The spirit radiated the physical pressure of a force Remnant, but it slumped on the ground, staring into the distance. As though its heart died years ago.
Then it caught sight of him.
Fire lit within the Remnant’s eyes, and suddenly Ziel felt the weight of an oppressive and overwhelming rage.
The sight and feel of his own Remnant in fury shocked Ziel. Just for a moment, but the spirit seized on it.
With a roar, it leaped at him.
Ziel began to Forge rings with his Oathsign technique, but most of his spirit was outside his body. The Remnant tore apart his script with one hand, grabbed him by the head, and slammed him into the ground.
Earth broke. Cracks spread out to the limit of the script-circle, where the runes shone silver and contained the impact.
Or so Ziel glimpsed as he rose, coughing, through the cloud of dirt and dust. His body reeled, but his mind was even worse.
He felt everything the Remnant did. This was a spirit of wrath set free. It slammed itself against the invisible wall generated by the script-circle, and if the barrier had been any weaker, the Remnant would have torn its way through.
Of course, a Monarch stood on the other side. Yerin’s red lock of hair fluttered in the wind kicked up by the force-spirit, and she gave the Remnant an unimpressed look.
“You like it better on that side,” Yerin said flatly.
Ziel’s Remnant roared, undeterred. If anything, it redoubled its efforts to break the boundary, attacking one of the stone slabs holding the script in place.
He could feel why. This was a creature of pure rage and pain. It hated everything, and wanted to destroy anything it could reach.
Itself, perhaps, most of all.
Upon seeing the manifestation of his own spirit, Ziel’s heart broke. This was the man he’d been.
Dross made a considering sound. [You know, it’s not as bad as I expected. I think we can take it.]
With his elixir-strengthened body, Ziel lifted his hammer one-handed while using no Enforcer technique. The spirit wasn’t watching; it was clawing at the stone in an attempt to reach Yerin.
Using pure physical strength, Ziel slammed his hammer down on his Remnant.
The ground exploded again, but the Remnant leaped out of the cloud and clawed at Ziel. This time, Ziel held nothing back.
He traded hits with no defense. His bones broke, his blood sprayed, and even the hits he landed were doing nothing but damaging his own Remnant. His own spirit.
Nonetheless, he kept fighting.
It was a brutal, dirty fight. Ziel found that appropriate. He took the wounds as an acceptable cost while he and his Remnant tore each other to pieces.
This was his own pain. His own bitterness. He couldn’t be rid of it, but he could face it, and he could move forward.
He didn’t notice when it began, but gradually, the pieces torn off the Remnant began to fill in his own wounds.
The Shield Icon sang through him. Without it, he would have been destroyed in the first exchange. It kept him together as the Remnant fell apart further and further, the fight slowly fading in intensity as Ziel and his spirit became one.
He felt his body transform only once it was over. He stood in place, earth shattered around him. At some point, the script had been destroyed, and only Yerin’s aura control kept the battle from spilling out further.
[I couldn’t control the change as well as you could, if you had been paying attention,] Dross said. [But I don’t think you ended up too badly.]
Dross projected a reflection of Ziel like a mirror, so Ziel could see himself.
His horns were a little longer, but the biggest change showed in his skin. He was covered in scars where the Remnant’s fingers had torn pieces out of him. And those scars had been filled with a dull jade.
He examined one slash on his chin. “Could have been worse.”
Yerin had been hovering over their battlefield, and she came to land next to him. She gave him an approving nod. “Looks to me like we traded scars.”
“You had scars?” Ziel asked.
“You saw me with all the scars, I’d bet my soul. Yeah, back on the island!”
He shrugged. “I don’t remember.”
She looked oddly disappointed.
Ziel stretched his madra, feeling it twist through his flesh more efficiently than ever before, and exulted in the power of a Monarch. The aura for miles stilled, bowing to its new ruler.
Then he steadily fell onto his face.
Can you get Emriss, please? Ziel asked Dross.
[Hm. Yeah, that instability is pretty bad, isn’t it? Good thing we planned for this!] Silence ensued for a breath or two, then Dross continued. [Sorry, she’s busy. I’ll try again in a few minutes.]
Ziel lay face-down in the dirt.
No rush.
Mercy sat on a stump in the shade of an ancient tree. But not so ancient as the one that stood across from her in human form, leaning on a diamond-tipped staff and smiling gently.
“Heralds hear their own spirits more loudly,” Emriss Silentborn said. “This makes it more difficult for them to hear deeper, subtler powers, though the Icons remain.”
Mercy drew in her breath and felt the still-unfamiliar power of a Herald flowing through her. She felt as though she had only managed to stand on wobbly legs, but she was now being asked to run. “Am I ready?” she asked.
“No,” the Monarch said. “But we must often do things we are not ready for. You’ve learned this lesson again only recently, haven’t you?”
Mercy’s heart and spirit trembled. She nodded, not trusting herself to speak.
Emriss’ wrinkled face softened, and Mercy knew the old Monarch understood her. “You took in much of your mother’s will. What did you learn of her ideals?”
“They don’t fit me.”
“And why not?”
The Netherworld Empress had been the embodiment of everything Malice sought. It reflected power, rulership, dominance, and conquering for the sake of order.
“I don’t…want them.” That fell flat to Mercy’s own ears, and she wanted to explain further, but Emriss nodded as though she understood completely.
“Those were your mother’s Path. The Crown Icon, the Shadow Icon, the Strength Icon…they represented the ideals she strove for, the concepts that had defined her since she was a girl.”
Emriss leaned her staff against a nearby tree and took a seat on a rock. “Ozmanthus advised the young Void Sage to consider how others saw him. To use their perception of him as a looking-glass to glimpse how he was reflected in reality. He was instructed to look for a concept that defined him, even in his childhood. So tell me, Mercy, how do people see you?”
Mercy considered. She knew how she thought other people saw her, but Lindon had an advantage in that area. He could steal people’s memories.
[I can show her,] Dross offered, and Mercy noticed that he was looking to Emriss for permission rather than Mercy herself.
“Why don’t I help?” Emriss suggested. She waved a hand, and she cast out a working of dream aura so subtle and complex that it felt like a warm breeze but sank through Mercy’s thoughts in an instant.
The Ruler technique brought out specific memories and shed a spotlight onto them. With a jolt of fresh pain, Mercy realized they were her mother’s memories.
To name her direct descendants, Malice looked into the future and highlighted what she saw as their greatest feature. Not all Akura clan members got this treatment, Mercy knew; at some point, naming family members after virtues had become tradition rather than actual prophecy.
But now, with Dross and Emriss to sort the memories she’d absorbed from her mother, she saw Malice in her visions.
Surrounded by dark statues, Malice sought her son. She saw him as a sculpture of shadow, laughing as he struck dragons from the sky.
He exulted in battle, and his anger became a sword to destroy the family’s enemies. She named him Fury.
His daughter was a dark statue of her own, surrounded by owls, who wore a cold mask. Malice looked closer and saw the girl spreading messages and monitoring the well-being of the people, uniting them to stand against the powers of the wilderness. The Monarch named her granddaughter Charity.