Chapter Text
Areelu’s words echo off the tiled floor upon which she bleeds out.
“It will unmake you.”
The Commander says nothing. He stands, tunic ripped and soaked scarlet, before the hunched and human form of Areelu Vorlesh. His shoulders shake with the effort of keeping his blade poised at her throat. With the weight of the next hundred years of war bearing down upon him.
For reasons Daeran can’t even begin to speculate, the Commander withholds his final strike.
Daeran scoffs. Even now, in the final moments of this marvelous disaster, incredulity takes precedence.
“Don’t tell me you plan to entertain this foolishness as our companions threaten to heave their last?” he mutters.
As if on cue, someone’s gasps for breath turn into wet gurgles. Seelah’s, maybe, or Arueshalae’s. Nenio and Woljif already lie amidst a pile of demons just as crumpled and motionless as they.
The Commander merely raises a hand by way of answer. A wordless command for silence from his advisor.
Yes, yes, once the Commander’s appetite for inappropriately timed questions has been sated, they shall collect their dead and dying friends to revive the life within them anew. But not a moment before, of course!
Rolling his eyes, Daeran clasps a hand to a weeping gash in his belly and swallows a groan. How pitiful he must look, slumped unceremoniously against this blasted pillar in a broken, useless heap.
No more pitiful than Areelu, he supposes, whose failure to cleave her soul to the taint of the Abyss is painted in the strokes of blood streaking out around her like a starburst. Even so, her molten gaze does not leave the Commander. The shadows in her eyes dance with equal parts defiance and curiosity as she trembles on the edge of her death throes at his feet.
“It will unmake you,” she repeats. The Commander adjusts his grip on his weapon and a rivulet of crimson falls like a teardrop to pool in the hollow of her collarbone. “But you already know this, don’t you? You must have known it from the moment you first set foot on this path.”
Heedless of the Commander's ire, Daeran forces out a laugh. His body ignites with pain, spots of black swarming across vision. “The witch stares her demise in the face and thinks to pose riddles? Finish it, Commander. For once, I’ve grown weary of the games.”
“No riddles. No games. Merely… a question.”
Areelu wets her lips.
“Are you prepared to pay the price for what you’ve become?” she whispers.
The Commander does not reply.
Areelu takes his silence as permission to continue, “We stand on a great precipice, you and I. Mine is that of death itself, a thread of fate spun out and then cut short. But yours extends to the depths of initial creation. To grant me my end here and now will rob you of your own beginning. What is will become what has never been – including you, aeon.”
She spits the epithet with enough venom to make even Daeran flinch. It takes a moment for the meaning of her words to fall into place.
When it does, Daeran opens his mouth to speak and then promptly shuts it. The parts of him that haven’t gone numb from blood loss run inexplicably cold with… what? What is this feeling? Fear? Horror? Betrayal?
It spreads like a poison, settling in his chest as a fetid, bottomless ache.
No. That can’t be right. History has once again bent its knee to the Commander’s will, but just as before, he will impose his judgment and they’ll be on their merry way back to the present. By the Commander’s hand, Drezen never fell and rather went on to become the little fortress that could. Terendelev’s scaly head never woefully detached from her shoulders. He changed the course time follows and still does he remain alongside them, leading them to victory or falling behind to guard their backs as they retreat. What would make this time any…
Different.
Daeran blinks. The Worldwound.
They’re killing it in the cradle. Putting an end to what will never begin. That which Areelu bound herself to binds the Commander as well.
And he cannot continue to exist upon eliminating what allows him to do so.
“The little lordling catches up with us,” Areelu observes.
The Commander faces away from him. Daeran cannot gauge his expression or guess at his thoughts. He simply stands, balancing Areelu’s life and his own right to exist on the edge of his blade as she stares up into the fathomless depths beneath his hood.
“I did not wish for this,” he finally admits, breaking his silence. The bastard dares to sound contrite.
“You– You didn’t–” Daeran splutters, indignant. Undignified. He doesn’t care. The Commander still does not turn to face him. “You did not wish for it?”
“Enough.”
“I rather think your desires and intentions mean next to nothing when the continuity of your existence has suddenly become a subject for debate–”
“Enough, Daeran.”
He sounds so, so tired.
Daeran falls silent more out of seething hurt than obedience. It’s been decided. There is no arguing with the Knight Commander of the Fifth Crusade when this is what is true and just.
Panic, rage, grief – it all tastes like bile festering on the back of Daeran’s tongue. What can he say? How can he stop this? Does he mean so little that the Commander would give up everything just to save this plane a little suffering? It survived it once. It could do so again.
How can he stop this? How can he stop this?
Areelu looks as if she means to take advantage of the lull in conversation, but with one quick flick of his wrist the Commander deprives her of the opportunity. His dagger splits the seam of her flesh wide open, coaxing viscous bubbles down its blade.
