Archive of Our Own

The bud is such a brilliant red that it attracts his eyes from a great distance. To a stranger it would not be so; the whole of this land is washed in scarlet, bursting with a profusion of blooms and spores.

But he is a native of this land, and to him each shade of red is as distinct as light from dark. When first he opened his compound eyes he was dazzled by it, the whole spectrum of colors comprising his world, signifying in their shades danger, sustenance, birth, death, every facet of life itself.

The man—yet young in spirit, though his weathered exoskeleton shows signs of age—spends his day following that most vibrant shade. The scent it carries to him is rich with promise, the deepest and most concentrated smell of rot he has yet come across. He knows not what it portends, but knows to his core it is important.

The day’s light is fading when he crawls from the enveloping swamp’s shore to the great root from which the bud hangs. The buzzing of insects on the air grows quiet, and the landscape falls into indistinct shadow, but that vermillion growth glows with its own light, drawing him irresistibly nearer.

He rears up to his full height, many arms reaching for the precious thing, his mandibles clicking in eagerness. As he touches its surface it trembles, motes of glowing pollen drifting from the furled petals, and then all at once it opens, an explosion of light, and something warm and heavy falls into his waiting arms.

It is a babe, human in shape. A pale four-limbed larva with a shock of red hair and eyes glittering with an unmistakable gold.

His many hands tremble with the realization of what he holds. On instinct he shifts his body to something like in semblance, something that might be recognized as father. He molds his mandibles to become soft lips that he presses against the blessed creature’s head, overcome with tenderness. A little hand reaches for him, five fingers wrapping around one of his own. Those gold eyes gaze up at him solemnly, silently.

“Oh, little child,” he rasps, voice rough and out of practice in this form. “Have you been abandoned as well?”

He takes her home, swaddled in the fallen petals of the bloom that bore her.

He has been living in the Street of Sages, deep in the primordial swamp, but soon finds it is no place to raise a babe. The waters that birthed him and the clouds of poison hanging above their surface are soothing to him, but the child’s flesh is of the body of the Goddess, and it reacts differently. Her body resists the rot, and it too easily becomes a sickness within her. She twists and cries in his arms when the scarlet liquid touches her skin. There are too many others around, as well: as soon as he returns with her a great swarm begins to emerge, pouring from the swamp’s far reaches and the entrance of the old crystal mine. His kinfolk cannot lay eyes on her without wishing to touch the holy child, born in the Great Mother’s image. She dislikes the profusion of hands upon her, the constant chittering. When the child’s cries do not cease and she refuses to sleep, the man knows he must move elsewhere.

He goes to the shore, makes his way across dry land to the outskirts of Sellia, where the bones of a tiny shack still stand. The remnants of a guard’s outpost, perhaps, or else the makeshift home of one of the war’s shattered survivors. It’s long abandoned now, in any case. It’s small, but he has no need of room, and placed between the town of Sellia and its great gate to the south few should wander here. A quiet, safe place to raise his daughter.

He has no idea of how to care for a child of this nature, but he is nothing if not a man of faith, and holds that it was no accident that the babe was revealed to him. The proteinaceous fluid his body is capable of producing is meant to feed his own kind, and he has not been gravid in so long he is not sure he can coax himself to release it—but when he brings her to his chest she instinctively latches, and he feels the liquid come forth from within him, his body molding itself to her need for nourishment. He sends a grateful prayer to the Goddess, shaking with relief, and now certain that he has somehow been chosen for this task.

His secretions seem to be sufficient to sustain her. She is, after all, in her own way a child of rot, however different in appearance she may be from his kin. The girl—Mary, he calls her—grows quickly, and sleeps easily in their quiet little house. The man’s own skin begins to dry and itch for want of the swamp’s moisture, but he endures it happily. His faith has always been strong, his intellect keen, but never did he envision such a great honor might someday come to him. Having no need of rest as she does, he holds little Mary each night, simply gazing at her. He was never held like this by his own Mother, and assuming the opposite role now softens something deep inside his heart. This child may have been left behind as he was, but she would never be alone and unloved, forced to fend for herself in a new and strange world. He will nurture this tender bud until it opens, until she grows to such strength and beauty that Malenia can no longer deny her.

And then perhaps his daughter will entreat the Goddess, on his behalf and for the sake of all of her children who so long for her love.

After a while he begins to weaken. Ordinarily he can comfortably last several days without nourishment, but his needs are greater now that he is feeding another from his body, and he has stayed here for too long, loath to leave his infant unattended. His stores of food have run out, and he must fetch more if he is to sustain them both.

Bowing in prayer, he weaves a tangle of fungus and chitinous threads around her body, hiding her from view. “You must be quiet, little one,” he whispers. She is asleep, and he prays that she remains so. “I will return soon.”

He heads back toward the swamp, skirting the buildings of Sellia so as to avoid detection. He slips with a relieved sigh back into the waters, his body reverting to its more natural form. He follows the shoreline, avoiding the center of the swamp where a remnant of Malenia’s army patrols, hostile to the rot that should rightly be their master.

On the western shore he finds his quarry: a great crow has been struck down, a volley of arrows protruding from its head, one sunk deep into its eye. Its body is now being torn at by several small dogs, its ribs nearly stripped clean, but there is still good meat in its legs. He skitters forward, shooing the dogs away, and gratefully descends upon the animal, his mandibles tearing deep into the flesh and cutting to the bone in seconds. Once he has eaten his fill he tears away several more strips of meat to bring home, to maintain his strength as he feeds his dear daughter. The meat will grow even sweeter by the time he needs to feed again, ripening with time and the air’s warmth.

He holds the food against his body with his smaller hands and slips back into the swamp. He is heading back the way he came, focused on returning home as quickly as possible, when he catches the scent.

It is unmistakable, the same as it was on that day that so recently changed the course of his life. At first he simply thinks he is imagining it, drawn back into the memory in his eagerness to get back to Mary, but it grows stronger still, and he lifts his head clear of the water to look—and yes, he can scarcely believe it, but there on a curling branch protruding from the rot is another bud, that same brilliant scarlet in color, beckoning to him with that same irresistible call.

It is deeper into the swamp than he would ordinarily venture, but he crawls toward it as quickly as he can, keeping his eye out for patrolling knights. The bud is already beginning to shake, threatening to open, and when he scales the branch and grasps it the petals burst apart, the infant inside already wailing the moment she’s free.

He gathers her into his many arms, trying to soothe her, still on the lookout for danger. He holds her tight to his front, making his way nearer to the shore, nearer to home.

