"Predator's Domain?"
Nia looked up from behind the rubble of the house. The scavenging attempt had been a success, judging by how many blankets and pillows had survived, and even a few pots and kettles.
"Yes." Haati sat solemnly, her head angled toward a place far from them, some obscure pocket of forest behind Grandpa Rahzgir's house. "A place that predators like me can call our own. A space where our rule is absolute, where our power goes unchallenged. In the presence of multiple predators, a clash is unavoidable. That is what makes a Predator's Domain important. It signifies a claim on what is rightfully ours, and what is not."
Grandpa Rahzgir popped his head out from under a pile of stone and dragged free the massive cauldron they had used to boil honeymilk. He looked pleased beyond measure that it had survived the ordeal. "It's also a thing most warriors know. That domain thingy-a-majiggy. We call it something else, but we sure do have it."
"So it's like how we can feel the silence inside a forest just before a tiger shows itself. I've read about that once before, I think..."
"Precisely. It's one and the same. Prey pick it up much quicker because they have been attuning themselves to it all their lives. Poor creatures... yet we still have to eat them to survive." Haati shifted her head slightly, as if catching something in the distance. "He's... different, this boy. I knew it from the first time I laid my eyes upon him."
"Before the avalanche?"
"Oh, that's true. You were there, were you not? Where did you go, I wonder?"
"I..." Nia held her words for a moment, then continued, careful. Birds swept past overhead, high above. She was embarrassed to admit it. "I... slipped, and slid down quite far from where Sol was."
"Hmhmhmhmhmhmhm!! That's bound to happen if you're not wearing anything on your feet!! Here, wear this one. It belonged to my late wife. I think it will suit you." Grandpa Rahzgir handed Nia a pair of thick boots along with a massive coat. She took them and tried the coat first, only to be swallowed by the sheer size of it. The musk was strong, even through her dulled, protected senses.
"Oof. Thank you, grandpa." She chose to wear it anyway. It did not change how the weather felt against her skin. The snow was still chilly, but nice.
"It suits you." Haati blinked slowly in Nia's direction, then turned her full attention toward Sol's position. "You're doing well, little sun."
"Is he alright?"
"Already worried about the young'un? Even if he looks like that, he carries our blood. Nhevari blood. Those who fought at the Rims of Gehenna." Grandpa Rahzgir's gaze drifted, far away from the present. "Well... at least a quarter of his blood comes from my blood. And I was known as quite a strong warrior back in my days. And his father... is quite something indeed."
"Sol's dad?"
"Yes. He's a menace. That's why I left the village to my second son, the calmer, more level-headed, patient Rahzmir. Sol's father would never want to stay in one place, governing a bunch of people." Grandpa Rahzgir lifted a massive greatsword, its blade bent, as if it had been under repair for a long time. Now it was utterly broken, beyond patchwork, and would need professional attention. "He would prefer to... change things. Big things."
"Huh... he must have been very strong."
"Strong? Oh yes. Forty-nine parts muscle and one part brain, that one." Grandpa Rahzgir snorted. "Always going on and on about breaking barriers and creating a better place for all Geherrim to live. The type to do first and think later. Truly astonishing how he would smile so brightly when the consequences started to weigh on him." He fell quiet for a beat. "Sol's mother, on the other hand..."
"A human." Nia's answer came fast.
Grandpa Rahzgir looked at her, a question in his eyes. He wanted to ask how she knew, but he also knew the answer might be something he did not have the right to hear. So he only nodded, confirming it. "Yes. Yes, she was. He brought her home in a snowstorm, already heavily pregnant with Sol, only a few weeks before she was due. Sol's father already had a wife, you see, and a son, so the news that he brought home another woman, worse, a human, hit his wife hard."
He stood, stretched, then moved toward what remained of the kitchen. He filled a heavily dented metal pot with water from a broken bucket nearby and lit the hearth.
"He's not that type of person. Not him. He loves his wife and his son dearly." Rahzgir's voice lowered, as if the broken house itself might be listening. "There must have been a reason he brought a pregnant human girl home. When I confronted him about it, he never said anything. Anything, except for..."
The water in the metal pot began to boil. Nia heard the first bubbles rise and break. Haati angled her head toward Rahzgir, listening.
