1 Chapter 1 - Nature Finds a Way

Nobody could hear my brother´s scream in the vaccum of space. Except for me. I heard trillion living organisms die in an instant with him, silenced when two of the oldest galaxies collided in an inevitable duel for dominance.

Only the strongest survived. A short-sighted, outdated law by which the universe should never have followed. The universe was as cruel as it was inhospitable. Galaxies merged, they lived in symbiosis, or they absorbed one another, consuming and expanding, digesting and creating.

That was the philosophy we lived by on Tripolis. For every life taken, there wasn´t another life restored.

Every ten years, the atmosphere of Tripolis and all its five moons would become hostile. A great storm would descend upon the outer layers and transform them into a mixture of poisonous gases. Hydrogen, helium, methane. These storms would last several months, never longer than one year. All living beings crawled underneath to survive. Once the ice melted and the storm passed, allowing our star Lilia to warm it, all Sensibles emerged onto a planet sprinkled with diamonds in the rough.

And the race would begin to restore the planet. Bigger, better, richer. A flood of merchants, miners, and ambassadors from other worlds came to trade, to collect, to get their fair share from the central planet keeping the system afloat. They were so sure they´d be blessed with fields of diamonds to feed them for ten more years, only to lose it all again. Wait and live like bugs in a cycle of destruction, just to catch a glimpse of jewels they were willing to kill for.

Meanwhile, it was the jewel itself that was killing them.

I was the one who anchored them all. I was the chaperon of every being born, every being dying on Tripolis. I, a being in perfect symbiosis with life and death alike, was forced to accept that there was no higher power than free will. We all were. My family and I were forced to look after a ruck of Sensibles willingly stuck on Tripolis and its abusive loop of doom and restoration when far more amicable galaxies awaited me. They called me. And I couldn´t leave.

I closed my eyes. The Trudge Valley´s winds were picking up. The elevated snow dune at the top of the canyon I stood on supported my weight, grounded the imbalances of energy sneaking up my spine. Immeasurable pressure and temperatures climbed at a fast pace. I felt the core of the planet condensing into hydrogen as methane was being released into the soil. I breathed, the marl under my bare feet connecting me with the spirits of the planet.

I enwrapped its moons and its very core in the rhythm of my essence.

Survive. Stay. Live.

Its effervescence tried to overwhelm me, nature trying to take over, to destroy this world, to overpower me. I wouldn´t let it. The heat sent the planet reeling, putting it in extreme distress. It was crying, and I was soothing it.

"Don´t think too hard, you´ll hurt yourself."

My sister Cleo and her voice of reason rang like a bell amongst the quiet insanity about to descend upon this world. She hated wearing dresses unlike myself, so whenever she walked up to me in boots, hunting gear, and her gray hair tightened with her beloved hairpins that could cut through crystals and bones … Well. Let´s just say we never really matched. In character or in appearance.

"How was your hunt?" I pivoted. Getting into an argument with Cleo before the storm was too dangerous. And always pointless. We may not have been matched in nature but our wit and strength, locked in an eternal battle for dominance, couldn´t clash in a more equal measure.

"Well, my collection grows," she smiled and pulled a glowing emerald cube from her satchel. Its intoxicating smell, the power of life pure and distilled, struck a particularly sore nerve in me.

"Put that thing away."

"You were the one who asked," Cleo said, her accusatory tone stirring my anger.

"I was trying to be polite."

Cleo and her prized possessions hanging from every fold on her garments. Her eyes ignited with more passion towards them than her own family. Then again, we were not really a family, we were just taught to act like one. 

"Don´t you think it´s time you enjoy your work without bitching about it? Honestly," she trailed off as if a much more vulgar word was slumbering in her mind, ready to be unleashed, but at the last moment, she remembered our duty and decided not to wake the worst parts of me shortly before the storm.

"Every ten years, Mila. You stand on this very hill and complain about the planet we were entrusted to protect."

"You mean bullied into protecting," I corrected her under my breath. I truly didn´t want to argue with her, but it was just so easy with Cleo. Her provocations would leave even the most resilient minds in disarray. 

"No, we were assigned Tripolis, and I am really tired of having this conversation with you every ten years."

I gave her a look. The kind of look that only a sister would tolerate but a stranger would knock you out for. When the barely visible crevices of her pristinely chiseled face deepened with a warm smile, I let go of the momentary malice that overcame my senses. The one that whispered to me during the storm to start a rebellion against our Assigner, to recruit my siblings, rally them, radicalize them. If humans had free will to choose, why didn´t we? What agency did we have over our lives? How was any of this fair?

You´re doing it again. Stop. He can hear you. He can retaliate.

"Whining again, are you?"

I looked over my shoulder. A brilliant smirk on a young, handsome face melted the remnants of my annoyance. He opened his arms for me to jump into his embrace, engulfing me in more affection than I could ever deserve.

"Ari," I murmured against his shoulder. His curls tickled my cheek.

We pulled away but never really parted. I could live a happy life just looking at his radiance, and dying even happier knowing I held a special place in his heart. A piece that belonged to me and me only. A possession that didn´t come from greed or duty. My own pocket paradise of belonging.

