The wind, sharp as shattered glass, needled its way through Thalen's modest armor. Right into the soft places he'd never known to be vulnerable as it shrieked between the jagged stones with an efficiency to it that only the Gods' breath could have. He should have known a mountaintop would be cold, yet in the middle of summer, it never occurred to him. And now,, he suffered for it.
Spires of stone jutted from the rock much like teeth as Thalen found the last stretch of narrow path slick with frost for his final diagonal climb. The wind was harsher than ever as he swallowed and promised Sira that he would make it for her. He touched the silver tree brooch and whispered a prayer to the howling winds as his cape snapped wildly around him.
"Keeper, hear me. Bolster my waning strength and move my faltering feet true. Guide me to where you are waiting. Please, let me be worthy."
Again and again, he whispered those words, his chest against the cliff, fingers digging raw against the sharp gray stone to keep the life he so valued whole. Each gust threatened to knock his trembling limbs down, yet his prayer carried him onward in shallow bursts of exhausted breath. The sheer power of will pushed him forward.
This was by far the strangest place he'd ever prayed. Not a chapel nor a battlefield altar, but the last stretch of a mountain pass no mortal should have ever dared to climb. But even with his stinging eyes and cold soaked bones, he progressed, for above him, the greatest treasure of all waited, crowned in violet light.
The air up here was thinner and bore a strange taste upon his panting tongue as he heaved himself one last foothold up towards the mountain's peak. He hoisted himself over the final lip and collapsed onto the summit's cold stone. Above him, dusk unraveled into threads of dying light across the belly of the clouds he could almost touch. He could hardly move, his cloak curled around him, arms and legs feeling more like trembling pudding than warrior's assets.
He was no stranger to the ache of endurance — what started as a slow burn down at the tree line below was now a crackling fire in his muscles. He gripped the stone, ensuring he wasn't falling back down the mountain as he lay breathless. The thin air caused his head to spin in unruly circles as he closed his eyes and centered himself.
Then again, he was certain that nothing could have trained him for this. A breathy chuckle released from his firebound ribs. After a quick prayer to his guardian, he rose slowly. Through the pain of stiffening joints, the leather and chainmail encased around him creaked to life once more. The summit unfurled into focus before him, a desolate and once frostbitten crown not like anything the stories promised him. It stretched out beyond the haze, beyond what he could see with his mortal eyes. Eventually, as he approached, the clouds parted for him to reveal the true state of the Godly residence.
Ruins.
Ruins were what became of a city that had once been carved from the mountain's crown. Pillars the size of trees towered above him. Their fluted sides were worn down by the harsh wind, while very few were left standing. Most leaned at precarious angles, others shattered into rubble. Its once proud archways and gateways stood cracked and hollow, keystones of faded glyphs void of any magical power.
With his only companion his heartbeat, Thalen gripped the brooch at his shoulder and staggered forward. He wasn't sure what to make of what he was seeing. This place was a disaster, not fit for the home of his God or any other. Where were the spires, the gleaming towers, the divine light, and the celestial music that were promised to him? Nowhere to be found, as his boots were the only sound to echo through the abandoned streets. Gray leaves crunched underneath his boots the further towards the city's center he traversed, the blood in his face drained as he forced himself forward for answers.
Where were they?
He walked unchallenged in the ghost town of legendary rubble. Streets were silent, as quiet as a graveyard but without the bones. The towers stood hollow, not a single vein of magic in their now cracked and crumbling stone. Nothing pulsed with divine power, his footsteps an intrusion if it weren't for the shattered masonry and layers of icy frost. Fountains were dry, statues long void of any offerings, and the place all but abandoned. A feeling not so different from Thalen's own as he traversed silently with a similar erosion in himself.
He was just about to consider turning around when he turned onto a boulevard and saw it. At the city's heart stood a violet-leafed tree with white, papery branches and a strong ashen core. It was impossibly alive amid the tough-to-swallow ruin around him. Its canopy was untouched, bringing tears to his eyes and a shake to his breath. It was the only thing in this place to still be alive, the only thing that was still true.
