7: Death's Own

The scream welling up in Leiyn’s throat died as soon as it rose.

She stumbled, barely keeping her feet. Somehow, she wasn’t falling, but stood on solid ground: dry dirt and stone, orange and red in hue.

"Legion's hells," she gasped. "What is this?"

Leiyn looked around her in a daze. A moment before, she'd been falling to her death from the top of the Whisperspire. Now, she stood on cracked earth, neither the tower nor the rest of Qasaar anywhere to be seen.

Foxfur stepped into view from behind her, still wearing an infuriating grin. "Humans are always so amusing. Must the grottos make you unsettled?"

Leiyn only shook her head. "Where are we, Foxfur? Where did you take me, and for the Saints' sakes, why?"

“Time tells all, Awakener. Come; let us leave behind that dead city for a time. And what are you closed off for? I thought I told you not to hide!"

Leiyn hastily lowered her mahia's walls before the dryvan took it upon herself to break them down, then tried to orient herself to the situation. It seemed the dryvan had taken her to that other place, the same existence occupied by the dryvans’ home, Glade. Though there was little esse populating the world around them, what there was had an undefinable quality nonexistent in her own world, a sense of being fully and entirely alive. Almost like life’s essence lay exposed here, where in Leiyn’s world, it remained hidden.

"Grotto.” Leiyn repeated the word, moving it about her mouth, then squinted at Foxfur, the sun being directly behind the skin-walker. "Is that what this place is called?"

"It is one name for them." Foxfur strolled ahead, adopting the same rolling gait as she'd had before. "But you wanted answers. Come, Awakener—you will not find them there!"

The dryvan swiftly drew away, yet Leiyn hesitated and glanced back behind. With her panic subsided, she saw that Qasaar wasn’t entirely gone, but lay nestled among in ocher cliffs in the distance. Still, her stomach churned. Once again, she was at the mercy of the forest witch, and she found she had little appetite for it. 

But what other choice do I have? 

Lips twisted in a smile, Leiyn followed.

With the mesas left behind, dun stone and dusty dirt stretched before them in all directions, interrupted by streaks of gray stone and short pillars of black rock, none much taller than herself. The distance was obscured, sand permeating the air like mist. More sand. As if she’d needed more of the blasted stuff.

Leiyn had almost caught up with Foxfur when something materialized from the haze. Its profile was tall and dark, a giant specter looming overhead. She eyed it distrustfully until it came more fully into view. It wasn’t a strange, new titan as she’d feared, but a wardstone, looking much the same as the other she’d encountered. Drawing closer, she saw it rose hundreds of feet in the air, as tall as the cliffs they'd left behind. The same striped pattern as before ran down its sides: orange and red, black and gold.

The dryvan headed straight for the pillar, stopping and turning around once she reached its base. Leiyn hurried to join her. The dryvan had her head cocked to the side, though it seemed less like a bird's mannerism now that she wore a fox's skin. Ignoring her, Leiyn scanned the spire. It had a smoother surface than she'd anticipated, almost glassy to the eye. She reached out to touch it, then hesitated as a pulse emanated from it, falling over her like a shimmer of water.

Leiyn repressed a shiver and took a step backward. “So this is a wardstone.”

The dryvan’s head twisted toward her with a grin. Sharp teeth glimmered from behind her wooden lips. “So your hosts call it."

"Why does it do… that?"

The pillar had pulsed again, and a thin wash of esse brushed over her. Leiyn shuddered. Something about it wasn’t warm as life should be, but cold and uninviting.

"Because it was made to.”

Leiyn flashed her a look. "I mean, what does it do it for?"

"Ah! Why not ask what you meant?" The dryvan stepped forward and reached a hand to the striped stone. Her claw touched lightly along its smooth edge. "It keeps away the Vast Ones."

Leiyn stared at it with fresh awe. Stone that turns back titans. It explained the curious lack of them surrounding Qasaar. How valuable would these stones be to the Tricolonies? To anywhere the titans roamed? Entire towns and villages had been destroyed by idle awakenings. Breakbay, once a mighty fortress, had been trampled into ruins. If titans could be kept away, Baltesians could fully inhabit the Titan Wilds. What was more, they would no longer need to fear the Gasts who had driven the spirits beasts against their cities. Perhaps their peoples could establish a permanent peace.

