Thank you to my beta reader and editor, GlassThreads!
Seris Vritra
My pen danced across the page, streaking ink in its wake like a finger drawing blood across corpseflesh. I wrote at a leisurely pace, imbuing my thoughts into each sweep of the writing instrument. Up, down, around and back. My thoughts did not stop coming to me, flowing near endlessly as I tried to capture the meaning within.
I lounged on a bench outside one of the Town Zone's eerie suburban houses, seeking the unnatural shade of one of the trees on its lawn. It was hard to relax in this place. Harder still without a cup of coffee or tea to keep me calm. But as I'd done for the time since I'd awoken in this strange place, I wrote.
To an outsider looking in, the sweeping letters across the age-worn pages would be unintelligible. Words and runes and symbols flowed together in a complicated mess, the neat and tidy handwriting strung into a knot of over-twisted yarn by each stroke of a pen. What should have been the epitome of order—language, writing, and the brush of a human's hand—was instead pulled taut into a tangled splatter of dripping ink. There was a sort of tension to every curve of letters and dip of the handwriting, as if each symbol was trying desperately to cry out to each and every other adjacent glyph. Letters sought familiar companions, drowned in the sea of chaos. Single arms and swooping tails and gaping maws scrambled for some sense of unity.
This was what Toren did not understand. When he'd made his little encryption to hide his secrets, he hadn't grasped the true difference between order and chaos. He didn't understand that to truly hide information, one needed to grasp the dichotomy of this world. Order to chaos and back again.
Toren's words were too orderly, the symbols and letters put to the page following a distant dictate of language. That made his encryption easy to pick apart. There were ciphers that were too chaotic, too, where one could fail to extract the original message. The key was balance. Balance between those two primordial forces, keeping them in check with each other. As one wrote, they could dip the ship to either wayward sea, skirting them to keep true information at arm's length.
That was how I'd always planned since the day I'd awoken in the pits of Taegrin Caelum as a young girl, drawn on by something instinctual deep in my blood. Straddling order and chaos, learning to not just ride the tides, but to control them. When chaos took hold, I knew how to extract the order from it. And when unwanted order aligned, a sprinkling of disruption would see it become tangled again, perfect for me to arrange as I needed.
Everything had been turned to chaos by the catastrophic ending of the war. When the asura intervened, swept toward the Hearth, and sought my death…
But I hadn't allowed them to kill me. I'd taken that chaos, molded it and shaped it. As inverted misery tore through me, I'd forged order from the scattered puzzle pieces, ascending to something more. Finding light and hope and…
I swallowed, the movement of my pen faltering. It wasn't the usual quill and inkpot I was accustomed to—no, this was a self-contained little writing utensil, found in the rooms all across this strange Zone. A reflection from Toren's past life, taken from his memories or his world. The man I called my own had written extensively about this place in my journal, too. It had been somewhat amusing watching his internal breakdowns play out across the pages as he questioned his reality and who he was.
If only because—as I read about a strange book he'd found in another life—I felt the gnawing questions now, too, and I could understand entirely what led to them.
Always more questions you leave me with, Toren, I thought, unsure of what to feel right now. I could… almost feel him, through the inverted weaves of my new magics. Inversion had been tied to the soulful musician in a way I never fully comprehended, and through the purging of my dark arts, I'd made myself something similar. Tied to him. Bound, but not in chains. In silks and warmth and… feelings I did not wish to contemplate.
"Three weeks ago, I awoke in a place I shouldn't be," Toren's journal had started. And on and on it went for a time. After Toren's confrontation with the great serpent of the Undead Zone, he'd taken to writing far, far more often. Nearly daily. He'd said that he needed to be aware of what he felt and write it down, lest it overcome him and leave him a broken mess again.
I raised my head upward, looking into the boundless blue sky beyond the trees and houses. There was no sun in this place, not even an artificial one. Just endless light that cast no true shadows.
The mana in the air jumped with ecstatic joy at less than an inflection of my part. I felt a part of this world in a way I'd never experienced before, with every part of my body able to store and pull mana with me. I was more powerful than I had ever been, enmeshed with the ambient mana and with ever-growing potential in me.
