Page 47 of Mother of Death and Dawn

The thread of connection to that strange, familiar soul was beginning to fade, like the blurry afterimage of a dream, and that thought devastated me.

I attempted another burst of magic and was again rewarded only with more burns over my hands. I didn’t stop.

You cannot break these walls. Surely you are not so foolish to think you can.You belong here. Ilyzath’s shadows caressed my face.Why do you so wish to leave, my ashen son?

“Because…” I didn’t know how to describe it, the intensity of the sudden need. It was like I had been alerted to a lost piece of myself, somewhere far beyond this place.

The walls creaked in something akin to a chuckle, hearing my unspoken response. Ilyzath, after all, heard everything.

I, too, have lost pieces of myself. But like my loss, yours, too, is inevitable.

Another failed attempt at shattering those walls. Another burst of pain.

“Nothing is inevitable,” I muttered.

The connection was almost gone.

I could have sworn Ilyzath laughed.

For an age of your people, I am here. Suns rise and set, and I am here. Empires fall, and I am here. Long before the sunrise or the stars or the shape of the Aran seas coastline. Long before these walls and long after mortals destroy this world. I will feel it fall around my feet, and I will watch. That is inevitability.

I scoffed. Fuck that.

I kept trying anyway. “That’s what we do,” I muttered, mostly to myself, panting with the exertion of my next blow. “Fight the inevitable. Even when it makes us fucking idiots.”

A strange pause in the air, as if all Ilyzath’s whispers ceased at once. It was so dark now that with every attempt at my magic, a red glow sparked over my face.

Hmmm.

I went still. A strange realization rocked through me.

All this time, I had been here, locked up in Ilyzath’s box of horrors. I’d listened to its whispers, cowered at its visions. But never once had it occurred to me to wonder what itwas—wonder if it was alive enough towant.

Not until now.

Someone I knew once had taught me that there was nothing more useful than understanding the hidden needs and wants of others. And now, in some strange element of the air, I felt it in Ilyzath. Want. Desire. Grief, and fear.

“You want something. I can help you.”

A shudder of laughter.Does a mountain need the help of an insect?

“A mountain can’t move. An insect can.” I pressed my palms to the stone. “You want something. I can feel it. You need to stand here. But I can go, if you let me.”

There was a long pause, and I prepared myself to resume my desperate clawing at the walls, because surely that made a hell of a lot more sense than trying to negotiate with a fucking prison.

But then the words whispered,I will make a bargain with you, Maxantarius Farlione.

I stopped. This had to be another hallucination. Another trick.

I will allow you to fight inevitability. I will give you your chance to repair the damage that is being wrought upon the underlayers of this world. You will fail, but I will allow you to try.The carvings collected around my palms, like ants circling a carcass.But I ask for two conditions. You must bring a piece of me with you, and you must return when I call.

My brow knitted. “Repair the damage? I don’t understand. What does that mean?”

But there were no more words, no sounds. Only a silent, unspoken demand:Yes or no?

Maybe I should have been more discerning. Maybe I should have thought harder. But I wasn’t thinking about the risks. I was thinking only about the pain that screamed in a world far beneath this one, an indescribable call that I felt like I had to answer, and a thread that pulled me towards someone else that needed me very much.

“Fine,” I said. “You have a deal.”

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