Chapter Ninety-Nine: Fault

Chapter Ninety-Nine: Fault

Once upon a time I could see every star in the sky from the capital and its surrounding areas. Now, with the growth of the city and the addition of magical lights in the wealthier districts, the sky felt empty to me. I dozed on the roof of my manor slipping in and out of sleep while I just thought. Planned.

Dealt with my level up.

One level in Shadowborn brought me to twenty-two while two in Soul Smith knocked me up to nine. I grabbed [Sever] immediately and threw the points from the odd level into my Primal, kicking me to 34. I grimaced at my stat spread.

Strength [15]Arcane [0]Vitality [22]Focus [14]Dexterity [17]Divine [0]Fortitude [15]Resilience [70]Agility [20]Primal [34]Endurance [15]Will [11]

Crossing swords with Lilith made one thing clear: my stats were nowhere near the level they needed to be. Once I got all this bullshit with the brothel and the guild squared away I needed to look into getting me and my girls more experience. When I went to look through the skills available to me in the Shadowborn tree my brows rose.

Echoes of Darkness (a) - Sometimes, the abyss stares back. Expend mana to summon a temporary echo made of your shadows capable of performing simple tasks. Echo’s durability scales off Resilience while its strength scales off Primal.

I couldn’t help but think back to the fight with the Rathum. The ability was a bit too similar to what Ash had allowed me to do. I highly doubted it was a coincidence. Whatever the case, I could already think of dozens of applications to the skill, and that was before seeing exactly how boosting it with Soul Essence affected the ability.

It was while I was pondering the possible applications of this particular ability—watching the stars knowing I was rapidly running out of time before the sun arrived to wipe them away—that I heard someone climb onto the roof with me. They moved quietly, but this early in the morning I was still being boosted by [Dark Sense]. I wasn’t immediately familiar with the way they moved and breathed, but the pull in my gut told me it was Allie.

She leaned over me, blocking out the sky with a bemused expression. From my vantage point practically between her feet I could very easily tell that she was wearing a set of lacy red panties, one of my shirts, and nothing else.

Good gods, what was with these women and my shirts? I was going to need to go shopping again soon at this rate.

“Please tell me you haven’t been up here all night,” she said, her hands on her hips.

I shrugged where I lay. “After I put Tiana into a very satisfied coma I got a few hours. Then I just needed some air, so I came up here.”

She shook her head. Then she walked over to lay down perpendicular to me with her head laying on my stomach. My brain stumbled at the sudden closeness, and it wasn’t until after she’d grabbed my arm and pulled it over her chest, interlocking her fingers with mine, that I found my voice.

“Allie...” I started, not entirely sure I had the willpower to put distance between us.

She hugged my arm tighter to her chest as if afraid I might take it away. “I remember,” she said softly.

Any further protests died on my throat. I fought the urge to dive headfirst off the roof in an attempt to escape this conversation. After three tries, I finally managed to speak. “And?”

She didn’t answer right away. Not with words, at least. She did tuck her face against the inside of my arm and close her eyes. “As far as I’m concerned, there’s nothing to forgive.”

I felt like the air had been knocked from my lungs. It felt like someone had been sitting on my chest for years and suddenly decided to get up. An ice cold chill swept through me from the top of my head to the tips of my fingers and toes, leaving behind a heaviness as it faded. “That’s... good to hear,” I managed past the lump in my throat.

She squeezed me again. “If I’m being entirely honest,” she said slowly, “I’m not sure why you made such a big deal about it. You did what I asked of you. From the way you were acting I was expecting... well, something worse than that.”

I didn’t answer for what felt like an eternity. When I finally found the words, the sky was starting to lighten. “War...” I started, “it fucked me up. In a lot of ways. I saw a lot of messed up stuff. Stuff that I’m sure will haunt me for the rest of my days.”

As I talked, her fingers started trailing up and down my forearm. Her presence, still familiar from our days under Karn, helped me immensely. “One of the things that screwed me up the worst was seeing what happened when good men did horrible things.”

