World Ablaze

Every punch sent shockwaves through Sol’s body, ripping the penetrating shards further down his flesh and creating new rivulets of glowing life force that flung from his body in heavy gelatinous clumps with each thud. Wretch pulled Burden close to her and clung to the top of Sol’s head, grabbing onto the rounded edges of his strange adornments as she prayed the jolting impact would not throw them from his body. Grief’s fingers intertwined against one another, squeezing against themselves until it hurt.

Above them, the sky had turned green. More stars were falling from the Star Stream now. Muted, dense booms warned of impacts that were not too far away.

No one spoke. No one moved, save for the steady shifting and rebalancing each little one did after another round of punches occurred. Down below, the water continued to call to them with its dark and raging currents.

The motion became repetitive, but he never relaxed. Once one hole was punched, he would grab on with all of his might, placing both hands within and flattening the ends of his feet against the wall at an angle to create resistance. Then, he would dislodge his right hand, punch a new hole, and continue.

It took time, and soon he was spent. The shard in his wrist was carving into the insides of his mystical form, sending daggers of ice into his elbow. His right eye had rolled back slightly when the shard sank deeper. Breathing felt like inhaling fire.

Guttural, animalistic grunts sounded out from his throat whenever he swung, and Wretch found herself focusing on the depth of the sound and the way it vibrated in her small chest.

The castles and ramparts above stood silently in observation as they scaled the wall beneath them. Sol was half afraid that at any point, his hand was going to strike some great and wretched creature, or uncover a nest of forgotten wanderers, sending them falling into the water below as they fought. But nothing ever happened. Punches punctured stone, they scraped along, and all the world stood dead in isolation. By every measure, it seemed the kingdom was empty.

Something caught Burden’s attention, and she looked to the distant range past the forest that was waiting for them. Spiralling, elegant crystal trunks rowed out in waves, covering the vast hillside and disappearing along a bluff. Far beyond, jagged mountains loomed ominously. And within those mountains, something red and harsh had appeared. She watched it quietly, observing how it first rose along the top, then steadily snaked downward between angled peaks, spreading and growing all the while. From a distance, it seemed slow, but she knew that up close, it would have been covering a great distance with swiftness.

There was an unnatural feeling to it. The world around it seemed to turn brighter and brighter by the second.

“The sky is glowing,” she said.

“What?” Sol asked as he rested his throbbing head on the wall.

They were halfway to the end of the great dammed city.

“Oh no,” Wretch gasped.

Panic began to spread through the group of little ones, and Grief’s grip tightened around him.

“Sol, hurry,” she muttered.

“What is it?” he asked when he realized something was wrong.

He finally raised his head and bent back to see for himself, and then it appeared.

A great and terrible blaze was devouring the mountains, turning them to crystal in its wake.

“Star Fire,” he muttered in terror.

Adrenaline surged through his body, and he slammed his fist into the wall once again.

“Hold on, little ones, hold on,” he said through gritted teeth.

To be burned by Star Fire was to die in agony while becoming consumed by the soul sensation that had started it. Good and gentle emotions did not create such things. The most common tinder was cruel, bitter feelings. Sol recognized the fire’s coloring.

“Hate,” he said in a low, concerned voice.

“Hate?” Wretch repeated.

“I thought Hate was gone?” Grief asked.

Memories of a bitter struggle pulled themselves forward in Sol’s thoughts, and he recalled the first true test he’d faced in Metus’s war. Hate had been one of the few gods to join Metus, and had been his most feared comrade. There was no reasoning with such a force. No logical softening could be made against its blind eyes. So Sol and the others had ripped him to pieces when he came upon them in a storm one night early in the collapse. It was the first casualty of their party as well. Grace had tried to reason with him, and had been cleaved in two. So they smote him and left the chunks to rot.

The god may have been dead, but the souls of those who had followed her unbridled fury had remained in the Star Stream. One of those stars had fallen, and now the drought-ridden ground was ablaze.

“We have to hurry. We have to hurry. We have to hurry,” Sol repeated, mostly as a message and command to himself.

Burden almost fell back as he slammed his fist with unleashed force. Sol had seen bodies burned by such a blaze, and the crystallized faces of the writhing dead had seared themselves into his memories.

He punched and punched, shattering stone and splitting skin as he went. Grunts turned to shouts as he fought to keep his strength.

“Should we stop? Should we turn back?” Wretch asked as they continued.

“The river goes all the way to the Sounding Sea. It will take us a week even on his back to reach that water, and the crossing will not be any easier from there,” the elder admitted.

Another punch sent debris and dust. The fire was growing far too quickly, and Sol himself began to question if they’d actually killed the wicked god. He stole several glances at the blaze, praying to not see the massive black wings rise from the inferno.

To his relief, they did not appear. For better or worse, it was an unintentional, uncontrolled blaze.

His knuckles were chipping. Ligaments were swollen, and the ethereal muscle in his arm was spasming from strain. Grief’s hands loosened on his neck. Her legs were knotting from the uncomfortable position.

“Hurry! Hurry!” he shouted to himself.

