When Zephyra spoke, her voice was very quiet, like sothing was about to break. "The Solvane family can get to four of the six Mage Council secondary archive branches..."
"Heinz’s uncle is the current head of the Eastern Infrastructure Oversight Subcouncil." She looked at her hands. "By getting married, you got access to docuntation channels that the Caelith Morwen identity couldn’t reach directly."
She said the next words without any special tone, which made them hard to hear.
"I was a key to access it."
Not self-pity. Just taxonomy, the flat organization of facts into their correct categories.
"You were my daughter too," Zein said. "I’ve always thought that the two things aren’t mutually exclusive."
"I know you have," said Zephyra. "And that is the worst part."
Zein looked at his hands for a second, then back at the space between them in the courtyard.
He said, "Sophia was not planned at the start of the arrangent."
"The Solvane alignnt gave institutions access, and Sophia was an extra developnt." The first pause was not perfectly tid. "One developnt was sothing I hadn’t initially planned on."
Rick asked, "What is she?"
"A vessel with unique properties." He said it without any remorse or softening, in the sa tone he had used for everything else, and it worsened it sohow.
He said, "The Grand Sorceress bloodline has a certain magical structure, a resonance that no other active human Major Power lineage has."
"Your mother had it," he said, looking at Zephyra. "And that’s enough to say that you had it as well."
"Which ans your daughter Sophia is going to have it as well, but she has more of it because she has been concentrating on it for another generation."
He stopped and said, "The Heldrich line’s pre-coalition thodology, along with the Solvane family’s ward access and the Grand Sorceress resonance architecture."
"She can hold what nothing else can hold, and she can carry the full grief construct without being consud by it."
"She can be the resolution I have been working toward for two hundred years."
There was no noise in the courtyard, and Rick got even more confused than usual.
"You sicken ." Rick said, "You want to put the thing inside your own granddaughter?!"
He scread. "ARE YOU FUCKING BRAIN-DEAD!?"
"I want to give the entity a form that can survive the resolution of its grief without breaking down." For the first ti, sothing other than control ca through in his voice. "The construct has been spread out over a dium for two hundred years."
"It needs a ho—a living architecture that is strong enough to hold it all."
"And of course... Sophia is the only living thing that can do that without being destroyed." He looked at both of them. "I’ve always been trying to save it."
"By using my daughter as a vessel," Zephyra said.
"By giving the thing I have spent two hundred years building a place to rest," he said, looking her straight in the eye. "You’ll get it, eventually, my daughter."
"You always do."
Zephyra’s expression shifted subtly. It wasn’t anger—though that would have been a relief. Instead, it was a feeling that had always lingered but had now exhausted its reasons for remaining.
"That’s enough of your fucking bullshit, you sick asshole!!!" Rick was the first to move.
At the sa ti, Zephyra moved, and the two of them had been standing close enough for long enough that they moved in sync without planning it.
Rick went straight for Zein, while Zephyra went for the far door that led to the outer grounds. She knew before anyone else said it that the priority was to find out where the operative had taken Sophia.
Zein got up from the bench.
Before the first exchange, Sebastian’s voice reached Rick. "Two hundred years of accumulated pre-coalition grief-resonance in a human fra that has long since stopped being purely human."
"His power source doesn’t run out like standard magical reserves do because grief doesn’t run out."
"He is also partially connected to the Archon’s corruption network, using it as a dium the sa way the entity does, and the socket is going to register him the sa way it registers the entity."
"Sa architecture. Sa depth."
Rick didn’t say anything and turned on Draconic Sovereignty anyway.
The forty percent increase ca through clearly, with a partial dragon transformation showing up on his shoulders and spine and his wings spreading out into the afternoon air of the courtyard.
"HRAAGGHHH!" He closed the gap with a burst of wings and then used Dragon’s Breath in a controlled burst aid at Zein’s center.
Zein changed his direction with a ward gesture that was so simple it looked like he was brushing sothing off his shoulder. The fire split up around him and went out on the stone in the courtyard.
He said, "The draconic sovereignty is impressive for your level," and it’s not a complint.
Rick noticed that the assessnt was delivered in the sa flat tone as Zephyra’s assessnts and filed it.
Zein ca back with a way to stop a coalition that wasn’t an attack. It was a field, a constant pressure that pushed against Rick’s power amplification and tried to lower the sovereignty bonus from the outside in.
Rick felt like soone was leaning on his shoulder and pushing down on his stats.
It was hard to keep sovereignty, but it was worth it.
Sebastian said, "He is using grief resonance as a way to block out emotions."
"The field targets emotional investnt in active power sources, and The Sovereignty is amplified by your bonds."
"He is trying to ss with the emotional channel. And the more the bond matters, the harder he can press."
"Fuck...!" Rick said, "So caring about people is the weak point."
"Yeah... against him specifically."
"I’m going to ignore what you said and fight him anyway." Rick gritted his dragon teeth. "I can’t let Sophia be used like that! She’s just a baby!"
He changed his mind and stopped trying to hit Zein directly. Instead, he reached for Sovereign’s Command, the binding order that was backed by both draconic and demonic power at the sa ti.
The command hit and held for about a second before the grief resonance field pushed back from the inside. The pressure didn’t break the binding, but it did wear it down like water wears down stone, slowly and steadily, without any problems.
"It’s no use..."
Zein got out of the binding by himself.
He said, "The Demon King’s authority has real weight," and he wasn’t being rude. "But for authority to work, soone has to recognize it."
"I stopped recognizing outside authority about 160 years ago."
"Well, that’s good to know," Rick said.
"But no one cares..."
He reached through the degraded bond network to Sylvia and Zara in Valdris, both present in the threads even when stretched thin over the distance, and fired Sovereign Convergence at twenty-five percent of its normal efficacy.
Twenty-five percent of Sovereign Convergence created a combined draconic and demonic authority field that forced Zein back three steps. His suppression field cracked for two seconds, and Rick pushed through the gap with an ice-enhanced blade and caught him on the side.
Zein paused. Looked at the wound. Looked at Rick.
"That is the first ti in forty years that soone has broken through one of my suppression fields in less than ten minutes." He said, "It seems that it’s clear enough that Zephyra taught you nothing."
"You learned that yourself." His suppression field rebuilt itself around the Sovereign Convergence frequency, adapting to it with the skill of soone who has been adapting to new variables for two hundred years. "But... it’s not going to work on again."
"Yeah," Rick said with a smirk.
"That’s why I don’t plan to use it the sa way."
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