A cosmos of light and darkness flowed through Kade.
Six fluxes of aura—like rivers bright, deep, and tingling with energy—splayed out in different directions and divided his world. They flowed from the Nadir, a blazing orb at the heart of Ellunon; it emanated a relentless stream of power that filled the universe, coursing out as the fluxes, flowing to the edges of existence, and dissipating. Each flux spread a fan of smaller tributaries, many feeding into little orbs or fading into a whirl of eddies tinged with pinks, yellows, or periwinkle blues. From Kade’s vantage point, it seemed a vast net, studded with stars, breathing with color, light, and potential.
He hung afar and above the Sixth Flux, clear of the strong currents and most of the eddies. A pinkish one washed over him. It made him itch to plunge into it, to do something, anything. As the eddy drifted away, the itch faded. It left behind a thinness, and Kade shuddered in it.
In the distance across the Fifth Flux (mortals considered it Varkest), a gloom marred the cosmos. It swirled slowly, a dark maelstrom amidst the stars and rivers. The flux nearest to it, the Fourth, bent off its course to drift into the maelstrom’s eye where it was sucked down. Its aura vanished from Kade’s awareness as the maelstrom absorbed it, draining the light, pulling in the eddies.
Those nearest Kade shuddered again.
A little ping of light flared below, and he grabbed the distraction gladly. It carried the call of a summoner. As he caught it up, the mortal’s thoughts burst into him: blood, hot water, a dim bedroom; a mother with a heavy belly screaming in bed; a midwife mopping her brow; the tight eyes of a scar-faced man and the little boy hiding behind his knees. The scenes tugged at him, but he resisted.
He’d help soon.
Stretching out his senses, he searched. Surely, they must be coming? He felt the pull of the gloom at the edge of his consciousness, but he tugged his attention away and focused on mortals instead.
Creatures so feeble, so… separated. Kade wondered at the Great Keeper—what could he have been thinking when designing them? They could not see for any great distance at all and felt even less. Small wonder Kade and his brethren had been sent to look after them. Mortals needed the help. Especially against such an enemy.
The pull of the distant gloom crept into his mind again, ever rotating, ever drinking. Even from so far, he could sense its subtle draw in the eddies around him.
The summoner’s call flared below again. Kade snatched it. He let the thoughts slide through him: the mother laying pale and weak on the pillow; the midwife looking to him helplessly. The desperation wrapped in the summoner’s call tugged at him harder.
A ripple spread out through the energies around him. Childbirth—speaking of the strange and incomprehensible! Why didn’t the Great Keeper create enough mortals from the beginning? Why do they need to procreate? Why did they die so young? So easily? Not for the first time, Kade settled in himself: how glad to be an Arkian and not a mortal!
Kade let the summoner’s call fade into the eddies.
What was keeping them?
A handful of sparks swirled up from the Nadir as if in response to his thoughts. As he saw them, he felt the jolt: “We come!”
The sparks cut through the eddies and plunged through the rivers before soaring up to join him. Maer the Gentle; Lode the Steady; Liel the Eager; Miel the Mighty; Fael the Quiet: their greetings all buzzed through him as they neared.
“Kade the Questioner.”
“Always thinking.”
“What’s he thinking of now?”
“You’ve called us, and we’ve answered.”
“Share with us your thoughts.”
If his summoner were near, he’d be demanding Kade to painstakingly parse out who said what. Why did it matter so much? Such boundaries were a hindrance. All Arkians heard, all often spoke, together as one. Individual thoughts blended into a collage of images and ideas. Kade, not for the first time, wondered if his summoner thought him incomprehensible, just like he found mortals incomprehensible.
“You did not call us here to contemplate mortals, Kade.”
“Speak to us.”
“You said it was a matter of great concern.”
“We cannot spare long from our duties.
“You are troubled.”
He answered them, the thoughts of the other Arkians whirling in between his own:
“Sair the Young no longer answers. I am concerned for him—”
“He is too young for such a charge.”
“It was not wise to put him over the Fourth Flux.”
“—he has been too long near the Consuming Dark, I fear. I sought him out. He will not let me draw close nor find him out—”
“The Consuming Dark’s hold is too strong.”
“—I am concerned he is taken—”
“We should bring this before the Great Council.”
This last thought echoed from several of his brethren at once, even as he himself thought it. Everyone’s mind quieted to a soft hum; none of the thoughts or ideas Kade heeded as they digested this information together. Fael the Quiet, who’d not yet struck out strongly, filled the space.
“I saw Sair the Young. He was coming as I joined the others at the Nadir. Perhaps he is already repenting as we are here now speaking of him?”
Kade doubted this. Sair had out-stripped him when he’d given him pursuit; but he couldn’t hide the flickers of his thoughts. Dark weavings. Unsteady conversations with shadows. A breaking. And strongest of all—pulsing through Sair—the Consuming Darkness’ hatred for the Arkians. Hatred and hungry shadows closing their grip.
A wave of ripples cascaded through the others as they caught the flow of his thinking. Liel the Eager and Miel the Mighty shot away as one, speeding back for the Nadir, winged by their united thoughts of haste and care. They carved through the cosmos, eddies curling in their wake.
Below, another summoner’s flare materialized: the birthing mother dying; please; soon. The visage rattled him, but he shook it off.
