5.45 Torn out tethers (Patreon)

Difference: Minimal

The investigation into the incident barely involved Irwyn or anyone in their group. A party of Inquisitors confirmed them to be alive, then let them go. Just as the Master Binder had said, it was not an unheard of incident. The most unusual part was the absence of any casualties from an experienced Domain mage turning traitor.

As for the reason why, it did not take a great investigation to find out. The woman’s extended family had resided in one of the settlements that had been disappeared in broad daylight just days earlier. Which the Federation had already known and was making precautions for. One such was arranging for Elsmith to forge her a contract on short notice to strongly dissuade a betrayal of that sort. The investigation concluded that she must have been contacted and given instructions before even hearing of the deaths, because the woman had been put under observation afterwards.

“Pathetic,” Elizabeth sighed after reading out the report. “Betraying all of existence for an obvious lie.”

“Love makes people desperate,” Desir shrugged. “While it’s obviously foolish, people act unwisely while grieving.”

“A Domain mage should know better. Be better. That woman had to know that even if the Rot can actually deliver on a resurrection, it always comes with the Betrayer’s whisper in the ear and complete enslavement to its cause.”

“She did have a century or so on us,” Irwyn added. “Even in grief, she must have known this could not end well.”

“How many people jump off of a building over a broken heart or a dead offspring?” Desir countered. “Not all, but many. The way I see it, this was just convoluted suicide with a what if attached.”

“And the Rot is the apex predator of hope.” Alice drooped her head.

“The better question is why so many have to even consider it,” Waylan muttered, briefly appearing among them for a few words.

When they returned to the Dry Palace, Irwyn could only think of redoubling his practice. After all, settlements were still vanishing despite the war supposedly going well. What turn would it take when Az’markiz made his move? And would the Federation then be willing to not employ two fresh but relatively powerful Domain mages? He doubted their rest would last much longer.

Ezax von Blackburg still watched. From within a box, within a box, within the Voidways, within the ancestral castle. The threat of Fragment wielding Az’markiz was all the incentive Ezax had needed to lock himself behind all the layers of separation he could without restraining his gaze, then continued observing the War effort, scouring the undead whenever he spotted them. Despite all the precautions, he remained nervous.

Out of all the Dukes without a Name, Ezax was arguably the most important. Just his ability to project most of his power anywhere within the Federation was an immense boon that required dedicated countermeasures for the Rot. With said countermeasures recently put to final rest, it made him even more dangerous. That was before adding in that he had a genuine chance to claim a Name one day and that during slow peace times he could also help other distant Realms to some degree.

The Void was omnipresent after all, and the issue was navigation rather than distance. Of course, distant Bastions sensibly treated any interference with mistrust so he had to be careful to not cause more harm than good. Not to mention that such work was exhausting and he was only willing to do so much at the expense of his own joy. Even in an eternal war, he damn well deserved some leisure.

Speaking of, a yawn sounded from the other side of the room. Avys slowly began to stretch as she woke, giving the tiny fraction of Ezax’s mind present to see something worth appreciating.

“How are you feeling?” he asked when he thought her awake enough to hear.

“Like an oven,” she jested, gesturing towards her heavily bloated stomach.

Johnson should drop by in two days, Ezax counted. There had been no complications in this particular pregnancy, but regular checkups were still part of the deal. The Duke would have even preferred more of them, but Johnson was too busy with several time sensitive projects.

“Then perhaps the baker’s guild should declare you a master on account of sheer experience,” he joked.

“We don’t have a baker’s guild.” She rolled her eyes.

“I remember there being one.”

“Shut down fifty years ago and I saw no point in reviving it after coming to power. My people can regulate grain prices centrally just fine, thank you very much.”

“Did you… research that just for a retort?”

“You always make that same joke.”

“Once,” he corrected.

“That is how all patterns begin.” She said with such a smile Ezax had no choice but to forgive her and return it.

Soon enough though, her gaze turned more inquisitive. It shifted from him and instead to the air in the room between them. An expression he could easily interpret. She was looking at the barrier in the middle of the room that separated them.

“It is a necessary precaution,” he commented. Any attack aimed at him was prone to cause an afterblast. Not something dangerous to him, but Avys was much more vulnerable—despite the ancestral protective jewelry he had showered her with.

