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Sub-Oceanic Stratocracy: SeaBed
43rd Day of Month 4, Year 1618 DG - 10 Years Earlier
“Look at me, Rafa,” Joaquina says, placing a hand on his chin and tilting his head up until his moist eyes meet hers. “Those who never fail cannot recognize success.”
Rafael nods and wipes his tears away. “I’ll try again.”
Joaquina smiles, bends forward, and places a soft kiss on his forehead. “Forget the salvers. I know you can do this.”
Rafael locks his sights on the bow at his feet, fingers trembling—a lack of steadiness in his hand that, salvers say, will halt his archery permanently.
But Joaquina bought him a new bow and quiver for his birthday. He can let neither her money, nor her faith in him, go to waste.
He grasps the bow firmly in his hand, hoping to steady his fingers. The siblings return to the olive tree they were using for target practice before Rafael angrily stormed off. Light falls from the panels at the top of the dome around the city and illuminates the entire grove.
“Nock an arrow,” Joaquina instructs.
Rafael’s hands remain still by his side.
“Nock an arrow, Rafa.”
Again, Rafael doesn’t respond.
Joaquina steps in front of him. “What’s wrong?”
He speaks softly, eyes on the bow, releasing the question from its home in the back of his mind. “Do you think Dad’s going to die?”
Joaquina’s eyes widen and she stands in silence.
“Is that why you’re pushing my archery lessons so hard? Because you think he named me his undersoldier and they’re going to call me up when he gets killed?”
Joaquina’s wide eyes relax only when she takes a deep breath and a long pause.
“Rafa, we don’t know who Dad named as his undersoldier. It could be either of us.”
Rafael scoffs. “The groves are the family legacy. They mean everything to him, and you’ve got his olive thumb. Dad’s not going to risk the legacy by having you called up to fight in his place. Dad would have no problem sending me to war in his place when he dies on the battlefield.”
Joaquina places both hands on Rafael’s cheeks. “Dad is not going to get killed, and this war will end soon. No one else will have to fight, particularly not you. If Dad dies, I’ll fight in your place.
“That’s illegal,” Rafael reminds her. “They’ll exile both of us.”
Joaquina’s tone never wavers. “Illegal or not, it’s my duty to protect you.”
“I would never let you go for me.”
Rafael pulls an arrow out of the quiver and nocks it to the bow, then gestures for Joaquina to move aside, which she does, revealing a clear path to the target hanging from the olive tree.
He draws the arrow, holds it as steadily as he can, and keeps his eyes locked on the small red circle in the center of the target. Dead center.
Joaquina steps close to him and whispers in his ear. “What are you shooting for?”
“Dead center,” Rafael responds.
“I mean, why are you training?”
Rafael keeps the arrow drawn, and his line of sight focused on the target, as he speaks. “Battle.”
“Why?”
Rafael pauses. “To defeat the igni.”
“Wrong, try again.”
He understands. “To protect the people I love.” He feels her smile behind him.
“Imagine Dad. Imagine Mom. Imagine me. Remember why you’re training. It’s not about the warrior on the other side, who has left their family, too. It’s about you protecting yours.”
Rafael keeps the images of his loved ones in his mind as he takes a deep breath and releases the arrow. It cuts confidently through the air.
And it hits dead center.
Joaquina wraps her brother in her arms. “Always remember, Rafa, fear, hatred, and the desire to kill—these are the wrong reasons. Protecting the people you love is the right one. It will guide you.”
The HearthBark
21st Day of Month 6, Year 1628 DG
Time stands still in the HearthBark as the canopy blocks the view of the suns.
Few words have been traded between the Librarians, as Kyoko leads him through the trees, but after some time, their surroundings look eerily familiar. Rafael wonders if they might be going in circles, but cages his tongue.
The scurry of wildlife around his feet is most irritating. He prefers the marine life that avoided him, or played enthusiastically, as he swam from the domed cities and villages of SeaBed to the surface. It was always one or the other, never a middle ground.
The scurrying and brushing against his ankles grows to be such an annoyance that he looks down to find the creatures and scold them, but all he sees are vines.
