Battle Plans

Raum and Aquila relocate into the mortuary’s office to chat.

Aquila is more open than ever, as he now divulges extensive details on his actions, plans, and thought process with Reyl.

How did Aquila get Desiree killed? He just misread Reyl. She was stronger than he thought, faster than he thought, and clever enough to escape his underlings’ pursuit. He expected her to be rash, desperate, and tempted into action by the lingering chaos in Joliet, combined with the city’s proximity to the border. She would abduct Raum from Joliet, he predicted. Plainly, he predicted wrong.

Of course, Aquila didn’t put all his eggs in that basket. He’s tightened the national borders, sent bounties for her arrest, and ordered guardsmen on high alert in every major settlement in the region. The only hole was Indris, which had itself suffered major losses among the guard, and critically was missing its governor. By the time Aquila could reinforce it, and flip this obvious refuge into an inescapable trap, Reyl had already left. It’s unlikely she even stayed there more than three or four hours.

Aquila makes it sound like Reyl went to Indris explicitly to kill Desiree.

Raum absolutely rejects this premise. What would she even gain from that? More likely she’d gone to ally with Desiree, but with her temper still high, they had an argument, things got out of control, and it was all just a fucked-up accident. The rage in those stab wounds attests to that.

Aquila frowns. He hopes for Raum’s interpretation to be correct, as of all the possibilities Aquila considered, for it to have just been a mistake is by far the most convenient.

But he can’t just assume that’s the case. There were many ideas Aquila had floated: revenge, punishment, something tied to Ordanz… but it seems both he and Raum agree her principal motive in going to Desiree was mercenary, hence, something that would tangibly help her gain some power, assets, or leverage to wrest Raum from Aquila.

Aquila delicately notes that Desiree was very injured. Despite that, would keeping in her company be an asset?

Raum asserts yes. He’s not sure how Desiree does it, but she’s kind of a miracle worker.

Aquila quietly nods. Then he can accept the ‘accident’ theory as feasible. After bombing Indris, especially so. Still… there’s an alternative theory Aquila had struck, one that he wanted to dismiss for how outlandish it was, but one that, should it be true, changes the entire situation too much to ignore. That is the very, very scant possibility Reyl used Desiree as material in a ritual to turn herself into a witch.

Raum laughs, “What?".

Aquila shrugs.

Raum’s brain reels back that last sentence, replays it. “Like Trivia Venn?"

Aquila frowns. If Reyl shares Raum’s conception of witches, then the chances are ever more likely. Most witches are not as balanced as Trivia Venn. They… well, if you might imagine her more prone to vice at another’s expense, that is a more typical attitude. …But that’s what Reyl’s like already…!

Though Aquila is too polite to say bluntly what most witches are like, Raum grasps the subtext.

…She could’ve messed herself up? Raum asks.

“…Could have, considerably," Aquila answers. There would be nowhere in the world she could exist without being reviled, rejected, and repelled as a monster. She would preserve her fundamental mind, but… if you’ve known someone before they became a witch, the similarities afterwards are often quite painful.

Uncertain how ‘considerable’ that ‘considerably’ is, Raum’s mind conjures terrible images. Feral warren-rats starved into man-eating animals… wild-eyed crackheads taking dick for their fix… his mother screaming at his father for denying her advances, as if she was being murdered… himself, on a bender, snagging three guys and eight girls he damn well knew had partners.

Face in his hands, Raum sighs long out his nose. His breath hitches. He forces it steady. It’s not like she’d be dead.

He’d deal with it. He’d help her deal with it. That was the only choice, except curl up and cry, pawn the problem off to somebody else. There was nobody else. Aquila could support from above, but the initiative on the ground laid on Raum.

This is all a hypothetical anyway. Chances are she’s fine; Aquila’s just being careful. Even as that warm glow of optimism comforts him again, the fact Raum could look this poor scenario in the eye at all leaves him thinking: wow.

Reyl either is, or is not a witch. These are the two core possibilities they must consider going forth, and the first thing they must confirm.

