Chapter 357. Choosing Him (Patreon)

Zilverna was alone in his room, sprawled on a chair, his arms wide and draping toward the ground. A thick blanket lay over him. He was in his own room, his original room.

Maria frowned. He should have taken my chambers once I was gone, she thought. It’s where I stayed, and before me, my mother.

His room was tasteful but sumptuous, full of soft fabrics and plush furniture. The bed was an oversized monstrosity that was so soft Zilverna practically disappeared into it when he slept.

The chair he lay on now was no exception. It was a recliner with thick, padded cushions that provided support, and even had a massage feature that could be controlled using an array interface inset into the side of the armrest.

Maria knew she should go in, rather than skulking outside the window. Zilverna had to know she was there. They could sense each other through their shared fate. But rather than doing anything, he just remained still, not even bothering to get up and unlock the window.

Lips pressing into a line of displeasure, she pressed her fingers into the space between the window and the wall, sending ascendant energy into her nails. She slit the mechanism, breaking both the physical lock and temporarily suspending the defensive End array. She pulled the window open and slunk inside, her footfalls silent.

If she had a heart, she thought it might be hammering in her chest. Still, with Suncloud’s diadem active, she felt slightly lightheaded, unsteady. Nerves bloomed in her chest. She was almost surprised at the steadiness of her hands.

“You look like an assassin,” Zilverna said matter-of-factly, his eyes still glued to the ceiling. “Act like an assassin.”

Maria smiled despite herself. It was a very Zilverna way to start the conversation. “You could have let me in,” she said.

Zilverna propped himself up. “I wasn’t expecting guests. I would ask how you managed to sneak past every guard in the Cuna, but the answer is irrelevant. Nobody knows this place as well as you do.”

Maria could think of a few such individuals off the top of her head, including Zilverna himself, but held her tongue. She could tell he wasn’t finished speaking.

“Am I allowed?” he finally said.

“Allowed to what?”

His words were filled with an odd sort of… almost desperation, and bitterness. “Look at you.”

“Of course,” she replied, stepping further into the room.

His eyes snapped to hers, his expression the opposite of cold, though devoid of warmth. It was afraid. Angry. Lost.

“You died,” he said softly. He brought up a hand to cover the lower half of his face. His eyes were red. “You died.”

“I’m here.” She walked to him, grabbed his hand, lowered it from his face, revealing his trembling jaw. “Zilverna. We’ve already spent hours in a room together. You know it’s still me.”

“Mom–that’s not the point. He killed you and turned you into his minion, or something! You literally follow his commands and even pretend to love him! Don’t you see that you’re brainwashed?”

She raised an eyebrow. “Is that really what you think?”

He wilted. “I don’t know. I just… don’t understand.”

“You know why I’m working with him,” Maria said, careful to avoid mentioning Ian’s name. She was glad that Zilverna had also employed the same caution. “You know why we returned. It’s important. And you’re involved, too.”

He made a face. “I’m still not so sure this is going to work out. It’s like he’s brainwashed all of you.”

Maria almost asked, ‘who else’, but the answer was fairly obvious.

“Why, you don’t believe him?”

“It’s not that I don’t believe him, but I think you all trust what he says a little too much,” he said, pinching his fingers together.

Maria had to roll her eyes. “Zilverna. You don’t have to treat him like a father, and he doesn’t see you that way. But we’re together. It’s not mind control. It’s genuine.”

“But how do you even know? Mom, if he’s hurt you–”

“Even if he had done the worst things imaginable to me, you know what you should do?”

“Utterly destroy–”

“No. I know you aren’t a stupid boy, even if you’re a stubborn, prideful one. When it’s someone like him, you are powerless unless you get lucky, and you know how I feel about relying on luck. Even if he had murdered me–he didn’t–I would’ve been deeply disappointed if you threw your life away trying to attack him. You know better than most how he outclasses you–and that was before.”

Zilverna grit his teeth. An inferno smoldered in his eyes. Then, suddenly, he launched himself at her, pulling her into what might be the tightest hug she’d ever felt. There was something poignant and at once horrifying about being held by her grown son, feeling his worry. It was the final, complete reversal of roles between parent and child.

“I held your funeral,” he said, voice cracking. She felt his tears on her shoulder. “I thought I’d never see you again.”

“Are you…” She struggled for words. “Disappointed?”

“What? No–I’m so relieved.” He inhaled a deep, shaky breath. “When I saw you in… you know where, I nearly had a breakdown. I had some inkling it was going to happen, but my brain knowing that didn’t seem to matter. Actually seeing you for the first time… it was as though my very soul was finally able to exhale after holding its breath for months.”

