JÛNA-VILKA, MINE CAS-VARNA
A Song For the Dark
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Januchten would visit it from time to time — the endless expanse that housed horrors beyond Hell itself. One might think the creature would feel far away, the way it skittered and scuttled in the darkest recesses, its claws reaching ever towards infinity, but it sought light as well, if only to snuff it out. For all that he never saw the fingers around his throat, itching to steal what the fall left behind, he knew the weight of their intent.
Had he been more than a bit of scattered stardust stuffed in a shell, the presence of that dark hand might have incited his heart to fight free of his chest.
Yes, he feared the creature. Any who came face to face with the eternal abyss, harbinger of Ragnarok, and felt no fear bore the mark of the fool — and Januchten was no fool. If his scarred body served as proof of his bravery and prowess in battle, his yet beating heart signaled his wisdom.
Certainly, wisdom had done well by him throughout his years of service to S’ari-vaste and the invisible hands that manipulated her strings. Just as it flared to life in him now, as he stood on the precipice of disaster, sending shivers sticky-crawling across his skin and twisting his guts like the hair of an undefeated Tactician.
Wisdom warned of the evil ahead, bade him maintain his distance.
And loyal Januchten, cradling his final hope against his chest, stood by, sentinel to Amhelle’s seal.
It never should have been rushed, much less the effort of a single Star, even if that Star happened to be Roedanya herself. Even with six keys yet holding the monster at bay, cracks had formed. And in a place as deprived of starlight as Hell, cracks were all she needed. As he listened at the seams, he could hear her pressed against her prison — salivating, seething, each putrid breath spewing more of her cancer into his new home.
He’d left his battle-beaten armor here. The chainmail, the plating, even the gauntlets specially designed to provide maximum protection to his knuckles without hindering flexibility. The pieces were no longer merely dented and nicked as they’d been before his fall from grace, another casualty at Amhelle’s hands. Deep, long gashes scored the metal as if it had been as easy to cut through as butter, and chainmail lay in tatters. But perhaps the most unseemingly vicious wounds to the armor came in the form of spots that looked like rust, yet disintegrated at the gentlest touch.
Once, his armor held memories bittersweet, but now… Now he saw a battle he would never forget, waged against the monster that had risen up to greet him and his own in the first moments of their arrival. Two hundred and fifty-nine angels, the babe he’d held in his arms, and Januchten himself leading the charge against an ancient, insurmountable foe.
Yes, two hundred and fifty-nine angels, each carrying such faith in their beliefs — in him — that they had followed him straight to Hell.
After meeting Amhelle, a mere twelve remained, each irrevocably changed.
Each had been robbed of their wings, but that loss was felt most keenly for the six-winged seraphim in their ranks: Januchten himself and his second-in-command. Of eleven horned Tacticians, one alone escaped with both horns intact, a feat all attributed to luck rather than skill. There were wounds of all flavors, hidden beneath the ichor that slicked their skin, and each had been touched by the darkness in some capacity, though none to such a drastic degree as Asha, whose heterochromia had even become black.
And the other two hundred and forty-seven? Memorialized in a scrapyard cemetery in the rotting bowels of Hell, forgotten to all but a handful.
Swords. Chakrams. Spears. Axes. Bows. Scimitars. Maces.
A variety of weapons marked the ground like tombstones, fallen guardians to the seal. Each had been carefully placed — some whole, others snapped in two or partially disintegrated — forming a long line of tarnished metal, a dark tribute to the brave and the foolish. The weapons of two hundred and forty-seven Tacticians. And there, at the head of the procession was Januchten’s battered armor. Not placed with intention or gentility but thrown into the mire in disgust.
Did it even belong there, alongside the markers of his fallen brothers and sisters? Januchten didn’t have the answer to that question, but he did know that a piece of him had died that day. Whether or not it truly belonged, his armor being there was — in a word — appropriate.
Far from the light of Heaven, their screams were lit only by bouts of holy fire like thunderclaps, their ichor consumed by the very one they’d condemned to this prison themselves. The voracious dark descended upon them, gnawing and gnashing, felling a dozen in a single sweep. The stronger among them resisted, desperately fought for their lives, but each of them knew the battle’s outcome was a foregone conclusion.
