VAEDA

 

Vaeda’s sleep was a fractured thing, a descent into a nightmare that gripped her with the unrelenting force of memory. She was back aboard the White Sepulcher, the slave ship that had torn her from the verdant forests of Joko and delivered her to the iron coasts of Morkhul. The taste of witchbane clung to her tongue, bitter and cloying, its poison coursing through her veins like liquid fire. It stifled her powers, leaving her weak and trembling, her limbs heavy with a dull, aching numbness. The air in the hold was thick with the stench of sweat, blood, and despair, a miasma that choked her with every breath. Around her, the groans of her fellow captives rose and fell like a mournful chorus, their voices blending with the ceaseless roar of the ship’s engines. They were packed together like cattle, their bodies bruised and emaciated, their eyes hollow with the weight of endless suffering.

 

The whip cracked above her, its sound sharp and merciless. The lash bit into flesh with a wet, sickening thud, and Vaeda flinched as though the blow had struck her own skin. Luthra Crucis stood over her, a vision of aristocratic cruelty clad in maroon silks, her face twisted into a sadistic smile. Vaeda could feel the cold metal of her restraints digging into her wrists and ankles, the unyielding bite of the chains a constant reminder of her captivity. She struggled to breathe in the suffocating heat, her skin slick with grime and blood. The screams of the others echoed in her ears, each cry a haunting refrain of their shared torment. She tried to summon her powers, to call upon the Shroud, but the witchbane held her in its iron grip, leaving her helpless and exposed.

 

She woke with a start, her heart pounding in her chest, the echoes of the nightmare still ringing in her ears. Yasmina’s voice cut through the remnants of the dream, pulling her back to the present.

 

“We must begin our journey to the obelisk,” Yasmina said, her tone urgent. “The waters of the Ghost Spring are running dry. Linger here, and we may yet be consumed by this unstable plane.”

 

Vaeda nodded, pushing herself to her feet. Her body ached, the lingering effects of the nightmare still clinging to her like a second skin. She glanced at Noxiel, who was already stirring, his pale eyes reflecting the same weariness she felt. Together, they followed Yasmina toward a mysterious bridge that stretched across a vast chasm of darkness. The structure was illuminated by flickering motes of white light, their glow casting eerie shadows on the smooth, obsidian walls. As they crossed, Vaeda couldn’t help but marvel at the enormity of the bridge. It defied the spatial limits of the sphere, a testament to the immense power and trans-dimensional design of Ephraxis’ creation.

 

The obelisk loomed in the distance, an intimidating spire of crystalline perfection. Its surface was adorned with intricate formulations of the Vox Somnia, the glowing symbols shifting and writhing as if alive. As they drew closer, Vaeda’s awe deepened. The obelisk stood upon a platform surrounded by a seemingly infinite abyss, illuminated by a dim, teal aura that cast eerie shadows across its surface. Embedded within the crystal were numerous bodies, perfectly preserved, their faces frozen in silent screams. Each one was a soul trapped in a moment of terror, their pain and hatred now the shade’s enduring sustenance.

 

Yasmina paused, her face grim. “These were once acolytes of Ephraxis, sacrificed to create this sphere and the space before us. Their minds and bodies remain trapped, their suffering feeding the abomination that guards the obelisk.”

 

Vaeda swallowed hard, her mind reeling from the horror of it. Yasmina took a step back, her hand resting on the hilt of her knife. “I can go no farther. Even here, the obelisk hounds me. The two of you must continue onward alone. Tread carefully, psions.”

 

Noxiel and Vaeda approached the obelisk, its sheer size and dark beauty almost overwhelming. At its base rested a stone bowl, its surface etched with faint illustrations of a bleeding hand. A barbed, bloodstained needle lay at its center, its purpose chillingly clear. Vaeda’s stomach churned, but she knew what had to be done.

 

With a deep breath, she turned to Noxiel. “Be wary of what may follow,” she warned before pricking her finger on the needle. Blood welled from the wound, dripping into the bowl and congealing into a dark, viscous pool. As the blood touched the stone, a foreboding force pressed upon her, heavy and suffocating. The obelisk, once a blur of pastel hues, turned a deep, burning red, its light blazing like the evening sun.