I was so powerful. Powerful beyond belief, with the inbuilt ability to crush anything in my way. But the emotions that pulled at me from every angle, distracting me from my goals and sidetracking my attempts to truly think ahead… They made me feel weak.
When Toren was by my side, such was not the case. I felt more comfortable in every rise and fall of everything along the colorful spectrum of life. But now, it felt constricting. I could no longer simply will the day away with needed plans and schematics for the future because my mind would find itself on a sidetracked tangent, led away by the hand into something that I couldn't afford to care about.
So I tried to emulate him, wherever he was. I wrote what I could onto the pages, until the emotions died away and I could think with reason again. It helped some, I supposed. It was basic psychology that building pressure needed to be released in some way or form.
My brows furrowed as I stared up at the sky, wishing there was a sun I could glare at for a time. You've made everything so much more chaotic, Toren. And you've left me to make order of it. Just like after the Joans. After the Plaguefire Incursion. After your battle with Arthur. After the Breaking of Burim. You always leave me to tidy up your messes. Perhaps I should make you clean up after yourself next time, just so you can know how it feels.
I sighed. Losing myself in emotion again, when I needed to take steps forward.I snapped my notebook closed, allowing myself to stand. Now was a time for order. Now was a time for me to lay my own dominoes, starting with the Menagerie that had made their way to this Zone.
A while past, after announcing the truth that Toren was still out there somewhere, Sevren, Caera and Naereni had gone their own ways across the zone, doing what they needed to process it all. I'd watched fondly as Naereni and Caera devolved into a bickering that pulled at the tension and pressure bottled within them. They'd built each other up in the time I'd been away, growing like persistent flowers on the cusp of blooming. Iron sharpened iron.
Sevren, like a brooding, hunched wolf, had marched back to his chaotic workshop, fuming silently. In disbelief or anger, I could not tell quite yet. But just as my students left to digest my unsubtle declaration of war, the snapping silverwolf that was the eldest Denoir sought solace in his gadgets and machines.
He's sharpened himself nicely, I thought absently, forcing myself to stroll along the pavement. In another world, he might have burned himself away in the Relictombs. But now… there's no better blade.
I would speak with him later, after my upcoming appointment.
I found my target soon enough. He wasn't predictable in the way the others that had come with him were, so I needed to rely on my expanded sense of the ambient mana to track him down. It was annoyingly difficult to do, too, cloaked as he was by some sort of artifact and my own inexperience with Integration. The mana parted for me, bending to will and subconscious thought before I was even aware of it.
Before, taking control of my mana had been a simple act of willpower and insight. But now, it felt as if I were a ship coasting between two seas, trying to weave between two seas. The very act of directing my mana was an extension of the dance I'd always maintained between order and chaos.
Order and chaos, I thought, honing in on the mana signature. Integration compels my control to adapt to my psyche. Does every Integrated mage need realignment in their magic in this way, or is it unique to the individual? I need more datapoints for confirmation.
So many questions and so little time. Though time flowed faster within the Relictombs, with all the disparate threads of weaving plots in my mind, it still felt like far too little time. Mastering my new abilities, following Lady Dawn's advice regarding methods to tear apart Agrona's runic control, working on spreading soft power outside of the Tombs…
The last on that list, at least, had the clearest direction.
Alaric Maer, once one of the greatest spymasters in Alacrya's underground, was holding an unopened bottle of alcohol. It was to his credit that hardly any knew his name. That meant he was good at his job.
The washed-up ascender stared at the towering shelves within one of the hollowed-out suburban homes. Each of the shelves had little nameplates, alongside a dark sphere of carapace that glowed with purple runes. Everywhere his jumpy eyes passed, his hand clenched along that bottle.
He was tempted. He wanted desperately to open the bottle in his hand, to quiet the noise of his mind.
Here was where the efforts in mapping the Relictombs had born true fruit. Each tether-sphere would allow someone to travel directly to a zone of their choosing. It wasn't as efficient as the compass that another timeline's Arthur would've gained, but that—in some ways—was a blessing for what I had in mind. Better to keep the pieces scattered, the puzzle in disarray so only one could piece it together.
