Avatars

And so Baelor burned. For Shasa, whom he would never touch again. For Velos, who destroyed his family and was his brother no longer. For Evira, who could now be light in darkness.

For his father, who could never see him clearly—and for his mother, who always knew. Baelor burned, and the eternal ember throbbed like a pulse. For this world was finally alive.

A long time ago Shasa knelt by the water. She strained with both arms to reach the lotus leaf she found floating there, but it evaded her grasp. This was a dream, Shasa knew, one she played in her head like a harp...

A long time ago the world changed forever (as it is always doing). They made her claim the artifact, they cleaved her love in two, and now? When it rains, the people of this land remark upon the beauty of Shasa’s tears. But it hardly ever rains.

She spied her reflection rising to meet her like a terrible... And then she fell in.

Kronin studied his children. The crystal core tinted his vision like colored glass, but—even so—he recognized each of them as he had upon the day of their birth. Something about his own face. Their mother’s. Magic.

The crystal core was his core. The others had received their artifacts like gifts, welcome or not, but his came as a transplant. And at such cost. Kronin held his beloved like wind in a cage. No grip. He saw one son turn from the other and wished for all his children to look upon each others’ faces again.

But that was no longer his magic.

Delyla came here for Kronin from another place no one longer remembers. She changed her name several times. She wished to be different, and so she was, but it was never enough.

Delyla held the windseeker like a dog’s leash. She was in control. She told herself this and her current name over and over so that she would not forget. She would not forget. Someone must remember from where It came from, else this world would survive the same fate as the last.

In that it would not survive.

Nobody knew about Evira. Her brother’s shadow, and so funny now. The bearer of the radiance. Where could she hide? Nothing much for a girl like Evira. Used to going unnoticed. She could hide in the sky. She could hide in plain sight. And so she did.

All of Elara unfolded for Evira like the opening of an envelope. Such voluminous letters. She was now the radiance with her ability to illuminate. She lit the night because it was her job. She lost her brother when they switched places. No one could stand in Evira’s shadow, for she did not cast one. She was the light.

The ritual worked. Velos was both shadow and shape casting shadow. The shard freed him of mortal concern, and—in its place?—shadow and shape. He watched the others from above as if he were only an observer and not one of the hands that formed them.

Velos saw this, the origin of his making, the moment of his becoming, as he could see all things. All things save his sister and the edges of the rift, curled like burnt paper and whispering such...

O to be a god of any age in a world that has changed forever (as it is always doing). He would not tell the others he could hear It, for was that not another of his gifts?