So those are the actions she has taken. What are the actions she will take? Aquila describes ways she could move, places she could go, whether she’s waiting for Aquila to misplay, whether she’s ambitious enough to actively pressure him, the settlements he’s scoured, the baits he’s laid, the traps she hasn’t taken. He dissects everything. He’s considered everything.

Everything except Sebilles! Raum runs some quick math. The journey from Joliet to Sebilles is a little over two weeks by carriage. Ferendaux to Sebilles is around three. If they move quick, they could get in before her. Aquila prattles on about this settlement, that settlement, this crag, that oasis, pointing all over the map — stalling! — until Raum prompts him: somewhere more quiet, less people…

Aquila smooths his hair, smiles bitterly, and takes the hint. He traces his finger over the map to Sebilles.

His smile as he stares down at that one blot of ink is so bland, it’s unreadable.

Raum, uncomfortable, shifts in his seat.

Aquila closes his eyes, feathers his fingers over his brow. Finally, he speaks. “Not even the desperate go to Sebilles. But you believe your sister has."

…Yeah, Raum confirms, feeling the hairs on his neck prickle inexplicably, as though kissed with the fine edge of a razor.

“You don’t seem to realise, in that case, how pessimistic her prospects would be."

It’s not the core of some goddamn volcano… Raum wants to retort, but the spite dripping into Aquila’s level words holds him still as a statue.

“That city is not abandoned by choice," Aquila smoothly swivels his chair around so that he no longer faces Raum. “We have been forced to forfeit it by circumstances that make it untenable for human life."

“Your brother’s there," Raum says frankly.

“That louse is disowned," Aquila snaps.

Raum shrinks back, glad not to have taken that venom face-first. Still, understood. Maybe Aquila still cares? Maybe Aquila still wants the kid’s guts strung up on a flagpole.

“Apologies. This nerve is still raw for me. It likely shall be forever." Aquila leans over the armrest. His fingers are steepled and his glare is sharp, only tempered from ‘homicidal’ to ‘hateful’ by the cold flatness of the rest of his attitude.

Raum glances aside apologetically.

He roughly knows Aquila’s circumstances. His brother burned down the country, enslaved hundreds of thousands of people, left a huge political mess for Aquila to clean up, stuck Aquila in a body that’s only caused more problems, and almost undoubtedly subjugated him under some batshit command only a child would find reasonable. If Aquila is fighting every day to loophole that command, or at least prolong it, then he can understand how the hate stays so virulent.

All the same, Raum wants to grab Aquila by the cheeks, twist his face around, and yell: GET OVER IT!!! You’re meant to be calm! It’s been twenty years! The war’s over! The kid is twelve years old! You used to have fun dicking around on the piano together. Can’t you go back to that? Hell, and you’re the older one, so you’re the role model here. Phoenix might be crazy, but he’s sincere about wanting the best for the country. Can’t you two at least find common ground on that? I don’t care what excuses you have, it’s better if you make up. He’s only getting worse. And I’d wager, so are you.

The chair back swivels minutely, back, forth, back, forth…

Nobody wins when family hates family. Like it or not, those bonds are forever.

“You never check up on him?" Raum ventures.

The swivelling stops. The dissonance between Aquila’s composed words and murderous tone twists Raum’s gut like a knife. “Upon death itself? Scarce few would. Even a willing suicide is better served diving from bridges. Have you not seen?"

Seen what, Raum reflexively questions, when the majordomo’s death flashes through his mind. Raum’s shoulders hitch. Never before has he witnessed, or even heard of, a man twisting himself to death in that manner, or of souls shearing out of the body in splinters as his did. So the cause of that had been proximity to Phoenix — even by an indirect depiction, through a recording of his voice, from before he became an Archon.

Raum’s face reddens and breath catches. With a long sigh, he ushers his thoughts elsewhere.

“No. I do not expose myself to that," Aquila continues. “Bar ignorance, I question why your sister would."

For its haughty dressing, why does that question feel so genuin—

—Wait. Wait, wait, waitwaitwaitwait.

Realisation blindsides Raum like a truck. This is it, isn’t it?

