Sole Renata 3/8 Sorrel Darkfire

It’s the hope that will kill you. Every time.

Sorrel could stand the despair. She could cope with death. She could handle loss and live with disappointment. She had been dismissed and disregarded, abandoned and ignored, met with triumph and disaster and treated those two imposters just the same. She had heard the truth she’d spoken twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools, and watched the things she’d given her life to, broken in front of her eyes, then stooped and built them up with worn-out tools.

And still she remained unvanquished.

They talked about the warrior archetypes in her early lessons at the House. Alphas were the silverbacks – aggressive warriors who stood their ground and demanded to win. Betas did what the alphas told them or fled. Omegas were lazy but bright enough to read the battlefield. Unpredictable but rarely heroes.

Sorrel had been taught to play all of them when needed. Just use their style to get what you want. Dance around them. Kill if necessary. Vanish if you need to. Beg if it has to be done. Grovel and weep if it gets you what you need. Because the target, the goal is all that matters.

You may feel a slight sting, they had said. That’s pride fucking with you. Pride only hurts, it never helps. You can always learn. Adapt. Improve. Achieve the goal by any means necessary.

But hope was worse than pride. It made you think the impossible was possible. It offered light when there was only darkness.

Hope made you weak.

You would defend a future that might never happen. 

You let your guard down.

So, she had learned not to. There was just now. The thing that had to be done.

And Silvia was dead.

She would walk into Hell and tear her soul from the claws of Asmodeus if that was the goal, but she Would. Not. Hope. So, she spent her time on things that were real. She tried to save the Dawnlands from itself, help her friends secure their dreams, minister to those who needed care and train her body for… for something. And she prayed for all the good it did. She would never ask the goddess for anything, just strive to hear her voice.

And then, one day, Jackal appeared behind her at the Temple pool and said in the softest voice she’d ever heard him use…

“It’s time.”

She could feel herself falling as if she’d slipped into the pool and carried on down.

“For what?” she refused to turn.

“For what you’ve been waiting for.”

“I’ve not been waiting for anything.”

“Why are you sitting in a Temple? Why aren’t you at home?”

The anger drowned out everything else. “Because Silvia is dead,” it ripped out of her. “Do you need to hear it again?”

“And we’re bringing her back,” Jackal rasped.

Sorrel’s soul convulsed. Fear, desire, longing, anger… and hope.

“But that isn’t possible… every atom in her body was torn apart.”

“Yes I get it. I’m a fucking archangel. You cannot fathom the things I have seen, dicksplash,” Jackal growled. “People die and we let it happen. Except this time, it’s not like that. Not only are we going to get her back, but we need to.”

Sorrel’s heart was racing so fast she could barely breathe. “So…?”

“So come on.”

She rose and turned and found his endless eyes boring into her core. His hand crashed down on her shoulder and her knees almost gave way.

“Have you been good?” it was a challenge and the price of admission, she could tell.

“I haven’t killed anyone since I last saw you if that’s what you mean, my dear fallen angel,” she met his gaze defiantly.

For a moment she thought she’d gone too far. His wings unfurled and she felt the impossible force of the infinite within. Then he almost smiled.

“That’ll do. Get the trident.”

---

The clearing in the Angelbark was home to a flat, even stone covered in faint carvings in a thousand magical tongues. Some were druidic, others primordial, still more were prime… all were shifting constantly, in a complex balance so that there was always an exactly equal presence wherever Sorrel looked.

Jackal stood beside the giant celestial dog that had started all this.

And nearby stood Veridian Pentagast, Jaezred Vandree and Laural Shortstride.

She assumed this was one enormous cosmic practical joke played on her by… who?

Pentagast, the wizard who first tried to dissolve Silvia with magic and who she had sworn to kill.

Vandree, who insulted her so profoundly the act of not dedicating her life to his death was a struggle beyond measure.

But Shortstride seemed nice.

They were discussing the stone, and magic, and Silvia. She was stuck, Jackal was saying. She can’t move on.

“We need raw arcane force from the mightiest wizard in the Dawnlands, but you’ll do til they come along Pentagast,” he sniffed. “We need the old ways, the ones who don’t mind getting dirty and Shortstride you love getting up to your eyeballs in shit. Takes all sorts. We need someone with a link to Silvia. Darkfire obviously, unless anyone else has fucked her recently?”

He seemed to miss how many people his question had offended.

“We need a guide,” he held up Silvia’s trident. “This is the anchor. It’s a large tuning fork.”

He looked at the trident in silence for a moment. “I can honestly see no other use for a weapon as stupid as this. Then we need someone who can slap this all together into a ritual – bish, bosh, bash. You’ve got a book. Vandree, all sorts of clever writing in it no doubt. I have no fucking idea what your deal is, although it clearly pays well if you can afford trousers like that. There’s three gods warring over her soul. I don’t know how you’re going to do it but getting a fucking wiggle on.”

Sorrel met his eyes. “Do they teach you these pep talks in archangel school?”

“I didn’t go to archangel school, I was born with this charm,” he shrugged. “And you can shut the fuck up because we need big magic not ‘water the plants’ or ‘quiet slippers’ or whatever it is rangers pretend magic is.”

“How will we manage this?” Veridian ventured.

“You have the arcane powers – the wish spell, the juice,” Jackal sighed. “To state the bleedin’ obvious.”

“Maybe Mystra will be involved too?” Veridian offered.

“Lolth on a fucking bike, don’t mention her name then, that’s the last thing we need.”

“You said Kurtz has claim on Silvia’s soul. I can talk to Kurtz if you like,” Jaezred offered.

Jackal shrugged with supreme indifference. “If you want to.”

