Chapter Text
“Remember me, love, when I'm reborn
As the shrike to your sharp and glorious thorn.”
— Shrike, Hozier
Chapter 1: A call to arms
She had been in the cold and the dark for too long, but it had become a choice between swimming towards the light or losing the chink of metal history to the mud and grime. Her lungs screaming in protest, Aloy scanned the mud hole one more time, desperately encouraging her Focus to ping the datapoint hiding in the blackness. But the purple light only startled some salmon swimming too close and with a groan that escaped as a burst of bubbles, she kicked off the squishy ground and propelled herself to the surface.
Breaking the water’s edge, she gulped in lungfuls of warm, jungle air, the change from the cold depths to the humid spring almost dizzying. In a few strokes, she crossed the open water and pulled herself onto the mossy bank. The swell and chirp of the Jewel seemed louder now, after being in the muted blackness, and she felt keenly aware of every bug crawling around her. She wasted a few splashes of skein water to clean the dirt from her hands — the muck under her fingernails and up her arms would have to wait — before taking several long pulls of fresh water. Sunlight was slowly reeling away from the damp grass and fronds, but she considered trying another one last time to find the datapoint before night made it dangerous to swim alone.
It was the chattering in the trees that made her want to peel her nails off, Aloy told herself, and certainly not the queasy unease simmering in her gut. She tapped her Focus, half hoping for an unlucky pack of Scrappers to wander by in the distance, but surprisingly, the open canopy as well as the grimy pond was empty of anything killable.
Aloy swallowed, Rost’s warning to never go looking for an unnecessary fight poking her through the memories. She didn’t know where to place this jittery energy, this drive, but she knew she needed to move, to get away from this sense of invisible, prying eyes that enveloped her like a blanket. But her mind kept swaying to the potential secret hidden just a few feet away. A secret that could turn the tide against the oncoming battle against the Eclipse, against Helis. She had been so sure her Focus had seen something, but now it (like the anxiety of hope) was lost.
At every turn, Helis had been five steps ahead. And when he won, people died. Her Focus collected the messages he sent to his followers and out of desperation, she had promptly began her search for any other hidden secrets to the so-called Stacker of Corpses. But in the six weeks after Dervahl’s attack on Meridian, she had absolutely nothing to show for it. Sylens discouraged her at every turn, scolding her like she was a child and forcibly reminding her there were more pressing matters to attend to. But Dervahl’s rage, his bitterness, it tasted horrifyingly familiar. She had seen that hate in Helis’s own mottled gray eyes, and it had been meant for her. Every time she scoured the world for a chance at taking him down, she was crushed. Crushed and kicked into the mud where he believed she belonged.
Vala was counting on her to bring this monster to justice. Varl was counting on her to avenge his sister’s death. Sona was counting on her to avenge her daughter and the Nora Faithful. Teersa, despite everything she had seen, believed in her. Just like Rost—
Aloy swallowed the rise of emotions.
Rost.
They all believed in her, waited for the peace she could bring when she separated Helis’ head from his shoulders. They all needed her.
So what was holding her back?
Her stomach grumbled, but out of sheer frustration, she ignored it and slid her trousers over the dirt, nearly as angry with the dirt itself.
In her ear, her Focus chirped, and a moment later, she caught the undeniable sound of footfalls wandering through the spongy earth. Aloy turned and the purple imprint of a young boy suddenly froze behind a tall tree.
Sighing sharply, she put her hands on her hips. “I know you’re there. You can come out.”
Two wide eyes poked around the girthy palm tree, guilty as they were bewildered.
“I wasn’t prying, ma’am . . .” He said sheepishly as he walked into full view. Dressed in deep reds, whites, pinks with a golden signet around his forehead, it was clear he wasn’t out here for a simple stroll. In fact, as he got closer, she noticed something distinct about the sigil on his tunic.
“Are you lost?” Aloy asked, a unsure sinking feeling growing the closer the boy came. He looked absolutely anywhere but at her, and she wasn’t sure if it was the grime or the fact that she was wearing only a breast-band that made the highborne (of that she was sure now) so uncomfortable. Focusing her eyes on her own tunic to keep them from rolling in her head, she slipped the garment over her head and immediately the almost purple blush on his cheeks faded.
“No. No, ma’am. But are . . . are you, Aloy of the Nora, the Seeker, Machine-Tamer, She —,”
“Yeah, yeah, let’s not go through the full list of ridiculous titles . . .” She pulled on her boots from the jungle floor, wondering if the change in stance would encourage him to get on with whatever he wanted.
