IV-34 Whores

There's really no way for me to hurt you more than your life already did. I know about what you did to your brother, his family. I know it was because of jealousy. I know that you hate him, but you remain jealous of him still. And I know you regret killing him, despite hating him so much. Despite all he took from you.

My words tore your body in half so easily. I probably could have done that if I focused my power long enough. But I really didn't. You wanted to come apart. You wanted to break. Because something in you was already on the precipice. Or close enough to the edge that shattering must have felt like a relief.

Stop spitting your defiance at me now. Wipe that glare away. You know my words are true. You can pretend they're not. But you know they are.

That's the beauty of rhetoric, you know. It's not deceiving someone into changing their mind or bludgeoning them using an overwhelming barrage of persuasive techniques. It's not even the Animancy or other magic suffusing my words, no. Rhetoric is about meaning: the amplification of meaning, the materialization of meaning, the wielding, shaping, and destruction of meaning.

And inside your chest, crawling up your throat like acid reflux, was a meaning you fought to suppress for so long. You wanted to break, you wanted to go away, you wanted to plunge into the dark. I didn't put that there inside of you, I just made it true.

But that's not the only thing you've left buried inside your own heart, is it, Hero Carmichael? A lone assassin trying to bring down an avatar. It doesn't matter how high your tier is, that's a suicide mission. So what else in you is calling you toward the void?

You should tell me now, you should be honest and cooperate, because if you don't, I will find the rest of you that's broken, and I will talk to them. I will give words to them, and as you hear the pain born from within you, sculpted into words by someone without, you will tear again, tear and tear and tear until there is nothing left of you.

Death isn't a punishment; death can be a release, but only if there's still something left of you. So let me help you reach a dignified end. Cross over to the other side with some measure of peace, rather than nothing but scars. Please, for once in your life, be gentle with yourself. Be gentle and shed your regret.

-Veronica Chandler

IV-34

Whores

"Before we begin, how much has Udraal or the Starhawk told you about the Great One, or the ritual the Ascendants intend to perform?"

Veronica studied Shiv for a while, and he held himself back from replying immediately. He was in the wolf's den, and every word he uttered could be used against him—quite literally, in fact. Words were weapons when it came to Veronica Chandler.

Psycho-Cartography: Never lie to this woman. Never fully lie. She will be able to see through you. I am only a master tier skill, and that's feeble compared to anything she has. Be conservatively honest. Use the truth as your shield.

"Not much," Shiv said, finally. "I know some generalities, and I guessed a few other things. I know that the Ascendants aren't actual gods. They have parts of themselves still attached to the Great One. They somehow fuse themselves to the Great One's soul skills. I also know that they need sacred phylacteries to function in the real world, along with avatars to channel their power."

"So the generalities," Veronica replied. She tapped her finger on her table, and with each time she made contact, the etchings lining the stone flared, and susurrations hissed past Shiv's ears.

"Hey, listen, can you knock that shit off?" The Deathless glared at Veronica, and slowly she turned to regard her table.

"Oh, this? Now, I'm not trying to subvert your mind. If I was, I would have tried to crack you open already. I'm not exactly a gentle Psychomancer, and my Rhetoric is direct and vulgarly honest despite its tier. I'm just recording an instant of this moment into my monument."

"Your table is called a monument?" Shiv said. "Seems pretty arrogant."

"No, it quite literally is a monument. A unified monument, in fact. The doors outside, this table, and several other pieces of elder stone are technically the same piece. They think they're the same piece, and any damage one suffers, the others will exhibit as well. The etchings they store are also shared, and so I can access this information from practically any number of sanctums I have. It's very useful." 

Shiv studied the table in greater detail and frowned. "Why, though? Someone breaks your door..."

"If someone manages to break that door," Veronica laughed, "I will shake their hand, and I will try to recruit them."

"But it's already cracked."

"True, and I have no idea what cracked it. I am curious to find out, however. Now, before we lose the plot: the Great One, the ritual, the Ascendants, and your parents."

Veronica pushed off the table and walked around it. There wasn't a chair there beforehand, but with a snap of her finger and a pulse of dimensionality, a large throne materialized. It was a throne made from bones and lined with plush curtains. At the top of the throne were numerous spikes carrying skulls upon their apex. 

