* * *
'Sy
* * *
I follow Katherine. It's strangely relieving, but then, sometimes I need her for that. Sometimes Diyn is too sharp and the world is too hazy and the only logical thing to do is follow Katherine on one of her crazy hunches. I'm not sure when I started to accept that, but it must have been recent, because this is the first time I haven't felt angry or guilty about letting her take the lead without question.
Or maybe, without Elete around to do something impulsive and inscrutable, this sort of thing is a comfort.
She squeezes my hand. She can sense my sorrow. I can sense hers. "It'll fade," she says. "Everything fades, in time." That, too, soothes me. I am so weary of change hurting me - it's about time it became a comfort.
I squeeze back. Her words aren't getting through to herself. "But some things get stronger, in time."
She just nods. Then, we're there. Katherine has led me to the cell that Aaren has been kept in.
There's a thud like a steak being slammed onto a kitchen counter - it is the sound of Aaren's body hitting the wall. By the limp droop of his arms and head, it's obvious that he didn't bring this upon himself. A look into Aaren's mind shows that he's barely conscious at all, and that he thinks his Father is doing this to him. Then he rolls across the floor, dodging an invisible blow. A moment later, the beginning of a bruise wells up on his cheek - it seems Aaren didn't dodge that hit after all.
Aaren told me of the abuse he lived through in Lyiannethe, and how it was expected that he take it quietly. It was an important thing for him to tell me - it was crucial in preparing him to face his Arms. If Aaren had responded to his Arms attacking him (which they always do, especially upon the first meeting) in the same way that he responded to his Father's beatings, he'd have gotten killed during his initiation. Thankfully, he was a diligent trainer and very focused on overcoming his weaknesses, and thus he survived the ordeal.
He has, so far, managed to avoid Schiphael's most serious attacks. Aaren has allowed Schiphael to graze him several times to mollify the bloodlust, but Schiphael isn't out for his blood. He only wishes to punish Aaren. Diyn sounds troubled. I would have called you, but...
But what?
Diyn pauses, and I have the odd experience of hearing my Arms calculate his words. Aaren has made himself Schiphael's target to distract him. I don't want you going near him. He's meant to kill you.
I can't think of a reply.
Aaren's managed to get to his knees in this time. He flinches, then collapses face-first into the floor, a grunt escaping him along with most of the air in his lungs. His eyes are open, and they stare out with an expression of patience that he trained into himself from a young age. I feel a sort of anger well up that is entirely paternal.
Aaren is letting Schiphael do this because he wants to keep Schiphael occupied with a target that isn't you.
It's not that Aaren is an assassin - Diyn won't let me go near Schiphael's Armed. 'Won't let' is exactly the term for it, as well - I'll have to fight Diyn if I want to try to get in there. It's a fight I might lose.
"I'll go in," says Katherine, before she enters the cell and does exactly that. When I try to stop her, Diyn holds me back.
For once, she is not the target. I'll not allow anyone other than myself to kill you. You know that, Arik'tighesynnodai.
I can only summon up confusion in reply. But why does he want to kill me at all?
Diyn mulls over what his answer will be as Katherine approaches the exhausted sprawl that is Aaren. I do not know what is wrong with Schiphael. I must admit that he is too harmful to his Armed and to you for this to persist any longer. Diyn sounds extremely reluctant to say those words - but then, he encourages the Arms to attack and train their Armed. He encourages them to go for blood and deal mortal wounds if that's what it takes for an Armed to take their proper role. He is willing to let the Armed fail in their training, willing to let them die. He never speaks ill of the Arms, and he takes the side of the Arms in all quarrels.
Something must be truly wrong with Schiphael.
* * *
Luciprochoros
* * *
My son has died.
Not many ever knew to acknowledge Eleth-travente as my son, but he is as much my son as Jax is... as Edward was. And now... now he has gone.
It leaves me with a weight. I know one son killed the other. I felt it. I saw it. I heard it in the Song. I want to talk to Emperor Theos, the weight is so much on me. That is a rare feeling - not that I often don't want to report to Father, to write and keep him abreast of the events here in the Second World. But it's a pressing feeling now, a need.
So of course, Jerithea, the Gahalespbar-archo's Advocate, Mercy of Chethar, is in my quarters. Her brown eyes warm me as she smiles and bows. I nod my head. That is the extent of our formalities for the meeting.
The skinny, tallish brunette flops onto the couch that Stevane isn't occupying. I gesture for her to take a cup of tea from the tray on the table, if she pleases. She does so. She raises one eyebrow at my niece, then gives me a questioning glance.
"She'll sleep through our talk. Jhe h'Logos's death was the last straw on top of a great, recent pile of them. My niece sought some stability after returning from a short fray in Lyiannethe, and her Father apparently thought it best that she see me and... talk." That's certainly cutting it short - Stevane poured her heart out to me and cried on my shoulder. I don't know that she was that traumatized so much as she couldn't have done that with anyone else. The event of her Arms awakening left her very, very high-strung - but I'm her Uncle, and someone she could safely cave in around.
More importantly, though, she had to tell me of Lyiannethe... and of my son Edward.
If I can call him that anymore.
Jerithea's eyes take a sad tilt when that thought crosses my mind, and it's as much a signal as anything else as to how much she's reading me. Not that she wouldn't, or couldn't - she's supposed to see people and read them, and weigh them. Somewhat in the same way that I must read people when I see them, but... different. "Don't think that way, Jhe Luciprochoros."
