Book 3 Epilogue
Book 3 Epilogue
++Zameka’s eventual fate coincided with the beginning of a new and unprecedented age, both for Garamon and for humanity as a whole. The age where the line between human and God was finally blurred.++
- Excerpt from “The Fallen God”, written by Gareth Gryndal. 1,972 A.E.
Alira hadn’t known how to go about apologising to Isabel, and it’d almost been a relief when the girl just flew off into the desert. Almost. In truth, it hadn’t really given her the chance to order her thoughts and prepare herself for what needed doing. She’d just had even more time to feel her nerves give in and grow worried over the whole thing.
What if Isabel didn’t forgive her?
It felt ridiculous to even consider that. Of course she wouldn’t, Alira already knew what Isabel thought about people and loving them. She’d known that when she went and proved everything the girl said to her about the topic.
She’d done it anyway, because of weakness.
That, Alira thought, was what Isabel didn’t get. People weren’t bad and deceitful by nature, they were just scared and weak. Alira had come to terms with that about herself now. That didn’t make it okay. But she knew what she was and what she wasn’t.
Now she just hoped she could repair some of the damage she’d done. Isabel had been changing, she’d come close, so close, to becoming…what, a real girl? Something like that anyway. Becoming more of a person than a frosty intellect studying everything out of pure curiosity.
And now it looked like that was all in jeopardy, because of Alira.
Watching Isabel approach was normally a sight to see. There just weren’t many times in life you could witness a human being closing in so fast that the sound of her approach reached you after she did. This time Isabel was looking to be in an especially bad mood, coming in hotter than normal and bringing up a great shield to absorb much of her impact with the ground. The dent she left in the dirt seemed indicative of something.
But Alira had no time to wonder what she’d been doing out there, if she didn’t make herself speak soon she’d never end up doing so. Reluctantly, she hurried over to the girl.
“Isabel,” she piped up on approach, “do you have a minute?” It hurt to talk. Alira was trained in battle magic like most of the Winzorth Institute had been, though she, unlike Isabel, had never actually been deployed into the army. Having killed people before in Yirin at least took the edge off and left it a less-than-totally-new experience, but she’d still not acquitted herself as well as she might have.
The inside of her throat had been burned quite badly when she made the mistake of inhaling while someone fireballed her damn shield. Still, as far as wounds went, that plus a few cuts and scrapes was pretty much nothing. Some of the other defenders had lost whole limbs, while others would be going home in a bucket.
Alira made herself stop dwelling on that and spoke.
“I shouldn’t have asked you to marry into the Vorets so they’d stop the attack,” Alira managed to blurt out at last. “I’m sorry.”
Isabel just eyed her, and Alira felt her face burning. She didn’t like confrontation or apology at the best of times, growing up in a house practically overflowing with brothers had instilled very early on the core message that surrender was always bad and fighting ought never stop. But she was wrong here, or at least she had wronged a friend, and that needed accounting for.
As usual though, Isabel was leaving herself unreadable. She could’ve been taking in Alira’s words or silently mocking them, planning her revenge, even suppressing a mad laugh for all Alira could tell. That damned face was like an iron mask and it gave absolutely nothing away. Infuriating.
“I was scared, and…apparently I’m not strong enough to stick to my values when it comes to that. I should have, but I couldn’t. Didn’t. Whatever. I’m sorry. I’ll do better next time, I swear it.”
Whether she’d stick to that oath…well, Alira just wouldn’t know until the time came for it to be tested. That was one lesson she’d learned incredibly well already, everybody was a lot weaker and more fickle than they liked to tell themselves. Everyone had a point where their good intentions and morality crumbled.
And Isabel was still just staring at her. “Say something!” Alira snapped. “Hit me or…something, come on, don’t just look at me like that.”
Great, now Alira was yelling at her. She started scrambling for a more appropriate point to add on, but was cut off when Isabel finally spoke.
“I understand why you asked me what you did,” the girl said at last. There wasn’t any emotion at all in her voice, which worried Alira more than any outburst could have.
“...You do?”
“Yes. You were weak and scared and you gave in to your fear. I understand it.”
She did not, Alira couldn’t help but notice, claim to forgive it. Alira didn’t dare ask for that, it was just too…needy. Too self-centred. How could she have the gall to demand forgiveness for this?
“It won’t happen again,” she said instead. It came out all sort of weak and ineffectual, but Isabel didn’t meet it with the sort of scorn she might have a while ago.
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“I cannot know that,” she said simply. “You know I cannot.”
Alira wanted to argue, but of course she had no leg to stand on.
“I know.”
She braced herself for Isabel’s final verdict to come and smash their friendship into splinters. Instead the girl just sighed again, sounding terribly tired.
“I have always known that people will fail me, it is simply what they do. And…I have failed others too. Recent events have caused me to…reconsider the values I have held for much of my life.”
Something dangerously close to hope flickered in Alira’s breast. Isabel stifled it with a sudden glare.
“I am not happy with you, not after what you did.” Her eyes softened. “But I do not think I will end our association over it, not in one stroke.”