The skulls glowed, their eyes burned with Necromantic energy, and Veronica settled down upon the chair, slouching as she regarded her wayward grandchild. "What you know about the Ascendants is mostly accurate. They do have portions of themselves bound to the Great One's skills. The Abyssal War, though a very complicated war with a myriad of reasons behind its initiation, was primarily triggered because of an act of foolishness."

"The Starhawk," Shiv said.

Veronica nodded, and he knew he was on the right track. "He sent the Eclipsebreakers down into the depths to seek out the Great One. Well. Before that, he was trying to mend the Ascendants and himself. Along the way Udraal’s attention was drawn. But that’s the very abridged and general version of things.”

“Why did he send Roland and my parents down in the first place?” Shiv asked.

"To make things right," Veronica sighed, as if that were ever possible. "And it was a foolishly risky thing to do. There are treaties between us and the Five Faiths. We have our obligations and our restrictions, and they have theirs. We are meant to guard them from the other surface nations, for everyone wishes to have a piece of absolute power, and the Great One is as close to absolute as one can get."

"And when the Starhawk sent someone down, I'm guessing he broke some kind of laws."

"Some kind of law?" Veronica almost sneered. "You can say that. When he broke the most core of our trust, our peace. The Five Faiths, no, they are not powerful enough to exact the retribution they desire from us. No matter what the Ascendants did, they are tied to the Great One, and the Faiths worship the Great One. They are bound to the Great One, and any damage inflicted upon the Great One will leave the Abyss crippled and decaying. There is only one reason why the Underworld has the same life as it does. That's because of the True God slumbering in its depths."

"Tell me more," Shiv said, "about why the Starhawk did all this. Why then? What was he trying to fix for the Ascendants. And why my family? Why Roland.”

The legendary Councilwoman shrugged and pointed her palms toward the ceiling. "Probably because he couldn't endure it anymore: The decay of godhood eating away at his personhood. The decay of his longtime friends." She sighed, and her gaze went to someplace distant. She was reminiscing about something. For a few seconds, she just didn't speak. "I understand him, despite everything. Despite what I must do, I understand him, and I don't blame him entirely." 

A bitter scoff came from her. "Year by year, the Ascendants forget more of who they were. They're becoming characters of themselves. They weren't nearly like this before. At the start of everything, they were wonderful, magnificent." She paused as she shook her head. "If you could have only seen what I saw in my childhood, if you could have seen the birth of the Republic, you would have known."

"Would have known what? Known that the Ascendants weren’t a gaggle of bastards and pawns? Because that would be a surprise.”

Cripple hurried slightly to stare at Shiv, but the Deathless was unashamed of his statement. He met the Ascendant's gaze and simply shrugged. "Listen, I’m not calling you a bastard.”

“I am honored,” Cripple sighed.

"No, Cripple really isn’t," Veronica answered on Cripple's behalf, "but you’re right, Deathless. It is rather pitiful. Especially since it let a desperate child convince it into the scheme unfolding before me.”

Shiv sneered. "Alright, well, I guess you should kill me for that impudence."

The Legendary Councilwoman closed her eyes and barely stifled a grin of amusement. "Hmm, I suppose you are one of mine."

"Yeah, I know the fuck I'm not," Shiv snarled back. The anger inside him snarled. It was like a slavering beast trying to force its way up his throat, trying to claw a path out of his heart, against the wall he fought to keep the rage contained. As he did, something inside his chest tore, and he held back a wince of pain.

Psycho-Cartography: Every bit of control you surrender to her will become a wound.

Veronica tilted her head, and her expression turned inquisitive. She was a great wolf trying to decide if she was looking at one of her own kind or a lamb she was about to devour. "You have a lot of anger inside of you."

"Yeah, wonder why," Shiv grunted sarcastically.

"I don't," Veronica replied. "I can guess what Udraal was playing at when he enacted his ritual with your parents." She paused, considered something else. "I suspect he meant for young Lord Arrow to die as well. It's a delightfully cruel thing to intend, but knowing Roland and that softness inside of him, he likely wouldn't have been able to kill you. He would have raised you as something between an effigy of hate and a replacement child."

Shit, she’s dead on. How well does she know Udraal?

