RE: Monarch

I could hardly believe my eyes. One of the first interactions I’d had with Ralakos was a reflection on the warring histories of our peoples. He’d shown me a monument built from the horns of fallen infernals. Most notably, a pair that belonged to his son.

During the trial of Infaris, I had been transported to a place beyond time alongside Xarmos, who’d taken the trial decades before me. We took the trial on side by side, eventually completing it together. Towards the end, I’d given him a potion of expansion—a special mix of ingredients exclusive to the Sanctum—on the off-chance it might avert his fate.

But in truth, I’d never expected it to work.

He clasped my arm and I returned the gesture numbly, looking towards Ralakos for help. The elder laughed.

“Xarmos told me to keep an eye out for you, years ago. He was also terrified and convinced he could die at any moment.”

“Father,” Xarmos groaned.

“Wait.” My mind raced. If Xarmos was alive, that meant the flow of time had beenaltered. How significant that change was, I had no way of knowing. But even small changes could have massive repercussions.

What had I done?

“I never mentioned it to you, and convinced Xarmos to stay away—though that was no small effort.” Ralakos glanced at his son, and Xarmos adjusted his armor sheepishly. “When any hint of chronal magic is involved, I’ve learned it’s best to err on the side of caution.”

I took a moment to puzzle through it. Before I’d gone into the Sanctum, Xarmos was dead. Only after the trial of Infaris had the timeline shifted—creating a version of events where Xarmos survived, and Ralakos kept him away from me before my entry into the Sanctum to avoid complicating events further.

After asking both Ralakos and Xarmos a series of questions, I was able to more or less confirm that everything that happened in the Enclave and Sanctum remained the same.

There was a rapid tapping at the window. A small bird with blue eyes that glowed like gems rapped insistently, a small piece of paper in its beak. Ralakos opened the window and took the tiny message, unrolling the paper and reading it silently. After a moment, he spoke. “As much as I’d love to draw this out, there are matters to attend to. You’ll see Cairn to the front?”

“Of course, father.” Xarmos beckoned for me to follow him.

I followed as we exited Ralakos’s estate. Xarmos’s pace was energetic, almost to the point he had a visible skip in his step. Instead of heading towards the entry portal, he turned left, leading me deeper into the city.

“Where are we going?” I asked.

“Where else?” Xarmos looked back and wiggled an eyebrow. “The armory.”

That made sense, though the idea was strange. It felt like it had been a lifetime since I’d had a proper set of armor. I’d outgrown the chitin set Kilvius and Nethtari gifted me after the first year in the Sanctum, and hadn’t managed to procure a replacement.

The few times I’d died in the sanctum almost always came down to either running out of mana or not having enough armor.

“So,” I shot Xarmos a scowl. “You’ve just been sitting around with a thumb up your ass this entire time?”

“Hardly.” Xarmos shoved me playfully. His face grew serious. “I’ve been tied up in a territorial dispute with the Hellhound legion. We’ve been getting reports of sightings near the Zarian cloister. Far more than normal, well outside their usual territory. At first, we thought they were preparing to rebel and attack the cloister.”

“Wouldn’t be the first time.” I said darkly.

“Right.” He pointed to me. “That business with the Decarabian legion in the Sanctum scared the living hells out of everyone, and we finally got the go-ahead to push them back. It was a long campaign. Hellhounds aren’t to be trifled with in ordinary circumstances, and they seemed utterly committed to holding their ground. Wasn’t long before we discovered why—coming through!”

The guards in front of the massive compound that housed the infernal armory bowed to Xarmos and opened the doors before us. A musty smell reached my nose as the doors opened, hundreds of dark golden weapons lined the walls, along with armor and other artifacts.

“Turns out, they were sitting on a massive underground network of xescalt. Had been for quite some time.” Xarmos said, looking over the armory proudly.

“What would demons even want with metal?” I asked.

“You’re familiar with the hellhounds, I’m certain.” Xarmos gave me a flat look. “Take a wild guess.”

I blanched. “They were eating it?”

“Their reputation precedes them. Thankfully for us, they weren’t chomping down ingots. Rather, seasoning their kills with xescalt shavings. Some ritualistic thing. Anyway, what’s important is, the hellhounds have been sanctioned, and we’re significantly better armed than we were a matter of years ago.”

Xarmos led me to a small room in the back. There was a set of xescalt armor on the stand that looked different from the rest—namely that it wasn’t pure xescalt. Rather a mix of the dark metal and a light, unique leather.

“May I?” I asked.

When Xarmos inclined his head, I inspected the armor. The leather was paradoxically flexible but incredibly tough.

“Elphion. Is this wyvern hide?”

“Mhm.” Xarmos confirmed proudly.

I continued my inspection. It seemed like a fantastic tradeoff between light and heavy armor, the xescalt covering most of the vitals and the leather allowing for superior mobility. But what was more interesting were a series of clear spheres embedded at various points in the armor I recognized as arcane sapphires. Stones capable of holding a spell that could be prepared beforehand and unleashed at will. “This thing is absurd.”

