IX-48 Original Sins (Patreon)

Look at your classmates, your team especially. You should try to remember them as they are right now. This isn't going to be sentimental talk, Young Lord Arrow. You've probably had your share of those in the last couple of years. This is me trying to give you a… forecast.

You're going to be like your father. You're going to be like me. We all live different lives, but they're similar enough.

You're going to watch some of your classmates die. You're going to watch some of your friends die. You're going to hold them, and you're going to break at some point as they go from being a person you knew to just an object, be it one of flesh or metal. They're going to go away, and I know your talent, so you're likely going to outlive most of them, if they don't leave the profession first. Even after they leave, you're going to hear about them less and less until, all of a sudden, you get a letter inviting you to a funeral.

The ones who die in battle are lucky, to some extent. I'd say it's the lowercase luck, if you want me to be exact. It's no prize to bleed out in the mud or to be incinerated from the inside out by a spell, but it is what you chose. There is a measure of your mettle that decides such a fate, even though that measure is slight, to say the least.

However, it's the friends that you watch break that will break you in turn. They'll wind you down over time, make you slower, and demand that you replace your internal pieces or harden your heart, because you're going to watch them wither. They'll die before they actually die. The ones who break on the battlefield and who change entirely, they're going to change you too.

I suspect that you're going to be here for a long time, Adam, a long time. I'd like you to be here for a long time because while you're a good warrior, a good Pathbearer, you're also a great person, and that's rarer than you might think. You're still young, and you haven't seen the full ugliness of everything. I wish you would never need to. I wish the world was better, but as I've taught you through this course, what we wish can only go so far, and what is, must be contended with as the exact variables of our struggle.

You're going to watch some of your friends end themselves. Some will turn to bottles or pills or other substances. Some will sink fully into battle, going from individual to monster, severing that barrier between. You're going to watch this, and I hope this doesn't befall you, but you're going to have to put some of them out of their misery as well. I wish for you to harden yourself in advance, or learn to process this in some way that doesn't see you lost as they are.

I hold you in high esteem, Young Lord Arrow. Your father has raised you well. I've imparted upon you what I can. The rest is up to you, and what follows will demand everything of you and more. You will have to be more, always. The evolution of yourself must come before your Skills.

Don't let the black dog eat you.

—Captain Harry Irons to Adam Arrow, Phoenix Academy Graduation Day 

IX-48

Original Sins

“You died.” Shiv's lips moved, but it was the Harbinger who had to speak on his behalf. It was an impossible notion to grasp, an unthinkable thing. For all of Roland's flaws, and the man was flawed so much it nearly neutered his impossible talent, he loved his son. Shiv held that above all doubt, but Adam's words triggered no response from the Oroborous.

So this too was the truth—a truth so terrible and wretched that Shiv couldn't fathom how things got to this point. Adam looked as if on the verge of tears, more so than he'd been at any prior point, but again he hardened himself. Again he mastered himself. Again he exerted an impossible amount of will, cementing the man, the weakness within his mortality, and assuming the strength granted by the mantle of godhood.

“I suspect my father told himself a lie,” the Tyrant began, “that he wasn't aiming at me but firing upon the Sage. Yet by that point, we were one and the same, and the act, though not intended within the delusion of his mind, was still that of filicide. It is an unforgivable transgression, even if I was spared that death. The Sage was all that kept us from ruination. The Sage spared us Excaliburization. The Sage was our means of retaliation and triumph, and my father saw fit to throw everything away merely because he could not stomach his own discomfort and the weight of his own sins.”

Adam used that word again. Every time he used it, Shiv felt the urge to look upon Stormhalt's crown, at the wreath fused through his skull to burrow into his brain.

A question arose that Shiv didn't want to ask, for he feared the answer, but the Harbinger forced him, even as cracks spread across Shiv's body and faint traces of hissing, black flame slipped free.

