it'll be fine

He cannot recognize himself anymore. He is gorged like a tick on the wrath that rises within him. He finds himself doubting everything, accepting nothing, and all it took was a lie of friendship from these mortals, and a betrayal it was not in his nature to see coming.

Sticky blood stains his wings. Whose? It is not his; he does not bleed, his wound is only light, only energy unbound. He is unraveling.

There is a girl beside him. The girl is dying, as mortals do. Then she calls his name and the sound is a tether that holds him back from the precipice of that interminable wrath.

“Lariel?” the girl whispers.

That’s right. At least one of his allies remained true, and suffered the cost.

He will die here too, he realizes. All his thoughts are of a Heaven abandoned for this. For them. When he does not answer she begins to cry, a quiet sound that fills the space around them.

“O Lady of Valor,” she prays. “Iomedae, benevolent to the innocent, ruthless to the malign…”

Benevolent? At times. Ruthless? Indeed.

Poison to the spirit, this rage. He’ll never feel anything else. He could heal the girl, but it would only prolong her suffering. She, too, has to live the rest of her life knowing what their allies have done. What horrors they have wrought. Such sins as none could ever atone for. Traitors, but worse.

Their voices needle from the dark, an odd buzzing fills the air. They are here…

“When has Iomedae given you anything?” they ask. “Stupid, gullible fools. Don’t bleed out just yet. Look. He is coming! Yes! Deskari will provide us everything Iomedae couldn’t!”

Nereo recognizes that the girl is dead, slipped away during her prayer. He recognizes the sound in the cave of a swarm approaching. The shape that looms in the dark, the wings, the multi-faceted eyes, the legs and the pincers, and he can name it now: Deskari, as cruel and as mighty as he had appeared in Kenabres.

What is happening?

Deskari gnashes a low and rhythmic sound as he approaches. The angel Lariel has never hated the way he hates now.

Deskari is laughing.

Nereo realizes this because he himself is laughing. He is Nereo, as he is Lariel, as he is Deskari, as he is the dying girl, denied a name in memory. And he feels it all, everything, waves of anger and sick mirth. These feelings are not his, though. His eyes—eye? brims with hot tears.

“A little bug, struggling on a rock,” Deskari observes with amusement. “Where is your goddess, angel? Where is her self-assured herald? How is it that you are dying here, alone, so far from the light of your Heaven?”

Deskari grabs Lariel by the throat—

No! No, no, not again, please—

—but hate is good. Hate steadies the mind.

Deskari grabs the angel by the throat and this, finally, is as it should be. The angel’s thoughts grow still. Pride and indignity suffuse him, along with the certainty that he is only a tool. He is an arrow, and here is his target, and they have met as is right and proper.

Perhaps this is what saves him. All the anger now has an outlet. He does not even need to call his sword. It is in his hand already, a light so blinding as to sear through the vermin that flit near its burning blade.

Lariel brings his blade down in an arc that severs one of Deskari’s many limbs. The demon lord releases his grasp, keening in pain as the angel falls, shedding feathers like glowing embers.

“You are mistaken, Deskari!”

Lariel gathers the last of his strength as he speaks. “The Light of Heaven is here!”

He is forging a new truth with his voice. He is speaking to Deskari, as well as the gods themselves, a voice so full of pain that the very stone is moved to listen. He brandishes his sword, and the light grows stronger still.

“Behold my wrath! A wrath that can never be extinguished! It is shining, righteous and purifying. It burns away every trace of the Abyss that it touches. I say unto you: remember it well! For one day you shall meet it again! I swear this, by all the Shining Host!”

Lariel moves once more to strike but this time he drives the sword deep into blood-stained stone, where none shall pull it free, save to continue its work. It’s as good as surrendering, but he hasn’t much of a fight left in him. He knows his chapter in this story is closing. The swarm closes in around him. Claws and stingers, biting teeth.

Until all that remains is the sword in the stone, soaked in mortal blood and divine anger.

