>>6310629The words jolt out of your lips, feverish, accusatory, as you lower your gaze to the spinning cameo.
It just—
Even after everything that happened, every piece of the puzzle forming this terrible wholeness, this picture that haunts you—Saint Bragia!—it’s too much to accept.
You feel like your head is filled to the brim with heretical notions and…
“That’s a lie. That must be a lie. Her sun cannot die.”
When you raise your eyes again, the Stilladìa’s gaze is stern, burning with an icy anger.
Uh.
“I was a liar’s thrall, once.” Her voice is as thin as a razor and it brushes against your skin like chill winter wind. Your hairs stand on hand. “Therefore, I try not to make the same mistake, Argia Candente. My contracts are simply-read and simply-written. My terms are respected. My <span class="mu-i">trust</span>,” a snarl quivers over her lips, blue at the light of the spheres, “is unbroken. I am a <span class="mu-i">terrible</span> liar, and I always strive to uphold my standards.”
Those words—Candeloro said those to her, during the first vision Ansàrra gave you.
And if Ansàrra sent you that vision, it must be true.
Which means…
The pit in your stomach deepens.
At the idea that Ansàrra Herself gave you the key to make sure the Stilladìa is telling the truth.
“T-The sun…”
“It washed over the Kiengiri and all their works. A flame stronger than you can fathom, stronger than I can imagine, bloomed over their civilization, erasing it in the span of a heartbeat. All of their slaves and most of their monsters, charred to nothing. And then the Old Sun died, and the world was shattered. Our Moon murdered…”
“Willow told me Earth has a Moon,” you blabber, trying to hold on against the onslaught of information, against the Stilladìa’s version of the history of your world.
“A moon has its uses. Helias would be able to explain better…” she sighs. “Something to do with the seasons… you would have to ask him—he gets so excited when he talks about these things I feel bad for not giving him attention, but I get so confused… also, that’s not important right now. What matters is that in a way we still have a moon.” That grin is back again. “It’s just… different.”
Oh.
Oh, no.
[cont.]
