The Forsaken Hero

The path leading up to the stone spire was rough and steep. It would have been impossible for me to climb it alone, but on Fable’s back, it was barely worth noticing. Several groups of soldiers passed us by, groaning with pain and dripping sweat, but they always made sure to stop and salute us. The gesture seemed respectful, but they probably just wanted a break from the grueling training that required them to lap the titanic rock formation. With any luck, they wouldn’t mention meeting us. I shuddered to think of what Elinore might do if she learned I was gone before I made it safely back to my tent.

The monolith was even larger up close, looming so impossibly it seemed to curve over us, blotting out the sky. The walls were smooth and sheer, broken by the occasional fissure or rocky outcropping. The trail around the base had been beaten into the stone by the relentless footfalls of thousands of soldiers, yet there was no path to the top, no approach by which one could reach the zenith.

”You want to climb that?” I asked, unable to tear my eyes off it.

Korra nodded, and I shuddered, my enthusiasm draining away. Perhaps I should have listened to Elinore, after all. Even thinking about climbing this monstrosity had to count as a strenuous activity, right?

”Oh, no backing out now,” Korra said, smiling evilly. ”You agreed to this, remember?”

I shook my head, gripping Fable’s fur tightly as she climbed on behind me. ”I...I don’t think I can. Please, Korra, I really don’t think–Fable! No, wait!”

I swallowed my protests as Fable leaped forward, digging his claws into the blue-tinted stone like it were wet clay. I screamed and threw my arms around him, clinging to his neck for dear life as the entire world turned on its side. Gravity clawed at my hair, pulling it out behind me in rippling waves of crimson. Korra sputtered as it enveloped her face, but quickly pushed it aside with a peel of laughter.

”Isn’t this great!” she cried, her voice lost in the wind.

Fable continued to speed up, shooting up the side of the spire like a squirrel climbing a tree. The acceleration drew moisture from the corners of my eyes and flung them out into the air behind us, glittering drops in the sky. My stomach lurched each time Fable dug his claws into the stone, the entire world spinning with every bound.

As we approached the summit of the mountainous spire, it began to slope inward, narrowing to a slender needle-like point. My heart pounded as we crested the top and came to rest at the peak, a relatively flat space several dozen feet wide. Fable canted to a stop near the center, and Korra slid off his back, her childish giggling echoing through the thin air. She did a little twirl and held out a hand to me, her smile widening as she found me trembling on Fable’s back. My face was pale and my eyes squeezed shut, arms locked in a death grip around my wolf’s neck. It took almost a minute before she coaxed me into relaxing my grip and pulled me off Fable.

The moment my feet touched solid ground, I collapsed against her, desperate for someone to hang on to. The spire seemed to shake and sway with every stray breath of the breeze. From our vantage in the center, there was nothing but blue sky all around us. Even the towering mountain walls of the valley were lost beneath the narrow horizon, swallowed up in an endless sea of empty sky.

”Shhh, it’s alright. We made it,” Korra murmured soothingly, stroking my hair. ”There’s nothing to be afraid of.”

My tongue was paralyzed, quivering with every other muscle in my body, so I just clung to her and hid my face against her chest. The air was cold and thin, and my breath came in short, shallow bursts. The darkness behind my eyelids spun rapidly, muddling my mind and disorienting my thoughts. Elinore had been right; I was far too fragile to bear something like this.

At some point, I felt Korra shift and pull me forward. I squeezed my eyes shut tighter, but that proved a mistake, allowing my imagination to run rampant. The ground seemed as though it would give out at every moment, the next step taking me over the edge. With some reluctance, I peeked out from Korra’s bosom, letting out a breath as I realized there was still some distance from the edge.

But Korra kept walking closer. One step then another, until we hovered on the edge of the abyss. The world stretched out before us, an endless canvas of blue earth dotted with greenery. The cliffs and mountains, which had once felt so imposing, were reduced to subtle swells and ridges, like gentle waves on a pond. We were so high I could make out the curvature of the earth, a breathtaking, ethereal arc of the horizon.

After a moment of stunned silence, I sank to the ground beside Korra with my legs tucked to the side. She glanced at me and smiled, flicking a strand of short, brown hair out of her eyes.

”It’s beautiful,” I whispered, barely able to believe my own words. I should have been terrified, we were nearly four miles in the air, yet I wasn’t. The sheer absurdity of the height was too abstract for me to comprehend, and miraculously, my heart began to calm.