Alira could barely speak through the relief. She settled for a laugh instead, though she noted Isabel still wasn’t smiling.
“I’m sorry,” she said again. “I really am.”
Isabel just shrugged, an uncharacteristically blunt and silent response.
“...You know I’m still not interested in you…uh, like that?” Alira asked her. Women lying with one another was a strange enough thing already, not exactly illegal as much as just…not spoken about. The idea of doing that with someone she remembered first meeting as a waddling child was just grotesque.
Isabel didn’t seem too affronted by the rejection this time. “I know,” she replied. Alira nodded, more to herself than Isabel, and started heading off.
***
Alira looked as though she was afraid I might suddenly attack her as she backed away, which would have been amusing on most occasions but was currently just annoying.
Everything was annoying at the moment, of course. I started walking more to give myself something to focus on besides that annoyance than for any deeper reason, though I found a destination before long.
My refinery had gotten quite big. With the territory it would cover now keenly marked out by the wall, I had started expanding the machinery to increase productivity and fill out the perimeter a shade. The wealth from my deal with the Vorets would go a long way towards that end, and Sethira’s undead would continue multiplying productivity until I was stable enough to call on less illegal human workers.
I estimated that in a few more weeks, my business would be ninety-five percent legitimate. Perhaps a hundred actually. As far as I knew, there were no laws against selling enchanted items made by an ancient lich, it was just generally not the done thing. For that matter I could not think of any laws specifically illegalising the use of undead in labour, only ones for associating with them. I supposed most necromancers opted to do things other than oil refining with their powers.
I was not heading to the specific machinery now though, nor was I going to venture down to the sections occupied by Sethira’s undead. My destination was somewhere altogether different.
Qaigor had been given his own quarters shortly after arriving at the refinery, and I found him in them now. The boy looked better than he had in the immediate aftermath of the battle, though his eye was still, naturally, missing. A clean bandage was wrapped around his head obfuscating the ruined organ. His good eye was red and puffy with tears shed while nobody else was looking. Whatever else had become of Qaigor, the boy was still his father’s son. That meant showing any emotion besides anger and battle-lust ranked somewhere between self-castration and self-cannibalisation on his list of desirable actions.
But he was still, at the end of the day, a twelve year-old boy, and he perked up sharply as his older sister entered
“Isabel,” he said with a shaky voice. He had stopped crying quite so much at least. I still noted that he moved over to cling to me as I sat down beside him.
I did not know what to say at first. Was not even sure why I had come to visit him. Perhaps just…concern for the boy.
Like it or not, I was being infected by care for my new family. I was wise enough to notice that given the abundance of evidence. I hugged Qaigor back and noticed how he seemed to take solace in the embrace.
“I will fix this,” I told him without thinking. “I give you…” I hesitated. An oath was nothing to grant lightly. I had already felt that very day the significance of being shackled by obligation, did I want to bind myself once again with my own word? “I give you my word that I will fix this Qaigor. You just need to stay with me here for some time.”
Father was fading in and out of consciousness on account of his missing leg, and would be fit to neither travel nor order Qaigor away with him for quite some time. Which meant I had a window to work on my brother’s replacement.
Qaigor of course did not seem relieved, why would he?
“You can’t do that,” he frowned, looking angry now. “Don’t lie to me Isabel, you’re not going to make me feel better.”
“This is not a lie,” I told him. “It is a promise. I will replace your eye. You can trust me, Qaigor. I will never leave you to suffer.”
It was not a false promise, either. Because I already knew I was on the brink of a breakthrough regarding my research with Nu’chista.
***
You can trust me, Qaigor, I will never leave you to suffer.
Isabel’s words echoed through Sethira’s mind as she listened into the conversation.
So difficult to make a spying device that Isabel wouldn’t notice. It had, in fact, been impossible before, Sethira just hadn’t known enough about her magical sensory powers to be aware of how she could bypass them. Isabel had helped resolve that issue by revealing the secret of those special eyes of hers. As far as tricks went, creating a device too small for her to physically notice and look at was pretty simplistic, but it was working, which made it genius.
That didn’t mean Sethira was going to test her luck though. She let the mechanism disappear, dissolving into inert dust which itself broke down into something smaller than what Garamon’s chemists called ‘atoms’, and pondered what she’d heard.
Lord Dread, Isabel Vornholt, was changing. That much did not surprise Sethira overmuch, but it was…concerning.
Of course any change was inherently cause for concern when it was found in a being as ancient and powerful as Dread. One would be hard pressed to find a Demigod as powerful as him, and Isabel Vornholt was looking to eventually become even stronger.
More than that, she’d spent millennia denying the changes now overcoming her. Stifling her own humanity, hiding from it even. Now that it was unshackled, all the sensations of mortal life seemed to be overwhelming her. Sethira doubted that Isabel herself had any idea what she might do next.
This demanded further consideration. Sethira would have to be careful with her new ally.
She would have to be careful, and she would have to start taking steps to ensure that, should the worst happen, she was ready to deal with her as an enemy.