#Elreith

[gods-bound]

Half-Light, Half-Life - Chapter 9

“- Lannius, of the Sixth Circle of Scholars. Neurn, of House Seraes. Emaeril, of the second division of the Fadelit scholars-" Again and again, names are called, the voice of the Keeper's adjunct ringing over the room, scholars standing one by one. Elreith waits there, with her head bowed, hand clenched tight in her lap, tensing at every breath between names, hoping, praying, that the next one to be called will be hers. 

Fifty candidates selected, and the adjunct is at twenty three now, and Elreith's heart is clenched so tightly in her chest that it feels like it might burst. Another name is called and the scholar next to her rises, stumbling to his feet with a slightly dazed look in his eyes. 

Please, Elreith prays, her throat tight, hands threatening to tremble. Please, please, please. 

"- Vasseryn, of House Caetheira. Baelrith, scholar of the Second Tower. Tryphenic, of House Halaena -" Sixteen names left now, fifteen, fourteen, and Elreith's palms have started to sweat. She clenches them more tightly in the fabric of her dress, and forces her breathing even, maintaining her breathing through sheer force of will. 

Eleven names now, ten, nine, deep breath in, deep breath out, eight, seven, six. Elreith has never prayed properly to the Nightfather, not like her mother used to, singing his songs in the dead of night when the stars are out and the moons are up. She wishes she had now. She wishes she hadn't let those songs fade and turn silent on her tongue, that she had sung them every night like her mother used to, praying to the ancient father of their people. 

Nightdaughter they call her, but she hasn't been a faithful daughter, not really. Please, Elreith pleads, begging to that ancient god, that kindly deity that looks upon her people with such love, father to every one of them. And how ungrateful a thing it is, to pray only now, in her moment of need, but Elreith can't help it. 

Please, she begs, again and again and again, saying it like a mantra. And maybe it doesn't matter if no one is listening, she's saying it for her, for herself, she's listening. It will have to be enough. Please, please-

Four names now, three, two and - "Leyard, of House Lumeria," the adjunct calls, this the final name, and Elreith's eyes are fixed on the floor, her breath still in her chest. No, she thinks desperately. No, no, no-

But the adjunct is still talking, voice like the grind of stone on stone. "Each name has been listed in order of ascending score, ranked by performance, which leads us to our final selection - a fifty-first candidate chosen, awarded the distinction for having achieving the highest score seen in the trials of the proving in three hundred and sixty five years-"

- and Elreith's breath is catching in her chest, her heart stilling, frozen between breaths as she inhales, because the adjunct's gaze has turned to fix on her and -

"- Elreith, of the third Towercast division, stand." 

For a second, there is only white noise in Elreith's head, a high whine which wails through her ears, fading in and out. Her body moves almost of her own accord, rising gracefully to her feet, and then she's standing there, eyes rising to meet the veiled gaze of the adjunct, even as all the scholars of the hall turn to stare. She can see the moment they take her in - the servant's black of her dress, the Nightdaughter black of her skin, the way their shock turns to something like disbelief, eyes going wide.

Elreith barely feels their gazes, her eyes fixed on the adjunct, who inclines their head, their gaze a shadow behind the silvered fall of their veil. Her heart is thundering in her chest, so hard and fast that it feels like it's going to break free of her ribs, and yet her hands are still at her sides. She stands there, her back straight, her head held high, and when the grey-veiled aids standing by the walls sweep forward one by one to begin handing out the scrolls of virtue, Elreith is the first to receive one. 

The aid bows as they place it into her hands, the scroll a strangely heavy thing for a mere thing of silk and paper and metal, her fingers closing around it. Her hands almost tremble holding it - it's a beautiful thing, black silk embroidered with flowering patterns of gold, and within it is the promise of an entire new world. Elreith's name, noted alongside recognition of her merits and signed with the Keeper of the Tower's own seal, final written proof of it - of her selection, her merit, her worthiness. 

The highest scholars of Ai'Vaerin could study for a lifetime, and never get the chance to even catch a glimpse of one, and here it sits within Elreith's hands, bearing her name. She feels lightheaded. 

Elreith barely notices as the rest of the scrolls are awarded, each aid bowing one by one and handing the chosen scholars their scrolls. Only when the last scroll has been given does the adjunct speak again. "Those that stand here before us - know this, your virtue has been marked, your names noted, forever to be inscribed in Ai'Vaerin's history. You are seen and known, and the light of your endeavors will bring the dawn of Vaelthran's enlightenment to an even finer glow."

"Advance and take the final step," the adjunct says, their voice the rustle of dead leaves in the wind, "and no that there is no return."

The aid before Elreith bows again then, and sweeps out one hand, beckoning her to follow as they turn, beginning to sweep away. This is the last moment to change her mind, Elreith knows. To take the proving and prove her worth is one thing, to become one of the selected and embark on the transition to become one of the divine bodies, transcending the boundary between life and death, becoming one a being of the immortal realm so that she may forever serve and study beneath the Blessed Ones themselves is another thing entirely.

Elreith doesn't hesitate. When the aid sweeps forth, Elreith follows. She feels the eyes of the scholars on her as she passes, walking before the gathered rows of them, the quiet sounds of her footsteps echoing in the great chamber. Standing and kneeling scholars alike, selected and selected, watch her pass, their eyes following her as she passes before them - the last to be chosen, the first to be led out, given highest honor above all of them, and there's a satisfaction in it, to feeling their eyes on her as she walks before them, head held high and strides even. It beats in her chest, a warm and victorious thing, threatening to expand between her ribs, spilling out of her.  

Eyes meet her's for a split second as she passes - the scholar in green, the man from the Convex, his dark eyes meeting her's with something like resentment, with something like shock. Elreith walks right past him, and doesn't look at him as she does, passing him without even a glance. 

The aid leads her from the hall, and Elreith doesn't look back.

-

The chamber she's led to is cool and quiet, all dark stone and flickering torchlight. It's one in a long line of chambers, the walls between them cut of filigreed stone, patterns casting shadows where the green braziers shine in the long hall beyond, filtering through the gaps in the stonework. If asked, Elreith couldn't tell you if it had taken minutes or hours to walk there, following silently behind the aid's whispering train of silk as they went up and up and up, following the grand stairs of the spire higher and higher. 

There'd been a certain point, Elreith knows, when the rooms started to look different, the halls different. Ai'Vaerin is a grand city, beautiful, proud, a marvel built by two millennia of the realm's finest architects, highest of grandeur that are only surpassed one century after the last. Since Elreith was twelve years old, she's served in the Upper City, home of Vaelthran's greatest minds and scholars, and had thought those halls were the grandest that Ai'Vaerin could have. 

She'd been mistaken. Even the beauty of the Upper City pales in comparison to the effortless grace that the Citadel Spires demonstrate. The Upper City might be the Blessed Ones domain, but the towers and spires are their true home, piercing the heavens themselves and threading through the space between the clouds. It is the difference, Elreith thinks, between seeing the painting of a master in its true state, and after the span of three hundred years, when grime and patina have turned its colors worn and muted, the sharpness of its lines hidden beneath the illusion of its age. 

The stone here is so black it looks like ink, the marble so pale it's almost blinding, stone carved of fresh snowfall, carved with such craft that it fools the eye, searching desperately for some hint of a flaw, only to find none. Light and shadow are aspects of art here, curated through cut panes of stone and high windows, turns shimmering by torches and brazier light, giving the world itself an unearthly quality. It is a world unlike anything Elreith has ever known, and even the air feels colder against her skin, as if between one step and the next she's somehow really traversed into a different world, some fey place that exists beyond the bound of her own ordinary realm. 

Elreith doesn't know how long she spends kneeling there, in that chamber. Time has become an evasive thing, hours spilling past in the span of seconds, or maybe seconds in the span of hours. Her aid had led her to the chamber, murmuring for her to kneel and wait, just as the aids of the other fifty scholars must have led the scholars to their own chambers, to kneel and wait in turn. 

One by one they will receive a visit by one of the Blessed Ones in turn, to examine them and decide to what houses they might best be placed in service. For a race so ancient and proud, the Blessed Vaelkan number few, undying, unbreeding, producing no children and never succumbing to death, numbering no more than three dozen. Each individual is a household in their own right, lord and master of their own domain and tower, kingly beings in their own right. 

In the end when the Blessed One comes, it almost catches Elreith by surprise. Every visit of a Blessed One into the lower bounds of the Upper City is marked by a trailing procession, dozens, sometimes hundred of servants walking in a trail that can sometimes stretch a mile long, incense burning with every step, the Blessed Ones hidden within the shimmering silks and golden retreat of their palanquin. 

So when the door opens to admit a Blessed One accompanied by a single veiled servant, Elreith almost doesn't recognize them for what they are. A split second glimpse of a veiled figure in deep shimmering red has her dropping into an elegant bow, and it's only once the Blessed One has even stepped into the room that Elreith realizes the one who opened the door was an aid at all, their robes finer than any servant Elreith has ever seen. 

No matter how fine the aid's robes are, they pale in comparison to that of the Blessed One. Red silk weeps down their body, long sleeves draping on the ground, whispering with each step. The robes are embroidered with glittering threads, each ink of silk packed so tight with it that the entire thing seems to shimmer, the embroidery so iridescent a blue that it shimmering between red and purple, giving the fabric an air of the shimmer of an oil slick. The Blessed One is wearing a crown of some sort, curving horns of gold rising in a mantle around their head, over which is draped just the thinnest pane of shimmering red silk. 

Elreith catches only the faintest glance of it in her peripheral vision, and it's enough to have her eyes fixed on the floor, fighting back the urge to swallow thickly. Its the closest Elreith has ever come to seeing a Blessed One's face, the veil so thin and fine that she'd be able to make out the Blessed One's features beneath it, if she let her eyes only rise just enough to try. 

She feels the moment the Blessed One's gaze lands on her, settling like a weight across her back, and Elreith bows even deeper, keeping her gaze fixed firmly on the floor, eyes lowered demurely. To be in the Citadel Spires is to see the Blessed Ones more at ease than Elreith has ever seen them, and the thought brings with it equal parts awe and stomach-turning terror. 

She keeps her head lowered and tries to keep her breathing as silent as she can, not daring to move a muscle. Prior to this, the most Elreith had ever seen of a Blessed one was the Keeper of the Spire, and even they had been shrouded in layers upon layers of silvered silk, sitting on a high dais with their staff standing statuesque around them, incense burners lit and weeping pale smoke. To be kneeling before one, so close that Elreith could reach out and touch them threatens to bring a cold sweat to Elreith's skin. 

The Blessed One seems to pause as they see her. "A Nightkin?" They note, their voice an airy murmur, head tilting to look at their aid. Their silks rustle as they move, whispering watery-soft, a counterpoint to the note of disapproval in their voice.   

"Indeed, my lord," the aid replies softly, lowering their head in a bow. "The highest scoring candidate in almost four hundred years."

Elreith keeps her eyes fixed on the floor, feeling the way the Blessed One turns back, gaze settling sharp upon her skin as they look her up and down. Finally the Blessed One lets out a noise, almost like a snort. "Well," the Blessed One says quietly, dismissively, with no more can than one would have looking through a set of bolts of fabric and tossing one back down onto the table "I suppose the citadel does always need more temple maidens, to tend to the dusting if nothing else. Let her undergo the process along with the rest, no doubt some form of work will be found for her."

The Blessed One says no more than that, turning and sweeping back out of the room without another word, their aid closing the door behind them, leaving Elreith kneeling there in silence, her heartbeat loud in her ears, something sharp aching in her side, like someone has slipped a knife between her ribs and driven it deep. Quietly she swallows, and lets her curl into soft balls in her lap, before on the next breath releasing them again. 

A breath in, a breath out, Elreith's eyes slipping shut for a brief moment, and when she opens them again her hands carefully uncurl, her breathing coming smooth and even as she straightens. Water on glass, she thinks. The hammer of rain, pounding against windows of stained glass, leaving weeping streams running down the faces of the sainted scholars. None of it touches them, in the end. None of it touches them, and none of it touches her. 

 When one of the aids returns - not in red silk this time, but in simple grey, Elreith rises and greets them smoothly, returning their bow with her own. They don't come empty handed, this time bringing with them a silver chalice. The liquid in it is pitch black, and seems to shimmer in the pale green light of the braziers, emitting a faint mist, so cold in the aid's hand that Elreith can feel the chill of it even before they step through the door. 

Only here, now, with the potion in front of her does Elreith let the nerves of what she's about to do finally hit her, a fluttering nervousness gaining wings inside her belly. This is it, the final step, the final choice that will break her from her own mortality - becoming something that is neither living nor dead, but a transcendent blend of the two, balanced on her point of perfect harmony. A perfect being, a divine body, elevated and enlightened. 

The aid holds the chalice before her, pale gloved hand steady and still where they emerge from the draped fall of their layers, not a single breath in the room to interrupt the silence except her own. Quietly, Elreith draws in a breath and makes herself straighten, keeping her gait smooth and even as she takes a step forward. 

The chalice is even colder in hand, the metal chilled to the touch, raising goosebumps on her skin. There's something about the quality of it that draws the eye, the black of the liquid so deep and profound that it's mesmerizing, holding a sort of gravity. It is simultaneously the easiest thing in the world and the most difficult thing Elreith has ever done to bring the chalice to her lips and drink. 

The chill of it hits her immediately, burning through her, and Elreith manages another two swallows before the goblet tumbles from her hand, clattering to the floor, the potion hissing as it splatters across the stone. Elreith doesn't notice, her knees hitting the floor as she crumples, hands clawing at her chest. 

Elreith screams. 

-

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#gods bound #half-light #Elreith #original writing #dark fantasy #mixed historical setting #horror #necromany #warning that things start to get spicy from here on out lads

[tciddaemina]

Hi there! Just wanted to say your Gods-Bound series is one of the best things I’ve ever read, hands down. Thank you for sharing it! I love Elreith 😭

haha thanks, i'm glad to hear you enjoy it ♥

#asks #gods-bound #my writing #original fiction #half-light

[gods-bound]

Half-Light, Half-Life - Chapter 8

There's a certain quality the mind takes when it reaches a point of focal concentration. Sounds fall away, the world seeming to narrow to a single fine point, crystal clear and focused, time seeming to stretch and pull, with no distinction between seconds and hours. There is ink on Elreith's fingers and a quill in her hand, and the words seem to flow like the current of a river, spilling down across the page of their own accord, unstoppable as a flood. 

The curling letters of the transcendental tongue flower beneath the nib of her quill, all twisting flares and sweeping arches, and between one blink and the next entire paragraph appear, between one breath and the next entire pages. Her heart is a steady thrum in her chest, the entire world narrowed to this, to this single moment, this single act of making - her quill, and the parchment, and the ink in between, all other things lost and faded in the face of it, vanishing into the slipstream scratch on pen on paper, of looping script and stabbed punctuation. 

Elreith writes, and she writes, and she writes, one question after the next, one essay after the next, and what spills across her page is calculations, it's poetry, it's orbital trajectories, it's history and it's life and it's death and it is stories, so many stories. Elreith writes, handing one piece of paper after the next to the looming figure of the aide that stands beside her desk, silent, shrouded, as still as a ghost, who takes each paper and carries them away. 

Elreith writes, and around her figures are one by one led from the hall, aids returning from their silently journey to give a single shake of the head. A mistake made, a conclusion missed, a single fault or flaw, and the scholar at the table is quietly led away, guided back towards the great doors and left to begin their long walk back down. One person at a time, the sea of scholars diminishes, silently figures gliding past them like ghosts, until Elreith's hand is aching, it's cramping, until her letters are turning shaky and there is ink smudged up her fingers, and still she writes. 

There is no hunger, there is no thirst, there is no impatience or fear or anticipation - there is the problem in front of her, the next question in front of her, the next test on a scroll that never seems to end, rolling out and out and out until it's end is spilling off the end of her desk and pooling on the floor beside her chair. There is one problem, and then the next, one question, and then the next, and Elreith answers them, she answers them all. 

Elreith takes a breath, and when she looks there are no shadows through the high windows and half the desks in the room are empty. Elreith blinks, and when she looks up the shadows are slanted across the ceiling, high and golden and tinged with bruised orange and pink. Elreith flexes her hand and dips her quill into her ink bottle, and when she looks down the scroll of questions has begun to pool like fabric against the side of her chair, feet and feet and feet long now-

And Elreith finishes one question, ink splattered black on her fingers, and goes to unroll the scroll another inch to see the next set, the light outside the high windows now dark and dim and- 

And then the bell rings, a low tonal drone that hums through the hall, and the shrouded aid standing in front of her emerges one gloved hand from its grey veil, holding it up to gesture a stop as a whispery voice rings over the chamber. "The first stage is complete."

Elreith's hand stills, quill frozen between her fingers, and carefully puts it aside, aware of the aid's eyes on her the entire time, their gaze a shadowed impression behind the gauzy fall of their veil. She sets her quill aside, and the aid collects the last of her papers, carrying them away, and Elreith sits back, for the first time in hours taking a proper chance to look around the room. 

Her shoulders are stiff and her fingers tremble faintly with the stinging tension of holding a quill so tightly all day, Elreith's throat dry and parched, and she becomes absently aware of the low ache of hunger in her stomach, numbed down and turned distant and muted. The hall is dark, wall braziers burning , the candle set on each desk burned low now - Elreith hadn't even noticed it being placed there, hadn't even noticed it being lit. The hall seems vaster than ever, without the faint touch of sunlight from above to lighten its gloom, the darkness seeming to hang right down over the rows of desks, now mostly empty. 

Hundreds of scholars had entered the hall that morning, perhaps thousands, every desk filled as far as the eye could see, and yet when Elreith casts her eyes across them now almost all now sit empty, their candles snuffed out, all papers cleared. Perhaps a fifth of the original candidates remain, some three or four hundred, scattered around the hall in clusters, the looming pale figures of the aids standing beside them ghostly beacons.Her own stands before her, a silent figure, and when they raise a hand, beckoning for her to follow, Elreith does. 

Around the hall, the remaining candidates do the same, rising from their seats and drifting down the rows of desks, being led to gather in the open space before the Keeper of the Spire's dais. Gathering together, it only becomes more clear how few of them there are left, and how much fewer will remain after this next round of testing. They might have passed the first phase, but they still have chance to falter. Only fifty will be chosen, of the hundreds that remain, if that, with some years the Blessed Houses selecting no candidates at all. 

Elreith follows behind her aid, pace quiet and steady, her aid peeling away as they approach the crowd, moving to stand with the others where they line up along the sides of the hall, leaving Elreith amongst the scholars. The crowd is a mix of faces and ages - older, refined scholars in their wood tone browns and blues, incipient young scholars and trainees in their greens, Elreith the sole note of black amongst them. A face catches her eye in the crowd, a pair of eyes meeting her's, the young scholar from the Convex meeting her eyes with a glare, his jaw tight. For a second their gaze holds, and then he jerks his eyes away, turning to face forward. 

Elreith draws in a breath, slow and deep, and turns her own eyes forward, onto the Keep's dais, not allowing herself to glance his way again. Her hands clench quietly in the fabric of her dress. She has as much right to be here as him, she reminds herself. She was nominated, she did the work, she passed the first phase. Let him look if he wants, let him glare and scowl, Elreith doesn't care. 

One of the aids rises onto the aids, robes whispering on the floor as they climb the stairs and come to bow by the Keeper's side. The Keeper's highest adjunct, Elreith realizes, spotting the notes of silver amongst the pale grey cloud of their robes. Elreith doesn't hear what they say, nor what the Keeper of the Spire responds, but the adjunct straightens and takes a step forward to stand on the highest step of the stairs, just below the Keeper's platform, as they go to address the crowd. 

"Three hundred and seventy-three candidates have passed the first stage," the adjunct says, and their voice is only strong in comparison to that of the Keeper's. Their voice comes in a rough gasp, like the grate of broken stone, ringing over the room. "The next stage shall begin. Before the Keeper of the Spire's eyes, you shall prove your worth. Kneel."

As one, they do, dropping down into neat lines and bowing their heads low. On Elreith's left kneels a scholar in maroon brown, edged with gold - an honored, recognized scholar - on her left a junior in green and silver. Neither pay her a glance, all bowing their heads alike when the Keeper's adjunct continues. "You have all demonstrated your excellence, but excellence alone is not enough. To have merit is to have perfection. Comprehension, poise, patience, understanding - to hear, and to know, and to make known. Each will be asked a question, answer well, and don't falter."

Elreith bows her head deeper, along with the rest, her hands clasped tight in front of her, and tries not to feel the way her heart has started to thunder in her chest, palms growing sweaty. This will be the true test, a single moments' hesitation or loss of composure enough to end it all. 

Elreith takes a slow deep breath, holding it for one, two, three, and then releases it slowly, her head down, gaze still fixed on the dark marble of the floor, the faint glow of the torches shining reflected in its polished surface. At the end of the first line of scholars, an aide steps forth, shrouded form indistinguishable from the rest save for the candle it holds in its hands, the light flickering a pale green as it comes to stand before the first candidate. 

When the aid has stilled, the adjunct speaks, voice coming in a rasping whisper that carries through the room. "’Ask upon the wind my name, and hear it spoken, son of my son of my son. The gods call upon me, and sing in jubilation. My children call upon me, and sing in despair. What fine line between the two is it, that brings laughter from tears and joy from suffering.’ Tell us scholar - what testament does this god call upon, and what philosophy does he teach?"

The scholar swallows, and then begins to speak, voice coming like the smooth run of a river - haltering at first, but gaining smoothness and confidence for every word that joins the current, gaining depth and presence as water swells over rock. It goes like that, the aid advancing, one step by another to stand before each kneeling scholar in turn, holding the candle before them as the adjunct whispers their question, the scholar called upon to give their answer. 

