Laying in her bed, slowly sinking in the silken sea, Aurelithae tossed and turned through the night. Beneath her lids, her eyes danced, her lips trembled as she tried to lull herself to sleep with words coated in the prima materia of the Consciousness. Yet neither did little for the agonies of her soul she so cruelly pulled, rent and wrenched for the past weeks, a month just to tear away a section from the infinity. She even began to follow the advice of Dumath who glanced, sitting near the embrasure of the window, melding into the glass as if it never existed, as if it existed in a state of gaseousness.

  “Worry not, you shall get used to this pain, and after a while it shall be nothing more than a pinch.

  It felt worse than the cleansing of the remnants of outer mana lingering in the arkhaine veins, a sensation that often felt like dragon flames swirling within her mortal coil, blazing her within and without actually roasting her sweet tendon. Yet the heat remained all the same. But this pain, this agony was queer all together. One she likened to the beating of drums, first slow and measured, but with time grew chaotic and violent.

  Aurelithae wished to cry, hoping the teeming tears would bring peace upon her being, a lulling cold upon the searing cheeks. She wanted to cry, hoping the agonies would part with her breath, and call for the aid of healers, for Akaerith, for Albrion, for anyone. Be it living or dead even.

  What made it worse was the preceding bursts of divine thrill, to feel no matter how much she gashed, how much she tortured her own soul it remained eternal, infinite. Now those joys were a distant memory fogged by pain, and in their place, there was the yawning, gnawing emptiness often broken by the feeling of hooks penetrating her soul and pulling it whilst etheric needless dived and rose, whilst threads fixed what cruelties she brought out upon her own essence, her own reassembling self. One such pull shot her eyes open, and she screamed silent, staring at the roof of her bed, and the dancing figures of draevhei and dragons on the frescoed ceiling.

  Frustration burned at her at the failure. “Linger not on failure, you have succeeded a bit, more than any other could envision the process of burgeoning.

  “Couldn’t you do it instead of me?” Still, Aurelithae voiced her question. She wished not to skip this part of her training, just her soul’s calling for venture, to find answers down in the city proved stronger than her sense.

  “I could, but it would be better for yourself to learn it as soon as possible.It shall serve you greatly in the future.

  Aurelithae sighed then her fingers stroke onto the sea of silk forming hilly folds, drawn unseen runes older than civilization as she attuned a part of her to Dumath’s seemingly interminable mind, full of strange knowledge. At a moment’s notice, they all vanished, swallowed by the waves and the gentle breeze she unconsciously created. In their wake a smooth field of the silk stretched over her body.

  “What is that thing?

  A small, rude parody of a dragon appeared as a silhouette, its rudimentary wings flapped, generating a foul wind and waves that disturbed the peace of the Layers as tides of mana escaped the abrasive scales, black as the night and cadaverous. “You really created this… creature?

  The moment she manifested matter out from nothingness flashed in her mind, the feeling of triumph brought momentary respite. Though she pondered what compelled her to create such a thing.

  At the time the creature resembled more of a winged whelp, devoid of life, as now its long-muzzled face flattened, and became brutish like an ogre’s with a small, serpentine snout. Small curving tusks framed its face, eyes small and beady where various dim shades contented in a swirling vortex around the black elliptical slits, the same colors which sinuously stretched and gleamed through the veins, or more precisely cracks upon the feeble form. Its spine and head, ridged, from the former an ethereal mane of myriad tendrils blacker than the sky, and the sharp tips of developing horns poked through the flowing and tenderly writhing inky blackness. The latter sharp and reaching the pommeled, short tail, though it barely slipped onto it.

  “How could it be?” She uttered the question unsure how in her preceding state she could have created life–a rudimentary one, but a life nonetheless. “I see, a child of yours and His.

  “Truly an architect.” Aurelithae whispered laconically. Looking at the creature old and young in a strange manner, Aurelithae found it adorable as its lipless mouth curved into a smile. “Do you possess a name?” She asked, led by maternal instincts.