The boy seemed more at ease now that she wasn’t towering over him with a hulking spear and the lack of fear prompted his own mission. He dropped his awed gaze to dig around at the pack on his shoulder. The boy, undoubtedly a palace page, took a scroll from the pack and, with a bow, offered it to her.
“I come before you on behalf of the fourteenth Sun King, Avad the Radiant, First in his Name.”
She took the scroll slowly, images of Meridian and the Palace of the Sun and the sudden awareness that people existed in large crowds flooding her mind.
It had been six weeks since the Dervahl’s assassination attempt.
Six weeks, she realized, since Avad — no, the Sun King — had asked her to join his guard permanently, the illusion of something else carefully and diplomatically wrapped in plausible deniability.
That night, she had allowed herself a bit of curiosity and spent hours thinking it over; not considering accepting his offer, but what the offer itself had meant. And then, in the bright light of the morning, had vowed to never think of it again.
And she hadn’t, during the day. But, like muscle memory, at night when the wind tugged at luscious clouds across the white light of the moon, she heard his voice again. His question. Everything he said in that question and everything he didn’t. By morning, those warm thoughts faded like the sunlight melting jungle mist and the coldness on the back of her neck returned and she felt Helis’s eyes on her again.
“The fourteenth Sun King, Radiant Avad, has summoned you to the Palace and —,”
“Summoned?”
Like mercenary. Like a soldier for hire.
There was distance, in summoned.
Perhaps then, she should be grateful — there was no misunderstanding his intentions. But the bitterness in her mouth certainly tasted nothing of the kind.
The royal page seemed to sense her sudden hostility and took a small step back as she climbed to her feet, the scroll clenched in her fist.
“He, uh, Sun King Avad wishes for you to join him in his presence—,”
“Yeah, I get what the Sun King wishes.” Aloy gathered up her weapons with a bit more force than necessary, tossing them onto the back of the docile Strider, its blue veins humming. The page suddenly noticed the tamed machine for the first time (as her appearance had been enough to shock him) and he paled at the sight as she leapt onto its back.
“So, you’re going now?” He squeaked in a small voice.
“Well, if Radiant Avad snaps his fingers, I guess so.”
The frown on her face faltered as she tried to sweep the wisps of datapoints and summons out of her mind in front of this boy who was literally just the messenger.
“Want a ride?”
The dull pounding behind his right eye had started up again as the nobles of his court continued to bicker about land demarcation and taxes.
Avad gently pressed a single long finger into the corner of his eye, adjusting in the seat of his throne so the golden light that seemed to explode from every metal surface didn’t directly blind him.
“We can all agree the Red Raids were bad and wrong, but I have lost a significant source of income without the catching of slaves to support my finances!”
“Peasants are asking what I plan on doing if the crops are low again this year. Have you tried not being poor, I ask?”
“Why shouldn’t we tax the medicine coming in from the Banuk? It’s technically an import!”
“Your Radiance, your guest is here as requested.” Avad blinked rapidly as he realized a guard was addressing him directly. He shifted in his seat and nodded.
“Yes, of course. Send them in.”
The squabbling halted momentarily as Aloy of the Nora strode into the throne room as if she personally had taken part in its construction.
Avad’s heart sunk. Which was quite the opposite of what normally happened when she appeared.
It had been six weeks since she had denied his proposition for a job. A proposition of something he wasn’t entirely sure of, but the way she rejected it, a proposition that came across like a marriage proposal, when his feelings behind it were of . . . appreciation. Of her mind, her skills, and if he was being honest, that she chose to dress in Carja armor as often as she did.
Ersa’s death had been sudden. Swift. Unflinching. He described to Aloy their potential future as a “union” but they had never really thought that far and now, they never would. There was still love felt for Ersa when he asked Aloy to stay, but in truth, they had drifted in recent years. Ersa had never once wavered from her duty, never doubted who she was or what she was meant to do. In the beginning, that had been comforting, a blazing light to follow in the darkness. In the beginning, he would have followed her anywhere, crown be damned. But that was then, and this was now, and time wouldn’t and couldn’t stand still.
Brought together by unimaginable circumstances, theirs had been a coming together of necessity — two people bound by a spark that flared in the face of grief and horror. But now, now, that he had taken the mantle of godhood, and the reality of solidifying a kingdom as well as a pairing into an actual relationship . . . that hadn’t gone over well. Late nights planning escape routes and supply runs turned into arguments about what the duties of Queen Reagent may one day look like.
“What did you expect? You knew what a life with me would mean.”
He would never forget the turn of her head, the lines around her mouth, as she turned away, his question unanswered.