A bed of green, serpentine flora forms a network of veins across the forest floor. They cover the trees, slithering up branches and wrapping over roots. The few animals visible hurriedly try to escape from the expanding, breathing tentacles.
There are so many intertwined vines, Rafael would never be able to trace a source. The Caracal’s warning comes to life.
Beware the Vine Demon.
Rafael quickly unstraps his bow from his bag. Ahead of him, Kyoko continues forward, unaware that a vine is slithering to her ankle from behind.
“Kyoko!” Rafael yells to get her attention, but he’s too late. Before she can turn, the thick vine closes around her ankle, lifts her into the air, and then slams her back down onto the ground. An audible crunch rings out through the forest, and Rafael silently prays that her exoskeleton withstood the blow.
He drops the bag off his back and pulls a collapsible arrow from his waist. The vine lifts Kyoko again and Rafael takes aim. He lines the arrowhead with the vine around her ankle and fires. It cuts through the air quickly and makes contact, sending Kyoko tumbling toward the ground again.
But she doesn’t land. A thicker vine catches her from the air and wraps tightly around her body, pinning her arms to her sides.
“No!” Rafael screams, pulling another arrow, but he quickly becomes the target of the demon’s wrath.
Bow gripped tightly in one hand, arrow in the other, the vines drag him along the forest floor, on his front, toward Kyoko. Rafael musters strength to turn onto his back and stab the arrow through the vine around his leg.
It releases him, and a primal roar erupts throughout the canopies. The thousands of vines wrapping and penetrating the forest recede into one spot, beneath the limb holding Kyoko. Rafael feels momentary relief, until the ground trembles.
The vines conjoin cohesively until a head and face forms, followed by a body, legs, and claws. The vines wrap around one another until they give the beast, the monster, the demon a form.
The creature emerges from the vines as if the forest floor has birthed it. It doesn’t reach the canopies, but it is certainly taller than any living being Rafael has ever seen. The Vine Demon boasts the dominating face and muscular body of a lion, with thick green vines forming a mane around its head. More vines extrude from its spine, flitting about like a hundred tails.
The rest cling to its body, forming patterns and designs along its sides and back. If it didn’t pose such a threat, Rafael would’ve considered it a work of art. A miracle.
Its gaze challenges the mari to attack, before the beast opens its mouth wide to release a robust, violent roar that shakes the trees. The vine holding Kyoko releases her and she drops, landing hard on the ground a second time. She shakes herself off and crawls away from the creature. The tanto glints in her hand.
A hungry grimace crosses the demon’s expression when it sees the Librarian escaping. A vine pounces forth, from the mane, to retrieve her. Rafael arms his bow and fires another arrow, severing the vine at the base, close to the beast’s head.
Another roar bellows and it turns its sights on him. Rafael turns on his heels and quickly puts distance between him and the monster, hiding behind trees when possible.
The beast sends five vines, then ten, then twenty, until Rafael can no longer outrun or hide from them. The tendrils follow until they capture him, wrapping tight around his body and separating him from his bow.
They carry him into the air until he is inches from the Vine Demon’s face. The raw stench of its breath bathes him as it growls deeply, reverberating through the vines and shaking him.
It pulls Rafael closer and opens its mouth.
His fingers fiddle with an arrow on his waist, trying to loosen one, but the effort is rendered pointless when the Demon releases him with an irate, guttural roar. Rafael lands on his side and pain shoots into his shoulder, arm, and hips.
Kyoko, armed with the tanto, stands on the Demon’s neck, an open wound bleeding down the side of its face. Two vines rise up behind Kyoko—one knocks the tanto from her hand, the other wraps around her head, covering her nose and mouth. Her fingers latch onto the vine over her face, clawing at it violently as she struggles.
It’s suffocating her.
Rafael wildly searches for his bow, finding it captive in a vine’s grasp far above the monster’s head. There’s no way of reaching it before Kyoko asphyxiates.
Think, think, he demands, but no plan materializes. He watches, helplessly, painfully, his heart thrashing in his chest, his eyes burning. Rigid muscles, numbness around his body, the truth becomes clear.
He’s losing her.
