REST

Our departure from Meadowbrook was a quiet affair.

Our guide, Elara, led us into the wilderness.
For three days, we trekked through ancient, winding forests and across rolling green hills, the jagged black teeth of the Neoth Range growing ever larger on the horizon.
Tulote strode at the front.
Cassandra moved with an ethereal grace.
Xerta had her heavy smithing hammer slung across her back, and she moved with the tireless, powerful gait of one accustomed to hard labour.
Her distrust of nobility was a palpable thing.
She would listen to Tulote's pronouncements on strategy with a sceptical grunt and watch Cassandra's fluid movements with a narrowed, critical eye.
But with me, she was different.
We fell into an easy camaraderie, two people who understood what it meant to have calloused hands and a hard day's work.

"So that elf queen," Xerta rumbled as we walked, keeping her voice low. "She just floats like that all the time? Must save a fortune on boot leather."

I couldn't help but chuckle.

"Something like that. She's... different."

"Different," Xerta scoffed. "That's a polite word for it. My da always said, 'Never trust anyone whose clothes are cleaner than your own.'"

"My clothes are pretty clean right now," I pointed out.

She glanced at me, a rare, fleeting grin touching her lips.

"Aye, well. You're the exception that proves the rule, outlander."

On the fourth day, as the air grew thin and cold, Elara led us off the main path and into a hidden, overgrown valley.
There, nestled amongst ancient, moss-covered pines, were the ruins.
They were unlike any I had seen before.
These were not the stark, angular fortresses of humans, or the impossibly elegant spires of elves.

These structures fit within the mountain itself.

Stone halls flowed directly from the mouths of natural caves, their entrances carved with the likenesses of great bears and soaring eagles.
The remnants of bridges were not built over rivers, but were grown from the roots of colossal trees.
It was a place of breathtaking, organic architecture, a city that one lived side by side with the wild, now slowly reclaiming it.

"A half-human settlement," Elara said softly. "From before the Heresy. My great-grandmother told stories of them. Said they could speak the language of beasts and that their warriors fought with the strength of the mountain itself."

Tulote stood frozen, his gaze sweeping over the crumbling, vine-choked stonework.
This was his sister's heritage.
The home of the people she had been born to lead, the people for whom she had damned herself.

"Tigress..." he whispered.

He walked slowly through the ruins, his hand trailing over a weathered stone mural depicting a woman with the stripes of a tiger on her face, leading her people in a hunt.

We made camp in the shelter of a great, circular chamber whose roof was the canopy of a dozen ancient trees.
The air was still and filled with the scent of pine and damp earth.
It was a place of ghosts, but it felt strangely peaceful.

While Cassandra and Elara scouted the perimeter, I found Tulote standing before the mural of the tiger-striped woman.

"She looked like that," he said, "Before Dietha. Fierce. Proud. She loved her people more than anything. More than us, in the end."

He traced the outline of the woman's face in the cold stone.

"She was my little sister. I was supposed to protect her. We were all supposed to protect each other."

"You can't carry the weight of her choices, Tulote," I said gently.

"Can't I?" he replied

He turned to me, his eyes filled with pain.

"A leader carries the weight of everything. Her fall was not hers alone. It was the failure of our entire family. A failure I am still trying to redeem." 

He looked back at the mural.

"Coming here... it is a reminder of what we fight for. Not just the living, but the memory of what was lost. We fight to ensure a tragedy like this never happens again."

I knew Silus and Usasha were watching, but all this time they've been silent.
I suppose from seeing Aquarius' spirit to this has really put them in a state of loss and despair again.
I can relate to them.

Later, I found Cassandra in what must have been a hall of records.
Faded, indecipherable glyphs were carved into the walls, and the stone shelves that once held scrolls were now home to thick blankets of moss.
The last rays of sunlight filtered through the canopy, painting shifting patterns on the floor.

"It's beautiful, isn't it?" she said, her voice soft. "In a sad sort of way. They build something that was meant to be part of the world, not just built on top of it."

"You've seen a lot of things fall, haven't you?"

She turned to me, a wry smile on her lips.

"When you live as long as I have, you see kingdoms rise and turn to dust like seasons changing. It's the curse of the elves. We remember everything."

"I'm sorry," I said.

It felt inadequate, but it was all I had.

"Don't be," she replied, "it teaches you to value the moments that don't fade. The victories. The friendships." She paused. "Tell me about your world, Arda. About your children. You speak of them in your sleep sometimes."

The question was so direct, so gentle, it disarmed me completely.

So I told her.

I spoke of Idrian's quiet intelligence, Ioas's boisterous energy, Iriam's artistic love, and little Izacc's infectious laughter. I spoke of Kathuria, of the life we built, and as if metaphors had been realized, a life as beautiful and fragile as these ruins.
She listened without interruption.
In the quiet of that forgotten hall, I remembered it all. 

It was too much.

But I hid it.
She never noticed, or maybe she did.
I wouldn't know.

Meanwhile, Xerta had no time for ghosts or sentiment.
I found her examine the rusted hinge of a massive stone gate, running a thumb over the pitted metal.

"Amateur work," she grunted, though there was a hint of respect in her tone. "They used a cold-shut weld here. Strong, but brittle if you don't know what you're doing."

She looked at the massive, perfectly fitted stones of the wall.

"But their masonry... now that's another story. These stones will be here when the mountains themselves have turned to sand. They built this to last."

"But it didn't," I pointed out.

"Nothing does," she said. "Empires, kinds, gods... they all fall. All you can do is keep your own forge burning. Keep making things that are strong and true. That's all that matters."

Her gaze flickered towards Tulote and Cassandra, who were now walking back towards the main chamber.

"They talk of destiny and legacies. I talk of putting one foot in front of the other. It's simpler. More honest."

That night, the four of us sat around a crackling campfire.

"The path from here is treacherous," Elara said.

She pointed a stick towards the looming silhouette of the highest peak.

"The demons have patrols in all the lower passes. But there is an old goat trail, barely used. It will take us above their main encampment, to the cliffs overlooking the fortress of Kaelen's Peak."

Tulote, having found some measure of peace in this place of his sister's past, unrolled a map.

"Good. We will approach from above. The last thing they will expect is an attack from the mountain itself."

I looked up at the jagged peak of Kaelen's fortress, a black silhouette against the many stars in the night sky.

I needed this to end soon.