She clung to a burning coal and claimed it to be cold. She told the skies that the rains were dry and that the storms were but gentle autumn winds. She did this, not because of some grand will or abundance of pride, but simply because her Goden had told her otherwise.
Sujin, the enchanter, the friend, the burning coal and the betrayer. He had not been vanquished. Though his dreams yet consumed them both, he would awaken. Despite all advice and insistence, his traitor's blood still coursed through his tainted veins.
"Ashtik," he gasped as the spear drew away from him. "What is this?"
"Just a dream," she whispered back. "Don't worry, just think happy thoughts."
She could feel the silent thread pulling. It bound her to him; it kept her near his mind. A thought of a girl passed over the thread and then the girl became material. Amadel, the maid of Macau. Black hair and golden skin; dark eyes with a gentle smile. She crossed the crumbling horizon to kneel at his side.
"Happy thoughts," he whispered as she dragged him into a deep and suffocating hug.
Ash stood a couple of paces back. The ocean that had drowned her was now a silver puddle beneath her feet. She dragged a toe along the surface and caused a ripple that reached out beyond what her vision would allow her to trace.
Then the ripple came back with a thousand times the power. A single mountain-high wave rushed towards her. It didn't seem to bother Sujin as he sat in the arms of his oldest friend, but Ash was not so collected. She would have screamed as it drew near, had she not fallen beneath the silver puddle before the wave could reach her.
"Don't panic," an old voice urged from within a familiar nothingness. She knew where she had landed, and she knew what would come next. The boundless nothingness around her had grown all too familiar. She knew this void like the back of her steel-sheathed hand.
"I deserve answers," she immediately demanded, taking no time to adapt to her surroundings.
"Yes, you do." The old voice grew louder as his borrowed feet clashed against the imagined floor. She turned to face him with an angered twirl, though she hadn't realised how close behind he was.
Tall and towering, dark and muscled. Tattooed chains wrapped around his arms while a single green vine worked its way down his throat. A carefully maintained beard masked the scars he had gathered over a lifetime of hunting. This was how he should have been. How he had been, once upon a time.
"Dad," Ash whimpered. She knew, deep inside, that it wasn't truly him but that didn't matter. It was as though she hadn't seen him in decades, though it had only been a matter of weeks.
"I am not," he kindly said.
"I know. You wear his face though. The face I remember," she sniffed. "Does that make you a demon?"
"A demon?" he repeated in surprise.
"Demons talk with the dead man's tongue. He is dead, isn't he?" she asked with a tear on the question.
"I... It seems likely. I'm sorry," the man admitted. "But I don't think that I am a demon."
"Then what? You claim you aren't the Goden. Are you the other voice? The one that doesn't talk to me, but about me?"
"Truth be told, Snowy, I think it's quite simple," he sighed.
"It is?"
"Aye. I've been with you for some weeks now, but I was never meant to be. It has been hard adapting to you, but I've tried. Now we're here. Now you're getting stronger."
"You're not the god," she slowly realised. "You're the... gauntlet?"
"I mean, I think I'm the mark. I suppose that is the same thing. It's probably high time we had a chat, hey kiddo?" He smiled broadly, though it wasn't Tilak's smile. It was an imitation. An idea gathered from watching memories of the man. His steel eyes peered into hers but she remembered how faded they had grown in reality. This imitation's eyes were as vibrant and youthful as Evara's, but Tilak didn't look like that anymore. His steel had faded to grey.
"Stop talking like him. It's weird," she quietly snipped.
"I don't think I can. I need an image, a person, to imitate. Otherwise, you'd be talking to an inky little sparrow, right?"
"You think this; you don't think that. Do you actually know anything?"
"I know how you feel," he smiled. "I know you are scared and I know you doubt yourself."
"Am I not right to?" Ash asked.
"We are always right to doubt ourselves. The only alternative is arrogance."
"I don't need petty wisdom. I need to understand my place here. I need to know that I haven't destroyed the world." She tried to step away from her false father but there was no ground beneath her feet upon which to walk. It did not matter that she somehow stood upon an empty void; this void would not allow her any distance from the old man.
"Does the world feel destroyed?" he smugly asked.
"Not yet... but it hasn't begun yet. When the war starts, will the world end?"
"It hasn't begun?" he scoffed. "Are you so sure about that?"
"I don't see any great enemy I have to defeat."
"Maybe you never will. Maybe this whole thing is just a great big misunderstanding. Wouldn't that be nice?"
"What are you talking about?" she pled.
"You say this hasn't begun, yet here you are, forging alliances and meeting kings."
"In preparation," Ash insisted.