“Then you could at least let me stay in my office,” she lamented. “Do you know how hard it is to run the Duchy when every message has to go through several security checkpoints? Not to mention the potential to leaks! Calm is spending half of his time decoding what I actually need him to do.”

“Before we know exactly how the Lich had become ‘Illius’ I will not let you stray too far from me, just in case.”

“Johnson would spot any discrepancy.”

“Even he admitted to be only 90% confident. And he…”

“...is not someone to understate his own achievements. Don’t quote me to myself, dear.”

“Why wouldn’t I quote the work of a genius?”

“Hmm,” she hummed happily at that, then shifted the topic. “Fine. But there is something else I want to talk with you about. Been rolling the plan for it over in my head for a couple of days by this point, so it’s about time I mention it.”

“I am as captive as an audience gets.”

“A bit more attention please, this is important.”

“Of course.” Ezax nodded, then withdrew his gaze from several of the spots he had been watching. Most of his mind was still elsewhere, but the amount in the room had multiplied.

“The undead know you. All of you who stand at the forefront of the Federation. That is a major issue with this war.”

“Yes, that is exactly the problem. While they cannot predict me or most of the current Dukes exactly quite yet, they can get pretty close with estimates. I have fought them enough times, they know what kinds of choices I prefer to make. And to some extent, even in what scenarios I am likely to consciously make a different choice to counter those predictions. It goes that way with practically every Domain mage or any senior advisor.” 

“But…” she smiled “...they do not know me.”

“Not completely. The Rot likely attributes your achievements to me, at least to some extent. Even with all your meticulousness, they always connect the dots when there are a few too many ‘coincidences’.”

“Still, the point stands.”

“You get only one shot at that, my little black heart,” Ezax reminded fondly. “But I didn’t think you would want to play that card now.”

“What better opportunity will there ever be?” 

“Which will still be too soon, according to your own timeline,” the Duke pointed out.

“The outdated timeline. Lizzy already forced my hand there anyway with her theatrics in Abonisle—that bubble cannot remain unburst long after the War. And who will have the stomach to overthrow a hero of a War as hard as this? I might not get exactly how high level magic works, but no one will commit to an outright coup right after a tragedy like, not for a few more years at least.” 

“It will mostly come down to the Truth mages anyway. If those two geezers agree to gang up on me, they won’t care about how popular it is. And you haven’t managed to make them irreconcilable yet, right?”

“Suddenly an analyst, are you?” Avys chuckled. “No, they will not do that for the same reason they still complain about you lacking a harem. Those families were all taught to actually believe their own propaganda, which is older than just a few centuries. If a few more Truth mages die—as you insist most likely will—then it will go against their personal codes to weaken the Federation further. Instead, they will rage at my deception, then blindly resort to lower level powerplays to break our base of support. Which I will be ready to undermine and make their factions clash at every turn until the chance of our enemies ever working together becomes unthinkable decades ahead of my initial plan.”

“If I actually live through this,” he muttered. And anyone else, for that matter.

“As if a few corpses could actually hurt you,” Avys scoffed, repositioning on the bed and caressing her swollen stomach. Then she shuffled up and put the overbed table over herself, getting to work on encoding a letter. 

It may well have been a jest made by Logos himself, that not five minutes later Ezax almost died.

The attack pulsed with something that he lacked the words to describe. Ezax even spotted it well in advance, the timelessness of the Void letting him de-facto watch a series of frozen snapshot of their Realm. Disorienting to observe while his body was dragged forward by the river of time, but useful enough he had spent countless hours mastering the skill. One moment his world was normal, the next a dozen little white bone fragments were flying through the fringes of reality. While the rest of everything remained frozen, their motion reflected against the Duke’s gaze.

An Edict. One split many ways in its unusual versatility. Not the most directly powerful, Ezax knew, but one that could be twisted to almost any purpose that served its wielder intent of cruelty. Normally, that would not be a concern, as there were three layers of ancient protections woven by Names perfectly suited to stopping exactly that kind of attack, but this was different. Ezax could not directly perceive the Fragment’s power, or how much of it had been committed, but he witnessed the effect.

It killed the time required to travel. It killed the distance needed to be passed. It killed a hole through the impregnable web of ancient magic barring its way. It killed the possibilities of fate that would allow Ezax to react in any way. Killed the very through of resistance or survival.

