The Tenebrae was an entity in its own right. Iris fumbled and roamed aimlessly searching for a door, a way out.
She screamed and shouted until her throat felt raw, but the reply was nothing, but silence. It was no longer a question of survival, it was no longer a question of making a through. Something has been set in motion, a game was afoot. No, lives were at stake. What she did during their visit to Oros had set in motion a new chain of events. Arvun would march his army over the border just to spite her, and they had no way to defend themselves. Once again, she would be the cause of many deaths. So, much death. She swallowed the bile that rose to her mouth.
And once again began screaming, pleading, to be let out.
" Please," She sobbed, " I can control it," She whimpered, desperately clinging to the last hope that it would listen and let her go.
" That's very mighty of you to make such a claim. You have seen what it can do, and that my child is only a taste. It can lay waste to entire kingdoms to satisfy its hunger. And when there is nothing left it will turn on you, "
" And you will feed it, not because you want to. Algea won't give you a choice,"
" I controlled it," Iris swallowed to soothe her throat, " Only when I got hurt, it escaped my grasp. That is proof enough that it can be done, and I have done it before in the forest when it tried to kill Corvin," She'd never told him, that he was meant to die that day, but somehow the flames obeyed her command to leave him unharmed.
" That was a fluke," She was certain that it wasn't a fluke.
" It wasn't. What will happen if I die? You say that it has been attached to me. I'm merely a mortal. I will die. It's inevitable. My body will succumb to hunger and thirst and I will fade away. Tell me, all-knowing, all-seeing what will happen then?" And she was pretty sure that she had been poisoned when the lance pierced her skin. The poison would most certainly speed things along. And then...
" If what you say it's true, then you have to let me out and try to find a way to return them to Shaddow Valley where they belong," At least she had some sort of control over them if they would attach themselves to someone else than her prophecy would certainly come to pass.
" I have wielded power before. I know what it takes to control and the sacrifice required to reign it in.." No, she wouldn't stop badgering until she would release her from that forsaken place.
" I'm Ker," The voice finally spoke, probably to stop her from speaking. Quite frankly, she was tired of hearing the sound of her own voice.
" The Algea are my daughters," A long, drawn-out sigh, and then a blue light flickered in front of her suspended, floating while footsteps began piercing the silence.
" We are as old as the gods themselves, if not older. We have swam in the primordial soup long before the mortals came along," She made her presence known, in all her majestic, splendour fitting for a deity. Locks golden as the sun itself, tall, supple silhouette, her features glowed in the blueish light, as she closed the distance between them. Her bright blue eyes were, glazed like a precious stone, so polished that she could see her reflection in them.
" I'm Iris," She raised her hand, to stop her from speaking and curled up her long slender fingers around a lock of hair.
" Soft," She softly said, " Too soft to keep my daughters tethered to you. If you fail," She looked around her, an indication that the void would be her eternal home as punishment for her failure.
" I won't. Now let me go," Iria firmly said as she plucked the lock of hair out of Ker's hand.
"When the time comes, I will call on you. For now, I have to do my part as I did in the old age. I must find what is needed to once again imprison my daughters, " Ker clasped her hands behind her back as she slowly began blending into the floor at her feet.
" Wait...I can help. Tell me what you need," She was sinking further and further into the floor at her feet.
" It is out of your reach, child," Those were Ker's final words, as the flame flickered and spent as soon as she vanished, and the floor beneath her feet as well. Free falling through the void, or whatever that was, surrounded by absolute nothingness until she hit something. It wasn't hard, nor soft but it was lukewarm. Opening her heavy eyelids, the bright light of the morning sun hurt, and every single bone and muscle ached and screamed at her.
Groaning, she made one last attempt to open her eyes, and through the haze caught a misty glimpse of a wide-eyed Corvin, sputtering trying to find his words.
" Bright," She rasped and he was gone, she blinked again and the sound of curtains being drawn, and the disappearing light was a sign that she should endeavour again to open her eyes.
" How are you feeling?" Corvin asked as he knelt on the bed, and helped her up to sit on the bed. A glass of water appeared in front of her before she could even gather the strength to ask for it.
" Ahhh, this is very good," A woman she had seen before around Ironstone exclaimed, clapping her hands, and then rubbing them together. Ker looked a lot like her.
" Eisza, go get some fresh air," Coevin barked, as he placed the empty glass on the nightstand.
" I don't have to...I can just open one of those windows and it will be like I'm outside," Eisza shrugged chuckling, amused for some reason.
" Good to have you back, Your Majesty, " Eisza bowed," No thanks to this ninny here. If it weren't for us, you would probably be in the eternal resting place," Eisza amusedly said as she closed the distance, and leaned against the bedpost.
" We will leave at first light. Say you farewell," She barked and pushed herself off the bedpost, " Make sure to feed her. She must be starving," She said her parting words as she sauntered out of the door.