Location: Arbola Forest
Timeline: Sixth Age, 52nd Year, Fall
Time is the cruelest jest of we gods. I have watched the loom of Fate for eons, and rarely do the threads snap so delisciously as they did on one autumn afternoon for Nathily. Given what she did to me later, I have every right to relish her tribulations.
She had tried to devote her life life to preparing for wars of steel and shadow, believing that if she could only master the Way of the Azora, she could master her own destiny. But then the unthinkable happened – she fell in love with a human! Given the fact that her life crossed with Emcorae’s only because Alyssa had orchestrated events only made the fiasco even better from my point of view. Alyssa’s pawn – destroying themselves and her plans – what could be better?
The Yearning
The sun was a searing eye in the sky, baking the scent of pine resin and dry needles into a thick, golden haze. Inside her family’s kaza, Nathily sat by the window, pining. She hadn’t donned her armor in over a week; instead she wore a simple tunic of cream-colored silk, her hair let down from its warrior’s knot to fall in soft, golden waves over her shoulders. She was trying to find the stillness El-Janus demanded of her, but her soul was a frantic bird beating against its cage.
“Is he coming back or not?” she whispered to the empty room.
The question didn’t hang in the air; it fell flat against the polished walls, joining the thousands of other identical questions she had cast into the silence since her expulsion from the Glade. Nathily’s finger absently traced the leather-wrapped hilt of the Falcone where it lay on its horizontal stand. The weapon felt like a stranger to her now—a heavy, cold reminder of a life that felt increasingly like a dream she was waking up from.
She walked to the window, her movements lacksadaisical, lacking the liquid precision that had once terrified Sylvaris and the other trainees. Outside the forest was a riot of changing color—russets, golds, and deep, dying greens. To the other Amorosi, it was the glory of the harvest. To Nathily, it was the color of sadness.
She leaned her forehead against the pane, her breath fogging the glass. “One fortnight,” she murmured. “Then another. How long does it take for a shooting star to burn out?”
She remembered the Patience Tree—the pazzierra leaves that withered if plucked too soon. She felt like one of those leaves now, detached from the branch of her training, turning brittle in the stagnant air of her parent’s house. She felt wholly empty.
The door creaked open. No light poured in, for the hallway was as dim as her room.
“Nathily?” It was Rian. His voice was thick with the frustration of a father who couldn’t fight his daughter’s melancholy. “The evening meal is ready. Your mother has prepared the river trout you like.”
“I’m not hungry, Father.”
“You haven’t been hungry for a week,” Rian’s shadow moved against the doorframe. “El-Janus spoke to me today. He says the scouts have seen no sign of…your friend. He thinks… he thinks perhaps the boy has found a life elsewhere. Monthaven is his home, daughter. Humans are not like us. They are…unreliable.”
Nathily turned from the window, her emerald eyes flashing with a sudden, desperate fire. “But..he promised he would reurn! He said we were twin arrows. He said—”
“He said many things when the sun was high and the training was a game,” Rian interrupted, his voice uncharacteristically stern. “But the sun is setting, Nathily. You are a daughter of the Goddess. You cannot spend your immortality waiting for a mortal to remember his way back to The Forest. This is not his home.”
The door closed, leaving her in total darkness. As the Regent walked away, Nathily could hear him muttter, “…honestly I don’t know why Alyssa ever made us take the boy. He–“
Nathily sank to the floor, her back against the cool wood of the wall. She felt the self explosion she had feared weeks ago finally beginning to happen—not as a burst of flame, but as a slow, agonizing collapse inward.
She wasn’t an Azora. She wasn’t a hero. She was just a girl in a dark room, clutching a memory of a lost love that was growing colder with every tick of the clock.
But then, she heard it.
Distantly, through the walls and the heavy forest air, a horn sounded at the northern gate. It wasn’t the sharp, rhythmic blast of a scout. It was a long, clumsy, boisterous note—the sound of someone who didn’t know the rules of the forest but was too happy to care.
Nathily’s heart lurched. “He’s here!”
The darkness of the room was suddenly irrelevant. She scrambled to her feet, her hands flying to fix her hair, her breath hitching. The pining was over. The silence was dead. The sun had finally, mercifully, come back to Arbola. And she was ready to bask is it regardless of the consequences.
