Before our innocence was lost, you were always one of those,
blessed with lucky sevens, and the voice that made me cry.
It's a song to say goodbye.
They say Ilius burned. Cade knows better. It was not a flame that leaped up and devoured their home, but a slow, sizzling ash that coated the place until it was unlivable. It crept slowly but dangerously, chasing off the inhabitants until no one was left. If Cade could cry she would cry for her home, and if she knew, she would cry for her father. For although Tartarus was a mighty God, he was not mighty enough, and when Ilius' empire fell, he too was devoured in the wreckage. How could her father exist beyond his wretched kingdom? He could not.
Cade nearly died with her country, on the soil she'd been born and given birth on. She was not so arrogant to say she'd been desperate to save her home, but rather she had laid down and was ready to die. It is an odd feeling, being ready to die. Her children were so separate from her - they could make it on their own, they didn't need her. Her state of mind was that of a man stepping up to the gallows. It could have been her last performance on Earth - but how could we let the story end like that? Cade, though deeply entwined in the roots of Ilius, was not so entangled that she could not get out. So she picked her head up off the ashy ground, struggled to her feet, and hobbled away. She turned her back on 'home' and followed the smell of fresh earth and green grass until it stung at her nose and she wanted to collapse once more.
Ilius is the past, true enough, but it is her past, and it's unlikely that she'll ever be able to shake it. Briefly she thinks of her children, sweet Touch and bold Surrey, and wonders if they made it out alive. Maybe, possibly, if they had worked together. Because one alone would die, being what their disabilities were. It is true - they might be dead.
Cade turns her head towards the ocean, her golden eyes weary and dull, but still interested. She had never seen the ocean before. Only mighty Rivers. This 'ocean' was like her River, only vast and without twists and turns, and it didn't sing to her like the Rivers did. It didn't heave with godly power, but with a different type. She knows to stay away from the pounding waves, and skitters away from the edge she'd been drifting towards. Oh! If only she'd known, the Queen apparent at the time of her birth had been one Illiana, a star-mare with the ocean in her eyes. I only she knew that Illiana had once stood on these shores and breathed in deep, feeling a kinship and adoration for the waves, instead of the wary respect that Cade felt.
There are more ties to her homeland here than she could imagine. She remembers the bold gray colt called Altair, how he left his mother's side to seek his own adventures, how arrogant and full of himself he had been. She doesn't know that he lives here. Or his father, or his sister - or anything. Cade has come here on a whim, desperately following the smell of life until it led her to this place.
Her nose stings, the way it used to when she spoke with Aerion or Notus, and her skin prickles with power. It's unnerving, this electricity in the air. It reminds her of Gods, and she's quite through with those. Nervousness is not something Cade is used to, so she names it something else; wary. She's wary of this power, of this place. She has no Finn to fall back on, no Genesis to run to, no Notus to beg for help. Rapture is not here to lend a guiding hand, and Merrick cannot protect her now. She's alone.
Completely, totally alone.
cade
( the decayed ) |