  The creature shook its head. “None yet. He said, you shall grant me one.” A voice both young and innocent, old and gravelly came from the mouth, filled with sharpened teeth. It sat in her lap, weighing upon the silken, looking and waiting. Aurelithae tapped repeatedly her chin, looking up and down at the creature, looking more and more at its mixed features, making out a few more details including the four limbs, feline paws bereft of fur and withered, dry epidermis of dead simians stretched over the pronounced bones. Two more limbs, arms budded betwixt the widening, lengthy neck.

  “Typhaon.” At last, she uttered, delving into both her mind’s library, expanded a little by primordial memories. She recalled the First Beast the then seven siblings battled and slain, whose blood and leaking essence in the astral seas beget monstrous lives. And it seemed her the being seemed satisfied with the name.

  It curled around like a little cat in her lap, and Aurelithae involuntarily drawn her right hand across its back, starting from the tendrilled mane. Contrary to what she expected, it felt soft, a bit rugged.

  Typhaon began to sing a melodious song, in a language which she understood not, but knew it was in the myriad tongue of Primordial Intelligences like the bellow of the Lustrous Empress. Slowly drowsiness came over her, and reclined into the soft embrace of her pillows. Her soul drifted into the lands of Oneiron upon the closure of her eyes, where she remained free from the agonies of slivering her own elevated soul.

  A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  A sigh issued from her dreamy lips as she fell in the void, arrived upon soft sand tickling her souls, and steps from behind from the Sigi she remembered from before the Harrowing. Young, one eye closed, the other azure and tousled hair. His demeanor confident, yet veiling something under the black, endless firmament where strange silhouettes billowed above. Though before she could pry the matter out from the young man, a tear appeared, light filled the darkness, and the two entered their next adventure in the land of dreams, where the woes and rues of the waking world remained afar.

  “Sleep well, mother.” Whispered Typhaon, a hideous smile upon its lipless face.

  *****

  A tickling coldness emanated from her nose, cheeks and throat whilst she perceived the warm embrace of her silky blankets, the seeping cold of marble. Before Aurelithae’s eyes, both her room and the gargantuan corridors of the Cathedral beneath the floors expanded, shadows crawled on either’s walls and corners. And she felt Typhaon’s tendril wrap around the membranous pearl holding a fragment of hers and Dumath’s consciousness.

  “On the right I believe is the doorway. But be careful, the guards are trained to see beyond the mortal world’s layers.” Aurelithae murmured, the sinews in her throat lit up in a bright azure speckled with grays and black.

  They manifested both in her own room in the Radiant Keep and in the pearl winded around by the black tentacles dislodged from the mane. Typhaon stopped, hid in the corner, blanketed in deep shadows as a guard draped in fine, silky layers of bright goldens and whites. Near the turn, the guard stopped and turned, glanced towards the shadows, then continued. Both Aurelithae and Typhaon sighed before the latter scurried into the mausoleum where her would be assassin laid upon a frigid bed of stone.

  “Wait…” Before she could utter any more, Typhaon walked out and opened its jaw as if to cry, but no voice came out and the two guards in finely tailored silken robes and a meager amount of plates stiffened, became statues of finely dressed flesh. Their eyes stared right ahead into the dimly lit corridor stretching before them, threw into a Stream of Time flowing at the pace of a snail. Shadowy tendrils snaked up their robes, tinted with azure and sapphire as torch light graced them penetrating through the cowls and masks.

  Without needing further words, Typhaon stole past the momentarily frozen guards and passed through the thick wooden door. Quite the surreal sensation it was for Aurelithae who trembled as if bristly drapes combed through her skin. Beyond the door, a damp draught danced, swiveled around the lone bed with its limp occupant whose rich dark hair spread beneath her back. A faint spark of life, still burned in the mindless husk, the perfect vessel according to Dumath who brought it up earlier that day.

  Staring at the listless visage, Aurelithae pondered if the memories still within the impotent mind would reveal who wished death upon her.

  “Focus. Even an impotent occupant may prove to be a challenge for a sprout like you.

  Slowly her mana and the saccharine and primordial essence of Dumath intertwined, formed into an etheric rivulet within her souls. And as she inhaled one last deep, she smelled both the pleasant aromas arising from the perfumed candles’ smoke still lingering about her bed and the caustic aroma of the clammy, quasi-tenantless body and the various alchemical concoctions slipping out from their containers as they rested on the dozens of oaken shelves fused into the alabaster, featureless walls.

