Amdirlain's PoV

Liquid darkness drank her thoughts. A blink tickled her eyelashes across the icy surface beneath her, and she imagined herself lying face down on a sheet of ice; yet she became immediately unsure of what ice might be or why she was lying on it. Aches and sharp pains ran through her body, and she gingerly shifted her head to the left so her ear rested against the cold floor. She momentarily considered going back to sleep, but forced her eyes open. Her vision blurred as she examined the long passageway with a polished white marble floor, stone shelving on either side, and a matching marble ceiling overhead. It came to a crossroads every ten metres, but the passageway continued until it became indistinct.

She rolled onto her back carefully and spotted a statue on one shelf above her feet that shifted between bright metallic silver and crystalline red. It was among an endless number sitting on shelves that stretched forever, yet it called out fiercely.

A desire to examine it had her instantly on her feet with her arm outstretched, and she froze in shock. Two things stopped her. Her outstretched arm was unexpectedly hollow, detailed only as a golden irregular meshwork of twisted wires. Two, a woman in badly burnt cream robes with seared and blistered skin, sat with her back to a metal door to the right of the shelf. Stray wisps of smoke rose from the woman, hissing around the door's seams behind her.

The woman's condition fought with the statue for importance in her mind, since her own appearance might be her normal state. Yet the glimmering statue screamed for attention, and only the other woman's injured presence kept her from immediately investigating.

It's a statue of a Dragon. Her name is Sarah and Shindraithra? Why does she have two very different names, yet both feel right? How do I know them? Why is she important? No idea. Who is this woman?

"Who are you?" She caught her reflection off the Dragon in its form, the wire form of her arms and torso contained across her neck, face, and bald skull.

How did I speak? I have no lips, tongue, or teeth. I'm a framework of wires.

The blond woman's eyes opened, and she tilted her head back until their gazes met. "You don't remember me?"

"No. Should I?"

She waved at the surrounding white, with the strange objects sitting on ledges. "I believe I pulled you inside this vault, but I can't remember why. You've been unconscious for a while, and I had hoped you might know who I am."

"No, sorry. Do you know what's beyond that door?" A wave at the door drew her attention again to her hollow arm, the way the wires twisted around each other and the junctions that shaped the mesh.

Is my arm supposed to be that way?

"The outside, and fire." She brushed thick strands of blond hair from her face. The motion revealed a line of curious symbols running from a liquid gold eye along a bronze-gold left cheek. Meanwhile, the rest of her face was badly blistered skin, and burns that ran into her robes. "At least I believe that's where I got hurt. No, it's where we got hurt, not just me. You're from the outside."

I think those marks on her face are both a musical notation and a name.

"Lethe?"

"Lethe means memory. Was that meant to be a question?"

She crouched beside the woman and pointed to the tattooed marks. "There are markings on your cheek. They read Lethe. Is that your name?"

"I am Lethe? Yes, that's my name, Lethe. Am? Why does that sound familiar? A shortened name? Is your name Amdirlain?"

The name bounced inside her, snagging uncertainly before it felt like it added weight to her being. "I think it is. It feels important, and I think I picked it while spending time with a friend."

Amdirlain grabbed for the memories of the moment, but they shattered into fragments that dribbled away. The metal statue changed to red crystal again.

"Can I do anything for you?"

"Not unless you know something about tending to burns."

Amdirlain shook her head. With no aggression from Lethe, she examined the statue that had first caught her eye.

As she reached out curiously, the statue returned to its original metallic form. "Why does it keep changing appearance? Is that normal?"

"What is changing in appearance?" Lethe flowed to her feet without a wince, as more smoke seeped around through the door's seams.

How do we get out? How much smoke has gotten in?

"This statue of a Dragon. It keeps changing, and that feels odd." Amdirlain waved at the statue, wiggling her fingers in time to the flip of its form.

"It's a statue of a female Adamantine Dragon," Lethe stated, watching it intently for a minute. "How often has it changed forms?"

"What do you mean? It's changed shape a dozen times while you examined it."

Lethe waved to Amdirlain's eyes. "I'm not sure what you're seeing or how you even see without eyes."

"Can I touch it?"

"I feel like I'm supposed to guard it, but not from you." Lethe stepped away from the shelf to make access easy.

The call from the Dragon rumbled through the wire that comprised Amdirlain's body. Still, she gingerly reached out, unsure why the Dragon drew her so strongly.