 

A tall, shadowy humanoid emerged from the obelisk, its form shifting and indistinct as though it were made of smoke and darkness. “Shaitan…” Yasmina whispered, her voice barely audible. The bald figure that took form was roughly twice the size of a man, its skeletal frame adorned with insect wings that shimmered with an oily sheen. Black ichor dripped from its sharp teeth, its yellow eyes piercing and malevolent.

 

“The evil contained herein shall not be set loose upon the galaxy. This ruse must end,” the shade declared, its voice a deep, resonant growl reverberating through the space.

 

Vaeda had no time to ponder its words. With a gesture, the shaitan unleashed an expanding tornado of flame, the inferno scorching everything in its path. Vaeda reacted instinctively, emptying her witch-fire poultice onto the ground. With a quick utterance of the Vox Somnia, she shaped the white flames that erupted into a giant, burning Elder Wyrm. The conjured serpent slithered through the air, its fiery form extinguishing the abyssal flames and setting the shaitan ablaze. The witch-fire burned with a brilliance that illuminated the platform, its heat rejuvenating Vaeda and her companions even as it consumed their foe. The shaitan roared in agony, its form writhing in the searing flames, but Vaeda knew the battle was far from over.

 

NOXIEL

 

The pummeled shaitan dragged itself to its feet, its shadowy spawn slain by Vaeda and scattered to the void. With what remaining strength sustained it, the tall, dark figure charged toward Noxiel, its fist transforming into a radiant pike. Panic flooded the skinthief. He pronounced each syllable of his weave with the utmost precision, finely modulating the pitch of his voice despite the nagging pain in his shoulder. Fail to complete his invocation, and their small company would be sliced to shreds.

 

The shaitan drew closer, its assault imminent. “Rak movkan zer ecgeh!” With the final word of his incantation, he stabbed his bejeweled simulacrum squarely in the forehead with a sharpened pin. “You are mine, creature!” Noxiel screamed. The piercing gaze of the long-deceased Nerezan Prynathia penetrated his soul, his invisible hand reaching through the Shroud and dragging the shaitan into the deepest recesses of its mind. 

 

Darkness ensued. Ghostly mist crept from stone crevices below, electrifying the air. Then, like some calcified flora, a large spire of hallucinatory bone sprouted from the ground, impaling the shaitan through the stomach and pinning it in place. 

 

His foe thus subdued, Noxiel took a focused breath, then darted beneath its neck. He summoned his psychic claw and, with a single, calculated strike, sliced the shaitan’s throat, bathing in blood and ichor.

 

The grand illusion collapsed into plumes of smoke, revealing their slain foe. Dangerously fatigued, Noxiel fell to his knees, his robes tattered and blood-soaked. He dropped his bejeweled simulacrum upon the ground as the light fizzled from its eyes. 

 

​“It is done. Victory is ours, Vaeda,” Noxiel declared. Any joy or relief that may have followed their victory was drowned out by a bone-chilling laughter that echoed throughout the vast space. 

 

“Foolish witches…”

​

 

VAEDA:

 

Vaeda stood over the slain shaitan, her breath ragged and her body screaming with exhaustion. The victory they had fought so hard to achieve was hollow, its sweetness soured by the bone-chilling laughter that now echoed through the vast, crumbling space. The voice was familiar, but its tone was twisted, dripping with malevolence.

 

“Foolish witches…”

 

A crackling whirl of energy erupted before the obelisk, and from it, Yasmina emerged. But her presence felt wrong, her form shimmering with an unnatural light. With a swift, deliberate motion, she tore the lion amulet from her neck and cast it to the ground, shattering it into pieces. The illusion of Yasmina fell away like a discarded mask, revealing an elderly man in ornate, pallid robes and a distended headdress. His skin was pale, almost metallic, and a sinister grin tugged at his thin lips. The lifeless body of the true Yasmina crumpled to the floor like a cast-off skin, her eyes cold and pale, her face frozen in an expression of quiet defiance.

 

Vaeda’s heart clenched with a mix of fury and betrayal. “Ephraxis, I presume,” she uttered, her voice trembling with rage. The man nodded subtly, his golden lips curling into a nefarious smile.

 

“Congratulations, witch. You’ve figured me out.”

 

Her hands tightened around her machete, the weight of betrayal pressing heavily on her chest. The blade, still coated in the psionic oils Yasmina—no, Ephraxis—had given her, felt like a cruel joke in her grasp. She had trusted him, followed him, and now she stood face-to-face with the architect of their suffering.