"And I would have been delightfully fucked up in a whole other way, wouldn't I?" Shiv asked.

"As per Udraal's design. He treats everyone like they're chess pieces of clay to be molded."

"And you don't?"

Veronica flinched, but it was a playful reaction. She wasn't actually offended. "No, no, everything he's guilty of I'm likely guilty of as well, perhaps to a lesser extent. I am more conservative. He’s more ambitious. His wins are grander, but my failures are less humiliating.”

"You seem to know him pretty well," Shiv said.

Veronica's eyes narrowed to half-moons as she gave him a coquettish smile. "Here's a word of advice to you, boy. If you make it out of here and you decide to keep being intimate with that Umbral girl, you will come to know her very well, and at some point one of you will try to kill the other. And then go back to being intimate after like nothing happened.”

"What are you..." Shiv's words trailed off as he read the meaning hidden within Veronica's words. A choking noise escaped him. "You and him?"

Veronica gave him a casual nod. “It’s not so romantic. It’s just an itch for both of us.”

"But you...?"

"It's really quite common for Pathbearers," Veronica said. "Once you go past a certain tier, everyone below is either a thing to you or a vulnerability. Certain desires never fade, so when you run into someone interesting and dangerous, and they find you interesting and dangerous..." She didn't finish. She simply waved a finger and let Shiv fill in the rest of the details himself.

"But you're all trying to kill each other."

"Not always," Veronica replied. "Sometimes we merely scream and debate. Other times we get tired of that. Other contests transpire."

"Alright," Shiv said, trying not to think too hard about this. He tried really, really hard not to think about his biological grandmother and his supposed maker having any kind of relation. As if I'm not a psychological mess already, Shiv thought to himself.

"Regardless, the Starhawk sent his first agents down, trying to make some subtle changes to reverse the decay happening to the Ascendants at first." She read Shiv's curiosity and elaborated on the decay. "As I was saying earlier, you should have seen them at their prime, the Ascendants. They were people, full people, not these mockeries of themselves." She gritted her teeth but controlled herself before Shiv could read too much into it. "My own grandmother, I knew her even when she was mortal. She was powerful to me, but... she had such taste as well. Deviant taste, that I cannot condone. But ultimately, she was a full person. She had the ability to hold herself back. She had the capability to decide when to indulge her desires, to be kind and generous, to be sweet and thoughtful."

"But not anymore," Shiv said, reading her micro-expression as much as he could.

Farsight 71 > 72

Veronica was quiet for a long while. "You know, before the biomancers grew powerful and steadied our biology, there was all manner of decay that was sealed in flesh. The automata also deal with such decay, but it is not so biological. Regardless, everything suffers from entropy to some extent, and if you can't fight it, it will eat you." Veronica hummed again. "Dementia."

"What?" Shiv said.

"Have you heard of it?" The Councilwoman continued.

The Deathless wracked his brain and tried to recall the word. "Does it mean something to do with deterioration of the brain?" He recalled seeing something about that the Odes, but it was more of an offensive spell, a particularly cruel one that even Ekkihurst didn't like inflicting upon another. Despite the Sculptor's casual cruelty and unspeakable artistic tastes, there was one thing he valued above all others, one thing he treasured and deemed worthy of protection. And that thing was the mind, the consciousness. For to lose one's mind was a terrible tragedy, one Ekkihurst simply didn't want to endure himself.

"Correct," Veronica continued. "It is similar in a sense. She is no simpleton, nor does she forget everything, but she is a shadow. It's like watching someone you know get boiled down to their basest traits."

"And that's because they're contained within the Great One," Shiv said, wagering a guess. "Because they're only made up of their feats and histories, their most important deeds."

"That is my theory as well," Veronica nodded, and Shiv caught a hint of pride on her face. "A single skill does not make up an entire person, no matter how hard someone has used that skill, for how long. Well done, Tanner.”

"Shiv."

"What?"

"Shiv is my name," the Deathless replied. "I’m not telling you again. We’re not talking anymore if I can’t even take that respect from you."

“Take?” Veronica said.

“Respect isn’t given in our world, is it?” Shiv asked, jutting his chin out at her.

Veronica nodded slowly, and rather than using his given name, she acquiesced. "Very well, Shiv then. Is Deathless fine too?"

