VIII-76 Dread Horizon (III) (Patreon)

I did not choose you for your martial skill alone, though that is an essential part of why you are an Avatar above Avatars. I did not choose you because of your loyalty alone, though in you is loyalty worth a kingdom of faithful and then some. I did not choose you for your inherent goodness alone, though I have witnessed it time and a time again. I chose you because of all these things, and more than that, because you will define me.

If it comes time to do what is right, that is the reason why there is no one more suited to serve as my anchor than you. The Perch is the conduit. You are my fulcrum. I am inherently divorced from the world. Divinity is an unmaking thing. It takes little time to forget what it means to be mortal, what it means to be human, even as a Pathbearer, more so a god.

It is knowing that you will always strive for righteousness, even should I go astray in some form or another; that is why I have chosen you for righteousness. It must be executed with a strong hand, which few others possess more than you, with a wise mind, which you have in ample supply if you are only more willing to use it, and with a whole heart, which most lose across their lifetime, but not you, Roland. Not you, and I pray never you.

Always choose what is right.

Even above me.

—The Starhawk to Roland Arrow

VIII-76

Dread Horizon (III)

Adam's mortal vessel vanished with the loosing of his arrow, and the moment the projectile struck his father, there came a resounding echo that shook the world. Reality quivered at its surface, vibrating aloud like a gong, and across the entirety of the Gate and beyond still, the reverberations continued. The song of twin Divinities in conflict, clashing within the vessel of a single Pathbearer’s soul.

Roland felt himself stretch at the seams until he was on the verge of tearing. But before he could cross that precipice, he found himself bolstered, his sinew and soul molded and strengthened, an enhancement spilling over into him, imbuing warmth beyond anything an order could provide. It was not the warmth of a flame, but the warmth of higher purpose, warmth that was the favor of one god clashing against another. It was a warmth that was also an intrusion, a warmth at war with invasive information as the Starhawk's Divinity curdled and withered while Adam’s arrived like a purifying balm.

Yet his essence was paltry, a Demigod against a false god, though whole, and so the clash continued with Adam barely holding the Starhawk at bay, carving out a sanctuary at the core of Roland, spreading from his innermost skills, from his New Legend Plus. As the battle continued, Roland rippled with vibrating light, the separation between the Starhawk and Adam's Divinity defined by faint borders of vaporous azure.

Thus did Roland find himself burdened and bolstered at the same time. His being howled with twin gods, and the lesser of which loomed beneath Roland, holding his skills up, supporting him where he was meant to fall if the Shrike descended upon Roland's soul, falling fangs dripping with venom, seeking to remake his Avatar as he had been remade by a higher power, the Excaliburized Starhawk now mirroring Avalon in purpose and indignity.

The war for the Dread Horizon’s soul unfolded, yet outside, the pantheon Ascendants remained on the back foot, lost and flabbergasted by all that was to follow. They didn't feel the Starhawk's rule undone, though they witnessed his changes, sensed him second-hand in his forced unmaking; in this unwilling rebirth.

A hesitation the Gate could ill afford.

“Chandler!” Roland shouted, his voice ringing aloud alongside the thundering collisions pulsing out from his soul. Waves of errant divinity crashed into the Ascendants and their Avatars like tides clawing at the surf. “Guard this Gate! Guard this Gate and the Republic that lies beyond it! Guard this Gate and the civilizations that lurk in the deep! Guard this Gate while we entreat the Starhawk. Please. If there is any dignity in you—if you have any true perspective—know that now is not the time to strike at me, to take from me. Now is the time to make the higher choice. Please!”

And there was so much more that went unsaid between them—so much more that he had no time to explain. That this was all likely part of the Challenger’s plot, layered and vicious as it were. To undo Roland in all facets through the Starhawk even if he rose from his delve in time. To wield him as an unwilling instrument against his own people, a killing blow struck upon the Gate from within while exposing him to his own doom if he struggled against the Starhawk, for Kathereine’s avarice and Veronica’s cold pragmatism would struggle to let such a moment go by.

Said struggle played upon Veronica’s face. Roland saw it in her eyes, in the tightness of her jaw, in the fading humanity leaking out from Kathereine’s expression as the shadow of the congress she was went out like a candle, only to be replaced by the hateful blaze of the Songbringer, who saw the moment for what it was on the surface, yet found herself blind to the deceit behind the action.