Down the line, one by one, they go, the adjuncts' questions never the same. To one her poses philosophy, to another calculation of the trajectories of the heavenly bodies and the prediction of the centennial moons, to another the command to recite the third commandment of the Sept of the Living Light's founding treaties. Elreith kneels there, one the cold stone floor, head bowed and hands clasped, until her knees begin to ache and the cold begins to seep into her, listening to one scholar after another give their answer. 

Some speak confidently, fluidly, with calm voids that ring steady and even, finishing with soft tones before they bow their head. Some speak, and find a hand raised before they've even reached their first conclusion - their tone steady, but their logic found with flaw. Others yet barely get past opening their mouths, stuttering or pausing or hesitating too long, onto the have the adjunct silently raise his hand and gesture them to lower their heads once more, returning to their bow. 

She doesn't know how long she kneels there, on that cold stone floor, listening to the whispering rasp of the Keeper's adjunct and the smooth tones of the scholars - voices high or deep or low or even. Doesn't know, except that past a certain point her heart rate turns slow and steady in her chest, and her palms cease to sweat, the anxious twist in her stomach settling into something cool, something steady and solid as rock. 

One by one, the scholars speak, until the aid finally steps up in front of the scholar beside her, the master in his maroon robes, edged in gold. "Tell us," the Keeper's adjunct says, voice ringing through the air with the indisputable tone of a divine commandment, "upon what incipient principles were founded the Lamentations of the Weeping Sky?"

The scholar takes a breath and bows his head. His voice is warm and even when he speaks, steady. "The Lamentations of the Weeping Sky is the codex of the Tymerian V'aleen, written during the fall of their empire by the revolutionary priest of the forged order, Ki'asaa du'va Li'airai. They chronicle the fall of the empire, in the face of the Era of Warring, when the gods turned upon one another, lamenting its cause-"

The scholar keeps speaking, laying out the founding principles one by one, in their founding order according to the events that inspired them, only to be cut off barely past reaching the sixth, when a single date spoken wrong in a moment of inattention, immediately corrected, is enough to make the adjunct raise their hand. The scholar goes quiet, the silence ringing, and even with her head bowed Elreith can see the look of resignation that crosses his face, the way his eyes flutter shut for a second in defeat, before he bows his head once more. 

It's enough to make Elreith's hands clench, sending a pang of nerves through her, the fact that even this - so accomplished and honored a scholar, with so many years of experience, can fall and fail due to a single misspoken word-

Elreith draws in an even breath, and steels herself. There is no time for doubt, for hesitation or fear, not when the aid is already shifting, the pale glow of the candle coming to stand above her as the aid's robes whisper to a stop before her. Elreith bows, and she's straightening, eyes rising to meet the green glow of the candle where it dances on the wick, pale was flecked with silver and clouded with veins of white, head held fall and hands clasped loosely in front of her as she waits there to receive her question. 

Behind the aid, high on the stairs of the dais, the Keeper's adjunct's eyes settle upon her, the weight of them like the crushing press of the ocean upon her shoulders, cold and seeping and dark, sending a chill down her spine even as she braces her shoulder against the weight of it. And then the adjunct speaks, croaking voice giving life to the question that will seal her fate. 

"To see, to know, to understand, to say - the subjective reality sways between one pair of eyes and the next, and all perspectives give rise to different faces of the same whole. Tell us, scholar - what is the nature of truth?" 

Elreith swallows, cursing her luck. A simple question of mathematics or calculations, even literature or poetry, that would be easy. A question of detailed philosophy, of history, that would be easy. This is not that, too broad, too open, too vast to be answered easily. A class of scholars could stand together for a year and debate the question, and here she gives an answer alone.

A memory comes to her then, the snatched voices of poet's, echoing through an open window. What thing is truth but a soft feathered bird, fleeting and fragile in the wind-

And Elreith knows her answer. 

Elreith's heart steady's in her chest, growing warm, and when her hands smooth down to lie together against her lap, they don't tremble. When her eyes rise, and they meet those of the Keeper's adjunct, they do it without flinching, sure and steady. 

"'That one understands truth and the reality of one’s world through an analogy of many forms, sees it in its most honest form through the expression of many mediums, overlapping,' says the Darkling Scholar's Permutations of Truth of the Unknowing," Elreith says, her voice ringing through the room clear and even. "The foundational principle of our perception of the world - of what we understand, and comprehend, and observe as fact, and therefore as truth is in itself a thing of subjectives. Two forms, truth takes - the truth of our world, of fundamental principles that lay unbending before our eyes, and the truth of our words, that which is spoken and said and understood - and yet to both it applies. You ask me to define the nature of truth, and so let me tell you-"

Elreith doesn't know how long she speaks, except that by the end of it her voice is hoarse, and when she lowers her head again, giving her final bow when her voice finally grows silent, she can feel the eyes of the scholars on her as well. For a moment, there is nothing but silence, the eyes of the room upon her - the weight of the adjunct's gaze, of the Keeper's gaze crushing on her shoulders, but Elreith doesn't shake. Just bows her head, and waits, and then the aid's robes whisper as they step onwards, coming to stand before the next candidate, and the testing resumes once more, Elreith left to kneel in silence along with the rest, waiting for the moment the last scholar is called upon and gives their answer. 

She can't rightly say how long it takes, time seeming to take on a slippery quality, passing through her fingers like shivering sand. There's a ringing in her ears that doesn't seem to leave, the world seeming to swim, like a current has passed above her head and now the world has turned distant, sight and sound muffled by the flow of water, turned soft and distorted. It's easy to let it wash over her, fixing her eyes on the stone floor and letting the calm rhythm of her breathing count away the minutes, the voices of the scholars seeming such a distant thing now. 

Her drags herself from it, when the voice of the final scholar finally falters and falls silent, the adjunct announcing that they are to wait while the final scores are tallied, and the chosen announced. The silence seems to stretch there, the air in the hall turned taut and tense as all the scholars seem to hold their breath, and it's a strange thing, an irony, Elreith supposes, that her heart hadn't raced and her palms hadn't sweated not once when she was giving her answer, and yet here, now, once it's all said and done, she feels her hands tremble, unable to help the way her heart thunders in her chest and her breath threatens to catch, her nerves seeming to come upon her all at once. 

Every minute seems to take the span of a year, Elreith turning lightheaded, something catching thick in her throat. Please, she prays - to the Nightfather, to whoever else knows who, any and every god that might be listening. Please, please, please.

Her heart seems to freeze in her chest when one of the line of aids finally walks up the stairs of the dais to whisper in the adjunct's ear, who in turn takes a step and bows, lowering their head to murmur in the Keeper's ear where they sit upon their throne. The Keeper gives a single nod, barely visible through the silver shimmering drape of their veil, and the adjunct bows lower, taking a step back and then straightening as they take their place at the top of the stairs once more, turning to face the crowd. 

"Fifty have been chosen, to be taken forth and given the honor of being selected," the adjunct says, and holds out one hand, the aid standing beside them bowing and placing a thick ornate scroll in their waiting hand. "Their names will be read, in ascending order. Stand when you are called upon."

The adjunct straightens then, gloved hands unrolling the scroll, and in a rasping voice begins to read. 

-

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#gods bound #half-light #elreith #original writing #dark fantasy

[gods-bound]

Half-Light, Half-Life - Chapter 7

The light out the window is pale, the sun not yet risen and the horizon only just beginning to lighten, night losing its depth by quiet inches, the stars still bright and the moons only just hanging above the crest of the mountains, dipping slowly lower. The world is still and dark and silent, the spires of the city cast in shrouded mist, their edges turned soft, the vastness of the city sprawling in the darkness.

The hush of it is absolute, not a single soul yet waking, no noise to stir the Towercast's halls. Elreith sits there, in the darkness, in the dim of her room, pale light casting soft shadows across the floor as dawn bruises the horizon. Her heart is a quiet thing in her chest, slow and thudding, her hands clenched softly in the blankets where she sits at the end of her bed, before the window, watching the first fingers of golden light begin to spill over the horizon.

She hadn't been able to sleep, not tonight, not now, too full of- Of everything. It is a daunting feeling that weighs in her chest, stealing the breath from her lungs. A doubting feeling. A nervous, anticipating feeling that has her heart fluttering, beating it's wings like a bird in a cage, and Elreith sits there, feeling the world dawn immense in front of her, too large and heavy and vast for her to be able to bear to close her eyes, even for a second.

As she watches, the welling light of the sun finally breaks the horizon and spills over, first dripping rays of light breaching the distant lines of the mountains to skate across the tops of the highest spires, the city cast in half-light gold, shining through the mist, dark grey stone turned molten. Birds take flight, crows and doves alike wheeling and spinning as they take to the skies in a great swarm, circling between the towers on their first morning flight.

Elreith watches them, her heart caught in her chest, her breath a stolen thing, a sense of awe that seems to make her whole body draw tight watching the shadow of the flock rise even higher, rising through the towers like they're going to fly right up into the heavens themselves, only to break apart and disperse at the first ringing of the great bells, the thrum of it ringing through the city and announcing the first hour. A flock of the crows detaches, wheeling around to fly past the halls of the Towercast with a cacophony of cawing, a flurry of black feathers that whispers as it passes in the distance beyond her window, vanishing into the open air. For a moment longer, Elreith stares, listening to the sounds of their distant calling fade away, and only then does Elreith rise from her bed, letting her blankets fall away behind her.

It is a strange thing, to go through the routine of dressing, donning her black dress for perhaps the final time. Her fingers move slowly, patiently, taking each piece one at a time in silence. Chemise, stockings, corset, petticoat. Button by button, her the black panes of her dress come together around her, coming together like armor, familiar and comforting and protective, Elreith weaving the buttons right up the length of her neck, high collar fitting snug.

Black lace, embroidered with weaving vines of flowering silver at her wrists, another line high at her collar. She strokes her fingers along it one line of it softly as she looks in the mirror, feeling the worn and well loved embroidery. Shoes then, neat and black, leather polished but stiff bearing the faintest signs of old scuffing. Slips her feet in, one after another, and tightens the laces, before straightening and coming to stand there, feet set neatly together.

The ribbon lies waiting, sitting pooled on her bedside table, and careful fingers take it in hand. The fabric is soft, silken, and Elreith runs her fingers along the embroidery one last time, feeling the swirling lines of the prayer runes before she lifts it and begins the work of tidying her hair. Braids come together between her fingers, silver hair soft as she winds up each braid and gathers them together, pinning them and then tying them off one final time with the ribbon, so that it might sit in a bow in her hair.

Then her fingers still, the room once more going quiet and still as she stands there, her eyes falling towards the mirror. A young woman stares back, yellow eye bright and glowing in the dim, skin black as the night, the embroidery on her dress and ribbon a glinting accent to the pale silver of her hair, a single golden earring at her ear. Her features are soft, elegant, and for

Elreith feels like shes staring into the face of a stranger. She looks like her mother, Elreith realizes, and has to breathe through the pang of soft grief the thought brings.

"I'll do you proud," Elreith tells the woman in the mirror, the Nightdaughter standing there who looks so much like her mother.

Her veil sits draped on the back of her chair, waiting, but Elreith doesn't look at it. Turns instead, leaving it where it lies, and when she walks from the room it is with her face bare and her head held high. Her footsteps echo, quiet boots on hard polished stone, the noise seeming to ring, resounding with a sense of finality as she walks along the long quiet hall, past the closed doors of the other maids, her feet carrying her on one step at a time.

A thousand times she's walked this path, ten thousand times, the walls as familiar to her as the sight of her own face - a thousand times, and perhaps no more. She reaches the stairs, and takes the first step.

-

Aesynth waits there, dressed once more in her robes of office, the finest set of them Elreith has perhaps ever seen. Her robes are deep glimmering midnight blue, woven through with twisting branches of golden thread which mantle across her shoulders and up her collar, drawing intricate patterns on the train of her robes where they drag on the ground behind her. Her spectacles are gone, no where to be seen, milky eyes taking a new solemnness and depth without them, her horns dripping with bands of gold.

It is the first time Elreith has ever seen her wear the proper robes of her station - honored and respected elder Wordkeeper that she is - and the sight makes Elreith's stomach tighten, a weight growing there. Aesynth just meets her eyes though, her gaze soft and fond, tipping her head with a small smile, and when Elreith begins walking, it is with Aesynth beside her, Elreith standing tall and proud at her side - side by side, as an equal.

It is barely an hour past dawn, the spires of the city still cast in slanted golden light, the Threading Spire standing tall among them. It is not the tallest of the towers, not anymore, though it once had been - built to high and tall and proud that it had been thought it may even piece the heavens, proving the needle that would sew the skies to join the earth. It stands as the smaller sister to it's siblings now, walkways and great bridges spanning off it like the spokes of a wheel to join the higher towers - the one true path of entrance to the Transcendent City, where the Blessed Vaelkan and their servants dwell, the highest seat of glory and enlightenment in the world.  

Soon, Elreith might be up there with them, a divine body herself.

The great stairs of the spire begin right at it's foot, and it's there that Aesynth pauses, taking no step further. Only those seeking to prove themselves may climb the tower today, setting foot upon its step, and when Elreith turns to Aesynth one last time, mouth opening - though to say what Elreith doesn't know - Aesynth merely takes her hand, soft papery scales warm against her skin as she squeezes it gently, pale clouded eyes meeting hers.

"You don't need luck," Aesynth tells her, her voice a soft thing, but so strong, so proud, meeting her eyes with the serenity and strength that caused the gods to bless her race, all those many years ago. "Try, and succeed, Elreith - it will be enough."

Elreith's breath catches, and she nods, throat tight. Aesynth squeezes her hands one last time, tightly, and then shes stepping back. When Elreith takes the first step onto the stairs of the Threading Spire, she does it alone, a sole figure of black amongst a sea of scholar's green. The stairs rise, tall and broad, a test in their own right, the sun shining warm on her back as she walks the first flurry, until the great gates into the spire itself dawn before her, the stairs continuing to rise even higher, into the depths of the spire itself.

Around her, hundreds already walk the path, and hundreds more walk ahead, walking the stairs into the spire itself. They're students, all of them. Students and recognized scholars, green robes disguised by the lines of their embroidery and the length of their draping robes, and Elreith draws eyes as she begins to ascend, walking among them. Their eyes find her - find the black of her servant's dress, the black of her skin, find the silver of her hair and the yellow of her eyes, so stark amongst the human colours that surround her. There are some Deveura amongst the scholars, some Haema's children too, with their silver eyes and their pointed ears, skin so pale, and one and all their eyes fall to her, some merely staring, others scoffing.

Elreith doesn't look at a single one of them, her eyes set ahead, on the rising stairs. She walks with her head held high, her back straight, her gait a smooth and even thing, and doesn't pause for a moment.

Step by step, she ascends the great stairs, feeling the gaze of grand statues peer down at her, veiled figures of stone that track her steps with invisible eyes, their gaze heavy and weighing. They are grand scholars, she shows, poets and philosophers and astronomers, practitioners of science of old, divine bodies in their own right who transcended the bounds of their flesh and mortality, recreated in stone so that they might cast eternal judgement on those who come next, lending their eyes to weigh those who would think themselves worthy to join them.

Elreith bears the weight of their gaze without flinching, meeting their shadowed eyes with her own. One step after another, higher and higher, until the light of the sun fades form her back and gloom of the tower closes around her, the light turning faint and green where it burns from the bright braziers.

She is one in a sea of bodies, the many hundreds of hopefuls who have come, and none dare to speak even a word as they rise, streaming upwards until they reach the great arched doors of the first hall of proving. It is a grand thing, all old and rising stone, the polished black marble of its floor stretching for hundred of meters, ceiling rising into the gloom. Desks have been set up, each no more than a single table and chair, spaced in what seem like infinitely stretching rows, aligned with perfect mathematical symmetry.

Elreith's feels something inside her steel itself at the sight. This will be the first test, but not the last - an examination, to test the candidates knowledge. Poetry, mathematics, literature, the biological and physical sciences, astronomy, the history of the realms and of Vaelthran's own scholar saints, all of it is tested, and in great enough depth to make even a mastered scholar struggle and falter. To prove yourself is to prove yourself not merely good, but the best, the foremost and most worthy minds that Vaelthran has to offer, and in doing so put yourself forward for the honor of perhaps being chosen to serve one of the Blessed Houses.

A single fault, a single flaw, and it will be over. Only the best are allowed through into the next stage, and Elreith does not intend to be one of those walking back down the spire steps.

The crowd has grown thick at the top of the steps, accumulating at the grand doors but not daring to step through, and the hushed murmur that had started up is silence just as quickly by the thrum of a low deep bell, humming through the space. All eyes are drawn to the far of the room, where a figure has appeared, shrouded in silver.

The Keeper of the Spire, Elreith realizes, a Blessed One of the lower order, and lord and master of the Threading Spire, judge of all those who pass through its halls. The Keeper is a mournful figure, draped in their silver robes, every aspect of their form hidden within the shroud of it, the fall of their great veil, save the gloved hand that peeks through the fabric, book of selection held in hand. Her eyes fall along with the rest of the crowds as they bow, lowering their head in reverence as the Keeper's procession passes before him, lighting the way up onto the grand dais, where his seat waits.

The whole crowd seems to shiver, when the Keeper finally sits, taking his place upon the watching throne and turning his eyes to them. Even hidden beneath the silver of his veil, his gaze seems to bring a chill with it that settles into the skin. The sound of his voice comes in a rattling whisper, carried through the chamber through use of magic.

"Those that come on this day of naming - take a step forward, and know that no step can be taken back," the Keeper says, Elreith's head bowing low along with the rest of the scholars as he speaks. "To fail once is to fail for eternity, and none who attempt to prove themselves may do so again. Those who would step forward, a place awaits you. Find it and be ready."

Elreith swallows, her hands clenching in the fabric of her dress, but when the line of aides standing along the lengths of the hall begin to move, gliding forward in a winding line to begin leading the candidates to their seats one by one, Elreith steps forward, passing across the threshold, and gives her name in turn.  

The aide bows their head, their face hidden by the grey drape of their veil, their eyes little more than a shadowed impression behind it. "Follow," they whisper, their voice a creaking, thing, like the groan of old wood twisting beneath a terrible weight, and then Elreith is seated, one within a sea of endless desks, the hairs on the back of her neck rising as she feels the eye of the Keeper sweep across her from where he sits on high.

"On the bell," the Keeper whispers quietly, when the very last student is seated. "Begin."

Elreith's fingers find her quill, gripping it tightly, and when the chime of the bell rings - a deep, hollow echoing thing that seems to vibrate through her very bones - Elreith doesn't hesitate, opening the draw of her desk and pulling out the waiting stack of paper, and then beginning. The tests have begun, and now she must see them through to the end - prove herself worthy, once and for all, or walk back down the stairs in disgrace.

Elreith takes a deep breath, releases it slowly, feeling the tension slowly ease from her shoulders, and then dips her quill into her inkwell and begins to write.

-

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[gods-bound]

Half-Light, Half-Life - Chapter 6

The work doesn't cease after that. Every second that Elreith is not at work, she's at her desk, head bent and books piled high beside her, the candle burning low until the young hours of the morning. She works each night until she can barely hold her quill, the looping script of the transcendental tongue twisting and growing slippery and evasive, Elreith barely able to keep her eyes open, only to drag herself to bed to steal a few hours before she's called to wake at dawn. 

The hours in between pass in a haze, each day passing quicker than the last, Elreith snatching every spare moment she can with her books, barely pausing to eat or sleep in between. 

The rest of the maids start ending her looks for it, concerned and curious, Fayenna even going so far as to ask her if she's even been sleeping at all. "You look- Well, you look ghastly." Fayenna says, shooting her a worried look. "You do have to sleep, you know, Elreith. Elreith? Elreith, are you even listening?"

"I am," Elreith replies, one hand rising to hide a jaw breaking yawn. "I am getting enough sleep, I promise."

Fayenna shoots her an incredulous look, saying what she thinks of that, but there's no time for further comment after that, Saelsma already calling from across the hall, summoning the maids so that they may be given their duties and postings for the day. Fayenna shoots her one last look as they go, but still reaches out and takes Elreith's plate alongside her own as she hurries to drop them off, motioning for her to go ahead. 

A week passes, two, each day feeling like it passes in the blink of an eye, sand slipping so fast through the hourglass now that it leaves Elreith feeling slightly breathless. There's duties, cleaning and walking and carrying buckets, dusting cloths in hand and vanishes for polishing, the low hum of the bells calling days end, a dinner eaten in quick bites and then books, quill scratching and pages turning and page after page after page of parchment filling up, all tight black script, candle flickering and the moons rise, rise, rising through the sky until they finally fall. A stolen moment of sleep in between, and then waking, scrambling out of bed and getting dressed, the day beginning all over again and -

Fourteen days left. Thirteen days left. Twelve days left and -

A knock on the door, muffled, and Elreith looks up from her books, quill pausing in her hand, only then realizing it's been the better part of two hours since the last bell of work, and she's completely forgotten to go to dinner. 

"Elreith, you in?" Fayenna asks, voice muffled through the thick wood. "You weren't at dinner, so I brought you some food."

"Come in," Elreith calls, setting down her quill and flexing her hand. Her fingers are stiff, and her hand twinges a little when she stretches her fingers out, cramped after writing so intensely. The door creaks open, Fayenna shouldering it open, a tray held in her hands. She doesn't look surprised to see Elreith at her desk, books and papers spread around her, just sends her a fond look. 

"I couldn't get much," Fayenna says as she steps in, carefully kicking the door shut behind her with one foot. Elreith quickly hurries to make some space on the desk as Fayenna bring the tray forward. "Just what was leftover from the end of dinner. But I got some rolls, and some cheese, and even a little bit of the ham as well."

