There are many lost ruins across Therasya. Tombs of Kings and heroes beneath marble, saints' bones under temple foundations and places the Eternals wish to remain hidden. Some dead are worshipped like divine figures, while the name of others is only whispered. But the story of one is so controversial, that Fey do not even dare to speak his name, the demons curse it in their unholy rites and priests debate whether he should be remembered as martyr, a deceiver or saint. Once he had been the Lightbringer, eldest among the fallen servants of Harmony. He was the bearer of the Principle of Air, second only to Asmodeus in all Avernia. This is the story of his awakening. Whether what follows is truth or merely another lesson buried beneath the sands, I leave to you the reader. All I can attest is that I was there, as I have been whenever the spires turned. One thing is certain. Light's champion has returned.
The Council
I entered the room gliding down the stairs. I could hear master Aenaos scribing endlessly. The chamber was filled with tomes, so many they formed walls and separated the long hall into smaller sections. I could count at least 13 and there was room for more. It was built like this since our council did not know how long time would exist. The books were set in the form of circles, each room walls connected to the next creating a pattern like repeating waves.
Aenaos worked tirelessly, his back turned to me. As I approached, I heard his voice with the hint of a sigh. “Your presence soothes my heart because I know whatever happens I was not alone in my testaments.”
I greeted the master, several members of our council were working in the same area, their shadows fell on the floor magnified by candles. Pens moved quicker than tongue. There was a serene silence, like a motionless contract of solace. Eyes moved, mouths remained tight. Elberyn stared at me with disapproval for breaking the calmness. I decided to whisper even lower, leaning over Aenaos’s shoulder.
“I read your testament on Everday. It’s happening as we speak. The council agrees. I must make haste, master.” Aenaos kept writing his report as if he possessed two heads, one speaking to me and one dedicated to his task. Finally, he turned.
“Remember the oath, see and do not be seen.” he spoke looking deep in my eyes.
Remember the oath, see and do not be seen.
“You seem troubled old friend.” I touched his shoulder lightly, more to comfort my anxiety than his.
“I am always troubled when one of us must witness so close. Aid them if you must.” He turned back to his parchments, muttering a small prayer to my success.
I bowed, not just out of respect to my peer. His concern was a warm contrast to the cold efficiency of the rest of us. He was like that. I took the shape of a half-fey. Appearance was easy to imitate, even voice could be rehearsed. Replicating behavior on the other side took effort and time studying a mortal. I had been observing the mage thief for quite a while. Yet time is all we had in abundance.
Noterna
Noterna stands upon the northeastern edge of the Oneiric Forest where the roads of men meet the borders of Everday. Nearly a thousand souls dwell behind its wooden fortifications and stone towers. Merchants wait there for permission to enter Fey lands, while caravans gather before crossing the forest roads. They are quite tolerant of most strangers, save the desert half-humans. These were killed on sight. Occasional smugglers and low lives take advantage of coin changing hands fast. Pilgrims flock in the temples asking for clear passage to Everday and diplomats frequent the streets waiting the Emperor’s guard to lead them through the impregnable forest.
The town possesses a single high keep overlooking everything in the flat grasslands around. A squat fortress built more for stubbornness than beauty. Its walls are scarred by centuries of border wars with the desert people, the devils and demons. Its towers once flew both human and Feyan banners. But after the North Ride one no longer truly trusts the other side, although most pretends otherwise behind the walls. The city had fallen several times to enemy hands, so the Fey decided to let the humans build something they would not miss. Something they called efficient. In Feyan tongue that meant ugly and worthless of note. A wise move since it gave away nothing of the refined and delicate beauty of their cities hidden beyond the forest.
The district nearest the southern gate is where honest men avoid walking after dark. It was there that Ethel met the grave robbers. The tavern was called The Mug. A name so uninspired it almost felt deliberate. Its sign depicted a golden tankard suspended from rusted chains. The building leaned slightly to one side as though exhausted from supporting too many drunks over too many years. The smell struck visitors long before the doorway did, filled with smoke, cheap ale and poor decisions.
