The Things Given Willingly

Home Firmament's Eye

The returned warlock, the deserter, the runaway wolf lies shivering and chained in his prison. He exhausted his tears and sobs hours ago, but his eyes are still bloodshot and fearful.
The village leaders are convinced enough that his remorse is genuine.
They bring him water, at last, and they talk.

"It was grotesque. I..."
A pained, dry wince.

"They tied up the ascendants and tore out their souls. I can still hear the howling.
But the sound was alive, it was REAL, nothing compared to the silence afterwards..."

"Each one, cut loose, fell limp like a doll and rose up again as something else.
They did this to themselves. Willingly, knowingly, they tore out their own doubt and put fire in its place.
You cannot reason with a funeral pyre."

~

They nurse him back to health. He tells them everything he can of the ritual, every memory that did not flee from his mind the moment he ran from the hateful army.

He has a deep, ashen scar running down his arm, to the palm of his hand.
This is how they summon their fire, a vengeful ritual to the Dragon Above, pain in offering for unshackled power.
There is no thought behind it but a burning fury at the Silver Kingdom and everything it stands for.

"I thought I could take revenge. I thought that was what they wanted.
To strike back against those who have taken and taken and drowned us in darkness.
The Dragon does not want, it does not see our suffering or hear our pleas. It never did."

Flashes of bright light dance behind his eyes. Embers pushed into skin, burning, burning, pulling out the fear and the pain like a squirming parasite and immolating it in dark soulfire.

"Their only wish is to destroy. Everything will end, and by their hand it will end now."

~

They didn't find his body. They barely had to look. They know what he had done, and so did he.
Now, they turned south, wary of the lights dancing on the horizon, seeing them for the first time as what they are.

A grave promise. A threat, stitched in gold and red and searing white light.

~

One among them places a single flower in the ash, and they move to warn the rest of the village.

~