Slowly, the tremors left my body, and I relaxed, resting my head on Korra’s shoulder. Fable curled up behind us, allowing us to lean against his length and resting his head in my lap. Almost instinctively, I began to stroke him softly, and he closed his eyes in contentment.

”I knew you’d like it,” Korra said. Her hand found its way in mine, her skin soft and warm.

I shook my head, my tail twitching restlessly. ”You could have at least warned me. You know how I feel about these kinds of things.”

”And that’s exactly why I couldn’t, you’d never agree to come. But I had to speak with you up here. The soldiers said there’s some sort of magical aura or something interfering with divination magic.”

I blinked, raising my head and looking around. Now that I had the presence of mind to actually focus on my surroundings, I noticed a thin web of magic spread over the monolith. It was as fine as spider silk but lacked the refined pattern of human creation. Some sort of natural phenomenon?

I lowered my eyes as the meaning behind Korra’s words registered to me. Just what did she have to talk about that merited such extreme caution? The Eyes of Fate had always protected me from divination magic, and the Oracle of Eternity was only stronger. Still, the inquisitors had known where to find us, so it wasn’t foolproof. There must be some other way they were finding us.

”What is it?” I finally asked.

She breathed out a long sigh, letting her excitement and mirth drain away. ”I don’t know how many more moments like this we’ll have, Xiviyah. One of the heroes is dead, and the church won’t take that sitting down. And to make it worse, the demons are advancing again. Without the Brithlite army in their way, it’s only a matter of time before they sweep through the entire canyon. The officers have been waiting for you to recover, but we’re expecting words from the scouts at any time. We’ll have to get moving soon, but that’ll only take us into church-controlled lands. No matter what happens next, we’re going to be surrounded by enemies.”

She fell silent, and we stared out together at the world below. It was all so small and insignificant; the city, encircling army, everything. But the dangers loomed real on the horizon, the flames of demons and the light of the inquisition. My body was wounded by the first, and my soul broken by the last. My eyes filled with tears, and my grip on Korra’s hand tightened, causing her to look at me with worry in her eyes.

”You’ll...be there, right?” I mumbled,

She nodded, returning my squeeze. ”I’m never going anywhere. But the reason I wanted to speak to you up here is so that you can tell me your plan. What do you want, Xiviyah? What are we going to be fighting for?”

I mulled over her question, absently stroking Fable’s fur. After a long, heavy silence, my hand curled into a fist, catching his hair between my fingers. I looked into Korra’s eyes, speaking with all the feeling of my heart.

”I’m tired, Korra. Tired of the pain, and the curses, and the darkness. I want to live in peace, but I can’t, not yet at least. Sari, Elise, and Selena...I want to help them all first. And mostly,” I said wistfully, ”I just want to be free.”

She nodded slowly, her eyes flickering with a light I didn’t recognize. ”And is that something you are willing to fight for? Kill for?”

”Yes.” I didn’t hesitate this time. ”If they would just leave me alone...It hurts, Korra. It hurts when I kill someone. But it hurts even more when I don’t, and they end up hurting someone I love. I don’t like what I did to Levin, but there was no other choice, and I would do it again if I had. Well...” I hesitated, glancing down at my hand resting motionlessly on Fable’s head, ”Not like that, exactly, but I would find some way to stop him.”

”Not like that?” Korra asked, raising an eyebrow. ”You did the same thing you did to the Apostle of Fire, right?”

I started to nod, then shook my head. ”It’s similar, but what I did to him...no one should have to suffer.”

”Xiviyah, I know how much they hurt you, about how much this hurt you–” her gesture took in my Sunpurge, but I knew it also meant the pain I suffered from my own shattered soul. ”There’s no reason to blame yourself if they force you to return the favor.”

”It’s not just that,” I cried, my tail lashing in agitation, ”There’s...something else. The first time, I didn’t know what I was doing and I tore a hole in fate. With Levin, I had every advantage and modified the spell, keeping the impact on the stars of fate to a minimum. But even with all of my care, I ended up destroying millions of strands of fate. It was worse this time, and I don’t think it’s recovering. If I keep ripping souls out of Fate, something really bad is going to happen. This power shouldn’t be possible, it shouldn’t be mine!”

”Then whose is it?” Korra asked softly.

I reached out my hand and summoned my staff, lowering it until I gazed evenly at the shining star on the tip. ”Hers.”