Rahzgir grabbed a cooking glove, filthy with rubble dust and wood splinters, and pulled it on. Then he lifted the pot and poured into two wooden cups, miraculously intact, each already filled with some of the finest dried flowers he had gathered weeks prior.
The clouds split somewhere above the Lowlands.
He walked outside, near Haati, and gestured for Nia to sit beside him.
"...It was the only thing he could do to reach the ending."
—
A massive swipe from the bigger male Helarzos shattered multiple trees. Their predator was nowhere to be found. The bear stared at his paws and realized he had struck nothing.
The smaller, more nimble female Helarzos had better reflexes. She used her speed to keep herself close, but not too close, to the Geherrim boy who had given her the shock of a lifetime.
Helarzos were big creatures. They knew how to survive in these parts of the Stake. They understood when to hunt, when to kill, when to raid an Apideis hive, and when to lay low.
For creatures as careful as them, being ambushed by a predator was unlikely. They had proven it time and time again by evading the three great predators of this region.
The Nhivens, who would gore them with their horns, rip their massive back spikes apart, and then feast on the open carcass. So the Helarzos would steer clear of Nhiven scent and drift toward the Lowlands instead, if need demanded it.
The White Garms, who seemed to hold zero interest in hunting them. They did not have to worry about the wolves. Even if the White Garms had the means to tear them apart with their mastery over frostflame, they simply did not care to eat bears. They preferred smaller prey, rabbits or deer, or larger elk if one crossed their path... or Nhivens.
And last, certainly not even close to the least, the Rimelord, who would freeze them outright and break them into pieces. They knew not to challenge death. So they would cower inside their caves and wait, patient, because blizzards always passed, sooner or later.
That was why the smaller Helarzos' head was crowded with questions.
Who is this new predator? Why would he appear now? How did he catch us off guard? And why does he feel different, unlike the other Geherrim they faced?
A growl from the bigger one, loud warning. The smaller bear stopped rushing and tracked the black shadow's movement with her eyes.
He's gone.
Where did he go?
Another roar from the bigger one. The smaller one stood on two legs and looked to her side, but she was too late. From the flank, Sol emerged from between the shadows of the trees and struck her in the belly with an open palm. The impact sent her hurtling into the bigger bear, knocking him down on top of her.
Their back spikes collided. The damage was not extensive, but the spikes tangled, then snapped as they tried to pry themselves apart.
The smaller one roared in complaint. The bigger one answered with a curt, dismissive growl. It wasn't his fault. If anything, it was hers. She had lost the Geherrim boy too quickly, and now they had lost him again.
From above, behind a low-hanging branch, Sol dropped with an axe kick aimed at the big bear's head carapace. The impact boomed through the trunk, sending waves of fallen leaves hurtling toward the earth.
The head carapace shattered into at least two dozen pieces, exposing fur and flesh beneath. Sol used the recoil to propel himself upward, kicked off the tree, and launched toward the Apideis hive. He landed in front of it without effort.
This would be a good time to run. The smaller bear thought. She knew she could not win. He was fast, strong, he smelled like wolves, and... he was already gone?
Sol appeared in front of her and drove an open palm into her snout.
Pain flared through her skull. She forced herself to roll backward to lessen it.
Roar. They needed to move. This was not a fight they could win. But that roar was answered by a curt growl from the bigger bear.
A plan, he said.
Sol stood still, forcing his eyes to keep up with the two bears. The bigger one had recovered and was flanking to the right. The smaller one was setting up for a head-on charge. Everything felt apparent, everything sharp in his sight.
He blinked.
Two hits for each bear, at most.
—
From the outskirts of the battlefield, Wanwan watched Sol with pride. He hadn't expected a member of his pack to become this strong in so short a time. He huffed, vapor puffing out with his small triumph.
Yet at the edge of his vision, something felt off.
He couldn't pinpoint it, so he looked to his siblings on the perimeter, to see if they felt it too.
Hrida was yawning.
Drifa watched Sol's fight with fierce focus, determined to learn something from her mother's chosen.
Fonn and Skafl were growling at each other.
None of them seemed to notice.
"To reach the ending?" Nia blew across the surface of the tea, careful. It smelled faintly of jasmine, with a hint of chrysanthemum sweetness. She sipped. It tasted lightly sweet even without sugar.
"He never told me what it meant. In truth, he had no opportunity to..."
"The sky burned golden."