He doesn’t care about what Reyl’s doing.

He’s asking why she and Raum are alive!

A shot of adrenaline bursts through Raum’s blood. He shifts in his seat, wets his lips, hurries to assemble his knowledge versus Aquila’s confusion. If he plays this conversation right, he may force Aquila to present more of his hand.

Raum questions: That happens to everyone?

Aquila’s feathers rustle as he shifts in his seat. During daytime, a zone of inescapable death shrouds Sebilles. The range of this zone is bafflingly inconsistent — some relation to solar activity? An inherent resistance? — but the result is always the same. Nobody has lasted a full day in Sebilles. And none of the rumours otherwise have withstood scrutiny.

He’s been experimenting with the limits of the ‘death zone’. Aquila is slobbering for this information.

“It’s a familiar place. She’s been there before," Raum says. Aquila swivels his chair halfway, fingers steepled and expression only lightly questioning — as if he isn’t sucking every point of data from Raum’s face that he can. His silence itself is a prompt for Raum to keep speaking.

Against his every instinct, as his heart hammers and curses at him for being an IDIOT an IDIOT don’t let him KNOW you disobey just do what he wants or he’ll KILL YOU, Raum forces himself to sit still and let the silence continue.

He is rewarded. Aquila folds first by asking Raum to divulge his beans.

Raum assures he will feed Aquila the beans. But he wants clarity first. How big of a deal is it that he and Reyl survived Sebilles, and repeated exposure to that recording?

“Considerable." Aquila flexes his fingers, thinking, thinking, thinking. Then he laughs and shrugs as if casting off chains. Considerable. Frankly, it’s why Raum’s alive. Phoenix Valens, though dormant for now, is a permanent national threat. If Raum presents a means to disarm that threat, then yes, Aquila wants to know it. Furthermore, if Raum wishes to know Aquila’s goal, stated nakedly and without pretention, it is the absolute death of Phoenix Valens.

Fingers twined, head craned back, Aquila lovingly smiles as if watching cats drown.

It’s that hatred. Utter hatred.

Stripped of his soft mien, the impeccable majesty is a mere snarl of hatred. His venerated blood is nothing but poison, and his pure white body is naught but a cruel parody. Spawned in Nix, murdered by kin, a hungry ghost sustained by just the word: VENGEANCE!!!

Raum feels a questionable kind of relief.

It’s pitch black, but the attachment is there. Deeply, deeply there. This bond can absolutely be mended.

And though he innately detests the thought, he can’t help but agree that death would be a mercy for Phoenix.

“—I can do that," Raum assures, true as an oath.

Aquila’s back straightens in slight but genuine surprise at the seriousness in Raum’s tone. Strain comes over his smile. Understand, Aquila means to defy the rulings of an omnipotent, albeit slumbering God — the one who promoted Phoenix into immortality and Archonhood. Punishment doesn’t deter him, and he doubts Raum that timid either. But this is not something Aquila expects to square away in one generation. Whatever Raum commits, he may never see the fruits of it.

…The idea that Aquila doesn’t regard him as timid is a little mindblowing.

Because he’s certainly gutless. His commitment isn’t to the result. It’s to being useful, and helping the people he likes flourish.

Of course, this warning is important for Raum to understand. But it also sounds like Aquila reproaching himself.

…You’ll still take my help though, Raum confirms.

Yes, Aquila lisps desperately.

Abruptly nervous, Raum meekly checks, You’re not just gonna off me after I spill, right?

You’re very fixated on that, Aquila notes with a complex mix of irritation, apology, and black humour. Unless circumstances force it, Aquila can only see discarding assets as a rash waste.

…Not a strict ‘no!’ Raum forces the shudder back into his spine, away from his face, as he straightens himself to speak. Aquila prompts him to divulge everything that happened from the day of the cathedral fire to the twins’ arrival in Burmal.

Raum obliges, feeling in himself the sense of liberation that had surely overtaken Morgan and Toreas. Finally, the secrets come loose, the past gets its due, the foundations to the future assert themselves boldly, all cohering into a sense of mutual trust established—

—that collapses into petrified horror as, upon hitting the words ‘Tyrant’s Haunt’, Raum’s mouth refuses to move.

