Interlude
Everything slowed to an agonising crawl. Not a full stop, but slow enough that I could feel every sensation on my skin. Whose skin was it? Delia? Roisin? Asha? Linna? I'd been them all at various moments, and there was no telling, as the unravelling slowed, whose body I was occupying.
For a moment, I remembered everything. Every life, every soul, every cycle. And it all kept wrapping back around to me. To that moment in Violet's Repose.
As I looked around, I realised I wasn't quite any of them, and yet I was all of them. I saw that moment from every angle all gathered together. We were quite the collection of odd people, running toward the disaster instead of away. It made sense that we always found each other like this in every cycle.
Asha's heart was just in the process of leaping at the sight of her mother. It had been a long year apart. She and Sage had cried a lot when the accident happened, believing their mother dead. The dark skinned lady had cried with them. So had their father. When news arrived that her mother was okay, it had changed everything.
Nyx was realising the horror of a five hundred year plan falling to pieces in spite of precise and careful preparation. Sapphire hair and crimson blood were too much for her eyes. If Flux didn't do something in that moment, she was preparing herself to. The Rose was supposed to end the reign of the fell-queen and become a heroine to the people. She wasn't supposed to have died.
Tal understood in a blink that the sight would likely kill her wife. She was already sprinting to protect the world from Nyx. There was a creeping awareness that she wouldn't make it in time, but not because of her or Nyx. She knew Flux would stop her.
Salora was calculating. The first time she'd been in that place, she hadn't seen it coming. She didn't realise how little Time she had left if Delia saw Roisin dead. Every cycle, she had pushed back her tricks by another breath. She had to find a solution. In more attempts than any of them could count, she hadn't found the answer yet. How does one console a woman whose sister she held in her arms?
Linna's life was slowly fading beneath the weight of silverthorn vines and the venom unleashed by Salora. She'd been poisoned by Roisin, but she still didn't know how very loved she was, that Lysandra had done everything she could to prevent this very moment.
Em hadn't fully processed what was happening. Neither had Kovar or Nico. Nyx and Tenebra had shown up and dragged them along in various capacities. All they knew is that they were needed in that place at that time, even if it was a sun early.
Tenebra stood in defiance of yet another failure. She, Salora, and Vaelis were the only ones who remembered the cycle anymore. Their other sisters had been removed from the equation by acts of desperation. And Tenebra was almost a broken woman herself, having to carry the burden of memory. Even her assault on the concept of continuity itself seemed to fail. Probably because they could never get even one more second from the moment.
Delia was in the process of breaking. No one would fault her that. Flux had been cast off like a cloak as she remembered her family, even if she didn't remember herself quite yet. In that moment, the weight of every cycle was bearing down on her, forcing her to remember things differently than what happened in that particular loop. She, to her knowledge, was a lonesome human surrounded by divine beings who were too careless to protect the world from themselves.
Never mind that the spirit of Aurelin, an amnesiac herself, was there to protect her. Never mind that she was surrounded by every remaining person who loved her. Some of them had only known her for a year, but they still loved her like a daughter, a sister, a friend.
And there I was, watching it at the speed of one second passing in the time of a millennium. An agonising crawl. But who was I? Where was I?
"What is this place?" The words echoed around me like I was in an empty space. But there were people everywhere I looked. Buildings, too.
"You know the answer to that already. Or you should. This is the last possible resort. It's Rose fighting back. Through you." There was a hollow familiarity in the voice, but I couldn't place it. She knew me, and I knew her. But how?
"I know you think you're helping," I turned frantically, hoping to glimpse the voice's owner, but she was nowhere. "but that answer was less than nothing."
"Take a look around. Stop being obtuse. You know this place." As her voice continued echoing, my heart ached. Who was she?
"It's the End. In the capital. The ruins of the Violet Cathedral."
"And?" Infuriating.
"Delia is about to take up arms. Her hand is twitching for the sabres."
"And?"
"Every person I've ever loved it about to die. Every soul still in my life except —"
"Don't worry over that detail." That did it. There was a smirk in the words. I'd heard that voice say those words a thousand times. Not across the cycles, but just in that one loop.
"Roisin," I breathed the name, fighting tears. "Where are you?"
"Everywhere," she giggled, "nowhere. What does it matter? You know the answer."
"Not helpful, brat."
"I love you, too, sister." All the levity left her voice with the word 'sister'. "Now. Look around. Think. Decide. We get exactly one shot at this. And I don't think Rose would approve of a failure on this scale."
My steps were laboured as I wandered around the space. I had all the time in the world. Bought for me by the soul of Aurelin stealing just a bit of Time from Salora over and over for so long. I had access to the darkest Secrets on loan from Tenebra. The Stability of Nyx served to hold the bubble still. The scales were perfectly Balanced for this moment.
Asha held a little dolly. The one Flux had called Dasara. Dress faded with far more than a year's separation and healed up with gold and silver stitching. She was missing an eye. This was a different dolly than the one Flux had cared for. But how?
In a blink, I remembered every possible reality. There was only one where Asha ran to Delia. It might just be enough.
Em had been fiddling with a little black box. I remembered it fondly as their memories flooded in for a moment. The gift from Deona that proved to Em that their wife was alive and remembered their love. In a few loops, Em lost the box and never made it to this moment. Why?
They shared the box with Delia once. What was inside it? What had Tenebra hidden away?
Salora was giving up on everything. She didn't think it possible to succeed, but she couldn't admit it. How do you tell everyone that the goddess of Time ran out of it? How do you confess that Misfortune won out? She couldn't bring herself to that level.
But Jasmin could. Jasmin was desperate to hold her wife's sister and tell her she was sorry.
Each woman and each man and each soul in that space was desperate for one thing: a solution. My steps carried me through the silverthorn vines and to the heart of the space. "Linna," I whispered the word. She wouldn't reply, I knew. Eventually I found the fell-queen, the vessel for the Fiend.
Linna's memories came back. The difference between her and Em, between her and Delia. They had proof that they were enough. Linna did not.
After what seemed enough time to repeat every loop again, I had an idea.
I pushed Asha forward. Now there would be two realities where she moved. I whispered to Em, 'Go to her. She shouldn't be alone.' I stood with Salora and held her as tightly as I could. 'Let Jasmin be human for just a moment longer, dove. She's got this.'
Before it was all over, there was something ever more important to handle. I stepped to Tenebra's side, and I waited. I didn't move. I looked at the scene as she saw it. "Nihil Nalia," I said her true name with a reverence. "You can't surrender. Give it one more try. Delia loves you dearly. Go to her. Help her. I promise, she'll forgive you."
I startled when she turned and met my gaze. "Did you know I've been watching you, or was it a fun guess at my playful deceptions?"
"A guess," I admitted. "Mostly, I just needed to see what you saw."
"Well, Delia," she smiled broadly, "if we make it out of this, I'm taking you to the Black Lakes. There's a beautiful view of the stars. I'll show you why I'm called 'tip of the huntress's arrow'."
"I don't think it'll work, but I have to try."
"What was it you said to me? Go to her?" She stepped forward toward the Delia in the centre of the commotion. She placed her arms around the woman's waist and her chin on the woman's shoulder. "This good enough?"
"I suppose. You'll have to tell me how you're able to move."
Tenebra put a finger to her lips and shushed me. "Alright, Fluxy Mouse," she giggled at me, "take your place. We'll see if this works."
I took one last look around everything before stepping toward the me that wasn't me and letting time resume just before Delia reached for the silver sabres.
And just before my hands touched the hilts, I felt the weight of friends holding me close.