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Shamura drifted trance-like through the sandy grounds of Anchordeep. Every breath ached like their rib cage was too small and stabbed their lungs and heart. Their body felt heavy like an enemy had wrapped thick chains and iron shackles around their wrists and ankles.
They forced a dry laugh from their constricted lungs.
Chains...
Chains started all this, didn't they?
"Chains that bind, chains that bind," they mumbled, stumbling against a pillar of coral-crusted stone. "Chains of yours made of mine."
They squeezed their eyes tight, trying to focus on anything other than the pain stabbing their chest--their breathing, the pounding in their head, anything--but shutting their eyes to the outside world forced recent memories to bleed into their mind's eye: Memories of blood-smeared stone, snapped branches, and tuffs of mossy fur; of ancient columns broken, ripped cloth, and burnt flesh; of crystals shattered, weapons cast aside, and limp fingers.
The viscera of what was left of their siblings overtook their thoughts, drowning them in memories of blood and waves of guilt.
They slumped down to the sand, holding their chest and wanting to claw open the flesh and bone to free their heart from the pain.
When Leshy died, Shamura rationalized his death. He was the youngest, the weakest. He had been coddled too much through his ascension to godhood. If he had trained more instead of sitting on his laurels, he could have won.
It was expected, Shamura had presumed, that when one of The Red Crown's vessels finally killed a Bishop, it would be Leshy to receive the fatal blow.
When news came of Heket's demise, they used logic to rationalize her end, as well. She was upset, rightfully, over Leshy, and when Heket is--was--upset and angry, she grew reckless. If she had just gone to Shamura first, instead of allowing the vessel to fight her, she would still be alive.
Now, as Shamura walked away from Kallamar's temple, they tried to rationalize his death. If Kallamar hadn't hidden away in such an obvious place... If he hadn't tried to fight alone... If he...
It didn't matter now. No 'if's or 'had's or 'could's would fix their siblings. They were dead, gone forever.
Shamura pondered how long it would take for them to die if they stayed put in that spot and allowed the coral and the sand to engulf them, leaving a statue of a sad, lonely god. Perhaps that was the fate they deserved. Swallowed up by the earth and forgotten, just like Shamura had tried to leave him…
They shook themself and clawed their way to their feet. They couldn't do that. If they were going to die, they had to die fighting. They were the god of war. Their wars started and ended in bloodshed.
Shamura shuffled along as the sky darkened into night. Stars sparkled above like the crystals that peppered Anchordeep: beautiful, cold, untouchable things.
Shamura craned their head to stare, picking out constellations, new and forgotten.
"Where do souls go, after their life meets its end?"
They had asked that of The Fifth Bishop several times and were met with the same answer each time.
"It would be easier to count the stars in the sky than explain it to you, dear sibling."
As they lowered their gaze, another star caught their eyes: a spinning piece of metal hung from the broken mast of an abandoned ship. More stars and moons spun nearby, hung from coral branches.
An ache of nostalgia gripped their stomach. When was the last time Shamura had pushed past those stars and moons and held a conversation with the being beyond? A millennium, perhaps? The two's last encounter was less a conversation and more Shamura shouting accusations and threats.
They swore they would never go past those hanging pieces of metal again, all those years ago, but now their feet slowly walked towards the stars and moons without Shamura ordering them to.
Perhaps they could bury one last hatchet.
Clauneck did not raise his head from the spread of cards before him as Shamura neared. Without waiting for an invitation, Shamura sat on their knees in front of him.
Unlike them, he hadn't changed: the same square bill, the same red eyes, the same glossy black feathers, the same wisps of blonde hair escaping his hood. Shamura set one hand over the other to stop themself from reaching up and pushing the hair back, as they had done countless times before.
Clauneck gathered the cards, shuffled the deck, then flipped the three cards at the top of the pile to show a card with a black chain, a card with tentacles spawning from an eye, and a card with a bleeding skull.
"The past," Clauneck said, running his fingers down the face of the first card, "the bonds of family forged in battle and victory, a family head doing what must be done to protect, and, yet, the blood of gods still stained the earth."
Shamura looked at the cards, then back up again without utterance.
"The present." Clauneck drew again. This time, the three cards were a sun with two lopsided eyes, a second sun blazing over a circle of ichor, and lastly a tower with a lightning bolt coming down upon it.
"A destruction of the day-to-day routine by an unending siege of malice and revenge."
Shamura gripped their long cloak tighter around themself.
"And the future." Clauneck turned over only one card, a blazing hand with an eye stared out at the sky above.
"The Hands of Rage," he intoned. "A violent wrath unleashed upon a foe, but will it be your wrath or theirs?" Finally, Clauneck looked up. He tilted his head, waiting for Shamura to respond.
Shamura reached out and touched the top of the deck. "Are you not meant to draw two more?"
Clauneck shrugged. "Is that what you want?"