“Well. It is not the way I would have liked to see this done. But I suppose the lacking… climax of the moment can be corrected post-script in song.” The Songbringer’s implications were plain. The other Ascendants found themselves roused from indecision by her words, into a state of near-panic. Now was the moment to decide if they were to side with her in this opportunistic murder or uncover the smoldering ruins of long-tarnished morality once more.

Veronica stood amongst them as her old ways warred with the new. It would be so easy for her to resolve countless problems. She could strike Roland down here and now. She could seize the Perch and all the treasures it held—overpower Adam while he was distracted and desperately fighting to preserve his father from ruin and claim him as the Republic’s instrument as well.

After that, it would be a question of how well they could wield the Sage through him—or if she could extract the Sage from the boy and use it for her own needs.

A wretched vision came forth: Veronica would not struggle with the Sage’s Domain as Adam did, for her heart was long modeled by the practicalities of tyranny while maintaining an outfit of republicanism. By theater, she was Councilwoman, but in all matters but title, she had long been High Queen of Yellowstone. But that wasn’t all she was. And she wasn’t nearly as blind as her now demented grandmother. She saw the plot as well as the bait, knew what the orcs were trying to do and what nightmares loomed beyond the point of Incursion.

A betrayal now would be so convenient for her short-term addiction for control. But what was to follow? What control could a meager Legend reigning over a sub-continental kingdom impose over a divine weapon that usurped its divine wielder who once reigned over uncountable dimensions—a wielder that remained active in mind as the ghost-ruler of New Albion? 

Roland’s words would have meant nothing to her before. Now, they were of the same fate short of a miracle of miracles. Even supplication to the Great One would not guarantee victory. Still, the old ways were hard to break, and a second war of the spirit unfolded in Veronica—figurative, but as true as the literal battle raging in Roland.

They shared a look, and Roland found himself terrified by how human she seemed in that instant—how unlike the homunculus he butchered at the end of his Delve. The pleasure of power and dominance lingered inside her, almost kindred to the itch of an orc. But Veronica Chandler was not nearly the same cruelty-chained slave. There was still a person there. A person that had chosen mercy when it suited her. A person that clearly struggled against the worst of herself now.

“Granddaughter,” Katherine hissed when her Avatar refused to act. “What holds you? He is right there!”

“Right here indeed…” The Shrike’s words arrived, crackling and airy. There was something happening to Thaen’s voice that made it sound as if his throat was being funneled through a narrow crevice, with every syllable rising to a kettle-boiling scream. “Right before you, Kath. Come and bite down. Bite down so I may place you upon your thorns.”

“No!”

It was not Veronica that broke the deadlock. Nor was it Adam or Roland, snarling back and provoking battle by claiming initiative. 

Havel Van Stormhalt moved of his own accord and power—positioning himself between Roland and the gathered Ascendants. A second surge of disbelief overran everyone present, and this time, Roland found himself frontmost amongst them in astonishment.

A whirlwind platform broiled beneath Havel’s feet, and he held himself aloft using his own mana rather than borrowing from the Endbreaker's. Strands of lightning clung to the patriarch of House Stormhalt, and the forking veins of midnight black trailed to the point he once occupied amongst the Avatars as the Endbreaker himself manifested away from Havel—his severe face cracking in alarm and borderline outrage.

“No,” Havel repeated, softer—a quaver running through his tone. He sounded like a man who couldn’t decide if he regretted or was committed to his action; his body and heart moved before his mind. For better or worse, that was Havel’s greatest flaw across all the years—for all the times he attempted to deliver ruin upon Roland. Yet paradoxically, ironically, all too hilariously, it was the same reason he interceded on Roland’s behalf. “We cannot do this! Not now! Not while the true enemy is at our doorstep!”

“Place yourself aside, Hero Stormhalt,” Veronica intoned. “Your daughter will remain unharmed. We will see to her safe removal from the Starhawk’s den.” She spoke to Havel as a lord might appease their child, just to get him out of the way. Yet to her—and Roland's—continued surprise, the man held his place.

“No,” Havel repeated for a third time, now resigned to the fate he chose. He stiffened, and Roland read in his body language an imminent turn. One that Havel halted. Doubtless because he didn’t want to see the look on Roland’s face, or reveal just how sick defending Roland made him feel. “We cannot afford this. We cannot afford this sin for one moment lo—” 

His words were interrupted by a deafening crash that echoed from the far side of the Gate. The sound of a weapon pulverizing stone and crumbling metal served as the opening bell to a rising roar of charging orcs.

