RE: Monarch

Good. But not good enough. They’d catch up with me at this point. I channeled magic into the inscriptions at my legs, and the haste coding propelled me faster until the scenery was almost an indistinguishable blur.

Duck. The amulet at my neck burned. I moved on instinct, dodging under a hissing tight flow of water pressurized enough to slice through skin, sliding on my knees beneath the stream.

“An earlier warning would have been nice,” I hissed under my breath. The emerald at my neck vibrated in a pattern that was hard to interpret as anything other than laughter.

A ghost caught my eye: a thin, willowy specter that was almost translucent. It had been pacing me perfectly but made a mistake, barely broaching beyond the blindspot to my left. The specter dove at me, swinging her curved blade in a vicious horizontal strike. I couldn’t get the aegis up in time, but the transcription on my arm—designed to activate when I attempted to summon an aegis—glowed bright yellow, burning the skin beneath, the kinetic force of the strike dispersed as heat. I struck out with my elbow hard and heard a resounding “oof,” as the air was driven from my attackers lungs.

I grinned. There was a clearing up ahead where a golden artifact sat on an altar, glowing brightly. So close now. I picked up the pace, hauling myself up onto what used to be a thin support rail for a large building before hurling myself down, preparing to cross the final stream—

Which was as slippery as it was solid the moment I stepped onto it. I pinwheeled, trying to keep my balance as my rugged boots lost traction and I flailed across the ice, falling hard on my hands, pushing myself up again. My ghostly specter from before was back, this time not bothering to sneak up on me. She stabbed at me, and I met her blow with the sword breaker, an audible clink as her blade slid between the grooves and was stuck there.

I reached for my bag and Bellarex grabbed my free arm to stop me. I head-butted her but she was ready for it, lowering her chin so my forehead glanced painfully off her skull.

Fine. Time to get serious.

I manipulated the air. I’d specifically designed several pouches on my belt with magnetic lids. With a strong enough breeze emanating from inside the bag the lids would pop open, bring forth their contents.

The powder sped towards her in a granular arc. Her eyes widened and she disengaged, abandoning her blade, memory no doubt still fresh of the last time I’d hit her with a combination of stinging nettles.

But that wasn’t what I was doing now. I called the flame, setting the powder on fire and flinging it at her in a wide arc. She backpedaled on the ice. I noted, wryly, that she was wearing spiked boots. They had planned this.

My mind strained as I encircled her with the powder. Then stoked the flame with pure mana. She fell through the ice into the water. I took an extra moment to extinguish the flame, so she wouldn’t be stuck there.

A whip, once leather, now metal and light, lashed around my neck like a garrote. The ice beneath my feet dissolved and refroze, sticking me to the surface. Jorra tightened his whip and walked towards me. He was also wearing the spiked boots. I was, apparently, the only one to miss the memo.

The smart play would be to yield. But I didn’t want to.

“Give it up, Cairn,” Jorra said.

Some powder was still burning. If I could manage to call it over without looking, I could free myself. I’d burn the hell out of my boots but in a real combat scenario that wouldn’t matter. It—

Bonk.

A blunted throwing knife infused with void bounced off my head. The void clung to me, spoiling any immediate plans of casting.

Not to mention it hurt. A lot.

I nursed my wound with one hand and held the other towards Jorra in surrender. He released the whip. I breathed in deeply as he walked towards bell, who was still half immersed, clinging to the edge of the frozen circle, looking soaked and miserable.

“Was that really necessary?” I scowled at her, rubbing the sore spot where the dagger had hit.

“Was this really necessary?” Bell shot back. Her teeth chattered.

“I was going to surrender.”

“No you weren’t,” They spoke simultaneously.

Some time later, the gold painted “artifact,” had been obliterated into kindling for the fire. I was trying to concentrate, speed up the process of mana regeneration, but the chatter kept me distracted.

“I don’t understand how you got that much better in such a short time,” Jorra said. He stared into the fire, somewhat short-spoken. His arms were bare, showing lean definition where there was little half a year ago. But he was still less muscular than Bell. Her biceps could make a dwarf swoon.

“I’ve had more free time than you,” I said.

