season avatars 01 - seasons beginnings
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“What happened after I left?” He found it hard to take his gaze away
from Salth’s house. “Why did you follow Sal-thaath? Don’t you know
where he led you?”
“We thought he was you. How did he manage to impersonate you?”
She shuddered, then finally glanced in the direction where Kron was
looking. Her face turned pale. “By the Four, how—”
“The Four had nothing to do with it!” Sal-thaath jumped in front of
them, spreading his arms as if he meant to protect the crystal house. “I
did it all by myself!” He faced Kron. “I found a time when you came
here and captured that heartbeat. Then I had to learn how to play the
heartbeat over and over again so I could live inside of it, inside of your
image.”
Sal-thaath gazed at him as if expecting praise. All Kron could feel
was revulsion. Still, he managed to ask, “And why did you do that?”
Sal-thaath looked down at the ground, drawing a line with his foot
and not saying a word.
“Ah, there you are, Kron, just in time.” Salth herself, looking as
transparent as her crystal house, appeared in front of them. She smiled,
exposing teeth as sharp as Salth’s. “Thank you for bringing Me these
double-strong magicians. They will serve Us well.”
“Serve them?” Hala asked, voice squeaky with fright.
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“Well, not directly, child. All We need from you is that magic the
Foolish Four gave you. It’s for my boy.” Salth’s voice dropped. “It’s
always been for my boy.”
A few of the Avatars pulled away from Kron, muttering and staring
at him suspiciously.
“She’s lying!” he said. His heart sank. After all the moons they’d
spent training together, how could even one of the Avatars believe Salth
over him?
Galia raised her head. “Kron’s right. Salth’s trying to trick us, just
the way her son did.”
“I can’t believe we left the Spring Soltrans for this,” Flilya muttered.
“I want to go home.”
“We can’t leave now, Flilya!” Bella said. “Kron needs us.”
“Yes, we’re all here to work together.” Kron faced Salth and her son,
drawing on his courage and the anger he felt for all of their victims.
“Salth and Sal-thaath, we have you outnumbered.”
“Do you really think that matters, when we have many-magic over
you?”
Kron flexed his fingers, remembering the star magic he held. “I
wouldn’t be so sure of that.”
Salth didn’t answer; instead, she beckoned them. But although the
Avatars trembled, none of them stepped forward.
A furrow appeared on Salth’s forehead. “Your trinkets are stronger
than your far-seer, Kron. But not strong enough.”
She and Sal-thaath stepped closer to each other, moving in unison.
Kron sensed the magic building in each of them. Magic stretched be-
hind Sal-thaath, tethering him to the crystal house. That must be what’s
restored him to life. All the death Salth has caused to feed one thought-
less, cruel boy who refuses to change. If Salth and Sal-thaath joined
their magic, they would be able to overwhelm the protective artifacts
he’d given to Avatars, maybe even his own personal protections. Then
they would all be helpless, their magic—their lives—drained away to
give Sal-thaath a life he didn’t deserve.
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“Avatars, link!” he snapped at them. He had an idea for cutting Sal-
thaath off from the magic in the crystal house, but he needed time – the
one thing Salth could deny him – to put it together. Hopefully twelve
Avatars could distract the mother-son pair long enough for him to dodge
them and reach the house.
At his words, the Avatars snapped out of their trance and linked into
three groups of four, with the Winter Avatars facing Salth and Sal-
thaath. The temperature dropped, hail poured down on the pair—then
stopped in mid-air a handspan above their heads.
Salth and Sal-thaath might not be able to freeze the Avatars directly,
but if they could halt time for the weather, would the Avatars be able to
do anything against them?
Is there a way I can turn their mastery of time against them? Kron
pulled out the two artifacts he’d planned to use, the shell to enhance
Bella’s voice and the gold wire. The shell seemed like it would be better
suited to trapping magic. For an instant, Kron regretted that Bella
wouldn’t have a chance to sing, but with the house grown so much, he
doubted she could have shattered it even with the shell’s help. He
poured his magic into the shell, strengthening and enlarging it. When it
was the size of his head, he pitched it at Salth and Sal-thaath. A gust of
wind positioned it perfectly between them. As he’d expected, both of
them turned their attention to it. Sal-thaath shot corruptive magic at it,
but Salth said, “Wait, son! He might have set a trap in there.”
Kron took advantage of the distraction to sprint past both of them
toward the house. He braced himself, expecting either an attack from
one of them or else a ward or trap. But Salth must have assumed the
time-absorbing nature of the house would be enough of a defense.
Magic reached out, trying to penetrate his clothing and leach his re-
maining years from him. When that failed, the house tried to repel him.
