Alana

“Once heralded as the crown jewel of the Kingdom of Illeva, Japhaia was a bastion of arcane invention. Unmatched in daring experimentation and magitech advancement.” Jira Gham’s voice creaked and coughed while he flipped the page.

Their graying history teacher’s lectures were always a battle between the urge to drift off and to listen. “Unlike our ability to adapt and relocate, our ancient foes became shadows of their former selves in the wake of the Sundering and the Shadow Wars we all remember too well.”

Alana couldn’t get his voice out of her head. For two days, his speech roamed through her head in excruciating detail, almost as if he were standing next to her, whispering in her ear even as she stepped into the most important day of her life. But why?

When everyone at the Academy either sharpened blades or tongues or were found passed out in the medicinal gardens because of the Interviews and Finals, the history department had just decided seemingly out of the blue that it was time to hold a summit to mark the anniversary of the Sundering which they had missed by about two weeks.

No consideration given to the fact that not a single student wanted to be there. Nor to the fact that it had not been a thing for the past decade.

Alana tried to focus on her surroundings, but that creaking voice sounded like brittle paper nagging her mind. It influenced her interpretations of the signs she saw around her. What were the odds that these waters were the waters that swallowed Toura? Surely, not even Jira Atal would send her, a student, on a realmwalk to a forbidden place as part of her final?

“Woven deep within the marrow of the Shade realm,” she muttered almost against her will as she soared over a calm ocean. ”Japhaia rose like a mourning bloom, a natural harbor for those who sought business of a darker sort. For scholars, artificers, diplomats, and wanderers alike… Valessai, the Unending Dream in our tongue, in theirs the City of Stars.”

Jira Gham hadn’t even bothered to rewrite his usual history lecture. Every word as familiar to her as if she had written it herself. Despite its tediousness, it was also one of the few times Japhaia and Illeva were spoken of with some semblance of respect and empathy.

Their fate after the Shadow Wars was one of tragedy. Enemies also deserved sympathy, even if it was a bit performative for her liking.

Vast and endless, the ocean spread beneath her glistening a deep, radiant blue and crowned with millions of white waves. All three of Avaleen’s moons shone in the sky, blending shades of white, blue, and dark red in a rare display.

Moon charts raced through her mind. The trio only coincided every six hundred years or so in what was known as the Lunar Solstice. It was usually considered a tumultuous time as the leyline nexuses tended to shift and heave, causing all sorts of mayhem and chaos. The Sundering had happened during one of those times, and the moons had stayed in the sky longer than normal.

Oh shit… Surely not? Alana looked up, an uncomfortable feeling in her absent stomach. Ahead, rising from the simmering horizon, a silhouette of a skyline appeared.

“What in esirno…?” She adjusted her trajectory to get a better look.

Buildings rose around her as she weaved in and out of smooth cobbled streets, surrounded by thousands of broken windows and tall towers fractured by unknown forces and bridges collapsed into fragments of obsidian and metals.

There was something oddly familiar about the city made of blackened stone and stained glass. Veins of moss and dark green vines tainted purple split gilded murals muted by relentless weather. Her mind rebelled against the realization.

“Capital of wonder, forged in rings like the roots of a great tree.” Jira Gham’s voice droned on in her mind. “Almost whole it appeared where Ghor Minthra stood…”

Turning her eyes to the sky she rose high, beelining for the highest point she could reach and turned. The gasp was not just her mind’s but her body’s too.

“Fuck. Fuck.”

The massive city spread before her in every direction. Obsidian mingling with broken sandstone and to the north she spotted it. The remnants of the Cradle of Dawn. A third still standing against the dunes creeping ever closer. In her time there were no ruins at all.

Alana’s mind reeled so hard she almost lost control of the Walk. Shit, shit, shit. She was going to be in so much trouble if this ever got out. Why would Jira Atal send her here? Surely it was a mistake? She’d meant to find another thread.

Concentrating, she searched for the thread that brought her here. The Veil was so thin, so broken, it was almost impossible. Her heart skipped a beat.

“What are you doing, aspirant?” Jira Atal’s voice was cold, hard, calculating.

“A mistake, Jira Atal, this is not where—”

The sour woman’s voice cut her off. “Remain, aspirant.”

“But—”

“Complete your mission or fail. It is simple. Location. Time.” The voice was clipped with impatience. “It is not difficult. The Fatestitcher showed you the way, show that you deserve her light.”

Alana balked but clenched her jaw against a retort. If she only knew. If she could only see what she saw, she’d tell her to abort and redo the Trial.

“Calm your mind, child. You are where you are supposed to be.”

