Page 137 of The Lost Reliquary

ANEW PLACE.HEAVY ANDjagged. Thick with the unfamiliar—shapes, sounds, feelings. Words that come later. I know only that I was called, and that I came.

And I am not alone. More like me, waiting, welcoming. I am not alone.

I am not alone. The emergence from beyond—that’s where it begins. I see and feel Osiron’s petition, feel the dense anchor that drags me down (flesh), the aching turbulence of my birth (pain)…

But these are Tempestra’s memories. Not mine. Those remain intact. I remember kneeling on the floor of the Cathedral, looking up

looking down into the eyes of a child, and seeing death staring back—

No.

I careen through two sets of memories, images mashing together, voices a syrupy, fervent buzz and… beneath it all, a heat. A raging firestorm that threatens to consume me.

I won’t let it.

Stop resisting.

Tempestra.

We’ll both be lost.

Right… yes. I remember that now. The memory of a face comes together, the reason to not fight this tearing and reweaving of thought, of my very soul.

Nolan. Nolan needs help.

save us we can save him

but it hurts… it hurts so much…

I do not want this feeling. The Goddess pours into me—a torrent of power and yet… a weak, fluttering thing. A moth with shredded wings. A heart, struggling to beat…

Osiron takes me by the—the word what’s the word—hand. A hand, a foot, vein and bone. Fleshy things, fragile but I can fix them, make them stronger, infuse them with…

Stop. Please stop.

Think of Nolan

I stop. Stop fighting.

My siblings surround me. Their faces change, skin tiring. Needing replacement. So does mine, but within we are the same, we are the power this world needs…

Tempestra is a spreading fever. I give in, let it take me. Their memory, their light, their power—the full onslaught of divinity soars like a firebird ascending higher and higher above the leaden deficiencies of my primeval humanity…

Too high. I feel control slip away because Tempestra does. Their power has already been pushed so far… bent… no, broken.

Broken…

They are too weak. I am too, the battered casing of my flesh—the one thing they actually need that I can offer—overfilled and failing, splitting along its corporeal seams.

Lys…

Too many memories, too fast, too fractured. And the light, flickering without focus or control. Tempestra fades, a candle about to be snuffed out, taking me with them.

No. NO.

I did not make a deal with one god, and then another, for thembothto go to shit. Maybe I’m dying, but I amnotweak. I wasn’t before the Goddess claimed me, and I’m not now.

I call the Flame.