RE: Monarch

Lillian haunted my thoughts. My mind sifted through all of it, looking for what I had missed. Every memory, every moment of us—memories that had once driven me, pushed me forward—examined for cracks. And the cracks kept coming. If Xarmos hadn’t realized that the beastmen had lieutenants in the back, constantly pushing them and driving them forward, I’m not sure either of us would have made it.

You can’t save everyone.

The final chamber was cold stone, the first half a flat empty plane lit with blue torches, comprised of nothing but our footsteps for company approaching a sheer wall with a slight incline. It was somehow worse than climbing the mountain. The hand and footholds were barely large enough to grab, spaced far enough apart that every move forward strained and challenged the muscles. During my first attempt I called on the air to lighten myself, but even with my additional stores from the sanctum and the potion I’d crafted, I eventually ran out.

I slid down the wall, trying to avoid the jutting hand holds, picking up speed until I hit the ground hard enough that my knees jutted into my ribs, knocking the wind out of me.

I crumpled, struggling for breath. Dammit. I was still so weak. Too weak.

If you’re certain.

Stupid. I was stupid, and overconfident, and foolish. How could I have been certain about anything back then? Hells, how could I be certain of anything now? The Everwood, where I’d first committed to the idea of uniting Uskar against Thoth, felt worlds away. The over-arching goal was the same. I wanted to save my family. But more than anything else, I wanted to save Lillian. It felt so delusional now, trying to save someone who… who…

I thought to my friends. The ones who had taken me this far. Could they even make it through something this brutal? This cruel? Had I killed them too?

Why was I doing this?

There was a shuffling noise on the wall above and to the right of me. A body appeared as Xarmos landed from his slide with a grunt. He was saying something, my name, I think, but I was too exhausted, too deprived of air to hear him. Xarmos put my arm over his shoulder and strained, hoisting me upright.

“Come on, friend Cairn. You’re not done yet.”

“You… should have kept going,” I wheezed out.

“Stop trying to talk.” Xarmos flicked my forehead. Then he opened my satchel and began to root through it. What was he doing?

My confusion was answered when he unrolled my apothecary bag.

I was beginning to suspect that who the trial put together was not nearly as simple as Xarmos believed. It was likely true that the person I was fighting with was truly Ralakos’s son, pulled from another time, decades before my birth. He was simply too real—and for that matter, too helpful to be some sort of malevolent construct in this place. But it tied in too cleanly with the lesson the Black Beast intended to teach me. As much I wanted to save my mentor’s son, as much as I liked him on his own merits, there was nothing I could do for him without sabotaging myself.

What a hero.

“Poison, poison, paralytic, more poisons. You really do have a theme. Oh—I found the nice potions. Stamina, two of those, One for both of us as I’m going to help myself if you don’t mind.”

I tried to say yes, then changed my mind and nodded.

“Potion of… expansion?” Xarmos’s eyebrow shot up as he held the spare potion that I had brewed, its amber liquid a dark green in the light. “The ingredients are a schlackfei to find. Very nice.” He had been practically tossing things aside, but the potion of expansion he cradled with both hands, placing it back in its pocket within the roll. “More poison—ahah!” Xarmos dug his long black nails into the cork and popped the potion open, then shuffled to me, tipping the contents into my mouth. I nearly choked on it, recognizing the briny, unpleasant taste of iron-lung.

It took a while, but eventually, my breathing returned to me. I rested my head back against the wall, my body slowly relaxing from the seizing panic.

“Ready?” Xarmos asked.

My hands moved on their own, tried to push me up. But my body surrendered halfway through.

“There’s no rush. Rest a bit.”

He didn’t have to tell me. Images flickered in front of my face, one after another.

Barion, wreathed in shadow, driving his rapier into my heart.

Kastramoth, and his terrible teeth.

The demons. Ozra.

Erdos, Bellarex’s father. He was a traitor, for certain. But not one beyond redemption. Erdos saved me during the first ambush in the enclave, once he’d presumably realized that Ephira had betrayed him. He taught me to how to cope with trauma, how to stop reliving my torture. The memory came back to me slowly, painfully.

I had let him die.

No, worse. I coordinated it so that he did. Ralakos had wanted to apprehend him beforehand. Take him in his sleep. I told him not to, for fear it would somehow tip off Ephira. I wasn’t sure how he’d react if Ephira never turned on him. Maybe he would have seen reason. Maybe, I could have used one more loop to test it. But at that point, the idea of willingly putting myself through one more reset was too much to bear. So, they waited an hour after we had entered the twilight chamber to move on him. When Erdos realized he was being arrested, he drew his sword, and fought, and died.

Bellarex had lost her father because I was weak. My family died because I was weak. And there, draped atop all the bodies, was the love of my life. Lillian. Lillian died because—

“Back home,” Xarmos cut in. He was lost in thought, deep in a memory. “I had this teacher. As a military general, father wanted me to be versed in all weapons. And I’m rather good, you’ve likely noticed.”

