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The skies gloat on the day your god is murdered.
You were not present for the act. There were enough battle-salted warriors camped near the pass which your enemies call Sandgate, and that your people keep a far bloodier name for; there should have been no need for a master archer to be stationed with them too. Nor were you tasked to escort the latest round of captives chosen for reforging by your god’s flame. Instead, you had been out scouting the passes east, tracking caravan routes and correcting those bold enough to set foot upon amalj'aa territory. A solitary hunter always on the march, only lingering at home long enough to teach eager whelps who crowded over themselves to watch the famed Whitespark at the marks.
Now, you must live with that shame for the rest of your days: that if only you had been less of who you are, you might have saved a being greater than you will ever be.
Yours was the unwelcome duty of carrying the report back to Pegujj Chah so that the mesmerizer could dig for hope among the prophecies. When you had handed the scroll over – uttering only the sparsest confirmations your throat could force out – you had not missed noticing the overturned tables in their tent, bowls scattered and broken into trash. Splinters of ivory dust speckled the wood: divination bones smashed into powder, aged runes splintered beyond all recognition. Pegujj Chah must have destroyed them all out of frustrated despair. No rune had warned of this.
You had backed away wordlessly when Pegujj Chah had dismissed you, their claws already shredding the message apart in denial – but there had been nowhere else for you to go. The desert skies had been hazed over for days, with no hint of changing. At night, the evening sun tinted the fog’s underbelly with a sickly orange, too weak a flame to convince yourself that it was a reassurance granted by your god, that He was merely wounded and had hidden Himself away to recover.
It is too soon to go out again, not when you do not know where to hunt next. It is too soon for the tribe to know what to do in this aftermath of ashes. Instead, you travel each day only as far as the ridges overlooking Zanr'ak's camps, clambering across the stones to the highest perches you can find, simply to stare listlessly at the sands. The other warriors you pass have the same shell of grief around them, a mourning that separates them from the rest of the world; you try not to meet their gazes just as much as they pretend to ignore you in turn.
But when the soft crunch of dirt alerts you one afternoon to a visitor, you jerk upright, automatically snatching up your bow – arrow readied before you need to think about it, the familiar creak of the string as steady as the beat of your own heart – only to see the dark robes and mask of a Paragon staring back at you with the same implacable confidence as a mountain. A little creature in its current form, but you have heard the tales. You are no fresh-hatched whelp.
Swiftly, you lower your weapon and your head along with it. "Forgive me, Paragon. I meant no offense."
It ignores the arrow entirely, a mortal toy which means nothing to an entity of its immense power. "You have fallen short," it says: a pronouncement that contains no mercy, for you deserve none. Nor is there pity. "The strength of a primal’s followers is what grants them strength in turn. You have only yourselves to blame."
That fact is undeniable. It screams in every part of your body, as if you are one of Pegujj Chah’s bones, cast into a bowl to rattle about and turn your face bleakly up to be read. "Yes, Paragon."
Respect keeps your gaze down; you need no prodding. This Paragon wears the diminutive form of a hyur, thin-boned, as fragile as dried-out clay -- but only a fool would mistake it for something so flimsy and weak. They are legend among your kind, as well as countless others: saviors who have gifted your people with the power to fight back against softskins who greedily claim every smudge of land available, ignoring both history and sacrilege in their endless hunger to lay their name to more.
For many, a Paragon's blessing has been all that has stood between a tribe's survival, and the erasure of their homes, their customs, their lives.
Yet, generosity knows its limits. Tools are only as sturdy as the hand which grasps them. Not only have you squandered your benefactor's efforts, you have allowed the sacred flame of your god to be extinguished for no other reason than sheer ineptitude.
You cringe inwardly at the facts, spirit coiling into a knot of shame -- and then bend your voice into a question that you hope desperately sounds like humility, but which instead tastes like mewling on your tongue, a plaintive hatchling's whine. "Is there naught we can do to atone?"
The cowardice of it sears worse than any water. It would be proper for the Paragon to punish you for quailing. When it takes a slow step towards you, and then another, you plant your heels back in order to keep from trembling, preparing for the strike which might clip your limbs from your body, your skull from its neck.
