Maxwell

  “Tonight, Regulus decoded the symbol left at the guide’s vigil. It means ‘Threshold’ - a doorway between this world and the next.

  We feared new horrors, so we barred ourselves within the tents, yet sleep fled me as the wind began to howl. It whispered of bargains struck in blood, of shattered seals, and of an ancient power waking in the west.

  When dawn broke, the land had changed. Ribbons of pale mist curled like fingers across the ash, and the sky burned with an unnatural red. Cynthia emerged from her tent, eyes alight with purpose. She bore no blade, only a small vial of silver dust. ‘We end this tonight,’ she whispered to me.

  Athelos sharpened his sword until the very air around him trembled with each strike. I saw tears in his eyes as he spoke her name. Perhaps a wife, or a daughter. Whether the tears were for love or loss, I could not tell.

  Regulus pored over his maps, tracing routes I dare not imagine. He believes the Threshold lies at the heart of the Corrupted One’s domain: a fissure in the world where flesh and spirit bleed together.

  A pathway to the World Crucible.

  My heart trembles at the thought. To walk into that abyss is to face the end of all things. And yet, I will go. For Sarah. For our child. For hope itself… even if it costs us what is left of our souls.” - Writings of the Sword-Saint, 2156 Post-Separation (PS)

  A deafening crash sounded as the air trembled with the thunder of steel, a verdant song of bloodshed ringing throughout the canopy above Fogveil.

  Amelie and I dashed along a swaying rope bridge, its planks charred and smoldering. Each footfall sent showers of ash and dust into the gloom, drifting like snowflakes towards the forest floor. Around us, the city’s great tree-trunks stretched toward the heavens like broken sentinels, their branches knotted to hold platforms that creaked beneath the weight of destruction.

  My heart pounded in my chest, its rhythmic thumps resonating with a deeper cadence at my core. I dared not look up. Cliff’s battle raged somewhere beyond sight, yet I could feel its terrible effects all the same: shockwaves of Astra laced with killing intent, twisted and malformed by rage and hatred. Baleful sparks arcing through the branches, as the sky itself ran aquiver.

  “Faster,” Amelie urged, voice low yet insistent. Slow flames licked at the edge of her dagger, held high to light our path through the smoke-choked air. Together, we ran, past collapsed platforms and twisted root bridges, past flame and destruction. Past corpses strewn in disarray, drowning in ash and wooden splinters.

  “I—I can hear him,” I said, wiping sweat and ash from my brow.

  “He’s close.” Amelie gave a sharp glance. “Trust in Cliff. He will handle the boy.”

  A distant roar went up, a wild cry edged with triumph or desperation - then a crackling reply, like a bolt of living fire striking wood. My breath caught; Cliff’s strength must surely have faltered beneath that blow.

  We pressed on. Every step felt like running through a waking nightmare, the city’s wounded heartbeat thundering in our ears. At last, we crested a fallen walkway, and came upon the first ordinary people we had seen since the previous night. They were a sorry sight indeed.

  A crying woman sat hunched over the broken corpse of her husband, his body twisted in ways that defied nature; one leg snapped clean through the knee, the other bent at a grotesque angle. The woman’s sobs echoed across the ravaged platform, a raw lament swallowed by the distant roar of battle. Around her, fallen stalls and scattered belongings lay trampled in the chaos, each shard of broken pottery and splintered board a testament to a life undone in an instant.

  I shared a look with Amelie. She nodded in response, and we came to a halt near the woman’s trembling form.

  “Ma’am, we need to move,” I said, placing a gentle hand on her shoulder. She did not look up, but her body shook in fresh sobs. Amelie crouched behind me, her dagger yet alight to ward off the lurking shadows.

  “We cannot stay,” Amelie added softly. “This place is dangerous.”

  The woman’s gaze lifted to us at last, tears carving rivulets through the ash on her cheeks. “My children…” she gasped. “They weren’t with him. They-”

  My breath hitched, but Amelie cut in before I could respond. “We will find them. Right now, you need to be brought to safety. Come with us.”

  With great effort, the woman rose, supported by Amelie’s strong arm. We guided her toward a safer platform, where two other survivors - a greengrocer clutching a basket of smashed fruit and a watchman with a gash across his temple - cowered behind a ruined stall. Their eyes widened at the sight of us, relief and terror mingling in their faces.