I rose into the air, drifting toward a specific tether sphere on the higher shelves. The nameplate along the front read Undead Zone, the target for nearly all of my future experiments.
Alaric belatedly recognized I was there. The burly man cursed, stumbling back for a second, before falling to a knee. The glass bottle of alcohol clinked as it bumped against the floor, the man forcing protocol into his blunt body.
"Scythe Seris Vritra," he grunted, doing what he could to try and adjust his dirty tunic. "I didn't know you were here. If there's anything I, uhh... I'm happy to serve?"
I ignored the man, feeling the fear radiating from him. For all that he professed his readiness to do as I asked, the old instincts of a trained fighter kept his muscles tensed and his body ready to run.
I plucked the specific carapace sphere from the shelf, admiring the runework Sevren Denoir had etched into it. Preservative and holding runes ensured that it would not decay, effectively maintaining a connection with wherever the distant tether-tail counterpart was staked.
A zone with countless undead, all tied together by intent… Every living corpse still bearing the runes from before their deaths?
And theoretically bound by the very same runic control I needed to shatter. It was perfect for my plans.
I turned slowly in the air, looking down at the kneeling ex-ascender. In another timeline, he might have assisted a wayward man, cast into the Relictombs without resources or shelter. Arthur Leywin would rely on an old spy's network to see himself rise through our wretched society.
Fate, it seemed, had a strange way of repeating. I knew not how the djinni medallion had sent me here, but being cast into the Relictombs and meeting this man was beyond fortuitous.
"I suspect I am no longer Scythe, Alaric Maer," I said simply, watching the way his pupils subtly twitched to the side. Familiarly. "But regardless, there is a way you will serve me."
I floated above him, inspecting the runed carapace as if it were an apple ripe to eat. "You are aware of what these are, yes? What they mean?"
Alaric ground his teeth, glued to the floor. "They allowed the kids to track through this place. The Tombs, zones, all of it."
My eyes sharpened. Smart, this one. He knew that I wouldn't accept a veiled answer from him or a half-measure, so he said the whole truth as bluntly as he could. Playing to my psychology as best as he understood.
"That is treason, is it not? To withhold such information from our Sovereigns."
Alaric's eyes darted left. His hand tightened on his bottle. "Aye."
I let the silence hold for a moment as I considered all I knew—from both my notebook, and other long-gone sources.
"Cynthia Goodsky committed treason, too," I said simply. "She was sent to the other continent as a spy, intended to gather information and disrupt the growth of magic there. Instead, she did the opposite, turning her cloak after the elven-human war."
Sweat beaded along Alaric's brow, but he remained silent. Kneeling.
"And you… during your tenure on that continent, what did you do for her?"
More sweat. Narrowed eyes, plans of potential escape there… Yes, both he and I knew the truth. But would he lie to me?
"I was a courier for messages," he said gruffly. "Took the letters, didn't read 'em. Brought them somewhere else. I didn't know my captain had turned cloak till it was too late."
A smile crept along my lips as I stared down at the lying man. I could sense his mana signature, feel a bit of his heartbeat as it pulsed through the floor beneath him… He was a good liar. A truly exceptional one.
But his eyes gave him away, just as they'd always given Toren away. They strained to tear to the side, wanting to instinctually focus on something at the corner of his vision. His head tilted ever-so-slightly, his ears registering words I couldn't hear. His knuckles were white around the liquid temptation in his grip.
My eyes drifted to the side, centering on a spot in the empty floor. A ghost lingered there, outside of perception and reality. A fragment of a shattered mind, one that was normally suppressed by copious alcohol.
"Cynthia was one of my best," I said musingly, slowly lowering in the air. "Even until she was slain in the Dicathians' flying castle, she remained loyal."
I did what I could to sculpt an image of the willowy, measured woman. She was one of the first to give my ideas a vision. A goal. I did not press her to abandon Alacrya, but when she had, I found strength and understanding in what she'd done. At the time, I was a freshly-minted Scythe, disgusted with what I'd become and rudderless.
