Chapter 37 - Did you have fun?

  Ariel’s breath came fast, shallow, trembling.

  How? Why? When?

  How was she here… how could she be here? None of this made sense. The warmth, the laughter, the voice that called itself a god… it was impossible. Terrifying.

  She could no longer pretend this was a dream—no, not anymore.

  Her body trembled as the figure drew closer, her mother’s hands reaching out through the haze.

  A faint warmth brushed her cheek — the same warmth her mother’s hands once carried. And then that warmth began to burn.

  her mother’s skin began to peel away, flaking like ash to reveal the blinding light beneath. Ariel stumbled back, horror twisting in her gut.

  Her lips trembled. The words scraped out like a plea.

  “Why am I… why am I here?”

  Her mother’s skin peeled away in slow, silent sheets — until the only thing left was light.

  Blinding, searing light.

  Ariel tried to look, but the moment her eyes met it, her vision flared white-hot, her irises burning like paper held to flame. The pain was instant.

  It was the same agony that had torn through her minutes ago.

  She turned away, gasping.

  Then came the voice.

  Not from the figure…but from everywhere.

  It seeped through the air, layered and discordant, hundreds of childish whispers overlapping in perfect, dreadful harmony.

  “I’m sorry… this form will have to do for now.”

  The light pulsed faintly, as if reacting to the sound.

  “You don’t seem to enjoy the sight of your parents. How unfortunate…”

  The whispers giggled, high and breathless, like children sharing a secret.

  “Anything else would kill you. So… I’m afraid this will have to do.”

  The figure moved, and the sound moved with it, circling her, pressing close, crawling through her ears and chest like static made to words.

  “Why you’re here…”

  Footsteps, or maybe just the impression of them, echoed around her.

  The god’s silhouette paced underneath the veil of light, hands clasped neatly behind its back, head tilted in childlike curiosity.

  “Oh, I know.”

  “Let’s start there…”

  The voice rippled through the light.

  Not one voice, but many, overlapping like a chorus of children whispering behind their hands.

  “The destruction of Aureli’s kingdom…”

  “What did you humans call it again?”

  The air trembled… a pause that felt almost playful.

  “Ah, yes. Solvara.”

  The light flickered, and laughter… light and hollow swept across the field.

  “That boy sacrificed so much to create that city, you know?”

  “So pitying. So terribly fragile.”

  The whispers tittered again, their amusement cold and sharp.

  “One of my favorite blessed, I’ll admit.”

  “I even gave him a lineage blessing. How could I not?”

  The figure leaned closer, its glow warping the golden lilies into writhing silhouettes.

  “And yet…”

  “In the end…”

  A hush. The laughter stopped.

  “It was all for nothing.”

  “To be undone by his own blood… his own descendants.”

  “How sinful.”

  The laughter came again — lower now, resonant, like it was rising from beneath the ground.

  Ariel’s throat tightened.

  “It wasn’t—”

  The laughter deepened, swelling until it filled the air.

  “What was that?”

  “It wasn’t your fault?”

  The voice curved around her like smoke, a whisper at her ear and a murmur behind her head all at once.

  “How strange…”

  “... It seems even you don’t believe the words you’re saying.”

  Ariel’s heart twisted. An unbearable dread settled in her throat — heavy, choking.

  But no. She couldn’t just sit there. She needed to move, to say something, anything that might free her from that crushing weight.

  “H–How…” Her voice broke. “There was an army—an army of Blessed! We… we weren’t prepared—”

  The whispers rippled through the air again, threading around her words like silk.

  “That is true.”

  The whispers paused before returning again

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  “And why were they able to enter the city?”

  “Why now, and not before?”

  Each question struck like a hammer.

  “Because you were weak.”

  “There was no Blessing to protect Solvara.”

  “No light to guard its walls.”

  The last voice hung too long, stretching the silence until it felt like something was pressing against her ribs.

  Her chest burned; she forced the words out between ragged breaths.

  “H-How was I supposed to know? I—I didn’t even know how to awaken!”

  Her body shivered. The guilt coiled tighter, filling her lungs, her throat.

  “And yet you wasted your days…”

  The whispers thinned into one voice now — its voice — smooth and radiant, the warmth of sunlight that scalded instead of soothed.

  “...”

  “Dancing?”

  Ariel flinched.

  “And where did that leave you?”

  “The Boy lies broken.”

  “The maid suffers because of you.”

  The air trembled, glowing faintly gold around her as if the words themselves carried heat.

  “Tell me, little one,” the voice whispered, almost kind. “Did you have fun?”

  Ariel couldn’t take it anymore.

  Her knees buckled beneath her, the strength leaving her body all at once. Hot tears slipped down her face.

  Only to vanish before they ever reached the ground, evaporating in the heat that radiated from the god before her.

