Chapter 5: Part 11 - Aftermath

There was a ringing in Erin’s ears that made the world feel distant and not quite real. Light was sneaking in through her cracked eyelids, just enough to let her know it was nearly dawn. And someone, perhaps very close, perhaps very far away, was shouting Auri’s name loud enough to cut through the whine.

Erin lurched upright, her head swimming. She found she was sitting on the deck of the Flawless Victory, which now lay at such a precarious angle that she felt as though she was falling. She dug her fingers into a crack between the deck’s boards, waiting for the vertigo to subside.

The ringing in her head had begun to fade. The voice shouting Auri’s name had also grown fainter, as though it had vanished into the bowels of the ship. Very slowly, trying not to think about what had just happened, Erin climbed to her feet.

Her stomach lurched. Behind her, the front of the ship’s cabin had been ripped open, leaving a gaping hole. Ahead of her, the deck was covered in bodies. No, not bodies. Erin surveyed them and managed to make herself breathe. Their chests still rose and fell, there was movement amongst them, and some of them were even sitting up. They’d been scattered by the blast, like she had, but they weren’t dead.

And there, in the eye of the storm, was Artair.

Erin approached him warily. He lay on his back, eyes open and staring, but she didn’t think he was dead. His right arm was flung out to one side, his fingers still curled tight around Souleater. Carefully, Erin put the toe of her boot on his wrist, pressing down until his hand twitched and Souleater clattered free. Beyond releasing the rifle, Artair didn’t move.

“Here.” Amber’s voice was loud in the stillness. She seemed to have appeared from nowhere, with blood on her forehead and shards of wood embedded in the sleeve of her leather jacket. “Let me.”

She bent before Erin could protest, scooping Souleater off the deck and tucking it under her arm.

“Are you…?” Erin couldn’t find the words.

Amber shook her head firmly. “I’m fine. I haven’t seen any major injuries. Roan’s back on his feet already. Marissa, too. I don’t know about the rest.”

Erin scanned the deck again, the enormity of what they were facing finally sinking in. People were scattered on all sides, many of them still not moving. She couldn’t remember a collision, but the Victory lay with its prow pressed into the sand of the shoreline, its keel wedged against a high ridge of rock. Other airships were visible in the distance now that the fog had lifted. Some still drifted listlessly through the dawn sky, but at least one more had hit the earth to the north.

She’d done this. She’d ordered Auri to cause this devastation, to bring the battle to a conclusive end. There would be injuries, even if Amber hadn’t seen any. There might even be deaths ‒ and all of it had been to capture one belligerent sylvari. Erin looked down, finding her boot was still poised over Artair’s unmoving wrist. It took all her willpower not to press down until his flesh split.

She stepped back, watching as Amber deftly disassembled Souleater. The thief tossed several of the smaller components over the side of the Victory and slipped others into her pockets. “Spark’s a bloody genius,” she said as she worked, “but she’s got a lot to answer for.”

They hadn’t heard anything more from Spark since Oska had faced her in Ascalon. Erin found herself studying the horizon as though that would give her answers. A lot to answer for… She wondered, somehow, if Spark already had.

But that would have to wait. “Are you going to destroy it this time?” she asked, nodding towards the rifle.

Amber’s smile was knowing. “Oh, I won’t need to. I’m going to bury it so deep that not even dredge or destroyers will find it.”

Bury it? Erin opened her mouth to ask whether that was a metaphor, then closed it again. It was better not to know.

Instead, to distract herself from the guilt and anxiety in her chest, she nudged Artair with her foot. When he didn’t react, she rolled him onto his side, then tied his arms behind his back. Now that she’d moved him, the scorched outline around his body was clear to see. It was no wonder he was practically catatonic. Auri’s concussive spell had brought an entire fleet of airships to its knees and Artair had been the epicentre.

Auri. Erin swallowed those questions, too. She feared for the girl’s fate, but she’d heard those shouts. Someone was already looking for her.

Besides, Erin had something else to occupy her.

As she knelt beside Artair, a robed figure settled on his other side. When Erin glanced up, she found herself meeting the bluest eyes she’d ever seen.

Marta wasn’t smiling. There was soot on her face and her pale braid was singed at the end. She looked resolute, though, and perhaps even satisfied.

Erin swallowed. “I wasn’t sure you were really here.”

“Someone had to command the Priory expeditionary force.” Marta shook her head. “Not that you gave us long to assemble it.”

“If we hadn’t moved quickly, we would have missed our rendezvous with the Victory. There’s every chance we would have lost Artair entirely. I’d planned‒”

Marta held up a hand. This time, she gave a wan smile. “You don’t have to explain yourself to me. You did the right thing, Erin. Every move you’ve made against Artair has been to end this, once and for all. Will you let me take him into custody?”

