Re:Creation Book 1: Allegiance

Thirty

The following night, Lysidia once again made her way to the infirmary, dressed only in her nightgown and slippers. The gentle patter of rain and droning rumble of thunder followed her through the halls, hiding her soft footsteps.

Lysidia loved the rain. Perhaps it was her connection to the goddess of water, Vyrinia that caused it, but Lysidia always found herself completely at peace during a storm. Even mild drizzle falling on the castle managed to soothe her. Unfortunately, not many others seemed to be as at ease as she was. Earlier that morning, Reif had never woken up, managing to sleep throughout the entire day. Due to his state, ripples of worry and rumors spread throughout the castle before the day was even over. At some point, Lev had even taken Reif to Vivienne to try and find out what was wrong, though Lysidia had a feeling she knew exactly what the nature of his "affliction" was.

Unbeknownst to anyone but her, it was entirely likely that Reif had been in Arz'vita throughout the night. Time moved slower in the realm of the gods compared to the human world, so a mere few minutes in Arz'vita could easily translate to a few hours in the human world. Normally, Lysidia and her brothers were all fairly cognizant of the passage of time and would spend no more than a single night with the gods to not arouse suspicion or attract attention. Reif, however, had been gone for an entire night and day. If he--or rather his spirit--truly was in Arz'vita, then something truly troubling must be occurring for both him and the gods to ignore their usual time constraints. 

Per Vivienne's wishes, Lysidia had kept away from the infirmary thus far, yet even she couldn't fully deny the concern welling up within her. No one was aware of the true nature of Lysidia's relationship with Reif, Aryn, and Jeyre and how they all regarded each other as siblings rather than merely fellow priests, so getting past Bo would require a bit more tact on Lysidia's part than simply demanding she see her brother, yet she was determined to get inside, all the same. At the very least, Khel ought to have been asleep by that time of night, so getting into another dispute with Bal didn't seem likely.

As Lysidia crossed in front of the throne room, the usual fog of divine power emanating from the massive tree within enveloped her, clouding her mind with the familiar fuzzy feeling she'd gotten so used to by then. Even without Terrera's power, she could feel the energy of the tree waning, telling her that the goddess of earth's incarnation must have been dangerously close to rebirth.

Just as she was nearing the edge of the fog, something caught Lysidia's attention. Much like she'd felt before, there was something else inside of the cloud of divine energy. It was faint, but there was another energy signal hidden within. This time, the energy remained long enough for her to try and focus on it, but the haze of Terrera's power made concentrating on the foreign energy a futile effort. Nevertheless, she couldn't shake the familiar feeling that the energy signal gave her. 

Despite the energy lasting a bit longer this time, Lysidia still wasn't able to identify it before it vanished completely, leaving her with a slight prickle of irritation. She was getting nowhere trying to identify it like this, and even if she tried getting closer to it, the tree's divine energy would only continue to block her.

If anyone would be able to reach that energy signal, it would be Reif. He's the only one whose ability to sense other energies wouldn't be impacted by the blockade that Terrera's power constructed, and now that Lysidia was sure she wasn't imagining things, she had all the more reason to wake him as soon as possible. She just had to get to him.

Continuing on her way, Lysidia pondered how she would go about convincing Bo to allow her inside. Surely, he couldn't refuse her if she told him it was a divine matter that only a priest could handle. Then again, Vivienne's word held more weight than Lysidia's own and Bo was well aware of this. Such a simplistic excuse probably wouldn't work.