"Thanks," Elreith says, gathering up an arm full of parchment and hastily balancing them on the stack of books, shooting a careful look at her ink bottle to make sure it's not at risk of being knocked over. "I'd meant to go get some, but I lost track of the time."

Fayenna just makes a noise at that, amused and not at all surprised, setting the tray down. "Well, you can't study on an empty stomach. Here."

It's only now, with the food sitting in front of her, that Elreith realizes just how hungry she is. It's easy, when caught up in the flow of work to let all other things fade away, the bite of hunger numbing to a distant thing, barely noticeable. Now she feels it, the cramp of it in her stomach, hollow and aching, the sensation of it seeming to come back to her all at once, and she gives Fayenna another grateful look, warmed by her care. "Really, thank you."

Fayenna just gives a little shrug, stepping back to take a seat on the end of Elreith's bed, and Elreith turns towards the rolls, picking one up and tearing a piece off, making quick work of it. Her candle is burned halfway through its wick, the room cast in a soft glow, the moons only just beginning to rise through her window. 

"You know," Fayenna says after a moment, her eyes lingering on Elreith's stack of books. "I still can't believe you're actually doing it. I mean, people talk about sitting for one of the provings, getting chosen by one of the great houses, but you're actually doing it." 

Elreith looks up at that, her fingers pausing in the process of tearing another piece off one of the rolls. She shifts in her chair slightly, drawing one leg up against her chest, the white of her petticoat flashing briefly beneath the black laced hem of her dress. "I still can't even believe I'm doing it myself, to tell the truth," Elreith says. 

For so long now this has been her dream, since Elreith was barely more than a girl, and now for it to actually be happening- It barely feels real. 

"I can't even imagine it, being something that's not a maid," Fayenna says as she leans back, drawing her clawed hands into her lap. "I don't know how you do it, Elreith. I really don't. The thought of even having to do such tests, all that study. You work yourself to the bone, Elreith - I couldn't do it." 

Elreith looks down at that, at her own hands, where her fingers play with the edge of the brass tray, trying to give name to the nebulous feeling growing inside her. Finally she seems to gather herself. "My mother... She used to tell me stories sometimes, about the Dusklands, about what our life used to be like, before we left. I don't remember much of it myself but... She used to be a scholar there, before we had to leave. She used to tell me about it, all the books she used to read - she knew them all by heart, all the songs and the stories and everything."

It's the one tragedy of Elreith's youth, the one injustice that had lodged itself beneath her skin. Elreith can remember so little of their life before they moved to Vaelthran, but she can remember her mother, how hard she had to work, how she'd break her back dawn till dusk working whatever job she could get just to keep her and Elreith fed and a roof over their heads. Listening to her mother sing, every verse of poetry she remembered, perfect and lyrical, it had always made Elreith want to rail. Her mother knew so much, remembered so much, sharp as anything, entire libraries of songs in her head, and such a love for it even years later, and yet she'd never managed to find work for it in Vaelthran. 

Why can't you be a scholar again? Elreith used to ask, so young and naive then, such a fool, and her mother used to just smile softly and shake her head. 

This a new kingdom, a new life - it's just as well that I try doing new things as well, her mother used to say, and then sweep Elreith up in her arms, humming loudly and spinning her as she sang, just to make Elreith laugh. It was only years later, when Elreith started working as a maid herself that she realized the truth of it - that her mother couldn't have been a scholar even if she'd wanted to, not like she had been in the Dusklands. No no name Nightdaughter would ever be accepted into the high academies as one of their scholars, not without going through the academy themselves, and who would offer admittance and pay the tuition of a penniless unknown immigrant, one from such a disdained race as the Nightfolk as well?  

Her mother gave up everything to take them from the Dusklands, to give them a better life, one where they could be safe and free from the Duskland's wars and its brutal caste system. She'd died without ever being able to make a return to doing what she loved, and that's some of the reason why, Elreith thinks, the need for it burns inside her so fiercely. 

To become a scholar of Vaelthran, where her mother couldn't, and in doing so honor her. When Elreith finally continues, her voice is soft. "I suppose I just... I want to do something that would make her proud. 

Elreith rises from her chair then, padding over to the bed, and lies back on it, Fayenna flopping down a moment late at her side, letting out a sigh.

"I'm going to miss you when you're gone, you know." Fayenna says. "Up there in the spires, it'll be like a whole nother  life. You're going to forget all about us."

"I won't," Elreith promises, and turns to look at her, nudging Fayenna's shoulder with her own. It earns an amused noise from Fayenna, turning onto her side. She reaches one hand into the pocket of her dress, holding it out. 

"Here," Fayenna says, something glinting soft between her black claws. "I know it isn't much, but... I made it myself. I thought you might like something, a souvenir to remember us all by."

Elreith sits up, and Fayenna drops it into her hand. It's a ribbon, Elreith realizes, long and soft, made of the same brilliant dark blue fabric that Elreith had gone with Fayenna to buy in the market. Its length has been embroidered, dancing circular patterns of silver stitched neatly down its length, beautiful and elegant, and Elreith recognizes it vaguely as one of the Averia scripts. 

"Euphemia helped me get the silver thread," Fayenna says, watching as Elreith studies, turning it over gently in her hands. "It's- I put prayers for good fortune on it, to give you good luck on your tests. I know you probably won't need it but-"

"No," Elreith says quickly, looking up. "Fayenna, thank you. Really, it's beautiful."

Fayenna ducks her head a little then, and Elreith draws up, leaning over to sweep her up into a hug, embracing her tightly. "I am going to miss you, you know," Elreith says tightly, into Fayenna's shoulder, the soft whisper of Fayenna's feather brushing her ear. "I don't know what I'm going to do with myself, without you there."

Fayenna shakes her head, letting out a small laugh, only then starting to pull back. "You'll be fine," she says, though even her voice sounds a little choked up. "You're going to be the best of them up there, I know you are. None of them will even work half so hard, or be half as smart."

Elreith wipes at her eyes, looking down at the ribbon in her hands, soft lengths of glimmering silver spilling over her finger and pooling in her lap. Her fingers tighten around it. 

"I'll wear it in my hair the day of the exam," Elreith says, turning it over in her fingers, only glancing up then. "It's- Really, Fayenna, thank you." 

"You're going to blow them all away," Fayenna says. "Just- Wherever you end up, promise you'll write won't you? I know you'll be disappearing up into one of the spires, but that doesn't mean you can't still come visit."

Elreith laughs, sitting up, her arms coming to gather around her legs, a smile soft on her lips. "Of course. You couldn't stop me. I'll be writing you letters every other day, so many that you'll be sick of me by the end."

Fayenna laughs at that, shaking her head. "It's a promise then. I'll be sending you just as much, just you wait." Faynna smiles at her, her black eyes bright, and when Fayenna leaves again, Elreith settling back at her desk before her books, it's with a new warmth in her chest, something gentle and soft. 

No matter where she ends up, she won't make a friend half as dear and beloved as Fayenna.  

-

The days pass even quicker after that, the blink of an eye seeming to carry past days at a time. Maids keep coming up to Elreith, catching her and calling her to the side as they wish her good luck. Elreith's never hidden her ambitions, the way she spends her free hours well known, every maid in the Towercast having seen Elreith wander by with her arms stacked high with books more than once, and the news that she's actually been given a recommendation into the provings seems to have spread amongst the maids, all of them taking their chance to tell her they're certain she'll do well. 

"You'll do us proud, Elreith, I know you will," Cordelia tells her, Oletta hanging over her shoulder, her face stern, but something proud in her eyes. "We'll be lighting some candles for you, the night of, ask the spirits to favor your fortunes."

"Thank you," Elreith tells them, feeling almost a little breathless. She'd never known Cordelia or Oletta as well as some of the others, the two of them the better part of a decade older than her, but all the maids in the Towercast are sisters of a kind, and they look after each other where they can. Cordelia and Oletta had been the ones to take Elreith's hand and guide her, back when she'd first become a maid, barely twelve years old and so young and inexperienced, showing her how to take her first steps. 

It's nostalgic now, the thought of leaving them, the thought of leaving all the familiar faces of the Towercast, Elreith's friends and family for so long now, the thought filling her with a swell of equal sorrow and joy. 

Eight days, seven days, six days, time running like ink across paper, every day passing in a dizzying spiral, until Elreith breathes in and realizes that there are only two days left. She lies awake, barely able to sleep for the thought of it, the tick of each second seeming to loom over her with an impossible weight. Her breath is caught in her chest, and she lies there, the weight of the future seeming to press down on her shoulders - and it's hope, and it's fear, ambition and joy and weighing, shimmering dread, anticipation growing so sharp in her that it threatens to make her muscles seize. 

One more day, just one more now, the date of naming looming so close that she can taste it on her stone, lending steel to her spine. It makes her sit up straighter, a steely sort of determination settling in her blood. One more day, the span on a single night, and then it's time. It's almost time. 

Elreith won't fail. She won't.

-

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#gods bound #half-light #Elreith #original fiction #dark fantasy #mixed historical setting #necroman

[gods-bound]

Half-Light, Half-Life - Chapter 5

The delegation from Talthun stays two and a half weeks, and in that time Elreith doesn't catch a single other glimpse of it. She's glad of it, content to steer well clear, returning to her own duties with a quiet and lingering sense of relief. The memory of the Bishop's gaze - blood red and slick, crimson oxidizing like rust, something organic and putrid - still sends a shiver down her spine, and it takes days before she stops waking in the middle of the night, sweat cold on her skin as she remembers what it felt like to meet those eyes. 

Elreith doesn't know what accords the Blessed Ones and the delegation from the Sept of the Living Light finally reached, not privy to the details of why it was they'd come what deals it was they'd struck up, but some agreement must be reached because at the end of their stay three days of celebrations are ordered to send them off. Feasts are held each night in the upper city, the entirely of Ai'Vaerin following suit in celebration, and word is that the Golden Lady and the Lord of Towers himself had even deigned to bless the delegation with an invitation to a feast of their own, to honor the new accord and the agreements stuck up. 

It's the first time in years that Elreith has ever heard of the Lord and Lady of Vaelthran deigning to see outsiders, and the thought fills her with a sense of quiet awe. The Blessed Ones are often reclusive in the city, sticking to its spires and heights, and while some of the lesser lords can be seen on occasion passing through, the highest of the Blessed Vaelkan are almost akin to gods in their own right, mystical figures worshiped and rarely sighted, overlooking the growth and glory of their empire from the tallest mist shrouded heights of their towering spires.

For the Bishop to have earned their favor enough to actually be granted a visit to their presence, his dealings in the city must have been significant indeed. At the very least, Elreith tells itself, it says good things about the state of Vaelthran's diplomacy with Talthun. While the kingdoms may not be able to go to war, the pact of the God's Blood binding them to peace, there are other ways in which they can make their displeasure known, and a bettering relationship can only benefit them all. 

Elreith is not invited to attend any of the celebrations, no maid is, instead spending the three days in furious service with the rest of Ai'Vaerin's staff, the kitchens working double time to keep up with the demands of the feasts and hoards of servants sweeping through the halls like furious ants, ensuring that every hall is pristine and beautiful as one set of celebrations end and another begin. Banners are hung from every hall and gate, lanterns and bright alchemical lights hanging through every garden and Arboretum, music singing endlessly from throughout the city, all of the greatest and brightest of the kingdom invited to join in the celebrations and bask in the grandeur of the Blessed Vaelkan's great city, invited to mingle with the greatest of the kingdom's scholars, sharing art and poetry and music and philosophy in a show of enlightenment unsurpassed anywhere in the four realms. 

On the second night, the greatest poets of the city come together to speak, gathering in gardens throughout the upper city to speak and write song together, and Elreith finds herself pausing on the stairs, tray in hand, beneath a cracked window in the servants hall, where she can just hear the murmur of the debate from the Garden of Silver Fountains. "- what questions asked and answers given, what thing is truth but a soft feathered bird, fleeting and fragile in the wind-"

"Soft feathered?" Another replies, voice ringing out, and even in argument their voice comes like song, polished and smooth. "What truth is a weak thing? Truth comes with steel, with claws that bite, a rending, ruthless, wrecking thing. Truth fights, and it kills, truth is a bleeding thing, a biting thing-” 

The rest is lost to her before Elreith can hear in, a new bustle of servants come up the stairs carrying her on, and then Saelsma spots her, giving a sharp nod. "Ah, Elreith there you are, and you got the books the scholars requested? Perfect, perfect. Yerael and Livenna need a hand, we need to finish cleaning out the Observium before the next feast starts in there in and hour when the debate finishes, go go, quickly now-"

She takes the tray from Elreith's hands, passing it on to another maid, and then Elreith is being bustled along, one job no sooner ending before the next begins. The work is frantic and never ending, every maid and servant in the upper city working double time to keep up. The celebrations last late into the night, and the work of the servants even longer, only for them to wake again before dawn to begin it all again. Everything must be cleaned and cleaned again, supplies ferried and trays carried, musicians escorted and carriages tended to, guests escorted and drunken scholars seen back to their accommodations, the staff of the upper city abuzz. By the time the third day of celebrations is finally over, one of the Blessed One's themselves carrying their procession to the Bridge of Leaving to see the Bishop and his party off, Elreith is well and truly expended, every part of her weary and exhausted and weighed down, her limbs run through with lead, her and most of the maids both. 

The day of leave they're granted at the end of it is a welcome reprieve, and Elreith is not the only maid to spend the day tucked in their bed, setting her head on her pillow and not lifting it again until the sun has risen well past noon, the world and all its weights for the moment turned soft and hazy and gentle with the comforts of sleep and the warmth of her bed. For once she allows herself some indolence, waking three times only to pull the covers back up and close her eyes again, and at the end of it she almost feels like a being once more, rather than a walking husk of aching heels and grinding sinews.  

It's early afternoon by the time she shuffles her way up into the common rooms, putting on only the minimum of her black skirts and her corset over her chemise and tucking her shawl around her shoulders tight as she stumbles out in search of food. Her veil and the better part of her dress she can do without, not intending to leave the bounds of the Towercast, and while her state might ordinary draw reprimand, the higher maids are hardly going to single her out when half the Towercast is no doubt going to be in a similar state. Appearances and propriety must of course be maintained, but all the maids - even the higher maids - have felt the exhaustion of the days of celebration, and so for the moment their leniency has been earned, the higher maids turning a blind eye. 

The other maids welcome Elreith with sleepy calls, most looking hardly more awake than herself. She slips into a space between Cordelia and Oletta at the bench of the long dining table, Euphemia giving her a yawning nod across the table and leaning over to pour her a cup of tea, which Elreith accepts gratefully. She cradles the cup between her fingers, basking in the feel of the warm porcelain, its lip slightly chipped, and takes her first grateful sip, eyes fluttering a bit as she does, biting back her own yawn.

Oletta is sleepily buttering some bread beside her, the woman's hair done up in a messy braid that hands over her shoulder. It's the first time Elreith has seen her look so disheveled, Oletta one of the older maids, well into her thirties and usually a stickler for things being in their proper way, but even she seems to have succumbed to the exhaustion of the week enough to let her standards falter a little. 

"Morning, Elreith," Cordelia murmurs from her other side, still looking half asleep and even less dressed than Elreith herself, and Elreith gives a nod in return before leaning over and dragging close and basket of fresh bread stealing a piece for herself and offering one to Cordelia, who just shakes her head, yawning and just taking a sip of her own cup of tea. 

Conversation at the table is slow and sleepy, even as they pass noon, and Elreith just focuses on slowly savoring her cup of tea, tearing off pieces of the bread on her plate to nibble at in between. The bread is still warm from the ovens, fragrant with it, and Elreith lets herself savor every bite. The maids might have had it rough, working through the festivities, but at least they are not in the kitchens, demanded to wake up before dawn even the day after to bake the day's bread. 

By the time Elreith finishes eating, Oletta and Cordelia have slipped back into conversation discussing the incoming batch of new hires - four new maids, fresh and young, who will have to be trained up for service, none with previous experience - and Elreith ducks out with a final wave, earning a few nods in return as she slips off. One cup of tea and breakfast later, Elreith is awake enough to start itching for her books again, and she pauses just long enough to get properly dressed before taking up her spot at her desk once more. 

Her desk is piled high with tomes of astronomy this week, and the largest of them groans as she pries it open, open pages landing with a heavy thunk on the desk as she slips it open to its ribbon marker, picking up where she left off. The afternoon passes easily like that, the window cracked open just enough to let a cool breeze in as the sun plays through her room, Elreith's head ducked and her quill scratching softly as she loses herself to the winding paragraphs, the history of the stars and their grand calculations written out in whispering spidery hand, secrets being slowly pried apart by her patient translations. 

Five weeks now, five weeks until the selections and the Proving Ceremonies, and Elreith feels the flow of time like a noose tightening around her neck, every moment lost precious and irreplaceable. For so long now, the ceremonies have been so far away, Elreith waiting impatiently for them to approach once more, each month and week passing with the glacial ace of a geological age, but now that the ending is in sight time seems to fly, entire days slipping through her hands in the span of what seems like seconds. The dichotomy, of looking back and feeling the frustration of the time stretching so long, and looking ahead and feeling the skittish fear of a deadline approaching too fast. 

The visit of the Talthun delegation had been a distraction, one last hurdle to overcome, but the path ahead of her is clear and straight now, the day of promise looming with alarming speed. Just a little more, she tells herself, as she sets down one book and picks up the next, just a little more. A few more weeks, that's all it will take. 

-

The next week, her day of rest finds her in the Liern Scholarium, sitting before Aesynth's desk. The sun is shining bright through the high dome of the scholarium, casting golden beams through the stacks - a rare beautiful day without a wisp of mist in sight - and despite the beauty of the day Elreith sits there feeling like a skittish horse, bit uncomfortable between her jaws and a nervous tension in her body ready and waiting to startle. 

The library is quiet, the early hour of the morning leaving few scholars in residence, not that there ever are great numbers in this particular scholarium. Aesynth makes both a grand and comforting presence where she sits behind her desk, her spectacles perched above her great milky eyes, the glittering embroidery on her dark robes catching the light at her collar and sleeves. 

The Proving Ceremonies are open to all candidates theoretically, any capable of making an admission and sitting them, from stable boy to highest scholar of the citadel, but to take them a recommendation is required. Any might sit them, no matter their status or class, so long as a member of the scholar's body is willing to put their name forth - scholars and initiate student have no issue with it, any professor or higher scholar willing and cable to put forth their name, but for most other aspirants this proves a forbidding barrier. What learned scholar, after all, is going to risk their name vouching for a simple stable boy? What respected professor willing to sully their connections admitting a mere maid, or an unlearned citizen from the streets?

Elreith could work for years, could study for decades, could be the brightest and most determined mind Ai'Vaerin has ever seen and still not find someone willing to put her name to paper and make her recommendation, lowly maid and Nightdaughter that she is. Nobody would risk their name on a connection with a maid, and even fewer would give the time of day to even speak to a Nightdaughter. Nobody would. Nobody except Aesynth. 

Elreith still thinks of it with dread sometimes, what she would have done if she had not met Aesynth, if Aesynth had not reached out her hand with such generosity, seeing in a lowly maid something of worth that could be nurtured. Elreith joined the service when she was barely twelve years old, and it had taken the better part of a decade for her to even hope that her dream might be something she could achieve. It was always a folly, a far off thing, as believable and realistic as Elreith waking up one morning to find she had fair skin and ears with a gentle curve. What maid, after all, can dare be a scholar? 

Only after meeting Aesynth had she let herself even dream, daring to hope that she might have a chance. Only after meeting Aesynth had she dared have the courage, finally allowing herself to take a look at her dream and think maybe, just maybe I could. 

Three years she's been studying for this now, every spare hour turned to its preparation with almost slavish devotion, and now the time has come. Aesynth had sent out her letter of recommendation some weeks ago, the creamy parchment stamped and sealed with the golden wax of a Senior Wordkeeper, to be ferried up the spires for assessment, and now the time to see the reply has finally come. 

The envelope sits on Aesynth's desk, and Elreith almost can't breathe for the sight of it, her heart pounding in her chest and her palms slick with sweat. Even with her veil on, hiding her features, she knows she must look a fright, too tense and too jittery in turn, unable to hide the current of nervous energy running through her. Aesynth gave her recommendation, and a very positive one at that, and there should be no reason for them to refuse it, but what if they do? Inside that pale envelope rests the word that will decide her entire future, whether the wings at her back will catch wind and send her soaring, or burn to ash as she watches, feathers crumbling even as they spread, lost and crippled before they can even take wing. 

Please, she begs, please, please, and doesn't even know who she's begging to, which one of the many gods to whom she addresses her plea. Any of them, all of them, whichever one will listen, whether they be her gods or not. Please, please let it be a yes, let it have been accepted. 

She sits in silent agony as Aesynth turns the folded parchment in hand, a clawed thumb catching at the black wax - stamped with the rays of a star shining down around a rising tower, seal of the Citadel Spires, home of the Blessed Vaelkan. Every second seems to pass with the grinding pace of an eternity, Elreith jittery with it, dread and eagerness twisting her stomach in turns, hands wringing together as Aesynth unfolds the parchment and opens it, raising it to read. 

Please, Elreith thinks, a last desperate plea, barely able to breathe, please, please-

Then Aesynth is meeting her eyes, pale milky gaze meeting her's, and even as her head lifts, giving the smallest, proudest nod, Elreith feels her breath leave her. Her eyes sting, her heart seeming to catch and still in her chest, and Elreith is barely conscious of having made a noise at all, before Aesynth is there, rounding her desk and taking Elreith's hands in hers as Elrieth sobs, tears streaming down her face, unable to help herself. 