Erin nodded vaguely. She hadn’t thought past confronting Artair. Now that he was captured… She found she didn’t want to have anything else to do with him.

Marta stood, hauling Artair up with her. A handful of Priory, all of them bruised and battered, surged in to secure him. For a moment, Erin thought Artair might put up a fight, but his head lolled and his arms were loose. There was a pause as the Priory guards looked first to Marta, then to Erin herself, waiting for orders.

Marta’s smile widened. “I think you should do the honours.”

Not me, Erin thought. Auri, or Oska, or Amber, or even Taria ‒ but none of them were present. Even Amber had vanished back into the ship.

Erin cleared her throat. “Take him away,” she said simply. Giving the order wasn’t, she found, as satisfying as she’d once thought it might be.

“You’ll visit us again?” Marta asked, one eyebrow raised. “You won’t leave it years this time?”

Slowly, Erin nodded. “It would be my honour.”

Abruptly, Marta reached out, grabbing Erin’s left hand and squeezing it hard in what felt like a promise. “The honour would be mine, Erin. It always was.”

She was gone a moment later, bustling through the crowd of Priory on the deck. They were moving on all sides, dispersing the Talons and hurrying them off the ship. Mesmer portals flared in their midst, flashes of brightness against the dawn.

Finally, Erin caught sight of the silhouette she’d been waiting to see. Ivar had emerged from the scrum near the bow, his heavy shoulders rising above the crowd. He was leaning against the ship’s railing as though injured, but Erin heard his laugh above the chatter of voices. Her heart leapt. She already knew they’d lost too much this day. Having her brother be amongst the dead would have been unbearable.

With Artair and Marta gone, Erin knew there was only one direction left in which to turn. Reluctantly, she headed deeper into the ship.

The main cabin had been ripped to shreds. It wasn’t just the front wall that was missing, but the wheel and much of the ceiling. Erin studied the spot where she last remembered standing and marvelled at how far the blast had thrown her. It was a wonder she hadn’t plunged right off the ship and into the sea. She’d stood, perhaps, right between the two focal points of the spell. One had been Artair. The other…

The platform at the rear of the cabin was remarkably intact, though it was now open to the sky. From the top of the stairs, Erin saw Oska first. He was kneeling, his back to her, his head bowed. And in his arms…

Erin went cold, fear gripping her. She could see Auri’s legs and some of her torso. The girl wasn’t moving.

It seemed to take a thousand years for Erin to make it past Oska. Auri’s face came into view piece by piece: her bone-white skin, her bloodless lips. And then her eyes, one blue and one green, staring up into the dawn-washed sky. Staring and blinking slowly, as though what she saw up there amazed her.

All the blood seemed to drain from Erin’s head in relief. She sagged to her knees on Auri’s other side, taking the girl’s hand. Her skin was icy, but her fingers curled around Erin’s with a surprising amount of strength.

Oska looked up, stricken. “What did she do?” he whispered. “What did you…?”

What did you ask her to do? The words went unspoken, but they seemed to hang in the air between them. There was no accusation in Oska’s tone, though. Even now, his trust wasn’t broken.

Erin sighed. “I asked her to end the battle. I left the rest up to her.”

Even now, Erin wasn’t sure what had happened. She remembered a flash of white, a concussion large enough to disable a dozen airships. The rest was known only to Auri and perhaps that was a good thing. She was the weapon they’d all been fighting for and she’d proved just how dangerous she was.

“It’s gone.” Auri’s cracked whisper made Erin twitch. “The magic. The elements. All…”

Did she mean the spell, or was this something more? Had Auri used her magic so fiercely that she’d effectively burnt it out?

Erin closed her eyes, but only for a moment; she couldn’t allow herself to look away. She’d promised she’d bear the weight of her decision and she still intended to. All the deaths, all the injuries ‒ those were on her conscience, not Auri’s. But there were some things, it seemed, that weren’t hers to carry. There was nothing she could do to change that.

“It’s done,” Oska murmured, wrapping his arms tighter around his sister’s shoulders. “It’s over. We’re safe.”

Erin saw Auri’s smile and the tears glistening under Oska’s lashes. She saw the drifting airships and the Priory milling on the shore below. She saw the carts being loaded on the sands, one of them surely containing Artair ‒ and she saw her guild, Light’s Memory, gathering on the tilted deck, embracing one another, laughing softly in the morning sunlight.

Oska was right. Whatever she’d done, whatever she’d chosen, and whatever the cost… For today, the battle was done.