"Depends on who's calling me that."

"Well, Deathless, I suspect your soul might be a bit different than all of ours, after what Udraal did to you. But the point remains, who might you be if you only had that Legendary Skill of yours?"

Shiv thought about that and winced. “Violent. But with distaste for collateral damage. Still might be a bit messy though.”

"And by 'a bit messy,' you mean a harbinger of unspeakable amounts of collateral damage."

Something cracked inside of Shiv. Instead of it being an emotional wound, it was a literal injury. It wasn't anything severe, but the parting of a rib still surprised him.

Psycho-Cartography 81 > 82

Silver Tongue 39 > 41

Veronica frowned slightly. "Oh, you care about such things."

"You don't?" he shot back, a growl gliding in under his breath.

"I did," Veronica replied, "but I haven't been so untidy in years. I deal in precision now, just as you are trying to become more mature in your methods. I found a few of the wardens you encountered early on. They said you spared them."

"I didn't know if they deserved it or not," Shiv said.

“Deserved. What a precious notion.” Veronica muttered absentmindedly. "Perhaps all of us do, yet perhaps none of us do. It's hard to say, really. But hold that idea of drawing your personality from a single skill- and apply it to a god. The Strongest, the Songbringer, the Genius, the Deadly. These are not personality traits, they are simply qualities, boasts."

"Like skill names," he replied.

"Like skill names," she agreed, "and that eventually wears you down. The Great One dreams, but dreams are murky things. They are not like memories, they're more like a blend, and eventually, as I spoke of entropy, parts of you are lost, irrevocably. Or so it seemed."

"Did the Starhawk succeed at all," Shiv asked, "with the whole fixing the other Ascendants thing. Or did he end up going straight to the ‘no more gods, share divine power with the people’ thing?”

"Oh, gods. Share divine power with the people? Matthew… That won’t solve anything. But no. The Starhawk wasn't quite like that then." The Councilwoman sighed. "He still had so much hope in his family. His loyalty was practically unrivaled. The Starhawk you see today is not the Starhawk I knew of yesteryear. Don't think he has preserved his own personality any more than the others. He’s as much a stereotype of himself as any of them.”

"So the Starhawk's been decayed as well," Shiv said.

"Yes," Veronica acknowledged, "but he probably stands among the few that have become more moral since their decay. After all, he is the wings of justice, the noble, the executioner of evil." She hummed. "I remember him when he was just Matthew. He was a remarkable archer then, and a deadly Pathbearer. Still noble, still honorable. The thing about nobility and honor, boy, is that it changes across the years. And when one is tribal, there is no individual feud. It is family against family, clan against clan."

Once more, Shiv began to delve into Veronica's deeper subtext. And this time, as he guessed, an uncomfortable weight spilled out along with his words. "So he murdered the innocent."

"Again, 'innocent'," Veronica mused. A few of the fairies drifted around her, and the Legendary Councilwoman frowned, shooing them away. Even as they giggled, her body glistened with mana, and the room seemed to dim around her. "Who can say what innocence is?"

"Sounds like an excuse to me," Shiv said.

"Come back to me in about a hundred years," Veronica replied with a humorless grin. But then the grin faded, and she reconsidered her words. "With how much conflict you're getting into, come back to me in about five years. By this point, you've probably spent more time in active combat than most veterans."

"Alright, now you're just buttering me up," Shiv said.

"No," Veronica disagreed. "You have to understand how fast most fights go, and that it is a coordinated affair, even if we are all individuals, first and foremost. You, meanwhile, have died over and over again, fighting things you had no business facing. Really, you are the system's favorite son."

"Yeah, not really feeling that," Shiv said.

“I would say you are. It keeps trying to kill you. And that to the system is the truest love of all.”

"Regardless, the Starhawk experienced something that changed him within the Great One. I’m not sure what it was, but it seemed to make him realize the depths of his personal degeneration. He tried to destroy the skill that crystallized his mortal form into godhood within the Great One, and went for the skills cocooning the other Ascendants by extension."

"But he failed," Shiv said.