"I never doubted for a second," Aesynth says, voice so proud and warm, as her clawed hands take Elreith's in hers, scales soft and paper thin against the warmth of her skin. "Of all the many scholars I have seen pass through my scholarium, not half are so bright and dedicated as you. Dear Elreith, you'll take them all by storm."

Elreith can't let out a word, just shaking her head mutely as she trembles, until Aesynth merely pulls her forward into an embrace, Elreith's head settling against her shoulder as Aesynth's large arms come up round her, Aesynth's robes bringing with them the smell of aniseed and ink. Everything in Elreith feels so tender and broken, as if some pressure has been building up inside her that has finally broken, and her left shattered in its wake, relief so fierce that even it feels painful and cutting. 

For long seconds, it's all she can manage to lean against Aesynth's shoulder, clutching to her like a child as she shakes. "I really- I really made it?" Elreith finally manages to make herself ask, Aesynth drawing back just enough to put a warm hand on her shoulder, and Aesynth meets her eyes with a soft smile, drawing back. 

"Read it for yourself," Aesynth says, turning and picking up the letter, holding it out. Elreith's hands shake as she takes it, almost frightened to hold it in hand, as if half convinced it will dissolve into too much air at the first touch, nothing more than a faerie trick. But the parchment is heavy, and real, its surface embossed with the Citadel Spires seal, the letter itself written in dark honored blue. 

Honored Keeper of the Scripts, Aesynth, Lady and Master of the Scholarium of Liern, your word has been heard and your letter of recommendation received. Honored is a candidate backed by a name of such knowledge and experience, who's great time and learned years are sure to enlighten any student of her name. Your candidate is welcome, their name written in the records of proving. Let them ascend the spire on the named day and prove their worth. If their teaching rings true and the blessings of the gods touch them, they will find the fate they seek, and ascend to higher enlightenment themselves. 

We look forward to seeing what your student may achieve, 

Telwynth, Hand of the Keeper of the Spire  

It- She- She actually did it. One month from now, on the day of naming, she will ascend the Threading Spire and set up with the other scholars to attend the proving - the test of learning and knowledge that will determine the course of her fate, either setting her aside as a rising mind fit to become an enlightened being and a servant of the Blessed Ones herself, or cast her back down, forever doomed to be nothing more than another unremarkable and faceless maid. 

Four weeks. Four weeks, and her fate is decided, and then the rest of her life begins.

-

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#gods bound #half-light #elreith #original fic #dark fantasy #horror historical fantasy

[gods-bound]

Half-Light, Half-Life - Chapter 3

Every eight days, the servants of Ai'Vaerin are allocated one day of rest, to tend to their own affairs or take their leisure, their work for the moment forgotten. There are no duties, no early morning wake up call, no questioning presence calling attendance - so long as the maids are back in the evening at final curfew, they are free to spend the day as they please. 

Elreith makes the most of it, as she always does, working late into the early hours of the morning, until her hand begins to cramp with the effort of writing such small tight script and her eyes begin to strain from the candlelight. When she wakes, shuffling out of bed long past when the morning call would be due, she makes right back for her desk, pulling a shawl around her shoulders as she settles there, still wearing her nightgown, shuffling through her notes, taking up her books once more. 

There's a hunger in her, as she paws through each book, her curiosity a thing that cannot be sated. Any junior scholar might find it tiresome, being forced to read such weighty and dry texts, but most days Elreith can barely keep her eyes off the page - it's fascinating, learning how the world works, what the ancient poets and philosopher's of old sing of in their great treatises, the history and nature of the many races, the orbit and alignment of the celestial bodies, laws of inherent truth that underpin the world, laid out in bare calculus. To learn of history, of poetry, of why birds sing in the morning and how fish breath beneath the sea, to learn of the stars and why they shine at night, magic and how the god-lines came to be, legend and history and truth and myth, all overlaying pieces in a greater puzzle.

Elreith could get lost in it in a lifetime and a half, and still want to learn more. 

She'd intended to just give her notes a quick pass over before getting dressed, but when Elreith looks up again two hours have passed and she's three chapters into a new book, another four pages of parchment sitting filled beneath her quill. The script on them is tiny and packed, as small as Elreith can make it to save space, the end page almost a solid wall of stacked text. It's necessity, more than preference, a habit she's settled into out of enforced frugality - ink she can make stretch, but parchment has always been her limiting factor, and buying new parchment is always expensive. 

It's almost noon by the time Fayenna comes knocking on her door, prying her away from her desk and forcing her to venture out into the outside world. "Elreith, it's already noon. You're not even dressed!" Fayenna says accusingly, clicking her beak, stepping in through the door and casting a glance over the desk with its stack of books and sprawled papers. "Really, I don't know how you do this, sitting here all day. Now come on, there's a market today, and you promised you would come. Don't think I've forgotten!"

"Alright, alright," Elreith says, and lets herself be chivied out of her room. Fayenna drags her through into the common rooms first, giving her an unimpressed glance and sitting there to watch her eat, too well used to her habits by now. She sits impatiently across from Elreith, chattering all the while, already talking of all the things she hopes to see in the market. 

"-wasn't on our last rest day, such rotten timing, really it was completely unfair - I even heard the Greenway maids had that day off, and so they all went, and of course Etty was bragging all week about all the things she saw! Oh, I do hope they still have that beautiful fabric from last time, it was such a nice blue, and I've finally saved the money to buy some. Do you think the merchant will still be there? Oh, I dearly hope so-"

"I'm sure they'll still be there," Elreith assures her, finally setting aside her knife and fork. "It wasn't a traveling merchant, if I recall, so I can't imagine any reason they wouldn't be there."

That makes Fayenna nod, looking relieved, the ruffled quality of her feathers smoothing somewhat as she lets out a breath. "Right," she says, "well that's something at least. Oh, you're done? No time to waste then, come on, come on, we're already late!"

"I'm not sure we can be late, when we never said what time we were planning to leave," Elreith points out, amused, but lets herself be shepherded out the door regardless. It's an odd thing, to walk the halls of the high city without wearing her veil, and she feels conspicuously bare without it as they make their way through the halls, to the main servants' way. The many great halls of the high city are connected by an even more extensive network of servants corridors and passages, spiraling out through the upper reaches of the city like a bloodstream, winding and labyrinthine, carrying the unseen and integral workmen and servants to every corner of the great libraries and palaces. 

The mains stairway is busy, servants of all ranks and casts passing them, caught in a hectic organized bustle, all dressed in their own blacks and many sporting their own veils, their purpose and hierarchy set aside by the glint of their embroidery. The vast majority of them are human, with only a few spirit kin among them, Averia and the other blessed lines rare in the service. None give the two of them so much as a glance as they pass, and then they're out, stepping through the final gates and into the Middle Quarter itself. 

The streets themselves are busy, as they always are, made only more so by the presence of the Middle Market. The streets are tall and narrow, townhouses pressed wall to wall, high sloped roofs pitched and angled, gargoyles bearing their snarling teeth from above. Carriages run through the streets, great wheels rattling on the cobblestones as they pass, the sidewalks themselves no less busy, home to a constant stream of passers by - men at work, wives and mothers off on some errand, servants passing through on some task or another. This close to the Upper City, the townhouses are rich and well furnished, wealthy, and the pedestrians no different, the shops they pass too fine and expensive for the likes of Elreith and Fayenna, maids that they are.

Deveura pass, dragon folk adorned in the finery of high society, their scales dripping gold and dress fletched with glittering embroidery, looking so elegant and grand in their finery as they step into carriages or walk in the streets, the latest fashions all the more flattering for the way they accent the shine of their scales, the glint of their fangs, the proud height of their stature and the curve of their horns. Humans and children of Haema's lineage alike walk side by side with them, men and woman walking beside spirit blessed descendants, resplendent in their finery. As Elreith watches, a woman of Haema's lineage steps from a shop, her sharp ears glinting with teardrop jewels, her dress a beautiful thing of silver and blue that accents the fall of her hat where it sits angled on her head, covering her silvered eyes, a man in a dapper suit only step ahead of her, offering his arm for her to take as he helps her up into a carriage. 

Eyes catch her and Fayenna, gazes lingering, and Elreith knows they can only be wondering what two such as them are doing in such a part of town - a Nightdaughter and an Averia are unheard of company in the upper crust, and even the servants that pass through are all mostly human themselves, making the two of them stand out all the more. Elreith ignores it with ease of long practice, Fayenna chattering on, barely seeming to notice at all, or perhaps just well practiced at ignoring it herself.  

Given a few blocks, the streets become a little calmer, the houses a little less ostentatious, and while the people in the streets are still dressed finely - men and women in their best, tradesmen and servants all in uniform - the air is a little more relaxed. Elreith sees more men and women here, humans, and a few of the Duurum folk too, a dwarf standing proudly outside his shop in conversation with a customer, an array of pocket watches and clockwork affairs glinting behind him in the window. The two men give Elreith and Fayenna a nod as they pass, the customer stepping aside on the path to give them room, sparing them from having to step out into the road, and Elreith gives a polite nod in turn, Fayenna not having seemed to notice, too caught up in her awe of a hat she'd spotted across the street. 

"- such beautiful feathers, and that blue! I could see myself wearing one in white, don't you think? It would be such a beautiful accent to my own colours- Elreith? Elreith are you even listening?" Fayenna asks finally, and Elreith shoots her an amused look. 

"I am," Elreith says, because at this point she's given up on ever trying to redeem Fayenna. Her attention span had always been a haphazard one, as flighty as a bird - which Elreith supposes can only be the point, given Fayenna's race. "It was a beautiful hat, and white feathers would indeed be a pretty match for your own."

"Yes, it would be," Fayenna agrees happily, craning her head to catch one last backward glance of the woman and her hat. She lets out a sigh. "Oh, if only I could have one just like it, but I wouldn't have anything to wear it with. Let me tell you, Elreith, if I had even half the capital of such a woman, I could make it stretch very far indeed - you'd never catch me wearing anything out of season. Oh, I'd even buy you such pretty dresses as well. Why you never wear white or yellows I don't know, they'd be such a sight on you-"

Elreith makes a fond noise, amused, shaking her head. "I don't have the money for such things, and anyway, my work dresses suit me just fine."

"That's only because you spend all your pay on ink and dusty papers," Fayenna says plaintively. "Oh, Elreith I do wish you would live a little, sometimes. It can't be good for you, sitting hunched over a desk all hours of the day and night - just watch, if you get a twisted old back in your old age I'll have told you so! Ah, look, the market is ahead, we're not too late!"

They couldn't be late if they tried, the market running until well past nightfall, but Elreith lets Fayenna usher her on all the same. They're far enough down the Middle Quarter now that the streets are simpler, the crowded townhouses and shops rising tall, painted in humbler colours, roofs bearing the occasional sign of cracked tiles and mismatched replacements, the cobbled streets bearing the occasional pot hole or crack. There are no carriages in this part of town, not today, the streets for blocks instead filled out by a throng of passing pedestrians and impromptu stalls, which lean over the edge of the pavement and spill into the streets themselves, laughter and calling voices rising in a cacophony as a thousand merchants and curious shopper speak over each other. 

Elreith doesn't know exactly how it was the tradition of the Middle Market came to be, but twice each months vendors and traders from all over Ai'Vaerin and beyond gather in the streets of the lower Middle Quarter to peddle their wares, spreading out from the locus of the Hundred Fountain Square and spilling through the surrounding streets, drawing crowds from all over the city. It is the one time when you can find goods from throughout Ai'Vaerin without having to travel the span of the city to do it, and the congregation of all the many and varied merchants means there is always something interesting to be found, well worth the visit for the entertainment alone if nothing else. 

The crowds are a mix of people from all walks of life - humans and Duurum folk and spirit kin alike, a few Deveura to be seen and even the rarer and more occasional Averia passing through the crowd, feathers flashing in the bustle. The crowd is loud, and cheerful, dressed in all manner of clothes and garb, the clothes perhaps more humble but appearing in a riot of colours not seen amongst the more curated and carefully cultivated styles they'd seen passing through the upper Middle Quarter. No one spares them so much as a glance as they pass, Elreith and Fayenna quickly finding themselves lost in the market, Fayenna tugging her along, letting out a delighted noise every time she spots a new stall to be explored. 

There are vendors selling cloth and bolts of fine embroidery, others jewelry and fine watches, and even more still selling so many different kinds of food that Elreith cannot even begin to count. Traveling merchants pass through Ai'Vaerin specifically to set up stalls at the markets, and the effect is that all manner of strange things can be found - gleaming engraved swords and glowing nightpearls from the Dusklands, beautiful and bright woven fabrics from the Burning Lands, idolatry and sermons and musical scores from Talthun, exposing the grace and beauty of their god the Living Light. Anything you can dream of in the world passes through the market at one point or another, the question is simply finding it amongst the maze of stalls. 

"Oh, I do hope that that that fabric merchant is in the same place as last time," Fayenna frets, once they've gawked at enough sets of jewelry that she sets aside her distraction enough to remember the true reason they'd come, "or we'll have a mission on our hands even trying to find him."

"It was over on the south side of the square, wasn't it?" Elreith notes, setting down the silver ring she'd been holding and giving the merchant a little smile as she steps away. The woman behind the stall, a Duurum folk with the most beautiful red hair and beads in her beard, simply nods in turn, sending them off cheerfully even as she turns to start talking with the next customer. 

"It was," Fayenna remembers, delighted, and Elreith rolls her eyes fondly as Fayenna starts chivvying her in that direction, not wanting to waste another moment. They do find the merchant in the end, and while the price of the cloth Fayenna has been eyeing up has gone up by another few sterlings, Fayenna puts up enough of a fuss that she manages to haggle it right back down, walking away in the end with a bolt of beautiful deep blue fabric. Fayenna clutches it in her arms as they walk away, looking positively radiant with joy, already espousing with great glee the beautiful frock she intends to make with it.  

Elreith in turn takes the opportunity to pick up a few required odds and ends, slipping through a gap in the stalls and into one of the shops back from the street, picking up a new stack of parchment and a fresh bottle of ink to go with it, stowing the lot safely away in her bag before stepping out. Fayenna, when she emerges, has already disappeared, and Elreith spots her halfway down the street, before a stall selling roasted honeyed meats. 

Elreith catches up with her, sending her an amused look as she does, but passes the merchant a few coppers to get one of her own. The two of them end up sitting on one of the outer streets of the market, where the tall streets open and give way to a high terrace overlooking the lower levels of the city, the Lower Quarter barely a haze in the mist below, and the distant arc of the rest of the middle Quarter curving beyond, the two of them leaning against the high stone rail and watching as travelers and carriages pass along the great bridge below. Ai'Vaerin stretches above them like a great looming beast, the high towers of the Upper City piercing the heavens, while it's mountainous roots sink deep into the earth, the Middle Quarter spanning the space in between, stacked layers growing atop each other in eccentric formation, equally likely to start growing horizontally outwards into thin air as it is upwards. 

Guards in their shining silver armor can be seen standing at attention on the bridge, like a line of statues dotting the great length of the bridge where it reaches from the great lower square across the Lower Quarter and out to the outskirts of the city, letting merchants and travelers pass through into the city's heart directly.  From where they stand in the Middle Quarter, the figures on the bridge are so small and distant that they might as well be ants, and Fayenna, ever curious, makes something of a game of it, delighting in guessing who they might be and where they might be headed. Elreith savors her skewer of meat, the meat sweet and soft and well spiced, enjoying the moment to just stand there and feel the sun on her skin, the soft breeze passing through from below. 

As they watch, there's some sort of commotion on the great bridge, the carriages and wagons behind shifted aside to make way for something, and the cause soon becomes clear when a party of knights comes riding in. There are almost three dozen score of them, their shining armor and dark cloaks cutting distinct and regal figures as they ride back in, a flock of silver starlings, flying along the length of the bridge, banners flying behind them. This high, they're too far away to make out the details of them properly, but Elreith can only imagine they're back from some mission or another. 

More hunting parties head out each week it seems, knights send out to deal with troubles in the lands surrounding the great city, and the smaller tributary villages and towns that fall within Vaelthran's side of the borders. It is the dead, Elreith knows, the incidences of unsettled ghosts and vengeful bodies only seeming to have grown more prevalent these last years. There's always been issues with them, Elreith knows, Vaelthran's kingdom founded in the lands where the veil itself draws thin because of that exact reason, but these days all one seems to hear is more news of them. Every week you seem to hear about some new village that seems to have come under siege, some new terror causing trouble for travelers on the road, the knights being sent out to tend to it. 

"I wonder what it was they fought this time?" Elreith asks, speaking more to herself, and Fayenna makes a curious noise. 

"I'm sure I don't know. Some horror or another, most likely." Fayenna replies. "No, I'm quite happy to leave the dealing of the knights to the knights. Can you imagine actually having to pick up a sword and fight, having to ride out for days and weeks just to find yourself between the teeth of some great monster?" She shivers, shaking her head, feathers fluffing up a little, the effect leaving her looking rather ruffled. "No, I'm quite satisfied being a maid, thank you."

Elreith doesn't disagree. "Still," she says, looking down at the knights, the flutter of their banners heralding their approach into the city itself, a party of guards moving out in their gleaming armor to meet them. "It is interesting."

"You're interested in the grimmest things, I swear," Fayenna replies, sounding more bemused than anything. "Tell me, did you hear about Rhyniea, from the Southcast? I think I introduced you to her a while back - the girl with the bow, remember? - anyway, I heard the most interesting news the other day. Apparently she's run off! Etty was telling me, and all the maids are convinced that she had a man on the side, and the two of them have eloped! Just upped and vanished one day, without a word, caused a whole scandal and no end of trouble for their matron, because no one can find hide nor hair of her-"

Fayenna is still talking, launched properly in to a recounting of all the last days gossip, and Elreith casts one last glance down onto the lower city, where the gleam of the knights armor can just be seen disappearing down through the main street, noting the three empty horses that ride behind the last knight. She wonders how many went out, and how many knights had failed to return, who it was at home who would be mourning the loss of those three knights. 

-

It's late afternoon by the time they finally make it back to the Towercast. Between greeting a few of the other maids and eating supper and checking over the week's new schedule, it's past the eighth bell by the time Elreith makes her way back to her room, growing dark enough that she leans over to light her candles, settling herself down at her desk once more.  She sets aside her new stack of parchment, and sets her new bottle of ink behind the old one, ready to be opened when it finally runs out. 

She looks over her books, and thinks about picking up her tome where she'd left off - slowly deciphering the twisting script of the Malthaunis volumes - but in the end she doesn't have the energy for another night of painstakingly translating the transcendental tongue, and dealing with the intricacies of high ordinance calculus on top of it. She picks through the books, glancing over each one, and finds herself pausing as she reaches the travel journal, the book thinner and smaller than any other in the stack, noting with some surprise that it's actually written in common. 

Nearly all books in Ai'Vaerin are written in the transcendental tongue, language of the high scholars. Any knowledge worth remembering is worth writing properly, they say, unifying texts from all corners of the realm into a single common tongue, highest and most beautiful and most poetic of them all, the one capable of reaching precision and beauty and an understanding of truth that no other can. Its script is elegant and flowing, all twisting cursive, the language itself equally complex to learn, and it's only years of long practice that have given Elreith any speed at translating it at all, even then the process is still slow and time consuming. 

In contrast, the journal's title stands out almost starkly in its humbleness, words written simply and plainly. It's cover is soft brown leather, embossed with a modest title and name. Journey through Night, it reads, and names the author simply as Daughter of Masvha. 

Elreith hesitates. Her stack of parchment sits on the desk, waiting and ready, her quill already at hand. She should study, she ought to study, to reach for one of her proper books, can't afford to really waste a single moment, and yet- Aesynth wouldn't have recommended her the book if it wasn't worth reading, Elreith reminds herself, and even a travel journal can be educational in it's own way.

That thought is what finally tips her over the edge, and she sets the book down in the center of her desk, carefully shuffling the rest of the stack to the side. The leather of the cover is soft beneath her fingers, well aged and bearing a few signs of wear, soft scratches that have never truly been worked out. The paper is aged and creamy when she opens it, the text written in faded black ink. A foreword has been written on the first page, seemingly added in in retrospect by the author, squeezed in tightly in the scant space above the opening page, and Elreith feels her breath leave her as she reads it.  

These are the tales of the Daughter of Masvha, who gave up her own name in repentance for her crimes. Born beneath the fourteenth era of the rising sun, she offers here the stories of her life and travels through the Dusklands, tragic though their end may have been. Judge her not too harshly, for by the time any read this she will already be dead, and the dead can bear no sins.  

It was written by a Nightdaughter, Elreith realizes, feeling her heart clench in her chest. It's the journal of a Nightdaughter, born and raised and living in the Dusklands. Why would such a book be in the library? While Vaelthran devotes itself singularly to all forms of study and learning, store of all knowledge, her kingdom's disdain for her mother's distant homeland has always been pronounced. Vaelthran might not despise the Dusklands quite as much as they do Talthun, who's god and Sept decries the Divine Bodies as heretical abominations, but still the Nightchildren are not held in high esteem by the scholars of the Veiled Lands. 

They can respect the honor and strength of the Duskland's warriors, perhaps, their military and strategic might, but the people of the Dusklands are seen as largely brutish and violent, too caught up in the glory of combat and war and preoccupied by pretty squabbles. Elreith remembers very little of her homeland. She left it young, and her mother rarely spoke of it, keeping her silence on the subject save for the few times she was melancholic enough to tell a story or two of the home she'd grown up in. 

Elreith doesn't know why they left, what it was that spurred her mother to move half a world away, to a kingdom that thinks so bleakly of their kind, but whatever it was it was enough to make sure her mother had never once spoken of going back, or who they might have left behind. In the end, Elreith can only suppose it was some conflict or another that drove them away. There is no war in the Dusklands, not technically, but when the great houses fight, working to prove their strength and improve their standing in the court, it is not just their warriors who feel the sting of it, and any house that finds themselves subsumed quickly learns the harshness of life as a vassal. 

