1.

  There is a place, where death occurred. Not once, not twice, not thrice. This place, pulled together by mistakes and grief, by a life reborn, not yet but soon, lies at the heart of it all. The aether—the universe itself, stitched together through the forces without. So rarely seen, tasted—only the smallest of speaks, sneaking about, seeking an end to the glory of the beast.

  Let it sneak.

  Let it sizzle.

  Let this world—the one without, within—burn to the ground.

  ? ? ?

  Emilia was grateful for her short hair at the moment, as even the short silver locks, knotted and tangled from all she’d been through these last few days, were being whipped about by the aetherstorm—and part of her wondered how similar this was to a real-world aetherstorm, having never personally experienced one—and leaving her constantly pushing pieces back, even the {Blood Hairclip} she’d been gifted by Caro in the moments before their death not enough to completely stop it from annoying her eyes.

  As much as she and V had managed to stop the god’s energy from spreading, locking it into the Clarity City System for all eternity—if Carne was to be believed and the people managing the raid to be trusted not to let the damn thing out, anyways—that didn’t mean this place was any less chaotic than it had been before the activation of their {Blood Tattoo}. Part of her was glad she was the one Carne had said needed to come to this place. Another part of her was annoyed: it really was a lot of work, trying to move through this place!

  On the other hand, it had been Phlostra who had died bringing her here. Would die, anyways.

  Their ability—their locking in of what remained of Clarity’s god—trapped everything within this place. She herself would die and return to the real world—well, at least she really hoped she would. What an end to the raid would that be—not to mention a strange and unfortunate way of proving that the raids were now fucking with human minds more than they should be.

  Better not to worry about that. There were bigger things to worry about, like how she still needed to get back to the place she had tried to kill the god, and how Phlostra was doing.

  The Clarity woman would never leave this place. Originally, Boundary had offered to bring her—which was absolutely not happening, and luckily, Carne had shot him down immediately as well. He had his own mission—his own point—to find. Phlostra volunteered next, and despite her having some family left to live for, Emilia could feel how done she was. Her leader was gone, as was so much of her family, so many of her friends.

  Phlostra moved her, smiled sadly, and left—wandered into the swirling, slicing aether to die alongside all the other people left in this doomed place.

  2.

  Hearts align, unexpectedly. Brought together by grief and chance—by the sweet kindness of the saviour from without. Saviour of this world. Saviour of that. Child, newly named. Love—forever reaffirmed.

  Go home. Stay home. Live, love, and remember in words not spoken, not thought.

  ? ? ?

  Boundary collapsed onto his husband’s back, a small part of him thankful their new son couldn’t hear when Villy screamed in surprise.

  ?Boundary! You’re back!? he cheered, after a respectable moment of gathering himself. For a Risen Guard, the man really was quite jumpy. It was no wonder he was generally assigned less important tasks—not that that hadn’t ended up badly for him when Emilia knocked him out.

  Thank the universe that was all she had done.

  ?Yes,? Boundary said, leaning in to rest his head against his husband’s, as he did every return home—their little ritual since that moment Villy, his then friend, had comforted him when Ash had been lost to them. ?Where is Emile??

  Villy pulled back, looking him over with a wrinkled nose that said he did not approve of him meeting their recently acquired child when he was covered in grime. At least there was no blood, as there sometimes was when the blood curses decided it was too lazy to work—at least, that’s how many Risen Guard thought of its chronic inconsistency, anyways. It helped that one of the Risen Guards who had helped with the evacuations had given him his armour, knowing that his husband would freak if he returned shirtless, a near-fatal injury still healing across his chest.

  ?You need to shower,? the other man demanded, beginning to gently—humorously—lecture him on properly greeting their child and not accidentally instilling bad habits in him, as though Villy weren’t the chronically messy one in their relationship, constantly dropping food on himself and stumbling and marring his knees with dirt.

  Boundary looked at his timer—the one Carne had set for each of them, so they’d be sure to be in their spots to activate their {Blood Marble} when the time was right. He had a little bit of time yet. Pressing a soft, fleeting kiss to his husband’s lips, Boundary turned and headed for the bathroom, fighting against the maelstrom of emotions threatening his mind.

  He couldn’t break, not over the impending departure of people he had oddly come to view as his friends and allies, nor everything they would have to do after, in order to deal with Clarity and the Enclave and repairing all the damage the visitors and their own corruption had caused.