Inside, arguments competed with laughter while a one-eyed musician attempted murder upon a lute. Ethel arrived shortly after midday. She wore an elegant green travelling cloak stained by road dust. Beneath it rested a masterful chainmail that had once belonged to a priestess of Light. Her shield hung across her back. A circle of steel and leather that had seen battle often. Her mace rested at her hip slightly glowing with divine power. Neither displayed symbols of her faith as they once had. The empty place upon her chest where a holy emblem should have hung was more noticeable than any ornament. The North Ride had taken many things from her, faith among them. Only a handful of weak miracles remained in her powers. Just enough to mend a wound or kindle faint light. Too faint to silence the questions that haunted her.
Three figures occupied a corner table. One looked immediately like a man you should never trust with valuables. The half-fey lounged comfortably despite carrying enough concealed blades to arm a militia. Silver hair fell across a face marked by old scars. His smile seemed friendly until one noticed he looked the same way when threatening people. Varyn Quickknife, his name was known from the nearby valleys all the way to Avaton. Some people wanted him dead. More were buried in the desert trying to achieve that.
Across from him sat a woman whose delicate beauty felt dangerous rather than pleasant. Selene Ashveil wore dark leathers reinforced with redwood scales taken from Feyan armor. A curved relic blade rested beside her chair. The weapon glowed faintly. At first Ethel assumed it was enchanted. Later she realized it reacted whenever someone lied nearby, which explained why it never stopped glowing.
The third member of the group appeared almost scholarly. Corvin Moth wore black travelling robes covered in hidden pockets. Spectacles rested upon his narrow nose. Several books lay stacked beside him. Only a fool would mistake him for a harmless academic. His fingers bore ink stains and lockpick scars in equal measure. A thief who studied magic or perhaps a mage who studied theft. Neither description was entirely inaccurate. He was hired to offer his arcane ability in case it was needed in the desert.
Varyn rose with deliberate taunt when Ethel approached. “Priestess Nalfariom.” He detested the Eternals, their teachings, their followers, even ex ones.
“I’m no priestess.” She replied clearly disturbed.
“Former priestess, then.” He presented a smile full of rotten teeth from sugar ale.
“I prefer Ethel.”
Varyn smiled. “As you wish.” His eyes immediately drifted toward the map case hanging from her shoulder, like a starving dog spotting meat. “Do you have it?”
Ethel placed the case upon the table. The markings on it were clearly in the divine language bearing the sigil of the church of Light and the Emperor’s stamp. Corvin nearly snatched it from her hands. She slapped his fingers away.
“Five hundred gold pieces. People almost died to acquire this.” She stared deep into Varyn’s eyes.
He tossed a pouch onto the table. The weight sounded correct. “Half now,” he said. “The remainder after we find the tomb.”
“And my share?” Asked Ethel.
“Equal share on top the five hundred.” Selene’s voice was enticing, like a viper already biting her victim. She laughed. The sound contained remarkably little humor. “We’re discussing how to divide treasure from a dead devil, before we’ve even found him.”
Varyn grinned. “It’s called optimism.”
Corvin finally opened the case. He stayed silent all this time observing each movement. He decided that the ex-priest was over her head. The parchment inside looked old. Feyan script covered most of its surface. Margins were filled with annotations from multiple owners, and several sections had been crossed out. Some appeared deliberately erased. Ethel recognized the handwriting immediately. It was the first time she laid eyes on it. Nareth Elensar. The scholar who gave her the scroll case was adamant. It was to be delivered directly to Varyn, closed and still sealed.
She looked towards him. “Have you heard what happened to Nareth?”
The half-fey leaned back. “He sold us the map and spent the gold. I heard he had an accident in a well.”
“He should have been more careful before showing off his coin, there are dangerous people out there.” Selene smirked into her drink. Corvin became interested in the parchment trying to calm the table with his eagerness.