Elreith's fingers trace the line of the page, something almost tight in her chest, staring down at the book. Why one of the Wordkeepers thought this was a tome worth preserving, when Vaethran usually disdains the Nightchildren so much, preserving a simpler travelers journal from an unknown author amongst the other great tomes of the Scholariums, Elreith doesn't know, but she can only suppose it must have ended up there somehow by accident. Why Aesynth saw fit to give it to her is another mystery, but Elreith can only guess that she must have had some reason. 

Elreith slowly turns to the first page all the same, eyes drawn to the scrawled ink as if by a magnet, unable to help her curiosity.  

I do not know who would care to read this, or why someone might even want to, but I am told that setting events to paper helps with peace of mind, and at this point it seems like just as good a way of wasting time as any other, and if it can bring me peace of mind then all the better. I could start by telling you my beginnings, and how this tale all began, but instead I'll start here and now. I am traveling through the Turindale, those high unforgiving mountains bordering the Deluge, and my traveling companion died three days ago -

-

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#gods-bound #half-light #Elreith #original writing #dark fiction

[gods-bound]

Half-Light, Half-Life - Chapter 1

The bells of the great towers ring every hour, and the sound of it is loud, and echoing and melodic, humming through the air and singing with the voices of a dozen different tones. The entirety of Ai'Vaerin rings with the noise of it, from the high towers of the palatial temples to the deepest recesses of the dark fall streets, those unknown places that stretch deep beneath the foundations of the twisting levels of the city.

The sound of it, those gentle chiming bells, the deep thrum of them, it sings through every hall, in through the wide stone arches of the reaching walkways, and between the rising columns of the tall shadowed halls. Even in daylight, the city has an air of somberness to it, its halls so tall, so shadowed, so solemn, pale flames burning at every torch hold and brazier, sunlight streaming silvered and soft through the high windows and into the hallowed halls. 

Elreith pauses, the long stem of her candle in hand, going still with the rest of the maids, a glance down the hall sending them all quickly sweeping to the sides, heads bowed and eyes dropped to the floor. Her veil hangs over her face, sweeping low, black detailing stitched with lines of fine silver, the world for a moment obscured by the curl of dark flowers. Through the gaps the pale marble of the floor gleams, and Elreith bows even deeper as the first of the procession approaches, rounding the final corner into the great hall. 

It is the incense bearers that come first, censers swinging before them and emitting pale clouds of smoke, tinged almost in purple, which swirls around them in a shroud as they approach. The candles are only half lit, the silver of the torch bears only half polished, but Elreith kneels as the first incense bearers reach them, sinking down and lowering her head, Yerael and Fayenna doing the same on either side of her, twin columns of maids in their black veils bowing in supplication on each side of the long hall.

After the incense bearers come the scroll carriers, two dozen of them who walk in a paired line, arms extended and scrolls held before them, trailing robes whispering on the floor, their own faces hidden by the fall of their hoods. Guards next, in their blank faced masks, perfect pale porcelain giving way to black, void eyes through which no light can be seen. 

Then, only then, when another dozen guards have passed, do the first of the true assistants come, in vestments of black and silver and dark, dark green, heads bowed and faces hidden by the fall of their hoods. Elreith keeps eyes down, gaze fixed steadily on the marble as the first of them begin to pass her, and knows from the trim of their robes alone when the first of the high assistants pass, lengths of silver embroidered cloth sweeping across the floor. 

If she looked up, she would see them then, in their own dark veils, their faces forbidden and the touch of their skin hidden from the light. Even through the veils, you can feel the touch of their eyes, the weight of their gaze, so heavy it feels like a knife on your skin, bleeding into you. They walk only a step from the palanquin, encircling it on every side, only ever a whisper away from the shadowed figure inside, almost invisible through the swaying silk curtains of the palanquin, hazy in the pale rising smoke. 

Elreith holds her breath as the palanquin passes, not daring to move, not daring to even breath, keeping her gaze fixed firmly on the floor, heart thundering in her chest as the bearers of the palanquin bear it forward one swaying step, two, three, and the whispers of its silk brush the marble in front of her, visible even through her lace where she keeps her eyes fixed on the ground. The impulse is there, for a moment, to glance up, to see. No one would see her look, through the black fall of her veil, no one would be able to see her eyes, but-

Another step, two, three, and the whisper of the palanquin passes, and Elreith's eyes remain firmly on the floor. She and the other maids remain kneeling even as the last of the guards pass them, and then the final incenses bearers bringing up the rear, remaining in supplication until the moment the procession passes through the grand arch at the end of the hall and turn the corner, disappearing into the gloom. 

Only then does Elreith allow herself to release her breath, some of the tension leaking from her spine. Fayenna makes a noise of quiet relief beside her, one clawed hand rising beneath her veil to smooth her feathers as she straightens. On Elreith's other side, Yerael does the same, gracefully rising to her feet once more, polishing cloth in hand, head turning to stare down the hall, where the procession has vanished. 

"How odd. It's rare for them to come this way," Yerael notes, her voice soft. She has a voice for singing, though she never does. Behind her veil, Elreith can just see the pale flash of her skin, so soft and bright, like porcelain. "I wonder which one it was?"

"Does it matter?" Fayenna replies, voice still slightly frazzled. She's of Aveira descent, one of the feathered folk, and though by nature they're known for their patience and grace, in Fayenna it has always manifested itself in a rather nervous disposition instead, easily riled. "Oh, I do wish they would give us warning when one was passing. You know the rumors, about what they say happens if you look at one of them."

Elreith makes a quiet noise of amusement at that, shaking her head. The law, of course, is that no one may gaze upon one of the Divine Bodies and live. That is why their palanquins are shrouded, why their assistants wear their veils, why their guards are masked. Whether they would actually have someone executed just for raising their eyes is another matter, and though Elreith has never actually heard of it happening, the superstition might as well have been bound in iron as a law now. 

"I doubt the Blessed Ones will condescend to send ahead their schedule for the convenience of the maids," Elreith says, and Fayenna lets out a quiet huff. Elreith smiles a little, bemused, before glancing down the hall, her gaze turning thoughtful. "They must have been on their way to the Arboretum Gardens."

It is not rare for the lords of Ai'Vaerin to travel through the city - the great temples, the observatories, the gardens and greatest, most holy libraries were after all built for them - but it is rare to see one pass through this particular portion of the labyrinthine halls. The hall is a beautiful one, grand and tall, all arching marble and high windows, statues in the looming dim, but it is only wide enough to fit a dozen men abreast, and for one of the Blessed Ones that might as well be passing through one of the servants alleys, small and cramped and furtive. 

The halls of the Westrun connect to the Spiraling Tower, and itself to the greater heights of the Hanging Gardens, upon which lies crowned the Arboretum Garden. It's a roundabout path to take to get there, but Elreith can't think of anywhere else a Blessed One might be heading in this direction. Only one Blessed One is known to favor in particular the Arboretum Gardens, but whichever one passed it wasn't her - they would have been kneeling for an hour, had it been the Golden Lady and her procession passing through. 

"Enough chatter," Saelsma calls curtly, her voice coming like the crack of a whip, her veiled head turning to glare. Elreith can feel it at least, even if she can't see her eyes, only the few extra lines of embroidered silver on Saelsma's veil and dress marking her apart from the rest of the maids. "We've got another two halls to get through after this, and I will keep you all past the ninth hour if you don't finish in time."

Elreith, Fayenna, and Yerael all bow their heads at that, lowering their heads in quiet apology, and return to work. The hall once more sinks into silence, cut through only by the quiet murmur of the polishing cloths and the soft footsteps of the candle bearers passing between one light and the next, lighting each torch as they go. 

Elreith contents herself with her work, raising her candle and watching as the burners ignite, pale flame so white that it almost appears to have a green tinge. Once lit, the torches will remain so for months, burning without even the touch of oil, but there are so many halls that there are always more to be lit, and more still in less traveled paths that these days have become so obscure that they're just left for the sun to light, rare though it is through the creeping mists that dominate the city, curling around its spires. 

Two thousand and a half years, the city of Ai'Vaerin has been growing, interlocking halls and towers rising steadily higher, sprawling steadily outwards. A kingdom that exists only in one city, and so the city itself is a kingdom, a labyrinth of weaving halls and walkways and great spires, curling and twisting organically, dotted with courtyards and gardens that blossom like flowers on the vine. A marvel of architecture and engineering the likes of which the realms have never seen, impossible anywhere save in Vaelthran, where the heights of study have reached peaks that no other kingdom can even fathom. 

It is dark by the time they finish cleaning and lighting the uppermost halls of the Westrun, the sun setting low and purple across the horizon, light catching and glimmering on the threads of pale creeping mist where they shroud the feet of the high spires. With the sun's demise, the glow of the moons rise to take her place - twin moon casting silvered light where they creep over the horizon, the third to follow in a few hours, once the dead of night claims it's time. 

The ninth hour has passed, and then the tenth, by the time they make their way back to the servants quarters in the lower Eastrun. The moons cast silvered light across the marbled floors, torches burning with a green hue. Fayenna chatters all the way back to their quarters, glad at last to be finished with the work of the day, and scarcely waits for the doors to the maid's quarters to close behind them before pulling off her veil. 

"Wearing this all day leaves my feathers ruffled in all sorts of directions," Fayenna sighs, dropping down into the first armchair she finds. Their division of the Towercast maids are responsible for the maintenance of the Cardinal Halls and their reaching levels and subsidiary studies. Their quarters are located there as well, nestled in the lower levels beneath the Eastrun Halls. Their chambers are modest, by Ai'Vaerin standards, but still generous. Dark wood furnishings, polished and aged, with faded embroidery on the seats, and a great fire that roars at the furthest side of the hall. 

Technically, one should wear their veil until they're ensconced in their own private quarters, but no one will enter the Towercast's chambers save the maids themselves, so even their superiors don't bother reprimand them, more often than not taking liberty of the ease themselves, to breath and show their faces among friends after a long day's work. The great fire is already burning, and food ready for those who desire it, but for the moment Elreith just allows herself to take a seat, enjoying the chance to take a moment's rest after a day spent on her feet, lighting candles all through the Westrun. 

Fayenna is a beautiful creature beneath her veil, her feathers a dark, almost iridescent blue, almost black at her head and slowly lightening to a bluebell hue down the length of her neck, emerging a pale snowy white at her wrists, where they give way to clawed fingers. Her beak is black, glossy, rings of white patterned around her dark eyes. Elreith doesn't know much of Averia, but she imagines Fayenna would be a great beauty if she lived anywhere but in Vaelthran, where her service requires her face be hidden by her veil. Is still a great beauty, Elreith supposes, even if no one save the other maids witnesses it. 

Yerael takes a seat across from them, taking the moment to reach down and slip off her shoes, rubbing at her ankles. Her own veil comes off a moment later. Pale skin, dark hair, freckles across the bridge of her nose and ears that end not in a point but in a soft curve - human, and one of the youngest of the maids in their cast, only nineteen years of age, with green eyes that gleam like the touch of sunlight through the leaves. 

"Do you know where we'll be working tomorrow?" Yerael asks, straightening with a sigh, rolling her shoulders minutely as she sets her veil aside on the arm of her chair. Elreith has done polishing herself, and knows how much your shoulders ache after a day of it. She doesn't envy her. "Only, I hope we're not doing one of the statue halls - the dusting takes forever, and I hate having to use the ladders." 

"No ladders," Elreith replies, "we'll be doing the mopping. Through the Convex, and maybe down through the levels to the top of Southrun, I think."

That just makes Yerael groan, slumping back in her armchair and pulling up her legs, shifting to sit curled there, her stockinged feet peeking out from beneath the tousled hem of her black dress. "Oh joy," she says dryly, "mopping day. Everyone's favorite."

That makes Fayenna laugh, shaking her head, and even Elreith lets out a huff. To tell the truth, while mopping days are almost universally despised, Elreith doesn't mind them. There's something about it, about the shine and swirl of water on smooth stone, watching it turn gleaming and wet, that Elreith finds calming in its own way, even if it is hard on the back after the first few hours.

"The day after tomorrow we have a leave day, remember," Elreith replies. "So at least there's something to look forward to." 

Elreith shifts then, finally pulling off her own veil. The fabric slips soft between her fingers, lace soft and delicate and feather light. A few strands of Elreith's hair have come free of their tie beneath it, slipping pale down her shoulders, silk white and pale as snow, almost silvered in the way of all Nightdaughters. She is one of the few in the service, her kind rare in Vaelthran, so far from her people's homeland in the Dusklands. 

Standing next to Yerael, they could not be more different - a twin pair of night and day. Where Yerael's skin is pale and pink, Elreith's is as dark as the space between the stars, black as night, the long point of her ears giving her away as a child of one of the blessed lines, even if her skin and the colour of her eyes would not, impossible to mistake as anything but a child of the Nightfather. Her eyes are black, sclera as dark as her skin, save for the single yellow point of her iris, glowing like a sun in the veil of the night sky.

Fayenna lets out a pleased sigh, relieved by the reminder. “Well that’s something. Did you hear?” she adds, slumping back in her seat a little, though her eyes remain bright. “There’s some sort of diplomatic visit coming from Talthun - they��ll be here in a few weeks apparently. What do you think they’ll be like? Will it be one of the Bishops, you think?”

That news makes both Yerael and Elreith straighten, curious. A delegation from the Radiant Lands, one of the Bishops? The Radiant Lands are at peace with Vaelthran, of course they are, every kingdom is at peace, war impossible while bound by the promise of the God’s Blood. That doesn’t mean that the relationship between the Radiant Lands and Vaelthran is any less rocky. The Radiant Lands worship their sacred church, their god of the Living Light, and Vaelthran… Well.

Elreith can’t even remember the last time there was a diplomatic visit. It must be decades ago, at least, if not more. The Sept of the Living Light has made no secret of their disdain for the Divine Bodies, and of everything the High Vaelkan have founded their kingdom on. It’s well known that they would cut all contact if they could. Which begs the question, Elreith supposes, of why have they chosen to come now?

“Well,” Elreith says, “regardless of who it is coming, this must be why they’ve had us in a frenzy scrubbing every hall and tower.”

That makes Yerael sigh. “And no doubt the work will continue just as hard, until the visit has come and passed. A moment’s rest is all I ask, truly.”

“Just one more day, remember,” Elreith says, “then you’ll have that promised day off.” Elreith rises then, collecting up her veil, the fabric soft and delicate between her fingers, threatening to slide down onto the floor. 

"Oh, Elreith, will you not stay tonight?" Fayenna asks, sending her a dismayed look, straightening in her seat. "We were going to play bone-runes, and Ethyra was planning on finally doing her poetry recital. Surely you have to stay for that?"

Even at a glance, they can tell her answer, Elreith's expression apologetic. Fayenna is already sighing, disappointed, Yerael rolling her eyes in long-suffering habit. Elreith gives her apologies anyway. "I would," she says, and is truly regretful as she says it. "I really would, but I have to work."

"You have to take a break sometime, you know." Fayenna says with a sigh, sending her a concerned look. Elreith just smiles, shaking her head, and then she’s off, slipping through into the next room to collect some food before making her way down into her rooms. The section of the Eastrun where the Towercast maid’s quarters reside is modest in make, made of pale stone set in labyrinthine, creeping formations, the spiraling stairs carrying her down from the halls of the common rooms into the warren where the maid’s rooms reside. The hallways are dim at this time of night, lit by soft candleglow, and there’s only a few other maids about in their black dresses as she makes her way through the winding corridors to her room. 

Her door is identical to two dozen others beside it, dark wood set into a simple frame, the only thing to mark it aside a small scratch at shoulder level on the stone frame of the door, a mark of incautious handling by some past resident of the Towercast. The pale light of her candle flows through into her room as she opens the door, casting it in a gentle warm glow. 

It's not much, just a small square chamber with a bed, a wardrobe, and a little desk and washbasin, but it's home nonetheless. Two pairs of shoes sit neatly tucked beneath the foot of the bed, her second dress hanging hooked on the door of the wardrobe, and her previous night of study is still sprawled across the desk, tomes piled high and parchment and quill still waiting, ready to be taken up once more. She leans over, lighting the candle holder above the desk, and extinguishes her carrying candle in turn, settling in to take a seat.  Through the window, the moons have risen high, the third moon, smallest and brightest of the lot, now ascending above the horizon, and Elreith picks up her quill, scanning down her parchment until she finds the place she'd left off. The pile of books is already shoulder high on the desk beside her, and more piled at the floor by the legs of the desk, but Elreith reaches for the topmost and opens it again, flicking through until she finds the scrap of parchment she'd slipped in to keep her place. 

Laughter in the hall, soft and distant, passing voices heading into the common rooms above, and Elreith sighs, reaching up to free her hair and let it spill silver across her shoulders, and readies herself for another long night of study. The tome is written in looping, flowing script, the hand of the transcendent tongue, language of the Divine Bodies and the scholars, as all scholarly texts in Vaelthran are, and Elreith sits to resume her painstaking translation. 

… third rule of all is that of that which is given evident, of a principal known and understood. That one understands truth and the reality of one’s world through an analogy of many forms, sees it in its most honest form through the expression of many mediums, overlapping. To see truth in light, in the ethereal cycling processes of the mathematics, in the soft tongued verse of poetry, song, and all that is held above in the written word…

Her pen scratches, the candle flickers, and outside the window the moons continue to rise. Elreith bows her head, and works.  

-

Next Chapter

#gods-bound #half-light #original writing #dark fantasy #Elreith #minor edit made on 13.5.2021

[gods-bound]

Half-Light, Half-Life - Chapter 4

The next weeks pass in a haze. The preparations for the upcoming diplomatic visit are in full swing, the various maid casts of the upper city being worked to the bone to ensure everything is prepared in time, every tower and corner of the halls pristine and resplendent to welcome their guests. The Towercast gets worked just as hard as the rest of them, starting early and working through until the late hours of the evening. 

What little time Elreith can spare around it, bone weary and more tired than ever, is spent neck-deep in her books, snatching what hours of time she can as the third moon rises in the sky and the candles burn low, waking each morning all the more tired than the last. It's stubbornness, pure and simple, that has her pushing on when every other maid comes back and chooses to simply collapse into bed. Already she's at a disadvantage compared to all others being volunteered for this year's selection, and she needs every hour of study she can get if she wants to have a chance. 

Only fifty candidates are selected, each proving ceremony, and the scores you earn in the litany of tests is what will distinguish you from the others, drawing the eye of a proper patron. If she wants to get chosen in the face of all the disadvantages of her race and class and station, then she must not simply be good, she must be the best, better than the best. And that means late nights, fingers cramped and ink staining her fingers as she works late into the night. Means tired, exhausted early mornings, days of hard duty performed on half the sleep, just so that she can return to her chambers and do it all again. 

She won't fail. She won't. Even if it means having to stay up every night and work until she can barely read two words side by side to prove it. 

Fayenna despairs of even trying to convince her otherwise, sending her weighing looks as they work side by side, in the moments when they return to the Towercast at the day's end and Elreith makes immediately for her books. Fayenna says nothing, too well used to Elreith by now and knowing her mind will not be changed, but her gaze worries at her all the same, soft and concerned, resigned. 

In the moments where the hour draws so late that Elreith begins to trip over the looping vowels of the transcendental tongue, feeling them like hissing snakes between her fingers, too slippery to be grasped, she finds herself picking up the Daughter of Masvha's journal instead.

There is something entrancing about the story of it, drawing Elreith back again and again. Whoever the Daughter was, her life was a tragedy, every new step sending her falling between one terrible set of circumstances to the next, hardship and misfortune hanging over shoulders like specters. The Daughter is brutally honest in her retellings, both in her own faults and in those of others, laying down her tale with a blunt sort of resignation, knowing by now even the best of intentions can lead to bad ends regardless. She speaks of how greed and distrust leads to a village's destruction, some small hamlet buried in the mountain, the coming of a ruined harvest and a harsh following winter setting the town's people against each other, and how she'd had the bad chance to be locked there for the span of the winter after a bridge fell out and the way ahead became too snowed with storms to let any pass. 

- one cannot be blamed for the things hunger makes one do, when one has children at home who already feel its bite, bone thin and starved. With too little food, and too harsh a cold, and the added insult of a neighbor who only seems to grow fatter and fatter, when it was his ill gotten gains that caused the crops to fail... No. They cannot be blamed. Hunger makes beasts of us all, and fear all the more - fear not for yourself, but for your children, your parents, your brothers and kin, all those you love, who rely on you to see them through. 

Hunger brings the beasts, and in the end all it takes is a spark for the fire to catch, mistrust turning to resentment, resentment to hate. Neighbors and friends become your enemy, and strangers become the wolf at the door, there to steal the last bite between their snapping teeth that would have saved your children from starving. 

The irony is, there would have been enough for all of them, if only they had shared. But they fought instead, and the building burned, and now they will all starve. And I wonder, would it have been a kinder fate after all if I had stayed my hand? If I had not saved the weaver's son from his fever, they would have had a mouth less to feed, and they and their remaining children would have survived the winter thin, but alive. But I saved him, and so their food ran thin, the weight of another starving child added to their conscience, another dagger set, bleeding their desperation into the earth. If my presence had not been there, a stranger's mouth to feed, if I had not spoken up about my observations and revealed the neighbors misdeeds would the village have been jarred to the same debate, would the same blood still have been shed?

Now the weaver is dead, and her husband so wounded from the fight that he will not recover for months, the village's biggest store of food gone and it's households all turned against each other. By saving a life and speaking the truth of a secret, six are now dead, and by the winter's end it will be even more than that. The storms still rage, and the pass will be dangerous, but I am starting to think even that would be a kinder and safer path than to tarry here and watch the winter nights grow longer. 

