Elmira
A message!
All she could make out was Arman, safe, please.
It took resolve not to respond. No one in the Base could know where she was or that she was alive. She was supposed to be gone. Given the erratic nature of magic in this area, just the chance of a message getting through was miracle enough. Whoever sent it would know it found purchase, if not the nature of her condition. Because of a messed-up nexus of ley lines above, most magic was limited or downright useless in this area. Which made for a perfect location for a secret base, but made spying rather complicated.
With some effort, she filled her mind with thoughts of leaves rustling in the wind, the crunch of her boots, and all the other small sounds of nature.
When the message came again, there were no feelings that could be leaked, no thoughts risking finding themselves going back to the sender. Just an empty soul, just like Maesia had taught her back home.
When she finally neared the edges of the area affected by the leyline nexus above them, the sky had begun to brighten. Or perhaps it had been brighter for a while. Was the night that short, or was she moving that slow?
She could not tell anymore. All she knew was that time had passed, wasted on a too-careful trek.
The tracking thread glowed hot against her skin. Close. But not exactly here. Energies prickled her senses. Sensing the edges of the nexus effect was strange, to say the least. Hopefully, the Portal resided on the right side of the border, or this would turn really complicated really fast.
The crystal vibrated. Somewhere ahead lay her goal. After what felt like forever, the ground leveled out somewhat, and she found herself in a kind of oasis. Water broke under her boots as she leaped onto flat ground, the surface rippling with clouds of sediment and dead leaves and roots.
The jungle hummed with an otherworldly vibrance, its lushness unfolding in rich, surreal shades of green and blue that bled together like oil on water. The air was heavy with moisture. Jagged rocks rose like ancient, weathered sentinels, their surfaces fractured and scarred by endless time, yet their edges shimmered with a ghostly glow as if they were more than mere stone.
Between them, hidden beneath layers of vines and moss, twisted paths wove through the landscape that the world forgot. In places, the ground was a dark, slick mirror of stale rainwater, reflecting the hazy light above. Pools of stagnant water stretched, threatening to swallow her ankles with each cautious step.
Yet the surface was not entirely still, it shifted almost imperceptibly, and if she wasn’t on such high alert she would have missed it, with movement just below the surface. It was a strange walk, less like walking on solid earth and more like passing through the remnants of a lost, spectral plane.
Time felt fluid here, warped by the uncanny beauty and lingering presence of this forgotten world. Elmira blinked. The border between the realms was thin here, so thin. Fascinating. It was as if the Fey, the Ethereal and the Material all blended together like multiple glass panes stacked on top of one another. Tiny refractions and imperfections bleeding from one to the next.
By the first careful light of dawn, the sense of magic in the air was palpable for someone so attuned to the ethereal and the arcane as she was. Small, glowing fish swam through the air around her, through trees that did not exist in their plane. She was here.
Beneath her feet, the stone was etched with deep grooves, winding and twisting in patterns forming familiar runes. The symbols were old, older than the land itself, carved with a precision that spoke of a time when the very weave of magic was understood and mastered in ways long lost to history. Her heart ached with sorrow for the craft lost in the Sundering, the mastery she had grown up with in a world forever gone and lost.
Through the thick blanket of ivy and moss, the structure began to reveal itself, a silhouette against the verdant chaos of the jungle. Two towering pillars stood like silent guardians, their surfaces worn yet still proud in their defiance of the encroaching wild. Between them, an arch stretched with grace, as if reaching for something beyond the world she stood in.
Thick with age and life, the jungle had nearly swallowed the structure, obscuring the majesty of what had once stood here as a doorway between worlds.
Yet, despite the thick layers clinging to it, Elmira could see the unmistakable elegance of the design beneath it all. The artistry of early portal-makers who had crafted not just a passage but a bridge to realms beyond.
With steady hands, Elmira began the delicate work of peeling away the relentless tide of moss and vine. Each tug of the foliage deliberate, careful not to damage the runes beneath.
