Chapter 337. Complications (Patreon)

Euryphel’s head jerked as he caught himself nodding off. He had been attending to something important… probably. Documents, signatures, something like that. He could barely keep his eyes open–he hadn’t slept well. Everything that got to his desk was important but not all of it was urgent. These days, however, most things were urgent, forcing him to pull unreasonable hours. There just wasn’t enough that he could delegate–there were so many things that needed to be done now, in the months following the Federation’s formation, things that he needed to do himself.

As his eyes glazed over his glosspad, he contemplated entering a Regret loop to take a short, one-minute nap. It would do absolutely nothing for his restfulness, but it might provide psychological comfort.

He decided against it. He didn’t have that many documents left to review–he would push through, like he always did.

Suddenly, he heard a voice behind him. “Eury.”

The Crowned Executor whipped around. “Well hello,” he replied, his heart nearly skipping a beat. He set down the glosspad onto his desk and gave Ian a mock disapproving expression. “You’re lucky no one else is here to see you.”

Ian shrugged. “I tried messaging your glossY but you didn’t respond.”

Euryphel raised an eyebrow and narrowed his eyes. He slid out his glossY and barked out a laugh, his eyes flitting back up to Ian. “You messaged me fifteen minutes ago!”

“And?”

“You could have been a bit more patient. What if I were in an important meeting? I wouldn’t have had a chance to respond, possibly for hours.”

Ian ran a hand through his hair. “It’s somewhat urgent.”

As is everything, Euryphel’s mind quipped, but his rational side kicked into gear. If Ian said that something was somewhat urgent, he was probably understating things.

“What’s wrong?”

Ian coughed. “It’s a bit awkward. So, we were stranded in Mount Ziggura because the hovergloss broke down in the middle of the mountains.”

Euryphel wondered if he was so tired that he was hallucinating the words coming from Ian’s lips.

“Then there was an avalanche.”

Of course there was.

“Half of the hovergloss cars were submerged. A rescue team was sent to collect everyone, me and Maria included. They brought us to a small town on the western side of the former SPU, at the base of the mountain chain. It’s called Septima.”

“What’s the problem?” Euryphel asked, rephrasing his original question.

Ian blinked. “There’s a life practitioner here whose affinity is quite high. She noticed something off about Maria and detained her. Nothing’s happened yet, but you know the way necromancy is handled.”

“Y’jeni, is it too much for you to stay out of trouble,” Euryphel said with a sigh. Ian and Maria could escape, but that would attract unwanted notice. “I’ll handle this.”

Ian smiled. “Thanks for doing your job.”

“How is dealing with you and your lich wife my job?” Euryphel wondered, smirking.

“Not my wife,” Ian protested, his eyes glinting, “and handling the whims of returned ascendants is definitely the responsibility of the Crowned Executor. I’m no exception.”

Euryphel nearly died at “not my wife”–he hid his reaction with a scoff. “I think I’ve already gone above and beyond in that department, but sure, I’ll concede that dealing with you two falls under my responsibilities.”

“Thanks,” Ian said. “See you soon, then.”

Euryphel almost blushed. “I never said I was coming to get you personally.”

Ian snorted. “I never said you were. Our destination is your palace–we should arrive by the end of the day, assuming everything gets sorted out.”

“Consider everything handled,” Euryphel assured him. “See you.”

Ian gave him an appraising look. “You’re not using Regret, are you?”

The executor shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t need to right now. It’s not like I need to solve this problem in front of you.”

Ian nodded. “I’m surprised, but in a good way. The way you relied on your scenarios in the past wasn’t healthy.” With that, Ian killed the transmission, leaving Euryphel alone in his office.

He felt wired. Who knew–Ian is a better stimulant than coffee. Part of him really wanted to use scenarios when talking to Ian. It would make everything easier.

But it would also be less… less real. For most people, that didn’t matter. He didn’t feel guilty orchestrating his conversations to go the exact way he desired.

But after the business with Ari and his ascension to rule the Federation, exhaustion was his surest companion. His therapist had told him that tracking and reducing the frequency of Regret loops would help. Obviously. Anyone could have told him that. Euryphel knew it himself. Addicts recognize their dependency, know that their habit is destructive. The problem was how to quit.

Euryphel hadn’t quit, for obvious reasons. He needed his Regret affinity to survive in a quasi-hostile mishmash of engulfed nations.

But he had started to carve out times when he wouldn’t use Regret, times when he actively recognized it as not being necessary. Speaking to Ian was situation he deliberately included.

The development arose after acting as a projection at Ian’s side during the tournament. For the first time in recent memory, he hadn’t been able to use his Regret affinity. Sure, he’d technically looped every minute during important moments when Ian unsummoned and resummoned him using the transmission artifact. But most of the time, he had simply been at Ian’s side, as impotent as a regular.

It had been stressful, since he’d been playing a role, but also refreshing.

When Ian unsummoned him for the last time, Euryphel had been both relieved and terribly disappointed. His heart had ached–Ian only kept him around because he had been useful.

Regardless of his feelings, he had liked how it felt to be around Ian without using Regret.