Blood has been shed, hungers ignited, and where hands have turned to violence once in search of food, they can again. Even if there is enough food for all, by winter's end when the thaw comes, everyone in this settlement will be dead. Those who aren't will wish they were, and will leave quietly like ghosts in the night, and if I ever return this village will be dead and empty either way. A part of me - the hopeful part - prays that it will not be so, that they will find a way to mend bridges and clasp each other hand in hand once more, become the shoulders for each other to lean upon for them to all survive the cold. I don't hold it in great chance. 

This is my legacy in this place I suppose. If Kerthic had not fallen as we crossed the pass, we could have continued and not had to stop. The weaver's boy may have died, but the village would have survived - its secrets hidden, perhaps, but its people alive. If I had braved the storm, pressed on alone instead of seeking shelter here, if I had come but simply held my tongue, then they might similarly have been spared. Was it a good thing I did in the end, bringing the truth to light, when this was the outcome it caused?

I do not know. In truth, truth is not often the boon one thinks it is, and the price of honesty is more often than not a debt of blood. This blood is on my hands, same as his, and now I will have to live with it. I will brave the storm tomorrow, and move on, and if the snow takes me it will at least be a kinder death than the weeks of starvation, or the blade that might find me in the dark. We shall see what dawn brings, and come the light or not, I will walk on. I only hope the storm abates enough to let me. 

Elreith reads until her eyes become too heavy to read even another line, only then finally settling the book aside and curling deeper into her blankets, and in the morning, as she takes up her polishing cloth once more and sets out with the rest of the maids to make the grand halls of the upper city presentable, she finds mind drawn back to it, the Daughter's tale of that cold winter village. She doesn't know what draws her to the Daughter's stories, but perhaps it's because they feel real. 

Elreith had read poetry, had read great literature and odes, and even rare tales of fiction created solely to explore realms of thought which in a living world could not truly exist, and yet none have struck in quite the same way as the Daughter's journal. There is something about the sorrow in her words, the helplessness, the grim resignation in the fact that even her attempts to do good end so often in more misfortune. The Daughter's life was a sad story, one in which she suffered with enduring patience, never turning aside, walking up the glass mountain even as shards bleed rivets through her aching feet, leaving a tail of bloodied footprints in her wake. 

I killed a man, the Daughter had written, in the page in which she described how the small village's peace had cracked and fissures, rupturing like the skin of a rotten fruit to reveal a festering interior. One turned to me in anger, seeking to end my life, taken by his own anger, and I killed him in turn. With wet blood on my hands, I looked in his wife's eyes, and I counted myself lucky to be the one who had survived even as I watched her grief take her. Still I don't regret it, even as I hear her cry in this moment before his grave. The selfishness of living, it consumes us all in the end, every one of us heartless in the face of it. 

Maybe it's because the Daughter was not a good woman. She tried, sometimes - spared the life of strangers when she could, used her small skills with medicine to be of aid when it was needed, but for every act of good she committed, she was equally as honest about her own faults. For every quality to be respected, her flaws are equally highlighted - speaking of her own pride, her own resignation, the apathy that threatens to make her heart turn cold and cruel, how disillusionment and jadedness threaten to turn her bitter. The Daughter was not a great warrior, was not a great healer, a great scholar, was not anything great at all, nor even anything good, simply a person, one trying to make their way in a world that too often finds itself cruel.

Maybe that's why it strikes her. The world is a cruel place, in the Daughter's story, and the Daughter one of the suffering characters who live it in, bound to the whims of its misfortune, and yet still she walks on. In the face of fire and death and bloodshed, creeping cold and the clawing fingers of a biting hunger, she walks on, through misery and tragedy, deaths of the innocents and victories of the unjust, the cruel, she walks on. She survives, and writes her tale as she does, sparing herself no more than she does anyone else in her retelling. 

There is an honesty in that, a truth to it, even brutal in its retelling, and Elreith cannot help but admire it. And maybe she doesn't know what Aesynth intended to teach her, lending her this volume, maybe Aesynth didn't have any motive at all save that it was a book by a Nightdaughter and she thought Elreith might like to read the hand of her own people, but still it lingers with her, the Daughter's tales turning in her thoughts like sparrows, finding and flitting before her in her moments of inattention, unremarkable in their drab colours until you looked closer and saw that even they had a beauty in their own right, mesmerizing to be watched. 

Then the work continues, and Elreith has no more time for distractions, the day's work hard at hand. 

-

Two days before the diplomatic envoy from Talthun is due to arrive, finally descending on the city, Eremina asks her for a favor, looking frazzled and desperate. She's one of the younger maids from the Towercast, under Vynteala's team, almost as young as Yerael, having only been in the service for a year and a half. 

"Oh, Elreith, Elreith please," she asks, faintly begging now, looking up at her with pleading eyes. She's a human, pretty in the way of youthful innocence with her wide dark eyes, still more girl than woman. "I've asked everyone, but no one can do it. Will you swap days with me? I know you have the 23rd off, and if I don't go that day I won't be able to see my brother off - he'll be gone for years training with the knights. Oh, Elreith please? Please? I'll work your shift my next rest day instead, and the one after. Please, please, please-"

Elreith ought to say no, she really ought to, she can't afford to lose a day of study, not when she's already been desperately trying to scratch together the time to work for even a few hours here and there, but Eremina looks at her with such pleading desperation that in the end Elreith cannot say no.  Eremina lets out a noise of tearful gratitude, sweeping close to give her a tight hug. "Oh Elreith, thank you, thank you. I'll owe you one, I will, you're the kindest soul I know-"

"Don't worry about it." Elreith just says, amused, even as she bites back her disappointment. She's been counting on her next rest day to help her pay off the debt of all the sleep she's been missing and to catch up on her study, exhaustion weighing over her like a shroud, but it can't be helped.

"You're the best Elreith," Eremina says, clutching her hands in hers as she meets her eyes earnestly. "I won't forget it, I won't. I'm supposed to be in the Oraelian Halls with a few of the others that day, on duty for that thing with the envoys. You won't even have to do much, I promise, just stand there in case they need something. Oh, Elreith thank you-"

Elreith just shakes her head, and sends Eremina off, waving her away when she tries to give yet another round of tearful thanks. It's rarer than not for maids to have family outside the service, but Eremina is one of the few that does and gets terribly homesick besides, young and sweet enough still that the older maids of the Towercast look on her with a measure of fondness, same as they do Yerael, barely a year older. 

The day of the 23rd comes, and with it the arrival of the envoys from Talthun. Elreith is on duty when it happens, the procession reaching the city just as the sun crests its zenith, but she hears it all the same, the great melodious bellow of the silver trumpets as the knights of the city greet the procession as they crest the bridge, a party of the city's own diplomats going out to meet them. When the trumpets go silent, nothing more can be heard, and Elreith can only assume the procession has been welcomed and is being led in. 

Elreith puts the thought from her mind. The envoys aren't any of her business, their arrival not impacting her duty. Another cast of maids in in charge of serving the envoy themselves, ensuring all their needs are met in their lodgings, the Towercast maids and Elreith's own part only extending as far as being on duty through the day of their arrival in the neighboring halls, ensuring all is as it should be. 

The work passes quickly, Elreith's hours quickly occupied by a never ending stream of chores - cleaning this, running a message for Vynteala there, helping ferry trays of food and drink between the kitchens and quarters where Talthun's own knights are being put up, handing them off to the maids stationed there to take in and serve. Afternoon passes, then evening, then night, the moons rising high and Elreith finally nearing the end of her shift. The day's duties extend until midnight and beyond, the hours drawn out because of the added work, Eremina's team getting the bad luck of the draw in regards to it, leading to the other maids' reluctance to swap shifts. 

By nightfall, Elreith is already weary and ready for bed, but the day is not yet over, and so she presses through it, focusing on her work on task at a time. She's glad for her veil in the end, if only for the fact it shrouds her face, letting her wear her weariness without a look of remark. In her blacks, she is like any other tower maid, neat and faceless, draped in black and little more noteworthy than any statue standing in the halls. 

Her shift is almost at its end by the time she catches her first glimpse of the Talthun delegation, the sound of footsteps from down the hall drawing her attention from where she stands at attention in one of the outer halls. She's been stationed in one of the more remote byways of the Oraelian Halls, remarkable only for the beauty of its view through its wide windows, standing there at the ready with two other maids. It's little more than a thoroughfare, and no one but a few harried servants have passed this way in hours, but the three of them stand at attention regardless, as maids do in every corner of the Oraelian Halls this night, there to serve as little more than living statuary to decorate the halls, still and silent and at the ready in case any guest should pass and require something. 

Elreith ducks her head immediately, as do the other two maids, falling into polite bows even before the voices finish rounding into the hall. The voices resolve themselves, two men in quiet discussion, footsteps echoing at a leisurely pace, and Elreith feels something in her freeze a little as the flash of red she catches out of the corner of her eye makes her realize just who has approached. 

The Bishop makes a proud figure, his face younger than Elreith might have expected, something soft about the line of his shoulders as he stands in the neat black of his cassock, white collar peeking at his neck, the red and gold of his stole draped across his shoulder. Ranworth, that's his name, Bishop Cerlin Ranworth. He's a human, olive skinned, with a face that's yet handsome, in a modest way, with features that on any other man would make him soft and approachable - one of the youngest Bishop's to ever be ordained, barely past thirty years of age if the rumors are true, favored by the Lord Highest of the Living Light for his good deeds and acts of service. 

A second figure walks beside him, a gauzy veil draped over their face, their robes such a deep midnight blue that they might as well be black, run through with embroidered veins of glittering gold. Even the length of their hazy veil isn't enough to hide the span of white hair that spills down the length of their back, their hands hidden within the volume of their sleeves, not an inch of skin to be seen. Their voice comes in a whispered wheeze when they speak, and Elreith feels her breath freeze in her chest even more completely, barely daring to even blink. A higher servant of one of the Divine Bodies, perhaps even one of their direct personal aids. Elreith has never seen one alone outside one of the Blessed One's processions, has never been so close to one in a room. 

The two were in conversation as they entered, and they don't pause, not paying even a glance at the three frozen maids bowing off to one side. "- arrangements could be made, but such specialty work has it's price," the high servant is saying, voice a wind-thin whisper, like air passing through a gap in stone. Their footsteps make no sound as they walk, the rustle of their train dragging on the ground offset by the sound of the Bishop's own footsteps. 

The Bishop in turn makes an amused noise, curt, a coldness to his voice that's at odds to the youth and softness of his appearance. "That can be arranged. His Resplendence has sent me to arrange the matter, price is no issue."

Elreith feels her heart beat faster in her chest as they approach, her eyes glued firmly to the marble of the floor even through her veil. The Bishop's footsteps slow as he passes them, drawing to a halt, and Elreith feels her breath catch in her throat as she feels the weight of his gaze slide across them. His gaze weighs heavy on her shoulders, lingering, and even bowed Elreith can't help the way her eyes flick up of their own accord. 

For a split second she catches a glimpse of his eyes, and even through the haze of her veil she can see the colour of them, his eyes consumed by a weeping red, dark as dried blood, which swallows his eyes, pupil and white - the sign of a true member of the clergy. His eyes meet hers flatly, and immediately she jerks her eyes back down, heart hammering in her chest, a cold sweat trickling down the back of her neck. 

The Bishop for his part doesn't do anything more than make a noise of amusement, turning forward and moving on, dismissing her and the other maids again as if they were nothing more than parts of the furniture, the higher servant falling into step with him once more, saying nothing more as he leads him down the hall. Elreith stays in her bow until well after they're gone, her hands shaking faintly in her sleeves, sweat cold on her skin, unsure why even that single tiny glance - a split second of gaze met - had been enough to leave her feeling sick and terrified. 

Her heart is loud in her chest, pounding rabbit-fast against the cage of her chest, and she jolts when one of the other maids gives her a gentle nudge, wondering why she hasn't risen yet. Elreith swallows, and rises, and despite herself finds her eyes tracing to the end of the corridor, where the Bishop and higher servant had disappeared, the air in the hall suddenly seeming so cold and chilled. Another set of maids come to relieve them soon after, taking over the bulk of the night shift, but the feeling doesn't leave Elreith even once she's back at the Towercast, something eerie and cold caught like a splinter beneath her skin, unsettled. 

Whatever the Talthun delegation is here for, she will be glad when they leave, them and the Bishop. If she never catches sight of the lot of them again, it will be for the better. 

-

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#gods-bound #half-light #Elreith #original writing #dark fantasy

[gods-bound]

Half-Light, Half-Life - Chapter 2

A harsh rap on the door is what wakes her. The first stirrings of dawn light are pressing against the curtains, Syella making her round, giving the last wake up call for the maids. Elreith hears her footsteps walk on, stride crisp and clean, knocking sharply on the next door down the line.

Elreith makes a quiet noise, turning, face buried in her pillow. Her limbs are weighed down, run through with lead, weariness finding its bed in her bones, and her bed is so soft and warm that for a moment the thought of having to leave it is a torment. There is nothing she wants more than to curl back up and go back to sleep, but she makes a noise and forces herself upright. For a moment she can't help but just sit there, letting out a quiet sigh as she rubs at her face, savoring the lingering warmth of the blankets where they pool around her waist. Then it's time to get up. The work won't wait, and Elreith won't be late. If it comes down to getting there on time or taking the time to get breakfast, she'll choose punctuality every time, and today isn't a day she wants to be working on an empty stomach.

One step out of the bed, two, the stone floor cold against her feet, and she feels even more tired standing, as she makes her way over to the wash basin to rinse her face. There is still ink smudged on her fingers, barely visible, but Elreith takes a moment to try and scrub it away anyway. The air is cold, brisk, the water even moreso, but the shock of it is enough to wake her a little. She'd studied until the third moon was high in the sky, only managing to slip in a few hours sleep before the morning call, and while she's made do on less, it doesn't make that first exhausted hour of waking any easier.

The routine of getting dressed is easy habit by now, instinctual and automatic. She slips out of her nightgown, and pulls on her chemise, tying her hair loosely behind her and slipping it back over her shoulder as she pulls on her corset, fingers slipping behind her to pull closed the last of the loosened ties. Stockings then, the material of them pale and soft as she rolls them up her legs, and then petticoat, the light fabric of the white skirt tying gently around her waist and falling to her ankles. Then, and only then does she start pulling on her dress itself, embroidered panes of delicate black sitting close around the chest, buttoned high up her neck, sleeves tight and stitched with lace, embroidered with faint veins of silver at her cuffs.

She still feels vaguely like a dead thing, half asleep and weighed down by exhaustion, her head hollow and full of cotton wool, but its habit by now to bear through it, turning to the washbasin and its small tarnished mirror as she works on her hair, braiding it into a long line that hangs halfway down her back, then rolling it and pinning it up, where it will sit neat beneath her veil. She straightens then, meeting her own yellow eyes in the mirror, and gives herself and look up and down.

Dress neat, buttons correct, hair tidy and well tamed. Bags are starting to grow her eyes, a little bigger than before, but nothing that can be helped - it's not like anyone will see them beneath her veil, anyway. Only one thing left after that. There is a single gold earring lying on the table by the bed. It's an old thing, worn and little scratched, but made of a rich gold that sings with an almost orange undertone, warm and comforting. Simple and unadorned, nothing but a plain ring, but it makes her heart warm in her chest a little anyway as she slips it back in, returning it to its place in her left ear. Her mother's once, its pair lost sometime in their journey from the Dusklands when Elreith was a child, and now the sole thing in the world that Elreith has left of her, the rest having to be sold or given up when Elreith entered the service.

She gives herself one last glance in the mirror when she's done, taking in the single flash of warm gold at her ear, and then takes up her veil one once. Shoes on, one last quiet flick to make sure her dress lies neat and straight and correct, and then she's stepping out the door, the day's work ready to begin.

-

The Convex, eight centuries ago, was built to be a space that amplified light and sound, built in a series of concentric halls stacked upon each other in ascending rings, culminating in a great atrium with rising pillars that stretch high into the air. Each hall is wide and tall and airy, with pale stonework that once gleamed underfoot, the city itself a vista beneath the wide arched windows. It was one of the great beauties of the city once, before time and the expansion of the city saw it superseded, the greater marvels to follow quickly eclipsing it.

Now it is modest, and largely forgotten, serving mainly as a thoroughfare between the  libraries of Scholarium and the topmost halls of Southrun, mostly traveled by the lower scholars traveling between their studies. The floors are dulled now, worn down by years of passing feet and scuffing boots, the polish of the marble now lost, turned grey in places where the grim of peoples passing has built up, bearing into the stone.

The Towercast maids of the Southrun number almost six dozen, split usually into three working teams. Elreith, Fayenna, Yerael, and about two dozen more work beneath Saelsma, and they're the ones who've been assigned to deal with the Convex, while the two other teams work lower in the halls, taking care of other assignments.

Half the maids have been assigned mops and buckets, the other half let loose with dusting and polishing cloths, there to give the halls their regular maintenance and ensure the glory of Ai'Vaerin can continue to demonstrate its splendor untarnished. The work is slow, and repetitive, and honestly a little dull, the hours passing in the slow wipe of the mop head across the floor and the splash the mob being dunked back in the bucket, but Elreith doesn't mind it.

Slowly, the greyed floors reclaim their shine beneath her eye. Still muted, still worn, still a little stained and aged, but cleaner now. The hours pass calmly that way, working side by side with the other maids as they make their circumambulation of the great ringed halls of the Convex. Scholars pass through now and then, traveling in packs heading to and from the Scholarium, but few deign to comment on the presence of the maids, if they notice them at all.

Elreith reaches the end of a line of statues, the water in her bucket now browned and muddy, and pauses for a moment to take a breath, her eyes drawn down through the wide window, over the city. The Convex is not the highest point in the city, not anymore, not even close, but it is still high indeed, and beneath the peaking and sloping roofed of the Middle Quarter can be seen, the crowded and twisting streets that have scaffold themselves around the foundations of the great city's towered peaks. From this distance, even the tall townhouses crowded there look like little more than a patchwork of angled roofs, abstract slopes written in green and grey tiles.

The mist hangs over them still, creeping higher to kiss the high towers of the Scholar's Realm and the great towers, the great and palatial upper reaches of the city where the Divine Bodies and their servants reside, and all learning and study and great enhancement of thought takes place, every art, every study, every discipline finding home and flourishing. There are birds flying over the roofs of the middle city, perched on the high eaves and gutterings, circling in flocks. Crows mostly, though there are doves among them, flashes of soft white appearing in the storms of dark feathers, so unalike in temperament and form and yet finding their home amongst their feathered kin nonetheless.

A sound from the entrance to the halls jars Elreith from her study, a group of scholars entering the hall, still caught in discussion, their identity marked by their green robes, and Elreith turns, shifting her grip of her mop in one hand as she moves to gather up her bucket, stepping out of the way. It's a moments inattention on the scholar's part that has one of them clipping her shoulder as they pass - Elreith already moving out of the way, but not expecting one to walk so close - and the bucket sloshes, a curtain of water falling to splash over her shoes, dampening the hem of her dress.

A few of the drops splash back towards the scholar's own legs, and the man makes a sharp noise, stepping back. Elreith is already bowing, setting the bucket down gently as she drops her head, hands folding together at her font. She fixes her eyes on the hem of his robes, bowing her head low as she murmurs smoothly, "Apologies given, honored scholar."

"You should watch where you're going," the man snaps. He's human, perhaps only a few years older than herself, with pale skin reminiscent of a descendant of a lineage of Talthun. He wears the embroidery of a junior scholar, one recently graduated from the role of entrant student. His eyes narrow as he properly takes her in, eyes dropping to her hands, her skin as dark as the inky fabric of her dress, and he makes a noise of scorn.

"Keep an eye on yourself, next time. Someone might take it as something more serious, being assaulted by one of your kind," the man says, his voice cold and clipped, eyes fixed on her with a lingering and sharp-edged disdain that prickles at her skin. His fellows are behind him, watching on, and one of them makes a noise of amused agreement.

Elreith says nothing, simply bowing her head more deeply, and in the end the man just sneers, turning on his heel and marching off. Elreith keeps her head lowered, and the men slip once more into conversation as they walk away, tongues rolling with the smooth notes of the transcendent tongue.

"Can you believe it?" The scholar's friend asks, not bothering to lower his voice as they talk, not knowing she can understand every word. "Who would even allow a nightchild to work here? I didn't know those brutes interested themselves in anything but warfare."

"A charity case, no doubt." The scholar replies, voice sharp and amused. "They need people for that sort of servile work. I suppose anyone will do, so long as they can carry a mop. What a shock though, running into one."

"Did you hear the news about Sunspoke? Apparently that king of theirs has just finished the building of the biggest gladiatorial arena yet, larger than the Convex apparently. Seeing the games there must be something, what a sight-"

Their voices fade, lost as they disappear around the curve of the hall and vanish out of sight. Elreith doesn't rise from her bow until she can't hear them, even their voices gone silent. Only then, does she slowly rise. There are new tracks on the floor, she notes, fresh footprints marked with just the faintest smudges of mud, denoting a recent trip through one of the gardens, and Elreith glances down the hall to find that they now track the length of it, all the way from one door to the other, back across the freshly mopped floors.

Elreith lets out a quiet breath, sighing. The hem of her dress is wet, and likely quite dirty now too, brushing cold against her ankles with each step. She'll have to wash it, which is unfortunate, because it was freshly cleaned. She leans down, taking up her bucket once more, and then begins the journey to refill it, before returning to begin cleaning up the mess that's been made.  

-

Three, four, five hours later, and the seventh bell of the evening has just begun to toll, the sound echoing softly through the halls. They'd made good time with the cleaning of the Convex, and Saelsma releases them early, glancing over the gathered maids and waving one hand, letting out a sigh. "Might as well, I suppose. Alright, off with you then."

