Thank you to my beta reader and editor, GlassThreads!
Sevren Denoir
The old man landed in a broken heap at the edge of a street, his bones audibly cracking on impact.
The three of us all paused, staring down in rising horror as the world seed to freeze. The lanterns swinging from every crisscrossing rope creaked audibly in a sudden breeze, seeming to carry a slow, mournful cry in every grind of rusted tal.
The balding guard belatedly recognized the stares of the many people all around, his compatriots grabbing his arms as they stared about feverishly. The ambient mana coiled about them like a constricting noose.
And the butcher—who until this point had been taking each and every push and blow from the arrogant guard—swelled with rage, his blocky face reddening with fury as n and won called out in fear, rushing toward the broken elder.
Though the guard was now facing the crowd, his magic flaring as he spouted so sort of bullshit rhetoric about authority and Vritra and blood, the butcher's hand finally found his cleaver again, clenching with a white-knuckled grip.
The guard had made a fatal mistake. He'd turned his back on his victim.
It was a surreal sensation, watching from above. Though I knew I should've been moving, should've been running, sothing clamped my feet to the spot. The sa thing that had clamped my feet to the spot so long ago when Toren had stood above the unadorned of Fiachra, declaring that they could step forward to a brighter day.
The butcher's massive hand gripped the balding mage's shoulder, before spinning him around like a simple pinwheel. The soldier was entirely unprepared for the massive brute to grab his wrist and slam it down on his massive board of wood like a simple slab of at. The sa hand that had struck the old man.
I hadn't been able to hear the pig's words in detail before, far away as I was. But as the world froze for a split instant, the butcher's cleaver rising into the sky and reflecting the furious red of his face, the pig squealed, recognizing it had laid its neck over the slaughterhouse's iron. It looked into the face of an ogre, realizing at last that it was only as powerful as these people allowed it to be.
Steel glinted, and the cleaver fell, chopping through skin, flesh and bone. Blood sprayed across the butcher's enraged face, just in ti for the soldier's compatriots to light up their spellforms.
The plaza below exploded into chaos. Spells flew in a dozen different directions, wind hurtling toward vague targets and tearing apart the ground. n scread, won shouted in horror, the sound of weapons unsheathing and furious roars making a new sort of effervescent hum. So different from the swamp beyond, but the sa, too.
"We need to go down there," I said, taking a step toward the edge of the roof. I'd lost sight of the butcher and the mages in the tumult, and my eyes darted about in a vain attempt to spot them. Sweat beaded along my neck as my fists clenched. My trigger finger spasd, the urge to spill blood making my heart beat faster. "They can't keep doing it. We need to stop them!"
A heavy hand gripped my shoulder, stopping from dropping down to the street. Naereni. "We can't!" she snapped, sympathy burning in her eyes. Burning her as much as anything. "We ca here for a mission, Sevren. And this situation is devolving out of any sort of control! What would you even do?"
"Kill them," I hissed, feeling the itch for my gun. I could do it all from above with pin-perfect precision. Snipe them all without ever being seen. The building we were on rumbled as a dozen shards of earth peppered the walls, shattering windows and eliciting screams."The world would be better off without those roaches in the Supervisory Offices, and they're so close! Before they kill anyone more!"
"It wouldn't fix anything, Sevren," Naereni countered, her grip on my shoulder tightening. "It would only keep the cycle going. We can do what we can to diffuse this riot, maybe. But killing every man in your way won't work!"
I gnashed my teeth, my head pounding. "The entire reason we're doing all of this is to put down pigs like them," I snapped, thrusting a finger down at the whirling crowd as the mob devolved, spellfire arcing high into the sky. Chips of stone tumbled from buildings as people scread and the sound of clashing steel echoed out. "And this is a chance! We already killed one barely an hour ago! Why not a few more?! There are dozens of people like that Vechorian scattered across this city who are nothing but leeches. And riots make perfect cover!"
"And where does that leave us?!" the Rat hissed back, gripping my collar. "We did our research before we killed Bivrae, ensured that she deserved to die. But we can't just kill whoever benefits from this system of power!"
