Chapter 67. Pain (Patreon)

 I didn’t become Crowned Prime to break my father’s peace, Euryphel thought somberly, curled up on his bed. “Is it too much to want to rule fairly and effectively?” he wondered out loud. “Too much to want to hold on to what good we have?”

He held out his left hand, his eyes tracing over the form of the arrow embedded within. “Stability is already starting to slip,” he murmured. He could feel it all around him, that ominous feeling of something coming that Maria had mentioned when they last spoke. If it weighed on him, it certainly was weighing on her.

And if she found out about Ian, it wouldn’t matter that she favored Euryphel. She would descend faster and harder than a descendant toward the SPU’s heart, a vortex of fire and fury.

With every day that passed, Euryphel felt that the world was coiling tighter around him. The Prime of Fives, in particular, antagonized him at every opportunity, as though honing in on his indecision. They, in turn, reached out to their connections in the military, effectively causing every one of his generals to question his unwillingness to put his new personal retainer to use. The General Assembly was meeting in a few days, and Euryphel had no doubts that the assembly would demand answers and accountability.

Telling them that the decemancer didn’t feel like dirtying his hands likely wouldn’t go over well.

Euryphel sighed, envisioning the domineering, unrestrained form of the decemancer, looming like a deity over a flaming Menocht. His cold face was utterly untroubled by the destruction, indifference justified by the impermanent impact of his actions.

The prince clenched his fist. “Ian...I hope you grow up.”

—

Ian met Euryphel in the morning for their typical shared breakfast.

“You look tired,” the prince observed as he sliced a sausage link.

“I’ve been thinking,” Ian murmured, his eyelids drooping shut. “I need to stop trying to pretend that I’m still the same person before the loop, someone whose hands are clean.”

“Well, they are clean,” Euryphel said, still staring at him intently.

Ian gave him a sad smile. “I guess you can say that I’ve accepted the inevitable.”

“Nothing’s inevitable, Ian. Besides, real power is preventing people from forcing you to do what you don’t want. If you don’t want to fight, nobody should be able to force you to. I certainly can’t force you to do anything.” Euryphel’s lips curved into a grin and his eyes darted to the side. “Just don’t tell the others,” he whispered devilishly.

“Sure, I suppose I could just run away to Corneria and hide in the mountains,” Ian said, making a waving gesture with his fork. “But I wouldn’t be satisfied taking that path, either. My ideal world where everyone gets along doesn’t seem to exist. I only see a few choices: attacking Selejo alone, attacking Selejo with assistance, and fleeing East. I’ve already said I wouldn’t be willing to flee, leaving only the first two.”

“Why not flee?” Euryphel asked. “It seems like the easiest way.”

“I could try to escape, but the Eldemari would still find me eventually. I’m sure she’d stop at nothing to track me down,” Ian said. “But that’s besides the point. I would only be forcing you to face the consequences on your own and putting my family in more danger. If you let me leave, Selejo would still declare war, and the princes would turn against you. You’ve protected me long enough, Euryphel.”

The prince seemed unfazed by Ian’s reasoning, and replied calmly. “Fair point.”

There was silence for a moment, before Ian tentatively continued. “There is one other option...I could simply die. It sounds excessive, but I’ve considered it, especially if it means saving the West from pointless war. In the end, my life is only worth so much.”

As Ian spoke, the prince had held his composure, not revealing an ounce of emotion. But now, he noticed a flash of surprise briefly take hold in Euryphel’s eyes.

Why are you concerned, prince? Ian thought. Had you not heard this before, in one of your scenarios?

“However, I’m not so sure,” Ian said, his voice calm. “Now that Selejo has seen the potential of the Infinity Loop, the rate of the experiments will only rise. If I die now, it is only a matter of time before more awaken. And after what happened to me I’m sure they won’t make the same mistake twice.” He gave Euryphel a bitter smile.

“If I’m going to ascend, I want to do it on my terms. If the Eldemari won’t evacuate Pardin, I will, once we take the city. As an added bonus, I can destroy their Infinity Loop in the process.”

“Why destroy it?” Euryphel asked.

“Revenge,” Ian said jokingly. “But in all seriousness, it’s too powerful a weapon to leave in the hands of Selejo.”

“But it would be in our hands, once we conquer the city,” the prince retorted.

“Something like the Infinity Loop is more trouble than it’s worth. If I’m going to be taking Pardin, I think destroying the loop is par for the course.”

Euryphel cocked an eyebrow and nodded. “Well, I’m glad you’ve decided upon a path to take. Do you think you’ll come to regret it, looking back?”

Ian took in a deep breath, inclining his head to the side, then shrugged. “I hope not.”

—

After Ian agreed to preemptively strike Pardin, Euryphel added an hour of practice in the evenings between just the two of them. They now walked outside of the palace to one of the practice fields and began to warm up with stretches.

“The first exercise for today will involve you using decemancy on me while I’m in a Regret scenario.”

Ian stretched his arm across his body. “What kind of decemancy are you thinking?”

