31
Drums of the Deep
Was it worth it, Auryn’reh Solah?
Waiting…
Do not rush to give an answer. You are in the Sight. Here, time is endless, and only you pay the price of using this forbidden power on a whim. He pays nothing. Not by watching. He hurts, but it is nothing compared to what you’ve given for a glimpse into the future. You know this, and you will not let it go to waste.
So, take the reins. You have witnessed one future, and now you have seen how you will perish in it. Lost in the snow. Alone. Freezing even as you whisper to ghosts and call his name. But that is not a suitable end for the Numen of Ennea. It is sickening to witness.
Stop waiting.
Stop hesitating.
Go and find your other future—the one where you still wait, but the waiting is without hope. Only longing. Only helplessness. Unless you can find a way to change it. You can. You are the Numen. The Veilweave bows to your will. The Gardens once breathed through your lungs. The Nine sing within your core.
Touch the earth. Like that. You kneel, though such a thing is blasphemy. Kneel and press your fingers to the crisp white snow. The ground beneath your feet twists and vanishes into nothing, and you fall, endlessly, into the pitch-black pit below. Your Silari has abandoned you. Your loneliness hasconsumed you. Years of emptiness have scraped you into nothing but a shell.
You scream and scream as you fall. The wind whips your hair into your face, batters your body with racking pain. But that isn’t why you shriek until your voice is hoarse and spent. Even as you slam into the ground, even as your lungs burn and your bones shudder—you still call for him.
You know what this is. The agony of losing your Bonded—the being meant to be your aegis, your conduit. Without him, you are broken. But the skies have watched you, Auryn’reh Solah. You are even more brokenwhen you covet him.
Do not shut your eyes to the truth. That is not the Numen way. You know of what I speak. From the moment he ripped you from Ennea’s womb without a care for your body or your spirit, he declared his disregard for his duty as your other half.
No. Do not speak to the skies of memory. Do not excuse his negligence. He may not remember who he is, but his soul belongs to you. He is a tool, and a tool is meant to be wielded. You will see. When you step into the city and the silence and the Endless Dark, you will see everything.
Hush.
Listen.
It is quiet. So quiet now. Silence distilled into poison. And then…
The silence shatters.
Wind screams.
From the depths of Elendria comes a primal rhythm, a perversion of what once was sacred.
Listen now.
Can you hear the drums?
Beating. Beating. Beating.
Like a living heart.
A slow, thunderous cadence echoing in your bones. Eachthumpa war cry, the thundering igniting walls around you that appear from the darkness like a creature long forgotten. Crystal and rock veined with pulsing silver mana. An abomination—beautiful and cold and sickening in its perfection.
Beating. Beating. Beating.
Each impact explodes in emerald light, as though the crystal walls crave the sound. They are starved for it after millennia of silence. Look with your Manasight; witness the magic bursting through the silver veins, spreading outwards to shape an image in the nothingness around you.
A city made of crystal, stone, and marble. Lattices, rings, and chiseled buildings. A spire spearing upwards into a colossal cavern, so tall you cannot see the top. Lights shimmer and glint in endless glass windows. Crystalline structures jut upwards, their shapes carved into the image of a looming deity.
The Destroyer.
Hisperversion.