“Jorra’s just being sore that he can’t win one-on-one anymore.” Bell pushed at his shoulder. Jorra shifted away from her and rolled his eyes. His gaze shifted down to my arms, now rewrapped in bandages.

“It’s not just the ink. That’s part of it though, maybe,” Jorra said.

“Maybe,” I said. I didn’t blame him for being confused. In truth, I wasn’t sure exactly how many iterations I’d spent in the Enclave loop. More than ten. Almost all of them spent either constantly practicing magic or researching solutions. It hadn’t been apparent to me at the time, as the enemy was borderline omnipotent in comparison, but I had been growing stronger, and not insignificantly so.

Bell had drawn into herself and was looking out towards the lake. I knew without asking that she was thinking about her father. She’d been told the minimal amount, and my involvement had been excluded. A spike of guilt hit me.

“Hey Bell.”

Her head snapped up. “Hm, yes?”

“The void state could use some work.” It was a dick thing to say, and to anyone else I would have found a better way to phrase it. But Bellarex was different. She ignored compliments. Instead, what she seemed to value more than anything else was criticism.

“Tell me,” she said, pulling out a piece of paper and looking around for something to write on, and finding nothing, slapped the piece of paper onto Jorra’s back, ignoring his protests.

I continued. “It’s almost perfect. You would have had me on the approach, but you have to watch your angles. Crept up a little too fast and I saw you out of the corner of my eye. Otherwise, it would have caught me out completely.”

She finished scrawling her notes, tip of her tongue sticking out of the side of her mouth, and then grinned. “Thanks!”

“God you’re weird,” Jorra said.

“Yeah yeah,” Bell said.

We made our way back into the enclave. Bell departed for her duties at the void temple. It was late in the afternoon and there wasn’t much left for me to do other than head back to Ralakos’s estate.

“Agarin’s been asking after you.” Jorra said. The strangely tentative observation seemed to come out of nowhere.

I wasn’t sure what to say. “Is he doing alright?”

“Yeah, he’s talking more. Though half of it’s still babbling baby-speak.” Jorra stretched, still maintaining that strange, too-casual facade. “You’re invited to dinner tonight. I know you’ll say no, but just wanted to put it out there.”

“Who extended the invitation?” I asked.

“Nobody. General, family invitation.”

“And the person who initiated it was...”

Jorra sighed heavily. “Kilvius.”

That tracked. I didn’t blame Nethtari for keeping her distance. What we went through in the Twilight Chambers, what she’d seen, it was the sort of thing that stayed with a person. Nethtari was no exception. I’d stopped my vurseng consumption cold after the loop and I still had trouble sleeping.

I tried to summon a smile and only partially succeeded. “Perhaps another night. Tell Kilvius thank you, but I really do need to focus on my studies. The sanctum is right around the corner.”

“Yeah. I need to start getting ready too.” Jorra looked off in the direction of the giant crevasse and chewed his lip in worry. “But he’s just going to keep asking.” He sounded resigned. We’d had variations of this conversation for a while now and it always seemed to pan out the same way.

“We’ll get together at some point, I’m sure.”

“You think Bell is ready?”

The question surprised me. “Bell? She’s fine. She could still kick my ass any day of the week.”

He gave me a look.

“I didn’t say she would win,” I said, “just that she’d kick my ass.”

“She just gets that look sometimes. Like she’s exhausted and confused. Like more than tired: Weary. And we haven’t even gotten to the hard part yet.”

It was true, but I felt the need to defend my future teammate. I recognized what she was going through. Bell wasn’t tired, she was unanchored. Judging from what little I’d seen of them, Erdos had pushed her hard. A constant hand on her back, hurtling her forwards, driving her, never relenting. And now that hand was gone.

“Just be patient with her. She’s been through a lot,” I said.

“Yeah. I’m not trying to be an asshole. I just feel like we’re not ready,” Jorra said.

“From everything I’ve heard, it’s not the sort of thing you can fully prepare for.” I thought back to Morthus’s description of the sanctum, how he’d compared it to birds pushing their young out of the nest. “You either fly or you fall.”

He tore his gaze away from the crevasse and changed the subject. “Dinner. Soon. Preferably before we leave.”

