Chapter 17: Delamination
In every place, in every city, in every age, in every sun. The Sapphire light burned brightly, and we were to it merely infants. Devouring its undoing, soulfire its birth. No matter the ends, the five would return, and we were not them.
Reintegration
Tenebra's hunch was sound. Restore the goddesses' sacred places, restore the people's memory, restore something of the goddesses' influence on Lafleur. But it was more than that.
It wasn't enough collapsing a twisted monument to corruption, and it wasn't enough to grow some cold-flame flowers. Those things were nice, but they stopped short of the truth. There had to be more. Belief. Worship. Trust. Those things were power.
Someone had seen us, watched the deimward palace fall, admired the flowers, and dedicated their existence to protecting that site. I might not have noticed, but it happened. And that soul, above all else, served as the beginning of something new, a change in the very fabric of Lafleur.
In Tenebra's case, she didn't need an onlooker. She had Em. Her wife believed in her so firmly that Tenebra needed only restore her truth, and the world changed further. Tal, being Tenebra's Mavi, was touched by extension, returning to the being she once was. Dark eyes, dark skin, sapphire hair, and the subtle glow of power.
And in all of that, there was one thing I couldn't let myself accept: why was I – an utterly ordinary woman – reacting like that to the events?
The houses Ricina and Belladonna fell in much the same manner as Amanita. Jasmin stood before the insufferable Lord of the palace and broke him. Nyx didn't wait for the Lady to protest before she simply stepped inside and began establishing her garden. The events were swift and effective, leaving only house Capsica standing as a blight at the eveward corner. We could not be driven to fell that beast until Vaelis was returned safely.
Once the palaces were gone and the gardens grown, the goddesses and their Mavi didn't light up straight away. It was gradual, a coming dawn revealing a low-level emerald glow on Jasmin and an opal river of light on Nyx. When at last Em's shining began, it was like a campfire, bright and orange, warm and calm. They were safety. They were kinship. Roisin was different. No one could say what colour she was glowing, only that it was there.
A full sun's work between breakfast and lunch.
And still many of us had not slept. I certainly hadn't, so I lay with my husband properly for the first time in over a year, drifting into dreams I could not explain.
Orange-golden hair atop ashen skin. A lemon-yellow dress with a blue sash. My first thought was how very like Flux she appeared, but she was not Flux. She was someone else. Not myself. Not the sister of Tenebra-who-was-not-Tenebra. She was new.
Skylight eyes and deep-fissured scars told a life of lonesome retreat. She'd lost so much.
Her hands showed signs of work. At her waist, I realised, she wore a belt with two time-worn swords. No longer shining with the light of the forge, they were tarnished with blood never cleaned.
On her back was a golden labrys. She was a warrior. And I knew here.
That was the extent of the dream, just that woman. No place or time to put context to her life.
The warmth of Davian's arms and body as I awoke was a different sort of comfort to Jasmin's. She was firm but soft, sun on snow warmth with a delicate grace. He was fire and starlight, a rigid board built less for comfort and more for safety. All the same, the sensation relaxed me, which prompted him to squeeze me tighter.
"It's really you," I whispered without opening my eyes.
His hot breath on my neck prefaced his words. "This close, you smell like home. I can't explain it."
"Like a flower," I said, recalling Roisin's words. "Easily forgotten but forever loved." I laughed as he took an even deeper breath.
"You've started wearing perfume then?"
I sat up, letting the blanket and his arm fall off of me. "You're the second person to ask me that, Davian."
"Well even if you haven't, you smell different." He recovered his grip, turning me gently to face him as he pulled me down. "Don't worry. It's a good different. I'm more concerned over what you dreamed." When I didn't reply, he explained. "You kept mumbling about someone named Dasara."
My sudden gasp startled him. "That's what I called the doll I found. Before Kovar found me."
"The one that was up in the swamps? Asha's doll?" His face was a twisted mess as he thought about it. "Your friend Briar said she put it there for someone. There was a note and a bit of blue hair with her when we picked her up on the way back."
"No. Asha's doll lost her eye when Sage hit the stove with her," I remembered the moment almost fondly, even if it broke Asha's heart that we never found the missing eye. "This doll had both intact."
Were there two dolls? Had I been mistaken that whole time? Where had Dasara gone? Where had she even come from in the first place? I spent several seconds not truly looking at Davian as I considered possibilities. Was it an artefact of the cycles? There had to be something.
I was up and out of the bed before I had time to process any action, the cold air hitting my bare skin as I rushed across the room, realising only as I touched the door that I wasn't clothed.
As I dressed, Davian stared wordlessly.
Once I had clothes on, I went room-by-room to gather the necessary faces and minds. Someone surely had an answer, and the most likely candidates were Tenebra, Nyx, and Jasmin. They seemed to remember more than most.