Nobody met Ethel eyes and nobody answered directly, which told her everything. For a long moment only the tavern noise filled the silence. Finally she spoke. “Nareth could have delivered the map himself. Obviously, he feared you and now he is dead. If you murdered him, the Fey will hunt you.”
Varyn shrugged. “The Fey have other bigger worries to mind.”
Outside, faint rain began striking the windows. It evaporated upon reaching the soil. The sound resembled meat sizzling. Inside, the fire crackled beneath the noise of the tavern. Ethel experienced the first feeling of dread she would later associate with the tomb, a chilling certainty that everyone seated at that table was already doomed.
Into the Firepit
They departed from Noterna the next day. Lingering in town would only increase the risk of spilling their secret over ale or leaving more tracks than they wished for. The soft stone road broke in two directions. To the south it carried merchants toward Everday and the sunlit forests beyond. To the north it led only toward sand, death, and old stories that sensible people ignored. The four followed the northern road. At first the journey seemed almost pleasant. Rolling grasslands stretched beneath clear skies. Small farming villages dotted the countryside. Shepherds tended their flocks. Travelers still shared roads and occasional Feyan riders scouted for signs of Fellborn. That was the name Everday gave them denying the myth that they once were fey and humans too, before being touched by Entropy in the desert.
Each day the world became emptier. The grass died first, then the trees turned to thin dry bush and finally the birds disappeared, except for flocks of vultures. By the fourth day even insects were hiding from the scorching sun. The desert began without warning. Just one morning the earth simply turned barren, an endless husk craving water. Before them stretched golden dunes beneath a sky so bright it hurt to look at.
The cursed deserts north of the Oneiric Forest. Varyn smiled. “Looks friendly.”
“It wants us dead, actually it wants everything dead.” Ethel replied. “The devils wanted it that way.”
Corvin unfolded the map. “Fortunately, we only need to cross a small portion. We know exactly where we are going.”
Selene gazed deep into the half-mage’s eyes. “You seem a little off today. Pleasantly off. You were so distracted when we met. You have become focused.” She received no reply.
Ethel looked toward the horizon. “No desert is ever a small portion. Damned who knows what lies where the unholy alliance battled the demons. And if one survives the sands, surviving the Fellborn is another story.”
Within days, water had become more valuable than gold. The sun hammered against armor and flesh alike. Sand found its way beneath clothing, into boots, food and sleeping blankets. At dusk the desert kept the warmth. Temperature was a bit milder, but it felt like the sand breathed away all the heat it gathered by day into a slow cooking furnace. The dunes became moving mountains beneath pale light and wind. In these lands the sun never truly sets, but travelling late in the day made it possible. During noon they usually managed to find shade beside torn hills and derelict towers of a lost era.
In the distant ridges strange lights wandered constantly. Sometimes they appeared as lanterns but sometimes they stretched into marching columns like long serpents. Once Ethel could have sworn she saw an entire city floating upon the horizon. When she blinked it vanished. The desert was playing tricks.
The map contained warnings. Trust neither distance nor light. The Fey who buried Phosiel had left many precautions. Not all of them concerned the tomb. Many died to carry his cursed remains outside Everday.
On the sixth night they discovered the enemy. Selene spotted them first. Movement atop a distant ridge. A whole war party of corrupted humanoids.
Varyn lowered his spyglass. “We have company.”
Ethel accepted the glass. What she saw made her stomach tighten. Tall figures wrapped in layered robes moved across the dunes. Their faces remained hidden behind bone masks. Some wore scales, others horns. Each carried long spears decorated with strips of pale skin, trophies of fallen Fey. These were the fellborn, descendants of tribes who had dwelled too long beneath demonic magic. The map mentioned them. They were the true guardians of the tomb.
“We must move more discreetly from now on. If they spot us, we are meat.” Ethel said.