“There is a weakness inside of you,” the Harbinger whispered. “A weakness he has awoken once more. It's an understandable weakness, a human one, but we cannot allow it to fester. You have halted yourself from thought, from judgment, from deduction because of your shared affection, but now you need to know the truth, even if it leads you to potential conflict and discomfort. We did not come back to betray him, but we will not come back to see him ruined further. Ask him. You must ask him what he has done. You must discover if he was the architect of his own death.”

Shiv shuddered at that accusation. He struggled against the Harbinger and wanted to defend his battle brother, even against himself. When rationality and emotion were at war, there had to be one winner, and it was the shadow of Kelhaus that persuaded Shiv to kill his heart, at least for now. The crown needed to reign, and taking inspiration from the Tyrant, he needed to be his own master in this circumstance. The mind had to surmount the animal affections of the brain.

He looked at Adam once more, considering how to frame the question without hostility. He did not want Adam to suffer feelings of betrayal, as such might result in explosive reprisal. Shiv knew Adam well. He trusted Adam still, and the bond between them was unbreakable. 

But that bond was also different now, and Shiv had no idea how much of the Sage Adam internalized. He would never cast his friend away or leave him to the mercy of Avalon, but he needed to know what Adam was capable of. He needed to understand what drove Roland and Adam's sister to such depths of brutality.

“Adam, I'm going to ask you something, and I don't want you to take this the wrong way,” Shiv began. He gestured at the replicated Crown of the Anti-Savior resting upon Havel’s brow, then at the same devices fused into his other faithful, aside from the orcs. “Did your father wear that?”

Adam did not answer, not immediately. He observed Shiv and eventually lowered his head. “It was my mistake to spare him this weight that caused this, in fact. He could not endure the torment, especially not secondhand. And I gave him clemency. It was my folly, my self-betrayal. The Sage mocked me, excoriated me for this weakness, and now, in retrospect, I see it, and that was my original sin. More than anything else, I should have imparted it—this gift—upon my father, instead of thinking that I was granting him mercy. I thought he had suffered enough, but it is not the breadth of suffering that matters, but the specificity, Shiv. One must learn to grapple with their own sins so that they are further spurred toward virtue. These things are easily forgotten, for our minds are built to forget, at least our human, mortal minds, but a god cannot. We all must strive toward the divine, for it is in our fallibility that we achieve ruin upon ourselves time and again.” 

“He speaks half to prophesize, half in truth, the Harbinger whispered. “You can chart his path already. He will likely wish for all others aside from you to don the same wreath. That means Veronica and all those who accompany you. You, perhaps, are the only person in all Integration he trusts without the crown, and even now, the Sage doubtless assails him for even considering to spare you. But we have an angle to assure both him and the Sage—and maintain the dignity of those we've saved.”

“Before you keep going, I want to tell you I'm willing to skip ahead,” Shiv said directly. “If you want me to wear the crown, I will. If you want me to bear the weight of my sins, I will. Even if I want to say no, it's up to you here. But, I also see what you've made of your realm.”

Shiv gestured not only at Adam's present faithful but at the patchwork city he'd assembled below, a city of godly triumph. 

The shield of the Great One had shattered her sword, and its pieces of fallen paradise were pared upon the mortar of mist.

“This is something beyond me. I couldn't do this. Never. Not even another million years would grant me this power. That's the purview of Divinity, and we're going to need that if we want to win, but I think we're going to need a little bit more than that too. Veronica, Maia—I know what you feel about them, what the Sage is telling you about them. Right now, though, I want to say to you, not just emotionally but quite literally, I need them—mainly to extract Pathbearers from false paradises. Now I can start training some of yours in the same way, give them shells too, but that'll take time and—”

Adam waved Shiv off, shaking his head with a sour expression. “You never need to justify yourself to me. As I told you, and as the Tyrant must remember.” The gleaming gem of flame above Adam's head dimmed, and both his eyes and the light turned inward. “You have never failed us. You ensured the safety of Gate Piety when we were together. You saved me time and time again, before I ever achieved my godhood, and if this is what you declare, then this is what I will allow.”