“Did it actually feel like that in the moment?”

He laughed roughly. “Y’jeni, no. But later, when I was alone, I felt it. A lightness. A burden unloaded. Freedom.”

“Freedom?”

“Regret can shackle a man,” Zilverna observed. “I regret a lot when it comes to you.” He disengaged and gave her a serious look. “I was impossible. Ungrateful. Spoiled. Entitled.”

A smile tugged at her lips. “And now you’re a perfect Zilverna?”

“No. But I’m at least an aware Zilverna. A version of me that will never, ever again take you for granted.” He stared at her like he was trying to bore holes with his eyes. “You’ll leave, eventually. Right?”

“That’s the plan,” she responded. “This world isn’t meant for people like him. Like me.”

“Just how strong are you even?”

Maria chuckled, glancing at the window. “I’d show you, but wait, I don’t have control of the Cuna’s Mountain arrays and can’t create a convenient corridor to a private training room.” She sighed dramatically. “Oh well.”

Zilverna made an exaggerated expression of outrage, then rolled his eyes. “Very funny.”

Silence descended for a moment. “Well?” Maria prompted.

He just looked at her. “Can I see what you really look like?”

“I’d rather not show you,” she said.

“Why?”

She didn’t have a good answer for him.

He crossed his arms. “I will never stop loving you. You know that, right? To me, you’ve always been the coolest parent alive, even if you tried to exclude me to keep me safe. You know, I always acted like a brat, but I understood. I always understood. I just didn’t like it. You babying me. But now I get it. I feel the same way about you. Now that I have you here, I never want to let you go. I’m worried you won’t return to me. Worried you’d choose him over your son.”

“It’s not about choosing him,” she said. “I’ve outgrown this world. Forcibly, but the results are undeniable. This isn’t the right place for me anymore. It isn’t the right place for him, either.”

“Am I going to see you again?” he said sharply. “After all this is over, after you’d saved the fucking world, am I going to see you again?”

“Let’s discuss this in the training room,” she said, deflecting. “We can go to my favorite–“

“Mom! Don’t ignore me!” His tears were flowing again, his knuckles clenched. “How can you just… leave? Don’t you miss me like I miss you?”

His words felt like a sword through her chest. She knew the answer.

She really didn’t miss him the same way after dying. Before, she’d been consumed by the need to see Zilverna. She remembered how she’d felt. A mother’s desperation to see her abandoned son.

Now, she still loved him, but didn’t feel the need to be physically close. Knowing he was fine was enough. He had his own life to live, one that didn’t need to involve an ascendant lich stirring up trouble.

“Can you at least, I don’t know, visit sometimes?” he said, his voice fragile, pleading. Begging her to give the answer she couldn’t give.

She couldn’t promise anything. “I can figure something out.”

“Can, or will?” Her own words, used so often against him, thrown back in her face.

She let a bit of steel enter her voice. “Can.”

He sneered. “Why are you even here, then, with your disappointment?”

When Zilverna was angry, he often resorted to ridiculous arguments, blaming outcomes he disliked on unrelated insecurities. It was childish and irrational. But when he was like this, Maria knew it was difficult to get through to him.

He needed space.

She’d hoped this more official reunion would be more pleasant, but she’d come in expecting the worst. She couldn’t even say she was disappointed.

“I think it’s best I go.”

He looked at her, nostrils flaring, looking like he at once wanted to punch her and cry on her shoulder again. Instead, he turned around, averting his gaze. “Fine.”

“I love you.”

“I love you, too,” he said with a huff. But at least he said it.

She’d try getting through to him again–later. When everything calmed down.

—

Maria wore comfortable black clothing with Light arrays woven into the fabric, allowing her to change the pattern on the fly. It provided a modest level of camouflage while she traveled. With her End affinity she’d be able to suppress the arrays if needed, such as if she passed through a secure zone that scanned for the presence of potentially hostile arrays. Illusion arrays that were small, adorning expensive jewelry or other luxury goods, would be fine, but wearing an entire set of clothes with the arrays would set off warning bells.

Typically, only elite special operatives would wear such clothing–the cost was prohibitive.

She stood at a remote section on the border of the Federation and Sere, perched on the edge of an overlook around Mount Honorus. She felt no cold from the chill of the altitude and the wintry gusts. That was definitely one perk of being undead she appreciated.

I’m here, Maria transmitted to Ian. I see the arrays on the border. They’re out of reach underground.

Will that be a problem? he responded.

I have a workaround, she replied. I have more freedom to act in an area this remote.

