in sunshine and in shadow
Asterion’s disdain has never been the demonstrative kind, but he can’t help agreeing with the fiery paint mare - at least in part. It is hard to quell the thought of the island being a trap, especially after the last incident quite literally was one. His mouth is a flat line as he takes another step away from the statue, back into the beginnings of the crowd. He has had his look; he is not eager for a god’s mysteries.
But then there is a new strangeness.
The vulture is at first no more than a black shadow over the crowd, the imprint of its wing flaring over his own back before it settles on the statue. At once Asterion steps forward again, his magic uncurling like an opening wave within him, ready - but the bird does nothing except part its mouth to speak. Its voice, its laughter, makes the bay briefly pin his ears, eyes narrowing; he almost misses the moment when the note vanishes.
It is too much, all at once; the gathering seems to waver on the edge of a pin, held breaths and soft cries. It could teeter into chaos at any moment. Before he acts (just as the note winks back into existence) a figure steps forward, hooded in bold yellow, and Asterion is no stranger to her voice.
Seraphina, alive, he thinks - and then, when the bird’s dreadful gaze goes to the cloaked mare, and with a new companion. Now the starlit bay settles back, careful to give nothing away by his own expression, wary and watchful and listening. When her eyes catch his he nods almost imperceptibly. He keeps his lips pressed together as she speaks, and her mention of the mazes dredges up memories, things he’d heard from Florentine years ago. Gods and magic and mazes; and the king wonders then if there really is anything new, or if they are spiraling down some pathway, replaying the same games with higher stakes and darker outcomes.
Ereshkigal speaks again, gleeful words of doom, and the crowd reacts, beginning to move like the building of a wave, murmuring like a distant flock of crows. It would not take much, he thinks, to send them into a panic; Asterion can’t blame them, not really. Not with all that has been said, and all of it near enough to true.
The king can’t tell the vulture to be quiet - but he does tell the sea. With the easy reach of a thought the waves slow and the noise of them falls away, the ocean stilling to a plane of turquoise glass. It is remarkably easy, and so strange for the way the ocean’s sudden calm is the opposite of his racing heart, his tangling thoughts. Gods and kings, signs and wonders.
“Whatever this is,” the bay says over the newborn stillness, “do not explore alone. Stay together, and watch out for one another.” He lifts his voice above their backs in both command and warning - and then his dark gaze falls to the woman in the hood. Her own eyes glint as bright and strange as any of the birds’ on the island - one gold, one blue.
For a long moment he only regards her, and his expression says it’s good to see you alive though there is too much going on - there is always too much - to say anything aloud. Later, perhaps; for now there is only a roiling within him, summoned at the mention of the silver Ghost and the thought of all that he has caused. Once he might have thought that it is not his quarrel, but Asterion has learned too much from unicorns like Calliope and Isra and from men like Eik to run away any more. When he thinks of all that has happened - from Aislinn and the night regime to the cave-in on the mount, and the disasters, and the rumors of wars, and Moira, and all that might yet be - he knows that inaction is as much a sin as any wrong choice. There is no more time (it is a wry thought) and Novus no longer has the luxury of kings who wait until disaster is at the doorstep.
Asterion crosses to the once-queen of Solterra, sparing only a measured, wary glance for the eerie creature upon her back. When he speaks, it is into Seraphina’s ear only. “If Raum is here then we have an opportunity - to find him and to kill him.” He can gather the Halycon, he thinks, and Isra with her fury and her magic, and all their people behind them -
As he waits, he releases his grip on his own magic, and waves begin to roll again, hungry mouths eating up the shoreline.
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