One by one, they knelt as she passed.
Her power crackled against the air like a storm waiting to be unleashed, calling to Rune.
And then she heard a soft purr.
Nexus trotted toward her from some pocket of the universe. And his yellow eyes glowing with galaxies blinked up at her in content.
“Welcome back, little one,” Alora murmured.
He meowed once, the sound deepening as his form shifted into a panther. Great feathered wings fluttered at his back, regal horns growing him his head like a prince of monsters.
She stroked his soft coat. “Where did he go?”
The Vareth then bumped her shoulder, wings rustling as it trotted ahead, leading the way.
They crossed the dead sands in silence, past ruined tower and gates, past rivers of molten lava with wailing souls of the damned, and cliffs that howled.
Until they reached it.
A massive crater in the black terrain as if an explosion had torn through the Netherworld. Within it was an endless field of spider lilies, glittering with magic.
The only living color in this dark world.
“This was where Rune landed when the Heavens cast him out,” Calla said softly beside her. “He fell like a star of fire with a force that shook the Seven Hells.”
And from the edges of the field two more shadowed figures appeared.
Hadeon and Deimos.
The Harbingers had been waiting.
They were changed, stripped of their glamor, revealing their true infernal forms. Calla’s wings were made of darkness, her eyes like burning coals. Hadeon towered like a mountain of stone and flame, and Deimos hovered above the ground, his tail curling like smoke.
All three bowed as she passed.
And at the center of the field floated a golden spec.
Rune’s soul.
Alora followed, nearly running as the light drifted into the crater then it floated down within a fissure among the basalt. It dimmed, flickering.
“No,” she murmured, hands hovering over it helplessly. “Rune? Oh, please, please.”
The little light dimmed, and all that was left was a husk. Alora’s chest heaved with a painful sob. Her claws dug into the black basalt as she wept and her tears spilled, landing on the seed.
It flashed with light and Alora yelped, falling back as it grew.
A majestic tree formed on the hill, towering over her with bright sapphire leaves in the shapes of stars.
An Azure Tree.
The tree of fate, her mother had called it.
But why…
The light of it spilled across the crater, each leaf shimmering with the grief of her tears. It had sprung from the husk of the seed as if her sorrow alone had coaxed it from death, branches stretching toward a sky that had never known the sun.
And nestled in its roots was Rune.