  The laughter returned.

  Each note burrowing beneath her skin, clawing into the softest parts of her heart.

  The lilies around her began to sway again, their golden centers pulsing with light, moving in time with the laughter, like a choir exalting something they did not understand.

  “But it matters not.”

  “That was only one of the reasons I called you here.”

  The voice circled her, the tone shifting…no longer mocking, but almost bored.

  “Solvara’s destruction was written on its walls long before little Aureli knew what he was doing.”

  The light flared—blinding, suffocating.

  “Now that the ashes have settled… It’s time for a new story to begin.”

  The figure lurched back, laughter echoing from every direction, until it was impossible to tell where it came from, above, below, within her own head.

  “Weakness is the biggest sin.

  You have seen it, in all its glory.

  In the fall of your kingdom.

  In the screams. In the ash”.

  “So now…”

  The voice rippled through the air, soft and cruel, echoing like laughter made of sunlight.

  “Rewrite your sins in sacrifice, child.”

  The lilies bowed with the windless air, their golden eyes gleaming as if in reverence.

  Ariel trembled, the words burrowing deep, into her chest, her bones, her very soul, until they pulsed there like a second heartbeat.

  “I can’t have a Blessed this strong dying so soon. It would be such a waste—”

  A pause.

  The laughter stilled, the air itself holding its breath.

  “It would truly pain my heart,” the voice murmured, soft but heavy enough to crush thought. “To see you die weaker than your mother.”

  Light pulsed faintly through the figure, as if it found the idea amusing.

  A ripple of laughter followed, light, almost childlike, but it carried the chill of mockery.

  Something in the air shimmered. The laughter broke into a thousand echoes again, some high, some low, all wrong.

  “It’d be nice if you made it to Angel…”

  “But the way things are going, I doubt you’ll even survive this next month.”

  Then, silence—so sudden it felt like the world stopped breathing.

  The light pulsed once more, slow, deliberate, like the beat of some vast heart.

  “Go,” the voice said, the word rippling through the air.

  “Do a trial.”

  The words struck like a command carved into the air.

  And just like that, the field, the lilies, and the god’s voice all burned away in a flood of light.

  And just before it all vanished, the voice came again, soft now, almost fond, almost tempting.

  “Power waits for you there, my Apostle. All kinds of it. Enough to protect… Enough to make sure you never fail again.”

  “And as for your vow…”

  The figure tilted its head, light flickering like a smile.

  “I’m sure you’ll feel it soon enough.”

  The world split apart.

  Light swallowed everything.

  Then came the pain.

  It returned all at once, the same agony that had greeted her when she first fell into the dream:

  the burning beneath her skin,

  the fire filling her lungs,

  the feeling of being peeled apart, atom by atom, until she was nothing but light trying to hold itself together.

  Only this time, she didn’t scream.

  She couldn’t.

  Her throat was gone, her voice drowned beneath the god’s laughter.

  The field crumbled. The lilies turned to ash.

  And from the heart of that blinding inferno, words carved themselves into her mind —

  not spoken, not heard, but imposed,

  “Go. Do a trial.”

  The words thundered again, louder.

  Her body convulsed, light erupting from every crack along her skin.

  “Do a trial.”

  Each repetition drew her deeper, pulling her apart and remaking her.

  The burning was no longer just pain.

  It was purpose.

  And then.

  Darkness.

  Cold.

  Silence.

  Ariel gasped awake.

  The hollow tower’s air was cold and sharp in her lungs. Sweat clung to her skin, her whole body trembling as if the fire still burned beneath it. The faint cracks of gold along her arms pulsed once, a ghost of the god’s touch, before fading back into her flesh.

  But the words didn’t fade.

  They lingered, heavy and absolute, echoing somewhere deep inside her skull.

  Do a trial.

  Her hands pressed to the ground, still shaking. She could feel it, not just the echo of the voice, but its pull, steady and unrelenting. North. Beyond the tower ruins. Beyond the plains, beyond even the forest. Toward the Sol Garden Hills.

  The Trial awaited.

  And she knew how to start it.

  Ariel’s breathing came quick and shallow. The ache in her chest returned. fear, confusion, and a terrible certainty all at once.

  And then.

  Movement.

  She flinched as Lilia stumbled toward her, dirt scattering beneath her boots. Her voice was distant at first, muffled like it came through water, but it grew clearer as she dropped beside her.

  “Ariel, we gotta get up—now!”

  Lilia’s hands gripped her shoulders, shaking her hard. Ariel blinked, her vision swimming, mind still half in that burning field of lilies. Slowly, she turned her head toward Lilia. The world felt too slow, too heavy.

  Then she saw it.

  Her heart stopped. The confusion in her face drained, replaced by raw, wordless terror.