"And why not?" I asked, feeling invigorated, my mana core pulsing. I'd nearly single-handedly put down a Retainer candidate barely an hour ago, and with Seris Vritra's inverted decay, nothing with basilisk blood could even hope to contend with . "Our rebellion needs to start sowhere, and the heads of monsters like them seem like a good place to begin!"
"Because that would an you'd be on the chopping block, too, Douboiur!" Naereni snapped, thrusting a finger into my chest. "Are you so quick to forget that you're the heir of Highblood Denoir?! You've benefited from this system far more than that mongrel down below ever did!"
I blinked, not expecting such a reaction. I blinked, struggling for balance. I needed to fire back with sothing. But before I could, the Rat grabbed my collar, then hauled down.
An errant fireball whizzed right past where my head had been a mont before, gyrating into the sky before detonating in a blast of power. Little fireflies floated down to join the lantern lights, the sll of smoke rising in tune with the crowd's fervor.
"You're not a monster like he is, Douboir," Naereni hissed, keeping close to the tiled roof. "But we aren't building this rebellion on blood for blood. It'll never stop, if that's what we are. The cycle of hatred will never stop. We build it on making fuckups like that bastard see people like you."
My tal arm dug into the clay tiles, shattering them like weak porcelain as I stared up at the sky. Smoke was already starting to rise around the small city, the clamors of the rising riot echoing.
I'd felt Toren's healing not long ago, but he felt so far away. What he stood for felt so far away. My heart hamred in my chest, my impulses waging war with each other. So much pent-up anger. I laid there like a mage paralyzed by a lightning spell, my muscles fighting themselves as I tried to find direction.
Naereni forced herself back to her feet, glaring down at the street. She spat to the side, affixing her dark braid to the side. "This fight isn't about you, Doubouir. It isn't about . It's about all of them. So we do what we can for all of them."
"If you're so insistent on doing sothing," Wade muttered, shuffling forward on his hands and knees, recognizing that he couldn't afford to even approach a true magical contest, "then do what you can to save that butcher. No matter what happens in this city next, it won't be happy for him. Or the city. We can get him out, or get him sowhere safe."
Naereni's eyes snapped nervously to her lover. "Make him a symbol, eh?" she said, doing her best to sound upbeat again. "Doesn't sound like a problem. But you. You need to get back to the tempus warp platform, capiche?"
My limbs finally found movent again, though my head was still an angry ss. Angry at the system and all it had taken. Angry at Wade for being able to think and plan so clearly. Angry at Naereni, for making sense.
Angry at myself, I thought darkly. Angry that I wanted to kill more than I wanted to help.
I forced myself to my feet, crouching low at the edge of the roof as I observed the chaos. My eyes coasted across the swarm of people, nervously looking for that single man.
The few mages of the Supervisory Office were retreating, backing away along the streets. A couple of shields and casters stood at the forefront, trying to waylay the rush of the mob. A caster levered their hands at the ground, spraying fire that flowed like liquid along the stones, halting the mob's progress. The shields conjured bulwarks of interlocking tal plates, each one able to move individually and intercept errant darts of earth and razor saws of wind whenever the mages in the crowd hurled them. Another man was cursing with them, doing his damndest to wrap the balding, handless guard's stump of a wrist.
I suppressed the urge to throw myself at them, instead trying to find…
"There," Wade said lowly, pointing to a corner, not far away from the stall. "He's there, see? With that older woman!"
My eyes widened as I caught where Wade was pointing, adrenaline spiking in my veins again. While the tide of the crowd was pushing the Supervisory mages back and back and back toward the distant teleportation gate, growing in anger and fervor with each passing mont.
Indeed, the burly butcher was with a woman at the corner of a road who was a quarter of his size. But despite the man's hulking fra, he looked incredibly small as he vainly perford CPR on the elderly man's body, the red pooling around them. Footsteps thundered past them, kicking up droplets of red that stained the city scarlet. The butcher's eyes were pinpricks as they finally found struggle in the reality of mortal flesh.
Naereni hopped down the building, her eyes focused as she kept to the dark. I spared the sentry a glance, silently promising to et up later, before following after.
I kept my hood up, my head swirling as we entered the crowd. The Rat was a lithe blur, weaving and moving as if she were one of the people. But every step forward I tried to take, I found myself pushed aside. A sea of angry eyes didn't even acknowledge as they stampeded onward, jostling and shoving and pushing.