The spell casters pulled out books, strange objects, mysterious wooden rods and ancient scrolls and muttered to each other for an hour or so. Eventually they sketched out a hexagram and Jaezred looked at Sorrel.

“Your move Darkfire.”

She turned to the Jackal, whose eyes bored into her with a strange tenderness.

“This will be hard for you,” he sounded almost like he cared. “You need to let your love flow and the goddess can help.”

He paused.

“It is awful,” he gave her a soft smile. “Genuinely horrendous, a physical pain that will drag you down through pain worse than Hell. Been there. Don’t envy you. But hurry the fuck up.”

---

Sorrel took the holy charm of protection that Selûne had given her during the fight against Blade and Ash. It had one purpose, one moment, one chance at saving her.

And she had never needed saving more than now.

She wrapped the charm around Silvia’s trident and began to pray.

Her love for Silvia tore through her like claws of silk and light, raking her mind, body and soul with the first fires of creation.

A sudden beam of moonlight illuminated the table, each spellcaster sitting at equal points on the hexagram with Sorrel in the middle.

She was holding Silvia’s trident, the silver charm glinting, tears ripping down her cheeks and glowing in the brilliant moonlight.

She could feel the magic stirring, its power beyond her comprehension, as if the cosmos was some vast sleeping kraken summoned from its slumbers and shifting slowly to life, tearing reality to pieces as it stretched its endless limbs.

For a horrific moment she felt her body torn to pieces, and wondered if this was how Silvia felt when the magic smashed her out of existence.

And then she was no longer in her body.

She wasn’t sure if she even existed.

She was standing in a wide grey expanse, as if she was drifting through rain clouds. She could feel something like a glass floor beneath her and she turned to see the other three, somehow connected all together with red threads that flowed like cashmere blood cascading from their hearts.

“How are you Sorrel?” Laurel leaned in towards her.

She shook her head, numb, and started to walk.

--

They walked. Centuries passed.

Civilisations could have risen and collapsed as they journeyed across ancient bridges that towered above eerie, silent halls, unending pathways and vast, dark landscapes, with dark towers looming in the distance. Strange winged creatures wheeled and cried at the edge of their senses. They could hear scuttling things and the scrape of obscene flesh on hard stone.

And still they walked until there was no more slack on the red strings that pulled from their hearts.

In front of them floated a glass orb.

Three angelic figures towered above them – one that seemed to be made from countless strings unravelling and reforming in a constant writhing mass of thread. One had no face and was covered in moving, mysterious symbols. One stood proudly in armour, a radiant warrior, armed for war.

The figures turned and regarded them.

Eventually the boiling mass of threads spoke.

“Good, you’re here. Complicated situation. We don’t recommend any of this but I suppose…”

The warrior drew her weapon. “I did what was right. She belongs to the Morning Lord. I will protect her.”

The slim, dark, faceless creature drifting in an unfelt wind spoke, if the voice in their heads could be called speaking. “Honestly, I’m not sure why I’m here.”

The other two reached out their arms and pointed.

At Sorrel.

---

They were alone somewhere new, the faceless angel and Sorrel. Somewhere brand new and yet as old as time. There was food somewhere, Sorrel could feel it, and things were dying nearby.

“What are you afraid of?” the angel was in her head.

“Myself.”

“There are so many more dangerous things – have you met a tarrasque?”

“It’s much easier to handle one of those things than love,” Sorrel looked away. “The things I love die.”

“You have loved many things.”

“They all died.”

“Only some of them have. Why do you want that to be the truth?”

Because those that lived left me, she thought. I am unlovable. It is easier to watch the person you love with all your heart slaughtered in front of your eyes than watch them walk away from you.

But she didn’t say that.

“The odds don’t favour me,” she managed in the end.

“If you want to love her, she’s over there. You make the choice. You don’t kill things by loving them.”

The angel’s hands suddenly plunged into her chest and began plucking grey shapes that writhed in the light from deep inside her.

Sorrel could see they were every wound her soul had suffered since first she floated in her terrified mother’s womb, knowing deep inside that her arrival would be a moment of fear. They fell through the angel’s hands as it examined them, then forced them back inside.

“Can you leave them out?” she felt so light and free without them. “Even just for an hour?”

“Nope,” the angel’s voice was careless as the worms crawled back inside.

---

She was with the others.

They were talking about arrogance and magic, life, death and the goddess.

The holy warrior stepped forward and addressed them in a voice as loud as the end of the world and soft as a child’s kiss.

“What do you intend to do with her?”

“Bring her back,” Veridian spoke.

“To what?”

“That’s her choice.”

Flames roared from below and thunder crashed above them as if galaxies were colliding.

Finally, the warrior spoke.

“Acceptable. She is bound for destiny and greatness.”

The angel’s sword was sheathed.

The willowy, faceless angel drifted towards Sorrel holding a light so bright she could not bear to look on it.

“This is innocence, not marred, this is you, your love,” the voice spoke out loud this time. The angel rested the ball against Sorrel’s heart and her body reached out to envelop it. She felt a physical weight behind her sternum, warm and bright and always forgiving.

Smoke began swirling in the ball.

“Will you pray?” the faceless angel asked.

“I am praying for the ability to accept that which is coming,” Sorrel closed her eyes.

Veridian summoned a ball of arcane energy, his eyes glowing, as he spoke The Word. Its single syllable crashed through creation, shaking the foundations of all that had been and will be.

“I wish for Silvia to regain her body… and to have a second chance,” he added.

Light seared their eyes. Sorrel felt Silvia’s trident crack in her hand.

She staggered and fell, light and noise surging around her as she span in the endlessness of the time before time. She felt as if she would fall forever, lost beyond saving. 

And then a voice.

“I love you Sorrel,” Silvia said.