~

Thoughts and feelings burst like an abscess draining under a surgeon’s lance, but Nereo cannot tell where he is, whose memories spin in his mind, or whether all he has witnessed until now was even real. But it feels real. Urgent and immediate. His face is damp. He clutches his chest as a sob bubbles through his ruined throat. Betrayal is a feeling he knows well, and the wound feels fresh.

“Woah, there!” Seelah says, holding him by the shoulders. “Easy now! You’re alright!”

“No!” Nereo answers emphatically. “Where is he? There’s so much blood. Ah…”

He trails off into a shuddering moan, covering his face. He is no longer on the sword, but his chest still burns the same. He realizes with a lurch that he is not wearing his tunic, and he cringes at the thought of being undressed without his knowledge. He moves his hands to assess the damage, fingertips ghosting over the scar on his chest.

“How am I alive?” he asks.

“You took a fall,” Seelah says gently. “We heard you shouting, but you were unconscious when we found you.”

“Where is the sword?”

Seelah shoots Anevia a brief glance, brow furrowed. “The sword…?”

“I landed on it… it sliced me through and, and it conjured some strange vision, a memory… You saw it! Didn’t you? The angel, the swarm, you saw…?” Nereo pauses when he realizes the others are staring at him without a hint of recognition for what he’s describing. He brings his hands away from his chest, and raises them, bloodied, for Seelah to see. “Look!”

“Your wound reopened when you fell,” she says, delicately as she can. “Try to be still. I healed it enough to slow the bleeding, but I’m not half the healer Terendelev was. You need to stay still, Nereo.”

Nereo can only shake his head at her words. It’s not just his mind that tells him she’s wrong, but his body, too. He feels a tremendous malaise within him, gut-wrenching, the memory of being impaled, and an indigestible anger…

As he remembers, he is struck by a feeling of resentment so profound, it knocks him right back to his senses. He lifts his gaze and aims a glare at Seelah and at the others, for they have all gathered around to look down at him, to gawk.

“How pathetic,” Wenduag says. “Have you lost your mind that easily?”

“I could ask you the same!” Nereo snaps. “Are you stupid or callous? What is wrong with you? Something horrible happened here! Where is the sword? Where did you put it?”

“Mind yourself,” Wenduag replies in a warning drone.

“Wendu, he’s delirious. Leave him be,” Lann sighs.

“I’m not delirious! What did you do with it? Why are you hiding it?”

Nereo pauses again, desperately holding back from weeping. He has found himself trapped in an unfamiliar place with people who do not understand him, do not want to help him, do not even want to help themselves. The task of making sense of their words and actions seems insurmountable as the task of fighting the demon horde in Kenabres. And he himself is not as he should be; something has shifted within him. Something is terribly wrong with him.

He is dirty and thin, ribs and skin. His hair hangs in tousled strands around his face. He is covered in dirt, save where he is covered in tears or blood. He looks up at the others, totally at their mercy.

“Why are you lying?” he asks.

“Nereo…”

“Where is the sword?”

“We were still searching for it when you fell-”

“But I had it! It burned me—look, my hands are still cut open!”

“I know. I know.” Seelah gently takes his hands in hers. “It’s going to be alright.”

Seelah is the best of them, he thinks, but even she does not see.

“Don’t you understand? We need it to fight Deskari! We are running out of time!” He draws a shaky breath, the words rising to his lips without thinking. “Where is my sword?”

And the searing pain in his chest returns. His wound lights up like a star’s dying.

Lariel’s sword is in him still. Nereo looks down, drawing a broken gasp. He can feel its sharp edges in him, though he cannot see the blade.

The others step back, wide-eyed and murmuring, all except for Seelah, who remains fixed at his side. Her brown eyes are radiant in the light of heaven, but they reflect fear as well as awe.

It hurts him to even try, but Nereo reaches over his shoulder, fumbling in the air until he feels the handle of the sword. With a decisive movement, he pulls it out from his back.

The effort of it leaves him shaking, but the burning stops the moment the sword is free. Now it is in his hand. It is heavy, but his chest doesn’t hurt anymore. The wound has closed again, like it never reopened.

