RE: Monarch
Chapter 132: Pyrrhic II

The man ate in silence, unheeding of the impatient twitching of Lokerias’s tail.In extending an invitation for the stranger to share their fire, the Writ of Arkus was clear. It would be improper to impose on him in any way. Lokerias tried instead to focus on his meal. Though stringy, the wyvern meat was delicious, and he devoured it quickly, nearly forgetting to breathe.

Finally, the man leaned back and seemed to relax. When he spoke, there was an easy-going friendliness in his voice that’d been absent before. “As much fun as it would be to draw this out for my own entertainment, Neki is visibly dying over there, and you’re better at hiding it, but not by much. We might as well get started.”

“I’ve heard Cairn spoke to the goddess. And she actually answered him. Is that true?” Neki exploded, barely able to sit still.”

“I heard that he had a magical sword that ignited with demon-fire.”

The man held up a hand. “What I’m about to tell you stays between the three of us.” He studied Lokerias, and the boy felt the same heavy weight fall over him. “And it’s not that I distrust you, but… I’ll need assurances.”

“I swear the Oath of Shavine that your words will never be repeated. Unless Loki and I discuss them in private.” Neki said, fist pressed to her heart, her expression uncharacteristically serious.

Lokerias stared at his companion in shock. Shavine was the god of vengeance. Breaking such an oath carried dire consequences, loss of magic among the least extreme. His expression hardened in determination, and he repeated the oath.

The man’s head swiveled as he looked between the two of them. “That is far too heavy an oath to be made so recklessly.”

Neki shrugged. “As long as we don’t break it, we’ll be fine.”

There was a sudden shift in atmosphere as the man focused entirely on Neki. “It’s that thinking exactly that will get you into trouble. Most people don’t set out to break oaths or promises. They’re easy to make at the moment. It’s often only long after, when it’s too late, that you realize exactly how difficult they are to keep.”

“Wise words,” Lokerias interjected, cringing as the man’s dark hood turned to face him. “But I think you might be mistaking interest for haste. We’ve been talking about the prince for years. Us and the rest of the enclave. Whispers of a legend that passed us by a hair’s breadth.”

The stranger cocked his head. “So, it’s worth it, then?”

“Nothing’s worth losing my magic for,” Neki said, “But silence is a small price to pay. To learn even a piece of what really happened.”

“I see.” The stranger said. He wrapped his cloak around himself. “To answer your questions, Cairn didn’t have a magic sword. Just one made with a special metal that ignited on contact with demon flame. And he did have a conversation with Infaris, if that’s the goddess you’re referring to.”

“What did she say?” Neki leaned so far forward she almost fell over.

“She told him to get his shit together.” The stranger shook his head in amusement at Neki’s disappointed expression, a face Lokerias had grown begrudgingly accustomed to. “That’s what he told me, anyway. There’s more to it, of course, but I’m guessing that conversation was meant for him, and him alone.”

“That’s understandable, I suppose.” Neki pouted.

“What made him different?” Lokerias asked, finally voicing the question that had plagued him since he first learned of the prince.

“How do you mean?” The stranger asked.

Lokerias looked at his hands. “For as long as I can remember—hells, as long as I’ve been alive, if you saw a human out on the road, you ran. They’ve always looked down on us. Expanded their territories while our borders shrink, the threat of King Gil deciding to eradicate us once and for all a constant threat. There’s still some of that, but it’s different now. Councillor Ralakos has been sending ambassadors to human cities. We’ve even started to trade with them. I just don’t understand how one person managed to upend the perception that humans are—“ Remembering who he might be talking to, Lokerias cut himself off.

“Evil?” The stranger asked wryly. “Well. There’s evil in all of us. Human or otherwise, that much is certain. But I understand what you mean. There was a time that Cairn thought similarly about the infernals.”

“What?” Neki squawked.

“Think about it.” The stranger’s voice gained a sad, faraway quality. “Humans and Infernals have a history of strife. Humans and most of the other races, really. It’s a natural pitfall, barbarizing your enemy. As the first prince of Uskar, Cairn was no exception.”

“What changed?” Lokerias asked.

“He woke up. In the back of a carriage, traveling home through the Everwood.” The stranger’s voice was almost nostalgic. “It started with a vision.”

“A vision?” Lokerias confirmed, dubiously. Not for the first time, he felt as if the man was leaving something out. “From what deity?”

