On the morning of Vaelor's death, Ashar rested by the trees at the start of the mountain ascent and he watched the early rays of sunlight drift through their scattered gaps. Ashar could see and hear the life all around, in its screeches and its mud-stained eternal progression. It only made him close his eyes and focus once more on the visions he saw before.
"What are you doing over there?" he asked.
Bethryl came out from behind the trees.
"Didn't Issen and Maereth tell you not to speak to me or come near me?" he asked. "You should be on guard, as I am a being of pure evil."
"They told me that but... I don't feel that way about you."
She walked closer and sat beside his broken body, and together they watched the light scatter across the mountain trees.
"I think I've heard of people like you before," Bethryl said. "In the Academies, I read about them. They were outcasts who were killed and scattered away. They wrote about something, and I never forgot it. It was like they were talking about destroying the world but they were actually talking about something else entirely. It was... if you had no love, no romance, no power, no riches, then this world would have no hold on you. You would have overcome the world. Is that what you're doing?"
Ashar turned toward her, his blue eyes cold as an approaching wave.
"Those outcasts of yours," he said, "are nothing but foolish weaklings."
Bethryl froze, though it was the answer she expected.
"Overcome the world?" he continued, "It is the last efforts of those who have no power to fight back in any meaningful way. They are saying that because they cannot fight, they will fight symbolically and that is their great victory. The Lords have long ago learned how to exploit those kinds of fools."
Bethryl almost objected, but only for argument's sake, because she remembered hearing the same reasoning as a child, and accepting it.
"Many will claim there is beauty in such gestures," Ashar said. "Beauty without results, they call it, but it is nothing more than compromise. That is not why I am here."
"Then why are you here?"
He studied her inquisitive eyes, the kind that never ceased questioning.
"It would be better for you to stay close to Issen and Maereth," he said quietly. "I can see that something is missing in your life, and you will not find it by speaking to someone like me."
"I think I understand," Bethryl said. "I lived in the Shen Clan all my life, and I always knew they were hiding something from me. But what I didn't expect was that out here, in nature, it could all be so beautiful."
They looked out toward the shimmer of water running far below the tree-filled mountain they were preparing to cross.
"No, I don't see it," Ashar said, "Everyone speaks of nature as though it were sacred, as though everything would be solved if we only lived in accordance with it. But look at it. Out here there is blood, and death, and agony. Among the trees you will find predators and deceivers, and you will find beasts whose sole existence is to feed on misery."
"You think it's chaos?"
"No," Ashar said. "The pain, the tears, the slaughter, it is all arranged in a kind of harmony. But not the harmony we would choose. Watch closely and you will ask yourself: what kind of madness would create such a balance?"
He leaned his head back and closed his eyes.
"I pity them all, and in the end, they will all be saved."
Now, as Bethryl struggled against the creature dragging her through the forest, she tried to summon energy, but only saw that morning again.
"We are all cursed beings," Ashar had told her. "Take you, for example. Every instinct in your body tells you to run from me and forget I exist. Yet you stay. More than that, you are glad we are here together. And perhaps it is something I do not yet understand… but I am glad as well."
Bethryl smiled.
Ashar reminded Bethryl of the early men described in her textbooks, the founders of the Realms. The Mentors spoke of them as golden beings without flaw, but that was not how she imagined them.
When Bethryl listened to their stories, she saw an odyssey of madmen. Who else would fight storms, winds, and unyielding skies with nothing but an idea? It was not simple will that drove them forward, but a divine insanity. It repelled many, and rightfully so, but with Bethryl it only drew her closer.
It reminded her of her father.
Ashar was monstrous: many would die for him, many would die against him, and still he would continue, as though he were a god with nothing above him but dust. If he wished for birds to fall or trees to wither, they would.
That was what she saw behind his blue eyes.
He could be alone, drowning in a nameless sea, stripped of all hope, and still he would fight, unchanged. His war was not with men, nor beasts, but with the sky itself.
In a world that walked toward truth through doubt and endless questioning, he was the only one she knew that could cling to something unseen with such absolute certainty.
That was what made him beautiful to her. It was what was what felt closest to her truth.
And from now on, she would choose to believe, the way he did.
The creature lunged, fangs aimed at her throat, then paused.
It looked down.
In that instant, when it lost focus, Bethryl formed an Axiom blade and drove it through the creature's body.
It fell, screeching.
She immediately saw what would happen next.
"Bethryl!" her mother's voice cried. "How could you do that? Didn't I tell you—"
"To stop playing games and come home?" Bethryl interrupted calmly. "Are those the words you were about to use?"
The image froze.
Bethryl could see it all now. In the next seconds, her mother's form would dissolve back into silver, leap toward her, and miss as she stepped aside.
And that was exactly what happened.
When the creature realized it had failed, it turned and screamed.
"It is already over for you," Bethryl said.
In the next instant, Maereth dropped her invisibility and struck from behind, driving her blade through the creature's back.
"You survived!" Maereth laughed, pulling her into an embrace.
"There are more coming," Bethryl said.
"What?"
"Five of them."
She did not panic, because Issen was about to arrive, and she already knew what he would do.
And he did exactly that.
As they regrouped, Ashar studied Bethryl carefully, and he saw something had changed. The restless curiosity in her expression was gone, and now, in its place were eyes like crystal, clear and distant.
"There were two around you," he said weakly, with his internal organs damaged. "How did you survive?"
"I stabbed one," she replied. "And I saw what the other was about to do."
"You saw it?"
Ashar looked closer, and he understood.
She had activated the Eye of Sophia.
But no one had given it to her, as there was no ritual, or transmission. This was perhaps the first time that someone had awakened it themseleves.
Bethryl was now beyond Ashar, as she was a natural user of the Eye.
And so, Ashar's prediction had been correct, because if she had unlocked such an ability on her own, then her potential had no limit.
"With this eye, I can see spirits and presences in a different world," Ashar said quietly. "But that is nothing compared to what you've done. You can truly see the future?"
"Yes," she said. "I think so."
"How far?"
"For now… ten seconds."
"Go further," Ashar urged. "What do you see?"
Bethryl pushed further, and further, and further.
She saw the forest engulfed in flames, and above it hovered cloaked figures wearing white masks. Their shapes sharpened, sharpened until she saw them clearly.
"The Faceless Ones are coming," she said.
Her eyes rolled back. She collapsed.
Above them, a purple cloud drifted overhead.
"There!" Maereth said. "That purple cloud again!"
Ashar looked up.
"I see it too," Issen said. "Look how it's spreading. The whole forest is gonna be covered. What is that? Where is it coming from?"
"It's poison," Ashar said. "A poison attack. Judging by the distance and delay, it was cast by a high-level ability."
He looked down at Bethryl, lying unconscious with her eyes open.
"The Faceless Ones…" he murmured.
"Who could do something on this scale?" Issen asked. "Not even the Soldiers could manage this."
"If I'm correct," Ashar said, "then we likely have only a few hours left to live."
Far beyond the forest's edge on the edge a stone-filled cliff, dark robes fluttered in the wind.
The Supreme Leader watched the horizon.
"Soon," he said. "Very soon, the entire forest will be dead."
He turned to two Soldiers.
"You know where they will go. That is where you will wait."
Before the sound of their movement could even register, the Faceless Soldiers had already descended into the forest.
"He has abandoned us," the Supreme Leader said. "And the one who abandons the world is either a god… or a demon."
His gaze hardened.
"I will not tolerate the existence of either."