Ashes of the Fallen

Chapter 8: Take A Breath

Nemera knew a lie when she heard it.

It was like the cracks in the walls, slowly, carefully making its way down in drips of eroded stone that solidified into hesitancy and reassurance that this was the only option forward. Until the walls of their willpower cracked in two. In this case, it was Aidari’s surname.

Rainheart.

Elves tended to gravitate towards place names for their chosen surname to remember their birth. Daybreak and Sunrisen were farming villages. Ashgrave was no doubt a cemetery. But Rainheart? Rainheart wasn’t in Neridia. It was in Caldor. A place beyond the Brink. No elf could’ve gone there in decades and despite the elves' aging process…Nemera doubted Aidari was over fifty.

“Well then, Aidari. My name’s Nemera but I think you already know that. This bundle of fun is Comet: my partner in crime. He’s an Inferno Trollian so he’ll keep ya nice and warm. If you tell me what you’re doing here I can let you out so he can play with you some more. He seems to like you. Then again, I think he likes everyone.” She rambled, attempting to keep her voice light and calm despite the darkness.

The Inferno Trollian awoke at the sound of his name, offering a quiet trill in response that made Nemera gasp; she had never heard him make that sound before. The ember of her cigarette burned ever brighter and in a moment, Nemera stroked her hand against his head for the first time.

She didn’t know what to expect from the corporeal Trollian but the giggle that escaped from her mouth was far from it. He was almost soft, like velvet but tangled in between her hands like long grass in an attempt to stay in one tangible cloud of fire. Comet bounced up and down eagerly but his once endless reservoir of energy quickly petered out within the cage of ice, sending a jolt of anxiety through her spine far more than any idea of drowning could. 

Nemera’s heart ached for the little Trollian, too exhausted to offer much comfort but she leaned her head against his fizzing body, the heat barely burning her hat. She doubted she would've lasted this long in the Pressurehold without him. The wave of regret that reminded her of her own callousness made her weak at the knees, how oblivious she was to her Agar’s plight. Comet had stayed for her and she had treated him like shit.

“You already know why I'm here. I killed them.”

Nemera flinched at the harsh reminder, completely forgetting about why she was here for a second. Letting out a breath of cold air, she stared up at the ceiling just to give her something to look at besides darkness and water. Despite the steady stones holding up the Pressurehold from the looming river above, the uneven stress cracks hadn’t gotten any worse and were strangely…symmetrical. 

If Nemera really wanted to she could probably hold up a mirror and measure the distance but having practically nothing around to resolve her situation certainly helped the creative side of her brain. If Aidari wanted to scare her to death it was certainly working but as an escape plan it was terrible. Chained to a slowly waterlogged cave wasn’t Nemera’s idea of freedom but the kid certainly had a knack for distorting her voice. It was a shame that Aidari couldn’t hide how cold she truly was.

There. In the corner.

Trapped in a cage of her own design was a shivering water mage, lifted aloft into the roof's expansive root systems clinging to life like a bird in a cage.Two sets of manacles hung to the ceiling without occupants, taunting her much like the slowly rising water threatening to engulf them both. It was at waist height now and the pit in Nemera’s stomach had her realise how little she noticed.

“I truly don’t think you believe that.”

Nemera looked up and locked eyes with Aidari’s for the first time.

The Stormspell elf was barely visible in the glow of Nemera’s cigarette, her hood lowered ever so slightly like a flower drinking in the heat of the sun, her brilliant, blue eyes diminished by the mottled blackish blue set of bruises on her cheek. Nemera shook herself awake and rubbed her eyes in an attempt to focus her sluggish brain in the interchanging heat and not the tears that threatened to overflow.

“I only arrived here yesterday yet you look like you’ve been trapped here for months. They said the whole of Forewarn Cliff was destroyed yet the Dropspire Arches got more repairs than it did. You were smart enough to mess with the pipes in the hopes this place would flood so why are you still here? You could’ve escaped.” Nemera insisted, trying to keep her voice indifferent and working out the facts aloud.

Almost instinctively Nemera reached for her Shadow Trait lingering against the cigarette's glow, the long, thin beam of darkness amplifying enough of its flame to see into the shroud of watery mist. Nemera crept towards the furthest corner, Comet’s flame cutting off the nearest water jet with a furious hiss and sidestepped into Aidari’s personal space, hoping her topic of conversation was enough of a distraction. 

“What would you know about that? Nothing.”

Aidari’s mouth twisted into a sneer but Nemera wasn’t buying it. With a hiss of frustration she clung to the nearby pipes to stay upright, the weight of the water threatening to pull her away. Comet’s little head kept nudging her awake, the symbol he had salvaged burning a hole in Nemera’s mind. It was a dove. But she couldn’t remember where she’d seen it before.

“True. All I have are questions at best and Siara clearly won’t answer them. So let me run this by you. In my three days of travel, Neridia has managed to somehow exhaust all their leads before I got here and opened the Brink to find nothing wrong. Suspicious?” Nemera said hurriedly, her voice a touch higher than she expected.

Peeking through the stalactite bars of the aerial cage, the fine layer of dirt and ash that stuck to the walls had a small section discoloured by large scrapes of claw-like markings. The surroundings matched the grey slate like arkalite from the Dropspire Arches but…there was something else. If only she could get close enough.

“No. You obviously don’t know how things are done here.” Aidari replied feebly, her head turned toward the wall in solidarity.

The grit that had gathered under Nemera’s own fingernails was a muddy brown hue from the tunnels but Aidari’s cell was covered in scrapes of odorous green. Large, wide gashes of broken stone had seemingly washed away by the condensation from the caves but they were too wide, too clean for something made only a few days ago. It didn’t match with Aidari’s dishevelled state. A few days couldn’t have done all this.

 Even if she’d been rolled in continuous dirt or met face first with an explosion.

“Yet you called me Deathkeeper. You know who I am or at least what a Shadecaller can provide to this…unique situation. Siara does not. Otherwise, the victims of this case would not be classed as murder but natural causes. You know that. You know more than Siara ever could.” Nemera begged, hoping that this small girl was just as smart as she hoped.

The sound of the chains made the silence far more eerie than it needed to be. The rings of indentations that rested a little higher than Aidari’s current entrapment attempted to hide her previous jailtime all the way up to her elbows. Not even a Stormspell cloak could hide how Aidari conserved energy by keeping the chains slack, how thin she was without proper food and how her gaze refused to leave a small pile of ashes concealed in a bottle around their neck.

“Please, Aidari. I think that elves are turning into Traited and I want to find out why.”