When Aloy first walked into his throne room, it was as though someone had opened a great window somewhere and the dust motes — that he didn’t even know were there — began to clear out. The first light of dawn on skin after a cold night. A lightning strike that relieves the static tension in the shadow of a storm cloud.
Amongst the bloodshed, the great battles for the throne, and the dizzy monotony of daily rule, he had forgotten what a rush of attraction could do to his bones. There was a small spark, a fresh hot fire against white coals, and sometimes he wondered if the huntress felt it too.
He fell for Ersa when he was a boy and now, he was a king first and a man second. But as a man, he could make the idiot mistake of presuming the outlander was being anything more than kind to someone who just lost a dear friend. But, even if it stung more than he cared to admit, he would gladly be a king to her first and a man second.
However, that evening when she stormed into the throne room, she didn’t seem to consider formality at all.
Smelling like a swamp rat cooked in the hot sun, her hair and skin mottled with mud and grime, the scowl she wore looked as if she had been asked to pick the fleas off a fox.
Aloy strode in front of the pack of frightened nobles, threw her arms out wide, and bowed low to the ground.
“You called, Your Holiness?”
Next to him, Marad put his head in his hand.
In the silence that followed her “entrance”, a smattering of applause shattered the shocked stillness.
“My, my, my. The Nora Anointed certainly does live up to her tales!”
The noble Hashid stood from his corner. He had been silent for so long during the nobles’ meeting, Avad had forgotten that he was there — and that he had been the one to call them together in the first place.
Arrow to his heart, Avad loathed Hashid. He was a round, weasley little man with too much love of drink and women to be of any real use to anyone. He had been spoiled after generations of fabulous wealth and comfort. All Carja nobles carried themselves with a bit of arrogance but Hashid lavished in it.
At times, it personally offended Avad that Hashid oversaw such a critical domain. He tried not to roll his eyes as the noble scrambled to his feet and rushed forward to grab Aloy’s hand and shake it vigorously.
“It’s so wonderful to finally meet you in person!” Aloy’s entire body jostled from the force of his hand. “Dervahl and his lot are such ilk to our streets, we could not be more grateful to have them gone! Now if you could just get rid of the rest of the Oseram!”
He laughed, a high pitched noise, and Aloy’s scowl deepened.
“Actually, I have some friends among the Oseram.”
“Yes, yes, as do we all, my dear.” Hashid muttered condescendingly. Without another word, he led her back to his chair and all but pushed her into it. “But that’s not why we’re here.”
If her gaze was as deadly as her arrows, the man would have been dead fifty times over. Her disgust apparent, Aloy lifted her gaze from Hashid to Avad, who was taken aback. Clearly, she blamed him for being here. Avad sighed.
“Yes, I’d love to know why —,”
“My name is Hashid,” he said, bowling on as if she’d never spoken, “and this is Zalas, Wassan, and Issali. We are here to ask you a favor.”
“I thought Avad called me here,” she scowled.
“Ah, quite right. Your king called you, but it was at my behest.”
Aloy ground her teeth so hard it was surprising it was not audible. “He’s not my —,”
“Aloy.” Avad stood. She deserved the full story, from someone not as repugnant as Hashid. It had actually been Marad who had originally publicly voiced the suggestion, but Avad had been mulling it over in his mind for days prior. She was right — he was not her king and could not ask her to behave as such. But things had gotten truly desperate.
Avad sighed again, trying to ignore the burn on his skin from her glare.
“There have been reports of corrupted machines spreading farther and farther south out of Sunfall. Within the last two days, villagers near the Blazon Arch in the Rust Wash have been attacked by these machines and local guards can only do so much.”
“And that’s my land — er, domain,” Hashid interjected. “This is all very bad for business, indeed.”
“Why can’t the soldiers deal with them then?” Aloy frowned.
“It’s too close to Sunfall, Aloy,” Marad said, his voice smooth as a stone beneath the current of a river. “It might be interpreted as an act of aggression by the Shadow Carja and we do not wish to incite another civil war.”
“So send the Vanguard and the other Oseram freebooters, Avad.” Aloy had this way of making the rest of the world disappear by the ferocity in her voice and the command in her eyes. Avad swallowed, shifting through indignance and a fluttering pulse.
“Ah, see, there’s the rub,” Hashid said sadly. “I’m afraid I can’t allow Oseram to freely cross the lake. Dervahl’s antics have upset quite a lot of my people and letting Oseram travel between the Blazon Arch and Brightmarket would send the wrong message.”
Aloy shook her head as if unable to process the bigotry. Then her eyes met his and the anger there suddenly ignited a hot coal within him that had been dormant but present ever since Hashid entered the palace walls. She was furious at him.