"How kind of you to call me by that name, and not an older one." My voice has that odd cheerful choke to it. I cradle my coffee cup in my hands, focusing on the prickle of warmth that it lends me. Almost a sear, almost a burn, but not quite. Enough to make me lose focus, which of course tips me off that I'm trying to lose focus. But who wouldn't want to, right now? Why focus on this madness and despair? Why not just... let it blur?
"You are not the entity you used to be." Jerithea's voice is clipped in its matter-of-fact tone, but not bitter - just precise. I like that about her. She gets her job done, and she tries not to make it personal, tries not to make things sear. "Do you expect to be treated as such, Jhe Luciprochoros?"
I chuckle despite myself. "No... no." I close my eyes. "You can call me Luci, you know." Though I suspect she won't. "We've known each other long enough for that, yes?"
She sighs, the sound so disappointed. "You're afraid of me, Jhe Luciprochoros." Her teacup clinks against the saucer underneath it.
My breath catches in my chest. Not so much afraid of only her, no.
"But you want to talk to me now. I can feel it in you. Luci, why didn't you write earlier?" Jerithea's voice... is no different, yet it is more, and deeper, and truer. It's the voice of my Father, and that... well, it chills me, and I feel bad that it does.
"I've been hiding a thing." I pause, feeling out the weight of what I've said, and what has been heard. "Several things, yes, but one thing in particular. Forgive me, but--"
But what?
"You can go on," Jerithea says. Her words, they echo. It is her function as an Advocate to speak them, and it is also Emperor Theos's sentiment, I suppose. It's... a little harder for me to guess at these things, now, even though once I knew them in my core, and never had to guess at all.
But I don't have an excuse. How will I go on without an excuse? I open my mouth... then shut it when nothing comes out. My fingers press into the coffee cup, and it sears me back enough to prompt my Will to speak again. I open my mouth and hope for better this time. "I wanted to protect her. Katherine. And Rahellene. And I wanted to protect Ebrellin-i, even when I despised him. And I wanted..." I close my eyes and stop myself from clamping down on it-- "I wanted to protect my Kingdom, and his Kingdom, from being destroyed by Chethar, should the worst happen."
"You Willed to subvert me?" I can see him stroking his beard, wherever he is. Possibly on the Throne at Hacavah. But who knows, with him? I thought I knew what he was all about, and then I ended up here, across the ocean, guessing at games. Years ago. That's what comes of assuming one knows anything that's going on.
He doesn't sound particularly angry, but that's like judging 'Sy's fury by the lack of rage in his voice. My brother cloaks his wrath in calm. The trait is inherited.
"I sought to work my own Will by your rules, and hope that you didn't notice, or by the time you did, that everything would be better, and it would be less..." I sigh. "Yes. Father. I sought to work around you, or at least to allow Ebrellin-i to do so, and to aid him, instead of informing you of his treachery. I felt it was better he remain at the helm of Aurocia than anyone else that lurked in Lyiannethe. And really, when kept busy with something constructive, he wasn't so..." I bury my face in my hands. "He was. He was a madman. But he was my madman, or at least one that wouldn't directly seek to have us all destroyed, and he deserved a daughter of his own. I felt he was robbed when it came to Katherine's childhood, but... well, so was I, and it was safer for her not to remain with him, and..." It's starting to drift. I don't know where I'm going with this. I don't know what I can possibly say to the Emperor to spare us, and I never do. I don't even know how both Empires have survived this long, how I've even lived this long without being struck down for... something. There are so many things I've done wrong.
There's a hand on my shoulder. Not Father's wide-fingered, heavy hand. Jerithea's slender hand, warm and soft. That's a surprise, and then I remember where I am, and who is physically in the room with me.
(And after the fact, a tremor of fear runs through me for Stevane, but he would have spared her. She's done nothing wrong but spread the guts of a wicked man over a somewhat wide perimeter.)
"You don't have to fret over all that, Jhe Luciprochoros. Just tell me what you've sought forgiveness for." Her voice is lavender rippling in the spring breeze, is motes of pollen drifting down through early sunbeams. There's nothing meant to harm in that voice... not today, not for me. ...I think.
"My daughter. Rahellene. I left her in the grip of a madman who I shouldn't have trusted, who I should have known--"
"Did you know what he would do? Do you claim that you did, you who see the Words in people, who hears the Song echo forward through time? Do you really claim that you knew?"
"No." I sob. "But I wish I had."
She hugs me. It's warm, and it's nice, and because of that it hurts. It makes my voice burn in my throat, and choke, before there's a rush and suddenly it's better.
Jerithea has let me go. I hear her step away from me, and then take a few more steps away from the couches.
"Take me to her."
I lead Chethar's Advocate to my youngest daughter. Stevane sleeps on the couch.
* * *
Edward
* * *
My fingers, or more precisely our fingers, as I am moving as the hands of my King, brush through Jhe h'Logos's hair. Then the Poet King slips from our grasp. I feel a flood of relief that he escaped us - and try to ignore the little voice inside me that protests, that tells me I was so close, that was trying to do a good job for my King.
Of course, I do agree with the little voice on one count - there will be punishment, and I must prepare myself.
...It is no matter. Nul's voice surprises me. There is no anger in his tone. In fact, he seems almost pleased. I lost little. Opportunities, I suppose, that I won't see again - but he's dead all the same.
Dead? But Jhe h'Logos escaped us! We didn't reach him before he found a means to flee!
Nul regards me with a cool, calm gaze that makes me uncomfortable - as if he's examining me, weighing me. His only escape was to die before we took him. Well done, Ed'huar-tsche'lina. Indeed, my King sounds very proud of my abilities.
Myself, I just feel the bottom of the world dropping out from under me again, and I grow quiet in response.
Now, says my master, we must destroy the errant piece, as it's served its final purpose.
