CYRENE
mother, why do fireflies die so young?
T
he earth shook with the anger of a god scorned, hairline cracks spiderwebbing along the ground as rocks tumbled like marbles from above. The shouts of Tempus’ children waned into a slew of broken syllables as the world crumbled around them, and Cyrene wrenched her eyes tightly closed with a grimace.She coughed as the dust settled, a wing ghosting over her watering eyes as the trembling finally subsided. Amber eyes fluttered open, only to stare, horrified, at the damage strewn like shattered bones in front of them.
The entrance was destroyed.
They were trapped. Sealed away behind stone and bark, cloaked in visceral darkness. Like a tomb — and Cyrene had no intentions of playing a corpse.
“Why intervene now?”
Seraphina’s fury sucked up all the oxygen in the chamber and hurled it back out in a hurricane of chaos and wrath, and Cyrene’s heart clenched as she watched the tears trace silver paths down the Sovereign’s heated cheeks.
Was this the change Tempus promised? A white-hot flame licked its way to the center of Cyrene’s being as the angles of her face tightened in bitter anger. Was this the peace he so desperately wished they find?
Achieving peace by locking them all away like they were children sent whimpering to their rooms. Achieving resolution by forcing them to suffer together like they were soldiers in need of a common flag. She scoffed, her breath hot enough to scald, as she broke away from Dusk’s pillar to chase after the silver and gold of Solterra’s sovereign and second.
The gods had sat atop their celestial thrones for far too long, to commit such comical oversight.
“When we make it out of this mess” — because it wasn’t a question whether they would escape or not, it was only how — "I’m never looking at a goose the same way again.” Her smile was something unearthly as she quirked a brow at Seraphina, as misplaced as a butterfly in a ravaged battlefield.
Her own special form of rebellion.
A crimson wing prodded steadily at the places the queen had missed, testing for places of weakness. It was only then Cyrene noticed that she could see, clearly at that, and her eyes followed the light as an astonished stare came to a rest on the blues of Bexley Briar.
She knew of Bexley, of course she knew of Bexley. Not just from her duties as emissary, but because Solterra’s newest regent had a tongue more wicked than sin and a beauty to bring men to their knees.
“How long can you sustain your magic for, Bexley?” A stone wiggled under her feathers as she asked, and she frowned thoughtfully before pushing it harder. "We should work quickly, while we still have your light.” She nodded towards the others who had gathered, all of them puzzling how to put their own respective magics — or lack thereof — to use.
Guidance from the gods? Too late. Five hundred years too late.
"speaks" | notes: cy's a fan of solterra's entire regime (also the first time I actively struggled with the word limit rip)