“The beastmen certainly did.”

“Yes,” Xarmos chuckled. “Swords, long and short. Dual blades. The bow. But I could never master the split stave. Gods, I hated it. So impractical. Low lethality, cumbersome to carry. And it never felt natural in my hands like the rest. But my father’s arms master would not let it go.”

“Why?” I asked.

“He said I had reached a precipice. A bottleneck. I was skilled and accomplished, a master of many things, but not all. And that if I abandoned the staff, I would stagnate.”

“Did he call this bottleneck a wall?” I asked dryly, tapping the stone behind me.

“You are a rude listener, friend Cairn.”

“Sorry.”

“But a deft one,” Xarmos acknowledged. “His lesson, while irritating and a bit trite, was strangely cogent. I never really excelled with the split-staff. But all throughout my life, I began to recognize those bottlenecks, and I realized something?”

“And that was?”

“That they are temporary. You do not have to force yourself to overcome them. That will break you down, burn you out. Leave you lost and broken. As will turning away and leaving them behind. All you have to do is stay focused. Not lose your will. Continue improving yourself and your foundation. And eventually, the obstacle will not seem so insurmountable.”

All you have to do is try.

I owed it to them. All of them. The ones I had failed most of all.

Slowly, I stood, and turned back to the wall. It wasn’t the first obstacle, wasn’t the greatest, and certainly wouldn’t be the last. Teeth set, lungs full and mind settled, I began to climb.

/////

We reached the ornate xescalt door together. The dark golden doors hung between us, beckoning. The trial was over.

“Ready?” I asked.

Xarmos shook his head. “This is likely the end of the line. If the legends are to be believed, the goddess will speak to us separately, award us boons if we succeed, then return us to the sanctum.”

“And if we fail?”

“The only accounts are from those who have returned victorious.”

That spoke for itself, I supposed. These trials were not structured as the rumored spirit journeys of the elves. It was entirely possible to fail. And failure, it seemed, held a heavy price.

I clasped Xarmos’s arm, shaking it with a warmness that was anything but manufactured.

“I wish you well, friend Cairn.” Xarmos gestured towards the door.

Just parting with him here didn’t sit well with me. My mind was a roiling tempest, the two sides of myself that had been warring since I’d met the man still fighting. But one side was still losing. Xarmos didn’t want future knowledge. Not to mention, without knowing the specifics in which he died, it was entirely possible my meddling could make things worse.

The most logical, rational decision was to do nothing.

And yet.

Wasn’t that exactly the kind of thinking that got us here? The kind of thinking that led the metamorphosis council to put the world in an endless loop of madness and misery? My mother would say that darkness only begets darkness. My father would insist that the darkness was necessary.

I had decided not so long ago that neither of them were wrong. There were no easy answers, no simple solutions. The road ahead was difficult, and I was certain I would have to do many things that would make my stomach churn.

The world was already so shrouded in shadow, wrought with cruelty and betrayal. And it would grow darker still.

Didn’t that make it even more important to be kind?

I made the decision and committed to it before I could second-guess myself.

“Xarmos?”

The man turned, and he effortlessly raised one hand to catch the bottle I tossed to him. He stared at it, shocked. Then held it out and wiggled it at me. “You jest.”

“My sense of humor is poor, not destitute.”

“What would you have done if I dropped it?”

“Felt… particularly daft.” I rubbed the back of my neck. “But I knew you wouldn’t.”

“Could your companions not use this?”

“There was enough for all of us.”

“And you are giving me the spare,” He stated, as if not entirely believing it, “aware what it is worth.”

I shrugged. “There’s hardly time for me to return to the heart on a merchant’s run. Thus, I have no one to sell it to before it expires, and no use for the gold even if I did.”

“Perhaps that is true. But you could leverage this to certain elders within the sanctum for the sorts of secrets they would never trade to the richest scion.”

His reticence was exasperating, but was precisely the sort of thing I’d expect from him.

“Are you typically in the habit of beating a gift horse?”

Xarmos laughed. “I take your meaning, despite the mixed metaphor.” He bowed deeply to me. “I am sorry.”

“Xarmos-”

“It is terribly improper to ask for a favor after one has been given a gift, but I must ask it,” His voice was full of dread. “I know you are hiding things. The way you look at me—the guilt in your eye. The fact alone that you are familiar with my family and did not know me… it does not bode well. That is fine. My path is my path, my future, my future. But. My father. The Ralakos you know…” Xarmos struggled, his mouth working, constantly rephrasing a silent question before he finally raised his head and spoke. “Is he a good man?”

I smiled. Of anything he might have asked, this had the clearest, most definitive answer. “The best I know.”

Visible relief flooded Xarmos, and he put a hand to his temple. “Thank you, friend.”

“May your path be clear, Xarmos,” I said, despite knowing it wouldn’t.

Using both hands to shove open the Xescalt doors, I entered the chamber of Infaris.

/////

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