The Storm Arrives
Nathily didn’t wait. She abandoned the window, her heart hammering a rhythm that was entirely out of sync with the forest’s slow pulse. She flew through the hall, ignoring Fara’s cautious, knowing gaze as she burst through the front door.
There, leading a dust-covered mare named Joanne, was Emcorae.
He looked broader, his jawline sharpened by the road, his hazel eyes bright with a manic, joyous light. When he saw her, his face split into a grin so wide it seemed to contain all the sunshine of the summer.
“Nat!” he shouted, dropping the reins and opening his arms.
Nathily collided with him, the impact sending a jolt of pure, electric relief through her body. For a heartbeat, as she breathed in the scent of road-dust and horse-sweat, the world was right. The pining, the failed training, the warnings of her mother—they were all gone.
“You’re late,” she choked out, pulling back just enough to look at him, her emerald eyes shimmering. “More than a fortnight late, Emcorae. I thought… I thought you weren’t coming back.”
“Not a chance!” Emcorae laughed, his hands resting comfortably on her shoulders. “I had… problems. Beautiful, wonderful problems, Nat. I can’t believe I’m back. I’ve missed this place. I’ve missed you.”
Nathily felt the opening—the “moment of truth” Emcorae had once lectured her about. She quickly seized the opportunity, eager to admit her love to him. “I missed you more. While you were gone, I realized that the Azora… the training… it only matters because you’re part of it, Em. It took me a long time, but I realized while you were gone that…that I l—”
“Wait, wait!” Emcorae interrupted, his excitement bubbling over, drowning out her confession. “Before you say anything, I have to tell you why I’m late. I have to tell you the plan, Nat. It’s perfect. It’s everything I ever wanted.”
Nathily’s smile faltered, her warrior’s instinct sensing a shift in the air. “The plan?”
“I’m moving out of the barracks,” Emcorae said, his words coming in a jubilant rush. “I just need to talk to El-Janus but surely he’ll understand. And Rian will have to agree to, but that’s fine. It will all work out. The point is, I’m moving to Arbola – for good! I’ve already told my family. I’m going to build a home here, Nat. A real home. Not just a bunk for a soldier, but a place for a family.”
A surge of hope, fierce and blinding, rose in Nathily’s chest. A home. For us? “Emcorae, I don’t know what to say…”
“And the best part,” he continued, oblivious to the fragile hope he was about to crush, “is that she’s already agreed! I went back to Monthaven to find my warrior’s spirit, but instead I found my heart. Well my soul mate, I guess. You’ll love her. Her name is Lynsy Finch, Nat. She’s a merhant’s daughter, and she’s… gods, she’s like a spring morning. I’m going back for her after the harvest. We’re going to be married.”
The world didn’t just stop for Nathily; it shattered.
The elfess felt a coldness spread from the center of her chest, a frost so deep it seemed to turn her blood to slush. The golden sunlight felt suddenly grey. Emcorae’s face, the rustle of the leaves, the weight of her own body—everything became distant and distorted.
“M-m-married?” she repeated. Her voice sounded like it belonged to someone else, someone very small and far away.
“Yes – Married!” Emcorae beamed, his eyes glowing with a terrifying, innocent happiness. “I told her all about you, my best friend, the fiercest warrior in the woods. I told her you’re sure to be best friends. And her maid Tiffania is coming as well – and her boyfriend too. Oh, isn’t it so great? We’re going to be one big happy family, Nat. You, me, Lysny, and the entire gang!”
Nathily looked past him, her gaze fixing on the horizon where the dark clouds of a coming storm were finally visible through the pines. She thought of the Patience Tree—the leaves she had tried to pluck before they were ready. She thought of the Goddess Alyssa, weeping in the arms of Pan because she could not have the god she truly loved.
“It’s great,” Nathily whispered, her face a mask of Amorosi stoicism that was slowly, agonizingly beginning to crack. “Truly… great.”
Emcorae, caught in the grip of his own joy, didn’t see the light go out in the elfess’ eyes. He didn’t see the way her hands trembled as she pulled them away from his. He only saw his friend, standing in the sun, surely ready to share in his new life and happy for him.
Behind them, in the doorway of the kaza, Fara watched in silence, her heart breaking for the daughter who had finally released her arrow, only to watch it strike the ground at her own feet.
The storm had arrived – and things would never be the same again.
The Apocrypha of Azazel 