She didn’t interrupt, even if I could feel her confusion. “There’s a lot of that in war. Sometimes they’re just following orders. Sometimes it’s for survival. Sometimes our baser, shittier natures take over in a moment of passion. Whatever the case, the part that affected me the most wasn’t knowing what even a good person can be driven to do. It’s what came after.”

“I hated them,” I continued. “At first, all I could see were men trying to lie their way out of suffering the consequences of their actions. Then, one day, Rolar had to put a man on trial. Used a spell that would reveal if he was lying. The man we’d been trying? He’d murdered a civilian. It had happened right in front of me. I knew what I’d seen, but the man told a different story. One that painted him in a very different light than the truth. But the spell suggested his version was true.”

Allie turned so she could look at me and pressed the hand she was holding to her. I squeezed her gratefully. “It wasn’t until after, when I talked to Rolar, that I understood. Sometimes, when people do things they can’t handle, they lie. Not just to the people who would judge them, but to themselves. And when what they did weighs heavily enough on them, those lies become truth. They have to believe their altered version because it’s the only way they can live with themselves.”

“You don’t trust your own memory of that day, do you?” she asked softly.

“I remember the important parts,” I said. “I remember watching the light leave Karn’s eyes. The sound my collar made when it hit the ground. The blood as I carved through the rest of his helpers.” My voice caught. “Holding you. How broken you were. Feeling you go limp in my arms. I remember feeling the glass cutting into my palm and thinking it should have hurt more.”

I shifted, not sure whether I brought her closer by accident or on purpose. “But they’re all out of order. The memories skip from one to the next with nothing but blanks in between. All I really know is that you died by my hand, I ended up with a skill that made me immune to the collar, and I ended up with my freedom. Not to mention the brief relationship I had with alcohol didn’t exactly make things clearer. After a while, once I’d seen just how far a man could go to convince himself he wasn’t a monster, I started to wonder.”

“Did you really ask me to kill you? Or did I make it up because it was the only way I could live with myself?” I laughed mirthlessly. “I’ve always struggled with trusting anyone, especially myself. After everything he did to us... after everything he made us do...”

“But I did ask you,” she said. “I begged you. You did what you had to, Zaren. What I wanted you to. And...” She bit her lip in such an Eliya-like expression and I knew I wasn’t going to like what she had to say next. “And there’s more. There’s something you don’t know.”

Every muscle in me clenched at once. “Karn?” I breathed.

“No!” She shot up, rolling so she could put her hand to my cheek. “No, Karn had no influence over what I did. His only order still affecting me other than the usual shit was that I couldn’t heal myself. But...” She let her weight settle on my chest, resting her chin on her forearm. It was hard to feel like she wasn’t holding me down, expecting me to rabbit.

She sighed. “She was there, Zaren.” When I frowned in confusion, she winced. “Allura.”

It was a good thing she was holding me down.

I fought the emotions that threatened to blow my lid and forced out one long exhale. “What do you mean?” I asked evenly.

As concisely as she could, no doubt reading from my body language that I was ready to take a swing at the nearest inanimate object, she told me what she’d remembered. How Allura had tried to let her drift away in a peaceful dream only for Allie to bargain her way back to wakefulness to give me a chance at freedom. That me killing Allie wasn’t only granting her peace, but allowing her to hold up her end of what I realized was Allura’s first deal.

Then, almost fearfully, she told me how she may or may not have planted the idea to reincarnate my loved ones in Allura’s head. She tossed that last juicy tidbit out quickly, like she was afraid I might explode on her, but all I could do was laugh.

“You’re telling me,” I said between laughs, “that you’re the one who put the seed for all this,” I waved my hand at the manor, “in Allura’s head?”

Red spread out over her nose. “I didn’t think she’d do this! I just figured if—” She cut off, and suddenly I was the one worried she’d rabbit.

I wrapped both arms around her. “Oh no you don’t You’d better finish that thought Miss Mastermind.”

She tried to break my grip to no avail, then scowled at me. “You really want to know? I knew you then, Zaren. Better than you knew yourself. I knew what killing me would do to you. You’re the most amazing man I’ve met in two lifetimes. You can endure anything as long as you’ve got a reason to, but without me or the others you didn’t have that reason. You’re a protector, but you didn’t have anyone to protect anymore. I hoped that if I put the idea in Allura’s head, she’d give you someone who needed you long enough to find your own reason for living.”

