Chapter 283 – Contingencies

She visited Alkazaria next, and after establishing the routing of materials, found First Praetorian Voran. Her most common strategy for dealing with the Praetorians in her lead-up to creating Equinox was to alert her father to their assault strategy and ambush them all. However, that was a waste of powerful and talented arcanists. It would be much better if they were put to work culling myrvites along the logistics routes or helping construct the regulator.

Shortly before their group would leave for their hunt of “Atroxidi,” Mirian arranged a meeting with Voran.

He might have been a monster, but he was a professional one. Voran entered the room with a salute, acknowledging Mirian’s rank as acting General of the Baracuel Army, then a bow, acknowledging her as Prophet.

“Have a seat,” Mirian said, gesturing.

He sat. He was good at hiding his fear, but she could sense it, crawling about the outside of his soul like worms escaping rain.

She had considered what she might say. If she pretended like the memory curse was still in place, she knew he would be amenable. That he didn’t know either way was why he hadn’t already attacked. But she needed him to work with her father.

He would either have to accept the truth, or be consumed by it.

“You already know who I really am. You killed my mother. You intend to kill—”

Voran drew his wand in a flash. Mirian used raw force to blast it out of his hand, breaking the bones badly enough they jutted out. She yanked his orichalcum jewelry off, then summoned her spellbook and bound him with a weaken curse to impede his access to his aura, then force binding to restrict his movement.

“For the record, that’s the second time you’ve attacked me first.”

Voran struggled against his bonds, face white from pain. Blood from his hand dripped on the ground. “You’ll never—”

Stop, Mirian said, her soul touching his. “This is your chance at redemption. I can’t offer it to you if you won’t even listen.”

Voran’s jaw was clenched and his fists balled, but he was, for the moment, still.

“I, personally, can’t forgive you. However, this time loop isn’t about me. It’s about Enteria, and I am willing to make sacrifices for the greater good. That’s what you claim to value, isn’t it? The greater good. Will you listen?”

The Praetorian clenched his teeth.

Mirian raised a finger and knit the bones she’d broken in his hand back together, then healed over the wound. “That’s more than you deserve. Listen. I need Atrah Xidi. He has knowledge of energy transmutation artifice and soul magic, and I need him working on the leyline regulator. He can clear miles of desert at a time of myrvites, and what’s more, he will listen to me. You know why. I need you and your Praetorians to help with stopping the apocalypse. The greater good. None of this matters if Divir falls.”

“It’s a convenient story, isn’t it?”

“Quite the opposite, really,” Mirian said with a sigh. It was going to be one of those conversations. She decided to skip the boring parts. “Let me show you. This won’t be pleasant.”

After she’d pushed memories of Adria Gavell’s corpse, the machinations and false reports she’d found in the Deeps spy reports, and visions of the crisis and apocalypse into his soul, she picked up the book she’d brought along and waited for Voran to stop convulsing on the ground. It took a few minutes.

“A trick,” Voran finally gasped. With the force bindings still constraining him, he was having trouble moving, but he righted himself and got to his knees.

“Atrah Xidi isn’t an existential threat to Baracuel. He just wants his daughter back. You’re scared of him, but several of the reports about his movements are fabricated by the Deeps. They just wanted you out of Palendurio for when Corrmier does his coup. You’re not fighting for something greater. You’re a puppet in someone else’s stage play. I’m already killing the puppet masters. I’d rather cut your strings than kill you permanently.”

Voran’s eyes darted back and forth. It was taking him a moment to process the memories she’d forced into him. There wasn’t a “gentle” way to do it, but the most stubborn of her adversaries really seemed to insist. Nicolus might have quoted his book on manipulation by calling it “ego protection,” but there was something deeper going on in Mirian’s estimation. What needed to happen to save Enteria went so far against certain worldviews that the people could only deny reality. Liuan was running into that problem in Akana, and had taken to just locking up several factory owners and appointing her own people, and that was after Celen had released articles to papers across the country about the true nature of the eruption that had killed so many people in Ferrabridge.