Blessedly he makes it back without incident, though he has to cover the child’s mouth to muffle her insistent cries. When he arrives at the shack her wailing awakens Mary, and at last he assumes his human shape again and takes them both into his arms, drawing them to his chest, weeping openly in wonder and joy.

Maureen continues to be louder than her older sister, more insistent in her hunger and in greater need of soothing. Her noises are not always unhappy, however; she babbles contentedly when fed and exclaims in wordless laughter whenever the man smiles at her.

His heart feels swollen in his chest when he looks at them, and he devotes himself entirely to their care. Finding Maureen, however, has also impressed upon him the true weight of his responsibility. He had thought little Mary a singular miracle, but that was clearly not the case. There might be more buds out there still—why should there not be, when the strength of the Goddess's bloom had transformed the continent and given rise to his people?—and it was imperative that none of her children be endangered, or left to fall into the wrong hands. He shudders to think of one of his girls being taken in by soldiers, taught to hate their progenitor and the rot within their very selves. He cannot allow it to happen.

Thus he forces himself to leave his shack more often, traveling deeper into the swamp to search for buds. He contacts two of his kinfolk who hatched from his body long ago, extensions of his own form, and bids them guard the house while he is away.

In time his searching bears fruit, and he discovers two more precious buds: wild Amy and quiet, thoughtful Polyanna.

Four beautiful children. It is beyond his wildest imaginings. All his time goes into caring for them, his study of sorceries and incantations falling to the wayside. They grow larger and stronger each day, more self reliant, able to crawl and then clumsily walk. Small teeth emerge into their mouths, and they begin to eat meat that he chews for them: just as well, as four is the most offspring he can feed from his body at once, and he is beginning to feel the toll of it. Their red hair grows longer and thicker, their movements more sure, and day by day their resemblance to their noble mother grows. He bursts with pride.

He has kept them safe, and helped them grow, and those eyes—surely the same shade Malenia’s had once been—look up at him with trust and love.

It is then, when they are properly becoming children instead of babes, and he thinks his days of infant care are behind him, that he finds the final bud.

It is larger than the rest, tendrils of glittering pollen escaping it, seeming to ooze with red light. It sits at the edge of that island in the swamp’s center where he dares not tread, where Malenia’s men have made their camp.

He has no choice but to approach it, though. This bud beckons to him like no other, and he knows the child inside will be truly special.

It opens in a flurry of pollen rising like sparks, and a single butterfly is perched atop the child’s head. Its red wings are ragged with rot at the edges: a sacred relic of the Goddess’s very body. A sign, surely, of the grandeur of this little one’s fate. She makes a grab for the butterfly as it flutters weakly away, and when this fails, latches onto the man’s hand instead, and turns her strangely keen gaze to him.

She is smaller than the others, but her eyes are such a brilliant gold that it shocks him, and her tiny grip on his hand is firm. He stares into those incomparable eyes, that young yet determined face. Such a powerful will to live, despite her tiny frame.

With each of his children he thought his ability to love had found its limit, and always he felt his heart stretch ever deeper, his life expanding effortlessly to accommodate each new addition. He feels that expansion occur yet again, now, a new young vine wrapping its way around his soul. He is immensely grateful, suddenly, to have another newborn. He will yet cradle another tiny thing, and hold her against his skin. With the other children growing, it will be like those early days with Mary, a single babe in his arms, one set of eyes to gaze into. It is an incomparable intimacy he did not realize he was beginning to miss. He holds her close in his arms. He has a fifth child, now, and he is very glad.

His reverie is interrupted by an arrow whistling past his head. His arms multiply to hold her closer and he hisses in alarm. From behind a great rotten stump emerges the enormous silhouette of a man: one of the high commanders, waving a great halberd. All around him the ghostly shades of soldiers materialize, brandishing crossbows. He is pelted with arrows, and hears the commander shouting, sees more reinforcements coming.

Carrying such precious cargo, he dares not even rear back in retaliation. He simply flees, sliding into the water and praying that the babe will be able to withstand it. He carves through the swamp in a different direction than he came from, in case they follow him—he cannot risk leading them back to his children.

At last he surfaces and crawls onto a dead stump. The arrows have long stopped and the shouts faded, and now looking back towards the swamp’s center he sees no one. Surely that is as expected; the men would not venture this deep into the mire in pursuit of a single individual. He does not think they spied the babe in his arms. He has likely overreacted, really—only he has so many other lives depending on him now, he simply cannot afford to take risks.

The child coughs weakly, and he turns his attention to her. Her skin is red and irritated, and she continues to cough, red liquid dribbling from her mouth, but she is yet breathing, still putting up a fight. Of course she will be fine; she is strong. He hides all but two of his arms away, attempting to soothe her.

He stays upright and human as he turns back to the eastern shore, gently bouncing her in his arms and patting her back as she splutters. “Ah, my little flower, don’t worry,” he tells her. “You’ll take to it yet.”

His other daughters are fascinated by their new baby sister. Mary insists on holding her at once, and Maureen delights in making her laugh. His small house fills with noise and happiness.

Little Millicent mostly recovers from her submergence in the swamp, though she still coughs more frequently than his other children had, and patches of gray appear under her fingernails. It isn’t clear to him if the swamp truly caused these things, or if it was the special power he sensed in her: he knows she harbors the rot more deeply within than the others, and has the potential to bloom more beautifully. Yet, like her sisters, she has inherited her mother’s dual nature. Part of her resists the rot, and so it weakens her rather than strengthens. It is a battle they will each have to fight, a choice they must make, in due time. All he can do is guide them down the proper path.

Fatherhood creates unanticipated changes in his life. For the first time, he has regular contact with the outside world, those not of his kind. His daughters need clothing, bedding, things to play with. He makes due at first with rags recovered from corpses of men taken by the swamp, but with five rapidly growing children this quickly becomes insufficient. There is a merchant off the western shore; in human guise, the man approaches him, trading fresh meat for bolts of cloth and whatever small trinkets he has on offer. Sometimes there is another merchant with him, stopping there on their travels along the great highway, or sometimes a lone Tarnished warrior willing to part with spare clothing in exchange for knowledge of Sellian sorceries.

Taking a name has never been necessary among his kindred; the body one is speaking with matters little to them, and their means of communication are far more direct. Now, though, among humans he becomes Sage Gowry once more, as he had been in his youth in Sellia.