Then came a wall of crushing mana that lit the far corners of the Gate. The distance came apart in a weave of conflicting colors and attunements; the static in the air grew intense while the heat fluctuated between blistering hot and bone-gnawing cold. Multiple mana fields smashed against the Ascendants—each one projected from a Legen. But they did not number in the dozen this time, but rather the hundreds. Hundreds that were rapidly climbing.

Heads turned, and now they faced the Abyssal gateway, for when yet another surge of mana fields came hammering against them, the presence of the threat became impossible to ignore.

Legends were engines of civilization, but here the orcs were, churning them out as if they were nothing more than disposable Adepts.

Something was wrong. Nightmarishly wrong. And if the Ascendants didn’t scramble to provide their aid to stem the tide, then the Gate would fall in seconds, not minutes or hours.

“It’s more than my daughter,” Havel said. “It’s what we have done to her. What I have done. All this… where we stand right now, in this moment, is my sin. My mistake. My—” Roland let out a gasp as something threatened to burst out from him. Wicked thorns of blinding Divinity tore out from his flesh and reached out to feast upon Havel’s regret and misdeeds. It was halted as Adam’s Tyranny plumed out in the outline of a palm. Within, Adam cried out in strain as if a man trying to keep a boulder from collapsing. Meanwhile, Thaen had slipped into silence as the presence of the god Roland knew hardened into a cold cocoon, pregnant with forthcoming malice.

“I have no love for Roland Arrow,” Havel continued. “I cannot let go of everything, but this is more than me! More than Roland! This is about our children, and our people. They have paid enough. Blackedge has paid enough for this feud. But right now, they will pay a final time if we cannot hold to our own dignity as Pathbearers and pursue these slights now.”

“Havel,” the Songbringer growled. “It would be a most tragic ballad if an Avatar were to be smitten by his Ascendant for foolishness. Heartful foolishness though it might be.”

For a moment—just a moment—Halsur looked horrified at what his lover insinuated. But his glimpses of humanity were as brief as hers, and the towering man descended back to godhood as he looked upon Havel with almost the same scorn he held for everyone else.

Havel swallowed hard. But he did not move. He feared. He regretted. He made his choice. “I do not want to see hate in her eyes when I see her again. I do not want to hurt her again. I have done that enough. I want to see her again. I want her to want to see me again. Or… or remember me as a father who tried in the end, at least. Not this. Not what I have been. Not what I have wasted. Please.” He almost sounded like Roland then. “Please. Do not walk my path again. There is nothing there. There is nothing there but me at the end.”

The Songbringer scoffed with near-laughter. “Oh, Havel, the Deathless has broken you so easily. Ah. But the Chandler blood in him is strong, indeed. I will sing to him my praises after I see you and the betrayer removed. Hals—Veronica. What are you doing?”

Veronica didn’t reply. Instead, she was already in motion. Motes of static gathered around her as an immense teleportation spell came into shape. “Avatars. Prepare to engage. Legend Hawgrave—remain in place and… administer what you deem necessary to Legend Arrow while guarding the gateway. Let no orc pass through. Let no one pass through until I give explicit orders otherwise.”

The weight of Veronica’s Legendary Rhetoric unfurled through the Gate and took hold. Her demeanor proved inscrutable, but her action was clear. The Gate came before Roland—whose fate now fell into the hands of Jessica.

Kathereine clenched her teeth and shook with barely withheld outrage. “Veronica. This—this moment will not—”

“Silence!” Veronica said, imposing her power upon her own grandmother. There was almost a ragged quality to her command, as if she was wrestling with herself as well. But Veronica was far too close to stone than flesh to allow such weakness to leak in full. “I will not sacrifice what we cannot afford to spend. Not Legends. Not Ascendants.”

“Madness!” Kathereine shrieked, incensed. “The Starhawk is undone. Roland Arrow, that renegade, is—”

“Does it please you to let the Challenger walk you around on a leash?” Veronica’s question came without any aspect of her skill, just the cleaving insight of a woman who had held true power for too long. “Because that is what he desires. For us to eliminate the Starhawk and Roland to serve his ends. And so I will not. Not until I have mastered all the variables. We are not dogs, Songbringer. Dignify yourself, and remember that a god does not have a choice made by another.”