Before his aura settled, the thud of a distant impact trembled through them all and drew their attention to the Nadir. A huge pulse exploded out of the glowing orb. It roiled out as a giant shock wave, spreading like a ripple in the universe, the fluxes bucking and twisting, the eddies disappearing into seething whorls. Shock drew Kade tight together with Maer, Lode, and Fael. They watched Miel the Eager and Liel the Mighty near the shock wave. Neither arcangel balked, but fixing their course for the Nadir, the two dove into the shock wave head-on. They vanished for a moment into the brightness of its power. When they reappeared out the other side, both plunged into a spiral and dissolved from Kade’s awareness.
His aura shuddered with Maer and Lode, but Fael the Quiet darted away. The sharp tingle of her concern radiated against Maer’s shiver of warning in her wake.
The tidal wave of power bore down on them, spreading and roaring as it neared, until it filled all their awareness with blazing energy. Kade hunkered together with the other two. They braced each other as the wave struck.
A vicious mind burst through Kade’s consciousness. With a jolt, his body of aura responded and began working without his bidding. He struggled against it, but he couldn’t regain control. He felt the invading willpower surge through Maer and Lode beside him, locking them together, forcing them down. The three of them plummeted.
Kade wrestled against his rebelling aura, bending all of his willpower toward it, but his fall accelerated. The harder he tried, the more of his body burned away. The efforts of Maer and Lode beside him fizzled against the strength of the mind. He felt it working his aura, weaving through unfamiliar patterns, burning through him hot and fast.
Alarm flashed first from Maer, then inside himself.
Whoever’s mind had a hold of them could drain them to death.
Lode gathered Maer and Kade to himself.
The world around them dimmed as they hurtled down. The cosmos began fading into shadows that were rising up on every side. The darkness was swallowing them.
Lode shared a thought with Maer; they both exploded into action before Kade could cry back.
They angled what little aura they could still grip towards Kade. Their desperate purpose swept him along—“Guide it, don’t fight it!”
Kade sensed them weakening. The darkness smothered him, yawning up overhead. His senses grew numb. He was falling away from Maer and Lode.
Maer winked out.
The fading light swirled far overhead, the darkness closing over it faster and faster.
With a flash, Lode vanished. Kade caught his dying intent and threw every last ounce of himself behind it. Block it! Block the darkness! Block it! Block! He launched the last of his aura at the shrinking circle of light.
The darkness slammed in complete around him.
Kade reeled.
Emptiness and stillness filled everything.
Trembling, he re-gathered what he could find of himself. His body was his own again, the little left of it.
Kade reached out and met—
Nothing.
He grasped for Maer, for Lode. His reach floundered through the void. Their minds had vanished.
Grief turned him cold inside. He could feel nothing but himself, his own form and aura shivering.
Everything else was gone. Is this what it’s like for mortals?
Oh, how he hated it.
He’d never felt such cold.
He’d failed. Had the Consuming Shadow won? Was Ellunon destroyed by the surge from the Nadir?
He’d never known an Arkian to die from cold. But if it could kill him, he felt he might be dying of it now.
The shivers refused to stop.
Then, the tiniest speck of warmth touched him, made him itch. Whirling around, he launched himself towards it. He searched where the last of the light had disappeared and found—the shadow hadn’t swallowed it all.
The tiniest pinprick punctured his dark surroundings. A little eddy of light—a bare trickle—flowed through the hole. Kade drank it in. He tried to press himself through, but he stuck fast.
Shimmying up close though he could feel—abnormal sensations. As if echoing from a great distance, they carried faint and difficult to make out. Only the strongest he caught when he focused hard.
Another mind. A young one—so young.
He called out and reached to touch it, but it did not answer him. The mind’s thoughts drifted over him from a distance.
Death.
Stinging eyes.
A keening wail, frail, gasping.
A heavy hand in his hair.
Relentless sobs raw in his throat.
Mama’s gone.
Kade shuddered away. It couldn’t be. He knew something of mortals secondhand through his summoner. He knew of things like eyes, wails, hands, tears, and hair. But he’d never—he’d never—felt them.
A mortal’s mind. He’d become trapped inside a mortal’s mind.
Kade tried to quell a rise of alarm before he lost his grip on himself. Body-sharing, much less mind-linking, was absolutely forbidden. Trapped though, isolated, he couldn’t do anything about it. Not yet. Whatever had trapped him hadn’t completed its work.
He, Maer, and Lode had wedged the collapsing darkness. Through that wedge came the mere trickle of aura, but enough to sustain, enough to strengthen, given time. He may yet gain the strength to open the wedge further. Maybe escape. Though how long that could take, Kade trembled to guess.
Pressing himself to the hole, Kade reached out again. He stretched towards the mortal’s mind. The grief that poured over made him flutter, but he steeled himself. He searched. If he could discover the name of this mortal, it may come in helpful; especially if he could break out enough to share his thoughts.
Sifting and riding the waves of grief, Kade tried to find it. What was the mortal called? He could sense something (Is this what mortals call sound?) coming to him over and over again. Speaking? Hearing? Is this it? This must be it. He could feel the mortal’s mind—just a boy!—associating itself with this sound. It must be the mortal’s name. Kade tried to make it out.
Kyen.
They called him Kyen.