Her gaze was everywhere at once. Everywhere the storm touched, she saw. The R’leigh Bo was below her, its skeletal form looking even more naked from above. The Myrr mountains stretched southward for hundreds of leagues. Sylva saw the plains and forests filling with the deluge she now controlled. Cities lay before her; their stench would remain even after the storm’s cleansing waters. She saw it all in passing and settled her focus on one place only, a small farm to the southeast just beyond the forest's edge.
A figure toiled in the mud that surrounded the small farm, struggling in the rain-flooded earth. Sylva willed her vision closer. The woman was uprooting the plants their family had been so fond of raising and throwing them into a large sack. The boy’s mother. A macabre sense of justice filled the young nymph’s mind. How fitting.
Were all the aspects of the storm under her control? Testing, Sylva imagined lifting her clenched fists to the boiling sky and funneled her wrath into the clouds above. The storm rewarded her--lightning tore the sky asunder. The concussive thunder that followed only fueled her resolve further.
Good.
The boy’s mother looked heavenward, then bent down to pick up the sack. Reveling in her near victory, the nymph child began to enrage the storm above. She would never let another human hurt her again.
You were wrong, Mother. I will be tied to no one, let alone a human!
She gave in to her rage and the heavens descended upon the solitary figure. The strike disintegrated the nearest building, sending wood, fire, and woman sprawling. Motionless, the figure lay crumpled in the mud. The flame’s crimson reflections made the woman look like she was in a pool of blood.
It is done, Sylva thought, but started when the woman stirred. Despite her injuries, she labored to stand, cradling her arm. The woman took a moment to stare at the damage to the storage shed and began to hobble to the farm.
I think not, human. My anger will not be quenched so easily. Sylva readied the storm to heed her call again.
“Mama…” A voice cut through the noise of the storm, causing Sylva’s wrath to falter.
The next few moments seemed to rush together, and soon Sylva found herself watching the woman holding her broken and bloodied daughter in her arms.
The child had not been her intended target—the woman still lived. Sylva felt no joy in that, nor did she relish in the death of the girl. The end result was the same though, she had wanted another to know the pain she had felt. She supposed she had succeeded in that. Her bloodlust was satiated, yet something almost akin to regret bubbled up within her. When the woman released her scream into the storm, Sylva readied herself to return to the forest.
A sudden emerald explosion of light pierced the darkness. Instinctively, Sylva threw up barriers around her mind.
Looking towards the source of the fey light, she saw the stoic figure perched upon the farmhouse roof. Bright emerald orbs shone where its eyes should have been. What is this? The creature crouched, jumped from the roof, and ran with inhuman speed to the woman and child. The creature’s eyes left trails of verdant fire in the darkness of the storm. Sylva felt her mental barriers flex slightly as the boy rushed by her to gather the broken girl into his arms. Those eyes… Sylva stood transfixed, or at least she would have if her body had been there. How was this possible? What am I seeing?
When the pinpoints of light cascaded at odd angles down the boy’s arms to gather at his hands, Sylva knew without a doubt just what he was doing. It was impossible, and yet here she stood watching him.
The boy was connecting to the Nexus.
No. It could not be. No mere human could call the Nexus in its deteriorated stated. How many centuries had passed since human Magi capable of even feeling its presence walked the land? Let alone those who could summon the Nexus to usable force. Some human trick perhaps? No. She could feel the Great Pulse though her body stood leagues away, beside the R’leigh Bo.
The boy began to sing.
And Sylva found she understood. The boy did not sing in the guttural human tongue but in the soft and elegant language of Sylva’s mother. It was a song Sylva knew well, a song Mother had sung to her countless times. Even though Sylva could not see her own body, she still felt the trickling warmth that rolled down her face. She did not resist the tears as she listened to the boy’s song—her mother’s song.
“Sleep o’ Sapphyre—embrace the dream,
Of sun and moon, of earth and stream,
And dream of me—my heart’s desire,
To protect your children, from Serpent’s fire,
Awake o’ Sapphyre—embrace the light,
Of sun and moon, and sacred sight,
And come with me—my heart’s desire,
I’ll keep you safe, from Serpent’s ire.
Any rage or anger that Sylva possessed vanished like the morning dew—only to be replaced by bewilderment. She could almost believe he was connecting to the Nexus but that did not explain his song.
Or those eyes.
Unsurprisingly, the girl child stirred, and still the boy sang. Even the storm responded to his voice, it wrapped around the words, accentuating rather than hindering. Sylva felt the storm pull away from her control slightly, but she did not resist. When the boy collapsed and the Nexusleft him, he fell into his mother’s arms. Holding both her children, the storm wrapped itself around the woman, accepting her tears, adding them to its own waters.
Through the medium of the storm, Sylva felt a measure of what must be the woman’s elation. In that moment she thought, “Is this what you saw in them, Mother? Is this what you meant?”
The last words her mother had spoken rushed to her mind. The words she’d whispered when she’d chosen to heal the boy at such cost, such sacrifice.
“Daughter, my Heart…your fate is tied with his now.”
Sylva finally understood what her mother had done.
She had passed her Legacy into a human child—into this Auryn.
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Sources 1
