#the emberlight

While she and Lord Netherstar talked about whether or not his house would play a role in her latest project, they also discussed the Emberlight as a whole, and the pieces that make it up. She would need to know as much as possible about the houses within the Emberlight if she planned to approach them with the same request she had proposed to House Netherstar. She already had some experience with House Blacksun- Ciaragan herself fought to defend the Blacksun Gate, and recalled with great ease the strength and tenacity of its soldiers. Lord Netherstar had mentioned the hydromancers and sea-gods of House Blacksquall, and the Bishop mentally noted to scratch them off her list. She wasn’t a fan of the sea, or any gods therein, and wasn’t about to try her luck in unfamiliar territory. Then of course there was House Silverdawn and their lynx. This house seemed more reasonable than the last but still would be a hard sell. Nothing in the Emberlight was easy or without complication, and Ciaragan hadn’t expected it to be any other way. Still, if you begin with your toughest challenges, you’ll appreciate completing them more, and will find rewards in easier tasks. Or at least that’s what she told herself.

Although the head of House Netherstar had been a very gracious host to her, Ciaragan was still unnerved by her role as ‘guest’ in a noble house. She had observed the pleasantries of court, toured what she could of the decadent grounds, partaken in delicious meals, and briefly glimpsed what the life of nobility could be like, but it had all brought back a flood of memories she had been so rudely reminded of just days before thanks to the Spectre’s sharp tongue. Ciaragan had wanted all of these things for herself once, a long time ago. She wanted to be so much more than a poor farmer’s daughter living far, far away from the city. She wanted to be like the aristocrats that she saw during festival season, some of which- in retrospect- may have belonged to House Netherstar. Partaking in it now- now that she had built a name for herself from nothing felt... wrong. It was as enticing as it was terrifying, for she saw how easily she was swept away by a world she was never meant to be in. It was time to get serious again.

Setting forward on the path which lead north into the mountains, the Bishop and her small traveling party made their way towards Lynx Home and House Silverdawn. The trek through the mountains wouldn’t be an easy one, but again- nothing in the Emberlight was.

Not ’til Iphrea Blacksun stood on the shore of Perihelion and asked her friend to come to the defense of her homeland. Solyaris had agreed readily—too readily, with a reach beyond what she truly commanded, so certain that Vaelrin would deny her nothing. He rarely did, after all.

Still, in the end it was Iphrea whose entreaty moved Lord Firestorm to the defense of the Emberlight, where his bride’s father reigned. And when she retired herself to sleep aboard the Cursed Revenge, Solyaris and Vaelrin remained above, discussing how best to loose the snares that entrapped him. She would learn later that Exarius Blazewing had been employed to the same end.

When, a few days later, Solyaris saw them all adjourned to the Netherstar-Blacksun war camp, the Magistrix was not glad of the threat to the Emberlight, but for the opportunity to take the measure of a stranger she already considered an enemy.

She flew on his orders to protect a Shrine of Belore, and would be glad to remember nothing more of that night. Only there was too much that pressed on her: the lich that had slain the acolytes of the Eternal Sun and the rage it had stirred in Iphrea’s breast; how ready she had been to give the last breath of her lungs to protect the daughter of the Blacksun; and how it had not been the Twin Suns that had fallen, but Firestorm himself. She remembered how the sun’s flame had welled in her then, and when it had left her, how hollow and ashen and dead she had been inside.

Thus harrowed, she had her first opportunity to speak with the Lord of the Emberlight. “Cidifus is dead,” she had greeted him. “His acolytes are dead.” It was not the most auspicious of beginnings, but fatigue and anxiety had robbed her tongue of all its politeness. “My heart,” Izulde named the dead man then; “my teacher, my brother.” What followed was a cruel illumination: the Sunguard had failed Netherstar, and if Izulde had lost a man he esteemed enough to name kin, another had resurfaced: a haunt that profaned the body of some other brother. Solyaris wondered which of them Lord Netherstar had regarded as a truer relation. She felt for him a pang of sympathy. “Would that we had served you better, Lord Netherstar,” she said, and was surprised to realize she meant it—and not for the reasons which stirred most obviously within her breast. Vaelrin was suffering, to be sure, but there was no Dawnmender in their cadre who could mend the blow dealt at the Shrine of Belore, nor the wounds that had shattered the blood mage’s early composure. “Serve me in the morning,” he commanded. “That shall be our truest test of resolve. Please, leave me to mourn my dear friend.” Such a gentle request she could not ignore.

When the reveille sounded to muster the Sunguard once more, Solyaris found she had slept little enough, and had to rely on other means to find peace: in the words of her Archon, and those of the Ranger-Captain, when he was lucid enough to give them. In the words she had put to paper to call Vaelrin’s family to his side; in the quiet strength of Shadenii Firestorm, who she found she admired.

But she had pledged her aid in this battle, and with tired eyes she went. If Izulde Netherstar’s words the night before had been gentle enough, his action upon the battlefield displayed the full force of his fury: at the invasion of his homeland; at the loss of the shrine; at the coming of the mandrakes. At the death of Cidifus Dawnspeaker. Never trained in the paths of blood magic herself, Solyaris nevertheless knew a potent mage when she saw one—and Izulde Netherstar was that, and a deadly and shrewd commander of his loyal forces. He acquitted himself well in the defense of his homeland.

And when the battle was ended, he came to the infirmary to call upon his son-in-law. He made a liar of the Magistrix in his coming, who had sworn to keep him from Vaelrin’s bedside. “It pains me to see you like this, regardless of our past,” Izulde Netherstar said to the injured Captain, and Solyaris found she believed him. And with a few words more, the Lord of the Emberlight made it clear he was aware of the reasons Lightward Ashveil had been so difficult to part from Ranger-Captain Firestorm’s bedside—reasons that had little to do with the medical reports she was dutifully filing under the Archon’s supposed injunction. “See if the Dawnward has made some progress” was an order that allowed a great deal of latitude, after all. “I’ll let you know if anything changes” was a promise that served Solyaris’ own needs as much as the Sunguard’s.

Still, Netherstar knew her for what she was, and she had lifted her chin with cold hauteur, but the imprecations she might have expected never came. “If her presence will accellerate your healing,” he said, “then let her sit beside you.” He spoke of her as though she was absent, ’til he said “I came to thank you both for your service.” It was little enough.

It was more than she expected.

“I was honored to serve,” she said, but when Izulde Netherstar left the room and Solyaris went to write another urgent letter to Exarius, it was less to do with the fact that the intelligence the rogue would sell the Lord of the Emberlight was outmoded, and more to do with the fact that at least she knew what to do with Exarius: hate him, and not let that hate be tempered by pity.