Januchten brought his infant daughter to the seal often, that together they might mourn and remember. That maybe, just maybe, something outside her unknowing blue eyes might ignite hope within him once more.
But though he searched, though resolve hardened like angelic steel in his heart, though hatred — dark and hot as his corrupted flames — burned inside him, Isa’ren-ae remained the sole vulnerable, flickering light wavering before the all-consuming dark.
Outside her radiance, he was a man hollow, little left within him beyond hatred and pride.
Perhaps that hatred would have been easier to bear had Amhelle been its target — or even himself. But the longer he stared out at the hundreds of graves he’d painstakingly crafted, the longer he watched Orlaith’s monsterrelentlessly throw herself at her prison, the clearer it became to him who his true enemy was.
The Stars demanded unwavering servitude and loyalty, and for what? The promise that the mesmerizing light of their “love” would bind their followers in ignorance to the atrocities they turned a blind eye to? They held all the power in the far reaches of creation, and not a single one had spared even a fraction of it when the Tenebrum took their sister for its vessel. They held all the power in the far reaches of creation, and only one had ever attempted to understand and help the angels of S’ari-vaste. They held all the power in the far reaches of creation, and none would be offering down a hand to the rebels fighting for their survival in Hell. Januchten’s soldiers had been abandoned without a second thought, labeled a nemesis of ancient Astreia, and left to rot in a hole untouched by divinity.
Even Januchten, once hailed as the Tra’ta-vantrê, seraph and proud bearer of Roedanya’s holy flame, had proven himself an abject failure before the Tenebrum’s fledgling power — power that would only continue to grow. Day over day, as he kept his dark vigil, a warrior crushed under the weight of his own powerlessness, a dark seed took root in his marrow and supped on the sharp bite of his resentment.
He recognized the change for what it was, of course, knew what he was destined to become without the protection of his wings, but the darkness kept his flame burning bright.
Because he wanted them all. Every Star. Dead. Gone for the sins they’d committed. He’d make them all burn and scream in agony with his own two hands. Every. One.
Isa’ren-ae stirred, babbling incoherently as a tiny hand, marked by her mother, grasped blindly in search of him. Januchten responded in kind, lifting her closer to his face even as he lowered his head and pressed his forehead to hers, taking special care to angle his head in just the right way to prevent the stubs of his broken horns from making contact with her soft skull.
“Shhh. Be at peace, mine cas-varna,” he whispered. “Do not let the endless hear you weep, for it may prey upon you.” Whether his daughter truly understood the danger on some instinctual level or was merely soothed by his presence, her babbles quieted as impossibly small fingers closed around a fistful of his long amber locks and drew the hair into her mouth.
“We will be gone from here soon,” Januchten continued without any attempt made to retrieve his hair, his whisper giving way to a sorrowful sigh. “I know the terror you feel, the urge to break and allow it all to end… but we will sing through the darkness yet, oh mine.”
Once again, Isa’ren-ae’s voice had echoed out when he needed it most and wrapped him in its protection like the proverbial siren song, leading him from the dark. He would return in due time, but for the moment, he found himself soothed.
Though she was too young for meaningful conversation, his daughter seemed to him observant beyond her age, remaining quiet until she sensed his need to be reminded that Hell was not entirely without light. But it was more than that — the perfect blue of her eyes gazing up at him bade him remember her mother’s compassion.
Isa’ren-ae was right, of course. Though most of the Stars were corrupt, they were not all irredeemable, and he would be fool to erase what scant good there was left among them.
“You are wise for a babe. Very well. We will see her yet, the earth that calls you home. But for now, we shall leave. You will not remember this, the hell above and the dark below, but I will. Even should I die, all trace of my deeds erased, it will not be forgotten. There is a world for you, mine cas-varna, away from prying eyes, and we will begin there.”
Cas-varna: precious one
Jûna-vilka: for we honor the fallen
S’ari-vaste: Heaven (realm of the angels)
Tra’ta-vantrê: Roedanya’s General
