I remember every word of my creators’ conversation.
Their fear, their hope, and their uncertainty of whether I could complete this mission.
My lips part as I gasp and the tears increase, the salty taste of them falling down my cheeks and into the corners of my mouth.
I remember who I am and what I was sent here to do.
Chapter 31
Wren
For the first time since I woke up in this world, I feel the truth of myself without reaching for it.
The outline of what I am settles over me like a second skin, unfamiliar only in how natural it feels to wear it again.
I was not born. I was created by gods long forgotten by the inhabitants of this planet.
I am not lost or forgotten. I was always meant to be here when the earth needs me most.
A soul stitched with purpose and placed within the planet like a final safeguard called forth when destruction tips too far, when the planet can no longer endure the weight of its occupants.
A weaver of fates, meant to watch, listen, and afterexperiencing, decide what–if anything–is worth saving.
I am judgment.
I am the reckoning.
I feel the pull of my purpose, deep inside my being as it settles into my chest.
Just as I breathe easier than I can ever recall doing, a thrum builds within me, followed by a warmth pushing from my chest.
Two threads, golden and gleaming, unfurl from my sternum in graceful arcs.
The peace I felt is replaced with fragile hope. I’ve seen them in other people, and each time there was a clear choice that filled me with certainty from seeing them.
These are the answers I’ve been seeking from the earth as it wept under the battlefield.
And yet in the middle of my relief, I feel a tightness beneath my ribs as I watch the threads hover, suspended in the air before me.
I let my mind drift toward the one on my left, and the thread responds instantly, the darkness around me dissolving with my acknowledgment.
I see the battlefield again with scorched earth from missile attacks and fae magic. Smoke lifting in lazy spirals through the burning forest. At the center of it all, the four kings stand together.
Riven’s chest rises and falls with the aftermath of the carnage, his hands slick with blood and steady at his side. Sylvin’s eyes shine, narrowed in satisfaction. Torryn’s wolf form is still braced, like he waits for another threat to rise. Azyric’s shadows slither around his feet, each tendril seeming on alert, scanning the area around him.
They won.
All around them, the space is littered with bodies. Mostly human, but all silent and unmoving.
The vision shifts forward as the humans retreat further into their corner of the country, too few to fight, too broken to rally. The magical factions reclaim their lost ground with swift, merciless precision. Entire states are wiped of human life, one at a time until there’s no longer any remaining.
Across the world, the tide turns with the news of what happened in America.
I see images of news feeds glowing through shattered screens, trembling voices laced with fear, maps redrawn in real time as human lands across the globe are reclaimed by the magical.
The factions don’t stop until the last human life is snuffed out, but the war doesn’t stop with them then, where it should
The thread keeps pulling me forward in time.