Fuck this, I thought, nearly being toppled by a charging brute. Then I strengthened my body with mana, reasserting my position as mage.
The next person that tried to shove aside in a blind frenzy only managed to trip themselves as I stalked forward, keeping track of the buildings as I slowly charted a path toward the butcher. Because I knew what would beco of him once the Supervisory Office regained control. They'd need a scapegoat, a man to bla for all of this. An example.
They'd made an example of Greahd, Mother of Fiachra, after all.
I took another step forward, my mind racing as the crowd slowly parted for . So many cloaks, so much reflected lanternlight. So much smoke, sothing that had been ignited burning out of control.
But even if we help him, they'll find soone else to hurt, won't they? I thought, finally catching sight of the butcher at the edge of the crowd. Naereni had reached him, and I thought she was trying to start a dialogue.
Then I froze. A tremor went through the entire crowd, rumbling through the earth like a sudden quake. Goosebumps peppered my skin like lesions, rising from my legs, up my back, and even across my arm.
I felt like there should be goosebumps on my soultal arm, too. It couldn't form such things, but it would have been right. As the familiar aura washed over , crushing my soul from without, making feel weak again, I felt my heartbeat thrum with rising terror.
The mob froze, too. Most fell to their knees, struggling to breathe beneath the suffocating pressure. It was only instinct and self-preservation that saw follow suit, acting as if I were just another civilian compressed by the aura of power high above. The very stones shook under eddies of power as soone professed their rage.
Soone of power had arrived at the chaos, and they were displeased.
Sweat beaded along my brow, dripping along my unmasked face. I risked a single glance upward, fear threatening to cloud my thoughts.
Not now, I thought feverishly, adrenaline returning in full force. Not now! Why is she here?!
lzri Vritra gazed down at the city from on high, her aura an oppressive barrage of hamrblows. Unending, pulping, cruel. Her battledress flapped in the wind, torn at by the angry sky. Plates of scaled bone seed woven into the fabric, striking out at odd, sharp angles, only adding to her severity. Obsidian jewelry padded every bit of exposed flesh, almost as if it could hide the scarecrow she was. The woman was a shard of living bone, thorns jutting toward any who dared approach. Her horns glistened in the sun, professing her station as Scythe.
Her gray eyes panned across the people of Saluamatu, even the fires snuffing out wherever her attention passed. A sneer tugged at the edges of her lips as she sought sothing. Soone.
How the hell did she find ? I thought, already thinking of counterasures. She shouldn't have been able to, not with our precautions!
And I didn't even have a way to properly fight her. My prototype designs were still in-progress in the Town Zone, far from ready. If lzri caught us now…
I forced my head down as her gaze passed over , my heart beating in my ears. I knelt. I knelt like the rest of them. I'd done it for so many years with Seris. I could do it now; I just needed to figure out a plan. My eyes locked with a terrified Naereni's, who'd frozen alongside the butcher.
I could hear my sweat splashing against the cobblestones. Naereni was right: I'd been impulsive. I wasn't ready to fight a Scythe yet, especially not with innocents present. We should have just left.
"What have you done," lzri hissed, that scarecrow's caustic voice sohow audible even from down here, "to my sister's city?"
Nobody answered. Not for a long, long mont. Then soone finally did.
"That man!" a bass voice bood, sohow managing to sound like a whine despite the deep timbre. Undertones of agony laced every syllable. "That man did it all! He made them attack us, resisting the will of the Sovereigns!"
lzri's head snapped downward, scrutinizing the man who'd spoken. The pig who'd lost a haunch. His squealing abruptly cut off as the Scythe's attention focused on him.
The Scythe blurred. She beca a streak of pale white, then I felt the impact of her heels on the stones. The crack of the pavent echoed out as she slamd into the ground atnd terrible speed, hardly seeming to care about the mach forces.
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
"Explain," the Scythe demanded, her eyes ever-so-slightly crazed as they honed in on the balding guard. "I don't have ti for your prattling. Make it quick. Why is this city in flas? Why are the people hurling their shit at you like mongrels? And why do you stink of such fear, hmm?"
