The Apostate Saint: Chapter 30 – Something Foul in the Air

Ever since he had regained his legs, Art had walked himself straight from one disaster into another. He was beginning to think that his new legs were, in fact, cursed, and that it would have been better if he had never regrown them in the first place. When he considered the mysterious nature of the Gifts that the Son had used to regenerate his legs, he began to consider that something more foul was in the air. The fact that he had inexplicably been incapacitated right around the time that Alaric's mother died really sold him on the fact that, perhaps, he shouldn't have looked that gift horse in the mouth.

The Apostate Saint: Chapter 29 – Two Arms!

"We've got to do better than this!" called Isidore from his horse. It was true. Alaric and the others would need to increase their pace by a significant amount if they were going to be able to catch up with the Son. We shouldn't have hesitated so long. Alaric didn't want to accept the fact that, no matter how much he wanted to follow the Son, it would ultimately prove a fool's errand. Still, he and the others all knew it was their sacred duty, and they would do whatever it took to get there eventually. They retraced their steps closely, so Alaric was already familiar with the landscape, but it worried him that they were racing headlong and not paying enough attention to the danger that may be lying in wait for them.

The Apostate Saint: Chapter 28 – Departure

"What now?" said Euric, to his cousin Bulgar and Fridok who stood idly nearby. They were soldiers who suddenly found themselves without their commander. It was an honest question for Euric to ask, and Fridok was thinking the same thing. After all, the Son was the only one who knew the lay of the land and what dangers might lurk around every corner, and he had already put significant distance between himself and the others as he carried Gailavira's unconscious body back to the City. Bulgar shrugged, offering no solutions. Fridok wanted to follow the Son, and thought very much borrowing one of the horses to ride off and catch up to him. At least that would put some distance in between him and Alaric, so he could focus on the things that really mattered.

The Apostate Saint: Chapter 27 – Arrival (Part 2)

Time and space shattered in a blast, as if He had been hit by one of the war machines of old that had seemingly been forgotten in the time and place where He now found himself. Father... Where have you gone? The time before His exile was out of reach to Him, and this new world He had awoken to find was barely reminiscent of the world where He had spent the entirety of His life. As His thoughts meandered and splintered into a thousand directions, He allowed them to do so with nothing but the passionate pleading of an unfamiliar feminine voice to underscore the deconstruction and reconstruction of his thoughts. Where was I? A vision of the Eternal Flame still blazing atop the Pearly Stair after millennia of decay came to the forefront of the theater of his mind. The Pearly Stair.

The Apostate Saint: Chapter 26 – Arrival (Part 1)

He could faintly hear the sounds of someone calling to Him, commanding Him. It was a voice that He hardly knew, feminine, not a part of his core memory before the Exilium. Should He obey? By what right did that voice have to command Him? His thoughts were disjointed, broken, confused. There was so much that had happened in his exile, so many years that were lost to Him. Even His Father was missing in this broken version of their world. Why were the Gifts taken from the people? Why were His brethren subjected to such an impossibly cruel fate? Why had God forsaken mankind?