I'd drawn Cylrit into my retinue shortly before Cynthia's ultimate departure from Alacryan goals. And watching her, doing what she could a continent away to build up a people who might never have the ability to resist, gave me direction.
In truth, my rebellions started with the Headmaster of Xyrus Academy's doomed attempt to uplift another people from the dirt.
"The asura of Epheotus knew everything that Lady Goodsky could ever tell them, Alaric," I mused. He was unnerved now, his face paling as I stared at the spot where his ghost haunted him. "But still, they pressed her to rebel against the curse planted in her so, so long ago. They pressed her to reveal knowledge of Scythes and Retainers, dooming her to a coma and inevitable death."
I looked back at the kneeling ascender. "The asura have plenty of spies seeded throughout Alacrya. They could have told the Dicathian Council about our runes, our social structures, our bloods and highbloods, the nature of ascenders… They could have done all of this, but they did not. Do you know why?"
Alaric ran his tongue over his parched lips, his wizened eyes seeing the point immediately. "She was an enemy," he said in part-truth. "The asura wouldn't let her—"
"Do not avoid the truth this time, Alaric," I chastised gently, settling to the floor at last. "I want to hear it from your lips."
Alaric swallowed, his body like a great tank stuttering through rust. He was silent for a heartbeat. Two. Four. Eight. "The war was not about the lessers," he muttered lowly, as if pressing a great lie from the bellows. "It was the asura's war. Dicathen should've never had a chance, even with asuran knowledge."
I nodded slowly, rolling the Undead Zone's tether sphere through my fingers. Ridged and strong, imbued with so much mana and aether…
"And yet, against all odds, the Dicathians have won the first wave of this war," I contemplated. "Not because of their strength, mind you, though that did play a pivotal role. But because our gods decided to reset the board. When Agrona Vritra's tools were no longer useful, he cast them aside for a final gambit. That gambit failed, and the discarded tools still linger."
I'd been thrown to the side, sacrificed for the High Sovereign's goal of turning Xyrus into an unassailable candlestick. The irony was not lost on me, even though it made dark anger rear in my gut.
Everyone had seen a 'tool' cast aside after it lost its use. Sevren was driven by the loss of his maid so long ago, a tutor and mother both. Naereni surged forward because of the fathers that left her behind. Toren mourned Greahd, and Alaric…
Alaric mourned a boy he'd never gotten to meet. A son that was tortured to death because he might've had Vritra blood.
I turned away from where Cynthia's ghost lingered, staring at the man yet living. "What was it that Cynthia always said to you as you… delivered messages?"
Alaric's head bowed, his eyes screwed shut. "S'not enough to rearrange the board," he muttered.
"You need to break it," I echoed in turn with the spymaster. "Cynthia is gone. Your son is gone. This world would not let them live, for the asura above could see them as nothing but tools."
I strode forward, the mana parting around me as I lined up my first domino. I stared down at the kneeling man as he warred inside, seeing what I implied. "I need you to do something for me, Alaric Maer."
—
I laid out what I could afford to the spymaster in short order, drawing him from his kneeling form. With the power of a conquered, mapped Relictombs, the man would be able to deliver messages with an efficiency and power never seen before. I suspected some would be leaving retirement to ascend again: namely, Darrin Ordin and the rest of the Unblooded.
My contacts with my partners would have to remain frayed and disjointed for now. The Denoirs and others I'd slowly been pulling into my circle of influence would be adrift and rudderless, but I couldn't afford to reveal my survival.
Arthur Leywin was an intelligent man, that much I could deduce from the words Toren had scrawled in my notebook. But he was incredibly shortsighted in how best to utilize the time when one was presumed dead and gone. Naming himself Grey, going about and gallivanting as a professor in Central Academy…
It was reckless and born of emotion rather than logic. Though perhaps I could understand the former far more now.
But I had time to prepare now, in a way I'd never been granted before, and I needed to utilize it perfectly.
I strolled from the suburban home, leaving the former spymaster to organize and think. The Town Zone would soon become the hub of my burgeoning rebellion, a beating heart that took the corruption of the Vritra and turned it on itself. A knife in the underbelly of all that the Sovereigns held dear.