The kitchen quickly began warming up when Roisin lit the stove and started prep work to cook something. She had followed Jasmin down the stairs because, in her words, 'there's little use trying at thinking hard if your stomach's empty'. No one fought back. Neither woman wanted space from the other, and we all understood.
"So," Tenebra spoke before I could begin questioning, "you've realised I stole the doll, and you're mad at me."
My head tilted to the side, an action that performed itself in my stunned silence. Several seconds passed before I recovered. Everyone stared. "Tell me about the doll you stole. Leave no detail out."
"Blue glass eyes, like the clear summer sky," she began, "a yellow dress torn down one side and repaired with gilded thread. Carved from ash."
Jasmin and Roisin both turned to stare at Tenebra. "That sounds suspiciously similar to the doll we found in Shallowroot," Jasmin said, looking between Tenebra and me. "Except," she raised a brow in my direction, "that doll was missing an eye. And had two torn sides. One repaired in gold, one in silver."
Roisin turned back to her work and chimed in over her shoulder. "The eye was lost when Sage was five. He got mad at Asha about something and it popped out."
Nyx seemed to be doing some calculations as the conversation went on. "That doesn't sound like the doll I remember seeing with Fl— Delia, that is."
"Describe it, Nyxi," Tenebra said softly, a fine film of sweat forming on her face.
"A face of ash, masterfully carved. No damage at all. Storm grey eyes made of crystal glass." She paused. "She looked like a darker-skinned Roisin."
"What happened to Dasara? I addressed the question to Tenebra. The others began to question, but they must have understood before the words came out.
Tenebra's eyes went wide. "I took her with me to the Thicket. And I found." She was desperate to get words out. "Well, that can't be right. I took her there when the carriage, and —" Her breaths were getting short. "She was under your bed at the Maiden? No. It was something else. A sort of static."
No one interrupted her as she paced the length of the room.
"There was Asvira, Saravi, and Shinsha," she continued saying nonsense names for several seconds. "Dasara. I left her at the safe house with Asha. But somehow you had her when I returned to the city. The other doll was in the Thicket when I returned. I didn't know how she got there, but I took her to Asha, who had no doll to speak of." Her legs ceased holding her up, and she found a place on the floor. "But Dasara was here. And she wasn't? And what about the other?"
Light slowly faded from the room. Or, that couldn't be it. The light was going to Tenebra.
Jasmin's hand gripped my wrist, that snow-on-sun warmth giving her away, and she yanked me to the floor beside Tenebra. "Talk to her. Make her stop long enough to calm down."
I didn't know how to speak to a goddess, let alone one who was actively collapsing in front of me. She was just Tenebra. Just my friend. Complicated or not, that was us. Right? Sisters in name, friends in form. Close kin by right or by might.
Darker and darker, the room sank into something else. An emptiness. A nothing.
"Nihil Nalia, if you can hear me, please listen." She was still talking, but hopefully that wouldn't stop me. "Clear your mind. Breathe. Find my eyes."
The words stopped, but the light didn't return. Still, I could feel her staring. It was uncanny, the weight of all that time truly was physical.
"Good girl. I know you said not to use that name against you," I whispered softly, "but I assumed emergencies don't count. You are here. You are safe. Take it one second, one reality, at a time.
"Dasara was under the carriage when a lost soul awoke. An anchor to a forgotten life." I let myself remember the scene through Flux's eyes. "She was smashed by the carriage. The lost soul was as well, but she found herself alive against causality.
"She took the doll, cherished her, and gave her a new life with new friends." The stars in Tenebra's eyes peeked through the lack of light. "Like you, Mara. Or Tenebra. Or Deona. Or whatever name you've given yourself in this reality. And no matter the name, you are always a guiding light."
"The tip of the arrow," her voice was weak, but the knowledge was strong. "The first Huntress and her mistress. They were my home. And then I awoke in the arms of a Scion."
"Excellent. Deep breaths now." My hands found her shoulders. "Dasara. You took her from my room before you left to get my family."
"There were two dolls. One perfect, one marred with time." She barely managed half a smile. "I brought her with me. Last time."
"You're doing so well," I pulled her to me, resting her head in my lap as Roisin and Jasmin became visible again. "She was perfect, but Asha loved her broken doll, so she took that doll with her, and you left the other with me, hoping beyond hope that —"
"Delia, sister," Tenebra's voice cracked, "you're alive. You're here. We have to warn everyone about the palace. The collapse of the Cathedral."
"That time has come and passed," I whispered in her ear. "Now you must let yourself be washed in the dream. Let the darkness go, my sister."
"She's in the stables." Tenebra's tears were soaking my legs. "Em's saddlebags. Safe. I put her there because —"
Her breath stopped a moment as she at last let go of the shadows, and I found myself surrounded by everyone who was sharing space with us. After a brief moment of complete silence, the motion of her chest picked up.
My own vision went blurry as tears raced to cover my face. Looking from person to person, everyone was as expected except one. My heart ached for her, a faint gilded limning around her form.
Asha's hair was wrong, too.