He sews garments for his daughters using needles from his own back, stitching pieces of cloth together with his sticky threads. In time they all come to dislike meat that is soft and putrid as he prefers it, and so learns to procure fresh cuts, hanging the excess to dry or preserving it in brine. He finds out what sorts of things entertain them. As a young larva he never played, and has no sense for such things, but he learns that bright colors delight them, as well as any object that can be thrown. A handful of rainbow stones keeps them occupied for hours on end.

It is a necessity for any denizen of Caelid to learn to fight, and his children have a great legacy to live up to in that regard. He is no warrior himself, preferring the use of magic in all its forms for protection, but nonetheless his daughters require some instruction if they are to become the swordsmen they were born to be. He starts them off with sticks, young as they are, and awkwardly models some stances—he feels terribly imbalanced in this illusory form, his own wooden staff precarious in the grasp of only two hands.

Even at their tender ages, though, his children easily surpass him, latent instincts revealing themselves in graceful movements whose confidence belies their small frames. He lets them spar inexpertly together; they can better learn their bodies’ strength without his inelegance getting in their way.

They grow, as all living things must. It happens gradually, imperceptibly, the passage of time unmarked by molting or the growth of new limbs.

Yet all at once, it seems, his tiny daughters have become long-limbed and willful, adolescents on the cusp of womanhood. It is now, he senses, that his guidance will be most formative. They are old enough to understand certain matters, and their eyes are turned to the future, grasping for purpose and power.

To reach their full potential, they must continue to grow into the image of their mother—the full image. If they are to be envoys on behalf of all the Great Mother’s children, they should have both great determination in battle and great faith in the Order to come. They must be something Malenia can recognize, and through them recognize also her numberless forgotten kin.

Their faith must be a beacon so bright it cannot fail to draw her eye.

He brings them fully into the fold, teaching them the sacred incantations, impressing upon them the precepts of the religion. The Aeonian butterflies he long ago taught them to regard as holy, an easy lesson as they have always delighted in watching their flight. The girls have attracted them in great numbers since early childhood—naturally, they wish to return to the Goddess’s flesh.

Now, though, he teaches them of the creatures’ life cycle: their birth in rotting flesh, the liquefication inside the chrysalis, the rebirth as something greater, and the return to carrion when it is time for the cycle to begin anew. “Through this cycle all life is sustained. Change, ascension, the death which is life-giving: that is inherent in every living being’s nature.” He shows them where decaying wood provides a bed to fungus, points out the tiny insects carving out a home within.

To his great pride, they come to truly love the land of their birth—all except Millicent. While her sisters joyfully explore the swamp’s edge, savoring the soft spongy feel of the shore beneath their feet, Millicent hangs back, wary of venturing near the water. While they grow within the faith, she seems to resist its lessons. And most of all, she resents the rot’s growing hold on her body.

Its visible manifestations have increased in all of them as they aged. Mary’s left eye is already overgrown, and the others each have pale patches on their faces that portend the same fate. The gray spots that appeared on the infant Millicent’s fingers have expanded, and her right arm is now dry and ashen up to the elbow. She dislikes its appearance and resents its impact on her training, for her fingers crack and ache when she curls them around her sword’s hilt.

When the man called Gowry looks at her, he sees only the young Goddess: for was it not her right arm that was first taken? Yet Millicent cannot see that the burden she bears is also a blessing.

Despite this difficulty, they are becoming true warriors, all. He manages to procure weapons for them through his merchant’s contacts, old and rusty things, but it matters not. In his daughters’ hands they become deadly.

He arranges for further instruction to hone their instincts. A ragged Tarnished warrior passes through in search of General Radahn; Gowry persuades him to provide instruction in return for information. The route to Castle Redmane is rife with dangers, but much may be avoided if one knows the path to tread. He knows, too, how to stave off the scarlet rot’s effects. He did not want to resort to such things, but Millicent’s complaints grew so frequent he learned how to make a medicine out of young buds which grew in a certain abandoned church. It helped her enough to continue her training, and earned him her gratitude, though its effect was small and temporary. He did not think it too much of a sin: did not Malenia, too, seek out ways to slow the rot within her? Did she not wear her golden prosthetics even as she burst into bloom?

With these offerings of knowledge and healing he pays the warrior, who helps refine his daughters’ inherent prowess. Under his tutelage their attacks become more precise, their retreats more strategic. Millicent, especially, flourishes with human guidance. Soon she is spinning so fluidly, so tirelessly that she is the very image of her mother come again, dancing with blade in hand.

He wonders if it’s wise to leave the man alive, having seen Malenia’s heirs and their power, but as he insists on seeking out other dangers, there is little point. He will soon be crushed by the general. In the end he sends him safely on his way.

It is good for his children to learn from one more like in appearance to themselves, but it is equally important that they recognize, in essence, that they are most similar to Gowry and his kin.

In their earliest years he mostly kept to his human form around them, hoping to provide some comfort for the young things seeking mammalian features in their caretaker. Now, though, at this crucial point in their development, it is imperative that they take to heart certain principles. This illusion he’s cloaked himself in yet hides his inner nature, the very nature they must learn to embrace within themselves.

To that end, he ceases to hide it. He first lets them witness when he needs to molt, and then when his current, aged vessel gives out entirely and he must take another. “There can be no rebirth without death,” he tells them, flexing the limbs of his new young body, admiring its shining plates of chitin. “That is the nature of rot, and only through accepting its truth do we become eternal.”

The older girls are fascinated by this lesson, exclaiming at the ease with which his consciousness passed to the new form. Amy and Maureen are eagerly asking if they can learn to do the same, talking over each other in a barrage of questions. “You look very nice, Father,” Polyanna tells him earnestly, brushing a shed spine off his back.

But Millicent has not stopped staring at his old body, curled up and still. She kneels beside it in the dust and reaches out to touch its worn face.

“Now we must honor this old vessel’s service,” he says, and Millicent jerks back in alarm as he descends upon the body, tearing into its soft underbelly with gratifyingly strong mandibles. “Will you share this meal with me, and share the life that once was mine?” The others readily agree, but Millicent makes a choked sound and stays back, refusing to eat.

“Millicent, my dear girl, what is the matter?”

“That—” her voice shakes. “That was my father.”

He tries to put a reassuring hand on her shoulder, but she shrinks away. “Yes, but the particular vessel matters not. I am still here, and the form I once inhabited can be part of you as well.”

“But… how do I know it’s really you?” She eyes the opened remains. “Those hands held me when I was a baby. And now, this new form..”

“My dear, the body that held you has long been shed. I did not wish to frighten you at the time, but this is far from the first time I have taken a new host.”

“Oh.” She still does not look pleased.

“This body descends from my first form, as did the last. It is but a piece of that original being given new life. As my flesh was passed down, so now is my spirit. All things must pass away and become new.”