Rafael drops to his knees. The burning in his eyes spreads to his entire face, and throughout his skin. It’s happening all over again; he feels fifteen years old, standing at Joaquina’s funeral, feeling the weight of someone he cares about dying because he couldn’t save them.
Seeing their red blood painted all over his hands.
The guilt clenches around his throat and strangles him. Nausea rises and his vision goes red with anguish. She will die, and he won’t be able to save her.
And then, he’s no longer on his knees; it feels like floating. Tranquility enters him. His eyes close and his fear of losing Kyoko, and his concern for her, manifest in an energetic charge buzzing around his body.
His eyes open again to an entirely red world, and he realizes the colored vision isn’t part of his emotional state, but the physical one. The energy pulses up through his veins and into his eyeballs, searing the sockets. He screams from the burning nerves.
He simply knows what to do next, as he feels the connection to the Radiance guiding him. Kyoko’s clawing fingers begin to go limp as her consciousness withers. The Radiance tells him to release the energy from his eyes and cut down the vines, but to take care not to hit Kyoko.
Joaquina’s words from his childhood archery sessions echo through his ears. Protecting the people you love is the right one. It will guide you.
The burning in his sockets climaxes and he forces the energy out, releasing two thin beams of red light from his eyes. They travel faster than an arrow is shot, making contact with the vine around Kyoko centimeters from her ear.
A roar rattles the realm again, and the vines drop from Kyoko’s face. She inhales sharply, then vomits and drops off the beast’s back. Rafael bounds forward and catches her before she hits the ground, carrying her away from the injured Demon.
Rafael lays her down behind a tree, placing a hand on her face. “Kyoko?”
She struggles to conjure a voice, but nods and breathes deeply.
Rafael looks beyond the trees, and the Demon locks eyes with him. It creeps forward, but neither he nor the igni are in any shape to escape. He has nothing with which he can continue the battle. Only one option remains.
Pacify it.
He emerges from behind the tree and raises both hands in the air. “Stop! Please!”
Charging vines freeze. The Demon awaits his plea.
“We want to leave the HearthBark. We are not here to harm you or the forest.”
The Demon growls and the vines advance once again. He closes his eyes, attempting to summon the Radiance, but fails. A single vine reaches Rafael, but doesn’t attach to him; it slowly presses the tip against his chest, over his heart.
A familiar gust of wind rises and Rafael lifts his arm to shield his face from the violent blow. When the wind stops, Rafael finds himself in the void again. In the abyss of the Radiance. And the Vine Demon joins him.
Why have you brought me here? Rafael questions him.
To show you, growls a gruff voice in his mind. Images appear around the void. Rafael spins and takes them in. The first depicts a hooded figure in the HearthBark. A green-skinned Mega with only one arm.
SunSide’s Facilitator, Rafael says.
Six years ago, the gruff growl continues. Brought me here.
The next image depicts the Facilitator with his hand raised, and a wide crack opening in the air.
Brought you here from where? Rafael questions.
The gruff growl becomes a pained, sorrowful moan. Home.
A third image. The Vine Demon on the ground, writhing in agony, as the Facilitator blasts him with two red beams from the eyes. Evil creature. Made me kill.
Kill who?
Witnesses.
Confusion racks Rafael. Witnesses to what?
I don’t know.
The Radiance connects them. Rafael feels the anguish in the Demon’s heart.
Do you know how to get us through the HearthBark?
The Demon pauses. Yes. Then you send me home.
Rafael hesitates. I don’t know how to do that.
Then you stay lost.
Rafael sighs. I can try. Take us through the forest and I’ll try to send you home.
The Demon nods, then the vines crawl toward Rafael and press against his chest. The wind gusts and returns Rafael to the forest.
The Vine Demon’s wounds have healed.
“What happened?” comes Kyoko’s voice.
Rafael finds her standing behind him, eyebrows scrunched, their bags and his bow at her feet.
The igni hands him the bow. “You’ve been standing here with a vine touching your chest and your eyes closed.”
The Vine Demon turns to face south, then lowers onto its knees, its belly against the ground. Rafael understands.
He turns to Kyoko. “I found the path out.”