But the creature does not seem interested in meting out punishment immediately. It stops a spear's kiss away and then tilts its head, hawk-like in consideration. "Lahabrea taught you how to coax your god to manifest," it muses. Its voice has begun to meander, contemplating the future net that must be woven. "Therefore, I will teach you how to turn your pain into the fuel which grants Him new life that is stronger yet."
Both forgiveness and not, that decree. It is no crueler than you would expect from Him. "Will the cost be paid by my people, Paragon?"
"It must. The prayers will not suffice otherwise." The recitation is as precise as a metalworker counting out a proportion of ores for smelting, though there is a finality which burdens it with a lichyard's gloom. "A sacrifice of willing lives is required to direct the aether to the god which will save you. Your people are not powerful enough to work with the soul alone -- thus, the pact will need to be inscribed upon physical remains as a channel for binding. It is fortunate that the amalj'aa are already skilled in the art of bone-carving. We will use that method as an example for the other tribes as well."
Your skin recognizes and recoils from the Paragon's suggestion before your mind has time to process it all; your battlescars suddenly itch, causing you to roll your arms, swing your tail. It is a hard command to digest. The Flamefangs have been harried from all sides of late. Every time the warriors assemble before battle, there are more and more gaps in the rows. Now, you are being asked to cut out more.
A commander must always be aware when fortunes have turned. They must consciously recognize when there is no chance left of conquering the field, and the moment of decision hinges not on how to win, but on which of your people must be spent to protect the rest.
This is the same retreat.
"What of the captives who have bathed in His flame?" A weak alternative, but if you must scrounge for metal, any available resource must be used. "Would their belief be enough?"
The Paragon stirs, pulling its shoulders back. It acts the part of a hyur well, animating its limbs in ways which appear natural; even you, with your marksman's vision, would have mistaken it as real from a distance. The creature's head makes a small shake, hood rustling: a slight, curt dismissal. "True faith means more, always. And then -- even after we have taken such measures -- if the god should fail a second time, then... there was simply not enough death." It turns away, boots crunching on the grit of the earth as it paces. "Not enough love. Not enough sacrifice. If ten lives is too few, use a hundred. If still more, then a thousand. Half your people. Then half again. The fault is never in your god. It is in you, and you alone."
It is only thanks to your hunter's senses that you catch the Paragon's speech in full -- the words so tentatively shaped that you are not certain you were meant to hear them at all, or if it expects you to respond. Yet, the offer within them cannot be ignored. Suffering may provide the shell, but at the core shines a single, golden chance: a path that is slowly opening to beckon towards you, a corridor of sands which shimmer as they lead to His embrace.
One final surrender -- that's all it will take. Your battle will end, but your god will fight on in your stead, and every soul that joins Him will burn brighter than a star, until His blaze rises higher than the mountains themselves, incinerating all who plot to bring your people low.
Death will become the greatest act of valor imaginable. Your death.
This is how you will redeem yourself from the weakness of remaining alive.
"Then let me be the first!" you growl brazenly, naked with hope. "I am ready. Use my soul to start the kindling! I was not there to save Him when He fell. Let me offer reparations for that mistake now, to help restore what my inadequacy robbed away."
The Paragon turns its head. "You feel that much guilt?"
"It was my oversight to have not insisted on more guards," you answer heavily. "I am a hunter -- I have tracked our enemies, learned their snares. I should have been cannier. What worth do I have if I cannot protect our god from harm? How else can I fix what has been lost?"
But your dream is snuffed out like a hand upon a cinder as the Paragon directs its full attention back upon you -- and then pauses, as if reevaluating the whole of what has been presented before it.
"No," it announces. "Not you."