She nods. “I’m sorry, Father, only… it discomforts me. I don’t think I should like to inhabit some other form—to see my own corpse—to eat of it!“

“It is the way of things,” he says.

He would like to reassure her that she is not Kindred, and so will not have to undergo the changing of hosts—but of course it is her fate, as Malenia’s blood and heir to rot, to one day blossom and be reborn. She will have to overcome these aversions if she is to achieve it.

At last, though still unhappy, she takes her place beside her sisters and eats. She gags at the first bite, but manages the rest silently. When next he looks at her there is a tear rolling down her cheek. The other girls are exchanging glances over her head. How strange, that Millicent is the only one who struggles so.

He remembers the way she coughed and spluttered after emerging from Aeonian Swamp, such a strong will, such resistance for one so young. You’ll take to it yet, he told her. But even now, despite his instruction, despite her undeniably great destiny, it seems she still has not.

She is nearly a woman now. She is running out of time.

The world proceeds through its cycles, the swamp rising and receding again with the weather. His daughters are grown tall and strong.

Mary is accosted by a Cleanrot Knight one day, as she returns from wandering through the wilds as she is wont to do. He learns of it only afterwards, when she returns with a great scythe in her hands, panting with exertion but alight with the glow of victory.

“He had no right to carry it,” she tells her sisters as they admire the weapon. “As he denied his lady’s true power, it was only fitting he be defeated by one of her heirs.”

For he has told them by now of their parentage, and of their great destiny. They were raised with a great admiration for Malenia, and they were each drawn to her in their own way, asking him about her prowess in battle, her golden limbs, her legendary wings. By the time they were old enough to learn she is their mother, they were unsurprised.

They all yearn to meet her. He tells them what he knows: that she was returned to her brother’s Haligtree, greatly weakened by the bloom of rot that birthed them, and rests there even now.

Some of his people followed her there, trailing surreptitiously after her faithful knight. Most perished on the journey, overcome by biting cold, picked off by predators, or slain by the knight Finlay’s own hand. A few, however, arrived at the Haligtree and have settled somewhere within it. He can feel them now at the very edge of his consciousness, distant though they may be, their individual beings ever threaded together as surely as fungal roots beneath the earth.

His daughters are made of sturdier stuff than his kin, less dependent on warmth and moisture, and significantly less likely to be attacked by humans. It will be a long and difficult journey, but he is certain they are up to the task.

He will miss them very much—cannot imagine returning to a life without them here—but there soon comes a time he can put it off no longer. Their fate is far more important than his comfort, so he gathers them near to urge them on their way.

“When you feel ready, certain in both your courage and faith, you must go to the Haligtree. Present yourselves before Malenia, and pledge yourselves to her. When she blossoms into true godhood, you will ascend with her, and become scarlet valkyries. Such is your destiny as her daughters.”

“I am ready now, Father,” Mary says, standing resolutely with the halo scythe at her side.

“As am I,” adds Amy. She, too, has begun to range widely of late, restless and searching for battle. Her twin Nox blades are sheathed at her belt, proof that his advice not to disturb Sellia’s wardens went unheeded.

“Well, I wouldn’t want to be left behind,” Maureen adds in agreement.

“I will miss you terribly, Father,” says Polyanna. “But I would like very much to meet our mother as well. And we’ll return someday, won’t we? Once Malenia takes her place as goddess, surely the rest of her family will be well rewarded.”

“I hope so, my dear. There is nothing I long for more fervently.”

“I wish to meet Malenia too,” Milicent says weakly, from her place sitting slumped against the wall. “Only I fear I’m in no state to make such a journey.”

Indeed, she is not faring well. Despite depleting his entire stock of preserving boluses, she has been barely able to train for the past month, and spends most days resting, her body struggling to contain the rotting sickness within. Unfortunately, the absence of movement only seems to make her sicker; she has always fared the best when wielding her blade. Even the gold of her eyes—both still intact, while all her sisters have now lost at least one—is beginning to dim, and he fears her will to persist may soon falter.

“You’d be perfectly capable of making it if you’d stop resisting the rot,” says Amy.

“Amy!” Maureen chides her, hitting her shoulder.

“What? It’s true. You think I don’t know how it feels? That wild writhing under your skin, the whispers. Listen to them, Millicent. You’re denying your greatest strength.”

“I’ve told you before, I can’t,” Millicent replies.

They’ve had this argument before, too many times. Amy once struggled in a manner similar to Millicent, the scarlet rot frightening her with its strength, but she overcame it long before becoming seriously ill, finding inner balance through her flowing swords. She has no patience for Millicent’s inability to do the same.

She towers over the crouching Milicent, untamed hair obscuring her eyeless face, clothes splattered with the dried blood of some unlucky creature. “Of course you can, you’re the Goddess of Rot’s daughter. Your only problem is that you’re also a coward.”

Millicent lowers her head and sobs.

“Amy, stop it, you’re not helping her.” Maureen makes to drag her away. Amy shrugs off her arms but steps back from Millicent.

“No,” he agrees. “You solve nothing by fighting amongst yourselves. Amy, you know Millicent has her own battle to face. I’ll not have you insult her. We are a family.”

“Yes, Father,” she says, and then mutters, “I’m sorry,” not sounding terribly sincere.

Millicent stays silent but for her crying, face still hidden in her left hand. Her right arm hangs limply at her side: she can barely move it now.

He longs to comfort her, but first there is a more pressing task. He leaves the shack and gestures to the older girls to follow. Once out of Millicent’s earshot, he stops and turns to them.

“Leave us,” he tells the four sisters. “Leave Caelid and go to the Haligtree, if you are so eager. I will tend to Millicent until she is able to follow.”

“Father, if you wish us to wait—”

“No. I will not hold you back from your fate. If it is in your hearts to go, then go you must.”

Mary, solemn as ever, steps forward first. “I will not forget you, Father, and I will not fail you. Thank you for all you’ve done for me.” She embraces him.

Maureen and Amy come next, with quicker and warmer embraces. “I love you,” Maureen tells him. “We’ll see justice done, for you and all your people.”

“I’ll fight in your name,” Amy tells him simply.

At last Polyanna comes forward, tears welling in her remaining eye. “Oh, Father,” she says, throwing herself into his arms. “I hate to leave you, even though I know I must. I expect I’ll be quite different when I come back.”

“I’ll love you just the same, my dear.”

She pulls back. “Father, may I see your true form one last time?” He obliges, dispelling the illusion. She reaches up to cradle his face, and he leans down so she can press a kiss to his head. “Take good care of little Millicent. And take care of yourself! I love you.”