A disembodied voice should have scared her, but it sounded so much like her mother Akilo that her lips curved in a small smile, feeling her heart awash with warmth. Closing her eyes she took a few steadying breaths before gazing upon the twinned cities once more.

It was a story carved into the bones of every child born since the Sundering. Of when the realms split and the Veil ripped apart. Of when the hubris of the illevan engineers tore both their cities from their native planes and cast them toward the material world, toward their ancestral origin, the cradle of gods and titans.

Toura heaved under the weight of the realms, shattering and becoming reclaimed by the ocean till only strange islands remained of what was once a place of beauty and magic, filled with ruins no one knew how to rebuild.

What survived the Shadow War and the Sundering clung, fractured, to the mortal corners of Avaleen. Her people had rebuilt their empire, and she was proud to be akati. Proud to train as a realmwalker. Proud to perhaps take on the role of Guardian.

That is why she was here. By Ayursha, that’s why she was here.

Alana sucked in a sharp breath, feeling her body twitch with the anticipation of the return of her mind.

“I am in Japhaia.” Her voice echoed slightly as she spoke out loud back in the Academy.

This was one of the final tests before the trials of the Guardian’s Awakening. A random place, a random time. Her relationship with her Jira was fraught at best, and downright spiteful at worst. There was no pleasing Jira Seora Atal, and if there was, Alana had not yet found it.

Jira Atal’s voice was cool, detached. “Is that so? Tell me when.” Was there a hint of disappointment in it, too? Or fear?

Alana shook her head, flying down to the ground level, focusing her eyes on the details of the environment. Although this was just a visit to a foregone time by way of the Weave, her heart was pounding. How many akati had been to Japhaia? Why had the Fatestitcher sent her there?

She could feel her body straining against the pull of the Orb, but her lessons with General Maesia Mijinn and her Mora Monks had prepared not just her body for the task, but her mind too. It wouldn’t do for the ward of the Elder of Agartha to fail a realmwalk.

Any mistake, even the slightest distraction, could carry the worst consequences. Best case, she’d reunite with her body; worst case, she never found her way back to it.

Though that also assumed the fact that realmwalking separated one’s mind from the physical world as surely as the extinguishing of a flame, but Alana disagreed. She’d always been able to feel the anchor of the Orb. Perceive the room her body was in.

Once some of her fellow aspirants had pulled a nasty prank, which was how she’d figured it out. The mere shock of the ice water had clamped her mouth shut, and while she didn’t know why, she hadn’t reacted as she’d been drenched in foul-smelling flour and syrup.

Laughter, she could take. Disrespect? That was a whole other matter. Why did she play along? Maybe instinct. Maybe pride. But something inside her reeled itself back into place, forced calm over chaos, continuing the Walk without interruption until she propelled her mind back to reunite with her body.

Jira Atal’s retaliation against those students led by the slimy creep Nik had been lukewarm and halfhearted at best, which led Alana to not divulge her unique ability.

A streetlight flickered, its cool light casting broken shadows across the debris littering the streets. A battered and broken sign on a nearby high-rise creaked in the breeze.

Propaganda posters clung to walls for dear life, proclaiming messages no one cared for anymore.

Faded words declared: In Illeva we are proud! Follow the soldiers in their cause, come to Daily News and support the campaign!

They crashed - we ascend! Scrawled on an image of a rising tower piercing a golden circle.

A black tower rising from a fractured ground, surrounded by flames read: We were forged in shadow, now we endure in flame.

That same tower now rose before her, broken and long abandoned. There was a jolt of discomfort in the pit of her stomach, sending chills through her bones she knew would never quite subside until she was back in the comfort of her rooms. Because the debris only looked old, but the destruction was much more recent.

“Before the creation of the Wastelands, but not right after the Sundering.” Her voice echoed, filled with dread and shock. “I have never seen such destruction. It is as if… By Ignis, did we do this?”

“Tell me when, aspirant Kalar. Be specific.” Jira Atal’s voice dripped with condescension.

The city was dark, too dark to be the glimmering jewel of Illeva. It was impossible to fathom that this was the source of all the horror stories they were taught as children.

The city of monsters and hubris. The very pit of hell and the origin of all things evil. Her thoughts wandered to the tales she’d heard and the accounts of Jira Gham. Trying to make them fit with what she saw. It was not far from here that the Peace Accords were written and signed after 50 years of debate about 138 years ago from her perspective. But this was much earlier than that. Much, much earlier.

Was this dark city she soared over the former home of the usurpers who proclaimed themselves gods? She had to get closer.

It was a tricky maneuver to walk the streets rather than soar amongst the clouds, but with a light jolt, her feet touched the ground. The world was at once more immediate, more alive. Despite not being there in the flesh, there was still the sensation of hard concrete beneath her feet.