They withdrew their hand with a shake of the head. Though they were certain their fate was set in stone, they did not want details of how their end would meet them.
Once, they had not believed in such things as a predetermined fate. After all, why would anyone wage a war they were destined to lose? Shamura knew better than that now. Duty, love, fear, spite, all those emotions and more drove losing combatants onto the battlefield.
"Do you believe destiny is immutable?" echoed in their head in Clauneck's ancient, low voice.
Shamura still was not sure how much of their life path had already been paved for them, though now they knew at least some had been. Was it the whole path from their first stumbling step out of the egg to their final fall in the grave? Or was the path merely a suggestion in an empty expanse? Did ravines encircle them regardless of which way they chose or were there gaps they could use to avoid the fall?
Shamura gripped their hands into fists to end the thoughts before they spiraled.
It did not matter much, not anymore. In their attempt to fight fate and prophecy, they paved the path for their end to lead to their open crypt.
Clauneck waited a moment before gathering up the cards. He began to shuffle the deck in that practiced, easy way of his. In the past, Shamura would sometimes snatch a card from the deck and ask Clauneck to explain it to them. Clauneck would always comply: pointing to the different symbols on the card, what it meant when drawn for the past, present, or future; and what power it gave the god who drew it in battle.
"Clauneck, you know when you are going to die."
It was not a question, but Clauneck answered it anyway.
"I have known since I drew my first cards." Clauneck cut the deck then put it back together. "When the sun no longer rises, when the seas are not but dust, when the tapestry of fate has been bound off, my death shall come to me."
Shamura looked down at their hands. Small, almost invisible scars left a loose net across their palms, reminders of all the hard work they put in to reach the heights where they now stood.
They traced a scar that trailed from between their thumb and pointer finger to the middle of their palm. Had it always ended so abruptly? They couldn't recall anymore.
"Five becomes four becomes three becomes two becomes one becomes nothing. Five gods, one tomb…" They muttered to themself, lost in thought.
Shamura thought the prophecy had been poetic. After all, The Bishops were too strong to ever fall. Shamura and their siblings had defeated gods who ruled for eons. They all worked together to take the lands for themselves. They proved their worth against heretics and fanatics who thought all of them unworthy of their Crowns.
The tomb was the island the five of them ruled, where they would rule until, one by one, each grew weary of immortality, and they would give up their crowns and live the rest of their existences in peace.
Shamura chided themself for even thinking such a naive thought.
Clauneck slipped his deck safely into his sleeve. He put a hand on their knee.
"You do not want them, but I offer my sympathies, Shamura, for the fall of your siblings."
Shamura placed a hand over Clauneck's.
It was true. They did not want Clauneck's sympathies now any more than they wanted them back then, when he said he understood how it feels to lose a sibling in a way other than death.
Shamura, in their rage, had sent a fireball at Clauneck's tent behind him. The air filled with smoke and embers, but he remained unflinching by both the fire and the verbal assault Shamura threw at him.
They screamed insults and curses. They demanded to know why Clauneck hadn't given them warning if he knew the future was set in stone. Why hadn't he told Shamura they would lose their brilliant mind both to terrible, sharp claws and to the gnawing grief that followed in the decades after? Why hadn't he cautioned them that the chains that bound death would strain what remained of their little family just as tightly?
Why, why, why!!!???
Clauneck, however, simply shrugged. "Would you have listened?" He had asked, though they had both known the answer.
"I shall die soon," Shamura confessed, fully aware that Clauneck surely knew. "Allow me to offer an apology for how I reacted at our last meeting. Whether you had told me what we would lose or not, I would have gone through with chaining Nar--" The name caught in their throat. "...chaining The Red Crown regardless." They let out a dry, mirthless chuckle. "I suppose, at the time, I simply wanted another to blame besides myself."
Clauneck laughed, a deep, rumbling, and nostalgic sound that filled Shamura with an odd comfort.
For a moment, Shamura wanted to stay there with Clauneck and talk, as they had done so often before. Shamura wanted to remain in that moment and forget the heartbreak of the world outside. They wanted to lean again their old friend's side and talk about philosophy and history; what happened to The First Ones and the names of the stars; the best plants for herbal teas and the colors of grapes; weaving patterns and...
But that would be selfish and cruel to their fallen kin.
Shamura slowly stood and then brushed the sand from their robes.
Clauneck began to reach into his sleeve. "Do you wish me to draw you a card for your upcoming battle? For old time's sake?"
Shamura shook their head. "A kind offer, but no."
He raised his brows, surprised, and Shamura turned around to hide their smile.
"It was nice to speak with you again, old friend, though it shall be our last. I am not fool enough to think I may be allowed to truly triumph over death a second time."
Clauneck hummed to himself before he told them, "We shall meet in your next life, Shamura. Some day."
Shamura snorted a laugh.
"Well, I hope I can remember you when that time comes, Clauneck," they said and started down the path to meet their fate.
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