Reborn from Ashes: Chapter 23

The Call of the Life Thread:

Fidget decided that she was going to demand a week-long nap once this was all over because, quite frankly, she wasn’t sure if her wings could take much more strain and that was when she was running on adrenaline and five (count them, five) cupcakes. As soon as Dust had begun to clash blades with the King of Falana, he’d sent her off into the battlefield to find the others — Taka and Sanjin, she was tracking down as a first priority: if any opportunity came up to steal the Eye of the Life Thread, those two had to be there in order to take it.

It didn’t take her long to discover that the thief and the Moonblood engineer had taken station on one of the hijacked cannons Taka and Jarin had managed to secure during the pre-battle preparations.

“HEEEEEY!” Fidget screeched as loudly as she could manage, setting of a fire column for good measure.

“I’m guessing that talking to the maniac didn’t go as planned?” Taka grunted as she fired another cannonball into a passing airship. Fidget panted and flopped over the woman’s shoulder for a second.

“No, I came to tell you that there’s been a ceasefire,” she replied dryly. “OF COURSE IT DIDN’T WORK!” Taka nodded and nudged Sanjin in the ribs.

“Come on, Old Man,” she called. “Send the signal to the others — we have a sceptre to pinch.”

“Who are you calling ‘Old Man’?!” Sanjin cried in protest, setting off a flare that exploded above the battlefield before running after Taka. She never made any other comment about the matter.

In the battlefield, Ash spotted the flare rising over the armies. Blasting one final group of Souldiers out of her way, she shouted for Kim and Jarin (who Kim was reprimanding again for using his bow as a melée weapon) before clearing a path.

“I knew negotiating wasn’t going to work,” Kim grumbled.

“Hey, it was a better plan than going in all guns blazing or whatever else you tried coming up with  while you were sleepwalking,” Ash shrugged, infusing one of Jarin’s arrows with magic as he shot down a line of enemy soldiers, both Warmblood and Souldiers alike.

“Still a horrible plan,” Jarin muttered. “And thanks for the boost.”

They were joined en route by Ginger, who’d taken to wielding a staff to defend herself in any way that she could. She had stayed out of most of the fighting, only entering the thick of the battlefield when the area was clear enough for her to administer some basic healing — it was just about enough for the injured to drag themselves back to the camp and rest while they could.

“I hope Dust is hanging on,” she panted as she sprinted alongside the ex-noble-boy and the two Moonbloods.

“He’s certainly stubborn enough to!” Kim huffed back. “I’m sure he’s fine.”

Back on the dais, Dust continued to clash blades with King Julius. However, as Cassius had said in the Soulscape, if Gaius was the only one Cassius had never been able to beat in a fight, then the King was the only one Gaius had ever lost a fight to.

“AH!” Dust winced as a sabre nicked his arm.

“How many times must I tell you that it is useless to fight me, boy?” Julius growled. Dust shrugged with all the impudence of a child.

“At least once more,” he bit back. “I don’t like listening to people who hurt my mom.”

“By Elysium…how are you the same Master I had fifteen years ago?” Ahrah sighed. Dust was about to say that, in his defence, this was the first time he’d ever shown any real childishness during the adventure but had to roll out of the way of an incoming blow before he could say anything. Julius’ sabre caught part of Dust’s cape and it tore away slightly, with Dust thanking the Overseers of Elysium that the fabric it was made from wasn’t too strong.

“You are powerful, child,” Julius remarked scornfully. “That, I shall not deny. But you are too merciful,” he snarled. “You lack the resolve to even try ending my life.” Well, unlike some, I’m not a murderer. “Such a weakness was one that Cassius never had.”

“This isn’t looking good…” Dust murmured, readying Ahrah the best he could with an injured arm. He was preparing to block another blow when a flurry of energy orbs and a bolt of lighting struck the King from multiple directions, blasting him backwards and knocking the sceptre from his hands.