This was her favorite part. This was the reason Alana had put herself through fifty years of excruciating training with such high competition to gain admittance to the Aspirant Program.

Getting into the exclusive program was no effortless task, even with an Academy record as formidable, if not spotless, as Alana Kalar’s. She had fought for every achievement that no one could ignore, and she’d be damned before she fell on the finish line.

She felt the tug of the Orb, not unlike a slight vibration through her soul. Her link with the Veil provided the opportunity to access Ayursha’s Weave and go anywhere and anytime, exploring possibilities of making a different choice.

The Weave was endless, and there was always a danger of getting lost amongst the threads. It was the exploration that had drawn Alana to the profession. But while the prospects were many, there were also setbacks.

The collective experiences of countless Guardians and Realmwalkers throughout history held that a Realmwalker could never truly sense the realms they traveled through. Based on the comments from the current class, it wasn’t something that had changed. Yet, Alana felt this world as if through a thin piece of cloth.

As an aspirant of Ayursha, Alana could not Walk as she pleased, but had to follow the master’s instructions. Even if she gained a Guardianship, the assignments would come from the Council. Only in protecting A’yursha and Agartha was a Guardian and Realmwalker exempt from the law.

A law that had become more frequently enforced after a notable public incident when a new Guardian had accidentally split her mind into a thousand fragments, nearly ripping the universe apart. Alana felt her body shiver at the thought.

It was the first lesson you were taught at the Academy: Do. Not. Do. That.

But it wasn’t all gloom and doom. When not protecting the realms, they could do this. Archaeology through first-hand observation.

The massive steps to the Capitol rose before her, the parade square utterly void of life and riddled with holes. The building appeared to have been red once upon a time, though it was hard to picture now, as it was a literal shell of its former self.

“Wow.” It was magnificent. The sheer scale, the beauty despite everything took her breath away.

Once the Portals had been created in this very building, here the consequences of that same technology were littered around her. Her people had shown no mercy. It was almost too much, seeing what she had only heard about. Her throat burned, but she pushed it away.

“Don’t get sappy now, you have a job to do,” she told herself.

Most of the military movements were still classified, but it was common knowledge that it was the final brutal battle that created the Wastelands that forced their two nations to sit down and do what they should have done from the start: talk.

Was this the edge of that same battle? The signs certainly pointed towards it. She walked up the steps of the Capitol and spotted the Accord sigil stamped onto one of the doors. Okay. Maybe not. So this was after the Accords, then. But how long after?

She looked over the remnants of Japhaia, a sense of foreboding in the pit of her stomach.“Why did you bring me here?”

“If you will not focus on your task, give up.” Not the voice she wanted to answer her.

Alana’s resolve hardened. “I am thorough, that is all.”

“We do not have all day, aspirant.”

“Avoiding the question, huh?” Those who had already completed their last Walk before the Awakening had gone to places like Kilmoru, Sangora, and Eprea. Sought treasures in the caves of Orell or flew across the lustrous golden roofs in Kanor. Instead, the ruins of Japhaia surrounded Alana for gods knew what reason.

Everywhere were signs of heavy ballistic artillery having made its relentless way through the city repeatedly. Alana could not help but feel a pang of sympathy for the people who still dwelt there. What must they have gone through?

She dodged corners and fires, passed hunched figures in the street. The first she’d seen. What should have taken days only took moments in this state. Her feet moved of their own volition. Despite having never been in or set eyes on Japhaia before, she knew each corner, each building. She could name the streets, and she knew where she was going.

Knew when she was.

Her voice echoed when she proclaimed her answer. “The year is 1006. Six years after the Accords.” Something told her she was right. It was like she could see the part of the Weave where she stood. Jira Atal only huffed.

Standing before a cathedral on the outskirts of the city, Alana came to a stop. It was almost untouched by ballistics and riots, a forgotten oasis in a charred landscape.

“But what am I doing here?”

It wasn’t by choice; it was by design. Alana could feel the faint presence of someone else in the Veil. Someone nearby.

A sound broke the silence, and the sensation evaporated. In the park behind the huge, beautiful cathedral, someone had made a hole in the fence just large enough to push through without scrapes.

Beyond it flowed the grand river that snaked its way and eventually split the city center in two. Here, thousands of homeless and outcasts gathered in a temporary tent city that stretched wide. A movement caught Alana’s eye.

“Very well, that is enough. Return, Kalar.” The voice of Jira Atal hardened when Alana ignored her. “Kalar!”

“Hang on,” she said, setting off after the shadow out of curiosity, or maybe a selfish desire to learn more about these so-called monsters.

Alana knew she would pay for it, but she let herself get distracted. For the first time since she left she felt herself lose the tether to her body.