Liliana
It was a pleasure to watch the so-called Gatewatch contort and agonize. Gideon's poorly restrained frustration; Nissa's discomfort; Chandra's impatience; Jace's pained indecision. Jace was in his favorite place—caught in the middle due to arbitrary restrictions he had made up, and wondering why life's decisions were always so difficult. You're never going to change, are you? Liliana couldn't tell whether it amused or disgusted her. Both, sometimes.
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A moonfolk flew into the clearing, her eyes wide and breath short. She took no notice of the large ring of zombies protecting them from Emrakul's minions, though she did look up at the grand spectacle of Emrakul; it was impossible not to. She landed next to Jace, speaking rapidly though too quietly for Liliana to hear. She stopped talking in a way Liliana would have found confusing if she hadn't already spent a great deal of time with a telepath. She must be the moonfolk Jace had mentioned. Jace and Tamiyo continued their silent conversation, moving closer to one another as they touched minds. Liliana frowned. Another useless mind mage, just what we needed.
She wanted some time alone with Jace, to figure out what the endgame here was. Her zombies had brought a temporary respite. But they needed to get out of here, away from Thraben, away from Innistrad, away from Emrakul.
As she thought of the name, Liliana's eyes were drawn upward to the towering figure hovering outside of Thraben. Why is it just sitting there? The air felt heavy, stale. Fecund with the smell of...it wasn't the dead. Liliana was comfortable with the dead and their smell. But there was a rotten quality to this smell Liliana found troubling.
There was a sudden shifting in the air, the smell and pressure of a spring day before a thunderstorm, and in that shifting Emrakul unfolded. Its cloud burgeoned; its long spindly tendrils lengthened and multiplied, from hundreds to thousands, to tens of thousands, more. An invisible sphere of power burst from Emrakul, rippling and hitting each Planeswalker where they stood.
Nausea roiled her stomach; vertigo twisted her mind. She had known that sickening combination of despair and sickness only a few times in her life. When her brother Josu's eyes had opened lifelessly, jet-black orbs portending doom; when she had first beheld Bolas's baleful gaze, hearing his spiteful laugh as he promised poisoned redemption; when the Chain Veil's power had first coursed through her veins, splitting her skin and cracking it open like a dry husk to let the blood, her blood, seep through.
None of those moments compared to the wrongness she felt in Emrakul's presence. Liliana Vess had spent her whole life seeking not to die, and for the first time in her long existence she wondered if she had been pursuing the wrong goal. In the shadow of Emrakul's flowering, death seemed just another of life's superficial lies, a false hope poorly beating back the true horror awaiting all who existed.
Emrakul. Emraakull. Emraaa...
She shook her head with force, seeking to clear her mind. She had lived too long, overcome too much, to succumb now. We must flee this plane. This...it is insanity to stay. Not her thoughts, but the Raven Man speaking directly in her head, sounding...scared. Liliana took some pleasure in the fear. So you can feel fear. Her zombies moaned in unison, "Vessel of destruction. Root of evil. Flee." Liliana was startled. She was used to the Chain Veil talking nonsense about vessels and roots, but flee. Whatever Emrakul was, the Chain Veil wanted no part of it.
