~~~
When the Monarch's gaze turned to Lindon, Dross became excited. If he’d been sitting on Lindon’s shoulder, he would’ve been bouncing up and down.
[He looked at us! Do you think he knows I'm here? Do you think he sees me? He's proud of what we've done, I know it!]
All of Lindon's mind and soul were bent toward Northstrider's next words. None of his friends remained in the matchups, so that took a weight off his shoulders, though he ached for Yerin having to fight Mercy. Now there were seven potential opponents left for him.
And the one he wanted to face the most was also the one he most feared.
“Wei Shi Lindon Arelius of the Akura clan, chosen of Akura Malice. You face Sopharanatoth of the line of gold dragons, chosen of Seshethkunaaz.”
Lindon's heart thrilled with excitement and fear at the same time.
[Well, top sixteen is good,] Dross said. [Nothing to be ashamed of. Stiff competition this year, too, so really you should be proud of making it this far.]
Lindon would have had to crane his neck to look at Sophara, but he imagined he could feel the heat from her spirit in the air.
We'll get the tablet of her third round right after this, Lindon sent to Dross. Then we're spending the whole week training against her model.
[That seems like a lot of work from me for a guaranteed loss for you.]
Once again, Lindon saw blood dripping from Sophara's claws.
Even if we lose...we're going to make her work for it.
~~~
[Target Found: the Angler of the Crystal Halls. Location: Vroshir stronghold Tal’gullour, three months after the theft of the prototype scythes. Synchronize?]
[Synchronization set at 99%]
[Beginning synchronization...]
The central world of Tal’gullour was a planet-sized fortress floating in space. When Iri left the Way and entered the reality, the behemoth spacecraft loomed over her.
Hewn from entire moons’ worth of stone and metal, the fortress looked like a rocky cliff roughly shaped into a pyramid. It contained a full world of life and power within it—at least twenty billion men and women, with many times their number in plants and animals—but she could feel none of it. She felt only the Mad King.
His aura was a blazing, implacable wave of chaos, like a tide of magma. To most, it would be intimidating, but she had traveled in style.
She had left her ten-by-ten box back in [ERROR: location not found. Resuming synchronization] …She had left her ten-by-ten box hidden, and had come here in her own stronghold. Iri brought the Crystal Halls with her.
The Abidan considered the Vroshir an enemy organization, but “organization” was too tidy a word for what they were. Vroshir like Iri and the Mad King had no common goals and no love for each other. Iri was fairly sure that the King would devour her whole if he got a chance.
The Vroshir were united only in their methods: they liberated worlds.
When they found a new Iteration, they would scoop up anything they wanted and most of the population and move on. The people would be relocated to one of the massive Vroshir Homeworlds, where their very presence would tether the world even tighter to the Way.
Their old, depopulated home would be consumed by chaos, but who cared? The people were gone.
Iri thought of herself as less of a liberator and more of a collector. The Crystal Halls were both her home and her greatest treasure. The stronghold did not lose out to Tal’gullour in size, easily as large as a planet, and definitely outshone the Mad King’s fortress in splendor.
Iri’s home was a palace of fluted blue crystal spread like a pair of angel’s wings. It had been carved from an astronomically large diamond, and it glittered like a rainbow in the light of the nearby star.
She kept a population of about a billion living in the planet-sized inner workings of the stronghold, both to keep the vessel shielded from chaos and to take care of her collection. For in carefully sculpted displays all throughout the stronghold, she held the universe’s most rare, beautiful, unique, and powerful objects.
Which was why the Mad King had agreed to meet her.
She arranged herself on a throne at the end of an audience hall carved from blue crystal. Every inch of the walls, ceiling, and floor was a masterwork sculpture, and she lounged in a throne made of living light, but she had made no effort to dress herself up. She wasn’t a treasure. Why bother?
She still wore old, frayed pants and an ill-fitting shirt with her own name sewn onto the front. No shoes. Her hair was a long, electric blue mess that she hurriedly tied back before the King arrived.
But her accessories were worth more than most Abidan would see in a lifetime.
Above the crown of her head hovered the Halo of the Deep Earth, a featureless circle of what seemed to be lead. It carried within it the hopes and dreams of a long-dead people, their resolve and their sanity, and it anchored her existence. No Fiend of Chaos could touch her under its protection.
It had a thousand other uses too, but that was the one that concerned her at the moment.
From her back extended a pair of smooth, white-plated titanium arms, which fussed around as she tied her own hair back. They didn’t like her doing anything for herself.
These Presence-guided selector arms were one of the earliest parts of her collection; they wouldn’t catch her eye now, but she’d made them herself from pieces that had once been difficult for her to acquire. They had a soft spot in her heart. When she lowered her own hands, the selector arms rushed in, smoothing her hair back and adjusting her tie.
Sighing, she left them to it. They fretted like an old nanny.
Her final accessory was Meloch’nillium, a bracelet that appeared to be made of raw starfire but was actually far more valuable. Its sheer radiance would blind any mortal who laid eyes on it.
While she waited, she pinched the bracelet and fiddled with it, trying to get it to sit comfortably on her wrist. It was one of the greatest weapons in her arsenal, capable of striking a blow even against Gadrael, the Titan. She just hated wearing it. It was itchy.
She had authority over all objects crafted by human hands, but she couldn’t control comfort.
Chimes sounded throughout the Crystal Halls, a unique symphony that had never been heard before and would never be heard again. That was her intruder alarm.
The Mad King, requesting a meeting.
With a simple effort of will, she disabled her protections, and then the King stood before her.
[WARNING: Synchronization reduced to 87%]
He wore a full-faced helm of ancient bone with two horns rising over his head. Bone plates covered his body from shoulders to ankles, armor that he’d carved from the body of a Class One Fiend. At least its physical manifestation.
A mantle of black-furred hide fell from his shoulders and brushed the floor behind him, this from a planet-devouring creature that he had slain.
Within his helm, his eyes burned like red suns.
Her sense of him was of overwhelming significance, an existence of such gravity that it warped reality around him. The crystal floor pushed away as though it melted beneath his feet.
Without her protection, every mortal living in the Crystal Halls would have had their minds shattered by his approach. In Tal’gullour, the King had locked himself in self-sealed chambers. If one day his control slipped, he would kill everyone in the Iteration.
It had never happened. But if he lost control of the Fiend imprisoned in his body, it would.
After millennia of life, Iri knew many unpleasant truths. One in particular haunted her: she knew that the Mad King thought he had his Fiend under control.
There weren’t many things that frightened Iri anymore.
The King lifted a jeweled wooden box that he’d brought, head inclined as though to speak…
[Synchronization interrupted.]
The memory blurred, and Makiel felt his awareness returning to his own body. The voice of the Mad King had been enough to disrupt the flow of Fate through which he viewed the past.