Thalen's footsteps were revitalized as he practically ran towards the last glimmer of hope. Its bark was shimmering with veins of purple as it reached upwards into the sky. Swaying gently in the wind as Thalen eagerly squeezed between the cracks in the fortress wall to make it into the garden beneath the tree. This time, he moved quickly around the excess rubble, straight to the gnarled roots where the shape of a sarcophagus lay half sunken into the earth and swallowed by time slowing his steps immediately and stripping the hopeful smile from his lips.
The lid bore Sira's likeness. Her eyes were closed, hands folded over her chest, crafted from what looked like moonstone with the way it shimmered with a rainbow of colors even in the darkness of the oncoming night. A runic language etched into the side in gold, but like the city, it bore no magic touch. Carved robes wishing for movement once more as she lay there with quiet resignation to her fate.
His breath caught, and gravity pulled him unwillingly downward. Now knelt before what should have been his treasure, Thalen stared in disbelief. Moving over and over each carved detail until his eyes burned. He trembled to take off his glove and place his hand on the glassy stone. Each breath scraping his throat, his body numb once more as he swallowed deep. He stared for too long, the pressure of disbelief weighing down on him as a hole opened up inside his chest.
Sira… was… dead?
No, no, no, perhaps it was a sarcophagus yet to be filled? Perhaps she and the other Gods simply found another mountaintop to call their home? But even Thalen did not believe himself. The reality all around him. Their final resting place was beneath their tree in their lands without a word to the people who suffered below. Could they really just vanish from the world like that? Their burial was too clean to be a massacre, no lingering signs of violence, but something or someone destroyed their city. Their home.
The wind picked up, and Thalen pulled his shoulders upward to ward himself from the oncoming breeze. A swirl of violet leaves danced around him, and a few even slid across the white marble with such a beautiful contrast. Purple and white. The very colors he had worn for all of his life in the citadel. Back when be believed the Gods watched over them and cared about their wellbeing.
Was it… all a lie?
Thalen's eyes opened, blinking rapidly as he caught sight of the silver brooch with shaking fingers that kept his purple cape pinned to him. Squeezing it tightly like his last lifeline, Thalen found words from a hollow throat.
"No," he breathed, over and over, "no, no, no, no!" Then he was shouting at the silent stone while tears blurred his vision, and his hand white knuckled at his collarbone, clutching the brooch. "You can't… you don't… I won't… please… no. Please!" The tears that burned his eyes fell freely now, Thalen half yelling and half sobbing at the immobile stone until there was just a whisper left, "Keeper… please no," his voice raspy as he choked out his last sob.
How long? How long had they been dead? Thalen had to know. He shook his head violently and placed his hands on one side of the sarcophagus lid.
"You don't get to just die," he heaved a shaking breath, mustering up the strength for his first push. "Do you hear me? Are you listening? Were you ever listening? You don't," he sniffled, "you don't g-get to just–" And with those words wailing upon his lips, he heaved a push worthy of their praise from his diminishing body. The smooth edge of the coffin biting against his palm as he pushed and pushed, trying to reveal the truth beneath the lie.
"Please, Sira, please, you don't get to just die!" he roared until his voice frayed. Pounding on the coffin until his strength bled onto the marble and they fell uselessly down. His body slumped against the immobile coffin. Sweaty, sniffling, and panting, Thalen cursed to himself. Flat palm clutching the lip of the lid as he rested his forehead against the stone. Quiet tears came then, pouring out of him until there were none left to cry onto the holy ground.
"Damn you," he whispered, his voice choking beneath decades of devout prayer. He wiped the tears from his reddened cheeks as he slumped back, kneeling at the sarcophagus as if it were the very last altar he would pray before. He had no way of knowing she was in it, but he could feel it in the silence around him. The way he knelt before the cold earth in a place that was as dead as they were. No mortal could open it. No voices answered. No light stirred.
He was alone, and perhaps that was the final truth. The Gods he'd dedicated his life to had been long dead, yet the world below them kept turning. Indifferent and unburdened by their loss, for no one else but Thalen had wept. The greatest treasure of them all lost to mortality as he scraped the earth with his fingers for the hilt of his sword and mustered the strength to walk from the ruins in silence.