“That… that’s it!” Lann says, admiring the sword. “The Light of Heaven! But how-?”

Seelah is shivering. She ducks her head, and words tumble from her mouth: “Iomedae, Lady of Valor, benevolent to the innocent, ruthless to the malign, with humble hearts we raise up this prayer to you…”

In the presence of her prayer, Lariel’s sword glows with a calm radiance. There is nothing better than it in this cavern, and it seems to know this. It is pristine, untarnished. It seethes perfection.

Nereo is not perfect. He has drawn this splinter from himself, and it has left him queasy, like a young warrior seeing his own blood for the first time; incredulous that something so vibrant could come from within him. Nereo can no longer stand it. He flings the sword to the ground, but before the blade hits the stone, it vanishes—and Nereo feels a strike to his back, a blow that knocks the wind out of him.

The sword has chosen its sheath. In the calm dark of the cavern, Nereo can still feel it, lodged between his shoulder blades.

He coughs, startled by the feeling, frightened by his inability to part with the blade.

“That sword,” Wenduag says slowly, eyes fixed on Nereo. “It is the most majestic power I have ever seen… and you called it yours?”

“No, I don’t- I don’t know why I said that.” Nereo swallows hard, still shaken. “I think I saw the memories of the angel it belonged to. Lariel? And… the crusaders. It felt so… so real…”

“The angel from the legends!” Lann says. There is a bright gleam in his eye. To Nereo it looks almost uncanny.

“No one has been able to touch it,” Wenduag says, her voice rife with suspicion. “All this time and no one has been able to touch the sword, yet you are able to wield it? Examine its visions? Take it into yourself… an ordinary creature of flesh and blood, no better than us… why?”

“Now don’t be sore, Wendu,” Lann chides. “Clearly he wields it because he was meant to wield it. He doesn’t carry our mongrel taint-”

“A tiefling!” Wenduag scoffs.

“It’s different,” Lann says confidently. He nods, as if it is all clear to him now. “We are born with evil within us, Wenduag. Face it. Our ancestor’s bodies were corrupted by the Abyss, it’s why we are the way we are. It’s why mongrels beget mongrels. Nothing can change that. But tieflings do not always beget tieflings! Right, Nereo? Your parents were probably normal humans, huh?”

Nereo recoils from the question. His lips curl back in distaste, but whether Lann can read the utter confusion and revulsion in his expression, it doesn’t matter. This is no longer about him. This is about the sword.

Wenduag falls into a thoughtful silence. For the first time since meeting her, she is uncharacteristically subdued, but Nereo cannot read the look in her eyes. Sadness? Shame? Anger? Dread? Then she catches him staring, and resumes an impassive expression.

“Joking,” Lann whispers after a long moment has passed without an answer. “I’m joking. I, heh, well, I tend to say weird things when I get nervous. And when I’m upset. And when I’m excited. Listen!” He waves his mismatched hands, as if it will dispel the tension in the air. “We need to get back home, we need to show you to the chief! Once he sees the Light of Heaven, he’ll be convinced! We’ll go to the Shield Maze, save our kin, and get you lot back to the surface!”

“I think,” Anevia speaks up quietly, and with serious restraint, “that may be the best idea I’ve heard all day.”

~

“Heaven has truly blessed you, Nereo,” Seelah tells him later, giving his hand a reassuring squeeze. “The goddess asks no more of each us than we are able to withstand. Remember that.”

Nereo looks down at her hands. They are so much steadier than his. He forces a smile for her sake.

As the group of neathfolk and surfacers makes to leave, the air is charged with a sense of anticipation. Driven by the discovery of the angel’s sword, inspired by the miracle of Nereo hosting its power. Eager to get home. But the one whose opinion matters most stands apart from the rest. No one notices as he lets himself fall behind. And as he has been contemplative and quiet from the very beginning, it strikes no one as odd. Which suits him just fine.

He needs to think.