The next two days became a game. The desert folk never attacked nor did they approach. The party observed them through the glass and made sure no campfire or eye contact proximity. They even covered their armor with cloth to avoid any reflection. For some cursed reason they moved along their path. It felt like wolves studying wounded prey but if they had noticed the party, they would have attacked. Several times the grave robbers altered their course just to keep safe distance. At night the three scoundrels exchanged devious looks. Ethel knew she had taken a huge risk joining them, but she needed this. Not the gold, nor the loot. The chance to see the grave of one who understood her loss of faith. Perhaps there she could find it again.
During noon she recounted the story of the fallen angel in their layered tent. “The one they called Lucifer. When the North Ride failed and Maat’s mirror revealed his true form to the Fey, their armies crumbled. The lord of Avernia was furious. Lucifer, his first follower, the voice who called angels to fall. Asmodeus could not let him go unpunished for such a failure. He burned Lucifer eyes and cast him into Evernight to be torn by demons.”
Varyn smiled. “Incompetence between devils is costly. Look what they did to this place. My father said it was once a Feyan forest.”
Ethel smiled. “The traitor eventually met his deserved end. But was Lucifer a traitor? The failure was in the plan but how often does the general hold himself accountable? The fallen angel with no eyes survived. He emerged near Avaton, he crawled until Aldayr, city of the sacred tree.”
Selene yawned. “The rest we know. The stupid bastard sacrificed himself in front of Harmony’s statue. Our fathers stoned him to death. They ripped his body to shreds and then buried him where no one could find him.”
Ethel stared in her eyes. “He redeemed himself. If there ever is a chance for that.”
Selene laughed with her shriek sinister way. “From proud prince of Avernia to sacrificial lamb for the mighty Fey. The same people that slew thousands upon thousands to reach the wall. United they said.”
Ethel replied with a broken voice. “They believed their emperor, they purged Othmog with light, deceived by Lucifer who had taken his form. They believed…”
Corvin took a small sip from his flask and remained silent. The map had so many secrets to unfold.
The Camp
The answer came later that day. A heavy sandstorm forced them into rocky hills near the edge of a canyon. Seeking shelter, they climbed a ridge and what they found below silenced them. Several meters down in a deep trench was an encampment. Dozens of tents formed a circle against the rock barely resisting the winds. Strange beasts occupied fenced enclosures, creatures resembling giant lizards. Children moved among them while warriors patrolled the perimeter. They were disfigured, their skin like ragged stone, eyes black, hands muscular, tainted by the abyss.
At first the camp seemed almost ordinary. Then Ethel noticed the cages. Her blood froze. Several wooden cages hung from tall poles. Inside sat prisoners. Five fey and three humans. One was little more than a child. Silver hair hung across its gaunt face. Another was a young woman whose ears had been crudely cut away. One of the warriors wore them on his neck. Nobody spoke.
Then Ethel noticed the cooking pit. A pale arm rested beside it. Too small to belong to an adult. The hand still wore silver rings.
The priestess turned away. “I don’t want to know.” Ethel vomited on the side.
Corvin swallowed in disgust. “They use us as food?”
Below them laughter echoed through the camp. The Fellborn celebrated something. Perhaps the successful hunt or the impending feast. Two males dragged the hurt fey into a tent. Her screams pierced even the storm. Varyn was staring below as if enjoying what was happening.
Selene broke the silence. “Cursed pigs. If we move fast, they will not know what hit them.”
Varyn turned to her oozing resentment. “Stay your ground. This isn’t your decision to make.” The screams finally faded away in the wind, whatever happened in that tent ended.
The four crawled backward from the ridge. For the next two days they traveled exchanging little word. Their leader seemed to enjoy both the silence and the scars the poor Fey left on them. The winds concealed their tracks, and the desert folk never discovered them. Or perhaps they did and they simply had easier prey to play with.
The Tomb
The map led them into a canyon hidden between broken cliffs, half-buried in sand. Ancient red stone emerged like the dried blood of an old serpent. These were no natural hills. They had been worked by Feyan hands on older ruins. They passed a twin pillar marked by writing. On its base a form was deliberately chiseled, a winged form with no eyes. It was clearly marked on their map to follow a stone road inside a thin canyon to the east. Four more canyons opened leading to a maze. Without the map they would have needed weeks to locate the tomb.