It’s the same thing as with the interrogator in Joliet. Though the command to stay in Asphodel has faded with Toreas’ death, the command not to speak about encountering Phoenix that day remains adamantly put. Realising that order had no end clause, Raum frantically swallows his panic.

He arranges his words to try and circumvent the order. But every implication, leading question, or oblique phrase of his is denied. Anything he says with the intention to guide Aquila to the truth becomes twisted, filtered by his mouth into clumsy lies, evasions, and frivolous changes of topic, failing to answer a single one of the questions posed by an ever more agitated Aquila.

I’M BEING MIND CONTROLLED! Raum wants to scream, baffled that Aquila’s not getting it. Isn’t he himself enthralled? Isn’t Phoenix infamous for this? Toreas’ words flit horribly through his mind. Toreas had implied Phoenix’s commands could be resisted, albeit painfully. But whatever is presently influencing Raum absolutely, unequivocally, cannot be defied.

Does Aquila not know Phoenix can dominate people just by speaking?

—Of course not! He thinks that just kills them!

Contrary to his internal anguish, and his burning desire to smack himself over the head with a book, Raum’s voice smoothly recounts that they exited the tunnels into Sebilles, sheltered there through the rain, and did enter the Tyrant’s Haunt several times, but never during day, never died, and never encountered Phoenix.

Aquila sits there, baffled. How did you get from the city into the palace through the rain?

Raum’s body smiles dumbly: Umbrellas.

Aquila feathers his brow, strokes back a lock of his hair. …A deluge as that, with umbrellas.

Oh we found a lot of them and tied them together into a tent and we snuck around under it. Yeah we wanted to go to the palace that much. Oh you know, seemed like a cool place — how often can anyone say they’ve been in an abandoned palace — guess you could call it sightseeing, hehe, y’know actually we were big into urbex back home, and uh we did need cash so figured to rob it too, palace, right, gonna have valua—HOLY SHIT STOP SPEAKING, Raum screams at his idiot body.

You robbed my house, Aquila says flatly.

Raum’s body loosely crosses its legs at the ankle, twines its fingers together like a talk show host, and grins cheerily. Uh-huh, we—STOPPPPP, Raum commands, cutting himself off there.

…And where did that initial tunnel deposit you?

Mina’s Fineries by the main square, Raum’s voice responds, picking a building at complete random.

Aquila, again, scissors his hair through his fingers. Seeming to surrender, he switches topics to directly ask for any speculation on how Raum and Reyl survived Phoenix’s ‘death aura’.

Truthfully, Raum does have some. Looking back, they got rained on, died, resurrected, then were fine. Raum can only reason that Phoenix did something to them while they were dead that rendered them immune — and what springs to mind is the purification. Have you ever put a person in the palace, already dead? Were any of the people you used to investigate Sebilles already purified? He wishes he could ask these questions.

Because what he says instead is: Guess it was cloudy?

Aquila slumps back in his chair, swivels to face Raum properly, and just stares.

Though his posture is that of a limp pillow, his eyes seethe like brimstones in Satan’s palm. For once his feelings are as plain as text on a billboard. A whole highway of them, in font so big and in such bright neon that the sheer distraction of reading them would smash drivers into a 50-car (and growing) pile-up.

Those billboards say: WHERE THE FUCK IS MY GUN FUCKING PLAYING WITH ME WORM YES LET US PLAY ANT I’LL MAKE YOU CHOKE ON IT.

The only thing stopping him from getting up, going to his armoury, and actually shoving a rifle down Raum’s gullet is the fact he is utterly stumped.

Raum’s said enough to confirm that he really did visit Sebilles, but his story is such incoherent bullshit that believing it requires less ‘gullibility’ and more ‘brain damage’. Probably, he knows Raum is sensible enough, and regards Aquila highly enough, not to get Aquila’s hopes up then mock him. He can deduce he’s being impelled. But that tells him nothing about surviving the death zone — and after trusting Raum to divulge that exact thing, that he fell for the wheedling of a romantic amateur infuriates him.

