Solo the harrowing.

[Caelum]

The woods are lovely, dark and deep, But I have promises to keep, And miles to go before I sleep, And miles to go before I sleep. - R. Frost. TBD Winter 514 AV Daylight peeked over the horizon and was clutched at by the remnants of night with bloody hands. The divine lovers clung to each other, Leth's light born from a sickle moon lowering rapidly in the west. The earth below was a ruin and the butchers lined up on the shore. Their shadows spilled into the sea and there they waited, sharpening their knives. The ethaefal vibrated like a bell in his descent. He lost all knowledge of his enemies even as a coven of them watched, eyes gleaming in the last minutes of night. Streamers of light and sacrifice strung the sky behind the ethaefal. They burned away every scrap of memory and stole his sense of self. All wishes and most wisdoms were scraped away until he was a shell of himself plunging into the sea. Cold water burst over him and shocked every suddenly physical limb. He choked on a mouthful of sea water and flailed for the surface. There was a name on his lips, ready to be cried out. Rough hands grabbed him under the arms and hauled him up. His head broke the surface and the words clogged in his throat, the celestial language in his head unraveling in his mouth. They tossed him to the ground, puddles of water splashing up, and he gulped at the air. Relief seared him too soon. His rescuer kicked him hard in the shoulder, knocking him off of his knees and onto his back. The world shimmered and greyed before the ethaefal could focus again, and when he did it was into the saddest pair of eyes he had ever seen. "You came back," the man said. He phrased it like an excuse, or an accusation. The ethaefal did not need to see the blades rising or the shadows of the others gathering close to know what was coming. Some instincts were beaten into the bones of the soul after enough centuries of life cycling. Shock and cold numbed limbs jerked as he scrambled to get his feet under him, shoving himself up. An arm swung up in an automatic attempt to deflect the sad-eyed man's blade, but a second knife was already plunging into his back. He fought, fierce as ever, but their steel was too quick and his life was too young. Blood formed puddles on the shore and by the time Syna finished rising in the ravaged sky, it was too late. He felt himself fall away from the daylight, the ground already a grave beneath him, and the shore disappeared in a swarm nothing. The entire world was erased, but in its place shot hundreds of thousands of pillars all around him, intricate tangles of color and light. His balance came back to him, and then his most recent name. "Caelum," he muttered, and gazed around the familiar halls of the Chavena surrounding him. It hadn't been real. It had been a memory. He was dreamwalking. It was real, once upon a lifetime ago; but it was not now. It was, he realized, his life between this one and that of Kasb'el Sunsinger whose face he wore by night. His enemies had been waiting on him, enemies he even now could only guess at all the motives of, and Syna had taken his broken soul back home. Despite the beloved and familiar environment of Nysel's domain, Caelum felt shaky and even ill. He had no desire to continue his explorations of the Chavena tonight and for that matter could not even recall what he had been searching for in the first place. It would be best, he decided, to wake. Surely the dawn was coming soon. Closing his eyes, the cloak of stars constructed for him during his first meeting with Nysel in this life flared around him. Far flung worlds and long lost solar systems winked and guttered as he swung backwards, making up gravity even as he went, and swan dived toward the furthest end of his own tangled chavi. Instead of a person, he was a comet barreling through the ancient and guarded corridors of the Chavena. He should have slipped off the end of his chavi and back into himself, waking instantly back in Riverfall. Instead, he slammed into a wall. The comet of him splattered against the black barrier into a puddle of sunfire out of which he crawled, forming arms and legs for himself again. He shook his head, hair coming into existence in a pop of winter's pale brown color. Both hands lifted and the cloak fell away from his shoulders so that he could press his palms to the strange, seamless wall that had come between him and waking. Between the Chavena and the Mortal World. Or, perhaps, just between him and his latest life. When the wall refused to yield, Caelum stepped back. Anger was gathering in him, hard as stone and quick as fire. This was a world he had been granted entrance to, ushered in by the invitation of the Master of Dreams himself. Who dared defy Nysel's wishes? What stood in his way? The forest of bright chavi behind Caelum faded into a dark, encroaching fog. It reached cold fingers for his ankles and the ethaefal drew back bloody hands to ball into fists. He shored up his strength as a dreamwalker and then slammed his hands against the wall. * * * It was barely past dawn at the Sanctuary when little Lillian Tolliver slipped out through the gate. She had woken in bed with her best friend Tasival where they had been tucked in together the night before, lulled to sleep by a story about three ducklings. The seer's lily on her left shoulder was sore like a bruise and she rubbed at it while stomping her way into half laced boots. It was uncannily similar to her father. He was supposed to have been at Alements in town, staying over after a particularly late night at the infirmary. Nobody at the Sanctuary was expecting him since Elise had come home and told them Caelum wouldn't be back. Lillian tugged a sweater on over her head and then stole out into the dawn light, eager to be the first person to greet the striders today. Quickly discovering that Aweston or one of the others had gotten to the stables before her and some of the horses were already in the pasture to stretch their legs, the little konti decided to hunt her favorite horse down there. Raised for a while in Endrykas and raised since by Caelum and Kavala, Lillian had caught the horse fever early. She was bound and determined to sweet talk a strider into deciding they liked her and bonding to become a full fledged Drykas. It didn't matter that she was only four years old and hardly even three feet tall. Lillian wanted what she wanted and if her father had taught her nothing else, it was to follow the heart. Frost cracked beneath her feet as Lillian tromped into the pasture, determinedly trudging her way through the snow. Fortunately, some of the horses had already passed by this way and much of it was stomped down for her. In the distance, she could see a group of horses grazing at the lowest pine boughs at the forest's edge. She aimed herself in that direction and little puffs of steam floated behind her. When she topped a shallow rise in the field, Lillian saw him. There was a mound of crimson blood and white frost, a gleam of sunlight off of pine green horns and the dulled gold of cold, immortal flesh. Lillian stumbled the last couple of steps before catching herself right beside him, breath knocked out of her with terror. Big blue eyes stared down at the bloody, broken heap and she realized it wasn't just a person. It was her father. Horror eventually loosened in Lillian's throat enough for her to scream. It was sharp, high, and wordless, startling the horses afield. She didn't stop for a long while.