The insult was a layered one, but still received. Rather than rage, the Songbringer sulked. For she was Veronica’s vehicle by love and wisdom more than she was her own woman, which made the Councilwoman more the god in their relationship. Then there was the fact that Veronica was simply right, and had made the matter a dilemma born of pride. The Songbringer could take advantage of Roland’s weakness, but she would sing the script that the Challenger demanded of her.

And what true god would allow themselves to be dictated to so thusly?

“Legend Arrow,” Veronica commanded with a hard glare. “You are to handle the matters of your Ascendant post-haste and join the rest of the force in resolving this infestation. And if you cannot, then if there is any dignity in yourself, do not burden your son or the Republic anymore. Sever the weakest link between the Starhawk and this mortal plane. You know of what I speak.”

Then, without further confirmation that her orders had sunk home, she teleported, dragging the rest of the Ascendancy with her into battle—Stormhalt included. What remained in her wake was a gargantuan woman hovering on twin wheels of flame. One that wrestled with her own desire to end Roland now that he was afflicted by vulnerability—but held herself with far greater ease.

“Jessica,” Roland managed through clenched teeth as another spasm of divine conflict rippled through him. “This moment… must seem like a scene from one of your dreams.”

She stared at him without a hint of hate or amusement. What adorned her was exhaustion and resignation. “Fuck you, Roland. I dream about having my family back together. Same dreams you must’ve had. I don’t dream about killing you. Never did. Just wanted to do it. Just had to do it. You ever dream about murdering the Lowes?”

She might as well have stabbed him with her words.

Roland’s head dipped in shame—even for words spoken in feverish flippancy.

“So. Fuck you again. But what do you need right now?”

Roland blinked. “Need?”

She looked at him like he was slow in the head. “Yeah, asshole. What are we doing? What’s happening with the Starhawk? What’s going on with your kid? How are we going to get your ass back into the fight so we can go pull Shiv out of the fire?”

Roland didn’t have the words. First Havel, now Jessica. Even Veronica. They weren’t on his side, but they weren’t trying to prey upon him either. Just what in the Broken Moon had happened while he was delving? It was like everyone was running along a whole new level of edge—one where they were worried about something far beyond Roland and the Starhawk.

Too much missing— Before he could even think of the word “context,” another eruption of jagged thorns and vines slid out from under his flesh. The emergence of the divine brambles was a bloodless agony, and Adam’s mists struggled hard to keep Roland from coming apart into something less than human altogether. Both the Paragon and the Shrike manifested in flickering instants, each struggling to take the place of the other—and the struggle between them intensified as Adam fought to keep his foothold within his father’s soul.

Every glimpse of Thaen revealed a growing mutation. His form, once resplendent and valorous in posture, was hunching and shriveling. Shining wings dissolved until they were serried plumes of thorn-rimmed blades. A devolution took hold in all facets of the Starhawk’s humanity; his head and torso shrank and hunched until he was far more bird than man—yet not quite avian enough to step beyond that uncanny valley of wrongness which made Roland’s instincts scream. Rather than limbs, he had a tangled nest bearing sharp edges. Each of these thorned tendrils lashed about—emerging from the Starhawk’s body in disfigured extensions. Each point was painted with a hissing taint that threatened to befoul a soul simply for bearing witness to its existence, while their edges curled and clutched the halberd and bow the Starhawk was known to bear.

The Shrike-to-be tried to speak to Roland, yet every one of its words was halted by Adam, who endured and struggled against the altered Ascendant on his father’s behalf. But he was faltering. A Demigod could not last forever in a contest of strength against an unfettered deity, and so a solution needed to be found.

A solution left to Roland, as Adam was smart enough to give his father an opening to resolve this deepest affliction of his faith and soul.

The easiest thing to do would be to shatter Starhawk’s Perch. But that would destroy the anchor that bound the Starhawk to this world and condemn him to an unrighteous fate. Whatever had been forced upon Thaen was not of his choosing, and despite the atrocities Roland performed in his lord’s name, he would not abandon the embodiment of his faith so easily.

And so the next simplest—but perhaps hardest—thing to do was martially defeat and keep the mutated Starhawk in a state of submission. One that Adam could hold in check without strain as a temporary set of restraints. But that required Roland to intervene and strike directly at the Ascendant—who was currently festering within his soul.

Once more, Roland called upon his New Legend Plus to solve his problem. “Jessica. Might I ask of you a favor?”

“For you? Eat shit and die.”

“It involves taking my head and shredding my corpse if I fail this pseudo-Delve.”