She could sense his grin over their bond. I wish I could see what you come up with. Alas–this is it. I’m going to mute the bond between us.

She nodded to herself, even knowing that he wouldn’t see it. True to Soolemar’s predictions, Ian had figured out a way to temporarily silence the bond between them. They’d been naturally making progress in that direction over the years, but with Maria’s life on the line and their plans in jeopardy, Ian was able to make the leap to fully suppressing the bond. He really did work best under pressure.

Go ahead, she said, I’ll be back before you know it. Don’t you trust me?

Warmth surged over the connection, filling her cold, still chest with a facsimile of life. More than I trust myself.

And then the connection dimmed, as though pinched, the corridor that their thoughts traveled along rendered impassible.

Alone, Maria looked out at the majestic landscape. The dry, ice-capped mountains, and below, the flat, rugged expanse of Sere. It would be a long journey, but she’d move quickly, relying mostly on her ascendant energy. It was less flashy than propelling herself forward on blasts of fire.

The End arrays on the border were simple in their construction, likely because they needed to cover such a wide area–the entire border’s length. That didn’t mean they were ineffective or inefficient. Their purpose was obvious, unhidden to other skilled practitioners, and straightforward. While some arrays had defensive measures built into them to prevent tampering, this array relied on physical defenses–being deep underground, with detection arrays in place to monitor anyone digging into the earth nearby.

One function of the border array was to detect different types of energy, including Death energy, as Soolemar had cautioned. All things had Death energy within them–Maria could see it directly as a lich–so the array needed to be a bit clever about what it looked for, or it would be inundated with false positives.

It seemed to be looking for movement of Death energy in certain ways, such as how it naturally flowed through the body of a construct or through the body of a decemancer.

Maria pulled an orb from the void storage at her hip. It shone a white-green, with verdant motes drifting off of it like glowing snowflakes. She’d brought it as a possible contingency, but doubted it would work here. An explosion of Life energy would greatly obscure her own energy signature, but she wasn’t sure it would be enough to hide it completely.

She couldn’t afford a mistake.

Sighing, she stashed the orb and jumped.

It would’ve been too easy to leave a crater from the force, but that would’ve run contrary to her goals of not leaving traces. Instead, she used her ascendant energy to empower her Sun affinity, producing a powerful heat differential underneath her body. She whipped out a thin parachute also made from fabric inscribed with End arrays. The hot air rushed into it and Maria soared upwards.

Maria climbed like a balloon, her eyes scrutinizing the array, looking for weak points and finding none. But she knew that it would have limits. The array would stop detecting energy at a certain altitude. Likely higher than hoverglosses and other self-propelled vehicles could go, since it would be a serious vulnerability if they could fly over the border and avoid detection. She didn’t fully understand what prevented them from working so far above the surface, but figured it was related to the change in gravitational force.

Even with all her experience flying, Maria felt vertigo as she rose above the earth. It reminded her of the experience freefalling from outer space onto the planet, avoiding powerful artillery. This was much more peaceful.

She was alone as she passed through the clouds, unbothered by the wet vapor, the hot air drying her clothes as it kept her on course against the tugging of the wind.

She’d never been able to accomplish such a feat without her high Sun affinity and ascendant energy. Creating enough heated air to float up the first few thousand feet or so would’ve been possible with a high Sun affinity alone, though it would’ve been a struggle. But the trick to ascending through a thinning atmosphere was to make increasingly hotter temperatures.

Doing so without actually creating a physical flame was nearly impossible, but necessary to avoid attention–a superheated aerial object would invite scrutiny for being too similar to certain types of artillery that used rockets for propulsion.

But ascendant energy allowed her to make her heated air hotter than should be possible without combusting.

It was a relatively cloudless day, so she could see the terrain as she ascended, its features growing progressively smaller. She didn’t need to worry about lack of oxygen or exposure to harsh solar rays.

Ian’s right–I really could just exist in outer space, returning to the surface to mete out judgment, if all else fails and I need to remain here as a sentinel to prevent the Infinity Loop technology from being used.

She shuddered. Just because it was technically possible didn’t make it palatable. Such an existence would drive her insane.

Finally, she saw the end of the detection arrays. They extended further into the atmosphere than she would have guessed–over twenty thousand feet. She’d lost track of how high she was and hadn’t thought to bring an altimeter.

She floated across the border to Sere.

Why couldn’t I just… keep going? she wondered, peering down at the endless sand dunes. She’d originally planned to run quickly across the landscape, but this high up, she could just float across it with directionally heated currents of air.

The only question was, how fast could she propel herself?

The answer: fast enough.