Rahzgir met Haati's sapphire eyes and nodded. "Yes. Korviana's ascension into an Apex, where she would be known as the Rimelord. And Sol's birth, the moment we all remember as the day the sky burned golden."
"I knew that when Korviana ascended, something wrong was happening. Skoll tried to stop the ascension on his own, sending me and our pups downhill lest the Eternal Ice swallow us all."
"And yet you never said anything to me these past fifteen years. Every time we passed each other, o dear Haati." Rahzgir's voice was dry, but not unkind. "So you did feel something was off. An Apex's ascension wasn't supposed to be that sudden, and it wasn't supposed to be accompanied by disaster, as shown by the previous ascension... your mother's."
"I had no reason to bring it up to you, o dear Rahzgir. But yes. An ascension should not be accompanied by pain. The ascension of a Guardian Beast toward an Apex usually comes with a need for the land to defend itself from something trying to break its rules. Korviana's ascension lined up with the death of almost all Rime Ravens, multiple weeks prior."
Haati's ears tipped forward. Her tail moved slowly, as if she could not decide what to do with itself. "Skoll said something was trying to break the rules of this land surrounded by frost. Something was trying to invade. I... dismissed that concern. How wrong I was."
Nia listened, quiet. If her memories were not so fractured by the Fall, perhaps she could have offered something. She lifted the cup and sipped again.
Rahzgir set his cup beside Nia's. It was still nearly full. He hadn't drunk any of it. "And the terrible storm that followed... coincides with..."
"The birth of the little sun."
A shock ran through Nia's veins.
No. That's not right. Something is missing. The terrible storm, the ascension of the Rimelord, the sky burned golden, the birth of Sol...
Her expression shifted.
—
"████'s Fragment is prepared for Falling."
Nia could still remember the busyness of the Syrca, the topmost room of the Labyrinthos, at that moment. She could still remember Mother Archivist overseeing everything from start to finish, the way Sister Alecta held Nia's fragile infant body.
How could she remember this? She couldn't have been more than a few weeks old.
"What about the Vessel?" Mother Archivist's voice was coarse, yet strong and absolute.
"Sister ██████ is ready." Nia couldn't remember who said it, but it might have been Sister Tisiphe.
"Then by the Precursor's grace, let the Eighth Light shine upon us all." Mother Archivist's voice was muffled by the static that began to smear Nia's memory again.
"Let the Eighth Light shine upon us all." The reply from the other Daughters of the Eighth Light was quick, uniform, and heavily muffled.
—
The memory broke.
...Sister... ██... ██████? Vessel?
"What's wrong, little flower?"
"No... it's just..." Nia swallowed. "Something else happened, I think. I remember my late Mother Archivist told me about it, the moment it happened..." Her brows drew tight as she tried to dig, deeper and deeper, but found only smooth stone. "I... can't remember it."
"Something else?" Rahzgir lifted his cup and finally drank.
"Yes. Something about... a vessel."
—
The two bears' coordination was commendable, but Sol had seen it coming a while ago. He also knew their dash speed on all fours meant they couldn't stop on demand.
So he jumped and perched above, near the branch where the top of the hive converged, and just like that, the two bears collided beside the Apideis hive. They tumbled into it, destroying it utterly. Sol had half a mind to drop down and deliver a coup de grâce to both, but something else caught his attention.
From within his mind, Haati's voice echoed. "You're doing well, little sun."
I don't think I was doing that well, but thank you, Aunt Haati.
Brown-gold honey spilled from the trunk of the hive where it had cracked open under the bears' weight. It poured over them, coating them completely, almost drowning them in the thing they loved.
The surviving Apideis scattered, then converged at a single point near the top of a tree.
Their wings resonated together, forming a dissonant cacophony of buzzing that began to fill the entire area.
From somewhere deeper in the forest, another buzzing answered, harmonizing with the dissonance.
Then came the sounds of branches breaking, trunks heaving, trees uprooted. Something massive was making its way toward Sol and the five pups.
Still drenched in honey, the two Helarzos tried to rouse themselves as fast as they could.
Their ears pricked.
They knew what was coming.
And what was coming was not good for them.
Lumbering, they tried to stagger away toward the Lowlands, to break through the treeline and flee.
They didn't make it.
A massive Apideis Queen burst from the trees, blazing with fury, and flew straight for them.