“Not a damn clue. But it was grim. It took place on the eve of his coronation, ten years in the future. He watched as a coalition of non-humans—every race you could think of—invaded and sundered his home, united under one banner.”

Neki snorted, then quickly covered her mouth. “Sorry.”

“No,” The man waved away her apology. “I agree. It sounds farfetched. Historically, any cooperation between the non-human races has been nearly as short-lived as alliances with humans.”

“It sounds like nothing more than a child having a nightmare,” Lokerias said, somewhat disappointed.

“Perhaps,” the man said, “And Cairn might have thought the same. If the woman who united the non-humans and killed him in his vision, hadn’t ambushed his retinue nearly a decade ahead of schedule.”

Neki gasped. “The Adversary.”

“Who?”

“They’ve been calling her that. The woman who held the sanctum hostage and eventually killed the prince. Thoth.”

The man nodded slowly. “The Adversary. Not a bad moniker. Thoth had no intention of waiting for the coronation. Cairn’s first indicator that his vision wasn’t set in stone, that the future could be changed. He wouldn’t realize that until later, however. Thoth’s sudden appearance sent him into a panic, and he fled into the Everwood.” He trailed off, retrieving a desiccated stick from the ground to stoke the dying fire.

“He just… ran?” Lokerias asked, dumbfounded.

“Into the hells blasted Everwood?” Neki added.

The man shrugged. “He was young, inexperienced, and pampered. But yes, he ran. And the fauna of the Everwood nearly killed him. A shadow-panther, to be precise. It stalked him for hours before it attacked, which coincided with his first awakening. A rare form of magic that was thought to be exclusive to the infernals.”

“That was how he got the demon flame.” Neki realized.

“Yes,” the man agreed. “Though he wasn’t exactly thrilled with it at the time.”

“Isn’t magic of any sort rare for humans?” Lokerias mused to himself. “Strange that he wasn’t more excited.”

“Strange indeed.” The man chuckled. “I told you he died in his vision. Care to guess how?”

“Oh,” Lokerias said.

“It didn’t deal the final blow, but it certainly contributed. Burns and scarring all over his arms, neck, and chest. Manifesting the same spark that horrifically maimed him didn’t exactly bring back pleasant memories. Still, nature forced his hand. Cairn used the spark to keep the many creatures of the Everwood at bay, lighting fires at night and foraging for food during the daylight hours, trying all the while to make his way back to the road. It went on like that for days.”

Neki raised her hand. “I know he’s a legend and all, but I’m having a hard time picturing this. When we send scouts into the Everwood, they’re well-equipped and experienced, and there’s still almost always casualties. If he was weak enough that he ran at the first sight of an enemy, how did he survive in the Everwood?”

Lokerias elbowed her.

The man made a grumbling noise and continued. “That’s… fair. Well, as I said, the demon fire was a considerable boon. I’m not convinced that he would have survived without it. But the prince had another advantage. Back home, he befriended Lillian. She was a commoner, the daughter of an apothecary. He’d sneak out of the castle to spend time with her, but as a commoner, she was almost always working. So, he accompanied her as she worked, and that work often involved venturing into the… safer… areas of the Everwood—those closest to civilization—to gather ingredients. The lessons were a novelty, unlike anything his tutors taught, so he paid attention. Probably saved his life.” The stranger paused, staring in Neki’s direction. “Is she alright?”

Neki was almost swooning. Her hands were plastered to her cheeks. “I detest cliché… but… that’s so romantic. A prince snuck out of a castle to visit a commoner girl, and she unwittingly gave him the knowledge to survive in his darkest hour.” Lokerias gave her a tired look, and Neki swatted at him. “Lords below Lokerias, you’re made of stone.” She turned back to the stranger, eyes still glowing. “How did he plan to repay Lillian? Was he going to marry her? Make her his queen?”

Lokerias felt a massive ripple in the ambient mana around him, not unlike when the Wyvern had attacked. The stranger had steepled his fingers and his hands trembled slightly.

“No.”

“Surely, he must have felt something for her,” Neki continued, oblivious to the growing storm. She glanced at Lokerias, “No boy gives a girl that much attention if he’s not interested in being more than friends—“

“What-else-happened-in-the-Everwood?” Lokerias’s words came out in a stream.