  “Oh, thank the Stonefather,” the greengrocer said. “You two look a capable bunch. Perhaps you have some clue as to what in the blazing hells is happening here! This watchman has proven next to useless since he showed up!”

  The watchman bristled, hand hovering near his sheathed blade. “Watch your tone, citizen!” he said, a slim trickle of blood working its way down from his wound.

  “Enough bickering!” Amelie snapped, though her tone softened as she bade them quiet. “There is no time for argument. Watchman, what is the quickest way to the elevator?”

  He paused for a moment, caught off-guard by the sudden question, before pointing towards a woven bridge leading away from the platform. “Across there,” he said. “That’ll get you to the main thoroughfare, where you can find your way under the platforms, away from whatever’s crashing above.”

  “Good,” she nodded, tightening her grip around the woman’s shoulders. “Come with us if you value your lives. This city has fallen.”

  Silence fell over us as we guided the three shaken survivors - the widow, the greengrocer, and the watchman - onto the narrow, soot-blackened bridge that stretched toward the eastern wing. Each step wove through a haze of ash and embers, the rafters above groaning beneath the weight of unseen titans clashing amidst the treetops. Amelie’s dagger-light bobbed at her side, revealing frantic breaths and eyes wide with terror.

  “Keep moving,” she said. “We must clear the bridge before it collapses.”

  Behind us, a thunderous crack rolled through the wooden spines of the city. I dared a glance upward just long enough to catch the flash of molten steel against obsidian iron, a heartbeat of brilliance before the canopy shuddered again.

  The widow stumbled, clutching Amelie’s arm. “My children-” Her voice broke, but Amelie steadied her with a gentle nod. “Safety first. We shall find them after.”

  At last, we reached an intersection where the bridge fractured into three yawning paths. Below, the forest floor glowed in the hellfire of ruptured platforms. “That way,” the watchman directed, pointing to the middle spur. “Then across the thoroughfare, and down the old service ladders.”

  As we picked our way forward, a high, ragged cry peeled through the haze. The shriek of a battle-spawned spirit. I froze. Amelie’s dagger flared as she turned toward the sound. From the shadows sprang root-like tendrils, black as tar and tipped with thorns. They snaked around the widow’s ankles, yanking her toward the chasm.

  “Hold her!” I roared, dropping down to rip at the vines with my bare hands. The greengrocer fanned out a broken stall board, battering the roots until they recoiled, releasing the woman with a wet tear of splintered wood bathed in blood. The watchman, dazed, offered his battered cudgel and smashed the last tendril away.

  Alas, the sudden pull on her ankles had left the woman disoriented, and so as she attempted to rise to her feet again, she slipped on the now blood-slicked vines.

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  We watched in silent horror as the woman fell from the bridge, a terrible sound ripping free from her throat. She screamed the whole way down, loud as her lungs would allow, until her body crashed into the forest floor far below, smashing open her head and abdomen in a burst of viscera.

  A silence heavier than the executioner’s axe settled over the bridge. The greengrocer’s basket tumbled from his hands, fruit rolling forgotten into the gloom. The watchman staggered back, face paling beneath his wound as he stared over the edge. In that instant, the thunder of the battle above receded into something distant, an indifferent tide against our helplessness.

  I stood motionless, unable to tear my gaze from the gouged wood where the woman’s life had ended. Amelie’s light faltered, then steadied again as she stepped beside me, hand on my shoulder. “Come,” she murmured, voice a tremor of steel and sorrow. “We must move.”

  The watchman found his voice first, though it came as a hoarse whisper: “She… she was looking for her children.” His eyes searched mine, begging forgiveness for afterthought. I shook my head, unable to speak, the taste of ash heavy in my mouth.

  “A regrettable death,” came a voice, one that struck with terrible familiarity. “Truly, there is little justice in the world.”

  We froze.

  The voice had not come from ahead or behind. It had risen from the trees, from the very bridge beneath our feet. It vibrated through the wood like a harp string plucked by unseen fingers. Slowly, deliberately, we turned as one toward the source.

  There he stood again. The man in the green robes. The one from the plaza.

