Part 2
Sybil.
Her name was the only thing running through Tomir’s mind as he started cutting his way towards where he saw her flash of golden hair. He wasn’t even sure why he wanted to get to her, she wouldn’t be happy to see him. He knew that, and yet, 500 years hadn’t dulled the pull he felt towards her.
Moving closer to where he’d last saw her was proving to be a slow and difficult task. All around him celestials were cutting each other down. In 60 years he’d never seen so much fury and devastation. Blades clashed in horrific screeches while magic choked the air.
More than once Tomir found himself just barely dodging in time to miss a sword or spear.
A black ball of magic whipped straight for his head and he threw himself to the ground. A burning sensation on his left horn told him it had brushed him. A shriek from behind him told Tomir that the magic had found a different victim.
He ran his hand over the curling, red horns that protruded from his head, just to make sure they were alright. Then he got back up and started moving again in the direction of Sybil.
It only took a few more moments before he found himself in front of her. 500 years ago she’d been chosen to replace the Councilman known as The Butcher of Hemi, Goddess of War. 300 years later she emerged from that training and Tomir could see now that she’d lived up to the name.
Wings were a gift only Councilmen had, often representing the part whoever had the title played in the service of the gods. Sybil, the Butcher’s wings were a deep red that seemed to suck the light out of the air around them. They were a set of six curving ovals, sharpened to points at each end. They glinted in the sunlight as they fluttered and moved her body across the battlefield with seemingly no effort.
Sybil herself was a terror to behold. She swept across the fighting, an axe in each hand. She’d always been a skilled warrior, Tomir remembered. But, whatever her training had consisted of had made her more brutal than he could’ve ever imagined.
Momentarily distracted by finally getting to see Sybil for the first time in half a millenia, he felt something sharp slice into his side. White-hot pain shot through his body and blinded him. Tomir felt his dagger slip through now-frozen fingers and only vaguely registered his body hitting the blood-covered grass, a disgusting mix of red and black.
Darkness took him.
Tomir awoke to the sound of crackling flames. He kept his eye shut and listened carefully, searching for any other noises. He knew he was sitting against a tree and from the dull ache in his side, someone had, at least partially, healed him. When nothing else caught his attention, he opened his eye.
Blinding white skin and the silver, pupil-less eyes of a caeles were all that registered before Tomir attempted to summon one of his daggers to his hand. He felt the pull of magic and then just as quick as it came, it disappeared. He grunted, his head dropped forward in pain and he felt even weaker.
“Careful,” the caeles was speaking to him, “I did the best I could but you’ll reopen that wound if you move too much.”
The voice struck an old memory within Tomir and he snapped his head up to take a better look at the caeles.
The night was lit up by a fire and he could see her. Golden hair, chopped just under her ears and light blue veins cracking her snow-white skin. The black mark of the Creator sat on her forehead. A mark of Hemi, the Goddess of War, started under her left eye and trailed downward until it ended on her left forearm. He knew those shapes, those markings, he’d traced them for years, memorized them.
“Sybil,” her name left his lips in a rush of breath. He’d resigned himself to never seeing her again, at least up close. Once the war had started 60 years ago, he’d thought if they ever met again it’d be as enemies.
That sobering thought reminded him that this was probably not about to be the happy reunion he’d secretly been dreaming of for years.
“Why?” he asked.
Her golden eyebrows raised at the question before she turned to poke at the fire, embers floating into the air. “Death and the Headtaker stepped in and stopped the fight. I found you on the ground after and thought you were dead,” she paused and turned to look at him again, a wry smile on her face. “But then you moved.”
Tomir couldn’t help the small chuckle that escaped him, “Were you disappointed?”
Sybil, as straightforward as he remembered, shrugged. “Would’ve made things easier,” her voice was flat as she spoke to him.
For a moment, Tomir felt himself slipping back into the way he’d always spoken to her. He went to move his hand to his chest but his side pulled in pain and he dropped his arm. “What were you planning to do with my body?” he asked instead.
“I thought I’d make sure your mother and brother could bury you, properly.” She hesitated for a moment and then continued, her silver eyes piercing his red one, “I was sorry to hear about your father.” That was the first bit of emotion he’d heard in her voice since waking up.
Tomir closed his eyes in pain. His father, a caeles of Ellua, had been one of the first casualties of the gods going to war. Ellua hadn’t rebelled so his father hadn’t been cursed, even as Tomir, Malik, and their mother had transformed into mockeries of caeles. Red horns formed as they lost their marks of the Creator, their veins turned black, their eyes turned red. A punishment for something they hadn’t chosen.
But their village, mostly filled with caeles of Xania, a goddess who had rebelled, had looked at his father’s lack of transformation as a betrayal and tore him apart, violently. That had been one of the moments that turned the celestials against each other.
Tomir wasn’t sure how to respond to Sybil’s apology so he stayed quiet for a moment. He had so many questions he wanted to ask her and he was so drained he couldn’t even move his arms properly, let alone leave.
“Why didn’t you come back after your training?” he asked finally, it was the question that’d haunted him the most. Training to take over a council position like she’d done only was supposed to take 300 years.
Her eyes snapped back to his, “Why didn’t you come see me after my training?”
His lips cracked a small smile and he inclined his head, “Fair enough.” He paused and wondered how he was supposed to tell her he’d been worried that after 300 years she would no longer care for him.