15-28. Just Kaelari

Kaelari es Ignara sat upon the stone shelf, her legs dangling over a lake of fire as she stared off into nothing. Dense waves of heat rose to envelop her, but she did not feel them. She felt nothing. Not anymore.

Not the way she should, at least.

She was well aware that she had lived a privileged life. Her parents had given her everything she could ever want. They had nurtured her, helping her to cultivate a level of power that far outstripped any expectations. Not only had she developed an incredibly strong attunement, but she had performed extraordinarily well in her training as well.

And that was just the beginning. Even as others fell by the wayside, troubled by the chaos of towers and Primal Realms, she had forged ahead, burning everything in her path. Even her brother, who was just as privileged as she, had given up.

They called Alrhok’s choice the coward’s path. Wasteful of all the advantages they’d given him. Once, he might’ve been a clan pillar. But now? He would be lucky to even reach the middle of the deity tier. That was what happened when someone followed a fractured path, when they abandoned their destiny in favor of something easier.

Kaelari had never considered doing so.

She was the fire, and the fire was her. She felt it coursing through her veins and suffusing her flesh. It was meant to be.

Until it wasn’t.

The volcanic rock crumbled beneath her frustrated grip.

She had been stupid. Overconfident. She had underestimated Skahan es Vael, and she’d paid the ultimate price for it. The first few days after her defeat had been the worst. The fight had broken her, mind and spirit.

To their credit, her parents had spared no expense when treating her. They had hired one of the best and most specialized Healers in the Empire to tend to her shattered psyche. A whole team of them, in fact. And after arduous effort, they had pieced her back together.

Mostly.

Even now, more than a year later, the memory still haunted her. That undeniable feeling of weakness. The violation of having her mind turned against her. She had been completely within his power. He could have forced her to do anything, and she would have gone along with it, thinking it was her most firmly held desire.

Did it help that he’d not chosen to go further?

No.

It made things worse. Because in the back of her mind, in a place where even the Healers couldn’t find it, she took the blame for his restraint. He had ruined her life, and yet, she wished he would have done more. Sometimes, she even dreamed of it.

They were nightmares.

But the sort that sent shivers up her spine and forced her to wake up in a cold sweat of shame.

Love and hate. Hate and fear. Obedience. It all coalesced into a terrible parasite in her mind, and one she desperately wished she could tear free. She couldn’t. Not yet. Not without years of distance and hard work.

Kaela glanced up at the sky, roiling with smoke and fire. Somewhere close was the star that had once felt so very comforting. It had created a paradise for someone possessing fire attunement. But now? She saw her home as a prison. Not because of what it was, but rather, because of what it represented. It spoke of a future she’d never wanted and an inescapable death that awaited her in the abyss.

Exile.

It was such a simple word, and yet, it carried so much meaning. It wasn’t just banishment from her home. No – that, she could stomach. Instead, it was removal from her family, from everything she held dear. It was an acknowledgement that they’d cast her aside like a child’s broken toy and sent to die, forgotten and unloved.

For who could love someone who’d brought such shame to her family?

She deserved it. And yet, she could not face it with a straight back.

“Just leave,” Alrhok had advised her. “There is an entire multiverse out there. You can become a deity and make a life for yourself somewhere else. That’s what I’m going to do.”

Of course, Alrhok’s decision had been easier. He’d always been a coward. He had the body of a great Warrior and a powerful attunement to match. Not their family’s ancestral focus, but strong nonetheless. But he had always been frightened. To everyone else, his breakdown had come as a surprise. Not to Kaelari, who knew him better than he knew himself.

His self-imposed banishment was no true exile, though. He had not shamed himself, and so, he could remain in the Empire of Scale. If she left, trying to outrun her reputation would take her to some frontier world that didn’t know they should pity her.

She wouldn’t just be alone. She would be separated from everything she knew. And despite that, Kaelari still considered it. Maybe she could find Elijah and settle on his world.

“No,” she whispered to herself. Kaelari would never go to him like that. If they reunited, it would be something beautiful, as befit the relationship they’d tried to build. If she returned to him, she would do so as a proud dragon who’d somehow overcome her shame. Anything else would do a disservice to them both.

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A scraping sound echoed in her ears, slight but meaningful. Kaelari didn’t need to turn to know that her mother had come to her.

“You mustn’t run away.”

Kaelari didn’t turn away from the fiery lake as she said, “What difference does it make?”

The voice of her father reached her ears. “Do not engage in self-pity. It is unbecoming.”

Kaelari let out a harsh laugh. “Unbecoming,” she muttered. “As if I could fall any further.”

She pushed herself to her feet and turned to face her parents. As always, they were immaculate in appearance. The soot in the air refused to touch their white robes, and their scales held a freshly-shined luster. Neither were transcendents, but that was the problem. If they had been, they might have been willing to let her stay. But deities had no such freedom. They had little choice but to strictly adhere to the social construct that was empire politics.

Reputation was the only currency they really had.

Kaelari was supposed to be their path to relevance. If she had only lost, she would have still proven herself one of the young elites of the empire. Not the strongest among them, but close enough to restore some of her family’s place. That wasn’t what had happened though. Instead, she had lost in the most shameful way possible, and now, her parents had no choice but to send her away.