  No longer shrouded in illusion or veiled by groves of twisted flesh-wood, he appeared without ceremony, as if he had simply stepped into existence from between heartbeats. The vines in his hair now bore pale blossoms, tinged red like bruises. His eyes had dimmed, no longer glowing, but instead reflecting firelight with a predator’s shimmer.

  “You,” Amelie growled, drawing her dagger to full flame. “You haunt our steps like a specter.”

  The man’s expression was unreadable. “Not a specter,” he said softly, stepping closer with arms raised, palms open. “Merely a witness. A guardian, perhaps, though I sense the title brings you no comfort.”

  My breath came in short, burning gulps. The sigil beneath my shirt woke to life once more. It throbbed against my spine like a brand.

  “You let that woman die,” I said, the accusation low and bitter on my tongue.

  His eyes flicked toward the edge where she had fallen. “Yes,” he replied. “She was infected. I was too late to stop it.”

  Amelie advanced a step. “Why are you here?”

  “To warn you,” he said.

  The silence returned like a vice, pressing in from all sides. The sound of distant clashing had receded some time ago. A sign, perhaps, that Cliff’s battle had reached some sort of culmination. Behind us, the watchman and the grocer shrank back. Even the creaking of the bridge seemed to pause.

  I found my voice. “Warn us of what?”

  His gaze settled on me, and in that moment, I saw him not as a villain, but something far more dangerous: a believer.

  “The Seedling knows,” he said. “It feels you now. The resonance between you is too strong to hide. It will no longer send roots and whispers. It will manifest.”

  The words felt like a curse spoken aloud. I shook my head. “No… No, it can’t be-”

  “You are the host,” he said, in a tone that brooked no argument. “The Seedling wants you. Wants to merge, to complete whatever blighted purpose you have been selected for. And that sigil you carry... it is not protection. It is an invitation.”

  I staggered back a step, the truth of his words slamming into me like a blow. The pain in my spine. The pounding in my temples. The way the trees had shuddered when I passed—

  He’s right. I’m sick.

  Amelie moved between us in an instant, the fire of her blade flaring white-hot as it arced through the air, inches from the man’s throat.

  “No more riddles,” she said. “If you knew this… if you knew… why wait until now?”

  The man did not flinch. His eyes, calm as moonlight on still water, refused to leave mine.

  “Because the Seedling has chosen now to awaken,” he said. “And because you needed to see the destruction it could wreak. What fate has befallen this city because of it. The Mistmother… She will not let this transgression pass unpunished.”

  I stared at him, every breath a ragged gasp. The sigil burned beneath my skin, a slow fire winding up my spine and into my mind. I could feel something there. Tendrils of thought that did not belong to me. Watching. Waiting.

  Amelie took a step back, uncertain. “The Mistmother?”

  “Yes,” he said. “She will not allow the Seedling to manifest in her city. That would spell certain doom for her worshippers.”

  “And what, pray tell, happens if it does?”

  “It grows,” he answered. “Through the host, through the forest, through this realm and into others. The Seedling is no mere parasite. It is a key, forged by The Great Corruptor, and once turned—”

  He stopped. His head jerked toward the canopy.

  We heard it then, all of us.

  A pulse.

  Not merely a sound, but a deep, resonant thrum, like the slow beat of a monstrous heart buried within the roots of Fogveil. It rolled down through the trees, vibrated along the bridge, and set the survivors to trembling.

  “No,” the watchman whispered. “It can’t be…”

  The man in green smiled, faint and mournful.

  “... She approaches.”

  Above us, the branches bowed inward as if under the weight of invisible hands. The canopy split, torn not by battle or blade, but parted, as though some force had demanded the sky itself make way. Through that breach, a shape began to descend. Cloaked in mist and born of shadow, it lowered itself into the city, descending from the branches like a terrible goddess. A being so twisted of form, it spat upon common sense.

  Every muscle in my body froze in terror. Even my eyes refused to move. I was spellbound, frigid and still, as a statue before the inconceivable.

  It was unlike any creature I had ever seen before.

  It had the gargantuan body of a hairless spider, eight-legged and alien to my bipedal mind. The elongated torso of a naked woman, covered in human mouths that sprouted from her skin in several places. A bulbous neck, spiderwebbed by scars, and fat, lumpy veins pumping ink-like, stygian blood. Voluminous black hair, so long it sagged against the ground beneath her. And a diamond-shaped head lacking any of the features that normally belonged in such a place, save for eyes big as saucers, endless as the abyss.