I had a good view of the Scythe through the bowing crowd, their fires extinguished by the suffocating aura. I thought they were only now starting to recognize the implications of what they'd done, taken by the swell of the tide.
"That butcher," the pig whispered, pointing his stump down the street. "He… He tried to sell undercooked at. Unsafe, a threat to everyone! But he didn't listen! Just said he'd show at, and then he cut off my hand!"
A manipulator, I realized imdiately. The calculating gleam in the guard's too-far-apart eyes told he knew exactly what he was doing as he stumbled forward, kneeling at lzri's feet. That fucking bastard—
"Lies!" another familiar voice echoed from the crowd, a ways to my right. "Lies, lies! The guard killed our elder! Slaughtered him!"
My head snapped again toward Naereni, who was still standing near the butcher as he cradled the body of the dead elder. But her voice hadn't sounded like it had co from there at all. "He did it, and he's lying to you, Scythe lzri Vritra! Trust !"
She's throwing her voice, I realized, my eyes widening. She's duping a Scythe!
lzri's eyes narrowed in suspicion as she inspected the line of people from where Naereni's voice had co from. I could tell imdiately that she slt the deception, her nails digging into her palms.
The Rat made a daring move, slipping back into the crowd as the Scythe's attention was montarily averted. Her movents were sohow still perfectly lithe and smooth as she avoided the blood, a shadow in the crowd as she slid into place next to . Her eyes shone with a strange sort of high from the danger.
None of the city folk had the strength to raise their voices beneath the aura of strength. None except us. And now, as Naereni's words trickled through the crowd, the butcher did, too.
"He murdered my father!" the man heaved out, the body still leaking blood into the streets. His eyes focused on Naereni for a mont, seeming to recognize what she'd done, before settling on the stones again.
The Scythe's attention finally settled on the butcher at the street corner, surrounded by the blood. The only man apart from the crowd. His head imdiately bowed under the powerful woman's inspection, unable to bear the weight of strength.
"Speak!" lzri demanded, her body coiled and tense. Even as she focused most of her attention on the butcher, her pinprick, near-maddened eyes were skipping about the crowd. Searching. "I don't have ti for this!"
"Your eminence, he's an unadorned," the bug-eyed guard started. "He wants to turn you against—"
An exasperated growl from the Scythe shut him up as she flexed her aura, snuffing out his voice.
The butcher licked his lips nervously, still cradling the body he'd failed to revive. "Told him that the at of the scaled korak needs to be cooked a special way. In turns. Else the buggers that infect it won't die," he muttered quietly, the world silent except for his breath and the crumbling of broken buildings around him. "He shouted at . Then he killed my father."
The man's face finally started to look like an ogre's again as he glared at the pig. His curly hair and scruffy beard made him look like so sort of crazed berserker, covered in his own family's blood. "Everyone loved my dad. Wanted vengeance. So I made him at, and the others tried to finish it."
I saw sothing in the Scythe's eyes change as she stared at the bleeding body. I didn't know what emotion was held there as she slowly loped forward, kicking aside debris in her way. I forced my breath to even out as she ca closer and closer to us, rabbits catching the scent of a korfox.
"He took your family from you?" the Scythe whispered, leaning over the burly man like a grim reaper. She seed almost chanical in the way she seed to swallow him whole with her re presence.
The man only lowered his head.
"I'll fix this injustice," the Scythe said lowly. "How many heads do you want to roll in retribution? Should I take his father, too?"
The one-handed man finally paled, his fellows beginning to quake as they sensed the tide turning. "My lady," he blubbered, rising to his feet and abandoning all pretenses of true civility, "he's lying to you! He'd say anything to—"
"All of them," the burly ogre muttered, still staring at the ground in defeat. "All of them. And his father, too."
The pig didn't even have the chance to squeal again. A sword phased into existence in her palm in less than a blink of an eye, gleaming and deadly in its single, basilisk-blooded edge. The Scythe spun on her feet, faster than I could even hope to comprehend as she slashed outward with her blade.
I blinked through the sweat, and the heads of the Supervisory Officers fell, tumbling from their shoulders as an arc of void wind carved over the kneeling civilians. Blood spurted in errant gouts of indignant powerlessness, the bodies slumping to the ground.