Jessica's expression brightened up immensely. “Shit, Roland, why didn’t you start with that?”

That made his lip quirk. A memory passed through him of older days—of better days. Days where he still had friends, where he was less broken by his responsibilities and traumas and more a vessel of righteousness backed by those he loved, wielded by a god he fully trusted, striking at those he knew to be wrong on an ontological level for standing against him. He caught sight of Harlon and Vera in the corner of his eyes—and knew them to be hauntings. But still, he wished they were here. Despite everything, he wished they were here by his side.

Just as he wished Jessica actually still saw him as a friend. Just as he wished for so many other things besides.

But I cannot draw back a world gone by. There is only now and tomorrow. There are only the ones that I still have. And the ones I have been returned. And what I can do now.

“Seriously, though, what favor?” Jessica finally asked.

“I am being serious. If I… If you sense that I have… been overtaken by the Shrike, kill me. And if you cannot, take Adam out of the Gate. Save whoever you can.” Roland drew in a shuddering breath. There was a burning pain inside him—a wound lingering between him and Jessica. “I never had the heart to tell you, but if this is the last chance we ever get to speak…. Your daughter—I’m not defending myself. This isn’t me pleading for your forgiveness. But she tried to—she tried to destroy the Perch. I’m not lying. I’m sorry.”

Several emotions spiraled across Jessica’s face. Her jaw tightened, as did her hand—and Roland prepared for a swing to follow. Instead, Jessica opened her mouth. “...Why?”

“I suspect it was for the Songbringer. Or Veronica. To eliminate me. To banish the Starhawk. Blame it on the Abyssals. Something. I took her into my home; I gave her hospitality. I was still mad with pain and grief, and I tried to… It’s not an excuse. I could have taken her alive. I could have. There was nothing stopping me.” It got so hard to speak. So hard. The next words broke things inside him that he long thought over-scarred. “But mercy was… I could only see Vera in her place. Harlon. I couldn’t take it. The betrayal. I couldn’t take it. I killed her because the wrath in me had nowhere to go, and because she gave me a reason. That’s why. That’s why.”

Jessica’s gaze went blank. Her expression was stone. Her body was still. “Jessica?” Rusty asked. “Jessica? Jessica!”

The blade’s final shout jolted her from her stupor. Jessica angled her head and snapped down her helmet’s visor. “Do what you gotta do, Arrow. I’ll give you an out if you fail. And not a moment before.”

Roland’s instincts continued to scream about impending violence—about being cut down at any second. Every bit of Jessica’s body and aura was bloodshed itself. Even the very atmosphere around her was dense with force. But she kept herself in check. Somehow. A miracle following a chain of miracles. Havel, Veronica, her, all breaking in favor of someone they should have hated.

“I said do your fucking thing,” she said, the coldness of her pain leaking into her words. “I won’t take your head off. Not unless I know it isn’t you. Not my way to kill someone under my hospitality. Not my way at all. And you hear me when I say this: Your life needs to be taken good and proper. Only when all things between us are settled. And if you come out of this alive, you give thanks to the kid and Mettabon for making me feel too fucking ashamed to just cut you down.”

Shiv, Roland understood, but Roland didn’t grasp why Jessica invoked Uva’s name. Ultimately, that didn’t matter. Not now. Giving the Giantsbane a nod of gratitude, Roland infused power into a blade in his hand, and this time, he channeled animancy, meditation, and faith into the same skill—to strike into the roots of his soul most aflame with conflicting Divinities and intervene on his son’s behalf as Adam had done so for him in his moment of direst need.

The last thing Roland saw as he fell back into himself was Jessica sweeping her blade out toward him—without the intention to cleave, but rather to gather. The world beyond vanished into a veil of streaming static as the Lord of Blackedge found himself under the hospitality of Jessica and Rusty—and to break it now would make her his mirror in ways she would not abide.

She did it to force her own mercy. She hates me enough to never be me.

The realization lifted Roland’s anxiety, but the sound of Adam’s exhausted roar sent his tension spiking anew.

The landscape of his soul was a mess of colors. Roland could see his skills running like nodes in a vast network of mana—attuned and not. More importantly, he saw them all as they moved as lesser celestial bodies in concert with the greatest of his skills—the truest of his Legendaries. New Legend Plus active now, blazing as a star that cast its magic and favor upon a few select skills. Through that, Roland spotted his Faith, Meditation, Knife Proficiency, and Animancy glistening like polished marbles beside their dimmer cohort. He also saw the light of his New Legend Plus forging new pieces of matter on his behalf—constructing temporary skills that blended mana into temporary truths.