Nereo chews on his fingers as he walks behind the group, each step automatic and drudging. He lets his sharp canines slip by his cuticles, worrying his fingernails into a ragged and bloody mess. He thinks about what has been done to him. This horrible anger that has been poured into him from an age ago, before he was even born. Nobody will help him, it is clear. Nobody will even consider that this is something he does not want.

So, as has always been the case, it’s up to him to save himself.

Divine magic is not something he’s ever studied, but he is surprised the sword has been able to latch onto him at all. Soul-bonded weapons are often a purview of necromancy, but he’s read little on the subject. Soulforgers and bladesmiths are the ones who delve into such things, and their magic would differ from that of an angel putting such a strange enchantment on a heavenly blade.

Perhaps his blood triggered the reaction. He is, after all, a tiefling, touched by the Abyss through his inheritance. The angel Lariel did say the sword was fated to destroy all Abyssal influence it met…

Does that mean that it will destroy him? It certainly feels likely.

One thing is certain: he needs to get rid of the sword. He decided as such the moment he realized the sword was bonded to him. This aberration should never have come to pass. He can and should expel it. He can hardly be expected to live like this, with the weight of Heaven pressing on his back.

All he needs is…

“A new scabbard,” he whispers to himself, watching Anevia from behind. Seelah’s scabbard still holds her leg in place, and it gives him an idea.

“A what?” Wenduag asks.

Nereo startles. He looks down at her, finding her closer than he expected. She moves through the darkness so quietly, a shadow on the cave wall herself.

She grins.

“You seem troubled, surfacer.”

It does not escape Nereo’s attention that she is speaking directly to him, her voice low, so no one else hears. She gestures with her thumb at the others.

“I do not know who you are or where you come from. But you and I are the only ones who see this for what it is. Not a sign from above. Not an omen. A fluke.” Her voice expends no more energy than is necessary as she continues, quieter than a whisper. “That is why I ask you: Do not show the Light of Heaven to the chief.”

Nereo gives her a searching look, surprised by her request.

“Why?”

Wenduag runs her tongue over her teeth. “Lann wants to play hero. Fine by me. But convincing the tribe to go into the Shield Maze would condemn them to die. I care about my people, Nereo,” she says, and here, she sounds sincere. “I do not wish to see them lost in the Maze. Our ancestors were warriors. But my people are fishermen and hunters. There is a reason why Chief Sull already turned down Lann’s idea. Simply put, it’s a stupid plan.”

She gestures with all her many limbs, cat-like eyes sweeping over their surroundings.

“The Maze is nothing at all like these caverns,” she says. “It is dark as the primordial night. It whispers and sings to you, disembodied voices saying terrible things. I can see you do not trust me,” she continues. “I wouldn’t either. But Lann is offering you a callow lie, one that will result in countless deaths. I am offering you the truth. Do not show Sull the Light of Heaven,” she repeats. “And I will personally lead you and your group through the Maze to the surface. You have my word.”

So that’s what it is? They are to be allies now? Irritation rises, unbidden, in his thoughts.

Nereo’s tail sweeps out behind him as he rounds on Wenduag, cutting her off from the group.

The display makes her bristle. In return, she splays out her arachnid legs and rises up on them to her full height, meeting him with a glare. After a moment of this stand-off, Nereo blinks.

“I do not plan to show Sull the Light of Heaven,” he says honestly.

Wenduag nods, holding him in her sights a moment longer. If she is not sure what to make of his anger, she is not alone. In this they are matched. He doesn’t know either.

“Very good,” she says at last. “I knew you were smart. Remember our conversation, Nereo. I certainly will.”

Having made her point, she turns and scuttles ahead.

Nereo watches her go, a pit growing in his stomach.

Whatever the others think of the angel’s sword, to him it is only another in a long line of mistakes. He turns in the direction from which they came, and thinks about the nature of memory, divinity, mortal souls, and death. Desperate for something to be in his control, for once.

The decision moves his legs before he can change his mind.

He hurries away from the others, going faster with each step, bounding on patches of glowing mushrooms to muffle the sound of his hooves.

He will not show Sull the Light of Heaven.