LSRO: Chapter 343 - Inherently Difficult (Patreon)

Hi thar!

First up: Finaly books suck to draft. Having to draft, double checking that I'm pulling all the right threads into place so we get a satisfying conclusion is both the most difficult thing to do, and the most rewarding.

I've been having trouble with getting myself into the headspace to begin threading everything into the perfect ugly Christmas sweater. But I think I've finally reached a point where it's starting to work.

Secondly: I have almost finished editing book 5.

HOWEVER - In this editing journey I've realized my writing throughout half of four, and all of five became super sloppy. I used to be a very tight writer, and now I've noticed this isn't the case anymore.

Solution: I've spent a huge chunk of time making the prose more active, more in the moment, with less introspection, more emotion and punch.

Here is an example of edits on 1/4 of book 5. That's a lot of revisions, but the book is so much cleaner now and I feel packs much more of a punch. One more quarter and the edits on five are done and book 6 will have my entire attention again.

I can't wait to share the revised book 5 with you. I think I fixed any inconsistencies and upped the overall tone and quality of the book. YAY!

Anyhu, hope you enjoy this chapter

~~

Chapter 6

Inherently Difficult

Despite the smidgen of hope Quinn felt with Uncle Hal there, she couldn’t help the feeling of trepidation running through her. Dro legitimately seemed to be upset, shocked even, to find out her brother had been such a conniving person. And while Quinn desperately wanted to believe in the goodness of people, she also found it inherently difficult to do so. By all accounts, her uncle intended to sabotage his sibling from the outset. Maybe acting came easily to Dro. She could be in on the whole thing.

“What’s the frown for?” Uncle Hal whispered, nudging her softly with his elbow like Malakai always did.

His warmth being palpable probably did a lot to help Quinn’s feelings of safety. She sighed and eyed him quizzically as they followed the rest of them through to Quinn’s office -- the perpetual meeting place. “I feel like it’s all too neat. Too convenient. It made the back of my neck itch.”

Hal frowned to match her own, his fiery eyes almost contemplative. “I see what you’re getting at.” He pursed his lips, and a steely shift overcame his frame.

“I know something things perfectly innocent in their convenience, but that’s not a regular thing.”

“Hence your hesitancy. I get it.” He rolled his shoulders. “I’m inclined to believe you with. Skeptical until proven otherwise.”

“We should make a club,” she joked.

He chuckled. “Perhaps. Keep an eye out and your wits about you. And remember who to trust.” He cast his gaze forward again and walked in warm silence next to her.

His words stuck with her. And remember whom to trust. She got that message a lot. From both Carafax, Hal, and the Library. Perhaps they knew something she didn’t. It made her analyse her life and the people she surrounded herself with. She thought she knew who to trust, but what if she’d been wrong?

She shook her head, shaking the cobwebs away. This wasn’t the time for her to second-guess herself. Instead, she forced herself to keep her cool so she could look at everything analytically. Her mind cleared, she sent a pulse of energy to the Library, asking it to morph discreetly and keep her office as uninformative as possible.

Once inside, Quinn sat on her desk while the others sat on couches or stood around. A chair materialized in the center of the room for Dro to sit on. 

Hal crossed his arms and drummed the fingers of one hand on the other. The frown curved his face, making it more formidable than usual. “So, you maintain you were sent here as a diversion...”

“As a test of our forces and your defenses,” she butted in, but not arrogantly. It was a correction. A statement of fact.

“And you found those defenses easy to bypass?” Hal pushed the question.

Dro shuddered slightly and shook her head. “No. It took effort to push through them once we were separated. The stasis held those who came with me, but flexing my power allowed me to grapple with it and gain a foothold where I could push through. I doubt anyone other than us cosmicisodracus, and probably you Hal, perhaps Milaro and several other rulers would be capable of the power I needed to gain access.”

“If they held dubious intentions.” Drukala snapped at her sister.

Quinn felt the rage boiling over in her favorite aunt and brushed her arm with a steady hand, lending her a calmness she didn’t have. Dru glanced at her, visibly relaxing.

“I recognize our intentions played into the wards, placing us in stasis. I’m not an idiot.” Dro sniped.

“Could have fooled me,” Drivok drawled the words out, deliberately not even looking at his sibling.

“Enough!” Milaro said. That one clipped word stopped the squabble short. “You’re all more than adults. I personally have a problem with your story, Dro.”

The dragon’s face paled, and she gulped visibly. “What?”

Quinn wasn’t sure whether she was asking what the problem was, or couldn’t believe he doubted her. 

