The tempest howled for seventy-two hours confining Alexander inside a shepherds mayen, a rugged stone shelter perched high in the Val d'Hérens. Of devising strategies—those were meant for armies and angels—he focused on repairing. With a bone needle and thread from his pack he stitched a ripped seam in his cloak. He sharpened a knife he had bartered for against a blunt stone. He observed the rain shroud the sobbing cliff. Endeavored to calm the tumult, within his mind.
The image of the two conclusions—the Silence and the Severance—tormented him. They were like the clenched teeth of a snare. The world was blindly falling into its grip. The Radiant Host represented the Angels jaws closing in. The Abysss reply, when it arrived would be the one. His stone seemed tinier, than ever.
By the dawn the sky had brightened to a crisp washed-out blue. The atmosphere was fresh and keen. He departed from the mayen. Made his way down not returning towards the settlements and the rising tide of belief but further into the maze of secondary valleys tracing an ancient neglected pilgrim trail signposted by decaying cairns. He was uncertain of his destination. Only that he must continue traveling through the center to sense its shape before it disappeared.
The trail brought him to a concealed hanging valley, a basin of grass embraced by jagged summits. At its heart rested a ring of stones covered in moss and tilting under the burden of ages. They were not majestic, like the cathedrals. These were indigenous deities. A site of serene judgments.
At the circle's core a person stood by.
Not Dorothy. Not Duncan.
Queen Brianna Calliope rested upon a fallen stone her black dress spread around her like spilled ink, her horns against the clear sky. Her gaze was fixed on a wild orchid sprouting from a fissure in the rock her face inscrutable. For an instant she appeared not as a queen of celestial conflict but as a solitary woman, in a stunning isolated place.
She felt his presence. Glanced upward. Her menacing grin came back though it was softened by something. Maybe curiosity.. A hint of the identical fatigue that Duncan showed.
"No weapon, Alexander?" she inquired, her tone carrying clearly through the air. "No artifact? Not even your small stone exhibited?"
He stepped into the circle pausing at a space. "It remains here." He lightly touched the pouch beneath his shirt. "What brings you here?"
"Maybe I like the scenery " she said, indicating the fortress of mountains. "Maybe I'm reflecting on the beauty of this valley when it's either locked in light or melting into sorrowful shade. Each has its charm." She met his gaze steadily. ". Maybe I've come to present you one final distinct option before the structure of strife turns… permanent."
He remained silent anticipating.
"You have witnessed the instruments of conclusion " she said, rising with poise. "The quiet of the Ring. The calm of the Severance. You bear the remembrance of the Penitents Blades reality. You possess the Echoes of every magics yearning." She moved closer, to him. "Unwittingly you are the living vault of the entire range of endings. The Angel holds his answer. I have my own. You… have faced both. Refused them both."
She had come near her fragrance of chilled roses and singed paper. "That renders you a singularity. A locus of strain. So my proposal: do not return to the realm of humans. They will neither comprehend you; they will dread you. Idolize you and either way they will ruin you. Join me. Not as a companion, not, as a commander. As an… archivist. A guardian of the routes. Within the heart of my realm you might safeguard the awareness of what was achieved. You could serve as the recollection of the decision protected from the fanatics to impose one upon all."
It was an image. A mission. Security. A part that utilized his suffering without requiring him to cause harm. To become the spirit in the archive of conclusions.
He inquired softly ". What will become of the world?"
Her crimson eyes shone. "The conflict will unfold. It has to. The strain must find its end.. You wouldn't need to observe. You wouldn't have to bear the burden. You could nurture your memories just as these stones nurture their moss. In silence."
Endless stillness. It was the hush of Weisshorn cloaked anew in velvet. A different sort of Ring.
He remembered the farmer who offered him soup without asking. The elderly soldier expressing remorse, against the stone. The girl resting her hand on his shining greave. They were not ideas to be stored away. They were individuals, existing in the stunning now.
He stated, "I am unable to."
Her grin remained steady. A certain resolve took hold in her gaze. "Why? Due to emotions? Owing to a human determination to endure the pain as everything, around us ignites?"
"Because someone needs to recall that it's more, than the conclusions " he stated, forming the sentence as he went. "Someone must remain present during the midst expressing that the middle continues to be important. Even while it smolders."
Brianna gazed at him silently for quite some time. Then she chuckled, a noise both deeply disheartened. "An observer of the ruins. How truly human of you." She shook her head. "Fine then. The proposal is revoked. You shall enter the flames knowingly. I nearly respect it. It is the refined kind of self-destruction."
She began to walk but stopped. "Dorothy mentioned that the center is diminishing. She was mistaken. It has vanished. The next occasion we cross paths Alexander it won't be amidst a tranquil ring of stones. It will be on a war zone.. I won't present you with a library. Instead I will grant you a sharp separation as a favor, to the unique being you used to embody."
She approached the brink of the stone circle. Appeared to move into the shade cast by the tallest stone. In the moment Alexander blinked she vanished, leaving behind the fragrance of chilled roses and the deep sorrowful solitude of the elevated spot.
He remained within the circle sunlight bathing his face. The final exit—graceful, shadowy and definitive—had sealed shut. Brianna had presented it as an option. It was the identical decision he had confronted on the Weisshorn: retreat or confront.
He had finished taking out money.
He departed from the standing stones. Started the lengthy journey descending from the hanging valley. His route had a course now even if it lacked a plan. He needed to reach a place of power not to seize an artifact but to speak out. To testify. To position himself between the story of the Radiant Host and the quiet mournful reality of the Abyss. Proclaim that both were falsehoods destined to destroy the world.
He required a platform.. He was absolutely certain where to locate it.
He directed his path southeast heading for the most fearful human realm in the Alps. Toward the site where the conflict would start not amid the heights but within the lavish chambers of those, with the greatest stakes.
He was going to the Scarlet Kingdom. To stand before Queen Greta Fallon and her court, not as a Messenger, but as the man who had held the end of the world in his hand, and put it down.