179 (II)

Councilwoman

“No. We really don’t.” And thus came Harlock’s voice, rushing through the room like a whistle of wind long after sunset. The Ascendant of Midnight seemed absent, but he was all around them, beyond anyone’s ability to perceive. Only when he willed it could another notice him. And right now, the taciturn Harlock had much to say. “We don’t know anything for certain. Because we don’t talk to each other anymore. I warned you. I warned all of you this would happen. I told you to avoid breaking the mono-worship that sustained us before. Now, we are all held up by cults unto ourselves. And so we turn insular.”

“Worthless,” Halsur the Endbreaker spat. His voice sounded like thunder crashing upon the land, and his glare fell on both Veronica and every inhabitant in the room itself—including Stormhalt. “All of this is worthless. The Starhawk is finished. He will never accept the ritual. He has declared his intent. So must we. There is no relationship between us. Not anymore. He is not who he was.”

“We are not who we were,” Harlock shot back. “And it is not worthless. We do not decide anything alone. That is not the way of things. To choose to reign as one will see us fall apart. And the jackals are all around us, waiting for us to fall apart so they can rush in and rip the flesh from our people’s bones.”

A low hiss of crackling coldness hardened the very air itself. Veronica tried not to wince as the faint shroud of Hermit the Coldness revealed itself. An aged woman with a face lined with countless wrinkles and skin carved from blocks of ice glowered at everyone through the building steam lining the ceiling. “Which is why we should strike first. Folly after folly. Wait after wait. You are a coward, Harlock. This is known, and the only reason why you are burdened by the repeal of mono-worship is your own lacking congregation. You are waning.”

“We all ebb and grow,” Harlock shot back, with just as much ice in his own voice. “Some of us are patient.”

“And some of us do not delude ourselves,” Hermit declared. The Ascendant of Enslaved Winters whispered something to her Avatar. Hermit’s vessel was a stout goblin woman who almost never said anything. Instead, she simply offered her presence when Hermit had something to say. This time, however, Hermit’s Avatar directed a frigid glare at Anthony, who served Harlock the Midnight.

Veronica hid her urge to scream and bang her head against the wall and decided to sigh aloud instead. “Ascendants. Please. We’ve been through this.” As several of the Ascendants prepared to continue pushing the issue, she decided to play hardball. “Let’s move on.”

Her voice struck the Ascendants and their Avatars at once. It didn’t hurt them, but it did rattle their souls a slight bit. None of them appreciated that, but no one retaliated. That was because Veronica occupied a unique position on the council. She was the ultimate tiebreaker. She had her own Ascendant, but Kathereine couldn’t compel her the same way the other gods could bend their Avatars. That meant that everyone had to curry her favor if they wanted to get something done.

And that gave Veronica influence.

She wasn’t nearly the most powerful Avatar on the Auroral Council, but she was the most important.

Kathereine had taught her that lesson when she was but a babe. Control was more than just strength; it was the ability to command what someone else wanted. Always.

“We’re not doing this,” Veronica said sternly. A low groan came from Stormhalt, and she wrinkled her nose in disgust. “We are not airing old grievances and fighting with each other right now. There isn’t the time, and we have problems to resolve. We are going to start with Young Lord Arrow. I am going to find and secure him personally. The rest of you will work with me. That means, Daughter, that we don’t disappear suddenly to aid Cripple.”

“B-but I was helping,”Daughter whimpered. The Waif she controlled this time was a rail-thin thing, and when she raged, the skin on her face was drawn taut, revealing the outline of her bones. “I was! I was!”

She really needs to start picking from a better caliber of orphans, Veronica thought distastefully. These ones are getting sicker and weaker faster. Or maybe she’s just getting worse. They can’t survive her tainting for long, regardless… We need to get to the ritual. Sooner rather than later.

“You were,” Veronica said with a sarcastic nod. “Great. So. Is the Deathless secure? Is he back in his cage, ready to be interviewed?”

Suddenly, both the Waif and the Daughter fell silent. “No! Because Cripple was useless and—and stupid!”

