as a whip, adaptable. But even your healers don't have your memory, your power. Do you want to know why?" She asked as she began to pace, watching my face. 

   "I'm assuming it is your doing. You said this thing was reciprocal. So you are the one flooding me with what? And, what are you getting in return?" My questions were deliberate and pointed. 

   "You are singularly Tethered to me, your rapid growth in power, your rapid understanding of the song, your magic and voice being as potent as they are. It makes you something closer to me. Have you noticed how your Spark is much brighter than the others around you? But, to answer your question. You would be growing far more," She paused, a shameful look on her face. Turning to look away. "I wanted you to be more, the best possible version of yourself that you could be. But, I am a parasite to you." 

"I need to heal my frail form. You call me a corpse woman, a ghost, a specter. I suppose that is a fair assumption, accurate enough to what I am anyway. I cannot die in any meaningful way, just taken out of the fight for a while. That thing you know is all that is left. I take magic from you, power. To slowly heal myself, but it might take centuries at the rate I'm taking from you."

   "What if I gave you more?" The look of shock on her face when she turned back to me. I didn't understand why I wanted to help her now, but it just felt right. "How much can you take without killing me?"

   "First, child. That infection, it takes your mind, body, and soul. I can strip your body of it, but the others will remain. I can protect you against it, but it will. Well, I won't mince my words, it will kill me again. But, I think it would be a worthy sacrifice; once you can see it, you won't unsee it. Once your body is free of the infection, your other gifts will grow. Once you are free, you will glow like a second moon in the sky." She placed her hands on my shoulders as she forced something through me. 

   Draining the black fluid from my veins, feeling like someone had set my skin on fire. Her own eyes burned with a pale fire in them as she continued to force the infection out of me. "Listen to me, Illy. The Tether will remain. The Fae-borne Witch, she can help guide you." 

Her voice began to fade as her eyes burned brighter as the Tether began to fade as well. "You need to find Rythia's body." Something about it was odd, like she was saying more than she was. "Just remember, Darling, to sing you must first breathe." Were the last words I heard as the world faded to darkness around me. 

   The first thing I registered was that I was inside my room, vision fuzzy. Lights far too bright, the darkness too deep, muffled and distorted sound was all I heard. As if someone had fired a gun next to my ears, pitched and whining. One breath in, sitting up as the world swam around me. 

   Vaguely aware of others in the room, feeling like I had just spent the night drinking my limit and then some. Shaky shadows moving through the fog of my vision, blinking groggily. There was a voice speaking to me, like someone I knew.  Second breath in, felt like I was waking from a dream, the weight of my chest lifting without effort. 

   The fog in my eyes quickly began to fade, several things registering at once. Gjorn was in front of me, trying to get my eyes to dilate, and Cori was soundlessly barking at someone just outside the door. Several of my own soldiers were stationed inside the room with weapons drawn. Azorez was standing over me with an odd look in her eyes. Third breath in, felt easier until I noticed the black fluid under their skin now. 

   Scrambling to my feet in a panic as my hearing snapped back to reality. Everyone turned their head toward me, bumping into the wall behind me, eyes wide. Searching my skin for that infection. Fourth breath in, heart racing as the blood pounded inside my ears. The world was loud: heavy boots outside my room, the sound of armor and metal all around me. Eyes flicking to Gjorn, who was rising up slowly, hands up in a peaceful gesture. "We found you passed out, your Grace. What happened?" He said slowly, calmly, as he waved everyone except Cori and Azorez out of the room. 

   "Is that what she saw? That shit under your skin, under all our skins?" I croaked out. 

   Something like recognition registered in Gjorn's eyes as the room went surprisingly quiet, and my breathing increased the longer I looked at them. It moved just below the surface; it was on everything, in everything. It clung to the air, the stone, that fluid like a pulsing mass on and in everything. "So you know?" He asked. "You have broken that limitation?" 

   "What are you talking about, Gjorn?" Cori barked, striding up to me, arm raised as if to embrace me. But the black veins running up and down her body, exiting her in dark clouds in ways I didn't understand. A wall of wind stopped her as I reflexively put it up to stop her from touching me. She looked hurt, but there were too many things racing through my head for me to care at the moment. Rubbing her nose where she had walked right into it, she turned and stomped out of the room, her short braid following behind her. 

   Azorez watched her go. With a quick gesture, she cast a spell at me. My breathing calmed, while my heart rate fell rapidly as a forced calm washed over my mind. One of the spells she had been teaching me, I was a bit shocked at how potent it was, sinking to my knees. Turning back at me, she asked. "What happened to the goddess? She isn't on this plane anymore." 

   "What do you mean she isn't on this plane anymore? What happened to her?" Gjorn snapped at her, anger flashing across his face. Though he calmed himself quickly enough. I still saw the infection boil under his skin at his rage.  

   Azorez cocked her head at him. "You seem to know an awful lot more than Illy and I. Majestet, is there something you have been hiding? Chu?" 

   Gjorn only turned his attention to me; he reached out, but withdrew just as quickly. Looking directly into my eyes, he said. "You aren't infected anymore, but you are still..." His mouth vanished in that same odd way again. Annoyance rang in his eyes, before his mouth returned a moment later. "I see, there are some things you still don't know. What did she tell you? What did she want you to do?" 

   Azorez looked at him again, that distrustful glare in her eyes. I turned toward the Necromancer, getting her attention. "We must find Rythia's body. She was very adamant about that." 

   "First, Mother. I must point out something that Gjorn doesn't seem to recognize, that you don't recognize. You smell like her now. You smell like a divine. Tell me what happened, child." I didn't flinch away as she rested a hand on my arm, despite the black veins running up and down her skin. So, I told them, the memories that weren't my own, the ones that were mine. The conversation I had with Vilorlith before she faded away. 

   "I don't know what any of that was supposed to mean! I was always free, so what did she do to me that made her fade out of existence like that?" I finished breathlessly. 

   Azorez was the first to answer, "She didn't. She became part of you." 

   Gjorn interjected, "Remember those words well, breath Illy." He poured some considerable power into his last two words. Unconsciously, I took a breath, feeling like my chest had never been light. Like something had been around my neck and I had never noticed it before. "She said chains, didn't she?" I thought to myself. 

   Closing my eyes, leaning my head back against the wall, concentrating on the feeling of my breath. In, out. In, out. Like my own little storm inside my body. Taking the world around me, and bringing it inside myself. My voice sounded different when I asked Azorez. "What do you mean, she became a part of me?" I sang my words as much as I spoke them. What that would mean, I had no idea.