The stranger took a sip of water. He did not speak again until his hands were steady. “He met a hermit in the woods—a researcher who called himself Barion. Barion offered Cairn shelter in exchange for apothecary work and the chance to study his newly discovered magic. It was this fateful encounter that eventually brought Cairn to the Enclave. Because Barion’s assistant was an infernal. A girl named Maya.”

Lokerias’s ears perked up at the mention of the name. “The life mage?”

“That’s right.”

“It must have been confusing for her, to meet a human so open-minded,” Neki mused.

The stranger’s grunt almost sounded like a muted laugh. “Not… exactly. Try to remember, Cairn lived most of his life in Whitefall. To make it worse, he’d just witnessed a vision of non-humans massacring his family and people. Suffice it to say, they didn’t get along at first. But, as is so often the case, a common enemy brought them together. Beneath the home, Cairn discovered a terrible truth. Barion had been performing “experiments” on human children for years in an attempt to trigger magical awakenings, while Maya, his captive “assistant,” did everything in her power to keep them alive. They banded together and defeated Barion, who was unveiled to be a revenant.

Lokerias shuddered. Revenants were well-known to be weaker—albeit often nastier—siblings to liches. Their notoriety stemmed primarily from their extreme and obsessive natures. If Barion was a revenant, Lokerias had no desire to know the particulars of the creature’s experiments.

“That was a revelation for Cairn. Maya wasn’t some savage creature—she was just a person. A person who belonged to a race tired of maltreatment and abuse at the hands of the human monarchy. Suddenly, he had a more profound understanding of how King Gil’s endless oppression had primed the non-humans for uprising. With that knowledge and coinciding responsibility, Cairn hatched a plan to right his father’s wrongs and unite the various races of Uskar as one people—not in conquest, but in peace.

Lokerias’s mind spun as the stranger continued, weaving together aspects once disjointed into a disturbing tale that fit all too well.

On Cairn’s arrival in the enclave, he was summarily thrown in prison by Guemon, the council’s head of security. Assisted by Head Councillor Ralakos and represented by Maya’s mother Nethtari, Cairn lobbied the infernal council for permission to enter the sanctum and hone the dantalion flame when he came of age, with the promise of using it to repair the dimension gate his father had sundered, reconnecting many infernals with family they had lost on the other side.

In Lokerias’s eyes, it was a simple goal that everyone should have been able to set aside their differences to achieve.

Only it hadn’t been that simple.

It was something of an open-secret that the disappearance of Counselor Ephira—the authority of trade and mercantile within the Enclave—was connected to a treasonous betrayal. No one seemed to know the specifics, the few informed on the particulars grimly reticent to speak on the matter.

The truth was far more horrible than even the wildest rumors. Ephira was a fanatic who backed the Asmodial legion in a plot that would result in the sundering of the enclave and the deaths of countless infernals, rather than permitting the alternative: letting a human prince be the one to mend the dimension gate.

Prince Cairn foresaw this tragedy in a vision. But with the asmodial legion already in play, the solution was unclear.

Cairn, Ralakos, and Guemon all worked frantically to prevent this fate, alongside Persephone, a magnate of the enclave’s criminal underbelly. Even so, all seemed lost. The asmodials were already committed to the course.

As a final desperate effort, Cairn sailed through the underground channels of the Twilight Chambers, accompanied by Nethtari, to beseech the asmodials to stay their hand, tempting them with a one-of-a-kind magical artifact capable of creating hard illusions.

It was only then that the true depths of Ephira’s depravity were revealed. The councillor had committed the ultimate taboo—trading her very soul to the demons themselves.

Lokerias’s jaw dropped at the horror of it. A defaulted soul had to be remanded freely. Once the soul left the individual’s body, it could never be reincarnated. It would remain within the hells for all eternity, conscripted as a champion into the demonic legion’s never-ending battle for supremacy in the underworld.

It was effectively damning yourself to an eternity of bloodshed and fighting that would never end.

Cairn negotiated with the Arch-Demon Ozra, showing him visions of the great battle that would come to pass. Of the Adversary, and her advanced mastery over magic, promising a reaping of souls that would dwarf the sundering of the enclave if the arch-demon staid his hand.

But of course, there was no guarantee the asmodials could claim the adversary’s soul. Perhaps they could trick her, somehow, or force a pact she could not reasonably decline. However, a soul from a mage they already owned was more valuable in their eyes than any potential soul, even if the latter was far more powerful.

There was only one card left to play.