The prince hummed in consideration. “I’ll ask you to lock my bones and muscles in place, at the very least. We’ll start slowly; I’ll see how much I can handle.”

“I don’t like this,” Ian thought, frowning. “What’s the point?”

Euryphel leaned on a practice staff, arching his body nearly ninety-degrees to compensate for its diminutive two-foot height. Ian noticed that the prince was actually forced to exert himself quite a bit to hold the awkward pose.

“The point is for me to get used to the feeling of you attacking me,” Euryphel said.

“But why?”

“Because, I need to understand.”

Ian crossed his arms over his chest. “Still not getting it.”

“Ian, it’s an exercise for my End affinity,” the prince pointed out, blowing a strand of hair out of his mouth. “End affinity operates in terms of bonds, fate, destiny. There are ribbon-like arrows strung out between everyone like a giant, breathing web, pulsing and fluctuating, breaking and mending. There is a bond between us, of course.”

“And you think letting yourself be repeatedly attacked will somehow help you understand what, exactly? Our bond?”

Euryphel grunted, then shifted position into a crouch before standing tall. “When two people share reciprocal fate, and have mutual trust, the fate binding can be deepened by familiarity. Ideally, after working together long enough, I might even be able to convey thoughts to you from within a Regret scenario. Such an End technique is called synchrony, though I confess I’ve never achieved it with anyone before.” The prince sent a sly smile his way. “Even without synchrony, given your raw power and my insight, I feel that we stand a good chance at defeating whatever comes our way.”

Ian nodded slowly, considering the prince’s words. It seemed as though Euryphel planned to take on a support role, scouting things out with his Regret affinity and relaying instructions with End.

But Ian couldn’t get the image of the young prince out of his mind, the Euryphel that moved like a god of war around O’osta Selejo. The prince doesn’t strike me as suited for a utility role, Ian thought. 

Ian grunted. “Fine, just let me know when to start, I guess.”

From Ian’s point of view, nothing changed; however, Euryphel’s face began to take on a slight pallor as the seconds ticked by.

—

Euryphel planned to start slowly.

“We’re inside the scenario,” he said. “Freeze my right arm in place.”

Ian nodded, then made a small gesture with his hand; Euryphel immediately felt the sensation of his right arm being encased in an immovable, viscous liquid, even though there was nothing physically present.

The prince repeated this scenario a few times, repeatedly recursing just after informing Ian of the arm-freezing task. After a few minutes, he began to reassess his initial observation: it felt less like his arm was encased in a liquid, and more like it was covered in powerful magnets, forced into place by repulsion.

It didn’t matter how much he wanted to strain his muscles: They were beyond his control. Even causing the smallest of shudders seemed to take a herculean force of will.

I need to test the limits of this, Euryphel thought, his eyes sharpening with focus. He reached out his left hand, then tried using it to move the frozen right hand. The right hand moved, though with difficulty: It actively resisted the force leveraged against it.

Euryphel next stirred up a gale of wind to blow against the arm. With the combined force, he was able to move his arm around, growing quickly used to the sensation of his arm being frozen in place. At the very least, it didn’t feel like it was dead or had nerve damage.

At the top of a new recursive scenario, Euryphel asked, “Can you try and twist it a bit? Make it uncomfortable.”

Several scenarios later, Euryphel escalated the directive, instructing Ian to contort his arm so as to be intentionally agonizing.

“Must I?” the decemancer asked, words dripping with distaste. “It’s one thing to freeze your arm, another to nearly wring it.”

“Just let me try it,” Euryphel insisted.

Shaking his head, Ian assented, crossing his arms. Euryphel immediately felt his arm shift, his bones seeming to dislocate and jut painfully into flesh. It was as though someone had taken his arm and made it into a jumbled sack of meat and bones.

He shuddered, his eyes beginning to water. He clenched his teeth, his brow furrowing. Sweat beaded on his temple.

And so he recursed, over and over again, pinpointing the essence of his pain. As he experienced it again and again, he found himself not necessarily growing inured to it, but growing more familiar. He could sense an underlying force behind the pain. He imagined it in his head as a phantom arm, physically twisting his limb into place with its iron grip.

And once he had the image of the arm in his head, he began to fight it, looking for any signs of weakness. He began to act increasingly reckless, going so far as taking a running leap and land on his arm, or even hacking at his twisted limb with blades of wind to rend bone from flesh.

After an indeterminate amount of time, the pain stopped. Stunned, Euryphel looked up, taking in Ian’s cold expression.

“That’s enough,” Ian said.

Surprised,  Euryphel collapsed the recursive scenario and returned back to the real world.

“So,” the prince muttered. “That was interesting, to say the least. Did you sense anything, feel anything, the past second or two?”

Ian raised an eyebrow. “It’s barely been a moment, and you’re done?”

“Yes. To be honest, I’m surprised you did everything I asked without too much hesitation.” It had taken quite a bit of effort before the Guard grew used to accepting his commands unquestioningly.

Ian shrugged his shoulders.