That earns a wave of good cheer, the maids all letting out soft calls of thanks and dipping their heads, while Saelsma rolls her eyes in fond exasperation.

Elreith walks back to the Towercast quarters with the rest of the maids, their voices raising in light, laughing chatter the whole way back, and only peels away as the rest begin turning towards the common rooms, making to grab a meal or go sit by the hearth. She heads for her room instead, and wastes no time in changing, shucking out of her dirtied dress and slipping back into her other one. She only has the two of them, and while she'd planned to wash this one tonight, it’s now the cleaner of the two.

She'd finished the last of her books last night, working through until the early hours of the morning, and now she gathers them up in her arms, fitting what she can into her pack and carrying the rest. None of the maids so much as shoot her a glance as she leaves, long used to the sight by now, and it's barely passing eighth bell by the time she makes her way through the winding halls, up a final set of narrow, spiraling stairs, and into one of the narrow and forgotten servants halls. The glass at the windows is stained, not given the same care as the grand marveled windows of the grand halls, but the view itself is beautiful all the same, Ai'Vaerin stretching below, the city half cast in shadow now and shrouded in the rising evening mist.

A final door sits at the end of the hall, made of wood so dark it's almost black, modest in its make, but Elreith feels her heart lift at the sight of it, unable to help her smile. The creak of the door is a familiar one, the silver of the doorknob worn and faded, the curve of it smooth and comfortable in hand, and Elreith pushes the door open, stepping through.

A single breath in carries with it the scent of dust and fresh ink, sunlight casting low and golden angles through the windows, spilling across the floor and through the shelves of books. They rise almost higher than the eye can see.  The Liern Scholarium is one of the lesser great libraries, one of the most modest, but even it is enormous in its own right, home to thousands of texts. The library is hushed, quiet, lit by the slanted afternoon sunlight and a few glowing lamps, the sealed glass spheres emanating a soft yellow glow.

Scholars can be seen here and there, sitting at quiet tables or perusing the shelves, perched high on the ladders as they scour the heights of the stacks. The path through the stacks is a familiar one, the sounds of soft murmured conversation and pages carrying quietly as she makes her way through the shelves, quietly skirting a line of desks. High above, the great glass roof lets through quiet light, iron set in curling spiderwebs through the great curve of the dome.

No one gives Elreith so much as a single glance as she passes, even in her maid blacks and veil. Her eyes trace the spines of the books as she goes, counting titles. All of the knowledge in the world can be found in Vaelthran, in one form and another, the greatest store of knowledge in any realm - home of the arts and sciences, all that is good and beautiful, pioneers and keepers of all forms of study.

As she steps out of the stacks, the hall expands before her, the upper level circling in a great band around the inner floor, the great mezzanine stacked with selves that circle it like the spokes of a wheel, giving way to halls that grow outwards, each annex adding a limbs the body of an already great being. Light shines down through the great dome, through the great orbiting rings of the archive system and down onto the central floor, where even more stacks can be seen, each three meters high. The sight never fails to take her breath away, the grandeur of even this modest library a thing of beauty in its own right.

Elreith circles the upper level, books in hand, scattered scholars passing her along the way, dressed in their greens and deep indigo. The Liern Scholarium is one of the few great studies open to all scholars of Vaelthran, initiate students and honored scholars and masters alike, but is still more rarely visited than some of the others, less grand than the Breuan Scholarium or the Tower of the Reaching Twins. It has one thing that distinguishes itself from the rest though, setting it high in Elreith's esteem above any other.

The Wordkeeper's desk is a grand thing that sits high in the very center of the hall on a high platfrom, rising from the central floor like a tower, a reaching plinth above which the great ticking body of the archival system lies suspended - four dozen intertwined rings of tarnished silver and aging gold, which turn slowly in orbit of each other, reaching arms curling around the high platform. It dominates the space, filling the heart of the great dome, sunlight weaving through the bands and casting shadows on the floor. The smallest of the rings move softly, whirring gently as they spin within each other, the grandest of the bands moving so slowly it's almost imperceptible, seeming to echo the slow turn of the world itself, the bedrock upon which the heavens spin and orbit.

All of the knowledge of the archives contents are stored there, the name of every book and scroll of the Liern Scholarium recorded in the calculations of its motion. The stairs that circle the platform, leading up to it, are overrun with stacks of waiting books, rising into crowded towers that spill down, leaning in stacks against the foot of the platform, like snow drifts gathering on a mountain. The platform itself is similarly drowned, piles rising so high that the desk at the center of it can barely be seen, lost somewhere within the mire.

Elreith finally reaches the stairs, beginning her descent, noting with amusement that the Wordkeeper's desk is once more empty. The great archive above continues to circle and hum, rings twisting softly in the air, their master for the moment lost. Elreith knows she won't have to look far to find her.

Sure enough, as she steps down into the lower stacks, weaving between the high shelves of books, she finds her. Aesynth sits at one of the nearby desks, quill in hand, stacks of papers growing in towers across the desk. It is not the Wordkeeper's proper spot, her place of honor up there on the dais, where she can survey her domain and access the records at a moment's notice, but there has not been a single time in Elreith's many years of visiting the Scholarium when Aesynth has not been parked here instead, working in the shadow of her own desk at a small table crowded in the junction between two shelves.

Aesynth glances up as she approaches, her great eyes milky behind her spectacles, blue scales papery soft and turned thin and fragile with age. She is the oldest Deveura Elreith has ever seen, one of the dragon kin, lineage of one of the ancient great gods of old. Her kind live long, hundreds of years, and Aesynth must be approaching well on nine hundred years now - the greater part of that time spent serving as scholar and keeper of Ai'Vaerin's libraries.

There is a reason, after all, that no one hassles her about sitting at her own desk, why the great archive ticks away untouched high above. If asked Aesynth could probably name the title and location of every tome in her halls, and recount every word of every chapter of every book on top of it. Every other Scholarium requires the work of a dozen Wordkeepers to maintain it, reliant on the grace and function of the great mechanical archives - not here. Aesynth is the beating heart of the archive, and in her mind rests its entire soul.

"So you've come back for more, have you?" Aesynth says, voice coming in smooth and even rumble. She draws up, clawed hands stilling on her papers, quill still in hand. Even in her age, she cuts a beautiful and dignified figure, her scales a deep dusk blue, four sets of twisting horns curling around her head, scales turned thin and almost translucent with age. "I wonder when you sleep, child, when you return my books so quickly."

Elreith's smile is a warm and true thing, and she ducks her head sheepishly. "I make do," she says, and it's only years of insistence by Aesynth that has Elreith leaving off her title. Elreith turns, setting down her pile of books on one of the nearby carts, and fishing the rest from her bag - they'll be collected by one of Aesynth's assistants at some point, to be redistributed amongst the shelves.

"Tell me, what are you up to this time?" Aesynth asks, rising slowly from her seat and circling her desk. Even hunched, she stands head and shoulders above Elreith, pale horns curling above her head, glinting with rings of aged gold, tail whispering on the ground, the dark hem of her robes stitched with gleaming embroidery. With her title, Aesynth wears the deep blackened violet of a blessed and honored scholar, her robes run through not with silver but with gold. Sign of her many years of honored service, visible for all eyes to see.

"Ode to the Conjunction of Celestial Mechanics, Permutations of Truth of the Unknowing, Histories of the Guraen Tellings... Poetry, astronomy, and the biological sciences too," Aesynth notes, counting through the books one by one. She lets out an amused noise, eyes turning to fix on Elreith. "Even half the master scholars don't start reading these tomes until the better part of five years after their appointment, you know. Child, at this rate you'll put even the Blessed Chosen to shame."

Elreith ducks her head again, and Aesynth makes a noise of soft knowing, fond, setting down the last tome and making her way back behind her desk. It is only because of Aesynth that Elreith is permitted use of the library at all - the Scholarium open to all levels of scholars and initiates, but not to the base and servile staff. There is not a single day when she is not grateful to Aesynth for her generosity and kindness, for having seen her and taken her under her wing.

Elreith had asked her once, what had made Aesynth notice her, looking at the simple faceless maid dusting the shelves and seeing something more. It was the way you touched the books, Aesynth had replied, voice smooth and warm, soft with fondness. You traced every spine like you didn't want to let go - a lover’s touch. I know a scholar's heart when I see one.

"I was wondering if you had any further recommendations for me? I was enjoying the calculus from the Ode, and if you had anything more on the theme of the Unliving Dark particularly," Elreith says, and isn't surprised when Aesynth turns, already waving her hand towards a stack of books waiting piled on the table behind her desk. At this point, this little routine of theirs is long habit.

"Try Jeeru'li's works," Aesynth replies, taking her seat once more behind her desk. "The man was a sorcerer from the Burning Lands, and I think you would find his philosophies of poetry interesting. As for the calculus - Mathaunis' Treaties should do it, and the seven volumes should keep you occupied for a moment, at least." She rattles off the locations after that, and Elreith sets them to memory, to collect on her way out.

Elreith smiles, shooting Aesynth a grateful glance, and starts picking through the stack of books, examining the titles curiously. There's more philosophy, and a few tomes on what seems to be economics this time as well, as well as a journal of what Elreith thinks might be someone's personal travel accounts. Not a book that Elreith has seen before, but she'll take it. Every book Aesynth puts in her hands is worth reading, even if the lessons they impart are not the ones Elreith expects.

"So you're decided then - you’ll be taking this year’s proving," Aesynth notes, voice taking on a more solemn tone as she looks at her. There's something heavy and thoughtful in her gaze, layered over something softer - pride, fondness.

"Yes," Elreith replies. The Proving Ceremonies are held only once every five years. Anyone in Vaelthran may apply to participate, from highest scholar to most lowly servant, proving their worth so that they may be considered for admission into the staff of one of the great households. All of Vaelthran serves the Blessed Ones, the descendants of the ancient and blessed lineage of the Vaelkan, but to become part of one of their households is a different matter entirely. 

The Blessed Ones walk the line between the living and the dead, immortal and internal, witness to ages past and receptacles of the living knowledge of all of Vaelthran’s history and learning. The Divine Bodies, they’re called for it, and their servants too, all of whom fallow their footsteps and transcend beyond the bounds of mortality, becoming in themselves unending creatures of knowledge. There is no greater honor than to be chosen, being given the chance to serve the living embodiment of Valethran’s wisdom and history directly, becoming part of that history yourself.    

Scholars strive for years to even gain a chance at take part in the ceremony, hoping to prove their worth and earn a chance to serve and study in the great towers, living and working in the heart of the empire, where art and thought and thinking reaches heights unseen in any other corner of the realm. The tests themselves are brutal, designed to test every aspect of your knowledge and intellect, even a single flaw enough to get you out of the running.

But if Erieth succeeds-

If Elreith succeeds, she won’t be a maid anymore. Her study will be recognized, her skills acknowledged, afforded the highest honor that Vaelthran can afford, proof of her merit. She’ll be given the chance to be a scholar herself, to work in the heart of all knowledge and learning for all eternity, becoming one of the eternal keeper's of knowledge, the living embodiment and archive of all of Vaelthran's great learning.

The ceremony is only three months away now, so close now that Elreith can almost taste it. Every citizen in Vaelthran dreams at least in part of taking the ceremony and being accepted as one of the Divine Bodies, and now Elreith actually has the chance. Years, she's been working towards this, and now the deadline is almost in sight. The thought alone makes her heart pound in her chest, anticipation and dread in equal measure making her blood run quick.

She can't falter now. She won't falter now. The end is in sight, and after it- After it stands the entirety of Elreith's life, not as a maid, not as a nameless faceless servant, to be ignored and talked over and dismissed - but as someone, a scholar, one of the jewels that make Vaelthran's glory shine so great.  

Three months now, the clock ticking down, and Elreith barely has a moment to waste.

-

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#gods-bound #half-light #original writing #dark fantasy #Elreith

[gods-bound]

Half-Light, Half-Life - Chapter 12

There is a shadow moving above her. 

Elreith would flinch, does flinch maybe, but the movement itself is a hazy thing, half awake and fogged, eyelids fluttering, the warm hushed siren-call of the darkness calling her down again just as quickly. She's only faintly aware of the hand that rests itself on her forehead, against sweat slicked skin, feverishly hot and yet chillingly cold. Only faintly aware of the words that are murmured, of the sound of humming, someone singing a faint song beneath their breath. 

Mother? Elreith asks, tries to ask, because the last one who sang to her, the only one who ever sang to her was her, and that voice, so soft, so low, it sounds so much like her. Is that you? Mother-

No, don’t go yet, please- She reaches maybe, hands grasping through shadows. Calls for her, but her voice doesn't come, drowning soft in the darkness, the thought fading from her mind again as quickly as it had come, slipping like smoke between her fingers even as Elreith reaches and reaches and reaches-

"You're injured," a soft voice says, so quiet, barely a murmur. "Rest."

Who are you? Who- The words don't come, and Elreith fades, feverish, consciousness slipping away like smoke. Everything is so heavy, every part of her weighed down by lead and left to sink into the water, dragging her down and down and down. 

Darkness meets her, swallowing her whole, and in the darkness voices sing. 

-

Consciousness comes in stages. Her mouth is dry, turned sour and arid, breath rasping on the inhale, throat sore with it. Her body aches, so tired, so heavy, a cold numbness sinking up her side, threatening to leave her feeling chilled, like someone has reached out and left painted fingerprints against her skin, swathes of her body stained and swallowed by a dark numbness. 

She feels cold. She feels too warm. 

Someone's put her to bed, rough blankets drawn up around her, bundled into a pillow beneath her head, the chill of the air threatening to seep through. Her eyelids flutter, light realizing softly. There's something glowing, a light, pale and soft and flickering - a candle. Slowly, Elreith's eyes pry open, the candle slowly coming into focus - the short nub, melted wax spilling down in a mess over the small dented tin plate it’s been set on, the candle itself melted so low that there's barely an inch left. 

It's too small, Elreith thinks groggily. No candle should be allowed to burn that low, whichever maids were in charge of this section of the halls have been derelict in their duties. They'll get chewed out by their matron, if they don't sort it soon. She should- Should figure out who's in charge, should tell them. They'll get into trouble otherwise, if it's spotted-

Everything is wrong here, Elreith notes vaguely, fuzzy eyes slowly drawing into focus. The room is too small, too dark, the walls hewn of stone that's too rough, that single small candle the only thing to bring it light, a fragile flame flickering in the dark. Her thoughts are too slow, too sluggish, muzzy at the edges and unable to find their feet. Where is... What happened...? Elreith draws in a breath, exhausted, only to wince when the action makes her chest ache, biting with a bruised sort of pain. 

The pain cuts through in a lance of clarity, remembrance crashing upon her all at once, all of it snapping back in all at once. The Proving, the Blessed Ones, cold eyes watching her from behind a red veil, a chalice in her hand, cold and dark as death, mist rising from its surface and-

Elreith jerks upright, only for her hands to give way beneath her as she tries to sit up, pain flaring in a sharp stab as she gasps, breath leaving her. The room is swaying now, drawing in dark and tight, spinning around her, her eyes search the room desperately. It's not the city at all, she realizes, horror settling in her gut. The walls are made of rough-carved stone, chipped away by hand, the dim candelight casting the scars of their creation in sharp relief. 

She's in a tunnel, she realizes, or a cave, some sort of dead end little room. A rough shelf has been strung up on one walk using some splintering planks, stacked with jars and inscrutable odds and ends - the twisted end of a broken fence post, still bearing it's blossoming metal twirl, a pair of tarnished silver spoons, a couple of rolled heaps of faded fabric, scattered piles of smooth stones. As soon as she's spotted that first shelf, she spots others. They span most walls, crammed into whatever space they could find, constructed of a mess of scavenged wood and pieces of twisted metal, lashed together with rope, most bearing nothing more than more junk, rusted tin cups and twisted pieces of horn, piles of copper buttons, piled high seemingly without reason. 

She's lying in a bed, she realizes, feeling the shock start to properly set in. Or rather, something like a bed. A cot squeezed into a corner of the room, in it's deepest recess, piled high with musty fabric, blankets so threadbare and aged that they've long lost all sense of pattern or colour. There's a table as well, she realizes, a single lopsided stool sitting before it, the tables surface home to another collection of coins, and a small pile of bird skulls, hollow eyesockets staring at her from where they lie akimbo, stripped of all flesh and now left bare and pale. 

Elreith staggers to her feet, bare feet meeting rough stone as she clutches at the wall, almost swaying off her feet as she hauls herself up. There's no door, but the tunnel narrows as it rounds the bend, giving way to something like an entrance, and Elreith's eyes fix on it desperately, heart thundering in her chest. 

She needs to get out. The thought is a blinding one, all animal fear. She needs to get out. She needs to get out. 

Desperation sends her forward, moving for the door, only for her legs to give way beneath her before she makes it a single step. She goes down hard, catching the edge of the cot with one hand, the hard stone stinging at her knees. Tears sting at her eyes as she sucks in a ragged breath, tightening her grip on the wooden frame of the cot as she goes to shove herself up-

Only for her body to still, eyes fixed on her hand where it’s clenched on the edge of the cot. The wood is dark, so deep a brown it's almost black, turned smooth by some sort of dark vanish. It is black, black, black, and her fingers are white. 

Bird bones, Elreith thinks, her mind turning back to those little skulls on the table, all pale bleached bone, exposed to the open air. The bones of her fingers are narrow things, so much thinner and fragile than you would expect, so many tiny pieces all aligned in perfect accordance, tips of her fingers, knuckles, pale spindly lengths of bone that run through her palm, joining to the axis of her thumb, the joint of her wrists where it disappears into the black lace of her sleeve, fingers curved around the wood where they grip it, caught in the frozen act of pushing herself upright. 

"No-"

Elreith's breath leaves her, disbelief and horror coming back upon her all at once. She'd thought it was a dream. She'd thought it was a nightmare. That moment in the pile of bodies, raising her hand to see bloodstained bone, it hadn't been real, it hadn't been real-

Her hand clenches, and the bones clench around the edge of the cot, Elreith able to feel it, the smooth grain of the wood against her fingertips, the sensation somehow a layer removed, like touching something through gloves, numbed and lost for sensation-

"No, no, no, no, no, no-" Elreith pleads, sucking in a breath, pressing herself back, her back hitting the side of the cot as she scrabbles back, only for the flash of white by her feet to make her eyes widen, tears threatening to spill. Peeking out from the hem of her dress, lace ruffled and in disarray, stark against the stained grey stone of the floor-

The skin of her right foot is black, flesh and blood alive and warm and exactly as she remembered it, but the left-

"No," Elreith breathes, a knot sticking in her throat, threatening to choke her. Because there's bone there, bright and pale, just like her hand, and then Elreith's hands are tearing at her dress, scrabbling to pull it up. Ankle then skin then knee, it's all just bone, bone, bone, so blindingly pale against the black fabric of her dress, and Elreith's breath is catching in her throat, strangled, a sobbing noise catching there and sticking, raw and panicked as she pulls at the the left sleeve of her dress, the bones of her arm going up and up and up, wrist, forearm, elbow-

Buttons catch beneath her fingers, threatening to tear away, Elreith tugging her collar open so fast the buttons threaten to tear away, scrambling to pull it open. Black lace, black buttons, white chemise underneath, pulling open the ties, shirt-strings coming loose, fingers finding skin. And there, on her right side, black skin, warm flesh, the curve of her breast, except that when she pulls her shift wider, desperately, she sees it, the flash of ribs, pale and curving, on her left, creeping up her side, a ragged line of torn flesh giving abruptly way once more to bone-

Her back is pressed hard to the cot, pressed into the corner now, shoved in as far as she can go, her breathing high and ragged, voice a drowning chant, desperate, pleading, please please please no, no-

Broken skin, breathing bone, a ragged line between the two, her body torn open, caught in the paralyzed precipice of disintegrating around her, that faint numbness she'd felt when waking now slamming into her now with horrifying certainty - so cold, so numb, up her left arm, mottled up her left side, dipping down her leg, oh god she can barely feel it, she can-

Her breath is catching now, coming too fast, tears spilling down her face as she flinches back. Her hand fumble, flinch, rake up her side, tracing desperately the hand line of bone beneath fabric, hip then spine then ribs then arm, shoulder and collarbone, only to meet flesh at her neck. Flesh and blood, so warm and soft and firm on her right, as she reaches blindly, desperately, curling in on herself, hands finding her face as she lets out a sob. 

Only to still, again, as she feels her fingers meet bone on the left side of her jaw, halfway along, as the skin starts to give way. No, she thinks desperately, no, please- 

But her fingers find the bone, and follow it, tracing the smooth curve of her jaw, the hinge where it meet cheek, pale panes of bone damningly smooth beneath her touch, following the arch of her cheek, the plateau of her temple, only to curve in in a smooth arc to a hollow, her fingers stilling above the cratered empty space where her eye should be, freezing before they can sink in. 

Elreith is shaking now, breath hitching, voice caught in a desperate tangle, no, no, no, no, no, and she's scrambling, stumbling to her feet as she staggers for the rickety shelf beside the bed, fingers closing around a beaten silver serving plate, it's surface scratched and tarnished and worn by age as she pulls it up, holding it aloft and-

And takes one look, before feeling it topple from her hand, landing on the floor with a deafening clatter as she takes a stumbling step backwards sinking to her knees, unable to breathe.

Distantly, she hears a creak, the muffled sound of a door being opened further down the tunnel, Elreith sobbing too hard to register the noise. 