 

“I should have trusted my instincts,” she muttered, her voice a mix of sorrow and anger. “Why did you deceive us? What exactly do you intend?”

 

Ephraxis’s eyes gleamed with dark amusement as he began to speak in a cryptic, melodic tone.

 

“Psithos fell beneath Charybdis’s breath,

A hymn to the quiet orchestration of death.

Baraza’s folly, a thread in my snare,

His arts lit the path to your final despair.

 

Through the assassin’s mask, I bade you to sever,

The warden’s seal, undone forever.

Lam Naraza twists in my shadowed command,

The stars now bow to the will of my hand.”

 

Vaeda’s eyes widened in horror. “The warden?”

 

“Yes,” Ephraxis continued, his smile never faltering. “The creature you defeated was no shaitan of the Crucible Nexus, but the Archon Soliel, disguised by a psychic glamour of my creation.”

 

Vaeda turned her gaze to the slain humanoid. The illusion dissipated, revealing the archon. Blood, white and gossamer, seeped from the slump of battered flesh and broken wings. Her heart sank further, the weight of their actions crushing her spirit. They had been pawns in Ephraxis’s game, their hands stained with the blood of an innocent.

 

Ephraxis’s laughter echoed again, a sound that grated against her soul. “Yasmina, bitch queen of the Void Syndicate, invoked the lost Vox Lucis to entrap me within my greatest creation. Such gall! I did not anticipate such a bold move; 'twas a clever trap, I must confess. She sought vengeance for the murder of her son. An attempt in vain, I'm afraid.” The maligned cackle returned. “Soliel is dead at last, slain by the Lam Naraza’s hand, no less. Your coven has made an enemy of the Celestial Fold, witches: a most troublesome foe, I should know.”

 

With a few quick motions of his hand, Ephraxis manipulated the glyph panels upon the obelisk, conjuring a psionic gateway. An ornate throne room, illuminated by moonlight and filled with red-robed disciples, came into view. Ephraxis stepped through the portal, turning back with a snicker.

 

“I thank you for my release, witches. Give my regards to the abyss.”

 

As the portal closed behind the freed psion, a violent pulse of psychic energy sent shockwaves through the stone platform. The sphere itself appeared to be collapsing, the very air around them crackling with the unstable energies of the Shroud. The walls groaned, fissures spreading like veins through the obsidian surface. The platform beneath their feet trembled, chunks of crystal breaking away and tumbling into the infinite abyss below.

 

Vaeda’s eyes darted to Noxiel. “We must conjure a portal of our own if we are to escape!” she exclaimed, her voice urgent. She approached the base of the obelisk, staring at the complex formulae inscribed upon its surface. The intricacies of the arcane writing were daunting, their meaning obscured by layers of psychic encryption. Her fingers traced the ancient symbols with desperation, trying to decipher their meaning to no avail. Time was of the essence, and Vaeda wondered whether Ephraxis’s sphere would serve as her tomb.

 

Noxiel joined her, his pale eyes scanning the glyphs with a mixture of determination and dread. “We’ll find a way out,” he said, his voice steady despite the chaos around them. “We have to.”

 

Vaeda nodded, her mind racing. The collapse of the sphere was accelerating, the air growing thinner as the Shroud’s energies spiraled out of control. She could feel the weight of the void pressing in on her, the darkness threatening to consume them both. But she refused to give up. Not now. Not after everything they had endured.

 

“Help me,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper. “We’ll unravel this together.”

 

And as the world around them crumbled, Vaeda and Noxiel worked in frantic unison, their hands moving over the obelisk’s surface, their voices rising in a desperate incantation. The Shroud responded, its threads weaving through the air, but whether it would be enough to save them, Vaeda could not say.

 

​

NOXIEL

 

Ephraxis’s words wounded Noxiel: their journey, already marked by tragedy, now stained by betrayal as well. Noxiel had been played for a fool; a realization that left a pit of self-loathing in his gut. His heart raced as columns of debris plummeted from the black abyss overhead, sundering the platform upon which they stood. Dangerously fatigued from battle, the skinthief struggled to maintain his footing. 