"Great Vritra," Naereni cursed by my side, her eyes wide as she stared at the ground.
I couldn't even perceive the movent of lzri's arm.
"Done," the Scythe said, sounding mildly satisfied as the corpses fell. Like trees chopped down, or fruit carved apart haphazardly. "Justice is served, little man. And I'll find that one's father for you, too… But I have sothing else to do today. Soone I need to find. So you'll wait."
It was my turn to curse as lzri swept her gaze across the crowd, inspecting and searching with a near-maddened intensity. Searching, she'd said. She's looking for . We need to move now.
I shared a nervous look with the Rat, both of us debating if we should make a run for it now. I could almost sense her gaze approaching…
But she was so fast. I hadn't been able to even see her arm move. And when I'd fired a cannon shot at her point-blank, she'd caught the bullet with her teeth. We wouldn't even be able to run. We'd have to trust in our cloaking artifacts and obscuring dress.
Seconds ticked by. One… Two... Three…
lzri groaned again, the sound deeply exasperated. "Fine. They aren't here, then… That ans the swamps."
The ambient mana flickered, and suddenly, the suffocating pressure was gone. I heaved in a deep breath, echoed by dozens of others as they finally rembered what it was to surface from underwater.
"We need to get the hell out of here," Naereni muttered, pushing herself shakily to her feet. "She's darted off to the swamp, but she'll be back. Said so herself. Better hope Wade cleaned up after everything perfectly, or else…"
"Or else it's over before it can even begin," I whispered, feeling humbled by the display of raw power. I'd never directly faced lzri's aura before; not when it was fighting her in the Denoir Estate, and not when she'd shown up outside Darrin's. "Yeah. Good plan."
The butcher—his eyes glimring with subtle vindictiveness as he clutched the corpse of his father—nodded ever-so-slightly to Naereni as we scurried back to the buildings, more mobile than any of the other mages who'd been pressed to the ground.
And as I ran, I was left to wonder. An eye for an eye, I thought, catching how the butcher had finally caught a taste for blood. I felt my own run cold as I recognized that gleaming desire in his eyes. He wanted to see them all burn, regardless of if they deserved it. Just like I did. It'll turn this entire damn continent blind.
—
Wade's rats found us before we found him.
Saluamatu wasn't a big place, and though the riot had hardly had the chance to spread, I could still see lingering aftereffects here and there. Lanterns swung like bodies from nooses, their fires snuffed out. The way they creaked back and forth put imdiately on guard, wondering if the shadows could truly hide .
But the rioters—just barely cald down from their fervor—only now seed to understand the implications of their actions. People rushed for their hos, utterly uncaring of how they pushed or shoved to get there. Almost as if hiding away behind closed doors would stop it from being real. Almost as if, by closing the blinds and turning out their lanterns, they could pretend they hadn't just done sothing sacrilegious. As if they hadn't rebelled.
And now, we found ourselves atop a slanted roof, our target in sight in the distance—before one of the little rodents scampered up to us, a little sheet of paper clenched in its jaws. I snatched the paper from it, scanning over the ssage quickly scrawled there.
"Shit," I cursed, crumpling the paper into a ball. "Normal tempus warp platforms are overwheld. rchants and Supervisory Officers are looking to leave as fast as possible. It'll take too much ti."
Naereni chewed her lip, her body shivering as she recalled the Scythe's tempestuous aura. Ti was not on our side. "There's gotta be other ways out," she said, maintaining her reason even as she played with a conjured dagger of ice, a clear indicator of her nerves. "What's Wade got for us?"
"Down Torchbug Avenue is a lesser-known platform. Mainly used by highbloods on covert missions," I said, parroting what I'd read on the paper. "Wade's waiting for us not far from there."
The rat bounded off along the ominously empty streets, and we followed at a swift pace, feeling the nip of lzri's threat at our heels. Looming buildings allowed us past, the streets unnervingly empty. The heavy moisture clung to us like a dozen hands trying to drag us down, and I didn't know if what I felt was the sweat along my body or the muggy atmosphere.