“What he will allow. Even now, he must assert his dominance. A Domain is a terrible thing to possess.”

The Harbinger's commentary was blunt, yet there was no fear on the part of the Skill, and no offense taken on the side of the Tyrant. The Sage was likely too haughty, and Adam too adamant to suffer from such a slight after all his ordeals.

A wave of mingled relief splashed over Shiv—yet there was a tinge of lingering anxiety still, for both Maia and Veronica knew the game. They were only spared from the crown because Shiv intervened on their behalf. Without his presence, they would have never gotten here, and now, if his presence were to ever be banished, or if he somehow fell from Adam’s favor, they would be back on the proverbial chopping block in an instant.

And so, the problem was merely delayed rather than resolved. Veronica would live under no tyranny but her own unless she was dramatically rewritten of character, and Maia wished to escape into freedom more than anything else. It was the entire reason why she mutilated her own Divinity and faked her death, despite the heartbreak that caused Cripple and her other companions, after all.

Things to address later. Focus on Adam now.

“So you spared both Roland and…”

“Nullity,” Adam provided with a scoff. “She decided to call herself… Nullity. I suspect she inherited her naming conventions from you rather than from our side of the family. But her terribly tacky taste in names proved the least aggravating thing about her as time went on. Without her misguidance, my father likely could have adapted. He and I could have reconciled, but she was too much… herself. She was blind, naive, and I should have kept a tighter grip around her. I should have, but even though there was no bond between us, she was still family, if only because she bore the shadow of my mother in her features.” A long-suffering sigh escaped the Tyrant of Heroism as he raised his head. “Is there anything more undoing than family?”

It might not have been a question he expected an actual answer to, but Shiv narrowed his eyes in consideration. “Well, if we could think back to Vicar Sullain, who arguably sent us on our journey into the Abyss and everything beyond, we might say the thirst for revenge, or hatred, or something like that?”

A laugh slipped out from Adam, but it was a laugh tinged with the bitter basso rumble of the Sage as well. “Curious statement, but one that is most apt. Now. On the topic of Sullain. Would you like to see what remains of the Starhawk, or should I call him the Shrike after what Avalon had inflicted upon his unworthy form? Would you like to see what my father clashed with me over so many times? What he tried to steal away from me, from rightful suffering, what might as well have been the seed of his initial revolt?”

The dread within Shiv intensified, but there was no turning away now. Adam wanted to share, was practically overjoyed to share this work of his, and Shiv tasted the cold, vicious hatred inside of him, inside of his brother. 

He nodded, but said nothing, for he found himself uneasy about what Adam had done.

And from the light above came a descending beam. A waterfall of azure mana splashed down upon the ground, searing substance and shape, right at the bottom of the steps leading toward the pagoda. The azure star at the center of the palm gave forth its blessing, and the blessing came in the form of a whimpering, naked, rail-thin man covered by nothing but his own blood and a tightening wreath that had eaten away most of his upper skull. 

While most others merely bled, as the Crown of the Anti-Savior sank its barbs deeper, the man who had become known to the people of the Republic as Starhawk the Just was utterly undone. 

There was little biological brain matter left in his skull, the glistening tissues all occupied by fibrous substances, glowing threads, each one incandescent or azure, that stabbed ever deeper, injecting dosages of torment straight to the man's soul. There was no salvation for Matthew Carter Thaen. No Divinity left in him either, save for the faintest spark, but it was only a spark. Merely a flickering connection between him and the mantle he once held, a mantle that Adam had torn away and sucked dry at some point.

Shiv saw more pieces move to fall into place. The past grew clear, and the vision it bestowed was one: oblique misery. Roland was faithful to his god, beyond faithful. The Starhawk was Roland's everything for so long, and the Starhawk cast Roland upon their shared enemies and, in turn, reaped an indulgence of consequence cascading across the years. Consequence that made Adam who he was. Now, in the present, consequence that likely led to Adam's mortal death and immortal resurrection. Consequence that was tied into Roland's betrayal.