“I love you too, Polyanna.” He can feel a shiver run through his body plates, his smaller arms reaching toward her involuntarily. He is much less able to conceal his emotions in this form. It would not do to make too much a show of his grief, though. He will be all right without them; this is, after all, what he has raised them for. He steps deliberately away from her. “I love all of you very much. It has been the greatest honor of my life to be your father. Go and meet the Goddess, now. Become who you were born to be.”

Millicent has stopped crying when he reenters the shack, though her eyes are still red and swollen. He sits beside her and takes her into his arms.

“They’re gone, aren’t they?”

“Yes.”

She sniffles. “I’m sorry, Father. I’ve failed you, and them, I wasn’t strong enough—”

“Millicent,” he says, cutting her off. “I love your sisters dearly, and believe great destinies await each of them—but from the moment I found you, I knew that you had the most potential of all. You struggle the most because the rot flourishes most strongly within you. Like your mother, you must endure its ravages before it blooms.”

“Father, I—I do not want to let it ravage me,” Millicent says. “It hurts, and when it surges within me I feel as though I will lose myself entirely. Amy is right, I am a coward. It frightens me.”

“You will not lose yourself in any sense that matters, my dear,” he says. “You were once an infant; have you lost anything by becoming a woman?”

“That’s different,” she says. “When my kind grow we do not change in form. We don’t create new limbs or organs; we don’t change our skins or bodies. I’m not used to transformation the way you are. And when the rot calls… it feels like it will take over not just my body, but my very soul. I don’t think you can understand what that’s like. Perhaps only Mother would know.”

“Yes,” he agrees. “I think this must be very much like what she endured. But Millicent, my dear, think of what happened when she released the rot within her: you were born. Whenever the scarlet rot takes, it always begets new life. This is what you must understand to overcome this fear of losing yourself. With the death of what was comes the birth of something new and glorious.”

She goes very still in his arms.

“But it does take death,” she says slowly. “Always death… oh, why didn’t I realize it. Is that what you wish for us?” She pulls away from him. “Have you sent them all to die?”

Her resistance must run deeper than he thought; he did not expect that point to have escaped her.

“And to be reborn. Each one of them knows and accepts it.”

“They accept what you’ve told them,” she says, voice beginning to break. “Did any of us ever truly have a choice?”

“Millicent, all I wish is for you to reach your full potential. To realize your destiny.”

She does not respond. He tries to stroke her back, to soothe her, but she is sobbing again, and shying away from him, recoiling from his touch.

At last it becomes clear that there is nothing he can do to comfort her. Her grief is inconsolable, and his own heart, already heavy from the absence of his other children, cannot take this rejection from the one remaining. He leaves her alone.

It is at such times, when grief and loneliness weigh upon him, that faith becomes a necessity. That is precisely where his faith began: in those painful first days of existence, when his kin crawled motherless to the shore. They were many in number, more intimately connected to one another than most species—but still they looked upward for their maker and met only an empty red sky.

He goes now to the shrine within the crystal tunnel, his people’s earliest place of organized worship. Small though it is, he still feels the Goddess’s presence most strongly here. He vividly remembers those early days in the wake of the abandonment, when he had gathered here the lost and disorganized flock, encouraged them not to lose hope.

He kneels before the altar and stares up at the carving. It depicts the Goddess as his people most wish to see her, in the form of the Great Mother, many-limbed and bearing a clutch of young kindred on her elongated belly. Where her back should bear spines great petals extend instead, and her mottled face wears an expression of infinite tenderness as she cradles her brood, her wings curled protectively around her body.

He begins with the traditional Prayer for Guidance.

Great Goddess, giver of life,
Hear thy children’s prayers.
We cherish the blessing of rot,
We await thy coming ascension.
Why now has thy voice fallen silent?
For what sin are thy people forsaken?

O Goddess, what is thy will?

He stays there for a long while, head bowed. “Malenia,” he says at last. “Great Mother, I know not how to help Millicent. I cannot understand how it feels to resist the rot, to see it as a curse. Perhaps that is our great failure. Lend me your understanding, that I might guide her well.” The sound of Millicent’s crying remains in his mind, and the things she said—looking for reassurance, accepting none. Everything he did seemed only to hurt her.

“If this is the path she must follow, why must it bring such pain? And if she is meant only to wither away in sickness, why bring her into being at all?”

He clasps his hands before her in supplication. “Goddess, perhaps you feel no love for our kind, but have mercy on your daughter who bears your likeness. Do not let her perish fruitlessly, but help her to be born again in glory. That is all your faithful servant wishes.”

He lapses into silence once more, reaching out with wordless longing the way he might to connect with one of his own—but nothing receives him. The stone idol stands inert, flickering in the candlelight. The voice of the Goddess, as always, is difficult to hear. Nonetheless, he will not stop listening for it, as these candles will yet burn as long as his kind persists.

At length he leaves the tunnel and emerges back into the swamp. He looks out over the remains of the great Aeonian bloom and its aftermath, his home.

Millicent was correct: Malenia had been afraid too. All of this, the lives of all his kin and their birthplace itself, had come from a split second decision, made when she was at the very brink. He’s heard how the soldiers spoke of her, particularly the Redmanes who sometimes venture out from their castle in search of a fight. They say her pride was her undoing, that at last, unable to stand against Radahn’s strength, she cast her control away. They spoke of it as if it were a bad thing, of course, as if her lack of restraint were a weakness. But they were quite right that it had taken the threat of defeat to turn the Blade of Miquella into the Goddess of Rot.

It was, in the end, her will to victory that led her to accept the rot. The absolute unwillingness to surrender. And was it not that same will he saw burning behind Millicent’s eyes, even as a child?

That will was bent on resistance to Malenia’s disease—until she was pushed to her very limit. It was critical that she was in a situation where to fail to accept the rot’s power would be intolerable. Only then could that powerful drive turn from staving off the scarlet rot to finally embracing it.

He does not want to cause Millicent pain, or frighten her further. But what are pain and fear for, after all, if not survival? Unappealing as the thought is, perhaps what Millicent needs now is desperation.

What Malenia wanted was to win. What Millicent wants, he knows, is to be free.

By the time he returns to the shack, she has calmed herself down.

“Father,” she greets him, looking relieved. “I’m sorry I pushed you away earlier. The rot writhes, and I was unkind. Do you have any more preserving boluses? I would feel so much better, if I could only take the edge off the sickness.”