Thanks for the shit beans, asshole. I thought you’d be devoted enough for anything, but you failed where I actually needed you.

Then underlying that, the feeble question of: …why did you just hurt me?

Aquila straightens his posture, closes his eyes, shutters his expression back into bland calm. His gaze locks on the map, not making eye contact with Raum. All the while, immense guilt rips through Raum’s chest, and once again pathetic waterworks begin to stream out his face. He trusted you! He needed you! He trusted you, and you hurt him!

He burbles through tears: I’m sorry. I-I’m sorry, I,

“If you fear death as a consequence for speaking," Aquila lays one last hopeful lifeline, “do not. For a service as this, death can be very inconsequential."

I’ll resurrect you if this geas kills you. But Raum can only bawl: I can’t, I can’t…! I can’t…

Aquila rests his elbows on the table as he stares down at the map, ignoring Raum utterly. Through wispy sobs, Raum wipes his blurred vision clear just long enough to see Aquila is obviously thinking, dissecting, analysing… plotting, what to do next. By himself.

Though shame could silence Raum for an eternity, plotting what to do next means plotting about Reyl! H-hey, let me in on this.

Aquila airily replies that he’s considering what routes are most efficient to get in and out of Sebilles.

—I can go in tonight, Raum blurts.

You?, Aquila coolly mocks. I would suppose, dressed in ribbons and giftwrap?

Please! Just… Why am I arguing? Raum yanks himself back into his seat. Aquila is right. If Reyl’s whole goal is to kidnap Raum, then him going into Sebilles is a home delivery. It’s beyond stupid.

But fear loves stupid. And Raum has many fears.

Fear of Aquila not caring enough, then growing bored and negligent with Reyl. Fear of Aquila doubting Raum’s commitment, and permanently trusting him with nothing.

Fear of being purposefully left in the dark again, pacified with hugs and promises that all would be well, while people die and things go wrong that he could’ve changed. Absolutely, he could’ve defused an argument between Desiree and Reyl. She wouldn’t have even escaped if he’d been realistic enough to accept she wouldn’t compromise. Aquila could’ve even stopped it too, but opted to reinforce his immediate position with Raum by letting him handle Reyl instead. Handed him a deal out of a dream. And now…

…can’t he be a lure, moral support, anything? Can’t he at least get a play-by-play of whatever’s going on as it does?

Self-important nonsense. Telling a king, busy holding peace in a nation perpetually primed to explode, to give Raum preferential treatment about his fucking family drama. The fact Aquila’s personally bothering with Reyl at all, even if only as a gesture of binding goodwill to Raum as a political pawn, should itself be grounds for immeasurable gratitude.

His chin nested on his hands, Aquila calmly glances from Raum to the door.

A litany of anxious questions bubble in Raum’s gut, all insisting he stay longer and probe deeper until soothed with reassuring answers. What’s your actual plan? Are you going in? Sending someone else? Who? What are their skills? With what equipment? What kind of timeframe? Are there any big obstacles? Just endless, endless, endless begging for comfort, since hell knows there’s nothing practical he offers by knowing this crap.

Moreover, though he’s switched himself back into diplomat mode, Aquila is still pissed.

Velveteen pillow.

Raum squeezes the bridge of his nose and silently forces himself to the door.

Aquila calls out, irritation momentarily balmed by Raum’s obedience.

He’ll send an agent to scout the region from tonight. That is all the detail he will divulge presently.

Know, though, he is invested in these results, and will inform Raum of developments as they occur.

Aquila retrieves a knife from one of the office desk’s drawers, slides it flat over his palm. It’s an oathmaking gesture, but the blade remains bare.

“You may not understand how little I have." He sets down the knife, gazes at his open hand. “But for blame, and losses."

Raum’s grip on the doorframe slackens.

Aquila massages his thumb into his palm, tamping the oath in, or wiping it away, as he glances up. His expression, edging between rancour and rue, but not quite landing on either, is utterly indecipherable.

“You may go."