"You're good at it," a voice said, struggling against the irritation laced beneath the tones. "Getting others to do what you want. Pulling at their threads and weaknesses, making them think whatever is in their head was their idea all along."
I turned slowly, sparing Sevren Denoir a single raised eyebrow. The angry striker was leaning against a house, watching me with restrained anger. The Denoir Heir wore his characteristic teal cloak, highlighting the spark of green in his eyes. His metal arm—grafted by Toren and given a new life—was crossed over the other. Sevren wasn't wary or fearful of me in the same way Alaric was. No, Alaric had a survival instinct stronger than his anger.
Or perhaps this young man knows just how far he can afford to push with people such as I, I reasoned, taking a moment to inspect him thoughtfully. While others see rash foolishness, they don't recognize the instinct I imbued in him over the years.
"I think that's a limited way of looking at the world," I said, offering a slight smile to the agitated Denoir. "Ideas and concepts are not born of nothing, Lord Denoir. They are shaped and molded by our experience, internal and external."
Sevren wasn't just talking about how I'd spoken with Alaric. I supposed he would be angry after putting together how much I'd nudged and influenced his perception of the world.
I allowed my gaze to linger a while on the soulmetal arm, suppressing the ache it brought as thoughts of Toren danced on the edges of my mind. I'd seen a bit of the project Sevren was working on in his chaotic lab, and though I had some insights he would appreciate, now was not the time to offer them. Not when he was strung tighter than a violin bow.
"Impressive work on the arm," I complimented genuinely, able to feel as it pulsed to my heightened senses. "I never would have considered using soulmetal as you have. Like all your uses of aether, it is a unique way to approach an unapproachable problem. Your weaponry is fascinating."
The hot-blooded heir of Highblood Denoir watched me, the way one watched a burning stove.
"Is that what my hatred is for?" Sevren asked, his metal arm clenching. "I'm a weapon now? That's my place in this little game of yours? This rebellion against the Vritra?"
I considered my words for a fraction of a second. It was true on some level, but not the entire picture. I needed to approach this carefully. Sevren Denoir was repulsed by double meanings and entendres, which meant if I needed his cooperation, I needed to be honest. At least partially.
"Is that not what you want?" I asked instead, clasping my hands over my stomach. "You're not a man of words, Lord Denoir, but one of actions. Yet, without Toren, you've been unable to feel like you can act. Your chance is here again. Just like with Naereni. With your sister, and with Alaric."
The Sovereigns had taken something from each member of the Menagerie. Though I had not created the little ragtag group myself, the pieces were there. The thing that bound these mages together was how Agrona had taken from them, the veil of a well-functioning society ripped aside.
I felt a bit of pride swelling in my chest as I considered this. The puzzle pieces that had been laid so long ago were all drifting together, making a whole through their shared threads.
"I do want it," Sevren muttered, still glaring at me. "I want this society torn down. I want the Vritra to burn. But is this rage mine? Or is it just another thing you've made of me? I'm not an experiment for you, Seris. I'm not some sort of lab rat or mad dog you can set on your enemies now that I'm all trained up. But I can see your fingers on everything. Molding and making it, even back when you were Renea Shorn. Just like a Vritra."
My smile thinned as Sevren's unsubtle accusation sent lancing cracks through my burgeoning pride. I wished for a moment that Cylrit was here; that I could see Kelagon's face again.
"I use their methods. That I cannot deny," I said evenly, my face a plaster mold as I suppressed my unease. I raised a finger, holding it out as if it could catch nonexistent drops of rain from the distant sky. "But I am not them. I am their Inversion."
A grave-white flame popped into existence over the pale digit, flickering quietly. The little tongue of not-soulfire danced there, apathetic and giving no heat. It was a thing of decay and erosion, ready to disintegrate anything I put to it.
But the thing this deviant mana was best at destroying, at tearing the foundations out from below? My mana yearned to dissect everything of the basilisk, yearned to rip it apart and decay it.