Which was the point, she knew. Skahan had not acted according to his own plans, though he’d clearly enjoyed making her kneel, enslaving her mind so thoroughly that she wanted nothing more than to please him.

Even thinking of it twisted her stomach into knots of mingled anxiety and revulsion.

But as much pleasure as he took in the act, that had not been his motivation. He was a political weapon, and one his family aimed at their potential rivals. Or rather, their rising star of a child.

It was only fitting that Elijah had destroyed that weapon. She had watched it, too. Just like countless others across the empire, she couldn’t look away from the gory spectacle of his righteous anger. At least that particular weapon would never again be fit to wield.

Not that it helped Kaelari.

She appreciated it for what it was, though. If she could have done something similar, she would not have hesitated. Though instead of cutting, she would have burned the villain to cinders.

Her father grabbed her upper arm. “You can fall no further,” he stated. “But we can. Do you care so little for your family?”

“Do you care so little for your daughter?” she spat in his face.

He recoiled.

His horror was a lie.

“Once, you would have been sacrificed to the greater good of the clan,” her mother stated.

“Or you would have fallen upon your own claws in an effort to mitigate your shame,” her father added.

“Is that what you want?” Kaela asked. “Is that why you have come to me? To convince me to go to my own death? I will leap into the Heart of the Mountain, if that is your wish. We can even make a banquet of it.”

“This is not the time for flippancy,” her father hissed.

“I was serious. If you want my death, then say as much. Plainly and without ambiguity. Say it, and I will give you your fondest wish.”

“Is that what you think of us?” asked her mother, her red scales glinting in the fiery light from above and below.

“Am I to believe anything else of you?” Kaelari asked. After all, being sent to the abyss was just a sacrifice with a few extra steps in between. As a demigod – or even a fresh deity, if she chose to evolve according to her parents’ wishes – she would have no chance of survival. If the abyss itself didn’t kill her, then the Ravener’s minions certainly would.

“This is an opportunity, little spark,” her father stated. “It could mean redemption.”

“In your eyes?” she asked.

“Of course.”

“I shouldn’t need to be redeemed. For them, I can understand it. I’m just a broken thing. But you? You should…y-you should…”

She turned away, unable to finish the sentence.

Her mother’s hand found Kaelari’s shoulder. She wanted to jerk away, but the grip was still reassuring. She hated it, but she couldn’t abandon that small comfort.

Tears flowed down her cheeks, but she didn’t speak further. Not when they turned her around and guided her back to the onyx keep. Not when they locked her in her room. And not when they left her to her own shame and self-hatred.

A single event.

That was all it took to end her life and sever her potential.

The tears continued as she fell upon her bed and curled in on herself. But then, suddenly, something inside of her broke. The tears ran dry, and she unfurled herself. Sitting up, Kaelari experienced a revelation that she never saw coming.

She did not want to die.

It was such a simple thought, and yet, it carried with it so many implications. Because it also meant that she didn’t want to go to the front lines. She didn’t want to perish fighting abyssal monsters.

Admitting that to herself was a watershed moment, not because of the content of that revelation, but because of what followed. The only way to prevent that from coming to pass was to refuse. She couldn’t win the game they had chosen for her, so she simply wouldn’t play.

Kaelari pushed herself to her feet. Her expression firmed as her mind regained some semblance of its former resolve.

She was not a broken tool.

She was a person. She had survived, and she would get better. Her path didn’t have to end in shame. Instead, in that moment, she chose to reject the notion that she should even be ashamed. After all, a mental manipulation ability was no different than any other spell, was it? Would she have been ashamed to have taken an ice spear to the chest? No. So, she refused to feel that way about what Skahan did to her.

Or at least, that was what she told herself. The reality was those sorts of deep-seated emotions didn’t fade simply because she willed it. No – she had only taken a single step in the right direction. Reaching the end of that path would require years of conscious effort.

But while she still had a long way to go, that single stride forward was enough of an impetus to firm her choices. She would not go to the abyss. She would not submit to her parents’ wishes. Instead, she would forge her own path.

Before she even realized what she was doing, she’d begun packing. Her spatial item – a pendant she wore around her neck – was small. Barely large enough to hold basic supplies. So, she found an old backpack she’d used in the Primal Realms she had run. It could hold nearly a hundred times the volume it appeared to contain, and that would need to be enough.

Resolved, she hurriedly packed her most important possessions. Ignored were the fancy robes and dresses. The symbols of wealth and status would be useless away from the empire. Instead, she focused on essentials. As she did so, a nearly forgotten emotion bloomed within her heart.

Hope.

Escaping the keep was not difficult. The servants barely even noticed her anymore, and the rest of her extended family were easy enough to avoid. Soon, she reached the Branch, found her destination, and initiated the teleportation.

Doing so required all but the entirety of her accumulated wealth, but it was the best purchase she had ever made. Even as the nothingness surrounded her and the duration notification bloomed before her inner eye, Kaelari felt something she hadn’t for more than a year.

For once, she was excited about the future, about the rest of her life. Not as Kaelari es Ignara. Not as the scion of a powerful clan. But as just Kaela. She would rise or fall based on her own merits, the Empire of Scales and her family be damned.