Corvin led the way to a weathered monument standing above the entrance deep into a crevasse impossible to see from above. It was buried by years of drifting dunes. Silver vines carved from marble wrapped around angelic figures and at the center stood a blind angel. His eyes had been deliberately destroyed. This was Phosiel.
Ethel approached the statue. At its base she discovered faded scripture. The others gathered around.
“What does it say?” Selene asked.
Ethel brushed away sand. The inscription was older than the figures, faintly visible. It was written in old Fey tongue. Finally, she translated.
This place was once something else. Before our fathers turned it into a burial site, dead like the desert surrounding it.
Corvin laughed. “Fey and their empty threats.”
“No.” Ethel studied the floor. “It’s a warning.”
The entrance consisted of a narrow passage descending with stairs beneath the earth. The floor appeared too ordinary. She checked the map again. Small notes filled the margins. The original scholar had translated many warnings. One read: “Kneel before entering.”
Varyn rolled his eyes. “You’ve got to be joking.”
The rogue sighed dramatically before lowering himself onto one knee. The others followed. Nothing happened. Ethel pointed toward a nearly invisible seam crossing the floor. Pressure plates going along the entire corridor. Had they entered standing upright, the ceiling would likely have collapsed. The tomb would have been sealed forever, over their crushed bodies.
The deeper they descended, the colder the air became. It was heaven sent. They all took deep breaths enjoying the chill air. Silver writing covered every wall, while crystal lanterns still glowed after years. An invisible current drifted through the corridors carrying whispers. It sounded like a sorrowful prayer imprinted on the walls, fragments of grief.
The second trap waited within a chamber of statues. Twenty angelic figures lined the walls. Each possessed enormous silver wings. The map offered only a single instruction.
“Walk beneath the broken wing.”
They searched. Most wings appeared flawless. Eventually Ethel found one statue whose left wing had been chipped missing just a stone feather nowhere to be found. The others followed her path. Varyn brushed intentionally another statue and the chamber erupted. Thousands of silver feathers launched from the walls. Each feather became a blade. A storm of glittering death filled the room. Only their skill saved them. They jumped behind statues and pillars and only two punctured Selene. The trap continued for nearly a minute. When it finally ended, the floor resembled a battlefield.
She jumped and held a dagger at Varyn’s neck.
Varyn screamed “It was accident.”
Ethel pressed the blade downwards with a finger. “We need us all.” She knelt beside Selene and prayed to the Light. She struggled for a minute and the wound before her barely closed.
Corvin leaned on the map urging them to stop bickering when they were so close. He spotted a writing regarding the third trap. This proved intricate. A short corridor carved entirely from crystal. The moment someone entered, scriptures emerged from the walls. They invoked an ancient Feyan divination of intent. He took an old scroll out of a wooden case. Sigils of abjuration marked the corners. He recanted the arcane writing and energies poured on the crystal. The writings pulsed and remained on their spot. “It cannot be removed. Not by a normal mage. The protection is just too powerful, and it triggers a second spell.”
Varyn pushed Corvin inside and to his amazement the writings shone as he proceeded unscathed to the other side.
Ethel closed her eyes and entered on her own free will. Again, magic burst but she stepped to the other side unharmed.
Varyn frowned. “What is the matter with all of you? Am I the only one who came here for gold?” He scanned the room and prepared like a praying mantis. Before Selene could feel him move, he grabbed her and leaped inside using her as a shield. Arcane runes lighted the room but this time they exploded to unbearable heights. Selene screamed as her skin burned instantly from the divine light. Varyn jumped under her and landed on the other side, his neck and face steaming red. He glanced behind as Selene fell on her knees, blood flooding from her nose and ears. She finally collapsed, barely breathing, scorched like wood in a campfire. Ethel turned to reenter the crystal corridor, and she met the point of a dagger on her chest.
