Sevensworn

XXVI. Reconcile

They left the archive swiftly after that without a second thought. Shivaroth carried armfuls of books back up the stairs while Ronan put some in a bag they had brought for that purpose. The library had lost its source of comfort, having been infiltrated by someone so volatile, and both of them felt it viscerally.

Shivaroth didn't recount his conversation with Eltirash. Ronan didn't ask about it. He had heard the important part, and they were both aware of that. Any tension that they had previously lacked was now present in abundance. By the time they were out the door they were nearly running up the stairs, desperate to get back up above the waves and across the mountains. Wynne would have an idea. She always had an idea.

The journey back was faster than the journey there. They rode as fast as they could without straining their horses, and Shivaroth gave him a rundown of what he had learned while Ronan had been asleep. He explained that the Prophet's abilities, as he had suspected, were created by inheriting a fraction of Aevar's power. A mortal carrying the power of a god would be an agonizing process, according to what he'd read, which explained the pain. When Ronan asked what would happen to him, what the side effects were, Shivaroth had winced. None of the books he had read so far had offered any information, and the prophecy was vague. No mortal had ever killed a god and lived to tell the tale; the blacksmith Vehkra, who was responsible for Shivaroth's death and had momentarily taken up the mantle of the Void Guardian, was killed by Aevar before any information could be gathered. It was only written of in theoretical cases—Ronan was an outlier. A sole member of his people that differed from the rest in all of history.

They would simply have to see what would become of him. Whether he would make it through this 'destruction of the pantheon' or not. He did not have any desire to kill any other gods, there was not a shred of bloodlust present in his mind, but he supposed it had been the same with Aevar. It had been instinct, as if some other force had driven his hand and sprayed the snow with the blood of the divine.

Terr'Havel awaited them silently when they returned. It was morning. The sun was rising in front of them, behind the stone towers of the manor. They had explained themselves quickly to the rest of the Circle, and found their words met with wide-eyed looks of horror. Acaeus had excused himself after a moment, Zia had cursed and kicked the edge of a small end table, and Wynne had gone completely silent.

To a group that had thought they'd escaped this same, prophecy-bound situation mere weeks ago, this was the worst news that could have arisen. They parted ways with few words, each retreating to their own wings of the manor and largely managing to avoid each other for the following day and a half.

He hadn't seen Shivaroth much since they'd returned, as the god had been spending most of his time with Wynne in Terr'Havel's library attempting to piece together some last-ditch plan to stop the world from falling to pieces. At the very least this fact allowed him to push the realization he'd had in the archive even farther down, leaving it alone until he was sure he could handle it. Right now he had a multitude of bigger issues to deal with; his convoluted emotional turmoil could wait.

Ronan refused to mope. He forced himself to stay busy in order to avoid falling into something he couldn't return from, some kind of inescapable despair that he knew lurked around every corner, waiting for him to let his guard down so it could latch on and refuse to let go. He had let it take hold of him at Solthorne, and before then at the castle, and though he certainly wasn't at his best as he was, he was determined to avoid that same darkness.

So he worked. He helped Liliana with her carrier ravens, rode to nearby villages to pick up food and medical supplies⁠—which Liliana said they needed just in case⁠—and worked on honing his skill with a dagger in Terr'Havel's training grounds when Acaeus wasn't there. When he wasn't doing anything he would take a book out to the garden, sitting before the statues of the gods he was supposed to destroy as he read. It was one of those days, when he had nothing better to do and his book was doing a poor job of keeping his mind off of the matters at hand, that Acaeus stalked by without noticing him and stood before the half-circle of statues, glaring up at the visages of gods that were not his.