If there was anything that could have pushed Roland away from his son, then it was brutality inflicted by his hand upon his patron god. Shiv swallowed as he heard Matthew's keening groans rise to a shrill shriek. The notes that escaped the man's throat were inhuman, purest expressions of agony. There was a melody to his torment as well, and every screaming note brought great pride and satisfaction from Adam's breast as he released grand and heaving breaths.

Shiv strode past the gathered audience and ascended the steps. He took a closer gander at the wretched figure that lay upon the ground and found himself sickened with every detail. Matthew's mind was less than rubble. It was destroyed beyond words. Merely patches of translucent thoughtstuff remained, the faintest residue of cognition, but he could not maintain the scaffolding of memory nor the pillars of sanity. Even if Uva were here, or better yet, a Legendary mind-mender, there was nothing for them to repair, nothing. The Starhawk was gone, and the man behind the Divinity debased beyond words.

Coldness radiated through Shiv, a coldness that overcame all the warmth he felt earlier—even beneath the glaring light of the Azure Star above and despite Adam's hand slapping his back. Adam laughed, and the notes in his voice were of grandest glee, of savored triumph. He loathed the Starhawk now, he who had intervened to drive off the Stranger in Adam's time of greatest need. 

The Starhawk, who, though a sinner, fell to such a degree during the throes of degeneration and had such grand aspirations toward the height of the Republic. The Starhawk, who, despite everything, was still a founding god of the Republic.

Shiv's disbelief grew tenfold as he heard Veronica turn away, gagging, and Maia fared even worse. She stood unmoving, hiding her face beneath the shadow of her hood, but she was trembling, her hands clenched tight. For it was not the Starhawk that now suffered, but the man, the man she knew, one of her fellow exiles, one of the nineteen others who had stood up against the Dust King. Who had been her family.

There was no more god to punish with the death of the Starhawk, but the man inherited the ocean of sin all the same, and the Tyrant relished in inflicting such deliverance upon him.

Matthew shuddered and twitched on the ground, his body kicking and spasming, his head whipping about, and his eyes swollen from tears and inflamed from the ceaseless waterfall of blood pouring forth from his wreathed-scalped head. Then, at some point during his fevered motions, he caught sight of the Tyrant and curled into a panicked and shaking form of supplication, but halfway into his prostration, he noticed Shiv as well. 

Suddenly, his mind bubbled out, and his ego returned. Shiv nearly flinched back in disbelief, for such a restoration of one's being was impossible, absurd.

The wreath abandoned its grip, spreading wide, loosening to allow the man who had been the Starhawk a measure of healing. The mists poured into his ruined brain matter and restored what was lost. Adam healed what Shiv would have found impossible even with all his powers without any strain at all, reverting Matthew to an almost hale state as he became capable of more than just pain. 

He rose to his knees, still shaking, but now he crawled, hand first, then shin, scraping across the ground, until he huddled next to Shiv, clutching Shiv's legs with all the strength his emaciated body could muster. 

He clung to Shiv as if an abused child seeking salvation from the hand of their father, and he looked up to whimper, to speak, "Death… less, Deathless." He sounded like someone relearning syllables and trying to grasp words long forgotten. "Deathless, please…" He pressed his bloody forehead against Shiv's thigh and sobbed. "Please, no more. No more. I know I was wrong. I know I've sinned. I know, I know, I know, I know. But please, make it end. Just let it end. Just let it end. Give me an end. Please, please…"

A sickness welled inside of Shiv, but it was a sickness he clenched and broke before it could spread through his body. He couldn't betray himself, not now. The Harbinger knew that the Tyrant was watching, waiting to gauge Shiv's reactions.

But where Shiv and his highest self were resolute, his other Skills crumbled into mourning. Not so much for Matthew, for though the man was still a grave loss, he had committed atrocities greater than few others as a god, but for what his best friend had done. 