She is glad to see him, he realizes, because she needs him. For all her anger earlier, she still trusts him. What she fears above all else is to be left alone to face her disease.

Realizing that fear is what is what will push her to the edge.

“I’m afraid I have no more sacramental buds,” he tells her. “Come to the church with me, and we’ll pick some.”

She struggles to her feet. “I’m—not sure how far I can walk—”

“I’ll help you.” He comes to her side, guiding her left arm around his shoulders.

“Thank you.” She leans heavily against him. “I’m sorry again, for earlier.”

He suspects this is not entirely truthful. All that anger and indignation from earlier cannot have simply vanished. No, she is only afraid, and reaching out to him for protection. Her hand shakes against his shoulder. He tries to keep his own steady.

He casts a veil of invisibility over them both as they approach Sellia. He knows where to tread to avoid detection. As they make their way up the great stairs to the cliffs beyond, he reaches out tendrils of his consciousness to two of his kin, drawing them to the church.

When they reach it at last, he can sense them there, though they remain in shadow, hidden behind the gravestones and crumbling walls. He leads Millicent into the dilapidated, roofless building. The red buds are vivid against the gray stone. They will be of no use to her without the other ingredients.

As soon as he lets go of her, she falls to the ground. “I’m sorry,” she says again. “I don’t know how much help I’ll be.”

“I’m sorry too,” he says, heart already breaking, every ounce of faith summoned to say the words. “I am so terribly sorry, Millicent. I only hope one day you’ll understand.”

She stares at him, uncomprehending.

“I must leave you now, my dear. It is imperative that you stop resisting your gift.” He begins backing away towards the entrance.

“Father, no, wait—!” She tries to get to her feet, stumbles, and falls to the ground again. “You can’t leave me here!” He grits his teeth against the pain in her voice, forces himself to keep moving. She gives up on standing and begins to crawl pitifully towards him.

“I have no choice,” he whispers.

His assistants emerge from the shadows, wielding glaives, hissing at Millicent until she halts.

“Father, please!” She claws at the grass. “How can you do this!” She shrieks, the sound echoing through the ruined church. “Have you no love for us at all? Were we only ever sacrifices?”

He turns his back on her, his only remaining child. Her cries go unheeded as he walks away. He can feel himself shaking, but he wills himself not to look back, not to falter. Is this how you felt, Malenia? He swore he would never leave his daughters, never deprive them of a parent’s love. He swore it, but if this is Millicent’s destiny, what choice does he have?

Surely, if he can ask this much of her, he can push past his own distaste and do what is required of him. He must have faith. If it works, it will be worth it, as life justifies itself despite the pain it brings. And it will work. Frightened and unsure she may be, but Millicent cannot fail. His study among the Sellians impressed upon him that the heavy hand of fate cannot be moved. He has known young Millicent’s fate, beyond doubt, since he first beheld her. This ailing bud will become a blossom. All he has to do is endure his own part in it.

Oh, but how he begins to understand her resistance, now that he is asked to do something so painful! Her cries tear through him like knives until they pass out of his hearing. All he wants is to turn back, to take her in his arms and beg her forgiveness, but he cannot.

As soon as he enters his shack he buries his head in his hands, weeping—and then that is not enough, and he collapses into his true form, curling in on himself protectively, shuddering in guilt and pity. It hurts more than he could have imagined, and her screams still seem to echo in his empty house. Can this truly be what Malenia intends for him? For both of them?

O Goddess, what is thy will?

All night he is plagued with visions of her alone in that desolate place, fearful and sick. He counters these thoughts with prayer, kneeling for so long his body aches, head raised to the heavens. In those distant stars her fate is written. And in some distant clime Malenia waits, readying herself for her own destiny.

His four older girls will be joining her soon. It comforts him somewhat to think of them, flown from the nest, eager to meet their own potential—but selfishly, he misses having his family beside him. He has not been alone in so long.

By morning the grief has settled into a dull pain in his center, radiating down the line of his heart. He tries to turn his mind to other things. He practices his sorceries, long ignored but for a few practical purposes. It is not good for his skills to grow dull; after all, he no longer has five young warriors to protect him. And still he prays more than usual, in his home or at the shrine, bolstered by the presence of his fellows.

After several days he feels he is strong enough to lay eyes on Millicent again. He borrows the eyes of one of her guards, not wanting to intrude on her solitude just yet. She lies huddled in a corner of the church, a posture that could be taken for sleep but for her open, vacant eyes. The statue of Queen Marika looms over her, stony face ever silent.

He withdraws himself once more, unsettled.

He checks on her again several times over the days to come, always with the same result. She just sits there, motionless. He doesn’t know what to make of it. Finally, on the fourth attempt, he sees something different. She is bent over, clutching her arm, face contorted in pain.

The arm has changed since he left her. It was limp and gray before, surface covered in scales, but still structurally sound. Now, where she has her sleeve rolled up he can see the outer edge of her forearm is beginning to peel away, and a pale pink growth emerges from the resulting crevice. Her fingertips are white, nails missing. Millicent claws at the arm as if to cast it away, the elbow bent at an unnatural angle.

For a moment she looks up, and sees her pest guardian watching her. She says nothing, but bares her teeth in a silent snarl before bowing her head once more—and he can tell she knows what he is doing.

It seems pointless, then, to continue to watch her like this. If she will know his presence just the same, he may as well visit undisguised.

And he cannot bear to leave her truly alone, not when she is suffering so.

Before he even reaches the church, he knows something is wrong. The smell of blood is in the air, and he can feel the guards’ distress before he hears their hissing. He lowers all his legs to the earth and begins to run.

The guards are crowded around Millicent, shifting uneasily as if they don’t know what to do. Millicent is moaning in pain, and clutching at her arm again—but no, he realizes in horror as he finally draws nearer: She is cutting it.

She must have concealed a dagger beneath her clothes—he had made sure her sword was hung up on the wall before taking her here—but this small, dull blade is not suited for amputation. Her left hand shakes violently as she tries to force it deeper into the ragged wound she’s made. She’s cut it nearly halfway through. How much courage must it have taken to push so far, despite the pain she clearly feels?

“Millicent,” he gasps, throwing himself at her feet. “Stop—you will bleed yourself out—”

“Only way,” she gets out, pushing the knife in once more and doubling over in pain as it connects. Blood soaks the entire right side of her body, pooling around her in the dry earth.

“No, no,” he says to himself, searching around for something, some way he can help. He curses himself for knowing so little of healing—some sage he is—but sense intervenes as he realizes there is nothing he could do for her arm at the moment, dangling as it is by a mere cord of muscle—and in a sudden burst of decisiveness he grabs the glaive from the guard next to him and swings it straight down.

