Relic

XVI: Aprilus 7 Year 242, A.H.

On the morning of the final sinik in the Tundra, I awake freezing but alive. Thanking the Gods as I bundle up and leave my tent, I learn from the howls that my team hasn’t been so blessed. At night, the dogs curl themselves tightly and let themselves be covered by snow for insulation, but this morning, one dog doesn’t uncurl. It is Sigurd, my lone female husky.

As I look down on her poor frozen body, I feel like crying. Sigurd was tougher than the rest of the dogs, but had a certain kindness to her as well. And she was the only female out here with me. I will miss her. So will her howling brothers.

I cover her body with snow and place a circular symbol of the Gods on top of the mound. Just as we do in the Aerie cemetery. As I tether the team to their lines, I feel like howling along with them.

At the first horn of morning, I have no choice but to forget grief and take off. I pass a rare patch of birch trees amidst the white, white sameness. I think how the Ark Gardeners would love to study this hearty growth, to figure out how they thrive in such adversity. Otherwise, the landscape lulls me. Dangerous, I know, but I can’t help it.

By late afternoon, the ice changes color, becoming a slightly bluish shade. Only as my dogs draw closer and the blue grows more and more intense, do I realize that I have reached the Frozen Shores.

I stop the team from racing forward, and stare out at the endless icy sea.

I am hungry and exhausted. My muscles ache. My eyes and ears throb. I thought I’d be elated at the sight of the startlingly blue waters with icebergs bobbing, but instead, a curious emotion floods over me. Sadness.

Just as the Chief Basilikon said it would. Every year, on the annual commemoration of the Healing, he reads from The Lex:

In the eyes of the Gods, our world was corrupt and full of lawlessness. When the Gods saw how corrupt man had become, the Gods said, “We will wipe out from the Earth mankind whom we have created, and not only mankind, but also the beasts and the creeping things and the birds of the air.” At the last tick, Mother Sun intervened and convinced Father Earth to save a chosen few. To those, the Gods said, “Make yourselves arks. Go into the arks and sail North. Take with you seeds and birds and beasts to stay alive. When the waters recede, you alone will survive to lead a new life following The Lex in our chosen land.” The Gods then unleashed the final waters for forty days and forty nights, submerging the wicked and lifting the arks of the chosen to New North where they would serve as its Founders. This, the Gods called the Healing.

After he reads this Lex passage, the Chief Basilikon says that, if we should ever survive a journey to the Frozen Shores, the Gods will send us a symbolic gift. They will send tears to remind us of the Healing waters that deluged Father Earth in a rightful cleansing. This weeping, he claims, is the Gods way of telling us we are the chosen ones, and that they approve of our new Lex life in New North.

Icy tears pour down my face. But I don’t feel like I’m crying for the reasons described by the Basilikon. I weep because I am staring at the end of the world. Billions of people and living creatures—many of them innocent bystanders to the evil that destroyed them—lie frozen beneath the seas covering the Earth. We of New North are all that’s left.

My sense of sadness is quickly overwhelmed by my sense of pride and duty. We of the Aerie—the descendants of the Founders—are the chosen. The Gods have given us this one last chance to lead a righteous life. For me, this means that I must endure the hardship of the coming days—and win.

The tears crystallize on my cheeks. As I wipe them away, I notice a spot of red off to the west. What could possibly be red in this monochromatic expanse of white? Then it hits me; the color red can only mean the Testing flag. The final stop in our journey from the Aerie.

I crack my whip, and direct my team to the west. The first Testor to reach the Testing flag garners extra points in the first Advantages. Those points belong to me. Having worked so hard to prove that an Aerie Maiden is just as capable as a Gallant of becoming an Archon, it’s my duty to win them. For me, and for Eamon.