We tracked further and further to the north-east, slipping into the more upper-class districts. Panes of mana displayed the usual propaganda of the Sovereigns—empty assurances and platitudes. A spokesperson of the Supervisory Offices parroted aningless bromides, claiming that the Sovereigns would see us all through the tragedies of the Second Dawn. Endlessly, they claid that Agrona would react soon. That a response was coming.
They'd been saying that for three weeks. Three weeks of nothing but rising, volcanic fear.
We found Wade himself in the shadows of an arching passageway, out of sight of most of what passersby were still here. Around us, dozens of Blooded families scampered about, spies and rchants scrambling to relay information about what had happened in this city. I found myself grateful for my hood, concealing my silver hair. It actually made blend in with all the other mages darting about, too.
"There's a hidden tempus warp platform a ways ahead. It was subrged in the swamps for a ti when water levels temporarily rose, but was then forgotten," the rat controller said nervously, his eyes darting around us and searching for any listeners. "It's old and in disrepair, but it'll get us out of here quickly. It shouldn't be guarded."
"Got it," Naereni said, pushing forward. The arch led into a deeper tunnel that dipped beneath the roads and streets of the city, clearly sothing that she was more comfortable with than being out and about among nobility. "Just like back ho, eh?"
I slowly backed away with the Rat, eying the narrow, muggy street we'd just co down. It didn't seem like anyone had followed us. Just a distant panel of mana repeating the sa monologue from the Supervisory Office—
I laid a hand on Naereni's shoulder, my eyes widening. My body locked up against my will as I gazed at the distant pane of mana, no longer able to take a step backward.
The prescient fear of lzri Vritra finding , of being discovered, and how in the hell she'd tracked here fell away as I stared at the distant panel in rising dread.
The Rat's face scrunched up in a remarkable mimicry of her nasake, clearly offended by how roughly I'd grabbed her. But when her gaze trailed mine, honing in on the distant pane of mana, she paled, too.
The High Sovereign stared into our souls. Two eyes, every shade of red. Scarlet, maroon, crimson, carmine, ruby, and so many more I didn't recognize.
The face was sculpted perfectly onto the projection artifact's translucent pane of mana. In my mind, I knew how those artifacts worked: the way pure mana split light into its constituent parts, bending and shaping them as they read the coded desires of the mana fed into them. But there shouldn't have been so many shades of red there. The human eye shouldn't be able to register so many.
It took a terrified mont to recognize the other oddity about the projection, smiling ever-so-softly, an aura of warm understanding radiating from his near-kindly visage.
A mask. Agrona Vritra wore a silver mask, curving around his nose and covering the entire left side of his face. Filigree like blood seeping along a wound wove through every part of the crystalline mask, etched in an unsettling way. The way the red trailed through silver, like warm blood sinking through snow…
The High Sovereign's eyes watched us all. Weighing us down, considering his words. When he tilted his head, his dark antlers—like lightning-cracks in the panels of mana themselves—were twisted like gnarled limbs. More wrong than Bivrae's stick-thin arms had been, branching and arching at every angle. He lounged in a simple chair in a simple room, a warm hearth flickering behind him. His arms were crossed as he leaned backward in his plush chair, staring into whatever recording artifact captured his visage.
And I knew that the entire City of Saluamatu held its breath, this very sa projection staring from every pane of mana. From every display across Alacrya.
Agrona's response was finally here.
"Fatherhood is a gift that few can ever experience," the basilisk said, that sa, indecipherable tug at the edge of his lips. "To watch your children grow, to see them beco themselves… There are few privileges so wonderful. A child taking their first steps is sothing to be cherished, a monuntal occasion for joy. Every father should have the joys of seeing their children succeed, surpassing themselves at every step of the way."
I shuddered as the basilisk's eyes road over inquisitively. Seeming to single out. Single Naereni and Wade out. "I never wanted to leave Epheotus, it is true. It was my ho. The ho of all basilisks, of all asura. I was happy there… But then I saw what had beco of all of you. Left without guidance. Tortured, burned, used as playthings for Kezess Indrath. Your precursors turned to ash for wishing for themselves a better life."
Agrona leaned forward in his seat, resting his elbows on his knees. His artfully sculpted attire clung to him, each strand of silk seeking his approval in the way it curled close. The reds and golds and blacks all tried to exemplify the color they most thought would bring his approval, but in the infinite variation of his masked eye, I saw only….