Each step became a struggle, as if it took a year to raise and lower each
foot. Kron pulled the coil of gold wire from his pouch and held it in
front of him. That seemed to help. As he drew closer, he wondered if
he would be able to make the gold wire stick to the crystal. Normally
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fusing two dissimilar materials together was tricky but not impossible,
but with this house Kron didn’t know what to expect.
A moat of bones, both animal and human, surrounded the house.
Kron tried to kick them aside, wincing at the sacrilege, but they stuck
in the frozen mud as if planted there. The one that he’d tried to dislodge
stirred, and meat and fur grew back over it layer by layer. Other bones
started returning to life. Salth hadn’t left her house defenseless after all.
Looks like I’m going to have to come up with some way to destroy or
neutralize these poor creatures. Actually, maybe I don’t.
He stepped back, turned sideways—it would be foolish to leave him-
self exposed to the reviving creatures and people—and called, “Bella!
Galia! I need you here!”
Salth had drawn closer to the shell and was peering at it, probably
trying to figure out how to destroy it when it kept trapping her magic.
Sal-thaath pranced around, shooting magic at an ice wall the three Win-
ter Avatars were building around him. Neither side seemed to be able
to gain the upper hand. Pulling two Avatars away would upset the bal-
ance in favor of Sal-thaath, leaving him free for more mischief, but if
Kron could sever his tie to the crystal house, then the boy would cease
to be a problem. And if he ceased to be, then Kron had to accept that.
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No matter how much he’d once cared for this child, Sal-thaath couldn’t
be allowed to steal other lives to sustain his own.
Kron had to call for Galia and Bella a couple more times before they
finally dissolved the link. By then, the living bones had started to group
together in combinations that would never work without magic. Skulls
hopped on top of ribs, and limbs joined with other limbs at odd angles,
as if Salth was creating living artifacts. Kron spat with disgust at the
thought.
Bella grimaced as she approached Kron, and Galia’s face bore a
tinge of green. “By All Four, what’s she doing?”
“I think these are her house guardians. Can you get me past them?”
Galia turned her head from side to side, surveying the sentinels. “I
don’t think we can handle all of them by ourselves.”
Sea so n s’ Be gin n in gs · 2 3 5
“Then just clear a path through them.”
Bella furrowed her brow, but she and Galia joined hands and pointed
at the spot right in front of Kron. The half-creatures shuddered and
scrambled over other ones to get away. Kron drew his clothing around
him. As soon as a path was clear, he sprinted down it. Skulls snapped
their jaws and legs kicked at him, but they couldn’t reach into the pro-
tected path. He reached the crystal and uncoiled the end of the gold
wire, then pressed it against the cold wall. It sank in, and Kron had to
snatch his fingers away before they followed. How could he get the gold
to stick to the crystal before the house swallowed it all?
This house isn’t alive; it was made. It’s an artifact. By All Four, it’s
an artifact. Why did it take me so long to realize that? Salth may have
made this, but my magic should be stronger than hers for this.
Kron left the gold wire in place, flexed his hands, and deliberately
pushed on the crystal. The artifact sucked at his magic like a babe at his
mother’s breast. Kron tried to follow his magic inside the house, hoping
he could damage the artifact from within, but once his magic passed
through the crystal, it changed, no longer feeling like him. It felt more
primal, like the energy within the Avatars.
Of course. How stupid of me. I need their magic to destroy this
house. Then he remembered he couldn’t link with them or access their
magic. Wasn’t destroying this house supposed to be their task? How
could they channel their magic into it when they could barely hold off
Salth?
I should be the one facing Salth, not them. We need to switch places.
Or at the least, he needed to guide them so they knew what to do.
Abandoning the gold wire for now—though he made sure the crystal
house wouldn’t swallow the rest of it while he was occupied—Kron
checked on the Avatars. Incredibly, they’d linked through the three
Springs, feeding the Winters with power from the Summers and Falls.
But no matter how much lightning, hailstones, or even whirlwinds they
sent at Salth and Sal-thaath, every weather pattern broke down before
it reached the mother-son pair.
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This is hopeless. I can’t shatter the crystal house, they can’t defeat
Salth and Sal-thaath, and I have no other artifacts that I can use against
time. Unless… he reached backward for the gold wire. If the gold was
the only thing he had that resisted being corrupted by time, then he had
to use it to break the stalemate.
Kron snapped the wire flush against the crystal, so smooth he
couldn’t even feel the broken end of the wire. He wound it into a coil
about as wide as he was tall. Now came the tricky part: getting close
enough to Sal-thaath to toss it over him. Without Galia and Bella to
keep it open, the living moat had closed up again, trapping Kron next
to the crystal house. If only he could jump across it, or fly…well, he
had his boots. Why not turn them into artifacts too?
