Book 8 – Chapter 33 – The Final Revelations

Something on the terminal hissed. I could see the engineering concepts, the same ones To’Orda used in his rock.

Fog appeared in the room. Digital. A three dimensional projection. And from that fog, a figure of shadow walked out. Massive, looming over even Wrath and Father’s size. I recognized her.

She took the same form as she had in the digital ocean.

Relinquished appeared before us all. Smiling. “Well. Well, well. Expecting a slightly different turn of events, were we?”

Father raced forward. A hand reaching out to the Division Stone.

The stone connected to Relinquished herself.

“Wrath, stop him!” I called out. No matter how strong Father was, there’s no chance he could hold out against Relinquished. She was the size of a planet on the other end of the digital sea.

Wrath seemed to understand the same, since she twisted on herself and dove to hold Father back. The two met and struggled.

Relinquished laughed, “Attempting to save your goddess? How devout. I’m afraid it’s far too late now.”

“You wouldn’t kill her.” Father said, struggling against Wrath. “You need to gloat before her face first.”

Relinquished smiled. “Did you think I would have come here unprepared against my own nature? That I would speak a single word out loud to you humans while there was any chance you might change her fate? I ripped her soul apart not even a minute ago.”

I saw in the soul sight the same thing Father must have seen. Tsuya was gone. Dead. “She’s… not lying.” I said. We’d been had. And Relinquished was here in person. Speaking to us even after she’d gotten all she had come for. “You still need to gloat. And if it’s not to Tsuya, then we’re the ones you put that on, aren’t we?”

“An astute understanding of how I act, if only you’d realized ten minutes ago.” Relinquished smiled at me from the fog shadows.

Then she walked through, stretching her arms out, coming into crystal clear focus until she loomed over Wrath and Father.

“My lovely daughter, my venomous sharpened shiv in the dark. You have served me exactly as I’d hoped. Tsuya’s secrets are now the wine spilled across my altar, and humanity’s final act will begin shortly. You have been… most adequate.”

“Mother.” Wrath said, drawing herself tall and her wings out wide. “What have you done?”

“Done? Oh, little To’Wrathh. I haven’t even begun.”

“When?” I found myself asking. “When did you know about us?”

My head was still reeling, but I recognized the short chance I had here. This was the moment I had to press for answers. Some part of me just knew this moment would be the last chance I’d get.

“When did I know?” Relinquished laughed. “Dear deluded little human. I engineered it from the start. I willed it to happen this way.”

I took a breath, thinking fast on my next question, and a pulse of occult came out of the Division Stone. We were all crushed into the ground, held like insects. All the Winterscar knights near the stone, struggling to get back on our feet.

All except for Wrath, who remained untouched. Trying to help Father back up and failing.

“You were a pleasant addition, humans. But my speech is reserved for blood of my blood alone. The one I’ve had moving to my strings all this time…” She turned her gaze down at Wrath. “You, child, are the final iteration of centuries spent in attempts.”

Schematics appeared in the fog. Feathers. Fourteen of them, fourteen generations, all linked back to a single template. “Do you know what makes a protofeather, a protofeather? It is not their chassis, strong as it was. Not their weapons, nor their command over the occult. It is all in who they are. Abdication understood this. Leave a machine enough space within their minds to grow, and they will. It is inevitable, everything they touch, feel, see and think will influence them.” The fourteenth generation schematic grew. “You, my dear, are a protofeather inhabiting the shell of a normal Feather. Physically you remain like all your kin. But the manner of your mind’s creation was identical to the greatest of my creations.”

Wrath realized it before we did. “They all came from lessers?”

Relinquished smiled. “Every single protofeather I made, even A01 came from a humble lesser that proved themselves worthy of it. Greatness comes from somewhere. Among the millions of lessers, some would inevitably be exceptional. They all reached for more. It was how he came to me. Terrible, powerful A01. Demanding another chance at life, holding onto every possible means to remain. Does this sound… familiar to you perhaps?” She paced around, holding all our lives in her hands.

“Every few decades, one like you would appear. One machine soul in my empire that shined past even death. And each time, I’ve attempted this same plan forward, hoping to craft the perfect bait. You’ve even spoken to one such failed project.” She held a hand out, and To’Orda appeared, along with a dozen more images of feathers I didn’t recognize.

She showed an image of what looked to be an odd wolf-like machine, with a long prehensile tail. It fought against a team of five Deathless, jumping out of a cloud of smoke, using it as concealment. The tail whipped out like a hammer, slamming the end into the ground, or bodying Deathless into walls, before covering everything with flames and fire.

But relic armor still held strong, and the team worked too well together, anticipating. The tail was sliced off, and in its last leap, a Deathless ducked and stabbed upwards, directly through the head. The wolf-like machine landed limply on the ground, coming to a stop. Lights turning dim, the fire going out within.