  Later, he could break. Not now—not when the moment to break the blood curse as almost upon them.

  3.

  The blue of remembrance—a single moment in a too short friendship. Here, it started. Here, where the rules of this world have bent and broken for a million years, the world will bend and break once more. Games and laughter, highs and lows. A last—first—moment of friendship. Blood beneath and below—blood gone, wiped free from this world.

  A little bit of history—of hurt—vanished.

  ? ? ?

  Key stared into the pool of water. He’d always liked this place, strange and filled with colours that normally didn’t exist in their world. Perhaps, after this—if they managed to succeed—the world would no longer be red.

  He didn’t mind if it continued to be red, nor would he mind if the possibility of colour would rise. Those were preferable to a complete shift in their perception—or was it the world itself? There had been a few moments, with Emilia, where she’d shown shock at the emersion of colour into their world. Here, in this cavern. When Rin had used magic to ignite the world in colour, before they had known more than each other’s names—back when the world had been easier.

  ?It’s pretty here…? Gale said from where she stood beside him. Her gaze had caught not on the lake, but the stalactites high above them, menacing and beautiful.

  Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

  ?I’ve always thought so,? he said, catching sight of Rin scowling behind the local teenager.

  What a strange group they made: a former—maybe former—Enclave member, an orphaned teen and a former—probably former—Risen Guard.

  Three people who didn’t belong, who were now together until who knew when.

  Out of them, Rin seemed the least impressed, although he couldn’t tell what she was most annoyed by: him, Gale or the entire situation. Then again, perhaps it was the threat of running into Harmony at some point.

  It was inevitable that they’d meet up with his family at some point, at least according to her. Somewhere in their evacuation of everyone, Rin and Boundary has discussed what to do about the Enclave. It was… complicated, to say the least, and apparently the fact that he had been the only Enclave member to come help them put him into a strange position—a position to help the Risen Guard deal with the Enclave and remaining Clarity members alike.

  Key… wasn’t sure what to think about that. As much as he’d been raised in part to take over the Stringer family, that had been a long way off, and he wasn’t even sure how genuine those intentions had been; there was just so much he didn’t know, so much he’d never been told.

  For a moment, his mind flickered back to Sk’lar, now trapped within that god’s storm, under an entire building. As much as their last moments—these last few weeks, really—had been marred with strain, the man had still been with him since he was a child, had become what he was in an effort to protect him. Some part of him was still in shock, he thought.

  Eventually, the reality of what Sk’lar had become, simply due to his loyalty to the Stringer family, would hit him. Eventually, he would cry for the young man he had once been, for the monster he was surely becoming, trapped for eternity in that place.

  ?You gonna cry??

  Key had to look between his companions to figure out who was talking to him, abrasive as both women could be, although he figured he’d learn their specific personality quirks soon.

  They were all each other had now, after all.

  4.

  Seeing does not come without a cost of closeness—an invisibility that cannot be refused. Love blinds. Friendship restores. Yet, your heart shall not break. Not now, not a hundred, two, three from now.

  Little child from without, growing up too fast, but no choice given—a choice that cannot be taken offered. Where fates unseen collide, where a single glance ignited fire that never before existed, where only curiosity has lingered since birth—there, the future awaits, beautiful and terrifying and unknown.

  ? ? ?

  Hyr stood outside the city buildings, where the universe had bid them to stop, in those early days of the raid. The rest of their group had gone on, not even noticing them stop.

  They shouldn’t have stopped, but it was fate. A single glance of silver, through the thin alleys of that spice encased outer world as their group tried to escape the organization—organizations, Hyr now realized—chasing them down. The slam of a door, as they sought their escape.

  Someone had let them go. Hyr had told Boundary about that, in the fleeting moments before they were moved to this place. Corruption runs deep, and if the Risen Guard thought their own members weren’t purposefully letting the Enclave and Clarity have visitors, they were mistaken.

  The man hadn’t seemed surprised as he gazed up at them, fatigue stretching over his body. There were too many visitors out and about, perhaps—of course there were leaks. Perhaps by the time the next visitation occurred—assuming this beautiful world wouldn’t be cruelly scrapped—they will have stamped out that corruption.

  The aether rippled, not quite a vision, but an invitation to look, and Hyr looked, pulling the {Blood Glass} up to their eye to gaze through. A Risen Guard had been assigned to them, someone Emilia’s friend trusted to gather the {Blood Glass} once they were gone from this world, so it wouldn’t drive anyone insane, bidding them to search for paths that would be too much for their minds to handle.