"Preparations... Action, it's all the same thing," he mildly said. "It all services the end goal."
"And that is?" Ash pressed.
"Power," he hissed. "The power to defeat a god. The power to change the world, or make it anew."
"That sounds..." Ash hesitated for a heartbeat before finally settling on, "Ominous."
"You've suffered many omens though. Most of them you've deigned to ignore," he said with a sigh. His shoulders slumped for a brief moment before returning to their natural broad position.
"You mean Sujin? Why does the Goden want me to kill him so badly?"
"Because he is the betrayer. Simple," he sharply answered.
"And I should just take you at your word? He has done nothing even remotely ill yet. Does he not deserve the benefit of the doubt?"
"Ash, I'm a part of you. Why would I lie? He will betray you and he will kill your friend. You need to deal with him." He glared at Ash as he spoke. The steel bore holes through her. The softness that defined her father's gaze – even at the worst of times – was clearly absent in this man. He was harsh and he was cold. The steel of his eyes was not the steel of her father's, but the steel of her hand. It was armoured and armed. Sharp and dangerous.
"He is my only friend, who is there for him to kill? Amell? I'd pay to see him try," Ash scoffed.
"Spiders and clowns; eternals and crowns. You'll have more friends than any woman alive. He will put an end to many of them," he swore.
"Then I'll just have to take that gamble," Ash sighed.
"Why? Why risk it? Why not just send him away if his death is so deeply undesired?"
"Because then I can prove him wrong. I can prove that I don't need to be chosen to win this war."
"You have no chance of winning! Not if you ignore us! Heed our words, Snowy. I beg you!"
"I'll heed you gladly, just not on this. Tell me and I'll listen, who am I fighting?" Ash dismissed.
"You're as foolish as you are necessary. Very well, I will hope to gain your trust. Maybe one day you will understand, I just hope that day comes sooner rather than later." He sighed deeply and nodded. "Do you feel that?" he asked. She did; the invisible thread. It pulled at her again, dragged her back from the void into Sujin's dream.
"We haven't much time," Ash whispered. "Answer the question."
"You face the sister of the Black Goden. You face the Firestarter. The spark that set a world alight. You face she who destroyed two planets, and she who killed gods without thought."
"What? How can I face a being capable of destroying entire worlds? How can I defeat something that can kill a god?"
It was hopeless, and the pit in her belly told her so. She looked down at her steel-skinned arm and tried to imagine how it could possibly stand to match, or exceed, the raw power of a literal god. She had faced a lesser goden once already. Hevestiel, he of the forge. He had looked upon her with more eyes than existed in the world. Armies of stone warriors, a million strong, had stood upon his shoulders and seemed oh-so ready for war.
"Don't be afraid. She's not some omnipotent goddess. She's a wanting, seeking, dying thing. A woman and a person, not a spirit or some higher being. Her flesh can be sundered, her mind can be broken. Her heart is already shattered. All you are fated to do is help her die. Grant her that mercy, or she will grant it to us all."
The thread tore her back. It felt as though she had been thrown through a brick wall, though she ripped only through empty space. She landed hard, not in the toe-high waters of Sujin's dream, but in the wrapped cotton of his bed sheets. A sheen of sweat rolled over the stubborn layer of monstrous grime that she had failed to cleanse in the font.
She jolted up, though it felt as though she were falling. A rush of wind scattered around her. She wasn't sure whether or not she had imagined it, until a cluster of books and pages fluttered around the room like the wings of white doves, scrambling away from some dire threat.
Once the pages had settled from their frantic flight, the room was silent. Not a noise but for the ragged breaths drawn by both present parties. The curtains did not flutter, though the window was cracked open. The floorboards and rafters did not creak, though Ash had grown so very accustomed to the sound that she mightn't have noticed it anyway.
She turned towards the only true noise around her. The steady heartbeat – and unsteady breath – of the man beside her. The man she had gambled all too much on. The betrayer; the friend.
"Sujin," she whispered as gently a waking lover, though love was neither her purpose nor her desire. She sat up, ensuring to cover her modesty while she patted down some stray hairs. "Are you awake?"
"I am now," he whispered back. He peeled his deep brown eyes open and greeted her with a vacant smile. "That was-," he yawned, "different."
"Are you okay?" She asked.
"I am. Did you get from this, what you hoped for?"
"I... I think so. A name, if not a direction." She rubbed a bruised hand over her face and wiped away the sleep from her eyes. "I'm gonna go bathe. I'll see you later."
"I-Yes, I will see you later," he replied as though there was more to be said, and yet he choked back anything beyond.