to feel that we exist, even though in pain
♠︎ ♕ ♠︎
He breathes out a sigh of relief when the black-glass moat does not bow, or shatter, or dissolve beneath his feet. There is nowhere to go but onward, then.
And onward, and onward, and onward.
August tries to keep his breathing steady as he goes. He tries to settle his heart to the even sound of his hooves on the black-water surface when it keeps trying to gallop on ahead of him. He tries to keep his thoughts focused on the relic, which grows neither nearer nor farther away but only flickers, mocking, like an object in a dream.
It was easier when there was no time and all action. Now, in the silence and the dream-shine of the place, there is time and space for fear to come - first creeping, then flooding, like an ill wind down a hall. His breathing goes shallow, each lungful of air feeding him less than the one before it; there’s a tone in his ears, pitched high and droning.
August stops, shuts his eyes, pulls in a long breath sharp with the tang of magic. When he opens them again, once more things have changed.
The relic is changing, shivering and melting and growing, the only thing in this strange world between worlds. Light shines out from it, so bright he has to squint, and the gold of it scatters his shadow behind him. It sheds scarlet petals like drops of blood until there is a barrier of ruby flowers, a threshold beyond which the relic waits.
And suddenly (again as in a dream), he is there at the edge. August pauses for only a moment, caught on the knife’s edge between his options.
But really at this point there is only one that makes sense.
Once again, he lunges forward.
August chooses option 1