As Amdirlain's finger ran across the Dragon's spine, there wasn't a sensation of metal or crystal but skin, and a rush of warmth filled her chest. A pulse ran through her, and then another.

Lethe's gaze widened, and she stepped back. "Your chest."

The Dragon statue was still on the shelf, yet Lethe's eyes were fixed on her chest. Amdirlain pulled her hand away as she followed that gaze to find a red crystal heart hovering in her chest cavity. Each beat reverberated through the wires that comprised her body, and a gentle warmth swirled through her hollow insides.

Why do I know the names of some things but not others? Why couldn't I remember my own until Lethe said it?

Memories appeared in her mind as the heart continued to beat. A lazy, relaxed flow of years alongside moments of intense emotion, Sarah in many forms and with different names. Treasured moments with hands caressing across her dusky skin, or casually playing with strands of her azure hair. The heart beating inside her chest reverberated like a distant bass drum. She felt like she was being pulled through a tighter wringer as shards of skin stretched out in slow millimetres from the junctions until it finished sheathing the mesh. Amdirlain examined her hands and checked that the same creamy caramel hue, with a dusting of spearmint, covered all the parts of her body she could see. Lethe watched with amusement until Amdirlain put her hands to her face and carefully felt across her angular features and her bow-shaped lips.

As she gingerly felt around her mouth, Lethe's hands caught hers. "You've skin now, but your eye sockets and mouth are hollow. How did that happen?"

Sarah is vital to me. Did the statue create my heart, or is it because she's so important to me? I should guard her name.

"I don't know. I remembered time spent with someone special to me and her hands touching my skin." Amdirlain blushed at the pieces of memory she still recalled.

How can I blush?

"Should we find more things for you to touch?"

"It called to me," protested Amdirlain.

Lethe folded her arms defensively. "Well, you didn't tell me that."

As more smoke came in the door, Amdirlain nodded to it. "Should we do something about the smoke?"

"The smoke has been coming in for months. I can feel it adding memories to the shelves."

"Have I been here all that time?"

"Since before the smoke started," Lethe said.

Amdirlain tilted her head. "Is that Dragon supposed to be someone's memory?"

"Yes. It seems to be some of your memories."

"You brought me in from the outside. Am I a memory?"

"No," Lethe drew out the word, a frown causing creases to run through the burnt side of her face. "I can't remember what you are, but you'd be on a shelf if you were a memory."

"Can you open the door?"

Lethe held up her hands and stepped in front of the door. "You don't want to go outside."

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"She's not in here. Sarah's real, not only a memory." Amdirlain looked over the barred door. "Please open the door."

"You should look around." Lethe shooed her along the long corridor. "Maybe more memories came in with you."

Amdirlain looked down the passage, and a terror at being consumed by the expanse swept over her. Her gaze returned to the door. "Lethe. Please, let me out."

"There is nothing out there but fire."

The word rolled across her, bringing up memories of old fears, a burning forest, a raging volcano, agony searing through nerves and flesh she didn't possess. It also held a conviction that it was meaningless. That its power already flowed through the mesh beneath her skin.

"I'm not afraid of fire." Amdirlain felt two versions of the energy tickling in the back of her thoughts. "It burned you, but it didn't burn me?"

Lethe shook her head. "It rolled over you."

Why does this place scare me more than fire?

"Thank you for sheltering me. Please let me out." Amdirlain stepped around her, put a hand against the door, and found it cool.

With a deep sigh, Lethe waved, and the bars slid to either side. When the door swung open, there were no flames, simply a rumble-strewn tunnel, its floor covered by a smoky haze. The accumulated smoke rushed through the doorway, only to dissolve into images of plants and fearsome animals before rushing down the passageway. Lethe grunted in confusion. "It seems it's safe after all."

Amdirlain waved towards the door. "Do you want to explore with me?"

"Will it remain safe? There was fire everywhere, and something could still be burning."

"Well, if you don't want to come along. I'll see if I can find something to help your burns." With that, Amdirlain crossed the threshold. The rubble shifted dangerously underfoot with each step along the rocks, but she danced between perches and left them rocking in her wake.