No miracle, no revelation, just stone and wind and the existential echo of what he'd known his entire life crumbled to dust around him.
Spires of stone jutted from the rock much like teeth as Thalen found the last stretch of narrow path slick with frost for his final diagonal climb. The wind was harsher than ever as he swallowed and promised Sira that he would make it for her. He touched the silver tree brooch and whispered a prayer to the howling winds as his cape snapped wildly around him.
"Keeper, hear me. Bolster my waning strength and move my faltering feet true. Guide me to where you are waiting. Please, let me be worthy."
Again and again, he whispered those words, his chest against the cliff, fingers digging raw against the sharp gray stone to keep the life he so valued whole. Each gust threatened to knock his trembling limbs down, yet his prayer carried him onward in shallow bursts of exhausted breath. The sheer power of will pushed him forward.
This was by far the strangest place he'd ever prayed. Not a chapel nor a battlefield altar, but the last stretch of a mountain pass no mortal should have ever dared to climb. But even with his stinging eyes and cold soaked bones, he progressed, for above him, the greatest treasure of all waited, crowned in violet light.
The air up here was thinner and bore a strange taste upon his panting tongue as he heaved himself one last foothold up towards the mountain's peak. He hoisted himself over the final lip and collapsed onto the summit's cold stone. Above him, dusk unraveled into threads of dying light across the belly of the clouds he could almost touch. He could hardly move, his cloak curled around him, arms and legs feeling more like trembling pudding than warrior's assets.
He was no stranger to the ache of endurance — what started as a slow burn down at the tree line below was now a crackling fire in his muscles. He gripped the stone, ensuring he wasn't falling back down the mountain as he lay breathless. The thin air caused his head to spin in unruly circles as he closed his eyes and centered himself.
Then again, he was certain that nothing could have trained him for this. A breathy chuckle released from his firebound ribs. After a quick prayer to his guardian, he rose slowly. Through the pain of stiffening joints, the leather and chainmail encased around him creaked to life once more. The summit unfurled into focus before him, a desolate and once frostbitten crown not like anything the stories promised him. It stretched out beyond the haze, beyond what he could see with his mortal eyes. Eventually, as he approached, the clouds parted for him to reveal the true state of the Godly residence.
Ruins.
Ruins were what became of a city that had once been carved from the mountain's crown. Pillars the size of trees towered above him. Their fluted sides were worn down by the harsh wind, while very few were left standing. Most leaned at precarious angles, others shattered into rubble. Its once proud archways and gateways stood cracked and hollow, keystones of faded glyphs void of any magical power.
With his only companion his heartbeat, Thalen gripped the brooch at his shoulder and staggered forward. He wasn't sure what to make of what he was seeing. This place was a disaster, not fit for the home of his God or any other. Where were the spires, the gleaming towers, the divine light, and the celestial music that were promised to him? Nowhere to be found, as his boots were the only sound to echo through the abandoned streets. Gray leaves crunched underneath his boots the further towards the city's center he traversed, the blood in his face drained as he forced himself forward for answers.
Where were they?
He walked unchallenged in the ghost town of legendary rubble. Streets were silent, as quiet as a graveyard but without the bones. The towers stood hollow, not a single vein of magic in their now cracked and crumbling stone. Nothing pulsed with divine power, his footsteps an intrusion if it weren't for the shattered masonry and layers of icy frost. Fountains were dry, statues long void of any offerings, and the place all but abandoned. A feeling not so different from Thalen's own as he traversed silently with a similar erosion in himself.
He was just about to consider turning around when he turned onto a boulevard and saw it. At the city's heart stood a violet-leafed tree with white, papery branches and a strong ashen core. It was impossibly alive amid the tough-to-swallow ruin around him. Its canopy was untouched, bringing tears to his eyes and a shake to his breath. It was the only thing in this place to still be alive, the only thing that was still true.