  This… daemon… towered above me like a behemoth of ruin, her height rivalling the very trees of Fogveil. All seemed to fade at her ubiquity, as nature itself beckoned at her call.

  Then, the mouths on her body opened, locking into silent screams. For a brief moment, there was the expectation of speech, but instead, there came a mighty stream of fog, surging forth from each one in a vaporous cascade.

  At once, I understood the implications.

  She was the reason this forest was drowned in perpetual mist. Not just in a metaphorical sense, but a literal one as well. The fog was seemingly produced inside her body, and then expelled through the mouths at will. Her presence alone was enough to cast any space into white oblivion, and all that fell within was her dominion.

  She was the Mistmother, and I… an intruder in her garden.

  Beside me, I heard Amelie’s dagger slip from her grasp, to clatter against the wooden bridge beneath us. The watchman likewise dropped his cudgel, and fell to his knees in fervent prayer. The greengrocer stood slack-jawed and frozen, his every muscle strained in suspense.

  And then… the Mistmother’s eyes lowered to meet mine. Like warped holes in reality, they drew me in, casting my mind into the furthest reaches of perception. I could not hope to resist the call. For in those eyes, I saw the cosmos itself; infinite and bottomless. All of creation, compressed into a singular panorama.

  Time became a concept inconsequential. For what felt like nights and days, the stalemate endured. Two beings, of different worlds, locked in an eternal duel. The clearing becoming a microcosm unto itself, the thick fog now settling in the city, clutching the space in a white-mist hold. Adrift on these vacuous seas, we persisted, our standoff unyielding.

  In the silence, a thought came to me.

  The creature had yet to kill me.

  I had been convinced upon laying eyes on her that my end was near. The assumption was natural. Here stood a lowly creature of the Earth, intruding upon the sanctuary of a god. A vain little thing, thinking itself powerful and stalwart, wandering into her maw as if it did not fear the crushing blow. It only stood to reason that such blasphemous vermin would be removed from the garden.

  Yet, as I gazed upon the countenance of a higher being, she did not move to slaughter me. She did not cry out with indignation, and drain the life from my veins. She merely stood there, looking back at me with those most beautiful of eyes.

  Staring into the deep reflection, I felt a flicker of emotion stir within my chest. It was… sadness. Sadness at the thought that I could have believed the Mistmother would do me harm. That I could have felt fear in her loving presence. For surely that was what she was: love itself. The warmth of a mother’s embrace, all-consuming and protecting.

  The Mistmother did not wish me dead - she loved me! I was her child! She would never kill one of her own! How could I have been so foolish as to believe otherwise?

  The sadness turned to self-loathing. I hated myself for doubting her. For doubting that most precious of truths. The Mistmother was ancient, older than the trees, the mountains, the wind. Before the beginning, there was nothing, and before nothing, there was her. A creature of unfathomable wisdom, who had witnessed the birth of all, and thus held memories of times long since lost to human memory.

  Surely, such a wellspring of knowledge had to be preserved. She was not to be hunted, for to kill her would be akin to killing history itself. The gravest of sins, punishable only by death.

  Conviction flared to life in my mind. There was no more fear, for my eyes had been opened. My body went to its knees, praising the divinity before me. I was in the presence of a god, after all. It was only natural to worship such a being.

  Tears of joy bubbled from my eyes as I bowed my head in reverence to the Mistmother. I could not believe my fortune. To be accepted by her, to be welcomed by her love… It was more than my feeble mind could comprehend. To bask in her radiance, to exist in her presence… The greatest gift of all.

  I loved the Mistmother. I knew that now. I loved her with all my heart. I would live for her. I would die for her. I would kill for her. I would exist for her. I would praise her. I would protect her. I would serve her.

  To be loved by her is to know heaven to stand with her is to know companionship to serve her is to know happiness to kill for her is to enact justice to kill for her is to honor to kill is to protect to kill is to preserve to kill is to kill to kill to kill to kill to kill to kill to kill to kill to kill kill kill kill kill kill kill kill kill kill kill kill kill kill kill kill kill kill killkillkillkillkillkillkillkillkillkillkillkillkillkillkillkillkillkillkillkillkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk-

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