“He’s a necromancer. An abomination antithetical to life. There is no redeeming a creature like that. Without a limit to his lifespan, he can only grow as a threat. If you let him live, you’re damning us all.”

“The entire Luminate Order practices necromancy every day,” Mirian said. “The holy containers the Luminate Order uses are soul repositories.”

“Liar,” Voran snarled. “That you would dare spew such blasphemies—you’re nothing more than another Persaman rat, sent to corrupt our holy order.”

Mirian looked at him with pity. Churning about his soul, she felt his fear. “Then your fate is sealed.” She conjured a small force blade deep into his chest, severing the aorta. A second force blade, she conjured at the base of the brainstem, cutting out a little chunk of material there, too.

Then, she reached in her robe and took out a tiny vial of relicarium she’d grabbed from the cube she hadn’t used yet, the one in the Vault below Torrviol.

It was time to experiment with her contingency plans.

***

Mirian brought in Trinea next. By then, Voran’s body was gone.

“Voran has been removed from his position,” Mirian said, which was technically true. “In past cycles, he’s violated Prophet’s Dictum. I need a First Praetorian who won’t undermine the project. Keeping the desert safe for the caravans is critical to the salvation of Enteria. Do you accept the position?”

Trinea blinked, clearly surprised to hear that Voran had been removed. However, she quickly recovered. “Of course, Sacred One. I would be honored,” she said, bowing.

“Good. I’m ordering a cessation of the hunt for Atroxcidi. I may be able to even get the necromancer’s assistance in culling beasts. Can you tolerate that?”

Trinea looked disturbed. “The Prophet is above the law,” she said simply.

“Speak freely. I want to know your thoughts and feelings on the matter.”

“Atroxcidi is… a terrible threat, and a necromancer keeping alive the worst traditions of the Triarchy,” Trinea said cautiously. “I would prefer not to work with such a threat.”

“There’s a group in the Deeps who have been filing false reports concerning his actions. If Baracuel can adhere to the Unification Treaty, he can too. The Praetorians are legally only bound to protect Baracuel, not commit acts of war in Persama. I understand your hesitation, but construction of the leyline regulator requires mastery of soul magic, and both the Luminates and the Tlaxhuacan nagual are insufficient to the task. This is for the greater good. To save Enteria. Does that assuage you?”

Mirian knew that it had before Trinea had even spoken. She could see her neck muscles relax slightly, and the surface flows of her soul smooth.

One by one, she went through the rest of the Praetorians, ensuring their loyalty. The rest of the group that had assaulted her home as a child were either dead or retired. The operation to keep her a hostage had been kept to a core group. Adria, who Specter had killed, Voran, who she’d eliminated, and Westerun, who was in Akana. The Deeps director and Praetorian who had ordered the operation had both passed away several years back. The details of the operation were still in Director Castill’s office in a hidden safe, but even the Director of Operations seemed not to have reviewed the decades-old files. Given how Voran and Westerun had reacted to her, it seemed it would be best to keep that knowledge buried.

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Without Voran, that meant thirty Praetorians here and a dozen more from other cities could be added to construction and patrol duties. That they could all levitate would also be useful in being able to quickly move key magichemicals or react to unexpected events.

The rest of the cycle, she’d get to know Alkazaria better. Then, it would be off to Falijmali. Then, to Mahatan. She would ignore no faction. And she would find the people ready to change the world.

***

She spent another full cycle in Alkazaria, ensuring she could deal with the fallout of the First Praetorian mysteriously dropping dead. When she found she could and material was moving smoothly south, she moved on to her next targets. She spent two cycles each focused on Falijmali and Mahatan. Falijmali was simple enough to gain the alliance of. She could command Baracuel to respect aspects of the treaty while pulling on her influence with her father to make the city more amenable. Mahatan was more of a pain. There she requisitioned the help of Gabriel, who helped her map out the various factions. For another cycle, she worked on creating containers that, when thrown through a Gate, would float up to the top of the Mahatan Oasis. In that way, she could route key supplies to Mayat Shadr more quickly.

Then, she had another part of her contingency plan to put in place.

She reached out to Liuan in the dream to coordinate a visit to Akana.