A Paladin's Pact

“Oh, enough of that,” the lich sneered, magic twisting at her fingers as she turned the aasimar’s golden feathers into lead. 

Sei’ku fell, plummeting to the lava below. In his talons, his holy spear wailed with a celestial’s fear and fury, as though he was already lost.

But Sei’ku was stubborn and proud and if he was to fall here it would not be in vain. Nor would it be alone. His talons hooked under the chain of fiery beads around his wrist, yanking them free. He grit his teeth and, with more evocation magic in those seven beads than a paladin could ever cast, launched them with all his might.

The color drained instantly from her undead face. He closed his eyes, satisfied, before the heat engulfed him with lava and fireballs tearing into his skin. A scream was lost in the flames and Sei’ku was soon to follow.

Heat and fog became all he knew. It wasn’t what he expected of death. 

Long before his angelic guide bound himself to his blade, they spoke in dreams. There, Ithuriel showed him the blue skies and purple fields of the celestial plane that resonated in his and Sei’ku’s blood like a promise.

But there was no peace here. No sense of time or place. Just an ache that dug deep into the marrow of his soul and a burn that consumed the rest. 

Sometimes, there were voices, and he knew he wasn’t alone in the fog. 

You’re stronger than this.            Sei’ku…
                            Tymora watch him.

                  What made you bring us here?
                                                      What made you follow?
                                                                             Help him. Please.

Like a balm, magic washed over him, cooling the ever lingering burn. After holding his breath for so long in a chest filled with smoke, Sei’ku sighed and let sleep take him.

   Thank you.                     
He will still need time… but it’s a start.

Little by little, as the fog receded, Sei’ku came to. The pain lingered, his vision was blurred, it was a struggle to even twitch what remained of his wings, but he was awake. He was alive. And all the while he felt the familiar presence of a celestial beside him, unable to help, but there all the same.

His friends were no further away either. The juggernaut of a warforged set their camp and the tiny ranger butchered their meal while their elderly cleric sat with him. Hava, wily as the old medicine woman was, had never once been so motherly towards him. That alone told him how bad off he was. She pushed food into shaking hands and never let her gaze stray too far. But he could murmur his thanks and sip the tonics she made and it was a start. It was recovery.

Even the jungle of Chult itself wanted him to heal. The dangers of the fauna and the monsters that called it home now gave them unprecedented room to breathe. They had broken Ras Nsi's iron grip on the continent, destroyed his abomination, and watched Ubtao wake. Now the jungles they guarded guarded them.

It lulled them.

Because there was a crack, something broken deep in the Weave that still plagued Chult. Without warning, golden wings erupted from the twisted limbs at his back, broken and wrong, and Sei’ku screamed.

He fell forward, clawing at his back. Every nerve was touched by fire and the balm the clerics had brought now burned and boiled across them.

Hava frantically grabbed his face. “Sleep.” And he did, her magic dragging him back beneath the safety of the fog.

    What happened?             Gods… they’re backwards…
                This isn’t right…                What do we do?
                                                          We find help.     He can’t see this…    
                                                     We need to find help.

Sei’ku was aware of very little beyond pain after that. The burning was gone, replaced with sheer agonizing static. The slightest movement of his wings pulled whimpers from a raw throat as lightning danced across the limbs and down his spine.

What sleep he found was barely that. Still his angelic guide remained, ever present and divine, but still a guide. Only meant to watch, yet pressing dreams of desperate hope into his soul to make sure Sei’ku was never alone.

                          Healing is broken here… but I can help. Will you let me?
                                                          Hurt him and you die where you stand.
                                   I’ll help him. I’ll try… I think I can open a gate for someone… 

And then nothing. For the first time since falling, Sei’ku felt nothing. No fire, no static. Just a gentle breeze across his skin.

He opened his eyes to see a field of purple wheat beneath a clear sky.

For a moment, he thought he saw movement and shadow, but the beating of wings so much greater than his own bathed everything in gold. The celestial Ithuriel was a warrior and a guide and a being of ancient, unfathomable light. He surrounded Sei’ku, pulling his ward into his embrace. 

Ithuriel had always been a presence, never tangible. He guided Sei’ku’s hand the first times he swung a blade and pressed divine might into his strikes from afar. He whispered in dreams, but remained unknowing for so many years. Yet Sei’ku prayed and he answered, bottling celestial fury in a hollow blade because his ward feared his strength alone wasn’t enough. Now Sei’ku’s voice was lost, his prayers desperate, and Ithuriel was here. 

In dealing with his guide, Sei’ku had learned to decipher visions and omens. But in his distress, Ithuriel pressed a single word into Sei’ku’s heart, no cipher needed:

 Accept.                                                    

It was question and plea wrapped around hope. Hope that a pact forged now could save them both.

                 “I will.”

There was a smile somewhere in that brilliance and a surge of divine light as Ithuriel’s radiance became Sei’ku’s own.