*COMPLETE* Allayria promised to do what it takes to stop the Jarles, to make the ugly decision. She thinks, at last, she understands what the dynast meant. The lesson earned from the top of that lonely cliff and given the dark murky water below.
It...
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Fractured. Light. Starlight. Glow. Splintering.
And pain, so much pain, so much pulsing, shuddering pain.
You've gone weak, soft, she hisses through it all, smug purpose replaced with acrid smoke, burning rancor in the pulse, in the pound, in the overwhelming drum.
I raised you better than this, cleverer than this.
She nearly ruined it—can have ruined it still yet—and Mother, Mother tremors with it, the seething, maddening rage.
All of them, all of them.
Long gone are the days of lightning-light stalking, a shrieking phantom in the dark; no sword, no fire, no metal needs to be unleashed when all Mother needs to do is raise a finger to punish.
You are so stupid.
It is the worst infraction in years, the worst fuck up, jumping the line beyond comfort into punishment by leagues, years, bounds—
Every, single, one, you worthless creature!
The seekers are in shimmering, pitter-pattering shards on the floor, like shattered stars, twinkling, spinning, but no longer beeping, hushed in their breaking. The engineers and tinkerers could assemble them again, patch them together, but that intangible magic, that dead Skill, has fled, left, and made them hollow.
Useless.
You are the worst disappointment, the greatest disappointment—
It had been a body, a smiling mask, thrown a touch too far, just to the left, struck in a fit of unfortunate malice, thrown back, thrown at a cabinet...
The other slippery white bodies are all shivering on the floor with her now, twitching and jerking, puppets on puppet strings, being pulled, pulled by—
You are a sheer house of cards, collapsing at the tiniest blow.
It's another stab, white-hot, sieving through her mind like burning oil, and Isati cries out.
"I told you," the thing above her shrieks, the outstretched hand curling, taut and clawed, "Chaudris do not cry."
And she doesn't, because this is what Mother needs: a monster that curls on its side, that tucks inside its shell and doesn't shout, doesn't cry.
The pain is supposed to make her stronger—will make her stronger, build up that shell until it can't even crack and no one can see inside.
And so Isati lies there, lets the storm beat against her, a lightning lattice across her bones, and beneath the white-hot fury, the pulsing rage, something in Mother is satisfied. Mollified, so that the flat expression is enough, the tense, locked limbs suffice. She keeps at her wrath and even as she concludes, Mother doesn't spare it another thought, another glance back.
She doesn't look hard enough to see a tether, pulsing bright alive now as another hand reaches out across space and Unspace to hold tight, to share this pain. Mother doesn't see this, nor does she see the last shimmering, fluttering thing Isati protects inside the cradle of her arms.
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A/N: Argh, my god am I behind on posting. I swear my delinquency is for a nice reason this time, and not catastrophic computer failures or mysterious illnesses. But it's Friday, I am unexpectedly free for the next 15 minutes and by god am I taking advantage of it. I'm so excited to be posting anyway—we are so close to some really interesting stuff but also waaaay too close to how far I am with writing... haha. Working on that. Working, working, working...
Chapter notes: The Spirit seekers first made their appearance in Paragon's "The Little Black Book" and reappeared in Partisan's "The Monster."