  The future it showed Hyr now… it was acceptable.

  It existed.

  There was colour.

  There was blood, innocent and uncaring, smeared across the limbs of smiling, laughing children.

  That was acceptable. That was possibly a world worth the horrors they had inflicted upon this world.

  5.

  The touch of a god’s birth. The touch of a saviour’s hand, back, heart. A thousand gods come and go, born at the strangest of moments, disappeared before a single soul notices their arrival.

  A thousand more will come and go, times and times over, before this war is through. They know this—sacrifice their time and will and lives themselves, for they know the future comes. Spots and speaks of the future light some—not all—of their minds. That future, fleeting and kind, is worth the sacrifice, even if the world looks upon their deeds as a cruelty, not a kindness.

  ? ? ?

  Ash was fighting to get out.

  What a rarity, for the soul of this body to wish to escape. Usually, they switched and meshed flawlessly, each understanding the purpose of their existence, as hard as it was.

  The god and the human. Unlike all the other gods, they coexisted. The patron god of the Risen Guard fought. The god of Clarity had consumed. The god of the Enclave never stepped a toe into this world, only pressing its obsession into its followers’ minds. Ash and they existed together in harmony.

  Most likely, it was Ash’s sister—the knowing that the girl now knew they were still inside them, that hiding was now a useless facade. Surprising—each of the last times they had met, Ash had been quiet, slinking inwards even as they said cruel things to the girl, hoping to extinguish any remaining hope in that child.

  Emilia—that woman’s words had gotten to Ash, they imagined, her cutting glares after Ash had deigned to force their way out for Boundary but never for Gale. Her judgments weren’t exactly bad—it had been Ash, knowing what paths lay before them just as well as they did, who had insisted they separate themselves from Gale, not them. They might be a god, but they weren’t actively cruel, especially not to the person they were destined to live within, to slowly consume despite their best efforts not to.

  That was why they had made such a nest in Livery—an offering to Ash, to always return home when he was in control.

  He never did.

  They didn’t question that. They had no need for human friends, only followers.

  If Ash suddenly wanted a relationship with his sister, they wouldn’t stop them, although they both knew the future was a cruel place.

  It made no difference to them—they would not cry and shatter when remaining close with Boundary or Gale inevitably torn their lives apart—although they could not let Ash out yet, not when they had a mission to complete—one they could not allow their human soul to interfere with.

  Carne stared out at the destroyed Livery from Ash’s childhood room, itself half destroyed when Emilia had forced her way inside, seeking safety for those children—for their children. She saved their homeless children, their followers. Carne didn’t think the woman had ever really let that sink in, how her actions had saved them from having to find more children to lead where they were needed, decades from now.

  Idly, they rolled the {Blood Marble} between their fingers, waiting for the timer to end. Waiting for the end of the blood curse to come, at the hands of five very difference beings, each touched by that woman.

  They had seen it, long ago, before ever setting foot in this world—before sliding into Ash’s mind, sneaking past the Risen Guard’s god. A terrible curse. The beginning of a new world.

  It would not be the final world, but for now, it was enough. It was a happiness that had not existed in this reality for centuries—a happiness worth all the death and pain their existence alone caused this world, would continue to cause until their existence finally snuffed out.

  It was a good thing they wouldn’t last, their life a sliver of time they were willing to sacrifice for this world, or a chance to remove the grasp of the other gods from this world.

  Inside them, Ash shook—mourned. They had long ago accepted that their life would be cut short, but they had forced that decision upon Ash. They would not regret it—regret was not an emotion they were capable of—but they still acknowledged the cruelty of it, the pain it caused Ash. It would be even more, now that Gale knew they continued to exist. A permanent reminder for each sibling of their loss—their separation, even if they and Ash knew it was for the best.

  To return to Gale’s life was simply to destine her to watch their terrible rule play out, never understanding why—the why would not come for hundreds of years, after all.

  At that reminder, Ash quieted. It was not a quiet they enjoyed—not acceptance, but broken sadness.

  The timer clicked, the {Blood Marble} exploded, its newly bestowed power shattering through the world and bringing the blood curse to an end.

  One curse gone—one tyrannical rule gone.

  One vacuum of power and fear left for them to fill, intent to make this world even better—even stronger.