She sniffled, then turned her head so she could lay her cheek on my chest. “Or are you going to tell me I’m wrong?”

I let my head fall back to the roof below me. “Nope, you pretty much hit the nail on the head. Self destructive is a pretty good way to describe me between escaping Karn and meeting Rolar.”

She hummed. “Fucking goddess took her sweet time.”

“I’m not so sure.” I didn’t realize my thumb had started stroking a spot between her shoulder blades until she sighed softly. “There were times where I thought it was finally going to be over. When I picked fights I definitely shouldn’t have walked away from. But there always happened to be innocents involved. People who would get hurt if I didn’t neutralize the threat. I couldn’t just let them die, so I always ended up walking away. Felt like a coincidence back then, but now...”

“Goddesses. Can’t live with them, can’t live without them apparently,” she joked.

I chuckled. “No fucking kidding.”

I blinked. “Come again?”

She nodded, hugging her stomach. “The blade is important. They brought it here to hide it from the god that destroyed their world. He wasn’t drawn to this plane because of the power of the blade, he’s coming here because someone a very, very long time ago went to a lot of trouble to hide the blade from him.”

“Not the blade,” I realized suddenly. The events of Ash’s dream replayed in my head.

Rhallani nodded. “The blade is just a vessel. A prison in the shape of a sword. I think he’s after Ash, though as far as I know Karn never made that connection. I doubt anyone ever could without the bond you’ve formed with her.”

She leaned her head on me. “Karn had the blade and a basic understanding of the classes. He needed to know how they were connected. Thanks to his collar, I was forced to give him that.” She sniffled. “I think... I think I might have been one of the ones who brought the blade here in a past life. I have vague, shadowy memories of being chased by monsters eerily like the Eldritch Beasts we’re facing now.”

“Karn had ancient scriptures and tomes that talked about an incursion. A magic plague that nearly wiped us out accompanied by monsters that had never been seen before and haven’t been seen since. We almost lost because the Shadowborn then decided to side with the invaders. He alone nearly caused the end of everything. That’s why Karn decided to chase after that class.”

She closed her eyes, her head still resting on my bicep, while Allie gently rubbed her back. “Once I was able to tell him that, and once he’d realized I’d connected the dots on his divine prisoner, he decided he no longer needed me. He only did it in front of everyone else to try and drive you deeper into darkness. He didn’t know if he needed physical darkness or emotional darkness to force one of you into the Shadowborn class so he did his best to create both.”

She pulled away so she could look up at me. “It was never your fault, Zaren. I was always going to die down there. Karn couldn’t risk anyone ever knowing what he’d learned from me.” She pressed her hand to my cheek. “So please stop blaming yourself. This is one weight you don’t need to carry anymore.”

Fuck. Two massive weights lifted from my shoulders in a single morning? Once I could take deep breaths again I felt like I was floating. I bundled her up tightly to my chest. “While I’m not thrilled you went off to have a one-on-one with a goddess without at least discussing it with us first, I can’t say I’m not more than a little relieved to hear it.”

Allie was still rubbing her back, but she had a pensive look on her face. When I raised a brow at her, she cleared her throat. “Rhallani, as someone who also very recently remembered what it was like to die, do you... remember anything else? After?”

Rhallani gasped. “That’s right! That was the other thing!” She sat up quickly only to wince, then she shook off whatever pain she felt. “After Karn killed me—crap, Hannah—there’s this... fuzzy patch. My guess is that I’m not allowed to remember what the afterlife looks like. Then all the sudden I was talking with Allura. She told me that you’d need my help someday and that if I was willing to entrust my soul to her she’d make sure I had the chance to give it.”

Allie exchanged a glance with me. “Was that it?”

She shrugged. “There was another gap, like I was taking a really long, really nice nap, then Keone was there. A memory of her, not the current her. She asked me a bunch of questions about what I wanted to look like and the kinds of things I wanted to do.”

“You’re thinking what I’m thinking, then?” I asked.

Allie just nodded. “Three’s a pattern.”