By now the fire had reached the forest edge, and the sacred grove started to burn. Geodic trees, not made of wood but of energy and transitory rock from beyond time, began to cook.

The screeches rose like a faint note carried on the back of a distant arrow.

The cabbits heard it first, all turning at once towards the origin point of the horrifying cries.

“Oh no,” Grief muttered.

Burden looked to her and saw that her somber gaze was mournful.

“Cover your ears, young ones!” she ordered, and the children of the tribe obeyed.

Something about the screaming was unsettling Wretch in a way she hadn’t felt since she’d seen her father break Burden’s leg on purpose. Whatever was making that symphonic cry of pain, it sounded like innocence itself was being burned alive.

“I think that is one of the remaining Fae Forests. If so, there are Fae hibernating within those trees,” Grief sighed as she watched the blaze.

“Faes? The spirit shepherds?” Wretch whimpered as her stomach knotted itself.

Sol begin to punch with the intensity of someone in a fight. They were close now.

He wanted to close his eyes. He wanted to cover his ears. He could hear them now. He had known many Fae in his life. Fae were innocent, sacred creatures, smaller than the cabbits, whose entire purpose in existence was to nurture and guide energy. They tended to blooming flowers and found lost souls that didn’t reach the afterlife. It was said that they would hibernate in rotation, being awoken by others when their cycle of a lifetime was over. These seemed to have never been risen for whatever reason. Sol feared it meant their kin were already dead as well.

Bones nearly snapped in his wrist, and he didn’t care. He would bind and heal himself later. Two more punches remained.

“Grief- can you use your power?! Send a wave of suffering through that grove! Wake them, and maybe they will flee.”

Grief did not understand. A lifetime of solitude had meant her power was not refined like him. It had to be her- if Sol tried to wake them, he would only turn them into beasts. She closed her eyes to focus.

“How?” she asked as he slammed his fist once more.

The screaming was louder now, but the rest were still slumbering deep in their dreamy hollows. Light from the fire exploded within the prismatic stone trunks and crystal leaves, sending chunky waves of orange and red across the wall of the dam and onto the little furry bodies.

Wretch wanted to look away, but she found herself weeping and staring at the scene. In the darkness above, a few stray embers of light spun upwards in chaotic circles, and she realized that some of the sacred creatures had awoken as they burned alive and were now trying to fly away, but their wings were already turning to corrupted stone.

“Here!!! Over here!!! The river is over here!!!” Wretch screamed.

“Sol! What do I do?!!” Grief cried.

Sol punched once more. They were almost there.

“It’s too late. Just send the wave everywhere. Just like the way you saved the little ones the other night. Gather all of your strength and let it rupture out from you. Even if you hit me I will endure!” Sol said as he grabbed onto the last rocky cavern and held tight.

Grief bit down and pulled the depths of her misery up through her stomach, through her ribs, and out her fingers. Her mouth bore its bent fangs, and she let out a deafening screech. Feminine voices mourned across the sky in weeping choral hymns, and a single shockwave of bluish-white exploded from her hand. It surged in every direction, striking the cabbits and Sol, all of whom cried out as the acuteness of grieving stabbed their spirits. Sol hated himself and the moment of his hesitation against Metus played over in his mind again and again. Some vomited. Some wept. Some ripped their tunics. Wretch questioned if any of this was worth it.

Grief cursed her existence and the pain she carried.

But then the wave hit the trees like a tsunami, and a different, tragic scream rose from the glowing branches.

“Do not feel relief!!” Sol commanded, and all of them tightened their safety shards.

Grief reminded herself that her brother would never want her in any manner and that she was nothing more than a castaway, avoided emotion.

Sol told himself this was all his fault.

They all exhaled as thousands of small lights rushed up from the trees. The Fae had awoken.

Though they were crying and now realizing that their grove was burning, they were alive.

“Ancient friends of energy!! Come to me!!” Sol shouted as he crawled across the last gap.

“Hang on!” he shouted, and he gave the cabbits a moment to gather themselves.

“Hold to me, beautiful little ones,” Grief said as she pulled herself tight against Sol.

He inhaled, and leapt across the remaining distance, down to the shore.

They landed with a thud, and his knees gave out beneath him, sending his body slamming to the stony shelf of slate. But they had made it.

“DO NOT FEEL RELIEF!” Wretch shouted.

Sol let out a roar of overpowerment as he forced himself onto his feet. They were not safe. The fire was coming. Now it was time to run. Thousands of lights swirled across the sky, glittering with angelic chimes as the tiny flying beings reached them, carrying the sounds of weeping confusion.

“Lightbringer? Moonlight Touch?” a fae said to the two gods.

“What is happening? Where is the sunlight and gentle song of the soil?” another asked.

Sol frowned and shook his head.

“No time to explain. We must flee. If you do not, you shall all surely perish. Please, come with us,” he said as he scooped the little ones into his hand.

Grief was still exhausted and slumped over. Without hesitating, Sol threw her over his shoulder and grabbed the other cabbits.

Behind them, the fire appeared.

“Run!” he told himself as his legs cried out from exhaustion.