"Hey, sis," he blinked a few times, too quickly for me to discern whether he was scanning my mood, or just reveling in a moment, taken aback by its sincerity. Every time we reunited, the love flowed more strongly than before. I welcomed it, but I could imagine that Areilycus´s inexplicably growing powers scared him.

Too much of a good thing can kill you, you know – Vectra´s stern voice vibrated in my mind.

Ari quickly recovered and directed his disapproving gaze at Cleo.

"What are you doing provoking the Anchor before the storm, huh?"

Cleo sat down on the ground, cross-legged, placing her satchel safely in her lap.

"Calm down, your precious twin will be fine," she waved him off.

I ignored her, my attention fixated on Ari and his genuine concern. I hugged him even tighter. "It´s good to see you, but you should not be here right now. It´s dangerous."

"My presence was requested," he said in a moment of sheer honesty. Not that he tended to lie, but he usually wrapped his truths in pretty bows instead of sharp daggers.

"By whom?" I asked. Areilycus never visited during the Diamond Storm. The culmination of the negative energy and poisonous gases dwarfed his light and left him weak for months on end. We learned that the hard way a long time ago.

"By the Assigner."

So, he noticed, too. It was only a matter of time before Ari´s light would become a concern to the Assigner. That´s why he was here. To dim it. To send him into a delirious state. We couldn´t have too much light on Tripolis, after all. It could kill us. I tried to put on my best supportive face, but I was not nearly as convincing and skilled at it as Ari. The manipulation didn´t make any sense.

"Well," I said, resigned. "Your presence is welcomed." Spewing platitudes was never my forte.

Ari kissed my forehead. "I know."

Cleo made a throwing-up gesture, faking a cough. Ari turned us to the side to face our sister. Her hands were left hanging lackadaisically over her knees as she changed positions.

"You want a kiss too, Huntress?" Ari teased her.

"No, thanks," Cleo barked. "I´d rather be impaled by the falling diamonds."

"Too bad you can´t die, I´m sure Mila would love to grant your wish," he said chuckling. Anytime he did, it felt like a blessing.

He tried to comb through the sand that weaved into my hair with his fingers to calm me down. "How far is it?" he asked.

His face was growing paler by the second, the collision of the gases in the clouds above was preparing the perfect conditions for diamonds to rain down on Tripolis. The rapid speed of the process was unusual. But that wasn´t my primary concern at the moment. I grew restless, fearful, merging with the distress of the planet's core.

"How do you feel?"

"Don´t worry about me, just do your thing," he smiled weakly.

"Yes, please, Mila, we would hate to be disintegrated by the Assigner because you let the planet go ka-boom and all its life with it," Cleo poked.

"Go away," I barked.

Cleo blew a raspberry at me like the little brat that she was.

"Fine." She rose to her feet and hung the satchel containing essential flora and fauna of the planet on her silver leather belt. "I hope the storm kills you."

"I hate you too," I grinned.

Cleo closed her eyes, the dune shaking with the intensity of her power as she deliquesced, rendering her flesh and blood useless. Liquifying all that was crude and mirroring humanity. Her essence remained floating in the air in the eruptive cycles of emerald and sepia.

"Finally, some peace and quiet," I said to myself. I could feel her discontent, hear her muffled thoughts murmuring wishes of death upon me, but with Ari by my side who balanced out all that was wrong and ugly, Cleo´s savageness felt funnier than upsetting.

"She loves you," Areilycus reminded me.

"No, you love me. She is a raging lunatic. And a materialistic kleptomaniac at that. Being robbed by Cleo is one of the most humiliating things that can happen to anyone."

Cleo´s essence raged next to us, sending waves of energetic fields filled with disapproval toward me.

Ari lovingly gazed upon me. After all, he was incapable of malice. "I´m sure they don´t even notice half the time."

"That she keeps some of their flora and fauna every time she preserves it? Oh, trust me, whenever I see children trying to bring home their favorite type of flower only to discover that variety doesn´t exist anymore - even I must feel a little bad for them." I scoffed.

"And somehow I am the problem child."

In the clean blue light shining down from the skies, Lilia was nowhere to be seen as the emerging storm took over the rule of the planet, overshadowing our star. I realized it was time. So did he.

"Is everyone safe?"

"Always looking after them," I said, the pettiness in me wishing he´d rather ask about my well-being.

He shook his head disapprovingly. I yielded. "Yes, they´re in the bunkers, all reinforced and impenetrable. They´ll be fine."

"Will you?"

No.

"It´s coming a little faster this time," I admitted.

"All right then. I´ll be here."

Whenever this assured destruction that only I could prevent encompassed Tripolis, even the most candid of pep talks couldn´t lift the responsibility off of my shoulders. Especially since I never asked to bear it. If the Assigner was trying to throw me off my balance, or worse, test me by having my most beloved brother endure the immense pain of the Diamond Storm, then it was working. And I was failing at handling the chaos in me. The sizzling planet core was shaking, and I was shaking with it, becoming one with whatever evil was trying to unshackle itself from the prison I kept it in.

"Mila," Ari placed his hands on my shoulders. "I´ll be all right."

"You shouldn´t be here. I have a bad feeling about you being here – " A whisper of naked worry.

The skies parted. Areilycus nodded for me to do my duty and stepped aside. I had to save the world entirely on my own.