Mana that was currently being infested and wrestled over by two conflicting Domains.

Before the star that was his New Legend Plus, a titanic shadow did battle with a fleet and desperate warrior. A chain of Shards of Exalted Flame spilled in an endless stream from every bow Adam had—further supplemented by reinforcing salvos cast forth by his simulacra. The Paragon was his own arrows—and his tides struck the Shrike as a chain of miniature supernovas. Blooming blazes billowed into a singular balloon across the Shrike’s entirety, but the thorned tendrils lashed through the destruction to slice and slash at Adam—who didn’t even try to evade.

The speed differential between the two was extreme. Adam might as well have been still even with his wings. But he remained fast enough to spare himself from expulsion, as a palm slammed down over him at the moment's exact impact.

The Shrike jolted to an unwilling halt with a ragged growl. “You will not deny me my avatar, little one. And you cannot hold here forever. Nor can you endure the taint of your own wrongs eternal.”

And true to the Shrike’s claim, Roland saw Adam’s veins darkening and his aura darkening in color. He was being stained by the Shrike’s presence—and Roland felt the foulness emanating from the Ascendant he once called a god. As the residual blasts of Adam’s shards vanished, the Shrike hovered before Roland’s centermost skill a hateful titan—grander and greater than even the star itself, yet prevented from pushing his influence into it by Adam’s defiance. Such was the only thing stopping Roland from corruption. Such was the only reason why Roland hadn’t fallen from the start.

As to what corruption could bypass a tyranny over force and violence, the answer was naked upon the Shrike’s thorns. 

Sin. 

Mistakes. Regrets. 

And though Adam had so few, they existed. On the end of one was his failure to protect Blackedge—a diminutive version of the township burning and broken. Another was him standing with a mob, casting scorn upon Shiv. Another—like a dagger to Roland’s heart—was just an Adam with his back turned to Roland himself.

Because I was too blind and weak to choose you when you needed me, so you didn’t come to me when you had need.

Whatever apology or self-loathing Roland felt was insufficient. He moved. Against what used to be his god. Into the mist. By his son’s side.

His arrival took Adam and the Shrike by surprise.

“Father,” Adam breathed.

“Roland,” the Shrike whispered, his voice a sibilant hiss. “You come to me at last.”

Roland wrapped a hand around Adam’s shoulder, steadying the younger Pathbearer’s resolve and conveying as much gratitude and affection as he could without putting it into words. “I come for my son first. My son always. But I come for you as well, Starhawk. I come for you, as I should have called for you sooner.”

“Starhawk?” The Shrike recoiled at the name. “You speak of a ghost, Roland Arrow. You speak of a man who wasn’t and a god who isn’t. A god who failed at every turn, at every desire. Who failed you and your blood. But I will not. Be not afraid, Roland. Give yourself unto me, and I will see all made right. I will spare you of pain.”

“How can you do that?” Roland asked softly.

“Through the power you do not have. Through the supplication you will give. Integration is far vaster than one world. And you need not suffer in pain. There are other worlds. Higher realities. Paradises. We can be bound for utopia, Roland. We are so close. So close to seeing our people protected and delivered from the corruption of the Ascendancy, from the hubris of mortals and gods alike. Have we not suffered enough? Have your people not suffered enough?”

And maybe there was a time Roland would have willingly accepted whatever offer this was, where the promise—an end to his pain—offered by his god would have seen him undone. But now… 

By Adam’s pleading expression alone, surrender became an impossibility.

“No paradise is worth my son’s heart. And no paradise is worth your defilement, Starhawk. I will see you made right again. I will see the Challenger suffer for this sacrilege. I will see our people protected. But not because we sold them away.”

An enraged screech emanated from the Shrike’s bramble-made body. “You will see to nothing. But your faith will be restored, my Avatar. My most faithful son. Where you falter, I will rise.”

The worst part of the Shrike was how close he remained to the Starhawk. Even now. Even in this wretched, withered form. He was still so patient. Still yearning for Roland.

And from grief, Roland found will and determination. “My faith has always been beyond question. To the Starhawk. To my people. To my son.” He called his bow to shape as his equipment manifested in the depths of his soul. “Let me show you why your truer self chose me. Let me show you the worth of my faith.”