“Cavalry’s here!” Ash grinned as she poked Dust’s arm with a quick healing spell. Fidget was looking in better spirits, probably from having a boost from Ginger’s potions and Ash’s magic, but she was still grumbling about needing food and sleep. Dust grinned back as the group arrived, shrugging slightly as he brushed himself down.

“I had it covered,” he joked.

“Sure you did,” Ash smirked.

“Kids, focus!” Kim barked lightly, patting Dust gently on the back.

“LET’S GET ‘IM!” Fidget cheered. On cue, the four tackled the King as he began to reach for the sceptre. The man was strong, but the weight of three teenagers was enough to keep him occupied.

“TAKA! SANJIN! NOW!” Dust yelled. Taka was already two steps ahead of the boy and had jumped in as soon as she had an opening, snatching the sceptre from the ground and throwing it to Sanjin as he passed by. The Moonblood engineer disappeared into the battlefield as Julius finally threw off the teens holding him down.

“NO!” he bellowed. “You shall return that this instant!” He grunted as Dust grabbed his ankle to prevent him from following Sanjin.

“You’re not going anywhere!” he snapped, only to cry out in pain as a metal-capped boot came into solid contact with his nose.

“You and your lot have tested my patience one too many times, boy!” the King roared, grabbing his sabre off the ground (“Taka! How could you miss that?!” “I wasn’t concentrating on every minute detail, okay, Coat-Tails?!”) and assuming a fighting stance. His immediate action was to go for Ash and Kim, but a well timed Flameless Light from Ash sent him flying once again, opening him up for a combo from Taka.

“Let’s finish this!” Dust yelled.

“Go get him, Champ!” Ginger shouted from the sidelines, ducking behind a nearby boulder whenever a stray projectile or magic blast came in her direction. As long as she kept herself out of trouble, Dust knew he shouldn’t worry about his mother. For now, he needed to focus on the king long enough for Sanjin to get to the Shrine. He was grateful that they’d thought to set up a teleporter from the village earlier otherwise one side or the other would be dead long before Sanjin would reach the correct mountain.

Blades rang in a cacophony of metal on metal, explosions of magic, fire, and lightning, and the thuds of arrows against armour. Most of the duelling happened between Dust and the King, but whenever the boy needed to take a step back, the rest of the party were ready to take over while he gathered some more strength. For a five on one (“Hey!” Sorry, five on one plus Fidget. “Oh, come on!”) battle, Julius was remarkably holding his own, whirling around to counter any attack that came from behind and still turning back in time to block attacks from the front.

“Damn…he’s good,” Taka grunted. Dust had long since lost his hat and spat out what looked suspiciously like a tooth (later inspection revealed that it was a bit of gravel, thank heavens).

“We’ve…gotta hold out…” he panted. “He…he can’t be far…”

“Come on, Papa…” Ash murmured pleadingly. She was running low on magic reserves again, and Kim and Jarin were running out of ammo. She cried out in terror as the King swung his sabre towards her — with little magic left she brought up her tome as her only form of defence, only to flinch as the clang of swords rang once again.

Dust grunted as he forced the King away from Ash with every ounce of strength he had. At this stage, it wasn’t much but it was all he could do to make sure that a) his friends didn’t die on his watch, and b) Sanjin had enough time to…

Dust didn’t even get time to finish the thought as a cyan light bathed the entire battlefield. Halting in the duel, Dust and the King turned to find the source, eyes widening at the sight of a dancing ribbon of light rising from the mountain where the Shrine of the Life Thread was located.

“No…” Julius murmured in despair.

“He did it,” Dust said quietly. There was quiet celebration from all except King Julius upon the dais, and as the ribbon of light climbed further into the sky it reached towards the tear in the cosmos that was the Life Thread itself. As the two touched, the sky seemed to heal, and on the ground below a miracle in itself was unfolding.