“Go forward. You have no power to cure this kind of wounds.”
Ethel backed down with Varyn on her back. He could scent the sweat on her forehead and that excited him. Her fear, her inadequacy, it fueled his greed.
For the next ten minutes they crossed the rest of the corridors in complete silence. At last, they reached the final chamber. And there they discovered the truth. No stone sarcophagus awaited them, or the glowing body of a preserved devil. Only sad torn remains. At the center of the room rested a stone pedestal. Upon it lay a severed blinded head weathered by time. Nearby rested fragments of torso and ribs, a single preserved hand and around the pedestal stood four enormous stone jars. Each covered in seals containing other pieces. The devil’s bones and wings. Fey had not buried Lucifer. They locked his physical remains fearful he might return.
Corvin stared. “By the eternals.”
Varyn looked at him with faint uncertainty. “Since when have you become so religious?”
“It is him. The great deceiver.” Ethel whispered.
The map contained one final warning. Written in large letters. Impossible to miss.
“BREAK NO SEAL.”
Varyn smiled, then reached for the nearest jar. Ethel grabbed his wrist. “Don’t. Every warning here has tried to kill us.”
“Which means whatever they’re protecting is valuable.” He slipped effortlessly through her grip. The first seal shattered, then one after the other in a chain. The fourth jar broke and the chamber trembled as light began to rise.
The Blind Saint Awakens
The wind blew as little more than a whisper. A faint current moving through a chamber that had stood sealed for years. Then the temperature dropped and the candles lining the walls flickered one by one like an awakening ceremony. Hundreds of flames bent toward the broken jars, toward the devil remains and the blind head resting upon its pedestal.
Even Varyn seemed uncertain whether greed had finally carried him too far. Cracks spread through the jars. White light poured from within. Something ancient emerged, pure as the sun that had existed before Angel-fall. Power gathered around the scattered remains and the severed hand twitched.
Corvin remained strangely immobile as if witnessing something expected.
The fingers closed slowly as though roused from a long sleep. The head lifted from the pedestal. Sightless eyes opened. The blind angel looked upon them despite having no eyes with which to see. The chamber trembled. Dust fell from the ceiling while the wind grew stronger. Shattered fragments of bone began drifting through the air, moving toward one another. The pieces vanished as rivers flow and pour into the sea. The remains remembered what they once had been. The blind head settled upon a newly formed neck, ancient wings unfolded scarred but beautiful. His body emerged glowing and floating above the astounded robbers. The final jar shattered and a radiant heart rose free. It started beating once and the sound echoed through the entire tomb cracking the walls. Phosiel finally breathed and every candle extinguished instantly.
The Principle of Air flooded the chamber as light consumed everything and only the angel remained visible. A figure of silver strings standing amidst endless sun. For a long moment nobody dared move.
Then Varyn did what Varyn had always done. He knew he had to play his last card. The half-fey drew a hidden dagger made of Erevium and enchanted steel. It was a unique blade worth a fortune and as many artifacts against the divine, it was completely useless.
“Angel or Devil, everything bleeds.” Varyn lunged.
The blade never reached its target. Phosiel merely turned his head and even the wind obeyed. The rogue stopped frozen in place, his feet fixed on the ground like a statue. The expression on his face shifted from confidence to confusion and then to ultimate terror. A power word, there was no defense that he could master against it, no trick to slide through it.
The angel regarded him silently. When he finally spoke his voice sounded like distant storms. “I know you.”
Varyn struggled, his mouth shut, unable to speak the curses in his mind.
“I know your kind.” The chamber tightened around him, like the grip of a giant.
The rogue cried out. “You deceive….” He never finished the insult.
A bone cracked. “You sacrifice others for your own ambition.” The chamber shook. For a moment Ethel no longer saw Varyn. She only saw a figure that was radiant and beautiful. Standing before her it was Phosiel again, the Heavens’ prince. The spirit Lucifer the deceiver once had been. The angel’s expression was filled with sorrow.