After twenty metres, it had curved enough that she could no longer make out the doorway. Amdirlain pressed on, and after another hundred metres, the corridor opened into a mountain pass. Sheer grey cliffs flanked a road of regular paving stones from the same rock. From horizon to horizon, the sky was golden flame. Towards the left were rolling foothills, blocked by a barricade of stones ripped from the clifftop. To the right, a road travelled into the mountains. As the wind shifted, she caught the stench of blood and perforated bowels from the direction of the hills.

The wind carried a mournful chant of names to her, and Amdirlain raced towards the sound.

A group of stocky, bearded males lay slumped against the barricade. Before them lay hundreds of hounds and a dozen lithe individuals whose features resembled her own.

Elves and dwarves? Why can't I remember more?

Yet those who looked like her were well armoured with gleaming weapons and armour, unlike those the hounds had savaged. They wore rags, and pieces of armour cobbled together to protect badly scarred bodies. She didn't know why they'd chosen this place to make a stand, but they'd cut down every foe that had come at them despite the wounds they'd suffered in return. In the middle of their ranks was a white-haired male who sat with his back against the barricade and cradled a dead youngster in his arms. At first, Amdirlain was sure he was the source of the words, yet his lips remained still as they resumed from the start.

Why were the dwarves being hunted?

A blood-splattered pickaxe among the fallen bodies caught her attention. It did so in the same way as the Dragon statue.

She crouched down amid the blood and gore to claim the pickaxe. Centuries of metal ringing against stone smacked into her from the pickaxe, reverberating through her body. The impacts shuddered through bones she hadn't possessed until she ground brand new teeth. As she started from her latest transformation, roars and growls rippled across the hillside, though no animals were apparent. The beats and the roars intensified, and both morphed along with her surroundings. The hillside warped and twisted into stadium seating before phantasmal figures shimmered into existence and then solidified into Catfolk. She was on stage, looking across the sea of an audience in a packed stadium as her backing band started playing. Some of their voices she could distinguish more clearly than others. The memory engulfed her, changing her elven form into an azure-furred Catfolk in a silvery outfit. From the side of the stage, a red-furred Catfolk wearing matching leathers whistled and cheered.

Sarah's wearing another form?

Waves of energy rolled out from her, building on the excitement of the cheering crowd.

"Am!"

The crowd's chanting called attention to other voices calling out Am rather than her full name, but she couldn't determine their position. The other voices were strange and ethereal rather than grounded in the memories. She was still trying to determine how to find them when the crowd and the stands dissolved into smoke. It all streamed inwards to enfold her and flow through her skin.

"Amdirlain." Still adjusting to the change in the environment, the voice startled Amdirlain, and she spun around to find Lethe standing on top of the boulders. Her face healed, and her robes mended.

I thought she didn't think it was safe to come outside?

"How are you all healed?"

Lethe shifted awkwardly. "The smoke that flowed inside when you left restored me."

"It's good to see you better. Those burns didn't look nice."

"I made a mistake."

"What was that?"

She waved towards the sky. "You got rendered senseless, and I felt your dissolute threatening. I feared the incoming energy would destroy you, and I dragged you inside the vault to keep you safe. However, you hadn't allowed me to access all your memories, so they scattered from your sigil when you crossed its threshold."

"Where are we anyway? It changes strangely."

"It used to be your Soul."

"What do you mean by 'used to be'? Does it belong to someone else now?"

Lethe twitched. "I think it's back to being a Primordial Essence, but the energies are wild and nothing like I remember."

"I don't know what you mean," replied Amdirlain. "Why did you lose your memories rescuing me?"

"Whatever converted your Soul to an Essence is different to what created me. It's unaligned and wild. I took too long getting you to safety, so it ripped pieces off of me." Lethe pointed up at the flames. "I think that's the boundary of your physical form, but until you regain your memories, you'll have no way to regain control of it."

"You don't seem very sure."

"It's the first time I've been in this position as well," Lethe shrugged helplessly. "I'm guessing."

"How do I go about finding my memories?" Amdirlain spread her arms wide, motioning to the rolling landscape. "This looks to be a big place."

"The only thing I can suggest is looking for things that call to you. Once you have enough of them, hopefully you regain some control to move more rapidly."

"Can you share those memories I had in your care?"

"It would be safer if you regained them from out here. They'd come with my perspective of them, and you already avoided a potential problem by not wandering through the vault's memories. Those are memories from Orhêthurin's perspective, not yours. You also knew Sarah in your life, but you might become too close to Orhêthurin if you'd claimed more of her memories."

"Why is that a problem?"