The rejection twists every organ in your chest, wringing them like a grubby fistful of bloody bandages. Your lungs jerk when you try to inhale, as if they stubbornly intend to end your life on your behalf. "Paragon, I -- "
The creature cuts through your stammering, along with your hopes. "I have no doubt of your willingness, nor of your suitability, Whitespark. Yet -- terrifying as the duty may be -- the newer warriors will need your guidance. Else, they will be lost without memory to steer them. They will not know what path to follow without your example. They may be swayed by those who would trick them into accepting that your tribe must submit to decay, that extermination is merely the path of inevitability. In these dark days that your people will face, your abilities must be preserved. I will tell the priests as much," it remarks calmly, comfortable with the doom it pronounces, "so they know not to waste you."
Defeat presses on your body like an iron yoke, a wagon stacked with corpses for you to pull. Still heaving for breath, you sink to your knees, hands splayed. Your palms are prayers against the dirt, each grain sunbaked and sun-blessed -- then, like a worshipper who has found only silence at the altar, you rake your fingers across the soil, clawing its barrenness open for all to see.
"It cannot be. Let Him take me. Please." Helpless to do anything but protest, you stare down at the depressions your hands have carved in the earth, dark craters in lieu of the gouges you wish you could make in yourself. Perhaps the Paragon will destroy you -- but even that would be better than this, spending the rest of your days with defeat hanging over your head in every direction you turn, evidence of your shame stitched into each battered war-banner that droops above a Flamefang camp. "The souls of the younger warriors will find glory even without me, and I -- how can I remain alive like this? How can anyone?"
Instead of an answer, the Paragon strides towards you, closer than before -- coming within arm's reach for you, and then for it. Even on your knees, you loom over its form. It lifts both hands to push back its hood, and you shrink away on instinct: you have never had the honor of looking upon an uncloaked Paragon before, and for a moment, you do not know if it means to blast you into ash on the spot for your audacity.
But it merely regards you thoughtfully, chin tilted up to stare directly into your eyes, reading you with a mesmerizer's insight. Its crimson mask is absent now, dissolved into nothingness; the face beneath is finely sculpted, pale as the full moon. Blue hair tangles in a thick coil around its neck, strands sticking out haphazardly from where its hood had snarled it. Its lips are pinched hard, brow knitted in the expression which softskins use to communicate displeasure, or unhappiness -- or pain.
"No," it repeats quietly, unwavering in force. "For I will tell you something I have told no other being, Hepugg Roh. The greatest test a martyr will face is not being allowed to die."
The words are no louder than dune whispers. They do not need to be. Each one saws through you with lethal force, and that is how you know you have been given a sacred truth: because they burn, crueler than any blade or frost, twisting into your gut. Your attempt to choke back an agonized hiss fails; it leaks out of your jaws, like bile from a ruptured stomach. The small noises stain your mouth and bubble onto the sands.
You do not know if you should be grateful for this -- how you should be, how you can possibly bend your comprehension of this geas into a shape which will replace the armor the Paragon has broken off your soul. To go to your death willingly is a fate that all true warriors prepare themselves for. To remain alive means more opportunities to fail, to make the wrong decisions which will cost the tribe future generations. It means an endless trial that will renew itself each dawn, a cycle of doubt and self-castigation for every action and inaction you may meet. Not even the night will bring relief. Only more questions, shouting in your mind as you toss and turn on your bedroll, ordering yourself to do better the next day, you must.
But if the Paragon has charged you with a greater task, then there must be salvation in it. You cannot see the reason why. Yet faith is a quality you have nourished within your soul, feeding it spark-by-spark: you will not betray yourself by lacking it now.
You bow your head, accepting what you can for the moment, even as it stretches your journey out into a longer road that promises no end. "Thank you, Paragon," you manage, through the numbness of shock. "It will be because of your efforts that a god will be restored, and rise anew."
For the first time, the creature hesitates, caught in the act of pulling its hood back up. As if by reflex, a red light snaps into place across its features, obscuring its countenance with a feverish glow: a sigil in place of a mask, leering like a tusked, fleshless skull. Its fingers tighten on the cloth.
"If only," it exhales, and it must be your own foolishness that pollutes your hearing, tainting the sound with despair: a sigh that has haunted the world since the very first spark, howling through the void. "If only it could be so by my hands."