  Typhaon crawled over the shapely bosom of the limp, mindless aevhe, his tendrils moved, phased through the satiny flesh, inserted the membranous pearl in the forehead. Then opened his maw, a slithering serpent of a tongue sprouted forth, its tip parted open revealing a second, smaller mouth arrayed with sharp, black fangs. He bit the flesh and even the soul, spreading its ethereal venom into the soul, weakening its already mild resistance for Aurelithae.

  Dumath who manifested herself above the mindless and the chimera, plunged her impalpable arm into the latter, connecting all four of them. Though it seemed her sobering words were for naught, as they learned Terrianis proved thorough in his anger, wiped nearly every faculty of self from the assassin. Except breathing, keeping Vipsaeril alive.

  Still, the feeling of her Self invading another felt less repulsive than she thought upon hearing Dumath’s proper explanation. It felt addictive like sugar, wanted more of it, wanted to expand her Self to many others. “Maybe in a hundred thousand years my dear. For now, focus on this one.

  “Focus now. Time for molding the vessel.”

  *****

  “Leave before they unfroze.” Typhaon quickly vanished with those words uttered.

  Moving the limbs proved difficult at first. They refused proper movement and fluidity, a hint of Vipsaeril’s will still lingered, contested Aurelithae’s presence. But with sweeping it into the voids of the mind, shackled and bound, a weight fell in tandem. Still, a numbing spread in her muscles, but at last with tremulous hands, Aurelithae stole into the shadows, left the mausoleum livid. Nearly she chuckled at the success, the thrilling experience of two bodies existing in the same time under the control of her mind.

  With careful, hasty steps she stuck to the walls, twinged the ears of the vessel to listen in the silence interjected by the soft lullaby of the sheet on the floor and her soles kissing the floor.

  When she reached a small section where the shadows dimmed strongly, she slipped into their embrace and waited as footsteps approached in the pace of moderate saunters. In the care of thick darkness, she carefully fitted the vessel around the small shrine placed upon the one-legged table. A small granite sculpture of a tall, lean figure with flowing robes that spread the darkness protecting her from discovery. The Solemn Shepherd, she recognized and for a moment, fear seemed to wrap its tendrils around her heart, but passed. It was like the eyeless statue peered at her from beneath the layered veil.

  “Seems the protection of the Solemn Shepherd still extends over me.” She whispered in her room.

  One step out of the shadows, Aurelithae froze and felt foolish for a moment. Even believed she heard Dumath’s chuckle echoing through the gulfs of her expanding soul. Mocking laughter, she hated the most. She sighed, then vanished before a guard would pass the section, then the scenery of the corridor changed to a dark alley, on the lower districts of the plebeian she knew still quite well.

  There she stole a few hanging clothes left out to dry, including a yellow linen tunic with a round neck and narrow, long sleeves, a waist-length coat of cheap leather, black enough to cloak her into the shadows, a brown trousers and shoes exposing her ankles. Somewhat properly dressed she felt a bit better, and vanished once more as she heard the approach of metallic steps upon the marble.

  “It has been a while.” She murmured, frozen before the renovated Sleeping Nereid Inn, reeking with the scent of drunkards. And hints of death. Aurelithae knew she would need little explanation of her reappearance to Mirayroth and Naghig, but still found it hard to enter.

  Her scarlet eyes traversed every nook and cranny of the hull, watched the windows bathed in warm glows, listened to the music seeping out, felt the undulating shakes twinging from below. A few eyes drawn onto her. Some found her a weirdo for standing still, others a beautiful coward as aevhe rarely frequented the place nowadays. And one or two got enamored by the magnificently drawn face of an aevhe.

  “Will you stare all night, or come inside?” Then came the familiar voice of Naghig, whom she wasn’t truly sure whether survived the encounter. But there he stood in its brutish, gaunt form and she nodded feeling relieved the old orkh survived. Though how she wasn’t sure how and cared not at the moment. Just walked abreast of his long and hasty steps.

  “It’s nice to see you!” He grumbled back, though the voices in the tavern drowned out the words even to her aevhen ears.