 Something shifts in the gloom of the tunnel, darkness resolving itself into a figure, black cloak draped across a hidden figure that steps forward, gliding forward without a word. Black, wispy hands gather the fallen plate off the floor, picking it up tenderly, making a soft noise- and Elreith's head jerks up, tears running down her face, meeting the eyes of a living shadow, black-wreathed smoke staring back at her from within the hollow form of the cloak. 

Elreith's breath catches in her throat. She flinches back.

-

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#CONTENT WARNING: BODY HORROR #gods bound #half-light #elreith #original fiction #dark fantasy #horror #necromancy #mixed historical setting

[gods-bound]

#half-light #gods bound #elreith #if youll belive it I didnt even have to exit this that much #it was a blue light originally #part of a light show in bourge that i went to #and it just gave me bit elreith vibes #so green we have

[gods-bound]

Half-Light, Half-Life - Chapter 11

There is a wailing. 

The noise is low and keening and threadbare, and it is loud and thunderous and screaming, and it is a howl and it is a cry and it is a voice sobbing in the dark, fingers clawing at cold stone. There is a wailing, and it sounds like whispers, sounds like a hundred and a thousand murmuring voices stacked atop one another, all speaking at once. It sounds like begging, and it sounds like crying, and it sounds like screaming, and it sounds like voices calling desperately for names that don't resolve themselves, lost as soon as they're heard.

There is a wailing, and it sounds like a voice she knows, and a hundred others she doesn't. It cries, and it murmurs songs, and it presses close, right into her very bones, and there finds a story. It sings that to her too. 

Nameless things are not inherently broken, the Daughter of Masvha had said, words scrawled in untidy lines across a page, in ink that had begun to bleed with age. Wild nameless things need no taming, they want no taming, and need no name. It's when a named thing becomes nameless that the mind breaks, and grief sets its teeth in, and all the loneliness of the world takes its bite.   

I will not tell you what crime I committed, that left me nameless, the Daughter had written, save that my hands bore blood, innocent blood, and the guilt of it threatened to consume me. Some sins cannot be forgiven, some crimes cannot be forgotten, and when a life is taken-

"-careful, don't run so fast," a laughing voice calls, and a hand catches her, balancing her before her stumble can make her really fall. Elreith looks up, and up and up, and her mother smiles at her, yellow eyes bright as the sun, bright as the stars in a veil of night, silver hair bound braids around her head. 

"Can you teach me like that too?" Elreith had asked, her hand so warm around her mother's, who's hand was so soft, so warm. Elreith hadn't noticed the fact her mother's robes were now threadbare, hadn't noticed the new exhausted slope to her shoulders, not back then. When she looked at her mother, she'd been the most beautiful thing in the world, the softest and brightest and warmest thing, every other detail paling, and all Elreith had wanted, all she'd wanted, was to be like her. 

"Please?" Elreith had asked, wheedled really, tugging at her mother's hand, her own eyes bright, and her mother hand laughed, her smile turning her face soft and glowing, and swooped down and tugged her up into her arms, the two of them spinning. "My little nightling child, my little star, of course I'll teach you-"

"-not like that, careful. You have to get the right amount of polish - we only have a limited amount, and every time we run out it means a walk all the way back to the Towercast. Yes, like that, you're getting it," Oletta nods her head sharply, watching as Elreith wipes at the candelabra carefully, pale silver glinting in the torchlight. "It's hell on the wrists, after a while, polishing, but it's light work at least, less likely to leave you with a stooped back than hauling the buckets for the mopping. Wait until you're a bit bigger for that one, I think. How old are you again, girl?" 

Elreith opened her mouth to reply and-

Cheek stinging, tears prickling the corner of her eyes as Elreith tightens her hands in her lap and drops her head even low, bowing as low as she can go, not daring to say another word. The master scholar stands before her, purple robes seeming to bruise in the pale green light as he glares at her, pale face set into a harsh and disapproving stare. "Watch yourself next time, and hold your tongue. Back enough that we have to see your ilk here, let alone hear them - keep your barbarian whispers to yourself," he snaps, shooting her one last cold look before turning and gliding away, footsteps loud.

Elreith draws in a quiet breath, throat aching, and trembling fingers rise to carefully touch her cheek, butterfly soft, feeling her throat close as the sting makes her jerk her fingers away, cheek already threatening to bruise. Why, she wants to ask. Why, why, why? She was only singing. She was only singing, she just wanted to make the time go faster-

Tears spill over, and Elreith doesn't make a single noise at all, hands clenched tight together. Tears trickle down her cheeks, and it hurts, it hurts. Not her face, not her bruises. It hurts bone deep, in her chest, like a life between her ribs, a black ache twisting in her chest, stomach gone hollow and heavy. Why, she thinks, again and again. Why, why why- 

The dark shadow of eyes behind a veil, beautiful and glimmering, and yet the air around them is cold as ice. Their voice is ice too, all cold water, flat and placid. "Throw it out with the rest."

Feet turn, and their train drags on the floor, so much heavy brocaded silk scraping on the stone, and Elreith's hand reaches, it reaches, fingers outstretched, hand trembling. She reaches, and blood drips from her fingers, sloughing off to reveal pale bone, articulate joints stained red with bleeding slick, fingers still reaching, skeletal. And Elreith opens her mouth, opens her mouth to plead, to beg, to scream, and all that comes out is a wail-

Please, please, no. Help me, please-

The whispers come, and they are keening, and they are murmuring, and they are singing, and they are howling, an hundred thousand insubstantial hands reaching for her through the dark, voices overlapping in a cacophony, Elreith caught, unable to even flinch from the noise. 

Closer, and closer they press, voices crowding in, hungry and furious and snarling. They'll consume her entirely, the slick feeling of a preyed upon fear spilling through her, rabbit hearted, as they press in, in, so hungry, so furious- 

And then- 

'One of us,' a voice says, quiet, so soft, child-like, and for a moment that voice is all that Elreith hears, all other noise drowned out. There's a soft touch, like a hand upon her brow, as insubstantial as shadow, so kind, so gentle. 'This one might be one of us.' 

And then the voice is gone, and the howling with it, blood turned to black rust in Elreith's mouth as she draws in a rasping breath. Agony is its own reality, cutting jagged panes through her body, fault lines that have fractured her being, and it consumes her, it consumes her, the simple act of drawing in that small breath enough to make her almost slip back down into the darkness. 

The world is a fractured thing, lost in the sharp-sour tang of blood and the rasping rattle as she draws in a wheezing breath, the world shadowed and dark. Sensation comes back to her in fragments. Scent first - the stench of rot, of char, of blood turning rancid in the open air. Light following. Sight - eyelids shifting, a pale glow in the distance, so soft, so faint, so fragile and pale.  

Darkness stretches cavernous, and high above the faintest glow of light can be seen, pale beams shining down from above, so high and distant that they fade away before ever reaching the ground, tuned pale and fleeting, leaving only a dim in their wake. In the darkness, walls of old stone rise, once made smooth by ancient hands, the rock black and perfect, but marred by age, stained by the passage of water and filth, moss consuming the stone. The walls stretch higher than can be seen, smooth stone interrupted only by the occasional carved outlet, great open mouths from which water trickles, flowing down from their spouts. 

Above, the expanse of the darkness rises, and rises, and rises, all inky gloom giving way to only the faintest pinprick of light, molded through with shadows. The bottom of the city, and the thought spins in her head, the bottom, the bottom, right at the bottom. Lower than the Middle Quarter, lower than the Lower Quarter, lower even than the Stack-Press slums, so far down that the rain doesn't even reach it. 

Fallen, fallen, fallen, a voice cries in her head, tone sobbing, the pain catching up with her now as the kind haze of the darkness falls away, Elreith sucking in a rough breath, agonized, curling in on herself. It hurts, it hurts, it hurts, it hurts- 

She curls in on herself, struggling even to breath, fingers catching on cloth, dirt slick on her fingers as she sucks in a breath - rot, rot, rot, rancid, flesh gone bad - and sight meets scent in a brutal moment of comprehension as the gloom fades from her eyes enough for her to see and-

Bodies. They're piled high, in heads, corpses rising in slumped mountains, the floor of the waterways carpeted in them, the oldest bone and waterlogged fabric strewn on the floor, and more, fresher, rising in heaps, limbs bloated, skin turned ripe, the sound of utter silence a brutal counterpoint to the drip of falling water, and Elreith retches, horror churning through her gut, bile rising in her throat.

The sight- The smell- 

She presses herself back, tears streaming down her face, breath catching in her throat, only for her hand to catch something soft and solid, her head jerking around and-

Blank eyes meet her's, staring at her from a face that has gone pale and bloodless, and Elreith flinches. One body, and another, and another - no matter which way she turns, they're around her, they're underneath her, and she's lying on a heap of them, she realizes, bile rising in her throat, horror stealing her breath, lungs straining. Bodies upon bodies, slumped atop of each other in a rotting mountain, left to lie where they'd fallen - men and women, humans and Averia and Duurum folk alike, feathers and flesh and fabric all rotting together, piled hill high and -

Everywhere she looks, everywhere she touches, there's only more, fabric damp beneath her hands, slick with water, with blood, bodes gone firm underneath, and Elreith retches, tears streaming down her face, the scent of it so thick it's choking, curled over, hand fisting-

Except that it's not skin she sees, but bone. Elreith's head swims, heart frozen in her chest, gut lurching, because her hand is there, clenched in the dirt, except that it isn't her hand, not really. Her skin is gone, flesh melted away, and what remains is bone, bleached pale and still stained with red, clenched fisted.

No, she thinks numbly, white noise in her ears, because surely it can't be. Surely it can't-

Except that when she opens her fingers, that skeletal hand moves too, and Elreith jerks back, choking on a sob, almost doubling over when the movement makes her body fracture with pain, curling in on herself, gasping and crying, tears streaming down her face as fights to breath, only to flinch all over again as she realizes she's lying on a corpses back, everything beneath her bodies too, the smell of it dizzying, all rot and death and rancid festering meat-

She doesn't know how she gets herself on her feet, how she manages to get herself down, except that a blind fear and a desperate horror drives her, the journey a haze of staggering, sharp lances of pain and retching interludes as he foot sinks through some gap and sends her sprawling, still sobbing. And then her feet hit water, sinking ankle deep, touching down on solid stone, bodies all around, Elreith swaying with each step, clawing her way on and-

And it hurts. It hurts, every step an agony, Elreith swaying, barely able to keep her feet, her vision a haze of tears, darkness closing in on her vision. There are bones in the water. There are bodies in the water, broken forms gone lax and slumped, reaching arms threatening to trip her. She staggers, sobs, and then her hand is touching solid stone, and it doesn't even matter that there are still bones in the water beside her because she sinks down anyway, legs giving way underneath her, back sliding down the wall. 

Her vision is going hazy again, fading in and out, turned blurry by tears, Elreith's sobs wrenchingly loud in the silence, broken through only by the faint drip of water. Elreith doesn't remember which takes her first - the pain, the horror, or the darkness - her vision closing around her until there's nothing left. 

-

Once the world goes silent once more, the only sound once again the quiet drip of water, a hazy shadow quietly detaches itself from the wall, drifting closer. Smoke roils in the air, black and coiling, gliding over the water, no living foot there to touch ground. 

It stills there, before the slumped and broken figure of the girl, now gone silent and still, and slowly, silently, a hand forms and reaches out. 

-

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#CONTENT WARNING: HORROR #GORE #BODY HORROR #Gods-Bound #Half-Light #Elreith #dark fantasy setting #mixed historical fantasy setting #undead #horror historical fantasy

[gods-bound]

Half-Light, Half-Life - Chapter 10

When Elreith was a child, she saw someone trip and fall before a four horse coach. It'd all happened in an instant - a drunkard on the sidewalk, his gait too staggered, a carriage going too fast as it hurried up the main road, hooves thundering on cobble as the driver cracked the reins, eager to follow his master's wish to be out of the Lower Quarter as quickly as possible. 

All it had taken was a single slip, a single shoe misplaced on stone made wed by the rain and mist, and the man had gone down, and then he'd been beneath the horses, the driver shouting and jerking at the reins too late for them to stop. Elreith had barely caught a glimpse of it - dark cloth and pale hair, disappearing into the mud, and then her mother had been turning her away, hand tight on her shoulder as she buried Elreith's face against her side. 

"Don't look," her mother had said tightly, "don't look," and Elreith hadn't, but she'd heard anyway. The shout of the man as he went down, the shriek of the horses, the sharp cry of the driver, and the wet crunch of hooves hitting a body and the clattering thud of the carriage wheels that followed, and it had been loud, so loud that noise, but not louder than the screaming. The scream had lasted barely a split second, agonized and howling, and cut off again just as quickly, giving way to a noise that wasn't even a scream at all, but merely a wheezing noise of pain. A breath, low and ragged, released in a keening moan. 

She hadn't understood then, why if the man was still capable of making noise he wasn't still screaming. If he had lungs still to breath, a mouth yet to speak, and was in such agony, how could he not be screaming?

She understands now. 

There is a point past which the body can bear no more, so broken and bent beneath the weight of its own agony that even noise becomes too much exertion, throat raw and mouth bloody. Her mouth is full of blood and there are tears on her face, and it hurts, it hurts. The potion was ice and it burned its way inside her and froze everything it touched, and the potion was acid and her insides melt now as they sizzle and blister and burn away, everything Elreith is, every part of her torn now and pried apart, devolving into their basest parts as they're teased apart and pulled and torn and wrecked and ruined-

Elreith loses track of how long she spends screaming. The stone of the floor is so cool, so cold, and her body is burning, and her skin is blackening, and her flesh is rotting on her bones. Her fingers claw at the stone, skin rippling, blood pouring from ruptures in her flesh as she reaches for the door, for the silhouette waiting patiently beyond, begging, pleading, only for her hands to hit the stone as she curls in on herself, biting through her tongue as tears stream down her face as she burns and burns and burns. 

This is what it is, to be a sheet of parchment burning in the grate of a fire - to see the edges catch with glowing orange in a pale line, even as it blackens and crumples in on itself. The fire blackens, and it burns, and leaves nothing but ash in its wake, holding a fragile form so easily broken, collapsing beneath a single just of wind. And she had known, she had known, that the process would be a painful one, that nothing so transformative could be simple and painless, but she hadn't understood, she hadn't understood. 

Elreith's body dies around her by inches, and Elreith can feel it, she can feel it. Can feel death as it comes upon her, as it makes it nest inside her and claims bites, hungry mouths stealing pieces of her and tearing them away, fangs flashing and blood weeping. She feels it, cells dying and lungs straining and heart thun, thun, thundering in her chest, every straining piece of her in desperate fight to stay alive, even as she succumbs. The weight of gravity presses down on her, straining against her skin, and beyond it so bright a darkness that it makes Elreith sob and turn her eyes away. It comes anyway, pressing in and in and in until she feels it against her skin, feels it in her mouth, her lungs, the clawing weight of the hungry voice, so deep, so cold, trying to shove its way inside her. 

It screams in her ears, and it whispers, and it sings, and Elreith screams with it. It's a battleground now, a war, tides of blood swaying back and forth, and Elreith feels the fear of it, feels the heaving terror of it, death upon her and every living piece of her so desperate to yet survive, screaming until her voice is hoarse. Death burns as it takes her, but what comes after is almost worse - the cold. Elreith burns, and then she freezes, the chill of it so deep and dark and biting that it makes her sob, silent tears running down her face. 

Oh, she thinks, as she lies there, her breath gone still in her chest, her throat numb, her mouth a cemetary of rust, silent now and still, edged with the taste of decay. This is why the man didn't scream. 

He didn't scream because he couldn't, because his voice had left him, and his mouth had left him, and his lungs had left him too, and all there was left was agony - agony and blood. He hadn't screamed because he knew it was too late, because he could feel it, the ruin of his body collapsing around him, damage too great to be sustained, to ever be healed. He hadn't screamed because he knew no one could help him, that the tide of blood had risen too high and all there was left to do was drown. 

Elreith feels it now, tickling at her neck as it creeps higher, death a cold tide has it takes her - as it owns her and ruins her and consumes her. She feels it, and she knows. Her mind may still be living, but it's only a matter of time. She's already dead. 

It whispers in her ear, loving now, so tender and close, the chill set in her bones, beneath her skin, blood slick on the stone and Elreith can't draw the breath to cry, let alone scream. Death comes for her with the hands of a lover, a conquered, a spider catching a butterfly within its net, and in the end there is no escape - it has her. 

-

There's a moment - at some point, at some point, Elreith doesn't know how long its been, except that blood has turned to rust in her mouth and tears have dried on her skin, and all she can hear of her breathing is the fainest rasping wheeze - when Elreith becomes aware of voices. The world comes in snatches of sensation, hazy and thin. The sound of footsteps echoing on stone, the flicker of shadows passing before a light, and Elreith hadn't even seen the door of her chamber open, but it is now, stone door thrown wide and light spilling in, pooling in a green puddle that ends only a scant inch from her reaching hand. 

There's blood on the black stone of the floor, blood on the black of her skin, and she can see other things too - white, the curve of smooth bone, exposed up the length of her arm, the flesh torn and ruined and her bones stained red where they touch the air. 

Her vision is hazy, still blurry and wet, and Elreith can barely make out the figures that stop before her door. A silhouette in green and gold, veiled, and a second figure standing before them, posture straight and proud in servants black, dripping with so much silver they gleam with it. Their voices are a murmur even before they reach her, echoing down the hall before them, only to go quiet as they pause before her door. 

She hears their voices like they're spoken through water, so distant and indistinct. "-ch one is this one?" Deep voice, whispery, the rasping tones of a divine body.

The figure in black bows, and Elreith's head swims, barely able to hear their response as they check something on a scroll. "- number fifty-one. A failure. The process didn't take."

Please, Elreith begs, please help. The words don't come, her body too ruined, too broken, the very effort almost enough to sink her back down beneath the black fog, but some sort of noise must leave her, because the Blessed One's gaze turns to her, sharp and almost amused. 

"Oh," the Blessed One says, taking a sweeping step forward into the room, stilling in the pool of green brazier light, shimmering robes finding rest a bare scant inch from where Elreith's blood pools black on the stone. "It's still alive."

"So it would seem, my lord." The Blessed One's assistant replies, where they stand at the door, scroll still in hand. "Shall I make a note of it?"

The Blessed One makes a sharp noise at that, gaze cutting down to Elreith, the dark pits of their eyes just visible behind the thin gauze of their veil, hollow and empty socketed, their face little more than dried skin pulled tight over bone. "Don't bother," the Blessed One replies, voice curt, already turning then, losing interest. "It won't survive long anyway. Throw it out with the rest."

Tears spill down Elreith's cheeks, the light fading from her again, the black fog tightening its hold. A shadow passes through the light as the Blessed One leaves, footsteps echoing on, and Elreith feels gloved hands come and seize her, blood slick on stone as she's dragged across the floor, and the last thing she sees is the golden curled frame of a brazier, green fire burning bright within its cage, before the whole world goes dark. 

-

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#CONTENT WARNING: BODY HORROR #gods bound #half-light #elreith #original fantasy #dark fantasy #mixed historical setting #horror historical fantasy

[gods-bound]

Half-Light, Half-Life - Snippet, Songs of the Night

When Elreith was young, her mother used to tell her the stories of their people. She would sit by her bedside, her head in her mother's lap as her mother sat there, propped back against the cushions. Her mother's hand would card through her hair softly, and she would speak.

A Nightdaughter, she would say. Skin like the dark of the night sky, black as the void, and hair so pale and silver that it shines like starlight. Eyes like the pinprick of a distant sun, yellow in a veil of black, and ears that were long and sharp, fey-born, of spirit blood. All the things the Nightfather gave us, when he stepped upon the earth and chosen to bless its children, bearing sons who could carry his own image.

"In the Dusklands," her mother would say, voice so soft, so warm, a nostalgia there that was faded and sad. Her mother had had good reason to leave the Dusklands, fleeing when Elreith was a child, but she still missed home. She always would, right until the day she died. "They still tell his stories. The gods here, they're different and strange, not family at all, but the Nightfather- He cares. He loves his children, protects us still even now, and in turn we sing songs of his name."

She would hum them then, the songs, the old, murmured melodies of their people, each a story in their own right, and stroke Elreith's hair until she fell asleep. It was the songs she would sing, when Elreith woke in the middle of the night, shivering from clinging nightmares, or lay in bed those days she was sick. The song of comfort, of love, of a god who was their father, so far removed that you could almost forget he even existed, if the memory of it weren't written in the skin of every single one of his children.  

The Nightfather was gone, and wouldn't walk in the lands of the Vaelthran even if he did still yet live, as lost to them now as their homeland. When Elreith's mother left the Dusklands, she gave up everything - her home, her family, everything. Lost everything, in exchange for the chance to live in a land where no one would know her name. She never told Elreith why they left, not even as Elreith grew, but Elreith knows enough to guess. There are always enough wars in the Dusklands that there is always reason for people to want to disappear.

Elreith sang those songs to her in turn, when her mother was on her deathbed. Held her hand, like her mother used to hold hers, and sang her through the last hours, until she finally fell asleep, and her eyes closed and her breath stilled in her chest. Sang, until her voice went hoarse and the sobs became chocking, and she couldn't breath enough to continue.

Sang, until the silence broke through the room and she was just crying instead, because her mother is gone and she would never be back again. The last and only of Elreith’s family, of her people, now gone, and Elreith now alone. That her mother died at night, so that her spirit might return to the night sky and rejoin the Nightfather, is a small and solitary comfort in the face of it.

But Elreith lived, and she was alive, and she would continue living, and while she did she would continue singing the songs of her people - of her mother's people, and remember her through them. Sing her name, alongside that of the Nightfather, and never be alone so long as the stars watched over her.

That is what it is, to be a Nightdaughter, even one so far lost from the lands of her people.

#gods-bound #half-light #original writing #dark fiction #snippet #Elreith