“You remind me of someone.” The chamber walls pulsed with light closing like a coffin around Varyn. The rogue screamed, bones turned to dust, light exploded from his eyes and mouth, his soul was being cast out. When the air settled, nothing remained but drifting ash and a blob of flesh, eyes and skin.
Corvin dropped to his knees muttering a faint prayer. Ethel looked at him puzzled from the ancient words coming from a scoundrel’s mouth, but she could not move at all. The angel turned toward her. And suddenly she wished he had not, as those empty sockets saw everything in her. Marching along the North Ride, the killing of innocents, the dead companions and prayers going unanswered. In the end road, her faith was abandoned. His gaze was regret personified, shedding light on all her failures, the scar on her soul. The blind saint saw them all. The question of how she could not have seen through the deception. And it was the deceiver himself standing in front of her.
Ethel lowered her gaze. “I have nothing left.” The words escaped before she realized she had spoken, mouth trembling, eyes full of tears. She felt empty, like a husk of something that died in the desert long ago. But something dead was stirring inside her.
For a long moment Phosiel remained silent too. Then he stepped forward. Each movement stirred currents of ancient air. “You still carry the burden.”
She laughed bitterly. “I no longer carry the light of faith.”
“No.” The angel smiled. It was the saddest smile Ethel had ever seen. “But all it needs is a spark.”
But all it needs is a spark.
For an instant she thought she saw his true figure standing behind him. The Lightbringer he had once been. Something warm touched her chest. A sensation she had not felt since before the North Ride. When despair and doubt were effortlessly set aside. His warmth spread through her body. The old wounds in her soul did not vanish, but they no longer seemed impossible to bear. Golden light emerged from the cracks of her shield. The metal began to glow. Her mace shimmered with deep radiance. The blessings she thought forever lost had returned. She finally understood her faith had never entirely left her. Tears filled her eyes. When she looked up, Phosiel had already turned away.
Ethel tightened her grip upon shield and mace. “Let me serve you my Angel, guide me in your light.”
Her voice contained neither vengeance nor judgment. Only the certainty of belief. The priestess turned to Corvin but the man was no longer there. A faint image of an old woman had taken his place. She motioned opening an arcane portal to a far-off library. It was Asha standing on her cane. “Your faith. It was never truly lost, nor ours to you.” Ethel was certain she saw her smiling.
The old strength filled her limbs. Her boots thundered across ancient stone. Ahead, somewhere within the darkness, she felt the soul of Varyn, joining the whispers of this ancient place, cursing the angel that had doomed him. His destruction was her salvation. Ethel pursued his remains into the depths. Behind her the winds slowly calmed. The broken seals ceased glowing and the chamber grew still.
Phosiel remained alone. For the first time in years. The Blind Saint looked toward the ceiling. Toward the desert beyond and the world he had once deceived. The world he had later died to save. The winds parted before him. Stone cracked under his step. All the Feyan wards surrendered, and the tomb opened allowing the desert light to be spilled down from above. But to him it was forgiving, almost invigorating. Phosiel climbed the path followed by his first disciple. When he emerged, the desert lay silent beneath a sea of stars. Just endless dunes stretching toward the horizon. The angel paused. A thousand years of suffering rested upon his shoulders and a thousand years of redemption to be claimed. Far behind him, deep within the tomb, echoes of souls still rang through ancient corridors. Ahead lay only the unknown. At last, Phosiel closed his sightless eyes and walked into the sands. The desert winds soon erased his footprints. Time will show where the angel wanders after that. Yet among the tribes of the southern wastes his name would no longer be a curse. Phosiel, the Redeemed, the Blind Saint.
Ethel stood upon the entrance of the tomb, her shield glowing strong beneath the desert sun as if reflecting her newfound spirit. She watched until the last trace of her divine master vanished among the dunes. Yet his words would follow her wherever she travelled, for whenever a cool wind arrived beneath a cloudless sky, she would smile and remember the angel who had taught her that even the fallen may rise.
— Set down by Asha, the Chronomancer