Disappointnt.
"Everyone knows the story. The Indraths would not risk soone caring for you all. So we—we few basilisks—left to protect you. We sheltered you with our scales. We gave you technology and power and brought you up, lifting you from the dirt. Loved you enough to give you the heritage of deities. And I have watched you all take the steps forward you need, and I have been proud."
Agrona even smiled slightly at this, teeth whiter than snow flaring. Not like fangs, though they should have been sharp.
"But fatherhood is not all about pride or success. Because so have made a grievous, terrible mistake. I trusted you all to understand the bigger picture, knowing the threats that faced you. I trusted you all with gifts aplenty: magic, life, a future. And so among you betrayed that trust."
"Wade," Naereni said with a trembling voice, fear ratcheting through her, too. This wasn't an earthquake or a hurricane that we sensed approaching. More like a plague that took all without discrimination. "Wade, what does this an? Tell !"
I couldn't move. Too frozen by the basilisk's stare, turned to stone. Unable to even utter a word.
"You let an infiltrator into our ho. A spy from Kezess Indrath walked among you, acting as if they were a part of you. One of you. And you welcod him in, dismissing how he spoke against my doctrines. Seeding our ho with questions and lies. And I watched, trusting that you had learned all I had sought to teach you.
"I trusted that you would make the right decisions when it ca to your principles: those that had uplifted you from the squalor of chaos, that had granted you magic, that had granted you purpose. As any father would hope that their children would turn away from what is wrong."
Agrona shook his head slowly, the mask catching the light. At that mont, with his body hunched over and his fingers laced together, each of the gold adornnts across him dulling simultaneously, I could almost believe what I saw. The disappointnt felt so real. Hadn't I seen such from Corbett and Lenora, my own mother and father? That very gaze, that very cadence, that very sorrow?
"But you did not. And so the Second Dawn ca. The asura of Epheotus could not have leveraged such an attack if they did not have their focus. Their spy. And now, your consequences reap themselves across your families, your hos, and your very lives."
The Lord of the Basilisks lifted his head, his dark hair shadowing his features. It made think of the old statues Rosaere was so famous for. A great work of artful marble turned flesh. "But I have not given up on you. A father never does, and it is in the nature of children to rise again once they have fallen. You all may have lost your war with Dicathen, but such mistakes can be learned from, so long as you learn to take responsibility."
A chill spread from my legs. Slowly, the goosebumps trailed upwards, like the tip tap of fingers along a wooden table, arching higher and higher, injecting cold into my veins. Into my heart. I couldn't feel anything through my soultal arm, the nerve endings long since lost. But it felt suddenly cold, pressing against my shoulder. Freezing cold, rooting in place.
And I finally understood. In Agrona's eyes—layered beneath those impossible colors, shadowed by the argent mask covering the left side of his face—there was only disappointnt. But I knew, deep in my very soul, that malice guided his every word.
My vision seed to expand and contract all at once. And at the end, Agrona. This alleyway, boxed in on all sides. At the end, Agrona. The walls were far too high, blocking out the sun. And at the end, Agrona.
My mories flashed back to the powderkeg that this city was, so ready to blow. A microcosm of the rest of Alacrya, torn through by grief and fear, unable to stop and think. I thought of how I'd been ready to cut down anyone who adhered to the system without thought, without cause.
"They'll tear us apart," Wade whispered, his lips quivering with horror as he stared at Agrona Vritra's sorrowful visage. "Great Vritra, everyone Toren has ever known."
So what if their questions weren't being answered? So what if Agrona said nothing about how Toren had supposedly infiltrated us? So what if all of it was lies, ineffective and easily torn apart? So what if the argent mask on Agrona's face only hid the malice beneath?
None of that mattered. The people needed sothing to bla. Sothing easy that they could unleash their rage upon, because to do anything else would an admitting that their gods didn't care for them. To do anything else would an that they lived under tyranny, slowly rotting with every single word. To do anything else would an that they were destined to suffer endlessly, for no point other than to be fertilizer for a war that had started long before they had been born.
The continent needed a target.
Agrona had given them one.
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