Euryphel groaned and considered the matter at hand. He couldn’t just send anyone to handle this matter because it involved the Skai’aren, the Eldemari, and necromancy. Just one of the three would be a scandal.

He wished that Ian and Maria simply hadn’t let themselves be wrapped up in this mess, but he understood why it had happened. If the hovergloss cars had been caught in an avalanche in the mountains, safety arrays would have activated to prevent damage to the cars on the line. It would have made escape impossible without Ian or Maria using their affinities to cut open the car. If the duo had escaped, things would likely get messy, if only because the hovergloss line wanted to find and charge the individuals who had caused damages. An investigation would be conducted. Their fake identities would be discovered, and it would become known that they weren’t even recorded as practitioners. They’d then be pursued as fugitives…

So, so messy.

But still better than if Maria were discovered to be a lich.

The obvious choice to send–just from an ability perspective–was Guardian Nemi Por’sha, the former SPU’s most powerful wind elementalist. She’d reach Ian and Maria in minutes, rather than hours.

However, Por’sha wasn’t a member of the Darkseers. Euryphel had told the guardian about the Darkseers in a Regret scenario and her response hadn’t inspired confidence. He had blurted the importance of their mission rapidly, trying to get through as much as possible… but she’d answered him with a noncommittal, “I need time to think.”

He could empathize, but the others, when given the same treatment, and hearing the earnestness in his voice… the others had trusted him and been all-in from the beginning.

No, he couldn’t send Por’sha. He brought up a mental list of other wind elementalists who could go to the border quickly, since there wasn’t a convenient transport array. But just thinking about it made him fatigued.

He glanced at his glosspad–and all the urgent things that needed his attention–in disgust. It was late. He shouldn’t even be working. He should be sleeping.

Euryphel opened the door to his office and stepped into his bedroom. He threw off his clothes and slammed the drawers of his dresser open with too much force. He used his wind elementalism for both actions, his agitated state roughening his control.

He dressed himself in one prepared costume of many–a military uniform with the epaulets and badge of a colonel. He sat down before his vanity mirror and skillfully applied makeup to change the contours of his face. He darkened his eyebrows and eyelashes. Finally, he scooped a bit of what looked like mud from a jar and dabbed it into each eye, turning his blue-green irises brown.

He tied up his hair and used a clip to secure the bun close to his scalp. Then, he grabbed a cloth cap he had previously inscribed with End arrays. It was a bit like a hair net, lightweight and diaphanous. He stretched it over his hair, then used his End Avatar to activate the arrays.

His long, blond hair became short and dark brown. As he was now, no one would recognize him unless they were expecting him. The combination of makeup, eye color change, hair swap, and officer’s uniform was potent.

The distance wasn’t too bad. He could be there in thirty-five minutes if he went at top speed.

Exhaling loudly in exasperation–Ian and Maria really couldn’t stay out of trouble, could they?–Euryphel left his room, stepping foot in a dark, damp alleyway outside of Ichormai, the Palace of Fortitude–his place of power. If he left from the palace grounds, he would have attracted notice.

His practitioners regularly patrolled the city, so he couldn’t just up and fly away here. He walked swiftly through the streets until he found, via Regret scenarios, a fly-away point where he wouldn’t be detected by anyone.

He slipped into the air like a ghost and reached Septima in thirty minutes.

When he touched down outside the base, a small fort nestled among a contradictory mix of evergreens and palm trees, not even a single hair was out of place. He reached inside his coat, his sensitive hands pinching free his official ID. It was a name, face, and rank displayed on a flat rectangle made of the white plastic associated with all glossware. It was his actual ID, but he could change elements of it at will using his End affinity. That flexibility allowed him to change the name and rank. The picture on the ID–a miraculously terrible photo–looked like Euryphel even when he was disguised. In other words, it never looked like anyone in particular.

Though Euryphel knew he should be dead on his feet, every step toward Ian gave him a slow, but constant bit of energy.

Euryphel could see countless End arrows around himself… but there were two arrows in particular that he searched for: the ones connected to Maria and Ian. He found them both almost immediately. His gaze snapped to his hand. As before, Ian’s arrow plunged into the space between his knuckles, spearing into his palm. He spotted Maria’s arrow extending from his shoulder.

Euryphel waited a minute. Sure enough, a band of three practitioners approached him, one of them an End practitioner–likely one of the End practitioners responsible for detecting the approach of anyone toward the property, especially at odd hours. Euryphel could tell because the arrows around the woman flickered subtly, as though she were picking at them with her End Avatar. It was a bizarre habit.

He ran a Regret scenario to peek ahead. Nothing crazy happened–they asked him to identify himself and state his business. After revealing his fake rank, they all welcomed him into the fort. He repeated the same sequence in the real world and informed them that he was a specialist sent to evaluate one of the passengers detained after the avalanche. If his escort had any problem with how late his visit was, they didn’t complain–they let the colonel do as he pleased.

Soon, Euryphel found himself behind a one-way mirror. On the other side was a familiar–and yet somewhat alien–figure, sitting in a short chair.

Maria.