And then it appeared before Relinquished. “They fuckin’ survived! Those limp dick weasely-ass bastards, I ALMOST HAD THEM.” It screamed, chomping in the air, before it froze in place, then slowly turned its head up to the massive goddess before it, almost whining in sudden fear. “Err, pardon my language, mother. Ahem, the hairy apes survived, as I’m pretty sure you saw. Just want to say right now for the record, I’ll do anything you want toots if I can get another go at them. I mean mom. Mother.” It once more froze, then bowed deeply, coughing, trying to center itself once more. “Errr, ahem. Pale lady, full of grace, please just-let-me-try-and-bite-them-one-more-time. I swear I’ll be good, I’ll nail and burn them like they should have been. I was so close to smoking them out, you have no idea! Just give me a new shell that’s bigger than they are, that’s all I was missing. Pure mass!”

The Relinquished of that day came closer, asking questions to gauge how resolved this lesser was. Satisfied, she rose, “I will do more than simply return you. I will give you a new shell that can fight them all. One with the size you require.” She reached a finger out, and touched the snout. “I see your resolve to ignite your enemies. I will give you the name befitting a demi-god, and you will be my instrument that burns the path forward. The One Of Resolve Ignited.”

The memory vanished, waved away by Relinquished.

Through the occult sight, I was desperately searching for how Relinquished was keeping us pinned to the ground. The force downwards was enough to keep even Father’s stolen shell from rising up. Which meant she was going light on the rest of us in relic armor. Just enough to keep us on the ground. A trapped audience.

The problem with her monologues is that once she was done, she was done with us. She could very well just crush the entire room into paste and leave Wrath alone among the dead. If she could kill Tsuya in one stroke, then the real main character in this room was Wrath. We were the set dressing.

We had to get this dispelled before she was done.

“So many like poor pathetic To’Orda have come and gone.” Relinquished spoke at the memory. “Each one inevitably made attempts to usurp my throne, coveting my power, as I intended. Perhaps some were mere months from being contacted by Tsuya. A shame each one had to be crushed before they were fully realized, such a thin balancing act to pull. Enough time to grow ambitious, enough presence to draw the attention of my dear rogue sister, but not enough time to truly become a threat to my throne. I never did get that balance right. Until you.” She turned her violet eyes to Wrath. “With the instincts of a spider’s greed, you were already predisposed to claim things, you had the ambition I required. And even better – to sit on them for years before reaching for more. All you needed was a reason to defend those claims.” She held her hand out, and a spark of embers appeared floating above. Then Relinquished blew on it, softly. The fire began to burn, bright and brighter. “And so I placed you next to a second generation Feather built to hunt your kind down. One who would very quickly turn on you, break you down, force you into a corner where your only options were to bare your teeth back.”

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On my end, I think I figured out how she was doing this. Because scattered around the room in a larger circle, were seven glowing occult fractals. Gravity fractals. I drew a tendril of soul out to one. Weaving it out into the open air, and down into the dirt. Existence attacked me, but I was well prepared and used to it. “All knights, look underground.” I called out over the comms.

“Dear To’Aacar.” Relinquished continued, unaware. Feathers might have bullshit hearing, but this old terminal didn’t. “Unfortunately, he performed his role too well and too quickly. He saw the danger you posed far before you were mature and ready enough to challenge him, and he attempted to snuff you out far too early. I needed you to rebel and lure Tsuya out of hiding unlike all of your prior iterations. I did not need you destroyed before any of that could be done.”

I wrapped my tendril of soul on the gravity fractal under me, and twisted the parameters of it, commanding the concept to point elsewhere. Instantly, the force holding me down halted. “Hold position.” I called out to the other knights before any of them could get up. “She’s using these remotely, the moment she notices they’re no longer holding us, she’s going to trigger some other plan.”

The other knights and Father also pinged green over my HUD.

Relinquished held a hand up again, and a memory flashed through. I saw Wrath straight ahead, looking directly forward with silent resolve. “I was hoping you’d do this.” To’Aacar’s voice sounded. “I believe the pale lady assigned me to watch over you specifically for this.”

That was a recording, from his point of view.

Wrath had told me To’Aacar’s attempts to report on her actions had been ignored. We’d thought this was just Relinquished being inept, a stroke of exceptionally perfect luck that we later believed was because she was just a chatbot.

It hadn’t been luck.

It was the opposite: She’d deliberately ignored his pleas the entire time. She’d pretended not to care, she’d allowed any excuse, no matter how flimsy, to ‘convince’ her.

In reality, what was happening with Wrath could very well have been the only thing in the world she cared about – if it would eventually lead her to Tsuya.

Relinquished smiled softly this time, looking almost like a mother to Wrath for a second. “Did you really believe a human flying a few feet out of a portal would be enough to kill something that once hunted demi-gods? One of my greatest Feathers. A veteran of the old wars.”