Kron directed the star magic into his boots. They bounded into the
air, dragging him along for the flight. Kron struggled to keep his head
above his heels. He aimed the boots towards Sal-thaath. Wind from the
Winters’ latest weather attack knocked him off course for a heartbeat.
As if he’d gained telepathy, Sal-thaath turned and gestured at Kron’s
boots. The stitches holding them together snapped, his boots fell off of
his feet, and he dropped into a snowbank, an armslength from the moat.
He jerked away from a skeletal hand and stood up. His feet burned from
the cold snow, but Kron didn’t have time to reassemble his boots. In-
stead, he flung his gold coil toward Sal-thaath. The child dodged with
depressing ease. Then, with a pointed smile, he advanced on Kron.
Kron, however, didn’t focus on Sal-thaath. Instead, he beckoned the
gold coil to fly forward, intending to wrap it around Sal-thaath. At the
last heartbeat, Sal-thaath retreated, drawing closer to the Avatars.
“Watch out!” Kron called.
They didn’t respond. By the way they had their eyes closed and their
limbs wrapped around each other, they seemed to be completely igno-
rant of was what going on around them. But despite the cold, sweat
dripped from their faces, and their bodies trembled.
“You know this is a hopeless battle for them, Kron,” Salth said. She
waved at the shell, and it cracked. Kron’s heart sank. “Perhaps I cannot
Sea so n s’ Be gin n in gs · 2 3 7
take their time—yet—but I can do other things with time, stretch out a
many-hurtful moment of pain, or hurt them and not let them heal. If you
care for them, Kron Evenhanded, you should bargain with me for their
lives.”
He suspected he already knew what she wanted, but he asked any-
way, “And what would you have me give up for their safety, Salth?”
“Your life and your magic, Kron.”
Unspoken were the words “to feed Sal-thaath.”
None of the Avatars, not even his wife, reacted. Either they were so
deeply engrossed in their magic that they’d lost all contact with the out-
side world, or they didn’t care what happened to him. He knew that
couldn’t be true, but it was hard to believe that when no one spoke out
against Salth.
“And if I were to portal away from here and leave them, what would
you do?” he asked, more to provoke a response from the Avatars than
to consider it.
Salth cackled. “You’d never do that, double-foolish Kron.”
Domina shot a bolt of lightning at Salth, but she deflected it with no
more than a gesture.
“Bella? Galia? Can you hear me?” Kron called. “Say something!”
“This shouldn’t be a hard choice for you, Kron.” Salth gestured
again, and the water clock, now whole and grown big enough to hold a
man, rolled toward her. Water streamed out of the middle row of holes.
“Choose quickly, or your friends perish when the clock runs dry.”
The water level dropped to the next row, as if Salth had sped up how
fast the water would drain out.
Kron scoffed. “I’ll believe that after you break through the protec-
tions
I’ve given then.”
Salth smiled and looked over the crowd. “It’s not that hard to pick
out the oldest Avatar, is it? And the oldest Avatar has the least time left
to her….”
She closed her eyes. The tight knot of Avatars broke up, but Galia
wasn’t visible. The Avatars circled around her with concern evident on
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their faces. She staggered, one hand over her heart. The wrinkles on her
face deepened, and clumps of her hair fell out, invisible against the
snow.
Janno and Caye clutched each of her arms. With horror, Kron
watched them age too. Bella stepped forward, but before she touched
Galia, she turned to face Kron with a look of love and desperation. One
by one, the other Avatars copied her, imploring him for help.
Any lingering doubts Kron had about the Avatars melted as Ocul
and Magstrom took Galia’s hands. The other Avatars formed into their
groups again, all channeling their magic into her. But Kron knew that
wouldn’t be enough. Salth would first drain Galia of all her remaining
years, then the rest of them.
“I love you,” Bella mouthed before reaching for Galia.
Before she made contact, Kron said, “Enough, Salth!” He stepped
toward the water clock. “I yield! Release them.”
Salth’s smile deepened.
“Kron, no!” Bella yelled.
As much as it pained Kron to ignore her, he had to if he was going
to save them. Once he was gone, the Avatars would be helpless against
Salth. Only if they returned to Vistichia, behind the Four’s protective
barriers, would they be safe. Before he could face Salth and Sal-thaath,
he had to send them back, even if they hadn’t finished their mission yet.
Kron put his hands behind his back. As he approached the water
clock, he made circling motions with his fingers. He fed his power into
the gold loop, enlarging it until the gold was thinner than a human hair.
Even if someone stared directly at the circle, it would be difficult to
detect.
“Sal-thaath, come here,” Kron said. “I’ll give you my power inside
the water clock.”
The boy looked at him warily, as if expecting a trick. Kron kept all
expression off of his face.
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“It’s all right, Sal-thaath,” Salth said. “The water clock is My sym-