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I hardly remember how our voyage began.
"Outlanders! Your journey ends here!"
But I remember where it ended. Facing down an impossible threat, we soared everward, heads held high and unflinching, steeled to slay a god.
I called upon the stars to form my sword. It materialized in my palm, shimmering into existence in a mirage of lines and light, its significant heft emerging from unreality with an edge as sharp as the day it was forged.
I cocked a grin.
"Take my right, Aether!" I called out. My twin brother, Aether, shrugged and moved with practiced understanding, shooting downward into thicker air as I took to the clouds above me. Cloaking myself in their sun-kissed breadth, I took in imperceptible droplets of clean condense as they grazed my skin and eyes—as they became my breath. Slicing through the haze, I quickly found myself staring down at our target. The shadow I cast on her was no more than a vague blot on her person; yet, I thought, unbeknownst to the world, that it pressed an enormous weight upon the soon-to-be martyr who dared stand in our way.
She scoffed, the arrogant thing, and directed her living pillars upward to punch through me. Orange and black; the pillars—cube amalgams of indiscernible origin—snaked through the air with purpose and unity. The impression they left was glaring: glowing with an uncompelled wrath that promised to consume all who sailed too near, and swearing swift and painful death to divinity’s detractors, they twisted through the ruins that pierced the clouds. I deftly weaved my way past the onslaught of three— five— seven pillars, riding across the length of the last with a hand against the stark noon sun and an ear to the wind, navigating into closer reach and levelling my blade at our quarry. Across from me, Aether moved to flank the goddess, and even from this distance I could tell his eyes drowned in an intensity that made mine small.
"—rrogance of mankind! You trespass upon our sacred borders—" the goddess began, to two pairs of deaf ears, "—to defile and desecrate the domain of gods—!"
I grit my teeth. "Left, right, and dive— Now!"
We lurched forward as one. Blades flew. Even while her immense spells missed us, magic explosions pounded the ichor in my skull. Red mist mingled with the clouds.
Our interloper stood unmoving. But it was not from her wounds, no; it was arrogant of us to presume that such a being would fall so easily to our efforts. Rather, we were utterly humbled; little but pathetic specks of stardust to her otherworldly might. My arms bled out, and Aether's legs. I stared through him, our faces pulled taut, but we bit the pain down, and positioned ourselves for a renewed charge.
She repelled us yet again.
We tried again, and again, and again. At one point, we hurled dimensional rifts at her, hoping to lock her away in that dreadful stasis between planes of existence. Nothing worked. Her magical maelstroms acted a minefield in the sky, blocking our joint manoeuvres, and wrathful pillars moved to envelop the horizon, blocking our escape before we even realised what was happening. Eventually, one of her pillars grazed me, searing me with a white-hot agony, blacking out half my vision, and I could remember, vividly, my brother's expression as my consciousness faded and I was consumed by a vindictive, unforgiving darkness.
That may as well be history, though. It was the last I ever saw of my brother or that unknown goddess, until today. Today, he stands before me, wearing that familiar steel-tipped glare. His blade was brandished against a foe we no longer shared, and he was smiling, unwavering, triumphant. In his heart, a false seed had been planted—a twisted aspiration bent on breaking my hopes for a fair-weather future … on vanquishing my people and my last chance at salvation.