Altered Destiny

Ch. 21

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I recently learned that magma cubes apparently don't take damage from water. One came through my Nether portal and was just jumping around in the pond next to it without looking distressed at all. I would not have guessed that.

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Galleous returned to Ataraxia by the week's end, but the forge remained closed for several days after that. Ingressus took most of the chores on himself in that time; cleaning, preparing meals, basic repair of tools people brought in.

Ingressus hadn't told anyone why Galleous had left. Based on the gossip he'd heard, no one else had known for certain why his brother had come– though a large percentage of the rumors speculated that it'd had something to do with Ingressus. But despite his silence, the truth had clearly gotten out regardless. Maybe Galleous had shared the information himself, to stave off whatever assumptions the rest of town might've come up with. Ingressus knew that rumors spread like wildfire in the close-knit Ataraxian community– though, to be honest, his camp hadn't been much better. People from across the islands ventured to the forge to offer their condolences to Galleous, offering support or help should he need anything. Galleous was gracious in his responses, even as Ingressus could see how empty they felt to him.

Ingressus would often find Galleous on the balcony in those days, leaning on the fence or sitting against the wall and staring out at the drifting islands. Ingressus would sit with him, sometimes listening as Galleous spoke about his father, but more often simply sitting with him in silence, hoping his presence could stave off the darker specters of grief.

Ingressus wished he could do more. He wished there was some way to spare Galleous from this. He knew the weight that pressed down on Galleous, the invisible, smothering burden to your heart and mind and soul that felt like it would never lift. Galleous didn't deserve it, but Ingressus knew that death didn't care who deserved to be lost, or to suffer the pain of losing another.

It was on the fourth day that Ingressus returned to the market to hear the sound of clanging metal. Galleous stood at the anvil, a hunk of iron red with heat lying there as he brought the hammer down on it again. The sound of impact rang through the forge, echoing from the walls and driving away the silence that had hung over the cave in the days before. Ingressus caught Galleous's eye and gave him a small smile of sympathy.

Time alone could heal such wounds as these. But time was constant and ceaseless, a greater power in the long run than pain.

Time continued to pass. Ingressus's thirty-fifth birthday came and went. Galleous reopened the forge, hammering the metal he shaped as though each strike could drive his grief away. Ingressus continued to pore over the mystery of the resonances reading through his notes again and again. He consulted Voltar, holding the staff in his hands and asking it to show him what it knew. Surely his clan would've been the first to realize something was wrong.

But Voltar wasn't omniscient. The staff held memories all the way back to the dawn of the clan, but it only knew what it or its wielders had experienced. Though his predecessors' ignorance was proof enough for Ingressus of his clan's innocence, he had a feeling it wouldn't be enough for the three Masters who were still determined to see the Voltaris as the enemy. They would see his people as guilty until they had strong, tangible proof otherwise.

Ingressus sighed, leaning back and staring up at the wall. He'd always known this would never be easy, but that didn't stop it from being frustrating.

But something like this didn't just happen. There were reasons for the rain, for avalanches, for tides, for trees losing their leaves in winter and getting them back in spring. Even if the resonances had died because some deity had been angered, that was still a reason. There was an answer, somewhere out in the world. Ingressus just had to find it.