Silver Flight
Wake up, Auryn'reh Solah!
Open your eyes. The bed shakes, and it is not a dream. You are no longer in the Sight, no longer in the arms of your Silari. Wake fast. See the world that would rebel against your light.
War has come, burdened with the weight of all the lives entangled in the balance of its outcome.
Wake. Wake. Wake. Wake!
You gasp, lungs filling with air that tastes of smoke and ash and fear. The stone groans around you, dust spilling from the beams overhead. Something pounds against a barrier. A colossal impact. An explosion.
BAM!
Another shockwave rolls through, setting your teeth on edge. Not quaking earth. Not steel. Not drums pounding in the deep.
The sound of wards breaking, magic cracking beneath immense pressure and heat. You cannot see it, but you know—the Gliders have come. They are bombarding the wards, and the magicwill not hold. It screams and wails and keens. The Veilweave bends beneath raw force and relentless bombardment.
Your gaze shoots to the shimmer above your bed. Another ward—Kailorien’s. Gold-veined, anchored to his mana, woven so delicately it would have been invisible if not for your Manasight. Your chest tightens. Heswore he'd come for you—and yet he tries to keep you here. Youraise yourhand, weaving silver through your fingertips. The ward shudders, resists, then breaks apart with a crack like ice splitting on a lake.
You don't stop to think. Pulling on your leather pants and tunic then a pair of boots, you run.
The corridor outside seethes with panic. Reskala run past, menders drag bandages and tinctures, the acrid sting of smoke cuts your throat like hairline blades. Your boots slap stone, carrying you deeper into the fortress.
Pressure squeezes your lungs. An unnatural sensation. One you've felt before.
The rift. It's coming.
You search for Riftwardens, meandering through hallways and empty rooms. But they are gone. Not a single one crosses your path. Just more and more soldiers streaming toward the battlements, passing commands from Wing captains one by one.
“Support the courtyard!”
“Breach! Breach!”
“Gather the last from the east wall! Bring water for the fires!”
“Menders needed at the west!”
People run past you, nearly trampling you in their haste, hardly noticing you. Fight against them, Auryn'reh. You are too small, too slight against this tide. Keep moving. Burst through the current of bodies. Breathe, but don't stop moving. If you stop, you will die. They willalldie.
Where is Kailorien? Where are the Wing captains? Isn't anyone commanding the divisions?
Run. Run. Run.
Around the next bend, you nearly trip over a group of Reskala slumped against the wall. Blood slicks their armor, one clutching a gut wound, another gasping through broken ribs. A mender sits beside them, wrapping bandages around their wounds.
Useless.
You can already see how death has marked them. Leave them. Keep running. They are only bodies, and you are the Numen—
Silence!
I am Auryn'reh, and I will not leave these men here because you've deemed them unworthy of the Numen's heart.
I shudder, taking a breath. Willing my racing heart to slow. Nausea rises in my belly, but I push it down. When I open my eyes again, the Reskala's eyes bore into mine. Desperate. Relieved.
“Sokâr!” one rasps, reaching for me with trembling hands. “Your Radiance!”
That title isn't mine, but it must be. For now. If these men, if Kailorien, needs me to be the Sokâr—if that is what it takes for me to stay with him and find compassion for this world—then I will bear it.