“Three?” Rhallani asked, frowning. “Also, since when have you two been all made up? Tell me I didn’t miss the fun times.”

There was the Arelim I knew and loved. “Allie got her memories back last night, too,” I explained. “Turns out she’s likely the one who put the idea for this whole reincarnation deal in Allura’s head.”

“She offered me a deal in reincarnating,” Allie explained. “Got my consent. From what we’ve learned, maybe that’s important. Now that we know she approached you as well, not to mention Serena overhearing Ria making a deal with someone after her death?”

All three of us glanced towards Jack in unison, who scowled. “Don’t look at me. I don’t remember shit. Though...” she grumbled something, running a hand through her hair. “Feels prudent to mention that my class’s name is Fireborn.” When not a single one of us were surprised, she snorted. “Right. Should have known you’d have guessed as much.”

“My fault, really,” I said. “With the way my shadows reacted to your flames it only made sense. Plus—”

“Fireborn,” Rhallani interjected. “You got your class after nearly being burned alive. Born in fire. It fits.”

“So that’s two of the Primal classes we know of, then,” Allie said.

I coughed. “Yeah, about that.” All eyes turned to me. I did a brief check to make sure nobody else was around, but we were alone. “Karina. She’s Lightborn. That’s three.”

Allie cursed. “No wonder they wanted her so bad. When did you figure it out?”

“After. She thinks the only guy she knew died in the rescue, but we can’t be too cautious. I was planning to have Tiana work with her to train her skills up.”

“Good idea,” Allie said, “I’ll see if Therese can help.”

“I can work with her too,” Jack offered. “Always liked her.”

Rhallani tucked herself into my side. “Then we can start figuring out a way to find the other three. Wind, water, earth. I’ll keep trying to crack this journal, too. Now that I’ve got Hannah’s memories I’m thinking it’s more important than we realized. Pretty sure it’s a personal account of one of the people who brought the sword over, but I won’t know for sure until I finish figuring out the alphabet.”

“First,” I said, my tone leaving no room for argument, “you’re going to get some rest. You’re exhausted and I’m guessing that big brain of yours needs time to handle all the new information bouncing around in it.”

That she didn’t argue only proved me right. Allie put her hand over mine where it sat on Rhallani’s hip. “What are you planning to do with your day?”

“First things first, I need to go check on Noelle again. Then I want to talk to Cynthia about the brothel situation. If it’s looking like it’ll be more than a few days for her to get things settled I’m getting Stella out of there tonight. If not, then getting her out legally is the safest option for her long term.” Then I looked at Jack. “I also need to have a talk with you at some point, preferably today.”

Her brows rose. “What kind of talk?”

If Rhallani and Stella’s creation worked half as well as Rhallani expected it to? “The kind that’ll probably need you to clear up a good chunk of your schedule.”

Heat flashed through her eyes. “Gotta take care of some shit with Zoey and Reese, but I can do after dinner.”

“Works for me,” I said with a nod.

“Good,” Allie threw her arm around Rhallani and me both, “then you can have lunch with me and my girls so we can talk logistics.”

I grinned. “Logistics, huh? That’s what we’re calling it?”

Rhallani—who looked all too pleased to be sandwiched between us—looked between us with wide eyes.

“Okay, I definitely missed something.”

Allie stood and pulled Rhallani to her feet. “Come on, I can explain everything. Serena saw everything I saw, so she’s giving the others the rundown.”

“Efficient.” I stood as well, feeling far too pleased seeing Rhallani leaning on Allie. “You girls never cease to amaze me, you know that?”

Allie just smiled and hooked her arm around Rhallani’s, who leaned on her gratefully. She shot me a wink and led her off towards the main room. Jack just shook her head and chuckled. “I’d say I don’t envy you, but that would be a lie. See you later, then?”

She sounded almost bashful, but I nodded. “Yeah. Later.”

She clapped my arm and headed back out the front door. I just shook my head and watched her go. I really had my hands full with all of them, and I couldn’t be more thankful. As I set off to hunt down Cynthia or one of her minions I couldn’t help but think I had a busy day ahead of me. One I was probably looking forward to a little too much.