 

He limped to Vaeda, answering her call. She traced her hands along the formulae in a frenzied attempt to interpret their meaning, albeit without success. He grew closer, as perplexed by the labyrinth of alien glyphs as the blightbender. He'd never studied such formulae within the House of Jade or anywhere else for that matter. He scanned the area, noting the deceased Yasmina, her corpse pinned under a chunk of falling stone. It suddenly occurred to him: even in death, the fallen assassin may yet aid them.

 

He swallowed forcefully, dreading the macabre task before him. He pulled Yasmina’s hair from her forehead and sliced open her skull with his psychic claw. Gore spewed from the incision, adding to the carnage upon his robes. Repressing the impulse to vomit, he reached for her still, cold brain and clutched it in his grip. “Asha, nath, sahar,” Noxiel chanted with palpable disgust. 

 

An unsettling hiss accompanied the skinthief’s weave. Representations of the Shroud sprang into consciousness. His mind swam through a fractal of psychic signatures, guided by each word of his invocation toward Yasmina's memories. At last, a light in the darkness emerged, ghostly wails melding into the voice of Yasmina, recognizable yet also foreign to him. “For what purpose do you defile my corpse, witch? Speak!”

 

“Please forgive this desecration, assassin, but the meanings of these formulae elude us. You sacrificed much to learn the secret workings of this sphere. Without your knowledge, we shall surely perish here. Help us escape, and I will see that you and your son receive the justice you are owed,” Noxiel said. A moment of silence proceeded his plea before the spectral voice returned. 

 

“The warlock lies! My son may yet live. He is called Ishaq Zebarus Sayf, and he has discovered the key to Ephraxis's final and well-deserved death. Seek him in Bajith on the forest planet of Ixa Prime. The Archivist, Beneta Joak, may know where to begin your search. Swear it, witch, and you shall have my aid,” Yasmina exclaimed. 

 

“You have my word,” Noxiel said, his voice confident and sincere. 

 

“Very well…the glyphs before you are a mirage; pay them no heed. Stain them with fresh blood to reveal a mural of the Ancients. Touch the figures in the correct order, then whisper your destination in the tones of the Vox Somnia, visualizing it in your mind. The path to your escape shall become clear. Take care: voyages through the Gate of Ephraxis can be…jarring, to say the least. Now, heed these words:

 

Zab's Cross weeps rust in a dying breeze,

Soliel's Bolt cracks through shattered seas.

Astariel’s Diamond, sharp and still,

Bleeds light to sate Saetryx’s will.

 

Thala’s Star falls, a frozen cry,

Slaath’s Skull laughs where shadows die.

Yet the Circle turns, no edge, no name,

A hollow throne for the end of flame.

 

Make haste, psion. And remember, I shall hold you to your word.”

 

The skinthief did not delay. He sliced his fingertip with his claw, dripping blood upon the false glyphs and revealing twelve characters in a brilliant display before him, just as Yasmina had foretold. He recited the assassin’s poem silently, tracing his fingers from one character to the next with precision and care. As his finger moved across the last, nameless symbol, he whispered,  "The House of Jade on the planet of Nauthera.”

 

A crackling, triangular portal swirled into being, forcing him aback. The cold, humid winds of the coven’s homeworld tousled his robes, their eastern stronghold coming rapidly into view. 

 

“The time has come, Vaeda. Let us be rid of this accursed place once and for all,” Noxiel said, placing his hand on the shoulder of his fellow psion. The witches of Lam Naraza had endured many trials since the Charybdis’s siege of Psithos, though the promise of trials yet to come loomed in the skinthief’s mind. They’d failed to brew the Astrilis and lost their precious Archmagus to the nemesis of their coven. From the House of Jade, they could regroup, prepare for their voyage to Ixa Prime, and, fate willing, brew the Astrilis poultice anew. 

 

So many questions remained unanswered: what were Ephraxis’s intentions? What could Yasmina have meant by the warlock's final death? Did Ishaq truly live? What part, if any, did Ephraxis play in Morrigane’s prophecy? Would the Celestial Fold seek vengeance for their murder of Soliel? Such questions demanded answers. But for the moment, the witches needed rest.

 

He paused for a moment to calm his nerves. He could not be certain what lay ahead but yearned for the warmth of sunlight and the satisfaction of a real meal. Together, Noxiel and Vaeda stepped through the portal, abandoning the conjuring sphere to oblivion.