Mercy saw her mother name Justice, Pride, and several other family members. She began to wonder if Malice had really left all these memories behind or if Emriss was adding a few stolen from somewhere else.
Finally, she came to her own vision.
Mercy was only a baby, still wailing, when Malice looked into her future. She saw her youngest daughter with a broad smile clear even on the dark statues in the World of Night. She healed, she laughed, and she cried for the sake of others.
And, in the end, Malice saw her daughter as another light rising over the dark mountains of the Akura clan.
Malice leaned back, satisfied, and let her World of Night fade. She looked down to the baby in her arms and named her.
She would be a light to complement the shadows. The Mercy to counterbalance the family’s Malice.
Where the Monarch failed, her daughter would bring joy.
Mercy came out of the vision, and it was only with a great exercise of will that she stopped herself from crying.
“I don’t feel any of that right now,” she said.
Emriss gave a small smile. “A common misunderstanding. You can bring joy to others even when you don’t feel it yourself.”
Quietly, Dross fed Mercy the memories taken from Lindon and Yerin. Memories of her.
In their eyes, Mercy brought joy.
Mercy curled up, hugging her knees to her chin, cheeks burning. She squeezed her eyes shut as she tried to sort through her feelings.
She didn’t need to see the flower blooming in the sky overhead to know it was bright violet.
The Joy Icon.
Her spirit magnified, deepening, her madra feeling more connected to the world than ever before. Her spiritual perception strengthened until she felt she could stretch it out endlessly, and the aura around her felt so close that she thought she could speak a single word and all reality would bend to her will.
Abruptly, she realized that she was feeling the remainder of a great battle fought nearby, and another powerful spirit trying to wrestle itself under control. She extended her perception and felt Ziel lying nearby.
He felt like a cold star, a bottomless well of power covered over. Like he was dead.
Mercy looked to Emriss in shock, but the Monarch—the other Monarch—shook her head. “He’s alive, but this is a natural outcome of pushing as hard as you have. You have both broken natural rules by pushing to Monarch so quickly, and that has consequences.”
Emriss pulled out a glistening rainbow gem the size of her head. “Therefore, we will have to break a few more rules. The Queen’s Gift was left by the Sha family to allow others to borrow the authority of a Monarch. With this, my own skills, your friend Yerin’s support, and Dross…”
The Queen of Everwood paused thoughtfully. “…Well, you should experience relatively few side effects.” The next part, she muttered to herself. “This is hard enough as it is. At least the boy could have left me the whole gem.”
Mercy noticed a chip missing from the Queen’s Gift and wondered if she had been supposed to hear that last part.
Emriss Silentborn’s authority enveloped Mercy and Ziel together, and soon the power of the Queen’s Gift and Yerin’s willpower joined hers.
“Be whole,” they commanded, and Mercy felt her soul settle into an indistinct sense of rightness, as though she contained a storm-tossed sea that had suddenly been stilled.
Mercy took a deep breath and stretched her spirit, letting her awareness spill over the land for miles. Nearby, she felt Ziel doing the same thing.
Together, two newborn Monarchs took their first steps.
Iteration 300: Vesper
Suriel tore apart the twisted monstrosities of flesh and chaos, but in the Void, they were formidable opponents. Her powers were weaker here and theirs stronger.
Her Mantle burned low, a flame that needed a fresh log. She would need to renew it when she escaped.
But worse than her situation was the time she’d lost. She could feel the battle in Vesper, and it haunted her imagination.
Especially when she felt Ozriel vanish.
Moments later, she struggled free of the Fiends and tore her way back into the world. The situation was clear at a glance.
Half of the Mad King’s body was missing. His flesh twisted and bubbled as he faded away, having been half-erased by the Scythe of Ozriel. Soon, he would be dead.
But his red-eyed face wore an expression of satisfaction.
Ozriel was gone. More than gone. The Sword of Makiel drifted in vacuum, and neither dust nor echo remained of the Reaper.
The Mad King looked at her. “This is what healing requires,” he said, sounding entirely calm. And very human.
Every second that passed was a missed opportunity. “Ozriel already sentenced you to die.” She lifted her Razor, each branch of its blade gleaming with points of light.
“Then as a doomed man, I request clemency for my people.”
Suriel didn’t answer him.
She excised him.
A thousand points of needle-sharp light pierced him from every angle, cutting him from existence.
And only him.
There was no Fiend’s shadow behind him. Oth’kimeth must have escaped while she was in the Void, which was itself worth investigating. If the Fiend had escaped into the Void, she should have seen it.
Nonetheless, Oth’kimeth’s absence sealed the fate of its host.
Though Suriel had not been around for the beginning of his story, she wrote the end of King Daruman’s legend with her own hands.
The Scythe of Ozriel and the Sword of Makiel both vanished at gestures from the Hound. He met Suriel with a face of stone. “Can you save him?”
Not if she kept talking. It would be hard enough to restore someone killed by the Mad King’s direct effort, even if she were at her full strength. And the more time ran, the harder it would be.
Without answering, Suriel reached out to the Way. She pushed her Mantle to its limit, squeezing every drop of authority she could from her long history as the greatest healer in existence.
“Return,” Suriel commanded.
This was an order of magnitude more difficult than reversing the time of an entire Iteration.
If the Mad King had been using the Reaper’s Scythe, her job would have been impossible. His sword might not have that level of authority, but it was still a weapon capable of combat with Judges. And Daruman had bent his full attention to wiping Ozriel from existence.
Reversing that meant opposing his working directly. Pitting her authority against the full will of the Mad King.
And Suriel found herself lacking.
No matter how much she wanted it.
Though she should have been beyond inefficient biology, her jaw still clenched, sweat still beaded her brow, and her heart still thundered in her ears.
This would be such a stupid way for Ozriel to die.
And too easy for him. He had abandoned the entire cosmos out of pride, had gone to live out a mortal life. You could call it a vacation.
Meanwhile, he’d left her with a greater burden than anyone. Not to mention her years upon years of worry.
He still owed her. She wasn’t going to let him out of it.
Except it seemed she would have to.
No matter how the world shook and the Way shifted around her, nothing appeared. She felt like a woman trying to lift the ocean.
Not only could she not lift that much weight, but how would she even get a grip?
Part of her heard Makiel’s words. “To Sanctum,” he said. Something disappeared; she thought it was his Mantle.
Then another will joined hers.
Her efforts surged again. Makiel was never a candidate for her position, but he had still earned several stars for his restoration skills. Unlike Ozriel, he had plenty of talent as a Phoenix.