“So you didn’t sense anything?” Euryphel asked. He’d thought that back in the Regret scenario, Ian had felt something...otherwise why would he say, "enough"? But the Ian before him seemed unaffected.

“I might’ve felt something,” Ian replied. “A sense of unease, perhaps. But it came and went in an instant.”

“That’s fine,” Euryphel said. “Let’s go again.”

Euryphel entered into a scenario. He peered at Ian, taking in the decemancer’s guarded posture. “Your job,” Euryphel instructed, “is to make me desperate. And it has to feel real, so you’re going to have to make me feel enough pain to forget that we’re in a scenario.”

“What do you mean, exactly?” Ian said, frowning. “This isn’t what we originally discussed.”

“I said we’d see how much I can handle. I now want you to take control of my entire body,” Euryphel clarified. “And make it physically do things it shouldn’t. Be creative.”

Ian paused.

“We’re running out of time,” Euryphel reminded him.

“Is this the first time you’re asking this of me?” Ian murmured.

Euryphel inclined his head. “It is. So can you do it already?”

Ian didn’t say anything, though his countenance darkened. Suddenly, Euryphel found his body wrested from his control, his limbs and organs twisting seemingly in opposite, incompatible directions.

He began to recurse.

The pain was many times worse than just contorting his single arm. But the more his body was wrested from his control, and the more punishment he received, the more he felt himself understanding the force that held him in place.

Unfortunately, no matter how he struggled, he was unable to break free of Ian’s arresting hold. Rather than grow disheartened, Euryphel’s mind raced for a way to turn the force against the decemancer.

As desperate, angry tears streaked down Euryphel’s face, the prince pushed himself into a state of forced detachment. He needed to find a method to turn the decemancer’s power against him. Of course, he’d be working at a large disadvantage, his End affinity outclassed by Ian’s Death affinity. Moreover, what he wanted to do couldn’t require a long setup time, and would need to be cast almost instantly.

Faced with these obstacles, Euryphel found himself growing excited. A thought meandered its way to the forefront of his consciousness: It’s almost like back then, when I lost sense of time training to kill O’osta.

Euryphel shuddered, clarity cutting through the pain-induced delirium. It’s nothing like back then, he thought in self-admonishment. Then, I was only reaching back, hanging on to what I’d already lost. And the prince had long-since decided that was no way to live.

He tried to shake his head, only to feel frustration as his body refused his commands. He felt the urge to move, to flail his limbs, to scream. This is my body, damn it, he seethed.

Euryphel seized upon his own anger, trying to lose himself in the emotion, trying to forget the pain and the artificial nature of the scenario. In his rage, he sought calm serenity. He was the eye of the storm, peace amidst destruction. He continued to contemplate methods to fight back against Ian’s domineering hold, the thoughts coming faster and easier in his state of zen.

He recursed again, seizing on this moment of enlightenment.

Time flowed like water, and Euryphel felt himself gradually losing sight of reality. He felt as though in a dream, disembodied, viewing himself as though from above. This alter-self regarded the arrow between itself and Ian, then moved its immaterial left hand forward.

As it did so, Ian’s own hand noticeably twitched. The disembodied Euryphel noticed offhandedly that the decemancer wore a perturbed expression and massaged his hand, shooting the physical body of Euryphel a questioning look.

Some indeterminate period of time later, Euryphel found himself yanked from the recursive scenario into the present. He fell to the ground, stunned. He looked up, a confused expression on his face.

“You said it was the first time,” Ian said softly. “All those copies of me, they didn’t know better.”

Euryphel narrowed his eyes. “What are you talking about?”

“I didn’t realize that you’d use me to keep yourself in excruciating pain,” the decemancer spat, his expression livid. “Do other people know that you’re a masochist, prince? That you delve deeper and deeper into pain until you have no choice but to forget yourself?”

Euryphel stood and dusted himself off. “So, I guess I was successful at transmitting some thoughts and memories to you from within the scenario,” the prince said flatly.

“I don’t want to help you again if you’re just going to torment yourself,” Ian said, turning away and rubbing his eyes.

“Who are you to tell me what to do, Ian? Unfortunately, not all of us are as talented as you, awakening in the peak affinity range after reading some pages from a dusty grimoire and smashing a few hostile skeletons.” Euryphel wasn’t exactly sure what Ian’s initial affinity was upon awakening, but it certainly hadn’t been lower than 85% by how easily he picked up decemancy in the loop. “You have absolutely no idea how difficult it is to improve after the initial advancement phase. It’s nearly impossible unless you push yourself to the very limits.”

Ian snorted, still refusing to meet the prince’s gaze. “Maybe I don’t understand,” he said. “But surely there’s another way to increase your affinity that doesn’t involve–”

“There is another way, Ian, obviously,” Euryphel said, closing his eyes and massaging the bridge of his nose. “But that takes years. In the past decade I’ve advanced, but slowly. War is coming, my Skai’aren. If I’m not strong enough, the Eldemari will destroy us.”