Sevensworn

XI. Winged Victory

Days passed. It must have been days. Days of feverish dreams and half-awake pleas and shouts of his name across what seemed to be a rift of flame. Ronan had long ago slumped sideways into the snow, staining it red with his blood and melting it where his overheated flesh made contact.

At some point, the voices stopped calling out to him. His lips, parched and chapped, could not seem to form a response.

If death was something one could feel, Ronan became intimately familiar with it. He felt its caress, its embrace, not menacing as he had thought but warm, welcoming. He lost track of how long it had been, how long it was until the prophecy would see itself out.

Aevar came for him one day, when the sun was beginning to set. He spoke to him, put the back of his hand against his forehead, sighed.

"You are dying," he said evenly. "And just in time." Ronan's eyes opened at the sound of his voice. Aevar surveyed his position, splayed out on the ground with no light in his eyes, and shook his head.

"It would be a shame if the fever took you before I did," Aevar murmured, bending down and sliding an arm beneath his knees, the other beneath his neck. Ronan was lifted with ease, no part of him able to retaliate, though he knew what was coming.

His head lolled back. The sky was brushed with darkness, touched by dusk. There was a word from Aevar and his head began to clear, his vision to sharpen. He drew in a breath, sharp against his lungs, and began to shiver in his arms.

"There you are, boy. Breathe. Your death approaches, but even I am not so cruel as to let you die on your knees."

Ronan's chest heaved. He whispered two words, words that only half aligned with his thoughts, stilted and hesitant. "Thank you."

"I would not strip you of your dignity," Aevar said as Ronan's body continued to mend itself. "I promised to give you an honorable death when we first met. I know you see me as a merciless figure, but I would not take your honor from you."

"You mean to kill me without reason."

"Yes."

"That is merciless."

"It is destiny," Aevar asserted. "Though often I have found that those two things are one and the same. We are both bound by it as we are bound to each other⁠—Fate rests higher than even the pantheon, child."

Ronan let his guard down. No use in holding anything back now. "Why can't you overthrow it?"

"How can you overthrow a force of nature?" They emerged from behind the bonfire, and Ronan's eyes scanned the clearing. There were few Rhydellan soldiers left, and those that had stayed were gathered around the bonfire. Some sat near the members of his Circle, guarding them, their weapons comfortably positioned within their grasp. He wondered why Aevar had stayed beside them for so long—perhaps it was because they represented the side of chaos.

Wynne and Acaeus were asleep. They were on their knees, hands and feet still bound, with Acaeus' head resting against Wynne's shoulder and Wynne's cheek atop his hair. They were, as they always had been, the force at the eye of the storm⁠—a spot of peace amidst a maelstrom.

He didn't call out to them. Didn't wake them. He had no idea what he would have said⁠—farewell? Thank you? A last declaration of love? Nothing was right in the time he had. Nothing would have conveyed his gratitude.

"Ronan?" His name was barely a breath on its speaker's lips⁠—his eyes darted to its source, to Shivaroth, whose eyes were wide and stricken.

"Shiva," he murmured.