Fine, he thought hotly, let’s fight.
“Leave us.” Avad ordered. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Marad open his mouth to advise against this, but in the end bowed with the rest and filed out of the throne room. Their eyes never left each other even after the doors swung shut with a boom.
“This is what you summoned me here for? To be your errand girl?” Aloy snapped, rising out of the chair Hashid had thrown her into.
“That was a ridiculous formality and you know it.” Avad replied sternly. “I would never order you —,”
“But you can order them, Avad!” She threw a hand to the closed door. “Tell Hashid to take his ignorance and shove it up his ass!”
Avad’s fingers clenched around the arms of the throne. “You are not simple enough to consider that as a real option, Aloy. There is a political game here that must be played and with the relations with the Oseram as strenuous as they are, I must act with caution.”
“But you aren’t acting, are you?” Aloy snapped. “You’re too scared to piss off some dainty noble but you won’t send in soldiers, so it’s my job, is it?”
Avad’s eyes narrowed. “I didn’t realize helping innocents had become such a drain on your time.”
“Helping — that’s not what I — ugh!” Fists clenched, she strode up the steps of the throne room as if to attack him and he stood, ready to defend any shred of dignity he had left. “What I’m doing might save the world, Avad! But I can’t do it if I’m constantly being pulled back to babysit your nobles!”
“And what I’m doing will ensure the world as we know it continues on in the event we all somehow miraculously survive your predicted apocalypse!”
Just when he had started shouting, he wasn’t exactly sure but he met her half way and now he had a panting Aloy at his chin.
Her cheek twitched as she fought to find a response. Her gaze caught his crown and her mouth turned into a single straight line.
“You have all this power to change things.” She murmured, close enough to him that she knew he’d hear it. “But you sit here and play these made-up games with rules and traditions and court mandates, and you’re the only one who can change any of it. Are you the Sun King or aren’t you?”
Avad felt the corners of his mouth pull down in a grimace. “Not all of us have the freedom to get what we want.”
He watched as her eyes drew away from his and down to his chin for an instant before another wave of scarlet broke out against her skin, her anger seemingly renewed.
“I’ll clear out your machines, Avad, but after that, I’m leaving Carja lands. For a long time.”
Avad dropped back into his throne, every inch of clothing suddenly too tight. “Best of luck on your holiest of quests, Aloy the Nora.”
She turned away and a gust of hot air came in from the desert, clutching at her hair as she went. Avad the Sun King watched her go until she had passed through the doors and was gone.
She had yet to develop a taste for the foamy Oseram drink, as Erend swore she would, but it warmed something that had gone very cold after her fight with the Sun King. Behind her, a few hunters had broken out into song to accompany the band on the first floor of the Hunter’s Lodge, singing loudly and off-key. The raucous noise along with her second glass of Oseram beer had sufficiently dulled her senses.
Outside, the stark sunlight that seemed to burn differently, burn brighter, across Carja land had melted into a soft purple, a drifting haze that seemed to entice the clouds down from the mountains. Merchants had folded up their stations, pulled their wares down from the silk sheets, and went home, either off the mesa or into the long, winding streets. A gritty breeze climbed up the rocks, skirting the adobe homes and brazen fires. Everything cast a long shadow, as if the day’s weight was slowly peeling away.
The hunters, accompanied by an equally drunk band, had seemingly gotten bored with their previous song, or more likely had forgotten the words, so they began again, with renewed vigor and even more out of tune. But the cloud of noise provided a coverage of anonymity which Aloy gratefully sunk beneath.
She rubbed the lip of her goblet, the noise in the room not loud enough to drown her thoughts. She should be out. In the desert, tracking down Helis, finding Sylens. Uncovering more secrets of Zero Dawn. At the very least, protecting the villagers at the Blazon Arch. But instead, she was here, feeling small and terribly sorry for herself. Rost would never have let her wallow like this.
But Rost wasn’t here, here in the Lodge. Here anywhere. He wouldn’t understand Zero Dawn, he couldn’t fathom a man like Sylens — all the things that Sylens knew. He, for all his greatness, wouldn’t understand how she came from a woman like Elisabet Sobek. What it meant to be her clone, a thousand years into a future no one ever expected to witness. What it meant to carry this weight that was so heavy she couldn’t put it into words.
She didn’t hear the footsteps until they were right behind her.
“So I heard you met with Avad today.” The Sun Hawk, with her jet black hair and famous smirk, appeared from nowhere and, unprompted, slid into the stool next to her. Aloy blinked and sat up straighter, trying to swim up through the quagmire in her mind, as Talanah ordered another round.
