Orrick raised a single snow-white brow. “I like where your head is at, halfling. What do you have in mind?”
23
Oriana
31st day of the Twelfth Month, 1774
The bloodlust had consumed Oriana ten times in the past weeks. It was just as Anthes had said–it was getting stronger. Her dark desires would soon be all that was left of her.
This being her final day, she wished to spend it where it had all begun.
Elscar.
She had left at dawn, only just arriving at the pockmarked, sandy earth that once was her home, right as the sun had completed its full arc into the cerulean sky.
These people–this place–could still be here. Would still be here if she had not… Thousands of souls that would have turned into millions.
Anthes had wanted her by his side to embark on an endless mission of destroying worlds that he believed could not be cured, that would inevitably cause their own demise. He thought himself a savior in his own demented way, but he never even gave them a chance. Didn’t allow for them to figure out how to fix their worlds, to try. And that made him a monster in her eyes. He thrived on power. In his eyes, any world he considered weak wouldn’t survive and thus weakened the cosmos.
By refusing to go with him and staying in the mortal world, had she not been as bad as Anthes? Had she not destroyed the people of Elscar? Had she not destroyed so many lives in Sardorf?
If she could turn back time and choose a different path, would all of this have happened anyway?
The questions endlessly circled her mind until her head pounded and her ears rang.
The “what if” no longer mattered. It had happened–all of it–and there was no going back to fix the wrongs.
Her existence had always been a struggle and no matter what happened, no matter the decisions she had made, that would have remained the same.
The Gods feared death above all else, for they were immortal, but Oriana had always been the one to fear life. Eternity was a long time to war with oneself. And oddly enough, now thanks to Anthes, she had found a way out. A way to free her dark desires without harming anyone, without causing destruction.
If she had the chance to go back in time to change what had become of her, she would not.
Long ago freedom had been a word to laugh at, something always out of reach, a dream.
Now, it was so close she could almost reach out and touch it.
The city of Elscar was overgrown with brush and ivy. Centuries of abandonment had left the ruins exposed to the elements, further sinking them into the earth and allowing for new growth to cover the old city. Yet still smoke billowed from its destruction, a show of the powerful magic that destroyed it. Flames still flickered along the tops of the ruined buildings. With a wave of her hand, they were extinguished.
Oriana navigated her way through the tall grass and the craters marring the earth until she finally came to what was once the town square. This had been the main hub of activity within the city. Long ago, there had been a freshwater well in its center, where all the townspeople would visit daily to take water. It was now nothing more than a pile of dirt and rubble covered with mossy earth.
She sat there in the center and breathed in deep, closing her eyes as she let her enchantment magic roam free. It swelled from within her, pulsing out in waves. With each new wave, a new building pushed up through ash and sand, until Oriana had raised the town of Elscar and restored its original splendor, just as she remembered it.
A small, contented smile ghosted upon her lips at the site. Before, she hadn’t wanted to remember the town for what it once was; she wanted to remember what had happened to it, what she had caused. But as the finality of her fate crept toward her, she wanted to remember. She needed to see the town standing once again.
Once the blood moon rose in the sky, she would be forever transformed into her dark self, but these enchantments would remain. Forever etched upon this beautiful world.
Godly creations were as immortal as the Gods and goddesses themselves.
She hoped that people would come here, and that they would create a new civilization from her gifts. For the first time since her final night with Garren, she was happy.
It was a long way back to Sardorf and she couldn’t dally any longer. She had done what she had come to do.
As Oriana rode back to the Phantom Wood toward Shipwreck Cove, she thought of Haldis and of Garren. It had been agony these past weeks staying away from them, especially after her last meeting with Garren. She wished things could be different, that she could go back to him, and that they could somehow find a way together, but they couldn’t. She had been stupid and too damn afraid to let him in, and now that she finally had, they were out of time. Her heart ached at the thought of never seeing him again, of losing love for a second time. She wished she could say one last goodbye, spend one more beautiful moment with him, but she couldn’t risk it. It was a sacrifice she had to make in order to save the entirety of Svakland. The clock of her curse was ticking, and she had stayed far too long in Elscar. The crimson moon was mere hours from replacing the sun in the sky. In the end, it didn't matter. They would be better off forgetting about her. It was easier this way. She would disappear, never to be heard from again.
Oriana had developed an idea over the centuries, having always feared that this time would come.
Far into the Storm Sea, where the water was the roughest and the storms mingled among one another, she would create an enchanted cage. She would venture out into the hub of tempests where no mortal had survived, and she would lock herself in the cage.
