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Alaric laughed. “Sometimes I wonder if I made you too well. If I didn’t know better, I’d think you believe that. But you know what the problem with that is?” He leaned in. “The second I left, you just couldn’t stay away from her. I’d have thought you’d have more sense than to dance with her in public. Because I told you, if you aren’t talking to her for me, you aren’t talking to her.”
Magic sizzled on the hand wrapped around Numair’s throat and the smell of burning flesh hit the air. “No doubt you’ve fully undone any progress I made with her. So I’m giving you this one last chance to change your mind. Take her. Convince her to show you what’s truly lurking under that pretty voice, and I’ll forgive everything.”
Numair’s answer was a hoarse, clipped, “No.”
Alaric’s first slammed into Numair’s face. Drew back and connected again. And again. And again, each strike made with cold, methodical precision.
Clare knew the stupidity of revealing herself, but the part of her that lived only for her own survival broke at the smell of burned flesh and copper-bright blood. She strained against the vines but they only gripped her tighter, wrapping about her like a caress and holding her fast. The only noises she could make came out muffled against the thick padding of vegetation covering her mouth, and what did escape was lost to the rhythmic sound of Alaric’s grunting as his fist connected over, and over, and over.
Desperate, Clare reached for the Song, only to find it had deserted her entirely, locking the doors of its prison from the inside. Her body trapped in vines, her only power locked inside a cage of her own making, Clare could only watch as Alaric spent his fury breaking Numair’s body.
When she couldn’t watch anymore, when her own fury rivaled Alaric’s, she dove inward and found the Song. She could not force it from its prison, but neither could it keep her out of it.
You are afraid of Alaric.
The Song bristled, but it did not deny her.
Why?
Silence.
You made this world. I watched you burn Renault County to the ground. Why fear him?
Because as much power as I have reclaimed being reborn into this world, there is still more required to sustain it. Alaric has gathered much of that power to himself. I am…not certain which one of us is stronger.
Clare went cold. So he could kill you?
In a manner of speaking. If he kills you I will be forced to return to my dormant state. There is not enough left of the world for me to transition once again to wakefulness, and if I cannot wake, I cannot be reborn. Neither can I unmake the world while I only dream.
What aren’t you saying?
Hesitation, then, While I dream, though I do not have physical form, or agency, I can be reached through this physical plane. I have no doubt that should you die, Alaric will find me, and he will absorb my power into himself.
So he’ll be like you are with me, now?
No. You and I are two consciousnesses existing within the same vessel. I have watched Alaric pull power from this world time and time again. His methods are brutal. He would rip my power from my consciousness and I, as I am within you, would cease to exist.
Can you not simply take his power from him?
Not without killing him first. He has bonded that power to himself. To take it from him would require unmaking the pieces of the world that power belongs to. But a single piece of the world cannot be unmade. It is like cutting a hole in a blanket—eventually, the rest of the blanket will unravel. The only solution is to unmake everything.
But you have destroyed pieces of the world before, and we are still here.
Think of the world as a collection of squares, sewn together. If you sever the threads connecting one square to the others, you may destroy that square without harming the rest. You no longer have the original whole, but what you have done will not cause the rest to unravel, and you could, should you desire it, sew a new square on to replace the one you have destroyed.
The Faelhorn Provinces, the Song continued pedantically, are the last remaining square. Allow me to unmake it, Clare. There are people who should not have to suffer the world that Alaric would make if he consumes me.
And what then? How long until you grow lonely again, and the cycle simply repeats itself?
I made an error in the creation of this world. I will see the error is not repeated in the next.
The thought of Clare’s laughter echoed softly in the Song’s prison. The error, dear Song, is you.
She felt it absorb her response, felt its bafflement.
I do not understand.
You created this world from yourself. It, and everyone in it, is a reflection of, a part of, you. It is neither all good nor all bad, because you are neither all good, nor all bad. The true battle you fight lies within yourself. To be better than you are.
