Omega's Rebirth-Chapter 784: Aching Wakes ()

~ Fort Inferno, Days Later

The world was grey.

At least this part of it was.

Neveah woke to silence, and it wasn’t the easy kind that wrapped you in peace and warmth, but the thick, smothering kind.

A silence that was heavy with ash and loss and sorrow, stretched too thin across brittle air. The first breath she took was shallow, instinctively held.

The staleness of the room, the faint acrid sting in her nostrils, it was the smell of burning that refused to die. A living Inferno raging.

This was one of those times where she loathed her sensitive senses. And everything else that let her feel this... burning devastation so deeply.

Xenon was gone, his side of the bed cold to touch and unslept in. He was scheduled to lead the flight patrol for the night watch and had insisted Neveah stayed back to get enough sleep.

His warm intentions were appreciated, though it did not do her much good. She had tossed and turned for hours, finally drifting off sometime in the early hours of the morning.

She sat up slowly, her body feeling like it belonged to someone else. Sleep had come and gone in batches, each stretch interrupted by dreams she couldn’t remember and aches she couldn’t name. It had been much the same for a few days already, and she hated to admit she was growing accustomed.

To restless nights... and aching wakes.

Her fingers curled around the thin edge of the bed. The once-polished stone floor beneath her feet felt colder than usual. She spared a glance around the room, a thin film of ash coated the windowsill.

The very same windowsill that had been wiped down by a castle attendant before she drifted off to sleep a few hours ago.

Neveah exhaled slowly, her breath measured.

She walked barefoot across the chamber, pulling aside the dark drapes that had been shielding the room from the morning light. The balcony doors creaked as she opened them, a sound sharp and intrusive in the morning hush.

What greeted her stole the breath she’d tried so hard to preserve.

Smoke.

Not rising, not anymore. It blanketed the sky like a stormcloud that had forgotten how to move. Everything was tinged in ashen hues. The air was soured, yellow-grey and sickly, casting a strange light over Inferno.

From her vantage atop the castle’s high ledge, Neveah could see the far reaches of what had once been thriving outer districts.

There had been trees there, thick and vibrant with leafed branches and healthy bark. But now, it was all blackened spines of charcoal. Twisted trunks bent as though bowing to an unseen monster.

Flames still licked at the bases of the oldest trees. The forest burned in silence, there was no roaring anymore, just the steady, quiet hum of smoldering death.

Jagged scars ran here and there through the land, lines carved deep by rivers of cooled lava, still steaming faintly at the edges. A warped skeleton of a bridge lay crumbled in the distance, half-consumed by molten stone, the other half dangling toward a ravine as if waiting for someone to rebuild it.

And far beyond that, at the edge of the horizon, the volcano loomed.

Dark and terrifying. Breathing smoke from its jagged crown, its sides cracked and glowing from within like veins filled with molten blood. It pulsed faintly.

Alive. Watching. Waiting.

Neveah gripped the railing tighter, knuckles whitening.

She had let it happen. She had stepped aside, let nature claim what it wanted, what it always would. Xenon had been right. Magic couldn’t solve everything.

But this, this cost weighed heavier than anything she’d expected.

And worst of all, it wasn’t over.

A cough echoed from somewhere in the castle. Then another. Children’s coughs. Throaty, dry, short sounds that told her all she needed to know.

She pulled away from the balcony and turned back into the room. Heading into the washroom to prepare to face the day, and whatever it may bring.

The water was clear, cold and soothing to her dehydrated skin. Thankfully, the water source to Inferno was situated a good distance from the fortress itself. Lord Kiroff had said the site had been chosen after the last eruption had revealed the lapses in how important resources were situated.

Because of this, they would not have to worry about the water supply. Not yet...not before all of Inferno was consumed in the volcano.

Inferno was vast. There were many districts that had not been required to evacuate or relocate from their homes at all. The Infernal castle was intentionally structured at a measured distance from the volcano.

It was to serve as a warning. If the volcano ever got to the Infernal castle, then the whole of Inferno, even the further districts would be evacuated.

Neveah washed up slowly, her mind straying. She imagined what thoughts were going through Keila’s mind at this moment... and Lodenworth who seemed to have disappeared from the surface of the earth.

Were they the slightest bit bothered? Wrecking such havoc to the stronghold they had safeguarded for decades. Did they feel any guilt? That the Lord and Lady commander of the fourth squadron may well be the downfall of one of the twelve fortresses of Asvar.

A fortress that had survived countless battles, changing dynasties and even nature’s wrath.

Did they feel no regret? Destroying all Jian had worked so hard for after he had placed so much faith in them?

Neveah did not understand it. She did not think she ever would.

’If not now... they will feel the guilt. We will make them feel it when they stare into our eyes.’ Neveah’s wolf thought to her.

She dressed in silence. Practical garments, nothing regal. A thick cloak, black as the sky outside, her hands pulling the hood over her uncombed hair. She didn’t wait for Xenon.

He had been her constant shadow these last few days, watching her like he feared she’d vanish into smoke if he looked away.

But this morning, she needed to be alone.