Once again, the century turns, and Caelia makes yet another pilgrimage to the ruins of her ancient home to walk among its ghosts, and to curse the tomb of its Destroyer. But this time the tomb is empty, robbed of its corpse along with the sword she...
"Renascence is a borderland where place and time and choice still have meaning, yet it can be seen that they are temporary and out of place. Every choice has already been made." --from The Book of Kaia
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PHOTO CREDIT: THE SCREAMING MUMMY
DATE: HIEROS 12TH
Maeia watched Decimus scramble from under a table and look her way, but her only concern at the moment was Meleia's safety and no one else's, including her own. She was already on her feet before he got to her.
"I do not need assistance," she said, cutting him off, "go find the Imperator."
"But...you're bleeding," he stammered, afraid to look into her eyes, "Your own blood I mean."
She stepped past him without answering and found Meleia lying on her back unconscious near the base of a large column, surrounded by small chunks of masonry. Two of her servants lay near her, one had survived with only superficial injuries but was sitting in the debris sobbing hysterically with blood on her face; her fellow acolyte beside her had been crushed. Maeia knelt on one knee beside Meleia and took her hand in her own, feeling for a pulse. Good! she thought after feeling a faint beat, but it was fading.
Hear me Great Mother.
A lifetime of trained instinct activated within her, enabling her to hyperfocus on that one thought, but she would need to do more, which caused her to hesitate.
I've never entered her mind in such a personal way before. It was always only the transfer of official memories between us. But she will die now if I don't intervene.
She took a deep breath then connected with Meleia's mind. The room around her faded from her sight, along with the Genetrix and her acolytes, replaced by a thick fog. She stood for a moment then meandered through the mist, and though she could not see anyone, she was aware of being watched.
Shadowy figures soon appeared in the gray fog, each desperate to speak to her. Maeia did not sense any malicious intent, only that they wanted to talk to anyone who would listen, and she was the Listener. Though she didn't recognize any of them, she knew they were from Mother's personal past, and not from a thousand years of deep collective memory passed down from generation to generation of mnemosynae who had come before her.
Before long a great multitude surrounded Maeia, all desperately trying to communicate. She stopped and intensified her focus, listening for that one voice among hundreds. The dark figures suffocating her began to vanish one-by-one, until only a single shadow remained in the distance. She quickened her pace.
