Chapter 66: The World Shall Change

A while later, Brother Valerius entered the balcony, while throwing a look at the glowing portal, a look of fear and uncertainty in his eyes, but then he looked at his Commander, and recalled everything she had gone through in order to get to this point, and he could not rebuke her, if there was anyone who deserved true justice, she was standing here, but in times like this, he wondered if they did not go too far… if they succeed, then they would unleash a monstrosity, and he wondered how much they understood about their choices at the moment.

Even as a mortal, this child had been terrifying. What would happen when he became an Angel and the other terrifying portion of his legacy was awakened?

Some doors should never be opened, and there were paths better left untread, but what else could they do when all options for justice had been taken away?

“The portal signature stabilized seventeen minutes ago,” the Commander suddenly spoke, and Valerius unconsciously straightened. “He is still inside. Alive. The containment runes have not flared. There has been no Veil fracture. No incursion breach.”

Valerius stepped up beside her, careful to keep two paces of distance, not because he was afraid of her, no, but because he feared her power, and knew that men should not stand too closely to the sun, even with his control over fire… he would burn, and his death and suffering would all be his fault.

Swallowing nervously, “With his dual nature of Miracle and Condemnation, his Incursion should be that of…”

“The Void?” the Commander replied with a faint smile, and she looked into the sky above, “Yes, his Incursion would be of the Void.”

Brother Valerius felt his heart sink into his stomach. The Commander had all but admitted to a great treason, and if it was discovered, the forces of the entire world would descend upon them, and his Commander only had two hands, and there were other Angels… many stronger than her.

“And the Void Spawn timer?” he asked, “If it extends too much into the future, there could be a problem.”

“Twenty-three hours and eight minutes remaining in the real world,” Yseult said. “The Fragment time-dilation is extreme. From his perspective, he may have been inside for days. Weeks. I was able to glimpse that much from his Incursion, but much of his secrets were hidden from me… which is expected, I have no frame of reference.”

Valerius looked down at the city. He had been here for almost two hundred years, and he was growing old; he may have less than five to seven decades left in his tank.

As a soldier and a member of their Order, he had not expected that he would remain in a single location for almost two centuries, and like it or not, he had come to see this city as his home, and yet with the light of the morning sun touching the edge of this vast metropolis, Valerius almost gasped because it seemed that the city caught on fire, and he could hear the screams of millions as they burned and cursed their name for the abomination they had unleashed upon humanity, and then he blinked and that fleeting moment of fear passed away.

A tool was not dangerous; it only depended on who wielded it. Elias, for all his cursed heritage, had been able to prove to Valerius time and time again that he was worthy of this power. He had watched the boy literally slowly decay to death instead of lifting a finger to harm a fly… seeing a child of twelve having such a staunch state of mind scared him, but it also gave him hope.

From that moment, every choice this boy had made had been done with such stringent rules and regulations that Brother Valerius could find no fault in him; he knew that it was up to him and the Order not to fail this child.

“The Lord-Captain is below with scribes and a Dreadmind, but you can be sure there are other hidden preparations made, likely outside the City where your eyes cannot reach. The Crown is… concerned about the timing,” he said. “The Incursion of an Ascendant Candidate has not breached a major population center in three centuries. That they would move now, while an untested candidate is inside a Fragment—”

“They were able to succeed and kill the Ascendant Candidate of my Order because I was distracted and drawn away from the Asylum, already there are reports of two Dreadbeasts with Fragments of fate inside their thrones roaming in the Wastes,” Yseult smiled, “They intend to draw me out from his side, but what they do not know is that I am done playing those games.”

Hearing of not just one, but two Dreadbeasts with Fragments of Fate was an opportunity that he knew his Commander had been searching for more than five thousand years.

If the Royal House could release two of these beasts, then it could only mean that they were suppressing her advancement, clearly going against the core tenets of what it meant to be a Siphon.

They had killed the gods for denying power to men; now, were they not becoming more like the oppressors they had killed? The system needed to be changed, too many heroes and talents were being destroyed as the Royal Houses, the Guilds, and the top echelons of the Military had forgotten what it was like to strive for the stars… the Commander would remind them… all of them!

“My contact from the Alchemist Guild has reached out to me. They know there is a trial for an Ascendant Candidate in the Asylum, and some voices in the palace wonder if the boy was chosen specifically to draw the Spawn of Fate for you to consume,” he said. “A sacrifice to force the Crown’s hand. A way to justify expanding the Asylum’s authority.”

Yseult laughed once, short and cold. “They think I am like them, that I am a weakling who eats her young. It is good that this is the general sentiment; it gives us the shield we need. Still, if I wanted to force the Crown’s hand,” she said, “I would not need a boy. I would simply stop protecting Stormfall from the things that live beneath it. In their arrogance, they have forgotten why the Stoneward Asylum is needed.”

A short moment passed, and Valerius turned to her.

“You believe the boy will return? Even with his gifts, the Fragment he entered should not even be called a Fragment after all the enhancement ritual that went into that circle.”

“I believe he is still breathing,” Yseult said. “That is more than most candidates manage, even in lesser Fragments.”

Another longer silence passed as Valerius digested her words, and then he spoke, softer.

“All of our training to prepare him, I wonder if it was enough? There is so much we did not tell him; it seems so unfair that a child would have to carry all this burden.”

Yseult did not answer.

“He was six when you brought him to the Asylum, and told us not to interfere with the first part of his life,” Valerius continued as he smiled. “Red hair like mine. Quiet. Already killing rats with sharpened spoons because no one would give him a knife. You took him out of that place yourself. Carried him up the spire stairs when he couldn’t walk anymore. Do you know his name before he chose, Elias?”

Yseult’s hands tightened on the railing.

“Fate brought him to me; that is all that matters.”

A sudden vibration suddenly emerged from the portal, and Yseult smiled, “He succeeded. Now, the world shall change.”

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