Book One – Chapter 13

The golem is not the wizard, said the voice that spoke for her.

Midnight had thought that the tranfer of energy from the wizard had granted him control over the golem, but now she understood differently. The golem was something alive, or at least aware. It was an entity driven by its own will, waiting to be fed with energy to act autonomously.

Both before the leap off the mountainside and just now, it seemed the lizardkind had wanted to free the voltera from his ice prison — but the golem had not. It had acted not as an extension of the lizardkind’s will, but as a force unto itself. The golem had decided. It chose to protect, but it also to confine the lizardkind, comprehending what the diminished wizard-mind had failed to grasp; that the lizardkind could not fight from a afar, that survival amidst the elemental onslaught was impossible in his current state, and that he could not sustain the golem for much longer. Unless the beast-wizard had hidden reserves of energy, his essence would not last another minute or two. Midnight perceived it unravel at an alarming rate.

And yet, despite his desperate state and his defencelessness against the orich‘s magic, the lizardkind had attempted to free both the avian beast and the voltera. It was unreasonable. Even if the golem somehow freed the voltera, how could it possibly carry him, the avian beast and the lizardkind to safety? It was unreasonable to such an extent that it made Midnight angry. Had there been any strategy at all, any foresight in his actions, or did the beast-wizard act out of mere incompetence and impulse? Did he not realise the imminent collapse of his own form —

Would Yves have left her?

The question struck Midnight with such sudden force that it disrupted all of her attempts at discerning strategies. It was one of those raw, intrusive thoughts that came without warning, like a whisper from deep within. It felt as though her mind had split, experiencing two realities at once Midnight had rarely experienced such moments — almost never before her transformation. She had always thought in the present, grounded in the here and now, observing and responding to her immediate surroundings. But now, increasingly, these foreign thoughts intruded and interrupted; abstract notions running parallel to the world she observed, feelings and ideas incongruent with what she was experiencing in that moment. It was disorienting, as if parts of herself were unfolding in directions she could not fully control, fragments of insight and emotion arising from realities she could not quite access.

As quickly as the thought had surfaced, others began to follow. With a peculiar sense of clarity, she understood the connection between the beast-wizard and the avian beast — they were wizard and familiar. The monstrous form he had assumed before becoming the lizardkind, though distorted and grotesque, had born an undeniable resemblance to the wingless creature.

Despite all the thoughts forming,
no answer emerged for the unexpected question,
only the awareness for the dualities of survival, sentiment and sacrifice.
Yet, deep within her most fundamental convictions,
she recalled that Yves, in moments if true consequence,
had proven to be a reasonable strategist.
From somewhere else
she unearthed the moment he had sent her away from the Vicha.