Veronica hummed in doubt. “Okay. Fine. But he’s still out there. You failed.”

“I am a god!” Daughter screamed. She erupted from the sobbing Waif’s form in a blast of tar. A mess of arms extended out from her like a coiled mess of tendrils. Each hand she possessed clutched a glistening blade. Someone more paranoid would imagine themselves to be in danger, that Daughter might strike them. Veronica wasn’t that someone. She knew the girl was throwing her fit still, and something else drew her attention instead.

There was a scar on Daughter’s malformed face. A fist-sized gap lined her deformed skull, and vitality kept seeping out. Daughter seethed, and her horrid, serried teeth glinted even in the light.

“You’re a wounded god,” Veronica commented. “Come here. I want to see what the mean Deathless did to you.”

And that was a relatively simple rhetorical trick. Daughter never did anything you told her to. Not unless you were Maiden or Enoch. That stopped the Ascendant of Darkness and Omens from following through on her usual hysterics.

Now for the next part.

“Come on,” Veronica said, holding her arm open, beckoning the oversized, overpowered child over. “Let me see. I just want you to get better. I’ll make sure no one bullies you.”

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A loud sigh came from the side.

Veronica turned her head to stare flatly at a floating spear. Its head was dense and golden, a blade that could pierce someone across time. Carvings were etched down its shaft, and a wisp of radiant flame extended from its very haft like a tail.

“Not a word, Terminal,” she said, threatening the Avatar who had literally fused himself into his grand weapon. Another sigh sounded in the air, and a towering, scale-skinned man with a hundred wings sprouting from his back, a mess of slithering snakes extending in place of a lower body, and an even grander spear in his hand pressed his lips together as her gaze fell on him. “You neither, Longinus. Silence.”

Longinus the Wanderer grunted with disgruntlement. “I don’t understand why we keep treating her this way. She is centuries old, like the rest of us. Why we kept this creature, I do not understand.”

“Why I cured your heart condition while we were still mortal was a question I often ask myself as well.” Maiden’s voice was devoid of emotion. Instead of working on her bench, she was staring out from the golem’s body, directly at Longinus. Her eyes glowed with the flames of her inner forge, and the spear-bearing Ascendant of Distance and Journeys scoffed, but said no more.

Daughter struggled against her stubbornness for a moment before she wandered over to Veronica. She lowered her face and let out a sniffle, trying to gather more sympathy. Veronica studied the girl’s wound, and her frown deepened. “This is a soul-wound.”

“He used an Animancy evolution on me! He tore into my vitality as well.” Daughter stomped her feet, and splashing tar washed through the room.

“Miss,” Veronica declared off-handedly, and the tar curved around every last person to splatter against the walls. She extended a rush of her own Animancy mana. As she dipped her magic into Daughter, her eyebrows rose as she realized the depth of the damage. “It’s deep. And it’s healing slowly.”

“I tried reverting time,” Daughter whined. “I tried cutting the hurt away. But it just says. It doesn’t get better! It doesn’t!”

“Isn’t that curious?” Veronica commented. “Heal faster. Souls mend, and vitality stabilizes. It just takes time.”

Warning: Unable to countermand Causal Scargiver (Unique Feat)

The notification took Veronica entirely by surprise. “Causal Scargiver? A Unique Feat? Well. Looks like you’re getting a bit of a lesson this time, Daughter. I don’t think I can shout the injury away.”

“No!” Daughter shrieked. “I want you to fix it! Fix it! Fix it! FIX IT!”

Veronica couldn’t do anything about the injury—that might need to resolve itself. Frankly, she wanted Daughter to stay injured a while longer. It would keep her more hesitant when it came to performing acts of violent stupidity, and Veronica wanted to investigate the exact nature of this wound.

That didn’t mean Veronica could resolve what was actually bothering the girl, though. “There, there, it doesn’t hurt that bad, does it?”