Either way, Milaro raised an eyebrow and answered the question. “Recently we gained access to some important information. In said information, we received a lot of knowledge pertaining to this whole mess. But you never even once got mentioned. Not visually. Not audibly. So.” He leaned forward, looking down at her. It was amazing, Quinn just how intimidating he could be. She was glad Milaro was on her side.

He punctuated each word as if it were a complete sentence. “Tell. Me. How. Are. We. Supposed. To. Believe. You?”

Dro blanched. “I am involved!”

“Prove it.” Milaro leaned back, crossed his arms, and gave her a searing look of disbelief.

“No, I really am. Drav and I have been working on this for multiple millennia. Kor and I met more than a dozen times, making sure she diverted the correct books, placed the right decoys, and filled in events precisely when necessary.” Dro looked around at each of them beseechingly. “I promise it’s true. We had to devise seamless holes, believable scenarios to fill them.”

Drevicia tsked. Just from that sound alone, Quinn knew the Library was fuming.

“You worked with Kor to bring the Library down from within, then?” Drevicia asked in a deceptively soft voice.

Dro hesitated, finally realizing how that sounded. Reluctantly, she nodded. “But it wasn’t quite...”

“Then what was it, sister dear? You wanted the Library to collapse so you could give yourself over to chaos? Did you want to die that much? If you’d told me, I’d have obliged you sooner without placing the entire universe in danger.”

Dro wasn’t the only one who moved back involuntarily at the malevolence in the Library’s voice. Even the room rippled in response to the bottled-up anger.

But Dro didn’t seem to know what to say. Her eyes darted to everyone, and Quinn wondered briefly why she didn’t just warp out, or teleport out. She knew dragons were miles stronger than normal people. Milaro nudged her this time, subtly indicating the chair. She frowned, wanting to know how he’d guessed her question. She’d never seen the chair he pointed at before. A unique blend of red and black velvets, she reached out with her senses.

Ah, now it made sense to her. The chair repelled magic. Sitting down in it should seriously curtail the amount of magic available to the user. Right now, Dro didn’t even have enough power to punch through Library wards.

“No answer then?” Hal asked conversationally. “Please tell me you have no answer. I have just the place to get it out of you.” His voice ended, smooth as velvet, dripping with painful suggestion.

“No, it’s just...” Dro licked her lips.

Quinn knew then that if the Library hadn’t been corporeal, and Dru and Driv hadn’t been present, Dro would have already attempted to escape. There were too many variables for her to attempt it now. It angered Quinn on a level she’d seldom felt. The closest she’d come before realized her parents hadn’t been in an accident at all. That they’d been murdered.

“It’s just what? Surely you can come up with a good lie? Did no one prepare you for this possibility? Did you think you’d be invincible against a fractured Library and green Librarian?” Quinn kept her soft and let the disdain she filled it with spill over and into the room. Not only did she aim her words to rile her aunt up, but she subtly wove the suggestion of inferiority into them. All of it directly at Dro.

Milaro raised a discreet eyebrow in Quinn’s direction and gave her a thumbs up. She didn’t let herself get distracted, though.

Dro simply gaped, a look of confusion spreading over her face even as they spoke.

“Nothing then?” Quinn asked, with the same drip of venom hitting every syllable.

“I...” Dro shook her head as if she needed to clear it of cotton wool. But her face retained the same bewildered expression.

Milaro frowned. “I need to check something Dru, do you mind if I scan you?”

Dru winked at him. “Oh, you lovely Aralthenish, you bet your butt you can scan me anytime.”

Quinn had never seen Milaro blush that way and had to bite down a laugh. This whole situation was serious! There was no room for mirth.

Even Milaro’s lips fought curving into a smile. He cleared his throat. “Thanks.” It only took a few seconds before his eyes flickered back to focusing on Dru and he frowned. “Your mind make-ups are different. I’ll need to study this in more depth before I can help.”

Drevicia and Hal nodded, and Dru’s eyes sparkled.

Quinn, however, couldn’t shake the thought it was all too easy. “Someone needs to keep an eye on her. And away from my office. I’d like it to myself, please.” Her tone of voice took her by surprise with its coldness.

“Of course,” Drevicia said. “I think we have a few more things to cover that need all of us here, and then we can be done?”

Everyone nodded. Quinn noticed the expression on Hal’s face. His lips pursed into a frown, and his fire eyes had an iridescent shimmer she’d rarely seen about him. He directed his gaze solely at Drevicia, contemplative and suspicious.