She screams. The rotten limb twitches where it falls as one of his own limbs might, the formerly limp fingers flexing rapidly and then spreading out as if reaching for something, before settling at last into stillness. Blood pours from the wound; he rushes to close it, tearing strips from her tunic to press against the uneven stump, maintaining the pressure even as she writhes against him.

“You must remain still, Millicent, please,” he says, holding her still. It’s a testament to how weakened she’s become that she cannot throw him off. “You must let me stop the bleeding if you want to live.”

He can feel her try to obey, though she still twitches involuntarily under his hand. It reassures him, that despite everything she is still determined to survive.

He continues to press on her wound, replacing the bloody cloth as needed, until the bleeding has slowed somewhat. Fortunately, the blood supply to her arm was lessened with the rot’s advancement; there was less to spill than there might have been if the limb were healthy. He presses the last strip of cloth to her shoulder, tying off her sleeve to hold it there. “You must keep still,” and she obeys, leaning her head back against the wall.

He sends one guard to fetch water and the other back to his post at the door. He lifts the waterskin to Millicent’s mouth and she drinks until it is light. He brushes the hair back from her face; she allows it.

He brings more water, fresh meat, medicines to counteract the blood loss and even, against his better judgment, another preserving bolus. He sews her a new dress to replace the old torn and bloodied garments, brings fresh wrappings for the remains of her arm.

“Father,” she says after his second visit that day. “I thank you for the help, but if you are only preparing me for the altar, I’d rather forego it.”

“Millicent, you must know I love you.”

“Then let me go.”

He sighs. “I wish I could, my dear, you do not know how much I wish I could—”

“You can. You have already sent my sisters to their deaths. Allow me to live as I would, or don’t come back again. If you are to keep me prisoner, grant me the dignity of not pretending otherwise.”

She will not hear his protests, and when he tries to change the dressing on her wound she pushes him away.

“Leave me,” she says. “Let me rot away as you wish.”

He manages to stay away for some time, falling back into his monastic life of study and prayer, trying to push away images of her bloodstained shoulder and her tired, angry face. She is recovering well, and will continue to. Of course she will, being of the blood of the Goddess. She will be well tended to, he made sure of that.

When he can stay away no longer, he finds her even more weakened. Her clothing is once more stained with blood, her eyes have faded further, and she sits in an awkward position, clutching at herself as a frightened child might.

She will not speak to him. He tries anyway, hoping to remind her that there is a way out of this misery. He asks how she is feeling, talks to her of his recent pursuits, and prays over her at length, imploring the Goddess to strengthen her body and change her heart.

He can sense the power moving just beneath her skin, hear it rustling like a swarm of restless wings. Her guardians too were kneeling in prayer when he arrived, taken by that potential that yet grows, her body such rich and fertile ground for the divine essence.

If only she would willingly unite with it, her strength would be beyond imagining—but her feeble resistance means the disease continues to take what it will from her, draining and consuming her unwilling flesh. He has always known Millicent to be strong, but the rot she inherited is a great part of that, and she cannot continue to live like this, a being divided against itself.

At last, when he has expressed his love to her once more and turned to go, she speaks to him. “I believe that you love me,” she says, barely audible, voice weak and rasping. “But understand, Father… I can trust your love no longer. The ends to which it would lead are intolerable to me.”

This time, he is the one who remains silent. What is there to say to such steadfast refusal? He feels his heart should have grown harder by now, but it is no easier to turn away.

At the next visit she is delirious with fever and does not recognize him. Shivering and hostile, she warns him away, wishing to protect him from her disease.

The time after that she is unconscious, eyes closed at last, breaths rattling in her chest. Even in sleep, however, she can find no peace: her face contorts into a grimace, her muscles twitching as she battles some unpleasant dream.

There is no visit after.

His prayers reveal to him at last that he has made a grave miscalculation. Malenia did not, after all, find the strength to bloom when her limbs were lost, at the height of her sickness. No, it was on the battlefield at the peak of her strength that she was at last provoked to it, bolstered by her brother’s devices. Miquella’s innovation, he sees now, was instrumental in her advancement. In order to nurture the scarlet rot it was necessary to slow it.

It is not that he has done too much to ease dear Millicent’s symptoms—he still has not done enough. The preserving boluses are insufficient for one of her lineage. She needs Malenia’s own fortification. She needs unalloyed gold.

He has long suspected Miquella’s needle never left the Aeonian Swamp. Long have his people searched for it: the sacred relic of the first bloom, the bulwark cast away that freed the deity within. The army’s remnant in the swamp has hindered their search in that area, and indeed he suspects this is not accidental. If the commander and his men can be defeated, or at least evaded, he is quite sure the needle can be found.

Once recovered, perhaps it will give Millicent the strength she needs to face her destiny.

He waits a long time. His older daughters reach the Haligtree; with great focus, he can see through the eyes of his distant kinsmen there. They receive his daughters with the reverence they are owed, honored as the larval forms of valkyries to come.

He never catches sight of the Goddess herself, though. His kindred seem to be cloistered away in one area; the Goddess must be hidden or guarded well, he surmises, and feels the ever-present ache inside him deepen to think that even here, even now after their long journeying, all Malenia’s children must still be denied.

The Haligtree burgeons with rot, its inner cavity flowing with red like the lifeblood of an animal, its branches heavy with great fungal masses of like unseen outside Caelid. Malenia’s essence is inside this place, and her offspring take to it easily, adorned as it is with the trappings of home.

If Malenia has made here another land suitable for them, why should she even now reject them? For what purpose does she surround herself with rot only to deny it?

He has much time to reflect on this, back in Caelid where he is called Gowry and is a father bereft of his young. A swirl of questions turn over in his head: how to procure the needle, how to draw Malenia’s attention to her four precious buds. The nature of her rejection and of Millicent’s. His failures as father and son and how to rectify them.

In the end, he needs only to wait.

Around his grief the world changes. News comes to him that General Radahn is fallen. A searing star splits the sky in its flight, portending some shift in fate whose meaning he cannot decipher.

The hero, the slayer of demigods, makes his way to the swamp. Readily, almost casually, he delivers the unalloyed gold needle to Gowry’s hands. Just like that his reverie is broken, and he must turn again to action. This, this final offering, must be what Millicent needs. It is the only way he sees to realize her destiny. And what can he think of this stranger bringing salvation, but as a sign? It seems his prayers have been answered at last.

