133 – Convenience

Vivi waited until Rafael had left the Adventurer’s Guild to [Blink] over and drag them somewhere private—which happened to be more than a thousand feet in the air, amidst the bone pillars, with [Invisibility] and other appropriate spells ensuring only they could see and hear each other.

“I underestimated the Fell Apostate,” she opened with.

“We both did, my lady,” Rafael replied. “And that’s something I try to avoid as a matter of habit. I know better than most that a person doesn’t need to exist in the spotlight to be a threat.”

“These Selrath-Kyn are different from Morningstar, right?” That seemed like a given, but she didn’t mind asking Rafael obvious questions. Better to know without any doubt what was going on.

“Morningstar is perhaps the most dangerous criminal organization operating in the mortal kingdoms, but they arose after your disappearance, Lady Vivisari. And I never would have expected one of their members to best draconic royalty in combat.”

“And the Fell Apostate is part of Morningstar, too?” Vivi asked. “That’s how you knew about him.”

Rafael spread his hands, seeming frustrated underneath his composure—something Vivi could only read because of how much time she’d spent speaking with her steward recently. “My information on the topic is limited. To my knowledge, Morningstar is not an organization with a unified purpose. Merely a collection of powerful individuals, each with their own goals, banded together as refugees from the law—or indeed from decency and morality as a whole. The Fell Apostate has been known to work with them, so in that sense, he is a member. Is he in a foundational leadership role, or does he operate as an outside contractor, so to speak? I have no idea.”

“I see.” A frown pulled at her lips. “I’ve never heard of the Selrath-Kyn. I wonder if they’re the immortal equivalent of Morningstar. And do they have some joint goal?”

“It is rare to find any group of Titled truly united in purpose,” Rafael remarked. “Much less a group in the highest echelons of that esteemed rank. The Archbishop has his own goals; the Guardian Sage does too; the Gale of Blades, and you yourself, my lady. I would call it a safe assumption that they are not unified, strictly speaking. Indeed, the Fell Apostate seems to have worked alone today.”

Vivi mulled that over. At least she wasn’t fighting a whole cabal of insane, powerful ritualists. Probably. “What are we going to do about him?”

Rafael’s gaze drifted instinctively up to the gateway, then jerked away the moment his eyes settled. Vivi imagined that nobody enjoyed looking at the bleeding wound in reality, though she wondered if mages found it more unsettling.

“You could pursue,” Rafael suggested.

“I could.” Vivi didn’t get the impression that Rafael wanted her to, but that he was floating a hypothetical. “The trip isn’t pleasant, but it won’t kill me. Though I guess I shouldn’t take that as a guarantee.” For all she knew, she had gotten lucky the first time. Even she was out of her depth when it came to this field of magic, and she needed to remind herself of that. Assumptions could end up killing her. “But he knows the gate was left open, and Embralyne said he was fleeing me. He’ll have precautions in place. Even ignoring the dangers of going in myself, I doubt I’d be able to track him down.” Darkly amused, she asked, “What are the odds he was in over his head and got chewed up by the trip? It was a bumpy ride even for me.”

“You could make a better guess than I,” Rafael said, though his tone made it clear he doubted they would be so lucky.

“The odds really aren’t zero. We underestimated him, but I refuse to believe he understands perfectly what he did here.” Her eyes flicked to the breach. “Still, it’d be stupid to assume the problem solved itself.”

Did she pursue, then? She was torn on the idea, extremely so. Emotionally speaking, she wanted to. The man had siphoned the souls of an entire city; she itched to fly in, find him, and bring him to justice.

But there were too many risks and too small a chance of success. She doubted she would find him; she couldn’t even know whether she would survive the trip. Not to mention how time flowed differently inside. She might be abandoning the human kingdoms to another invasion while she was gone.

She had a problem with impulsiveness, but with so many genuinely catastrophic consequences possible, she would do the smart thing here.

“I shouldn’t,” she reluctantly said, and explained her prior thought process to Rafael. “Maybe if I’d gotten here a little faster,” she said afterward, “or if I didn’t have this breach to deal with, and if everyone’s souls weren’t halfway shredded.” She grimaced. “The real question is what he’s planning in there.”

“You have no theory yourself?”

“I don’t know anything about him. And while there’s definitely power to be found inside the void, whether he has something specific in mind…” She trailed off. “Again, no idea. Maybe he’s just researching void energy like I am. Maybe it’s something else entirely. Something I don’t know exists.” He couldn’t have learned about the echoes, so while those might have potential—especially if the man somehow found the Shattered Oracle’s concept—she didn’t think the Fell Apostate had ventured into the void seeking them. But she couldn’t discount the possibility either.

“Hm.” Rafael was quiet for a moment. “Princess Embralyne did suggest you could go and speak with the Dragon King if you need to know more about our enemy.”

“I’m not sure that was a genuine offer.”

“Nor I. It seemed like a passing dismissal, a way to end the questioning. Nevertheless, you could seek him out. That option exists.”

Vivi sighed. “I’m just not sure it would end well. Even assuming he’s… forgiven me… it’s not likely he’ll tell me much of anything.”

The Dragon King was firmly not her ally. Which wasn’t to say they were enemies, though he very well might attack her if she showed up unannounced, and would even be justified in doing so.

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

Regardless, even if she set that lack of goodwill aside—like, theoretically, if she had gone and asked for his help back when there’d been no grievance between them—he still would’ve rejected her a hundred times out of a hundred. He hadn’t been willing to help with the Cataclysms themselves, so these ‘smaller matters’ would hardly change his mind.

She also couldn’t bully the information out of him. Not just because that would be an abuse of power when the Dragon King was an otherwise peaceful ruler, but also because he was on a small list of individuals that she couldn’t say with complete certainty she would win in a fight against.

Obviously, with a two-hundred-level lead, she would still bet on herself. Yet picking a fight with a mythical immortal many thousands of years old, who had subjugated and currently ruled over the most powerful sapient civilization in the world, seemed like a poor idea. Even the Red Tithe had drawn blood, however extenuating the circumstances. If the Dragon King had been the one to discover void energy and had wielded it competently against her, would she have lived through the encounter? For all she knew, that millennia-old immortal, master of magic, did have similar discoveries. Ultimate techniques she didn’t have the foggiest idea about.

At a very minimum he was a nascent Cataclysm. And each of those had wielded powers that could pose a threat to her even in her current state. So yes: she had no intention of trying to strong-arm the man, and friendly discussions were unlikely to work either.

“A candid conversation with the Dragon King would be unimaginably valuable,” Vivi said. “Especially if he and his people already knew about the dimensional boundary and have studied it. But I just don’t think that option is on the table.”

“Very well.” He had nothing to add, which was rare for him. “Perhaps we should focus on the immediate. The gateway and the soul damage. For my own purposes, can I know what you have planned?”

“Right.” Vivi swept her gaze around as she finalized her initial intentions. “The ritual,” she said, “I’m going to pack up and take back to Vanguard’s vault. I might learn a thing or two from it.”

“A foreboding statement, my lady.”

Vivi ignored her sarcastic steward and continued, “The gate might fix itself like all the other breaches, but I’m not so sure it will. Whatever the Fell Apostate did, he broke through the boundary in a different way than what we’ve seen before.” Though uncomfortable, she forced herself to study the edges of the perfectly circular gate. Her skull began to pulse after a minute of quiet scrutiny. “Temporarily,” she said, “I’ll be keeping [Void Barrier] on it. Longer term… maybe I’ll have to stitch the hole closed myself.”

“Can you?”