There was no way to estimate the cost, given the influx of xescalt

Carefully, I inspected the gauntlet. Where the rest of the armor had standard gloving, the fingertips at the end of the gauntlet extended out in points that resembled claws. Curiously, the gauntlets weren’t identical. The right-hand gauntlet had the same mix of xescalt and leatherwork as the rest of the armor, while the left hand was pure xescalt, glimmering darkly in armory torchlight, several arcane sapphires embedded along the length.

It was an odd design choice, considering how the rest of the suit was perfectly symmetrical.

“I spent a long time thinking about how I could repay you for that potion,” Xarmos said. “You struck me as a practical person, and as I’m something of a weapons and armor expert, I decided to stick with what I knew.”

I breathed out in shock. “You made this for me?”

“Yes. It can always be adjusted. If it works the way I hope it will, the left arm should house your demonic gauntlet perfectly, and hopefully—if the dwarf I consulted was correct—allow you to store the spells you absorb with it. Anything reasonable anyway. You could still catch massive, more damaging spells with it in theory, but you run the risk of cracking the gems.”

The generosity was staggering. “Are you certain I can have this?”

Xarmos rolled his eyes. “Come now, you’re practically drooling. Servants?”

Two red infernals helped me get the armor on. The fact that it fit so superbly was astonishing. l glanced at Xarmos suspiciously. “Where did you get my measurements?”

Xarmos looked away, “You have to understand, I’d been excited to meet you again for years. I worked on the design while I was away on the campaign, waiting for you to finally enter the Sanctum and come back. Only, when you died… Well. It didn’t feel right to leave it as nothing more than a scrawl on a page. Especially after a heap of xescalt fell into my lap. I reached out to your emissary for help with the details and measurements, and she really took the buffer by the horns. Came up with a few ideas I hadn’t thought of.”

“Maya.”

“Yes. She put in a lot of time. Used the project as an outlet for her grief. Insisted we make it slightly larger, so you could grow into it, in case you returned.” Xarmos tilted his head towards me curiously. “Were the two of you—“

“No.” I said automatically. When Xarmos just waited, I spoke again. “Not… really. There was something between us, for a while. Mostly unspoken. It’s probably gone now.”

Xarmos cocked his head thoughtfully, “I doubt it. It was obvious how much she cared.”

I thought of the turbulent moments that followed our escape from the Everwood, when she first discovered who I was. “Maya’s been angry with me before. But this feels different. Less like she hates me, more like she’s completely moved on.”

The servants finished with the last of the armor. I tested it, finding the range of motion and quietness of the movement surprising. When I voiced this to Xarmos, he lifted the plate on the shoulder and pointed out a circular inscription beneath.

“Like I wouldn’t account for the fact that you’re a sneaky bastard.” Xarmos grinned.

“You really shouldn’t have.” It wasn’t a platitude. Between the inscriptions, arcane gems, and wyvern leather, the armor had to be exorbitantly expensive. “I’d feel better if you let me pay you for it—“

“No—“ Xarmos interjected sternly. “I have a wife and child, a family. A peaceful and fulfilling existence that likely would have never come to pass without your interference. I didn’t understand the risk you were taking until much later. This is literally the least I can do.”

“Thank you, Xarmos.”

He put a hand on my shoulder. “Look. It might be rough right now, but you know who was there, every time I visited your grave? Keeping it tidy, or studying, or napping against the tree?”

Guilt washed over me. “I can guess.”

“She’ll come around.” Xarmos insisted.

As much as I cared about Maya, I couldn’t help but think about the danger I’d put her in. The pain I’d caused her. As it was, I doubted she had any intention of accompanying me back to Whitefall as we’d planned.

Maybe that was for the best.

***

A few hours later, the sun beat down on me. I was sweating from the heat, having grown overly accustomed to the mostly temperate chambers of the Sanctum.

Xarmos advised me to keep my helmet on, to avoid distracting the troops.

It soothed my tattered nerves somewhat that the reinforcements had not disappointed. There were thousands lined up behind battlements and in towers, ballista with glowing-blue payloads pointed at the tree-line miles away.

A muted horn sounded three times.

One of Guemon’s lieutenants flew by on horseback, screaming for the men to form up.

There was a cacophony of clinking metal as countless infernals in full plate stood at attention, the atmosphere of anticipation growing ever thicker.

I looked to Xarmos for confirmation. His face was hidden behind his helmet, but there was a grim readiness in his eyes.

“Is that—”

“They’re here.” Xarmos confirmed.

I watched anxiously as my father’s tall white warhorse stepped out from the tree-line. The reports were correct. He was clad in his conqueror’s regalia, a regiment of cavalry in his wake.

Much had happened since Thoth ambushed my carriage. I’d learned to use magic, clashed with corrupt nobles, negotiated with demons, and stared death in the face over and over. But nothing compared to the fear I felt facing my father on the battlefield.

If this went poorly, everything I’d worked for over the course of years could be gone in a matter of hours.

It all came down to this.

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