Encouraged by this turn of events, he makes the most painful choice of all. He cannot risk reawakening Millicent’s ire. His presence, his pleading, his parenting have done naught but turn her further against herself, and there is no use trying to continue for his own heart’s sake. He enlists the young warrior—a handsome fellow, brave, the kind that might earn her trust—to deliver the needle in his stead. To guide her, gently, to the path she must take once her strength recovers.

When she returns to his shack, driven by some instinct she does not seem to fully comprehend, he hides himself away. It is almost more difficult than leaving her had been. If she should leave and never return, and his last words to her were pleas unheeded and hers were rejection—what tragedy for that to be their last moment together!

Better by far for her to be unhindered, though, than for him to make some likely disastrous attempt at amends. He stays unseen, silent, as she enters the shack, looks around as if unsure why she’s there. Goddess, is this what you are doing? Hiding yourself that we may better serve our purpose? But what would you have us do?

She leaves, and he hears nothing more of her for a long while.

He stagnates. A few travelers stop by, curious about the town of Sellia, but otherwise there is little to break up the monotony of his solitude. When it is time to change bodies even the new form seems worn and prone to aching. For the first time in his life, he feels old.

He spends more and more time away from his own body, gathering what information he can in the Haligtree, waiting for Millicent. Her sisters still have yet to become flowers themselves. Perhaps that is for the best, that they will be prepared to assist her.

He waits, and he watches. He leans on his faith as he always has, having nothing else.

At last, as he knew she would, Millicent appears.

When she arrives he sees her in that red place at the tree’s center, a place thick with fluid like the place of his birth, rot-ridden waters rushing down into the depths below. Her sisters are there already, having been drawn here again and again over their stay, peering down toward the roots where all rotten things are pulled in search of their mother.

Polyanna is the first to see her. She stumbles forward in shock, cries out—and then they are all crowding around their youngest sister, reaching out for her. Millicent says something in turn, stepping back from their grasp.

He watches from his place across the gulf. He can’t hear what they are saying, not even when Millicent raises her voice and the sisters halt their advance. Then Mary replies, striding forward again with purpose.

Millicent draws her blade.

A chill runs through him. Surely there is some mistake—surely she cannot have come all this way only to turn on them once again—but her sisters have risen to the challenge, brandishing their weapons, surrounding her. They will not let him down, of course. No, he was wrong to fear. He sees it clearly now: this turn of events, too, must have been preordained.

This is it, this is Millicent’s moment—outnumbered, overpowered, she will see the prospect of defeat and refuse it, just as her mother did. Her sisters will provoke her into blossoming most beautifully, and at last all of his pain will have been worth it.

He watches the ensuing battle with pride. They all fight with such ferocity, and Millicent most of all, twirling gracefully through the air despite being assailed by Maureen’s spear and both of Amy’s blades. Rings of light from Mary’s scythe stagger her as she fends them off, as do pest threads cast by Polyanna—impressive for one not of their kind, an act of pure and admirable faith. Still Millicent does not falter, striking out with immense courage and skill. Amy falls to the ground, overwhelmed by the unrelenting blows—and then Millicent’s blade pierces through her chest.

Her body slumps to the ground, inert.

For a moment he does not believe what he sees, expecting her to rise again, but she does not move, no blossom grows from her, and the fight continues over her corpse.

The others fight all the harder, Mary and Polyanna drawing nearer, and still Millicent holds her ground, dealing out far more hits than she sustains. Soon Maureen falters and falls, and then Mary, and then finally young Polyanna, fighting bravely to the ends, succumbs as well.

He cannot make sense of it. He cannot even bring himself to grieve, for he does not understand how this can have happened, can barely accept the evidence of his senses.

His loyal daughters have fallen unflowered. Millicent, dear Millicent who turned her back on all of them, on her own family, stands victorious.

To what end was this battle fought? What did Millicent hope to gain by coming here, only to destroy those who love her? What is thy will?

She collapses. In his borrowed body he skitters out toward her, steps onto that branch leading to her fallen form, trying to see, needing to know—

The rot surges within her; he can feel it. It swells painfully beneath her skin, longing to open, but still she suppresses it though it tears through her flesh with lethal strength. Millicent, Millicent, why—?

She does not get up. He is close enough now to see her ribs rise and fall with heavy, labored breaths—and close enough to see when they stop, and she goes truly limp, and there is nothing left of her at all. Only flesh where his daughter used to be, flesh given no new seed to nurture, no new form to feed. A hideous facsimile of death, from which there would be no new beginning, the cycle of life willingly denied.

And it dawns on him at once, at last, that truth which he has been trying so hard not to see. It settles within this body like a heavy stone and through him radiates out through all his kindred, a wave of utter despair washing through their collective being.

This was always where Millicent desired to be. Had he done nothing, never arranged for her to receive the needle, she would be dead in that church-ruin instead, uselessly dead as she is now, a crushed caterpillar, a withered bud.

She was, in fact, most like her mother of all of them, he was not wrong in that. What she desired most was never to have inherited her power, to be something other than what she was, for the Order of Rot never to be.

As Malenia wishes.

He was unable to ever understand his daughter, in the end, because he could not accept the truth about her mother, the mother they share. He could not possibly bring himself to see it before, could not bear it until now, where he stands with his life’s undertaking and his most dearly beloved dead on the ground, those rich seedbeds in which he failed to grow anything at all, those bright lights snuffed out. He cannot explain this calamity any other way but to turn, at last, to the truth long concealed. That empty sky, that long absence, have spoken it clearly all along.

The heavy hand of fate cannot be moved. Millicent, after all, was only carried in her maker’s footsteps. Malenia would have wished, he sees now, for none of his beautiful daughters to have been born—but failing that, Millicent has ended things acceptably.

Her voice will never speak to them. Her wings will never fill the sky again. The will of the Goddess is set on nonbeing and cannot be bent.

They wait for a Mother who will not love them, cannot love them, who wishes to never return. Even here in the Haligtree they are turned away.

Soundlessly, unnoticed by any other being, the body of the pest perched atop the great waterfall goes limp, and is pulled by the current down, down, to the earth below. It breaks upon impact, shattered into a hundred weakly twitching pieces upon ground and root, unheeded by the sleeping demigod. Even in her blood-soaked dreams these creatures are absent; she thinks not of them.

And in Caelid, the one who has been called Gowry returns fully to his native flesh, and curls upon himself, as if his fleshy spines and hard shell could ward off the darkness in his heart. Every beacon has now gone out. His precious children are dead, and his goddess has at last answered his prayers.

The empty sky hangs placid above him, its red glow only serving to shield the abandoned from what is written in the stars.