Thalen's footsteps were revitalized as he practically ran towards the last glimmer of hope. Its bark was shimmering with veins of purple as it reached upwards into the sky. Swaying gently in the wind as Thalen eagerly squeezed between the cracks in the fortress wall to make it into the garden beneath the tree. This time, he moved quickly around the excess rubble, straight to the gnarled roots where the shape of a sarcophagus lay half sunken into the earth and swallowed by time slowing his steps immediately and stripping the hopeful smile from his lips.
The lid bore Sira's likeness. Her eyes were closed, hands folded over her chest, crafted from what looked like moonstone with the way it shimmered with a rainbow of colors even in the darkness of the oncoming night. A runic language etched into the side in gold, but like the city, it bore no magic touch. Carved robes wishing for movement once more as she lay there with quiet resignation to her fate.
His breath caught, and gravity pulled him unwillingly downward. Now knelt before what should have been his treasure, Thalen stared in disbelief. Moving over and over each carved detail until his eyes burned. He trembled to take off his glove and place his hand on the glassy stone. Each breath scraping his throat, his body numb once more as he swallowed deep. He stared for too long, the pressure of disbelief weighing down on him as a hole opened up inside his chest.
Sira… was… dead?
No, no, no, perhaps it was a sarcophagus yet to be filled? Perhaps she and the other Gods simply found another mountaintop to call their home? But even Thalen did not believe himself. The reality all around him. Their final resting place was beneath their tree in their lands without a word to the people who suffered below. Could they really just vanish from the world like that? Their burial was too clean to be a massacre, no lingering signs of violence, but something or someone destroyed their city. Their home.
The wind picked up, and Thalen pulled his shoulders upward to ward himself from the oncoming breeze. A swirl of violet leaves danced around him, and a few even slid across the white marble with such a beautiful contrast. Purple and white. The very colors he had worn for all of his life in the citadel. Back when be believed the Gods watched over them and cared about their wellbeing.
Was it… all a lie?
Thalen's eyes opened, blinking rapidly as he caught sight of the silver brooch with shaking fingers that kept his purple cape pinned to him. Squeezing it tightly like his last lifeline, Thalen found words from a hollow throat.
"No," he breathed, over and over, "no, no, no, no!" Then he was shouting at the silent stone while tears blurred his vision, and his hand white knuckled at his collarbone, clutching the brooch. "You can't… you don't… I won't… please… no. Please!" The tears that burned his eyes fell freely now, Thalen half yelling and half sobbing at the immobile stone until there was just a whisper left, "Keeper… please no," his voice raspy as he choked out his last sob.
How long? How long had they been dead? Thalen had to know. He shook his head violently and placed his hands on one side of the sarcophagus lid.
"You don't get to just die," he heaved a shaking breath, mustering up the strength for his first push. "Do you hear me? Are you listening? Were you ever listening? You don't," he sniffled, "you don't g-get to just–" And with those words wailing upon his lips, he heaved a push worthy of their praise from his diminishing body. The smooth edge of the coffin biting against his palm as he pushed and pushed, trying to reveal the truth beneath the lie.
"Please, Sira, please, you don't get to just die!" he roared until his voice frayed. Pounding on the coffin until his strength bled onto the marble and they fell uselessly down. His body slumped against the immobile coffin. Sweaty, sniffling, and panting, Thalen cursed to himself. Flat palm clutching the lip of the lid as he rested his forehead against the stone. Quiet tears came then, pouring out of him until there were none left to cry onto the holy ground.
"Damn you," he whispered, his voice choking beneath decades of devout prayer. He wiped the tears from his reddened cheeks as he slumped back, kneeling at the sarcophagus as if it were the very last altar he would pray before. He had no way of knowing she was in it, but he could feel it in the silence around him. The way he knelt before the cold earth in a place that was as dead as they were. No mortal could open it. No voices answered. No light stirred.
He was alone, and perhaps that was the final truth. The Gods he'd dedicated his life to had been long dead, yet the world below them kept turning. Indifferent and unburdened by their loss, for no one else but Thalen had wept. The greatest treasure of them all lost to mortality as he scraped the earth with his fingers for the hilt of his sword and mustered the strength to walk from the ruins in silence.
No miracle, no revelation, just stone and wind and the existential echo of what he'd known his entire life crumbled to dust around him.