“We’ve spared you so far,” Driv started, taking his turn. “Since you’re so sure you have an alliance with him, tell me what his plans are. Apart from: oh, it’s a fantastic idea to let chaos roam free and rip every single creation it made back apart to regain the energy and start from scratch. But we’ll withstand what nothing else ever has because the strongest will survive.”

Quinn blinked. He’d not even taken a breath through that whole spiel.

“Of course we have an alliance. He wanted me to get revenge. It was your fault...” But she blinked, shaking her head. “Sorry... it hurts. There’s...” 

Milaro frowned, taking a step forward. Quinn watched his aura fluctuate as he reached out to do something again. Obviously scanning her, he frowned deeply and let out a little gasp. “Hold on...”

They all held on, just watching him work.

Meanwhile, Quinn looked over everyone else. Malakai and Aradie were the only ones who’d not spoken yet. She sat on her shoulder, and he stood just behind her left elbow, there to give her support should she need it. Dru and Driv watched Milaro with focused gazes, analyzing everything he did. Lynx and the Library stood close, heads bowed toward each other, likely communicating telepathically.

Hal caught her attention the most. The way his eyes shone reminded her of the brief flash of lightning, sort of like an X-ray. She had no doubt he saw things others didn’t.

Milaro tsked under his breath this time and scowled.

“Not pretty, is it?” Hal spoke up. 

“No,” Milaro snapped angrily. “It’s worse than that. A damn hack job.”

Quinn waited patiently, knowing he’d elaborate soon enough. Asking would just delay the inevitable. 

“Mal?” Milaro clicked his fingers to get his grandson’s attention. “Up here with me.”

Malakai moved, and Quinn could feel the surprise in his aura. 

Milaro’s voice dropped a notch, barely audible but for dragon hearing. “See here? Have you covered displaced mind theory?”

Malaki nodded. “Only briefly with little reference to cases.”

“Ah.” Milaro cocked his head to one side, still contemplating Dro. He took Malakai’s hand and gripped it as he channeled power through them both and toward Dro. “Do you see that?”

Malakai frowned. “That’s... wrong.”

“Precisely. Might need Nishpa for this.” He turned back to the rest of them, but not before casting a type of bubble around Dro, who looked up in alarm. “Quinn reinforce that for me. Your shielding is stronger. I don’t want her to hear what we talk about.”

Quinn obliged, finding it much easier to manipulate her shields now she knew more about being a cosmicisodracus. “Done,” she said once she knew Dro couldn’t even hear them scream.

“Let me guess,” Drukala said in a bored tone, a resigned expression on her face. “He fucked with her mind, didn’t he?”

Milaro’s shoulders sagged, and Hal laughed. “Astute observation for someone who should still be asleep.”

“Go eat lava, you overgrown imp,” Dru shot back without a pause before turning to the subject at hand. “Damn it.”

Lynx stepped forward. “Since when was he this good at mind manipulation?”

Milaro shrugged. “No clue. All the cosmicisodracus have a solid mind base. Difficult to penetrate and manipulate. Emotions, however, warp everything. If she lost someone and hooked everything into that, there’s no wonder she was easier to subvert.”

Drivok frowned. “You know... that reminds me of a conversation he started with me. Oh, before most of you were born. I never liked him, though. He always told me what to do and expected me to pay attention because he was my big brother. I’d lost something unimportant because of the Library. Thing was, I didn’t care. There’d been no true emotional connection from me. I don’t recall his ever approaching me alone after that.”

The Library cut in before Quinn could speak. Its voice held a note of derision with a heavy overlay of disappointment. “I never thought to look for it. That definitely mirrors mind manipulation. Twisting of her memories. That’s vile.”

“But it’s good news,” Milaro suddenly smiled. “Now we know this, I can guide around the blocks he’s put on and help guide her out. But also, Quinn and I’ll be able to walk through, identify the false memories, and weed out the truth that can help us against him.”

“Wouldn’t he have prepared for that?” Drukala asked hesitantly.

Drevicia’s next smile held pure evil. “Maybe, but he still doesn’t know what Quinn is, and beyond that? He has no idea she’s got hybrid elements, including the Areiltháhnish racial traits. We can do this.”

Milaro agreed wholeheartedly, and they looked at Quinn expectantly.

She sighed. Great. Nothing like a whole heap of pressure to make memory diving fun.

~~

Sorry for the massively long intro.

HAHAHA QUINN. NO PRESSURE.

Much love

KT