"I am what the High Sovereign made me, Lord Denoir, at least in part. But it is my choice to aim the forged knife that I am at their underbelly instead of their enemies."
"So you're making more knives?" Sevren countered, his eyes lingering on the white fire. "Making more who cut like you?"
He was silent for a time, even as I brushed my finger upward, extinguishing the flame.
"When Mardeth attacked Fiachra, you didn't intervene to stop him. You nudged him away. Built up Toren instead. You made him into a knife." Sevren's face creased as he stared up at the sky, his mana fluctuating as something welled up from deep within. "When the Joans started their Blithe business, you didn't intervene then, either. You gave Karsien the knowledge he needed to strike at them eventually, building himself up. That was what molded Naereni into who she is now. And Caera, my sister? You found her before she could manifest. You were there, subtly imbuing a wariness of the system with every step. Not outright, just… slowly. All these people you've manipulated, refusing to intervene outright and do something good."
There was no wind in this zone, no breeze to thread its fingers through my silver hair. But I could almost sense Sevren's resolve halting the flow of this place.
"I spoke with my mother after the Plaguefire Incursion," he said slowly. "I'd blamed her for sending away my tutor, Abigale. For just… cutting away an unneeded limb. Abigale was a person. She's the one who pushed me to mess with gadgets. To take apart clocks and watches and see how the gears worked. And then she became just another body between the angry metal teeth of the Vritra's turning clock. But my mother—Lenora—she spoke with Abigale. They decided together that Abigale would go in my place when the Supervisory Halls came tolling for me. She'd take my place.
"But that didn't make sense, Seris. It didn't make sense that my mother would know that the Supervisors would come for me. The Supervisors are beholden to powers higher than Highbloods."
Sevren's metal arm tensed, mana racing underneath, barely controlled. I'd waited as he spoke, sensing the question rising within him. He suddenly looked like what I'd pushed him to be: a hound barely at the edge of the bit, his teeth sharp and ready to sink into flesh. His pure white hair made me think of a winter wolf as he fixed me with a stare sharper than any razor.
"Did you tell her they were coming for me?"
I considered for a moment, then nodded slowly. "I did."
Sevren's bronzed arm creaked, metal scraping metal. "Did you order it?"
I tilted my head, looking the bristling wolf up and down. The Spider was a poor moniker for him. "I did not. The selection of important people being taken from highblood families is something that came from a time before even my tenure. It was a measure instituted by Sovereign Orlaeth to quell Highbloods that were perceived to be too… upstart."
Sevren watched me for a time, weighing my honesty. "Could you have stopped it?"
I let out a deep breath, calculating what best to say. "I could have."
I could say more. I could say that there were a dozen other families who lost their heirs or close attendants on that same day. I could say that I needed to keep my hand low, not press the board too much yet. But no explanation I offered would feel like justification to the man across from me. They'd ring like excuses.
So I gave him the truth he wanted.
Sevren gritted his teeth, pressing air through them as if he'd been stung. But he didn't say anything, just watched me. Hating me.
It was strange, that hatred in his eyes. He could not truly see me. He still saw what I'd always wanted him to see whenever I'd arrived, taking his sister away from him and isolating him from the world. He saw a molded amalgamation of everything that made Agrona's society wretched.
I'd always borne that gaze steadily. I'd filtered it and reinforced it and continued on undaunted. But for some reason, I felt a kernel of… something else as he stared at me.
I didn't want to be simply an image of a broken society. I didn't want to be just a weapon against the Sovereigns, as I'd always planned.
For a strange, lucid moment, I wanted to say something else. To assure Sevren in some way that my vision for toppling the Vritra was not simply another vision of destruction and death. I was more than simply what the gods of Alacrya had made me. Toren had shown me as such as I'd basked in the light of Integration.
But Sevren was already marching past me, fuming silently. I stepped aside slightly, letting him stomp to wherever he was off to. Probably his lab again.
"There is a vial of blood on your desk, Lord Denoir," I called after the retreating form, my voice straining with solemnity. "If one were to let their weapons bathe in it, no flesh of the Vritra would be capable of withstanding it."
Sevren paused, his hands clenched at his sides, but he didn't respond.