Nihilist: Gods… Adam…

“Please… Kill… kill me…”

There was a sublime kind of horror in witnessing not just the fall, but the utter degradation of someone great and powerful. 

It was like witnessing the death of a champion. It was spirit-killing in a sense, and Shiv wasn't even faithful. 

“It hurt me once, too,” Adam admitted, stepping beside Shiv. “It hurt me to impose such judgment upon him, but I want you to understand something: I do not torture him. I never have, and I never will. He only suffers at his own hand. It was and is his choice to commit to weakness, to never rise above his sin. It is only a spark, but I left that measure of Divinity so that he might be able to perhaps one day reclaim his godly kindling, and with his accrued legend, he is more than attuned to be capable of it. But Matthew Carter Thane was never supposed to be a god. His throne was a throne thieved. He is, ultimately, above all else, a false deity.” 

Adam began circling the man he despised. “His descent into the bowels of the Abyss was engineered and assured by outside forces. Such a development was the hand of fate, but past the hand of fate, we must once again exert our own will and be our own masters. He did not. Even now, he denies his hand in the burning of Submission. Though my father was the instrument, he was the architect, and it was because he demanded it to be so that those children of the Abyss, countless thousands upon thousands, gathered under Vicar Sullain for no desire other than peace under a united faith, were cast into the flame of the sun, into that which their people feared and dreaded most, for his personal interest, his against the Republic's interest at that, over their people. Now, he suffers what they suffered.” 

Adam slowly turned his head to Shiv's group. “And what pitiful tears you spend on his behalf, Educator. And what a disgusting outpouring of humanity on your part, Councilwoman. Tell me, did you ever break so for the small, the meek, for the ones you sinned against? Were you ever a tyrant for the little ones as much as you were for the elites?”

Before either of them responded, Adam turned, and Shiv stared into his empty eye sockets, only for them to flash with godly fire: incandescence in azure, blazing bright as if from the cracks of a broken cauldron. “For all your brutality, Shiv, you are ultimately too kind, too diplomatic, too soft with our enemies. We delayed too long. That was our great sin. That was our original sin. We should have taken more. We should have asserted ourselves more, struck whatever bargains that were offered, and then struck regardless. What was ultimately the worth of our honor when we were swallowed anyway in the end? What worth?”

Adam's godly gaze swept across Matthew's back, and the broken man felt Adam's presence, tensing and clinging tight to Shiv, as if an insect caught in a hurricane, desperate not to let go.

But what strength did he have? What measure of control did he retain over his own fate, now that he was at the mercy of one most high? 

"Do you judge me for this, Shiv?" Adam asked, his voice devoid of emotion at that moment. 

The mists permeating the world grew laden with pressure. But the Deathless did not kneel. He did not bend as all around him quivered, as Havel held up his arms in a gesture of religious fervor toward the light, as the orcs crossed themselves as well, planting one arm over another in a tilted crucifix toward the sun.

Only Shiv and Adam faced each other, the closest thing to equals here—the divine Tyrant seeking a proper assessment of himself from the perspective of his only trusted friend.

Shiv looked down upon Matthew. He stared at the shuddering man, and regretted not being here sooner.

"If only we were here a decade ago, indeed…"

After a moment, Shiv raised his gaze and grimaced. “Judgment's not that useful, in my opinion. Same with honor. You placed the crown on his head, and he just couldn't live with his sin, could he? But even if that's the case, and he perhaps deserves this, I have a question: Is your scripture focused on punishment or mercy? Because unless you've gained either of those Domains, you can still choose. You can still decide what kind of Tyrant you wish to be.”

That gave Adam pause, and using that pause, Shiv pressed on. “Adam, I'm not going to tell you what you're doing is wrong or right. You've always been aware of these things more than me, probably even now. I wasn't here. I wasn't with you. I didn't go through what you did. I wasn't betrayed and murdered by people I trusted, but that isn't what I'm talking about right now either. What I'm talking about is twofold.”

