Chapter: 688 – Long Hidden Fears

Tala didn’t go straight back to the House of Blood’s hold in Platoiri after she left the Revered City Lord’s estate.

Instead, she diverted to pass just a couple of streets over from the central column, catching a glimpse of it with her eyes while keeping her perception away.

She was working to bring down the evil that it represented, but it wasn’t gone yet. She’d found if she focused on it too much, she’d become… grumpy.

It was better to focus on moving forward.

Even so, Rane and Lea had both asked her to see a city central column multiple times, and she’d always found reason to delay…

That day was no different.

The none-too-close return to the Cycling Cities, along with the surprisingly amiable meeting with the Revered City Lord, put a fire under her, and she had things that she needed to do.

There were Houses that had still not given official responses despite the growing coalition, headed by the Houses of Blood and Iron.

She hadn’t succeeded in unifying those Houses yet either, but she was drawing them into closer contact.

Even when I am no longer Eskau of War, the House of Iron will remain with me. If I can integrate them and the House of Blood sufficiently, I’ll be able to continue influencing the trajectory of these cities through all the connections I’m forging. The Black Legion was her overt opponent, but she was keeping her eyes on the greater ill. The Black Legion was just one in a long line of atrocities that had come from the clash between gated and gateless. Addressing that was her true goal.

That in mind, she slipped back into her sanctum, already reaching out to Lyn and others to put added pressure on those dragging their feet.

She would be ready when the Black Legion was found, and she would bring to bear unimaginable might before they knew that they’d been found.

Days turned to weeks, weeks to months, and finally, as her promised return to the Cycling Cities drew near—even if it would only be for a few months—she felt the last of her excuses falling away.

She’d promised Rane and Lea, and despite putting it off for years now, she didn’t think she could any longer.

She bowed to the House of Blood servant who had just brought her the latest tallies of stocked white steel, and headed for the hold’s exit, a destination firmly in mind.

Alat had, of course, sensed this shift in attitude and plans, already informing their husband and daughter. As such, when Tala reached her destination, the two were both ready.

With a flexing of will, Tala pulled Rane and Lea to the superficial, all three sets of eyes instantly affixed to what they had come to see.

A moment later, Terry arrived at his own will, appearing on Tala’s shoulder staring in the same direction.

At the same time, Tala locked down the air close to them, ensuring that nothing they said would be heard by any of the passing arcanes, even if they walked within reach. They would still be able to hear each other of course, but that was basically a given.

It was midmorning, and as such the city center was bustling. Thankfully, that made the four of them staring at the central column, unmoving, mostly fade into the background. Though, they did draw some glances before the heraldry they all—except Terry—displayed caused the arcane attention to move on.

Rane had paled almost instantly, and Lea’s eyes had widened in shock, despite both of them knowing full well what they’d be seeing.

Terry simply exuded a comforting warmth through careful manipulation of his aura and authority. The effect was more emotional than physical, and it acted in a way as to be easily resisted if so desired.

None of the other Sappherrouses desired such.

Wait… That’s possible? How is—

-Tala, focus. Now is not that time.-

Right!

She cleared her throat. “It’s funny. I avoided coming here for so long because I knew I would want to destroy it. I knew I would struggle to let such a monument stand when I could—at least in theory—bring it down.”

Rane gave a slow nod. “It’s… I don’t have words.”

Lea swallowed. “There are thousands in there… Maybe tens of thousands.”

Tala gave a slow nod. “Your second guess is closer to the truth.” They both glanced her way, and she grimaced. “I’ve seen the reports. Twenty-three thousand, five-hundred, eighty-four as of two days ago, when one slipped away to the next world.”

Their eyes returned to the city’s central column, the source of all of the power that suffused the air around them.

“Twenty-three thousand, five-hundred, eighty-four souls trapped with little hope of freedom.” Tala’s voice was soft, her tone strained.

“Little?” Lea’s tone conveyed her confusion. “Not ‘no hope?’” She shook her head. “I know you just basically said that one had attained freedom, but… really?”

Tala gave a wry smile. “The magics within are largely based on physical spell-forms, not natural magics. Those have to be refreshed, and every so often, a soul slips through to the next world during that time. Over years? Decades? More? There is quite the turn-over.” Tala sighed, shaking her head in turn. “While it’s wonderful that the souls can find rest, it’s one of the reasons vestiges are always in demand.”

The girl grunted in understanding. “Everything’s a trade-off.”

Rane leaned slightly toward his wife, prompting her to fully lean against him. “I can’t help but notice, you haven’t torn the thing down.”

His tone had a bit of dark humor to it, causing Tala to chuckle then sigh. “I want to, but doing so would effectively be a declaration of war, and we cannot do that right now. One war is more than enough, but once that’s done…?”

Lea’s voice was barely above a whisper. “Are they… are they being tortured? Are they in pain? I can barely see the gates through the nets of power and ambient magic.”

Rane looked toward Tala as well, clearly curious as to the answer. He likely could have seen something given his Paragon level advancement, but she would be able to see deeper.

Tala, for her part, had chosen ignorance, unsure if she could bear the necessary evil of patience in this circumstance if she saw the souls in torment. Still, the question forced her to reconsider and she begrudgingly realized that willful ignorance was a crutch. She was working to remove this and other columns in the only way she knew how—short of killing hundreds of thousands of arcanes if not more. “I’ll… I’ll look.”

Rane’s eyes widened, and he was clearly about to try to offer her a way out, but she shook her head.

“I should have already… I was just too afraid to.”

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. When she opened them again, she released the unconscious restriction she’d maintained, which had kept her perception from delving into the column whenever it was within range.

She saw them then, truly saw the tens of thousands of gates and the mesh of interconnected, modular confinement and purification magics.

By the nature of souls, Tala couldn’t easily tell who the souls had come from. She could probably have delved deeply into any particular one and sussed it out, but she was not going to do that.

Part of that refusal was due to a continued desire to keep her distance, but a larger part was how much of a violation such a deep delve would be. These souls were held in place and couldn’t resist her. She would not take advantage of that.

Even with her rather high-level view, she could get a good idea of quite a few things.

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The first one actually surprised her. Collectively, all the souls in the column were being treated as a singular reality node, and a rather weighty one at that.

In retrospect, that should have been obvious given their locked location and how they were perceived by the arcanes, but she’d never seen even two souls truly viewed as one node, save in the case of soulbound spouses after one had perished yet remained behind.

These souls weren’t soulbound, though there was an interesting sort of magic-bond that resonated and rippled through the purified magics of the column.

Regardless, the massive reality node that was the column was absolutely subsumed by reality threads stretching out to every arcane in the area, likely in the entire city.

-Beyond even that, actually. Look here?- Tala and Alat looked through quickly, picking some at random to investigate. They were almost immediately presented with links to seemingly every arcane that had ever drawn power coming from this column, and through those arcanes they vaguely sensed links and connections to other columns in other cities.

The entirety of the arcanes’ lands was as closely connected—if not moreso—than the Cycling Cities.

Tala hadn’t thought that would be the case due to the more isolationist and jockeying nature of the culture here.

It seemed she’d been wrong.

Beyond that, she could get a sense of the souls involved as a whole.

She smiled, letting out a relieved breath. “They aren’t in agony.”

Both Lea and Rane visibly relaxed. Terry didn’t shift.

“I wouldn’t say they are happy, but the feel I get is like those in forced, menial labor rather than those imprisoned in confined spaces or tortured.”

Rane grunted. “Really? That’s… huh.”

Lea grimaced. “I almost wish they were in a worse state…”