"Alongside that blood, there is a list of… instructions. Agrona may have lost this round of the war, but he will be gearing up for another. And this creates an opportunity for action. We need to make a myth, Lord Denoir."
"And why do you want to make a myth, Scythe?" he asked, his anger tempered for a moment. "Why would I want to do this?"
"The Sovereigns have built their society on the backs of the expendable," I replied. "Things that can die. It is a heartless, empty husk of a society, forged on emptiness. It cannibalizes itself to create the greatest experiments, but nothing holds it together. Nothing binds it and makes it true. So we oppose it with a myth. With an idea."
That was what Agrona's structure lacked. Because his society was not built for people, for individuals. It was built to gorge on itself, centralizing misery into a select few who could throw themselves futilely against living gods.
"Asura can die, Sevren Denoir. The gods themselves are bound to slip. But a good idea… a good myth… That can never be killed." I unlocked my arms, allowing myself to be free for a moment. "You aren't just a weapon or a hound, Lord Denoir. Perhaps that was all my designs afforded you at the start. But we need builders for when it is all done, too. Artisans and craftsmen that work from a foundation stronger than cannibalism."
There needed to be something after. Foundational stones that were bigger than me or Sevren or Naereni or gods and lessers. I had never truly considered such… Not before my hope. But even within the task of pulling the Vritra from their thrones, there needed to be a path forward.
Sevren simply walked away.
I wished, at that moment, that I was more like Toren. That I could speak words of idealism and foolishness with such earnesty that people believed me.
But I was only a reflection of that.
I let out a soft sigh as Sevren Denoir marched away, wondering what else I could have said to quell his anger and draw him into the fold.
So many steps forward in pulling the puzzle pieces together, I thought. But it is not enough.
So often, I'd felt strangely strong in my emotions as Toren drew them from me. But now—alone and adrift in these Tombs—they made me feel weakagain. I was reminded why my masks were in place, why I never granted others insight into my emotions.
I felt a vibrant pull from my deepest psyche. Just like I'd always known, that desire to pick apart and dissect. A scientist's mad urge, drawn from my inverted bloodline.
I turned, unsurprised to see Caera Denoir strolling toward me. Her horns were on full display, proud and onyx, as she approached. She paused when she noticed my attention, biting her lip and snapping to more formal attention.
"Scythe Seris," she said, "I wanted to talk to you."
I forced my eyes away from her horns. Away from questions and moments of terrible interest in how they worked and how she worked.
When I had Inverted, I had hoped that I would be free of the incessant demands of my bloodline. I was wrong.
Instead, I pulled a weary smile onto my face, hoisting it up with the chains of what was to come. "I am pronounced dead, Caera," I said with warm exhaustion. "I can hardly be called a Scythe any longer. You'll have to call me Seris."
Warmth—the kind I'd only just learned to feel—seeped through my limbs as I watched this young woman try and figure out what to say. It was so familiar.
I watched my pupil's nervousness slowly settle into something else at my chiding admonishment. "I heard you're going up to another zone," she said, squaring her shoulders and giving me a look of iron.
"You heard?" I said musingly. "I said nothing about leaving this place, Caera. Whatever gave you the impression? Have you been spying on me?"
The young woman coughed. "Well, I didn't hear, exactly. I mean, you went to the Carapace House. There's no reason to go there unless you want to leave to another zone."
"You need better names than the Carapace House. It's pitifully dull," I said playfully, striding forward. I raised an arm, slightly hesitant, before patting my pupil chidingly on the shoulder.
She didn't smolder. That was good.
"Look, Scythe—" I gave Caera a disappointed look. "Seris," she stressed awkwardly, "Toren called this place the Town Zone. So we just call everything stupid two-word names now. The Carapace House. The Testing House. The Building House. The Battery House. It wasn't my decision." The young woman huffed, pushing a lock of navy hair out of her face. "Now could you please stop teasing me?"
I laughed lightly, some of the tension and uncertainty I'd felt speaking with Sevren Denoir melting away. "If you wish, Caera. Now, walk with me for a bit. We have a lot to talk about, don't we?"