Chapter 574
Her gaze pierced through Ikenga as she drew closer. "Do you fear death, brother? Do you fear me?"
Ikenga held her gaze. "I do fear death, but I do not fear you."
"But I am death?" Keles’s voice was a soft, dangerous whisper, a subtle challenge in the stillness of Zarvok’s observation chamber.
Ikenga didn’t flinch. He maintained his steady gaze, his grip on her arm firm but not tight. "You are the vessel through which it manifests, Keles. You are the harbinger, the watcher, the guide. But you are not the inevitable cessation itself. Death is a force, a fundamental truth of existence. You are its most powerful conduit in this realm, perhaps, but not its entirety."
Zarvok, who had been silently observing the entire exchange, let out a low chuckle, the sound like grinding stones. "A nuanced distinction, Ikenga. One that few would dare to make to a goddess, let alone the Goddess of Death."
Keles, however, simply tilted her head, her veiled face unreadable. "And what does this ’nuance’ imply for Vorenza, if not an inevitable end?"
"It implies that while you see the threads leading to a specific outcome, those threads can be re-woven, or cut, or even reinforced by the actions of the beings involved," Ikenga countered, his voice gaining a touch of steel. "Vorenza just defied what many would consider impossible. She bled, she lost, she gambled everything, and she won. Does that not shift the tapestry, even for a moment?"
He gestured vaguely towards the scrying mirror, where Vorenza’s demonic soldiers were now prostrating themselves. "She is at her peak. The abyss itself rewarded her, a validation of her power. To proclaim her demise now, with such certainty, feels less like foresight and more like... a desire."
A flicker, almost imperceptible, passed over Keles’s veiled face. "My desires are of no consequence to the greater design, brother," she said, her voice regaining its earlier, colder edge. "The threads are merely clearer to me." She released her arm from his grasp, turning her attention back to the mirror, though her gaze seemed to penetrate beyond the image. "The cycles of power turn. Vorenza has had her ascent. What follows, inevitably, is descent. It is not my will, Ikenga, It’s the nature of things" She said the ending in a word Ikenga could understand.