The Souldiers had stopped their assault on the Moonbloods and their allies, fading into clouds of blue-white light as they began to return to the Life Thread. The light soon grew too bright to even look at, given the number of Souldiers that the King had summoned, and the group were soon forced to shield their eyes.

“We’ve won!” Ash cheered, her joy cutting over the King’s cries of despair. “We did it!”

Laughs echoed around the team from all members except for Dust, who stood at the very edge of the dais without saying a word. He felt strange, as if something gentle was beckoning him to follow…like a mother gently taking a child’s hand to take it home after a long day of play.

Taking his arms away from his face, Dust realised that the light no longer hurt to look at.

Fidget was the first to realise that Dust had fallen quiet. Looking over at him, she shrieked in terror at what she saw. Dust’s entire being was glowing with the same light as that of the Life Thread, and starting to drift away in the same clouds of stars as the Souldiers on the battlefield.

“Dust? DUST!” she screened. The yell caught the attention of the others, and Ginger ran from her hiding place, yelling her son’s name in desperation.

Dust could hardly hear her. Instead, the words of Lady Tethys…the words she had spoken to him before he left the Cirromon Caverns…echoed through his head with the painful reminder of the fate he knew that he would face at this moment.

---

“Dust…there is something that you must understand about returning the Eye of the Life Thread to its shrine,” Lady Tethys said sadly once Ash, Ginger and Fidget had left Mudpot to head back up to the surface. Dust, as she had hoped, had hung back to listen.

“What is it, Lady Tethys?” he asked. The look on his face was one of worried curiosity, and seeing that expression in the face of a child made the Guardian Deity’s heart break.

“It is true that returning the Eye to its rightful place in the shrine will recall all of the souls that the King has raised for his army,” she explained. “But  there is something else, something that even my charm cannot protect you against.”

Dust’s face turned down as he realised exactly what Lady Tethys was talking about.

“You mean…?”

“Yes,” the deity nodded solemnly, her aura turning melancholy indigo once again. “Restoring the Eye of the Life Thread will recall all of the souls that have been pulled from the Life Thread into the mortal realm…including yours.”

“I…I see,” Dust said. There was barely any expression to his voice.

“Will you still go ahead with this?” Lady Tethys asked. “Knowing what will happen?”

“There’s no other way,” Dust sighed. “And even if there was, we don’t have time to find out what it is. The King’s already caused enough damage to this land as it is…if we don’t do something now, he’ll end up destroying us all.”

“I see,” Lady Tethys replied. “You haven’t changed, Dust. You may be young in this life, but I still see the young man that saved me from my own darkness. I do not doubt that you can do the same for this faded world…I only wish that it did not have to be this way.”

“Whatever it takes,” Dust said with soft determination. “I have to finish what I started. I have to save this world…even if it means that I can’t be there to see it.”

---

Ginger had broken past everyone on the dais as she raced towards her son. The others were frozen in terror and disbelief at what they were seeing — Dust was fading away before their eyes, just like the Souldiers.

How could they not have seen this coming? Dust had two souls taken from the Life Thread himself…

Ginger couldn’t accept it.

“DUST!” she shrieked. It was at her voice that Dust finally turned, his eyes filled with a sad acceptance of his fate. He could not, however, stop himself from reaching out to the one who had tried so hard to make sure that he could live a life away from conflict.

“Mom!” Dust cried back, his voice barely more than a hushed echo. Ginger tried desperately to wrap her arms around him, as if that would stop the call of the Life Thread from taking him away again, but Dust disappeared into a cloud of stars just as she would have collided with him.

The entire group could do nothing but gaze after the lights as the Life Thread began to close, the images of Jin and Cassius flickering into sight for a mere moment before fading away as quickly as they had appeared. Then, as gracefully and as softly as the Lights of Elysium dancing across the sky, the Life Thread vanished from view, leaving the sky streaked with a scarlet sunset as Dust’s hat rested on the ground.

As the Life Thread vanished, the Blade of Ahrah clattered to the ground, its metal cold, and its lights gone.