Clouds muted the morning sun. Grays and whites and black thunderheads drifting south from the Gulf of Liad. And there through the trees of northern Liadain stood the gates of
Elbion ahead.
The city each dreaded.
* * * * *
Anima stood with Luc and
Nayella by the edge of the treeline. The vast grassland clearing before the walls. The well-trodden path from the gates. In the distance those on foot and those in wagon caravans went to or from the city.
It was as she remembered. Memories fragmented as they were. Disconnected images, shrouded in night and in haste. Yes. The fleeing from Elbion with Mother. And now she had come again.
Anima clutched the pendant around her neck.
An apprehension. A fear. The welling-up of the taste of citrus in her mouth. That emotion so rare. All but dead. There when speaking to the man from before about Mother, here now standing in sight of the gates of Elbion, but absent when the arrow had pierced her shoulder, absent when the Dreadlord had found them, absent many other times. For there were many things which promised merely the death of the body. Few which promised the death of something greater.
Here, in Elbion, a little girl had died.
For she had seen something. Yes, she had. And in the seeing a permanent wound, fatal to innocence. What terrible insight gained of the world and of herself. And yet her body lived on, did it not? Yes. Lived on and grew up. But there in the seeing. There in the seeing. The death of something greater.
Anima stared at the gates of Elbion for a time. A gaze far away.
She had given in. As all had or would.
But here in Elbion lay a grave marked with that which was gone. A white star she had called her own.
A blink. And she turned her head slowly. Looked to Luc.
We lead lives not being who we are meant to be, he had said. Was it true? A look into the heart and all that dwelled there. Yes, she had given in. Those desires, all of them, dark or else. There since the beginning, unknown and inert until brought to life by looking upon them.
This was who she was meant to be.
Wasn't it?
Anima took in a breath. Said, "You have not been here for a long time. And many things have changed."
She opened her mouth to say more. But that far away gaze came again.
...Wasn't it?
* * * * *
The dark cellar.
There the Vicar of Suffering hung from a post, wrists tied to a cross-beam, ankles to the main post.
She was quiet. As she had been. Her face that of calm bliss. As it had been.
And there, wrapped around her beating heart and Its excess protruding from the open wound and slung over her right shoulder, the Symbiote. Its body bloated, now wholly a dying white instead of a deep black. The
Thread of Mortality of
Arethil claimed even It.
It knew the pain of the creature whose heart It touched. It tried to make her well. It could soothe her mind, but her body kept suffering wounds. It did not know from what.
And something had been stealing Its power every time It healed her. Accelerating Its death. It did not know what.
This for a time.
But something changed. The Symbiote could sense it. Not the creature whose heart It touched. Another. For It carried a piece of her. Growing closer.
The Symbiote stirred.
And thus, so too did
The Watching of Anima.