Or colonists could hunt Gasts down more ruthlessly than before.

She shook her head, not wanting to think on the matter. She was free of her own prejudices, or at least strove to be, but she wasn't so naive as to believe other frontierfolk would reverse their beliefs so quickly. Only with time and hard work could that happen. Until then, she doubted the power these stones conferred would be put to good use.

Leiyn turned back to Foxfur. "How did it come to be here? And what does this have to do with the Gasts' enemies? If they're protected from titans—"

"The Vast Ones are not the enemy," the dryvan interrupted. "True, they might bring ruin if allowed near the city, but they can also be allies if trouble comes. No—these wardstones have been here long before the Gasts, before death came to this land and claimed it for its own. They mark the borders of a long-dead civilization." 

Leiyn studied Foxfur. Dryvan expressions were difficult to read at the best of times, and whatever claimed her features now was far from a simple emotion. Regret? Sorrow? Irony? She wondered at all she didn’t know of her companion. Of her life. Of what she even was.

"Beyond the wardstones,” the skin-walker continued, “awaits the true enemy. My enemy. Those who could break apart mortal society if even one crack appears."

Leiyn’s impatience, already simmering, boiled over. "Enough! Everyone talks around these things like they're specters of death. Who are these enemies? What are they?"

Foxfur flashed her a smile, but her eyes burned with a different feeling. "Your haste has always been charming. Will a name suffice? We call them lyshans now. They are like my kind, and not."

She hadn’t known what she expected, but it wasn’t this. Cold dread robbed Leiyn of her rashness. Almost, she wished she hadn’t asked.

"Like dryvans?" she echoed, hoping she’d misunderstood.

"Yes, Awakener. Just as powerful, with similar capabilities. Yet they are... corrupted." Foxfur strolled around the edge of the wardstone. Leiyn followed at her side. 

"Corrupted?" She feared to know more, yet she'd never been one to balk at an unpleasant duty.

"Long ago, you could have called us the same, lyshans and dryvans. We were one people. But what we do changes who we are, young one. Those of us in Glade, we chose to rectify the wrongs of the past, to shed our hubris. Moths emerge from the darkness of their cocoons changed for the better, do they not? So we longed to be. But those who remained behind, these lyshans… they did not see our shortcomings as errors, but a sign we had grown complacent and weak. Though all legacy has faded and all we have built has fallen to dust, still, have slowly tried to reclaim the world as their own.”

For the first time, Foxfur sounded as old as Eld, the tree dryvan who had healed Isla, and less like the mischievous imp Leiyn had come to know. That as much as her words was unsettling.

"What is broken can be mended," Leiyn said quietly. "It has to be, Foxfur. Or else all of us, humans and dryvans alike, would’ve died out long ago." 

She thought of the Lodge as she'd last seen it, blackened and fallen to ash. Could that, too, be rebuilt? 

It’s not the same. It will never be the same. It couldn’t be, without Tadeo to lead them. 

Yet she had to believe it could return. She and Isla were the last of the rangers, but as long as even one of them remained, the Wilds Lodge would rise again.

The dryvan glanced at her, then snorted a laugh. "Mortals. The shorter your life, the greater your need for hope." She shrugged, the fur on her shoulders rippling with silver light. "We should return. They will wonder where I have taken you." A cruel smile curled her lips. "And if I have killed you."

"Would they believe that of you?" Leiyn's uneasiness returned. Gasts believed dryvans to be possibly malevolent; she wondered if she should consider it as well. Without knowing their reasons for aiding her and her companions, she couldn’t say they were truly allies.

"They would." Foxfur strode away from the wardstone, then halted and tensed. Suddenly wary, Leiyn stretched out her senses and reached for a dagger. Her eyes saw nothing, nor did her ears detect any sound amiss, but her mahia felt something glimmering from the other side of the monolith. A presence reaching for her, inviting…

Foxfur's hand clasped her arm painfully tight, and the sensation receded.

"We go," the dryvan said. As she tugged Leiyn forward, the world rippled away.