With her extensive knowledge of the demonic language and contracts, Nethtari was able to demonstrate to the asmodials that Ephira had intentionally deceived them, creating the opportunity for them to declare Ephira’s contract null and void.

And it was Cairn—the son of an ancient bloodline—who sacrificed everything to drive the chisel home. He offered the demons a trade they could not ignore. A soul of royal blood. His soul, freely given.

“It doesn’t make any sense,” Neki blurted, then immediately slapped a hand over her mouth.

The stranger tilted his head. “Why?”

“Because no one is that selfless.”

“The infernals’ magic is powerful. From a pragmatic standpoint, Cairn probably realized he’d need them for even a chance of standing against the adversary.” The stranger’s cowl tilted down as he studied the floor. “But, you’re right. I’m uncertain whether he could have made that call, if that was all there was to it.”

“There’s more.” Lokerias realized.

“Life in the palace isn’t so gilded as you might believe.” The stranger said grimly. “Cairn lost his mother to illness at a young age. After her passing, his father grew darker. Angrier. King Gil was brutal in punishing any perceived slight or failure. Siblings were to be viewed as rivals and potential threats to the throne, fostering hostile competition. ‘Family’ was just a word that denoted bloodline relation. Nothing more. But Maya’s family was different. They housed him, fed him, and treated him as one of their own. Jorra was like the brother he never had. Maya, his closest friend and companion. Kilvius treated Cairn like his own son. Nethtari walked with him through the darkest moments imaginable, and never once wavered. It was the closest thing to a family he ever had.”

A grim silence fell over the ramshackle campsite, as the two infernals absorbed the gravity of what they’d been told. They were so entrenched in thought, it took a moment for them to react as the stranger stood to leave.

“Wait!” Neki stood to follow him. “You haven’t told us what happened in the sanctum.”

“You know the rest. What’s there to tell?” The stranger asked, sounding more fatigued than before. “Cairn entered the Sanctum along with his closest companions. The adversary sprung a trap, sealing the Sanctum off from the enclave with powerful magic. He chased her to the sepulcher to discover her true purpose. It came to light that Thoth had allied with another demonic legion—the Decarabia—and after Cairn nearly caught her by surprise, she decided to finally stop toying with her food. Cairn fell back to the heart of the sanctum, where Thoth and her host of demons forced a conflict. The prince was faced with the decision to either draw countless innocent children into a bloodbath, or fight the adversary in single combat. He chose the latter. He died. End of story.”

Before they could protest further, the stranger disappeared into the dense tree-line.

***

”For someone so sufficiently motivated to remain anonymous, you aren’t very good at it.”

“Thank you, Vogrin, for the never-ending sardonic commentary,” I said. Then I called a burst of wind, leaping straight upward and landing in the crook of a tall tree. It wasn’t flying, exactly, but the combination of my inscriptions and my vastly improved air magic allowed me to scale vertical distances with much greater ease.

From my perch, I watched the two young infernals from earlier. They both had potential. It was the only reason I’d given them the wyvern’s remains as a boon. Staying in the Sanctum for so long had made me far more sensitive to both my magic, and the magic of others. Whether they’d reach their potential by the time it counted was anyone’s guess.

My leg stung. I pulled up my pant-leg and used demon fire to sear it shut, a slow hiss escaping from my lips. Then I leaned back against the tree. The two infernal’s below cheered, one of them finally managing to detach a single talon.

“Was it corrupted?” I asked in a low voice.

“Uncertain. If corruption was present, it had only just taken root. More likely, it was aggravated by the degradation of the leyline.” Vogrin reappeared across from me, his severe features still covered by a blindfold.

“It’s getting worse. And somehow I doubt our favorite arch-mage will be coming by for maintenance again.” I grimaced.

“If she does, you have much bigger problems than a wyvern with a taste for demon-fire.”

“True enough.” I settled myself, preparing to drop back down.

“Why did you harvest the Wyvern’s heart?” Vogrin asked. “It’s unlike you.”

I mused over the question. It was endlessly entertaining to keep Vogrin in the dark. And on some level, it was likely payback for how badly he and Ozra had botched dealing with Thoth. But that was petty. Typically, he was my only company. It was better to cull that habit now. After all, I couldn’t hide in the Sanctum forever. And I’d need his full cooperation when I made my return.

“Picked it up for an old friend.”

“A gift?” Vogrin asked.

“More like an offering.”