Chapter 522: The Missing Piece

The light enveloped her.

The glow bound her.

From within, the surface of her skin beaming, flaring gold. A ceaseless beacon coursing through her veins – purging, eradicating... becoming...

historical

I could feel it, from afar, from a distance... I didn’t even have to try.

In my bones, in my very soul, the sensation emanating from around her – it was like nothing else I’ve felt before. I don’t know what I felt. There was no word, no feeling that could even come close to describing it.

Everything in my head receded, vanished – just gone. I didn’t know what I thought, what to think. I’m blank, it was all blank.

I just saw, sensed, felt – power. Raw, limitless power.

.....

Captivating.

Terrifying.

Consuming.

I’m ebbing, I’m joining, I’m giving, I’m offering... I...

I think I’m dying.

Something blinked. My eyes? The light? It blinked.

The light suddenly dimmed, the glow had waned... coursing, streaming gold weaving and mixing with the pitch blackness.

Her blackness.

I couldn’t see well, everything was watery, blurry. I blinked, and tears fell.

Something, someone beside me was holding me, which was good – because my legs suddenly didn’t want to.

“It... will... go away...” reassured a soft, distant, nearby echo. “Breathe... please... you’re not... breathing... focusing...”

White spontaneously sprung into view. It looked clouded, it looked distant... it looked worried.

“Breathe...!”

I gasped, and immediately everything came rushing back, all thoughts, all senses, all words – expelling out of me in a crude mixture of drool and strangled breath.

“Ada..lia...” I coughed out, keeling over from the effort, barely falling an inch before she caught me once more. “What just...?”

“The scripture... prayer... more powerful... than... anticipated... affected you... too... only you...” Adalia quickly summarized. “But Terestra has... contained it... inside her... now... she... did it...”

I say another word and I’m done. I’ll slip, fall, and I won’t be able to get up again... at least not for a long time.

So I blinked out the tears, and forced myself silent – watching everything unfold and hoping it’ll somehow answer my every question.

The most puzzling of which, I was still beholding – that blinding figure standing at a distance, clad in a swirl of black and gold, like fluids, like tendrils, streaking across her body...

They look like rope, the golden rays of light, binding, biting into her skin, yet at the same time, it almost seemed to magnify the very sight of her. Her binds gave her a radiance, an unfathomable, indescribable presence. It was mesmerizing, intimidating...

Divine.

Slowly, the radiant silhouette lifted her head, and then there beyond the deep layers of divinity, the mysticality, I saw Mom’s usual smile peeking through it all.

“You see?” She cheerily chimed, expelling out a haughty snort. “Easy as pie – what did I tell you?”

Dad’s indifference remained indifferent. Blinking unfazed, his only emotion an impassive sigh.

“Don’t do more than you have to, Lilith,” He said, taking a step out of her ethereal ring of light. “I don’t want you to push yourself... the strain...”

“Now you’re just being patronizingly sweet, sweetie,” His concerns, she casually brushed aside. “Don’t worry yourself, I’ll be fine. I’ll only need a moment here. Then afterward, maybe a nice relaxing bath is in due need for – ”

“No, bullshit! This is bullshit – BULLSHIT!” On the other end of the golden ring, Grieven’s eyes shone with confusion, disbelief, and anger overlapping in a sea of volatile emotions. “I refuse to believe it! It can’t be true, it can’t be – IT CAN’T! YOU! ONE OF THE DIVINES?! AN EIGHT?! THERE’S NO SUCH A THING! YOU SHOULDN’T EXIST! YOU DON’T EXIST! I KNOW YOU DON’T!”

“And just what do you know exactly, Grieven?” She planted a foot forward, and it almost felt as if instead of her moving, everything else just shifted closer. “From what you’re told, from what you’ve learned... do you really believe that’s the extent of it? That there couldn’t possibly be any more that you don’t know?”

“No, shut up – shut up! You’re just a blight, a monster, a demon! That’s what you’re known as. That’s all you are! Nothing more!”

“Then speaking of nothing – just where do you think my powers stem from, Grieven? Unparalleled, unmatched. ” She asked, chuckling as she did. “Nothing?”

“I know, I know, I know this can’t be! It can’t!” He screeched, sounding his desperation and rage as he violently flailed and struggled in place. “Frederika, Yuila, Wilfrey, Velania, Vestra, Allan, Riastra – Seven! There’s only and always seven!”

“Always?” Mom repeated. “That so now?”

