Chapter 25: The Opal Goddess
To Linna, my mother and first love, Huntress of the Crucible
I will follow you, when you go
My love is forever
Even if my father was not
— Tarys, the Resolute
A Despairing Truth
"Wake up, dummy," Micah's voice was steady. They were smiling. I didn't have to open my eyes to know that. "It's your turn." So they'd done it then. I could only just muster enough energy to wonder what I would see as I stood and stepped into the battle.
Surely Jasmin was alive. There was no world in which Micah could kill their daughter in battle, certainly no world I was willing to inhabit. The queen was either dead or contained, certainly. And I had the only weapon that could finish our task, so the Fiend was alive and up to something. But in any case, things were under control.
Opening my eyes, I was greeted with a vision of peace and perfect poise. My best friend, smiling. Their opal eyes pierced everything they observed. Brilliantly fiery hair was still tied up neatly in that ribbon that had once belonged to Deona. If not for the sweat covering their forehead, I'd assume it had been too easy for them.
Their cold-flame was flickering, like they might pass out any second.
"Relax, Em. You've done enough," I reached up and set a hand on their cheek. Their cold-flame dissipated, and they let themself collapse in my arms. "My turn, you said?" They nodded. "Well then, I suppose I should get started. I wasn't expecting you to do everything."
Once Micah was settled, seated safely on the floor of the throne room, I stood and surveyed the scene. Jasmin was immobile with Love's Paradox pinning her near the great doors. The Fiend pulsed with a physicality that twisted my stomach. Queen Lavender was nowhere to be seen.
"You really did set me up for success here, Em," I smirked around the words and began my walk toward the shadow of Devouring flame.
She noticed me. Her scarlet eyes framed in sapphire and clouded by darkness all turned to face me. Twisted in sadness and corrupted by hunger. My heart ached for Lysandra's loss. And even more for Linna's.
The bright white of my cold-flame made her recoil as I surrounded myself in the same armour I'd told Micah they shouldn't. But I'd never burnt myself out. There was no telling how much I could take. It would have to be enough, I decided.
"It's you," her voice was cracked, but I still knew it. Lysandra's memories of her were distinct. She'd loved the woman this thing had once been. "You can't be here. I —" her voice cracked as I closed the distance.
"She isn't here," I said around measured breaths. "You know why. You know how. I am not her. I can never be. And that is your doing."
The Fiend slid back, loosening its grip on the queen it had been consuming. She still breathed, but it was shallow. "Mother!" Jasmin cried out from far behind me. The queen didn't move. I didn't have to look to know Micah was in pain.
Out of respect for the daughter she stole, I stepped around the queen in my continued advance on the Fiend.
"Why won't you fight, Linna?" I asked, my voice cracking around the memories of Lysandra's love for her. "I know you have the weapons of Nihil, Nara, Gideon, and even Togha. I know you could kill me in a second if you chose. I know you won't." She was backed against the wall. "I simply want to understand why."
"Stop. You can't be here. You can't use her voice." She was shrinking away from me, even with nowhere else to retreat. "You can't hurt me," she growled when I moved a bit too close.
"I don't intend to hurt you, Linna," I said honestly. "See here, my weapon is at my side, not in my hand. If I wanted to hurt you, don't you think I would be holding it, Linna?"
"Don't call me that!" She surged her darkness toward me. My level breath hitched for a moment, but I recovered when she stopped just beyond the reach of my cold-flame.
"But it's your name, Linna," I couldn't smile at her as I said it. I wanted to smile. She should know that someone remembers her as she was. "If not that, then what? Huntress? Mavi of Vaelis? Love?"
She slipped away from the spot and returned to the queen. Her expression was still twisted up into something resembling pain.
"Please, Linna, you don't have to do that."
"I do!" The Devouring flame grew twice its size around the words.
"Take me, then."
"Nyxara! No!" Micah screamed as I withdrew my cold-flame and the Fiend tried again to engulf me. This was a trick I'd learned from them, and they didn't even remember teaching me.
I knew I couldn't kill her. Even if I wanted to kill her, the poison was meant to be handled by another. I would simply die trying. But I could bind her, lock her in this cathedral until the Thorn arrived to play her part. Not Afina, but one to follow.
A tiny bit of cold-flame still slid along the surface of my skin. She couldn't touch me as I pulled out the bloodleaf flower, still just as beautiful as when Gormlaith had planted it in the Aerie. Simultaneously, I took my snowpetal from my belt. The Fiend pressed in, but it recoiled every time it drew to close. Eventually, it gave in and slipped off of me, revealing the throne room exactly as I'd left it.
"Fighting is pointless, Linna," I said. "I'm so sorry. To know you ended up this way would have broken her heart, just as it broke the hearts of all those who loved you. Your sisters, your Lady, your husband. Eventually, your son, his light reflecting off of your pain."
"Stop that!" She screeched the words, desperate for release from something she didn't understand.
I moved to the queen's side and slipped some petals from each flower into her mouth. I didn't need her to swallow them, but she did. She had no clue what she was doing, after all. Bloodleaf, bringer of scarlet rest. Snowpetal, the longsuffering seal. All that was left was what I knew came next.
The Fiend slid into the space between the queen and me, surrounding her as she had when Micah tricked her. I felt my heart skip at the tragedy she'd fallen into.
"You won't understand me, Linna, as I tell you this," I said, standing and staring at the last mistake she'd made. "But she loved you."
At last, Linna became visible in the Fiend's terrible form. She was crying.
"I'm sorry, Linna," I said to the Fiend, not truly a Mavi any longer. "Lysandra loved you," Linna's face blinked. "She loved you so truly and deeply that she gave up everything, even her name. She did all that for you. So that one day you and I would be here, like this, and I would stop you."
Linna's face vanished. The Fiend had Devoured too much of the queen and the flowers had gone with her.
"Rest well, Linna," I said as the queen's twisted body went limp. "I do not envy you the horror when you wake up in that new prison." A tear escaped me as I remembered the terrible rhyme. Red for sleep. Ivory a tomb. One day, the blue and silver rose would come and ensure that truth.
As I lifted Micah from the ground, Jasmin's screams of horror filled the space. There was no saving her. That was the worst part of all this. Micah weakly took Love's Paradox from off of their daughter, who instantly ran to the queen's side, paying us no mind as we left the throne room.
No one stopped our egress from the cathedral or even from Violet's Repose. We wouldn't return to that accursed place for a long time after. Hopefully, the world would be a brighter place when that time came.
It was a sliver of hope, sure, but we had to trust Lysandra and Salora, even after all that time.