Aetheria Falling

The Eleventh Hour

Silence followed a deep, resonating boom as the large stone door, appearing now as nothing more than a fourth wall of the empty chamber, sealed Aureus and Xiomara in with nothing but each other and dancing candlelight.

Shadows prevailed in the smooth, intricately carved grooves of gray stone, suggestive of the erratically dispersed roots they were meant to represent. Xiomara's fingertips fondly glided over the grooves of the nearest wall while she sauntered alongside it.

"Where are we?" Aureus asked, setting down their meager belongings in the center.

His wonder brought an honest smirk to Xiomara's lips. "There isn't a word in your language I can use to accurately translate the name of this place," she said, "but there is always one where Unseelie gather. You can think of it as a sort of meditation room."

"Mediation? Why? And why underground? Why the secrecy?"

"These are not places we fae wish for humans to find, so building one in the heart of the world's largest human city was quite the risk. Taking refuge in these chambers conceals my people just as effectively as it makes us vulnerable."

"Okay... I'm not following," Aureus admitted.

Xiomara's smile broadened. "The fae are always connected to the world, whether or not we will it, and therefore to the magic permeating it. These chambers temporarily cut us off from those connections, which prevents us from using magic or sensing anything beyond these walls. Here, I am as blind as I am without power. Even if I were to actively attempt to draw upon magic as humans must, I would be unable to do so, as would any mage—human or fae."

"But why? Why purposely handicap yourselves down here?"

"Can you not guess?" Xiomara asked, offering Aureus a playful smile as she began her journey along the wall opposite the invisible door. She watched his eyes as they tracked her movement.

"To...meditate?"

Xiomara laughed. A laugh, Xiomara knew, was perfect for disguising agony. She felt a thread of her essence tear away and weave into her partner's. Again, he was passively and unknowingly stealing her magic—her life force. Even here, she wasn't shielded from him. If anything, cut off from all other sources of magic, Aureus was draining her faster.

It was only a matter of time.

"An elementary assessment," Xiomara teased. "Come now, scholar, you can do better than that."

"Well..." Aureus spun slowly on his heels, his gaze tracing the lines engraved into the ceiling, oblivious to the death he was engendering. He raised his left hand in what Xiomara knew to be an absentminded preparation for the summation of supporting evidence. "You said chambers like these are found where Unseelie gather... Does that mean Seelie fae aren't likely to have these?"

"Correct. Highly improbable," Xiomara replied, reaching the halfway mark along the wall.

"Okay," said Aureus, leading his count with an index finger. "So the answer lies in a distinct cultural difference between the two. What about the Courtless? Do they build these?"

"Some might," Xiomara said, shrugging. "Though, I confess I've never asked after one in any place the Courtless have settled."

The floor drew Aureus's gaze, and a second finger slowly unfurled from his fist. "That means it likely has something to do with death as the Unseelie understand it."

"You're getting warmer," Xiomara said, arriving at the next wall. "Go on."

"Are the chambers meant to simulate death?" he asked, half to himself and half to Xiomara. Before she could reply, he continued, "No, that wouldn't make sense. Unseelie believe they become one with all things when they die. So why build this with death in mind?"