“Yes! it is! It is! The Seven that forged all creation. The Seven, that, that...” Grieven was seriously unraveling at the seams, clinging frantically to his beliefs, and also very quickly slipping. “The Light, the Absolver, the Guide, the Lover, the Sinner, the Arbiter, and the Giver... Their Remembrance! Their Will! Our mountains, our trees, our skies, and our stars – they are everything! everywhere! And You! You have no place! You don’t belong! If not – what are you?! Just what do you offer to the realm?! just what do you represent?!”

Whimsically, mockingly, derisively. All this while, she always answered him in one of three ways.

But this time, only this time, she responded to his question properly, relaying the only words to him that she spoke with such earnestness, and as always, with a smile, accentuated further by the shining divine luster. “The End.”

Bizarrely enough, and as much as I revile to admit it, I could actually empathize with Grieven’s incredulity, his shock. I barely could wrap my head around it too. I don’t know much, but from what little I do know... this wasn’t how things were supposed to be.

Seven. In Ria’s endless memories. In Irene’s many expositions. In Ash’s replicated world of Asteria. This belief had always held true – the Seven Divines of the Realm and the lone Demoness that went against them.

His disbelief represented an entire world’s shattered truth... which makes Adalia’s continued detachment from the moment all the more mystifying to me.

“Did you know all along?” I whispered, finding my strength again. “That my mother was a missing piece to your world’s pantheon?”

“She... never mentioned... to anyone...” Adalia said, staring forward with only the mildest of interest. “But I ... always suspected... anyway...”

I glanced at her. “Suspected why?”

“Alitro... Elvanos...” She replied, slowly glancing right back. “After... Cleansing...”

Past that, Adalia didn’t say anymore... not that she even needed to. I could connect the dots myself, bring myself to that same glaring suspicion that she herself had arrived at, and asking that long-forgotten question from months before once more.

What exactly had been cleansed?

After listening and after seeing all that I had so far... I think I might have a clue what it could have been – or who for that matter...

“No, no... this can’t... the Divines words are... no...” Grieven ran out of breath, of strength. His head slumping below his sagging shoulders. With trembling fists, he slowly shifted his smoldering glare to her partner in crime. “And you knew this? All this time, you knew. You never mention, never told? Weren’t you supposed to be our Hero? our Savior? The Divines chose you! They chose you to save us! And what did you do?! WHAT DID YOU DO?!”

“I chose different,” Dad simply said, and never being one for conversation, promptly turned away from the scene, shuffling back to the entrance, to the pouring rain, stopping only once briefly to say. “I’ll go ready the bath. Don’t take too long.”

I caught his eye as he walked on by, and with silence alone, I tried to convey my gratitude... but with all the pain I was in, I think my thank you went a little skewered.

He turned away, walked out into the night... and I like to think that he didn’t regret his choice here, doing this... I really hope he doesn’t.

The moment his footsteps were drowned out by the droning downpour – the atmosphere swiftly took a sharp plunge downwards. The barn doors suddenly swung close on their own, the rattle of locks bolting shut, and every dirt, every stray bit of hay, the tray and cutlery sprawled on the ground had suddenly been slinked into the darkness on either side – clearing the way and making space – the gold and black writhing and squirming all this while.

Mom shuffled forward, and the straining rope tied to his ankle was severed the moment her foot touched the ground. She took another step – and hopelessly Grieven was lifted inches off the ground before her, his legs stagnant, his arms without chance to struggle, but in his eyes showed fear, rage.

Below him, a circle began to be etched into the dirt, teeming with inscriptions, brimming with various colors – it sorta reminded me of the circle Amanda drew to summon Sera, only here it was more intricate, and with a deep ethereal glow to every drawn line, more authentic feeling too.

“Well, then, Grieven, it has truly been a pleasure,” She said, looking up at him with a parting smile. “But now it’s about time to give that body back, don’t you think?”

“Not yet!” He shouted back. “Not without a fight! You think I’m gonna go just like that?!”

“Yes, you are.”

“You still have to force me out! In your state? Sealed, bound, sick? You really believe – ”

“We’ve been over this,” Mom interjected, sighing with a hint of exasperation. “I told you, I’m more powerful than you think.”

“And like I told you, so am I!” He refuted back, his lips twisted in a deranged smile. “You deliberately weakened yourself! In your state, I’ll feast upon your soul easily! You’re just giving yourself up to me. I ask you – will you really risk that?”

I knew he was just spouting nonsense – his rambles just a desperate attempt to save himself. But still a part of me, a small part... couldn’t help but let paranoia ramble on as well, asking that stupid, infuriating question.

What if?

Still in the air, like a puppet, he was aligned to his side, and gracefully brought down to the middle of the bright glowing circle. Unable to move, unable to fight, forced only to watch as she crept closer forward before bending down over him – giving him her answer almost definitively.

“Guess we’ll just have to see then, won’t we?”