It was like the breaking of a fever. One moment, Daughter was about to stomp her feet again. The next, she froze and felt at her face with her mess of tangled arms. A few of her knives sank through her skull, but she wasn’t bothered by that at all. In fact, she wasn’t bothered by her soul wound, either. “Still there, but it doesn’t… hurt anymore.”

“I told the pain to go away,” Veronica said. She reached out and patted Daughter on her ugly-looking head. It took much of the Councilwoman’s willpower not to frown at the tar drenching her fingers. “The hole will take a little longer, but I think it makes you look tough and scary.”

“Really? You think so?”

“Oh, yeah. I think I’m even a little scared of you now. But I’ll have to take another look later to be sure.”

Daughter straightened herself and loomed over Veronica. “I’ll be sure to—”

“Stay here and don’t run off alone again,” Veronica interrupted. “We don’t want you to get another mark, now, do we?”

Daughter’s posture sagged, and she let out a childish grumble. “Okay. I’ll be a good girl. Good, good girl.”

“Great. That’s all I can ask for. Now. The rest of you.” Veronica turned to address the room once more. “We’re going to follow in Daughter’s example and be good boys and girls as well. That means we do things together. With focus and precision. That means that we don’t follow in City Lord Stormhalt’s example and—”

A pocket of Dimensionality popped as a new figure entered the room. It was a large automaton with a rectangular body evolved to carry equipment. Faint wisps of incandescent mana painted its form in a corona, and the towering presence of Cripple flared into being. The other Ascendants greeted their comrade of Might and Sacrifice, but few acknowledged him with anything approaching warmth.

“Cripple,” Veronica said. “Glad to see you have bound yourself to a new Avatar so soon.”

“Apologies,” Cripple said through the Avatar. “I was indisposed after my encounter with the Deathless. He caught me off guard with one of his Unique Skills. It will not happen again.”

That was definitely absolute bullshit. Veronica could smell bullshit like she was a bloodhound. It came with being Kathereine’s granddaughter. And that’s why Kathereine was smelling it too. They shared a look as Cripple’s newest Avatar stomped its way across the room, its footsteps crunching against the broken marble with every stride.

“Again, this is why we act together,” Veronica said, choosing to let it go for now. She didn’t fully trust Cripple that much. Not in this matter. Cripple was a reliable ally to have when she was trying to get something legal or ethical done, but when it came to matters of honor or anything related to the Starhawk, Cripple was a bit too emotionally compromised to be a true ally. “The System wants the Deathless dead for a reason. I don’t. Not until we understand what he can do and why he’s growing so fast.”

“Right,” Charity the Bountiful spoke through her Avatar. “It absolutely has nothing to do with the fact that he might be related to you.”

Veronica paused. Something inside her tightened. “Excuse me?”

“Please,” Charity’s Avatar, Pauper—an elven priestess clad in cheap rags and covered in filth—said. “You are not the only one with the capacity to do research. We all know you were close to his father, once upon a time.”

“As one is with a treasured student,” Veronica declared, trying to keep herself from lashing out.

“Treasured student,” Anthony echoed. The old man took his round-rimmed hat off and rubbed at it a bit. “I was always curious about what you saw in him. He had no talent. Not like Roland. A competent Pathbearer, but not one of significant note.”

“There are things beyond power, Anthony. We can deny that, but we all betray ourselves emotionally at some point.” Veronica sighed. “And understand that I was his teacher when he was but a boy. He was a bright child, and—”

“And you stayed in touch even as he got to the academy,” Charity hummed through her Avatar. The Ascendant of Theft and Wealth chuckled loudly. “Such a touching story. You’re a noble woman, Veronica Chandler.”

Don’t let her goad you….

Of all the Ascendants, Veronica hated Charity the most. You couldn’t make everyone like you. Not even with a Legendary Rhetoric Skill. But that paled before the fact that Charity just seemed to be good at seeing through her.

“Everyone has a moment where they wish they were someone else,” Veronica said. “But that’s the blissful past. Let’s get back to the ugly present. We need Tanner Lowe back. And the best way to get him to cooperate and not just blink out of existence using that Outside Context Problem Skill of his is through Young Lord Arrow.”

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