Then it struck his final—and true—line of defense and shattered. There was not even a whiff of mana dispersed as the lethal spell killed its own existence with absolute authority as soon as it failed to achieve its goal.

A small pitch black statuette of an elegant elven man rested in the Duke’s inner pocket. Ezax did not particularly care for the explicit details of the naked form, but the author clearly had, carving obsessively until the depiction attained an almost supernatural presence despite the lack of magic. Whether it was foresight, sheer Greed, or perhaps even Lust, that had caused one of his ancestors to claim it didn’t really matter. It had long been known as the most useless Relic from before the First Betrayal to lie within House Blackburg’s vaults. Past the artistic value, it only had one real trait of note:

The work of art had been personally blessed by Umbra.

Only the tinniest little acknowledgement, witnessing the Perfection that had been achieved and deciding to preserve it. That technically didn’t really do anything besides resisting erosion, so the statuette had been chucked on one of the many vanity piles and at most taken out as rare decoration over the millennia. Ezax himself had first seen it as a boy when one of his step mothers had deemed to show it to a gaggle of courtiers during an informal banquet. 

After the summit, though, Ezax had wracked his brain for a way to survival and eventually committed to an educated guess: By its very nature, the little statue would be uniquely good at resisting the insurmountable power of a Fragment—the influence of one Aspect instinctively reluctant to infringe on that of another. Not the sole measure he had prepared out, but clearly the one that had actually worked.

Something to note down for the future generations, however unlikely a similar situation was to occur ever again. His survival did not let Ezax relax. Quite the opposite. When the Rot committed to a strike, they always brought a bagful of followups along. 

“So it begins,” he muttered, careful of another attack coming right after the first. It, however, seemed that the Lich had been confident enough in his killing stroke to dedicate that extra firepower elsewhere. Not necessarily a good thing.

He reached to the table beside him, where a little blue gem lay. Not the usual tool of communication, but one pushed so to the limits with its protections it would burn out within the minute. Because all it needed to do was allow for one conversation to be held with absolute defence from interception. 

“Ezax, alive,” he announced alongside several others doing the same. “Count?”

“Too many,” Conflagration replied.

The Duke of Brown watched dispassionately as the doll that had once been her body disintegrated, flesh turning to rotten chunks and then mere dust. All the layers of defences she had erected around it as steadfast as wet paper. It had already been wounded, spent to the marrow in that battle she had destroyed a title. So locking the puppet inside a shell that no sight or divination could pierce had actually been quite convenient. It had allowed her to make the final preparations out of sight.

Soon, people would notice. The subordinates whose faces she did not recall would come in and find the broken pieces of what they had thought of as their Duke. It would take only days for that seat to be filled again, given that one of her ignorant juniors had already been eyeing a coup if she showed him enough weakness. Not as subtly as he had thought, but the former Duke had let it be. Another piece of the puzzle.

Then there would be the funeral. A petty name, displayed on a tombstone in a ceremony only attended out of politeness. An epitaph reading “last of her line” that few eyes would even glance upon. An obvious footnote Duke, one who had accomplished so little most records would not even bother describing her reign beyond “adequate”. 

Within a decade, she would be forgotten. A few might still recall her one notable battle for a while, but not enough to matter. A fluke, they might say, if the topic even came up, as no one had ever been told of more than her first Truth. Someone might even steal the achievement altogether since it had never been publicly declared. No loyal retainers existed to defend her legacy or regurgitate her glories. A being barely bound to even the faintest memory.

Despite all that, the former Duke smiled. She was in the most auspicious position that anyone could ever be: Undeniably dead, and yet alive. 

After decades of deprivation, of isolation so absolute she could not accompany even herself in that solitude, she had done it. Abandoned the pupa of flesh and bone so fully, not even a Named Lich wielding a Fragment could find the connection. Accomplished the impossible.

All that remained was the last step. A formality, really. 

Like an earthquake, something in her Soul trembled. Roared with the might to sunder the land and submerge the heavens. Between moments, her encroaching death vanished, likewise unable to bind her any longer. No more was that pathetic, broken mage.

The Untethered laughed, soil shaking ever so gently with the sound all the way past the horizon.