Daeran thinks he might be sick.
“You're not wrong, you know,” says the Commander. He watches Areelu collapse onto her side, choking and gasping past the blood that pours forth onto the floor beneath her head. “It doesn’t matter what I want. It didn’t matter when this was all first foisted upon me and it certainly doesn’t matter now.”
He finally turns. Eyes like pale stars in the night gleam with the weight of a thousand possibilities that will never come to pass.
Damn it all.
“You promised yourself to me,” Daeran says, wavering.
“I did.”
“Why? If you knew what would unfold here, then why? Why make me believe that it was ours to have?”
The Commander takes a shaky step towards him. And then another. And then he sinks to his knees, unable to bear the burden of his own body any longer.
Trembling, bony fingers pull his hood back. The shadows cast across his features recede and then it’s just… him. Exhausted and gaunt and so beautifully himself. Haunted by the legend he never sought to be.
“I didn’t know until I sensed the rift,” he whispers. He drags himself close enough to tuck a matted lock of hair behind Daeran’s ear. “I imagined. I conjectured. But I did not truly know until we stood at the gates of Threshold. Even so, I said yes because I wanted it. I wanted such a life with you. It doesn’t matter now and maybe it never did, but I wanted it, and I couldn’t spurn you by saying no.”
“It was cruel,” Daeran spits.
“I know.”
“This is cruel.”
“I know, beloved.”
“Don’t do this to me.”
Areelu yet draws breath. Noisily, painfully. She’s fighting to speak past the gash in her throat but every aborted gurgle only hurtles her quicker towards her end.
Towards his end.
Daeran grimaces against another wave of nausea.
No. No, no, no.
“Daeran.”
His voice is calm. Steady. He is and always has been the glassy surface of a lake left undisturbed.
“Heal her,” Daeran chokes out. Ever the thundering chaos of a storm. “Allow her this victory and let us find another way. Please.”
“There is no other way. The Worldwound must be corrected. If she doesn’t answer for this – if she doesn’t face judgment here and now – then for the next hundred years, our world will burn.”
Daeran hisses between gritted teeth. “Then let it burn! Let it all burn! I would rather watch a thousand worlds turn to ash before spending one moment in some far-flung offshoot of reality where I never possessed the privilege of standing by your side. Do not ask that of me. Fix this.”
“I am fixing this.”
“No. You’re being self-flagellating and abhorrently selfless. I’ll shed no tears for a few million lives left unsaved. They are already dead and I am right here. I need you more than they do. Do you understand me? I need you.”
Something in his expression wavers for half a moment. He touches his fingers to Daeran’s cheek.
“I can take your memories,” he murmurs. “Of this. All of this. Of me.”
Daeran recoils as if he were struck.
“There would be no pain. It would be a mercy–”
“Don’t. Just– How dare you–”
Areelu drags in a horrible, rattling breath that might just be the worst sound Daeran has ever heard. Her body spasms and heaves. Blood seeps into the mortar valleys of the stone beneath her, running out in little rivers across the floor.
“I’m sorry,” he says, like it’s supposed to mean anything.
Daeran isn’t listening, staring past him at Areelu and already struggling to his feet. About six inches off the ground, pain arcs from – somewhere, everywhere – and his vision goes sideways then black. He hasn’t the strength to stand let alone weave a spell strong enough to knit closed a mortal wound. Daeran begins to buckle, and hands at his waist and shoulder gently guide him back into leaning against the pillar for support.
Shapes and color gradually bleed back into Daeran’s field of view. Before him, he sits illuminated by a halo of falling stars.
“It will be alright,” he says, blinking slowly. The glow of the cosmos catches on his every eyelash.
He is so beautiful.
Daeran squeezes his eyes shut. A sob rips its way upwards from his chest. Ugly. Humiliating. Pointless.
He moves to cradle Daeran’s jaw between his palms, catching tears upon his thumbs. “Don’t grieve. Oh, don’t grieve.”
Daeran shakes his head furiously, hands fumbling for his wrists, fingers digging in. “I can’t– I don’t know how I’m meant to do this without you–”
“It’s alright. Look at me.”
“Please don’t leave. Please don’t–”
Areelu gives one last violent gasp and falls.
Dreadfully.
Silent.
“I love you. I love you. Look at me. I love you.”
His last words are a whisper of a whisper. He touches his lips to Daeran’s, already half a ghost.
And then he’s gone.
And there is nothing for it.
And Daeran trembles as the world shifts around his absence. It feels like walking through solid glass.
“I love you,” Daeran whispers aloud to no one, eyes still firmly shut. “I love you. Take me with you.”
There is no response.
It’s just him and whatever remains in the quiet.