Shiv held up a finger. “The first problem applies to you as if you're still a mortal. As a mortal man, you might be betraying yourself by repeating a certain set of behaviors. Yeah, he had your father burn Submission. Yeah, he's likely being tormented by all he's suffered, all he's done, over and over again, because he can't get over it. Does he have it coming?” Shiv angled his head and shrugged. "Can't rightly say either, because I've killed innocents too. Collateral damage, but again, how much does intent matter when someone you love's taken away?”

“I hear your words, Shiv. However, look upon Avatar-Repentant Stormhalt. Look upon him and be proud.” Adam gestured, and Stormhalt stood just a little taller. His head and shoulders were just a little bit tighter. “Look upon him and see that he has prevailed. It took him a decade before he contained the spasms of his suffering, but he did. In the face of all his sins, all his wrongdoing, he rose, and he became worthy. Not worthy of me, but worthy of himself, Shiv. The tyranny I demand is not that of the state, but that upon every individual, of every Pathbearer. It's another scripture I based on you.” Adam gestured at Shiv. “You made your mistakes, but you always deigned to improve.”

Shiv took the compliment with a nod but still held up his first finger. “This isn't so much about a morality judgment as it is a behavioral judgment. Some people are made fragile by their experiences, by fate. We talked about that. You talked about that just now, and I've thought plenty about free will too, but free will necessitates one having a stable foundation. A lot of what we lost was because everything was already arrayed against us; because the script was already pre-written, as the Great One once told me. If we were aggressive, maybe things could have been changed, but let's not conflate the now and the then, and us with him. I guess what I'm trying to say is: I think it would be a greater triumph for your legend and you as a Pathbearer in general if you managed to turn him into one of your faithful, rather than leaving him as whatever this is.”

Adam smiled again, but this time his expression was colder, and the gleam of his joy didn't quite reach his flame-filled eyes. "Always and forever trying to talk people into virtue. It's what I find pleasing about you, Shiv, even in your most brittle state. Very well. I'll take your words as they are, but my retort is quite simple. If one cannot stand for themselves, then what can I supply them with? If one cannot rise on the foundation of their own sins to seek virtue, even when this choice is undeniably granted, then how can one survive the frivolity and capriciousness of the System? For it is cruel beyond measure, and crueler than anything they have inflicted upon themselves through their actions against others.”

“That it is, but we don't have to be,” Shiv retorted. “The System plays to us in part and feeds off of us. It's a symbiote sometimes, and a parasite at others, but some wills are freer than others, wouldn't you say?”

“I would. And you think it would do me more credit if I were to reform this loathsome man of my will, instead of his?”

“I would. Because it would be an expression of absolute tyranny from the inside out. It would be quite a thing, wouldn't it, for a tyrant to tyrannize themselves, to impose their own law upon themselves, and that they would see themselves blurred with the law, for their will would transcend the fragility of their mortal heart.” Shiv shook his head. “But I overstep. I assume too much about the second part.” He extended another finger regardless. “I don't know your scripture. I don't know your godly myth. Maybe meddling in this is against your Domain. Maybe you have to let someone suffer through their own trials, and intervention might see you betray yourself. I know that, as a Pathbearer, acting in your own interests sometimes means acting against your own heart. But things are different from myth, aren't they? So, is there a consequence for the Tyrant of Heroism if they intervene on behalf of a villain?”

The smirk on Adam's face wilted somewhat, only to be replaced by a look of genuine astonishment.

"We've stumbled on something that is twofold. He mythologically cannot intervene on behalf of Matthew for what he's done, but also he doesn't want to in the first place. The two fit together perfectly. The Sage and Adam are in alignment, but Adam for emotional reasons and the Sage for mythological ones…"

“Quite so,” Adam breathed. “How easily you glean that from me, and how pitiful that my father could not, while my sister refused to, even after all those years. It seems you've grown in more than power; you've turned Avalon into a whetstone for your insight as well.”

