Ryatah
“My power?” she repeats, confusion on her face. She has never considered herself powerful. Though she could do far more now than she ever has been able to do, she weighs herself against those like Carnage, or even Eight and Anaxarete, and knows that she is weak by comparison. She had nothing that would allow her to burn down lands, nothing that could possibly invoke fear into anyone else. That, to her, is power — fear. The kind of things that could make another quiver and bend, and she is only light and stardust.
She thinks there is a misunderstanding, that Gale must be equating her being an archangel to being close to the magic Carnage possesses. But she is nothing like him, has nothing about her that is worth taking. And besides, if he really wanted it so badly, he could simply have it. She knew, undoubtedly, that she is not worthy of being an angel. If he wanted her powers, he could have them.
“I don’t really think you want it—” she starts to protest, but the words grow stuck in her throat, frozen as he spears her chest.
The blood that blooms across her skin is bright, as it always is when set against that porcelain white, glistening beneath her golden glow. Instinctively she tries to pull back, tries to teleport herself away from him but all she can manage is a burst of blinding light. But even that stutters and flickers, fading as fast as the blood that spills from her chest.
She sinks to the ground into a pool of blood and stardust, and she is gone long before her body can even try to heal the gaping wound left on her chest.
She is familiar with dying, but it’s always different each time.
There is relief at first, when the black settles in and the pain fades. The fear ebbs away, and instead of fighting she sinks into the dark, lets it consume her. She knows what comes next, knows that she will wake up on the shores of the afterlife and thinks she will be able to make her way back to the living. There is no explanation for that confidence—only a bone-deep sense that she possesses the power to resurrect herself. That she will be able to make her way back, as she has before.
So she waits for the afterlife.
She waits for the dark to disappear and for those familiar shores to show themselves, for the strange sounds she associates with there, and the peculiar sense of peace that it brings.
Only, there is nothing.
The dark does not lift but instead seems to grow in weight, expanding and stretching infinitely. There are no sounds, only a silence that builds in her head, crawls inside her bones and sits there like an anchor. A ghost of an emotion—panic—begins to swell, because this is dark unlike any she has ever known. It is not like being blind and surrendering herself to her other senses, because there is nothing for her other senses to find—no sounds, no smells, nothing to touch or feel.
“Gail?” she tries, hopeful that maybe she is caught in the crossfire of a game between the death priestess and Carnage, because that is at least a game she knows how to play. But the dark swallows her voice in such a way that she may as well have not spoken at all. It echoes inside of her mind, and she tries again. And again. She calls for Atrox, for Firion, and out of sheer desperation even Carnage, but every time her voice is thrown back to her, never reaching the dark that surrounds her.
She is trapped in this black, soundless void, untethered and adrift, and no heart to guide her back.
She thinks there is a misunderstanding, that Gale must be equating her being an archangel to being close to the magic Carnage possesses. But she is nothing like him, has nothing about her that is worth taking. And besides, if he really wanted it so badly, he could simply have it. She knew, undoubtedly, that she is not worthy of being an angel. If he wanted her powers, he could have them.
“I don’t really think you want it—” she starts to protest, but the words grow stuck in her throat, frozen as he spears her chest.
The blood that blooms across her skin is bright, as it always is when set against that porcelain white, glistening beneath her golden glow. Instinctively she tries to pull back, tries to teleport herself away from him but all she can manage is a burst of blinding light. But even that stutters and flickers, fading as fast as the blood that spills from her chest.
She sinks to the ground into a pool of blood and stardust, and she is gone long before her body can even try to heal the gaping wound left on her chest.
She is familiar with dying, but it’s always different each time.
There is relief at first, when the black settles in and the pain fades. The fear ebbs away, and instead of fighting she sinks into the dark, lets it consume her. She knows what comes next, knows that she will wake up on the shores of the afterlife and thinks she will be able to make her way back to the living. There is no explanation for that confidence—only a bone-deep sense that she possesses the power to resurrect herself. That she will be able to make her way back, as she has before.
So she waits for the afterlife.
She waits for the dark to disappear and for those familiar shores to show themselves, for the strange sounds she associates with there, and the peculiar sense of peace that it brings.
Only, there is nothing.
The dark does not lift but instead seems to grow in weight, expanding and stretching infinitely. There are no sounds, only a silence that builds in her head, crawls inside her bones and sits there like an anchor. A ghost of an emotion—panic—begins to swell, because this is dark unlike any she has ever known. It is not like being blind and surrendering herself to her other senses, because there is nothing for her other senses to find—no sounds, no smells, nothing to touch or feel.
“Gail?” she tries, hopeful that maybe she is caught in the crossfire of a game between the death priestess and Carnage, because that is at least a game she knows how to play. But the dark swallows her voice in such a way that she may as well have not spoken at all. It echoes inside of her mind, and she tries again. And again. She calls for Atrox, for Firion, and out of sheer desperation even Carnage, but every time her voice is thrown back to her, never reaching the dark that surrounds her.
She is trapped in this black, soundless void, untethered and adrift, and no heart to guide her back.
EVEN ANGELS HAVE THEIR WICKED SCHEMES
tldr Gale killed Ryatah and now she's trapped in a black soundless void with (currently) no way to resurrect herself.