“I thought you’d be out on that contract for the rest of the week,” Aloy said as the barmen dropped off her pint.
The hunter shrugged as she took a sip from her goblet. “You’d be correct . . . if I was just any hunter. Had that baby bagged in two days and took an extra day to soak in a hot spring. A contract I offered to take you along with, by the way.”
“I know you did.” Aloy scowled into her drink. “But I’m this close to finding something on Helis, I can feel it.”
“Which is why I didn’t push you too hard about it,” Talanah glanced sideways at her. “But, in hindsight, maybe I should have. Do you wanna talk about what happened with the court today?”
Aloy quickly took a large gulp of her drink, shaking her head. “Nope. I don’t want to even think about the court, or Hashid, or that stupid Sun King . . .”
Talanah nodded slowly. “Well, Hashid would drive even the most pious of priests off a cliff, but I don’t think you’d nearly tear off Avad’s head over Hashid.”
She reached out and put a hand over Aloy’s drink, forcing her gaze away from the rim.
“Aloy, tell me what’s really going on.”
The compassion in her friend’s eyes caught something in her throat and she had to look away.
“Whatever it is, it must be real bad if it’s got you drinking like Erend,” Talanah grinned gently.
Aloy snorted. “Oh, all of these are going on his tab.”
“I think that would just make him even more proud of you.”
Aloy snickered and Talanah smiled.
“So either you’ll tell me what happened or I’m just going to start a rumor that you tried to assassinate our king.”
Her own smile faded as she mulled over what exactly had set her off. Where to begin?
I feel like I’m getting nowhere.
Every step I make towards solving the world’s mysteries, there’s always something worse around the corner.
I’m not any closer to understanding Helis or the Shadow Carja than when all this started.
I don’t know how I’m supposed to save everyone.
Aloy swallowed. “It’s just . . . all this noble nonsense, it’s just a distraction.”
“Maybe that’s what you need,” Talanah said after a moment. “A distraction. My father liked to say, ‘if you’re trying to tunnel through a mountain, the mountain will still be there after a good night’s sleep’.”
“But that’s just it. I can’t sleep.” Aloy pushed her glass aside and burrowed her palm into between her eyes. “I feel like I haven’t slept for days.”
Something caught in the back of her throat, a sense of total and overwhelming failure crashing into her like an avalanche. She suddenly wished she had gone back into the desert instead of drinking like a fool under the bright lights of Meridian.
She sniffed and released her forehead before Talanah could say anything. “The fight with Avad . . . it was . . . I don’t understand him. I feel like I can trust him with my life one minute, and then the next he’s this entirely other person. Maybe I’m just not meant to be friends with people like him. I’m not meant for his world. I’ve always been better on my own.”
I don’t know who he is. Really is. And it’s my fault thinking I did.
“Well, take it from someone who has spent more than enough time with those idiot nobles,” Talanah said, giving her time to collect herself by being suddenly interested in fishing out a speck from her goblet. “If you don’t fit in with them, you probably still have some semblance of a soul.”
“But then what does that mean for Avad?” Aloy asked, unable to help herself. “For all those innocent people who look to him as their king and their god?”
She watched Talanah frown at her out of the corner of her eye. The Sunk Hawk sighed and unbuckled her helmet. Her hair was sweat-slick, sticking to her temple and the nape of her neck. She sported a bruise behind where her helmet clasped, but Aloy knew better than to fuss over something like that. Talanah took her glasp out of the bow of her hair and the black strands fell around her shoulders like lace. There had only been ever a handful of times Aloy had seen her friend without her helmet and it was usually for a diplomatic party. But this was different. Talanah looked tired, world-weary from a day of hunting.
“Avad is many things and he is definitely not infallible, but people don’t need to be perfect to lead.” Talanah shook loose the hair that had clumped together beneath her helmet, staring at the ground. “My father was one of the best men I know, but he was also wrong a lot of the time. I know you’re not telling me everything, Aloy, about your mission and that’s okay. I just don’t want you to think we won’t be around when the time comes.”
Aloy felt her face grow warm. No one had ever promised her something like that.
But you don’t know what you’re asking. What you believe in. Who you believe in.
Something jostled her shoulder. Talanah grinned at her with an impish smile.
“Besides, you seem to fit in well with these chuffs.” She jerked her head over to the intoxicated man loudly singing the same verse for the third time. “Hunters and drunkards. Not sure what that says about you, but hey, I don’t think we’re all bad.”
“Not at all.” Aloy smiled softly. “Not at all.”