“Some evolutions are made necessary by others, and some evolutions are subtler than others. As for you, so goes for me.” Shiv breathed in and frowned as Matthew sobbed quietly. “Listen, I have something that might work for both of us. In his case, something that might be to our greater advantage.”

"You wish to take him?" Adam asked, dangerous tension entering his voice. "Is that the roundabout mercy you want to provide him?"

"I wish to use him as bait," Shiv answered, partially honest as well, "because your father and sister are missing, and I want to know what Avalon offered them. I want to know because I want to understand our enemy and pull it apart from the inside. Avalon tried to make me a deal once too. Well, maybe the other way around, but it was an act of subterfuge. I know it's desperate. I know it's willing to bargain. And that’s a vulnerability we can exploit.”

But more than besting Avalon, it was the mention of bringing both his father and sister back to the fold that seized Adam's curiosity. “You believe that you can find my father and my sister, and that you can deliver them to me once more?”

Shiv chose his answer very, very carefully. As Adam was now, he could very well see Roland forced to endure a wreath. And Shiv saw Roland's utter destruction if the person that inflicted such misery upon him was what was to be his son. "I can find them," Shiv said with certainty. But he didn't answer the second part. And Adam, for his affection, did not push.

The Tyrant blossomed with laughter anew, and he walked over to wrap an arm around Shiv's shoulders, casually pulling him away from the dais, gliding across space with the pull of the mist. The rest of the miasma held Matthew in place and dulled his screams down to a muted garble, but even through that obfuscation, Shiv could guess what the man was screaming. He was tortured beyond the point of sanity, and when sanity was forced back upon him, he only yearned for an end. There was a terrible thing to behold in Matthew, as every aspect of himself was burned dry. The wick was all gone. He wanted to end, but the Sage would not allow him, and the Sage's reign against force and violence was absolute.

“I'm so glad you're back with me, Shiv. So glad. Your cunning, your tricks, your deathlessness, and my absolute might—together, we're going to put things back. We're going to take back all that was taken from us. Together, we'll make things right. Whatever my blindness, my obsession, you will see otherwise, and whatever your softness… I will provide strength and discipline. And when Uva returns, we will all be completed. We will be made perfect against any foe, and Integration will reap what it has wrought.”

Adam's joy was almost infectious, and Shiv had his Harbinger fan the flames of emotion as he shaped a subtle loop inside of him, shifting the great elation he felt earlier so Adam wouldn't notice his growing disquiet.

“Yes, it will,” Shiv said, refusing to meet the eyes of his retinue—for he feared what might happen if he drew Adam’s attention upon them.

“Now, I think it's time for a celebration. We never got to that festival of Gate Piety, did we? The replacement for the Eclipse Festival. We never got to enjoy that moment of respite we so wished for. I haven't had a reason, not for so long, not in two decades, but with you back, I have all the reason to celebrate, all the reason in the world.” 

Adam playfully jabbed at Shiv with one of the inverted arrows serving as his wings. “There's going to be a holiday in your name, O Deathless. A grand celebration! Has it been long since you've cooked? I hope you haven't let yourself grow dull, for there are many mouths to feed in my kingdom, and many flavors to impart. And I assure you, as long as you reside within my palm, under my mists, you are free to indulge in as much respite and artistry as you so desire. The System will not trespass here, nor will Avalon, nor will anyone, for such is the will of the Tyrant.”

Behind them, another beam of light came spearing down, but this time there was an incineration, a burning, as a final wailing scream escaped Matthew, before he was drawn skyward, toward the looming star.

“And as for loaning you wretched Thaen… Give me time to consider and debate. For this cannot be a reward and relief to him. You understand?”

“I do,” Shiv said. “I wouldn’t ever want you to break yourself over him.”

And that was a bitter truth. One that left Adam touched. “My brother. My truest brother. Heh. All Integration will come to praise and mourn this Festival of Reunion, for what force can stop me? And what threat of death can stymie you?”

Suffer the Implacable Dialectic 333 > 358