With dawn’s first light, the transformation was complete.
Elmira took a step back. The sight of it brought a stirring deep in her chest; a sense of awe, and a whisper of something ancient calling to her, urging her forward into the unknown.
“You are majestic,” she told it in the soft tongue of celestials, walking around the structure with a deep, solemn reverence that she had not known in a long time.
This was sacred ground for some, and for her ancestors, this was everything. Every chisel scrape, every forge line, every merge was a memory. She investigated the sigil on the ground for defects, cracks, anything that might suggest travel was not safe. But she found none.
The portal was intact.
She kneeled in the center of the carved circle of runes and reached for the necklace she kept close to her skin beneath all the layers of the syndicate clothing. A pearlescent pendant held by gilded branches and leaves came free into her hands.
As she held it up, it seemed to swing towards the portal, pulled by an invisible force. Her heart skipped.
“Where is your anchor? Show me.”
With a final incantation, the crystals along the arch lit up with a force that tore at her hair and clothes as the circle in the ground activated. The arcane energy swirled from the arches to fill the space between them, blue and green, forming intricate, arcane, geometric patterns that weaved together across two planes to shape a pool of magic.
For a supreme engineer or an archmage, it was a map of the weave and a map of the word combined. For her, it was familiar and beautiful beyond measure.
In the moment between one breath and the next, everything stood still. The pressure of the world bore down against her breath, but it was not the constant threat of death, torture, and blackmail that gripped her heart with a vice-like fear. No, the real terror was the fear of not being heard. Of not being recognized. To be lost to the world, unnoticed, unseen.
That fear, the fear of fading into oblivion, was something far worse than any wound or weapon.
She was not the woman who had left. The woman who had once worn the title of paladin. Strong, unyielding, a beacon of resolve. That person was not the one who stood in front of the Portal now.
There were more scars on her body. Not just from battles, but from betrayals, compromises, and moments when she had strayed too far into darkness. Her soul was darker than it had been, marred by choices she had been forced to make, by hands she had stained red with deeds that could never be undone. The blood on her hands was of a person she had tried so desperately to forget.
And yet, here, in the heart of an ancient grove, a whisper cut through the silence, soft as a breath but sharper than any blade.
“You are still mine, child,” the voice of her patron whispered in her mind, a command and a comfort all at once.
Tears sprang to her eyes when Ayursha’s presence wrapped around her, a sensation so tangible it almost made her stagger. It was warmth and power, all-encompassing and overwhelming, flooding through her blood, surging through every fiber of her being. Power, strength, clarity. It was breathing for the first time after holding her breath for far too long.
“I am sorry,” Elmira whispered, her voice a raw tremor, barely more than a broken sigh.
“I know.” Voice as gentle as a mother’s touch, but with the weight of eternity behind it.
A smile tugged at her lips. Here, in this forgotten sangoran grove, she was more than just a soldier, more than a weapon of vengeance or a pawn in the hands of others.
She was herself again. A child of the realms.
She reached out toward the horizon, her hand brushing against the threshold of reality itself. All weight of her past, of Base 19, of every person and every decision that had bound her there vanished. There was no hesitation now, no lingering doubts. She was leaving it. Every lie. Every betrayal. Every tie that had once bound her to that place. Gone.
The portal hummed, its magic vibrating against her touch. Arcane energies swirling and crackling around her like a storm ready to burst.
The sensation of stepping through the veil always made her giddy. A feeling of weightlessness tingled through every inch of her body. The magic rippled outward, surging through her as the world around her shattered and reformed.
The pure arcane magic of the Veil pulled her across the vastness of space, hurling her towards… Something new. Right now, she did not care.
It was as though she was falling upwards, suspended in time, in between realms, inside the world.
For a brief moment, she was everywhere and nowhere at once, a fleeting shadow passing through. The light of the portal wrapped around her like the embrace of an old friend, warm and familiar but with an energy so wild it made her heart race.