He reached a hand out towards me at waist level and I clasped his arm. Then he set off at a brisk jog towards his home, ducking out of the way of an errant dire mole passing on the street. I watched him go, trying to quash the queasiness in my gut. There was no helping it. This barrier between me and the family I’d grown so close to. It was just the way things were now.

----

A servant greeted me at the door, taking my belongings and peeling off my coat. He confirmed that there hadn’t been any letters. That was disappointing, but to be expected.

I’d been writing to my mother and sisters for a few months now. It was a big step. When I first came to the enclave, some part of me had been frightened of communicating with them. In my mind, the possibility that they were alive seemed a tentative one, and acting as if they were without seeing them first felt like hubris. But fear meant something entirely different now than it did then, so I had picked up a pen and begun to write.

There were never any responses, of course—I was sure my father was taking a hardline stance when it came to any potential leaks of information to an enemy faction, but I hoped they at least read them.

I thanked the butler absentmindedly and headed to my room.

The last six months had flown by.

My time in Ralakos’s estate was lonely, but pleasant enough. Ralakos was constantly busy with council matters and dealing with the fallout from Ephira’s disappearance, which meant I saw him less than I had before I’d lived in his home.

I filled my time the only way I knew how. Obsessive studying and practicing. Habits once foreign and laughable to me had become my universal constants. Even though I’d long since given up the sleepless nights, the days started early and ended late, often leaving me with the feeling of waking the moment my head hit the pillow.

My demonic was getting better. I was hardly fluent, but I could understand most simple sentences, though innuendo and double-meaning were often lost on me, much to Vogrin’s irritation. My magic was stronger, but my spell work was still behind where it should have been for an infernal my age. The constant business was therapeutic in a way. Staying focused helped fill the void and occupy all conscious thought, preventing my mind from wandering to places it was best to stay clear of.

For the most part, the intentional business worked. The flashes of pain and torture no longer plagued me during the day. There was, however, nothing I could do about the dreams that came to me at night.

I removed my shirt and bandages and looked over myself in the mirror. The growth-spurt that had marked my later teen years had inexplicably arrived early. I was lanky for the first time in my life.

But that was hardly the most significant change. Jagged demonic scrawl that stretched up my arms and across my chest in angry looking black text. It covered much of my body now. The inscription process was painful and hideously slow. The more inscriptions you had, the more likely it was to cause some sort of soul-imbalance, leading to all sorts of particularly nasty outcomes. Akios, my inscriber—the same one that had originally worked on the suicide inscription—made me come up with a list of everything I wanted before he even began to work. After that, I’d been under the knife every two-weeks, like clockwork.

I traced the text near the center of my chest, probing my most recent addition for pain or discomfort, any sign of infection. I’d gone back and forth on whether I wanted the kill switch: the way it had become almost automatic under duress during the worst of the previous loop weighed heavy on my mind.

Rather than forgo it entirely, I opted for a compromise, a modified version of the original design I had broached. It wasn’t all that different, but slightly harder to activate, not unlike a crossbow trigger with a heavier pull.

Hopefully, that would be enough.

I discussed the afternoon’s training session with Vogrin. He kept it constructive, but it was clear he wasn’t happy with me, with us. He’d made his feelings known on the topic on more than a few occasions: The sanctum was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. I needed to be using my increased power and position to insert myself into a group that was stronger and more experienced.

Despite understanding where he was coming from, I couldn’t have disagreed with him more. Trust was paramount. Now more than ever. Jorra might have been somewhat immature and occasionally surly, but he had my back. And despite only knowing her a short time, I felt I understood Bell. Even the entertaining the idea of ditching them for another group felt wrong.

There was a sharp rap at my door. The butler’s voice called out “Young master, you have a guest.”

“Just a minute.” I threw on a shirt. That was unexpected. The timing was strange. I didn’t have many guests these days.

I opened the door. There was a blur of movement, and someone tackled me in a hug. I tensed in a moment of fight or flight before a familiar scent caught my nose, and the panic faded entirely.

“Don’t you have a family dinner to get to?” I asked gently.

“You kept them safe.” Maya said. Her voice was muffled, face buried in my chest. “I am so sorry I was not here. They told me. You kept them safe.”

My breath hitched and my vision swam in a well of emotion that I only just managed to push back down. I hugged her back.

“I did.”

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