"You'll understand when you recover more of your memories."

"Are the memories out here only mine?"

"No. There are other lives, and recollections recently forced on you. Be careful about what you collect. What did you feel about the statue?"

"I'm not sure how to describe its calls. It was important to me."

"Your senses once could perceive things at incredible distances. Perhaps try to listen."

Amdirlain tried to feel objects that called to her in the same way as the statue and the pickaxe, only for thousands of distant responses to ring out. "This might take a while."

♫ ♫ ♫ ♫ ♫ ♫

Eleftherios's PoV - The Abyss - Ijmti

After a century of trying to get Amdirlain to safety, countless trillions of square kilometres of fresh growth lay behind him. Ahead, yet another million square kilometres of forest were ablaze, along with the accumulated abyssal corruption that had pooled between the trees and befouled the lakes and ponds.

Eleftherios took in the deaths of the demons, animals, and plants with a benign indifference.

Nearby shadows split and reformed into three figures. Chrona grumbled. "You still haven't led her somewhere else."

"I don't know what she has against this forest, but she's refused to follow me through any portals, gates, or rifts I've tried." Eleftherios snuffed the life from a herd trapped by flames on the fire's leading edge.

"She was ready to chase you when she first saw you," said Chrona.

"Now she's fixated on burning up all the corruption here. The forest isn't regrowing into a pleasant one, but it's better than the foul place it used to be."

"You need better bait," Naamah said, as she emerged completely from the shadows to pretend to warm her hands on the burning forest. The flames illuminated the contours of her exposed obsidian-hued skin. "I also thought you'd have had her out of the Abyss by now, Father."

Eleftherios's white wings ruffled. "Daughter. How's your Mother?"

"You'd have more recent information on her." Naamah's clawless wings melded into her back. "I've not spoken to her since before your slumber in the Necropolis."

"Any particular reason you dropped by?" asked Eleftherios. His gaze fixed on a spot occupied by an armoured figure.

"Just here to see if I might be suitable bait," said Laodice.

"I would have thought you'd done enough," Eleftherios's gaze lost its indifference as he regarded his fellow Aspect, fists tightening at his sides.

Chrona raised a watery hand. "Cuineth and Custodian say that she's healed."

"And? I don't want Naamah inflicting any hunting tendencies on Am, and Laodice ensured she lived through nearly two million years of other people's lives and deaths. That's bad enough for a Celestial, but she still had a very Mortal perspective."

"I didn't make the plinth," Laodice flinched, averting her gaze. "And I was obsessed when I set my traps."

Eleftherios rolled his eyes. "And why involve Naamah, Chrona?"

"Aren't you pleased to see me, Father?"

"Probabilities," Chrona interjected.

Eleftherios snorted and turned from his sister to eye Naamah. "Hand over the stalker's soul."

"How about I place it somewhere she can get it?" Naamah asked with a self-assured smirk. "After all, if I hand it to you, don't you have to take it home to Grandpa?"

"That Soul is sealed to the Abyss until she's free of it."

"The seal on his chest already disappeared," advised Chrona. "It occurred when the plinth delivered its assessment."

"Then I want Amdirlain in her right mind when she decides what to do with him. She might not even remember the event if she destroys his Soul in this state."

"Which still leaves you with no bait," said Naamah.

"Daughter, have an agent deliver his Soul to Xaos. Rachel and Sarah will meet them there." Without looking back at her, Eleftherios poked a finger into Laodice's jagged breastplate. "I've got suitable bait right here."

Laodice grunted unhappily.

"Are you going to nursemaid the Titan's favoured Anar back to sanity?" teased Naamah.

"Yes. We can protect her until she's stabilised enough to attune natures."

"I couldn't persuade you to bait her through a few armies?"

Chrona vanished from physical perception, but the region's temporal energies still held a strong link to her consciousness.

"Laodice has much to make up for, but I expect your wholehearted cooperation as well, Naamah."

"She helped free me and Ebusuku. She'll make a more interesting playmate if she's sane."

"If she won't help you break out of your static Primordial state once sane, I'll introduce you to entities inclined to do so. However, that's only if you fully cooperate with me in luring her from the Abyss."

Naamah smiled eagerly. "Why didn't you just say so, Father? I'm always up for a fulfilling reward."

"You also get to kill anything trying to stop us."

Her dark gaze drank up the light from the flames. "Fun!"

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