"He failed, and worse, the Five Faiths discovered what he was doing, and from there, it was war." Veronica steepled her fingers. "But perhaps that was what the Starhawk wanted in the aftermath. When his initial plans failed, he likely realized he needed more time—and more allies on his side, to achieve his desired outcome. The Forgotten Ones… Some of them tried to turn away. But that’s not why most of them are Forgotten.”

Slowly, Shiv got the feeling that he crawled out of a well, only to find himself in a crater. “They can struck from everyone’s memories because they… what, degenerated?”

“A tragedy,” Veronica said. “They were going to tear the fabric of the Republic apart. And themselves too. What the Starhawk intends to do will only cause more misery. Goodness or otherwise.” She looked aside and the tendons in her neck tightened. “I should have seen it, to be honest. But I was dealing with about twelve other nation-ending problems at the time.”

"You didn't know at first," Shiv said.

"No, we did not," Veronica replied. "We thought the Abyss was simply being foolish, that they had used up all their trust. The Five Faiths were primitive and contentious anyway. They were due for an eventual conflict, and this was simply that. But then our beloved Roland Arrow did several things that deviated from the grand strategy.”

“Like burning Submission,” Shiv said.

"Like burning Submission. It was not a strategic city; it was more or less a diplomatic city, a place where people from all the Faiths could gather. Yet Roland brought his forces and sacked it. So many people died for no reason, and Roland Arrow, noble good hero of the Republic, was a mass murderer, for reasons we couldn't quite understand."

"Until now," Shiv finally said.

"Until now," Veronica echoed. “There were Relics the Starhawk needed there. And through Submission was a path to the Deep Abyss. Only a shame that Sullain’s forces tried to mount a counteroffensive even after the city fell, and that Roland was gone when the worst moment came, too busy trying to fulfill the commands of his Ascendant.”

Psycho-Cartography: Don't let her keep echoing you. You feel it. You are slowly being persuaded to like her. The anger you feel towards her, the mistrust, it's practically flattened. After this, there will come affection and finally subservience. She isn't your friend. She isn't your friend. Remember that. Use your Psychomancy to enforce that feeling. She isn't your friend.

And just like that, it felt like a waterfall of coldness crashed down upon Shiv. He sobered, and with that soberness came an overdue hatred. Veronica's left eyebrow rose, and then a smirk followed right after.

Farsight 71 > 72

"You goddamn piece of shit," he hissed at her.

"Oh good, you managed to feel it. Not just a brute, are you, boy?"

Shiv flexed his hands, and the manacles crackled with mana. The Orichalcum began to creak and groan. "Oh, I am a brute. I'm also plenty of other things, too. Don't do that again."

"No, no, I think I will. I think I'll keep doing that until you get a little bit better, or until you fold and break. Raw iron needs to be shaped.”

“I am not iron. I’m a fucking person.” Shiv's nostrils flared.

Veronica simply rolled her eyes in response. "Come on, Shiv, we're Pathbearers. Struggling, prevailing, or falling to another is who we are. It's what we do."

Shiv stopped himself from diving at Veronica and trying to cave her skull in using his manacles, albeit barely. But she was right about one thing. This was the way of the world. People were going to keep trying to bend his mind and his character to their will. It wasn't just toughness and magical resistance he had to worry about anymore. His heart needed to be a fortress as well.

And so Shiv used his Psychomancy to scar a few things into himself. He wasn't that versed yet, and his training sessions with Uva numbered only a scant few times due to all the constant conflict they found themselves embroiled in. But among those scant few times, he learned the very basics of Psychomancy: if you want to control someone else's mind, you need to master your own first. So he reached back just a few minutes ago, before he arrived in the room, before Veronica began twisting his emotions. 

He found lingering traces of paranoia in his mind, and he dragged it across his memories. He used it to scar himself. His anxiety spiked unnaturally, and Shiv hated the sensation. It was like he was going into battle constantly, yet the battle never began. But he needed it. He needed to always remain alert when he was talking to Veronica. More than that, he carved a piece out of his current anger, and he created a cage around his consciousness. Every second, there was always a residual fury building inside of him.

As long as he focused, the anger would be there. It was like inflammation, like an allergy. And he connected that feeling of anger to Veronica's presence. He stared at her, a fire in his gut churned, and every fiber of his being screamed for bloodshed.

Psychomancy 28 > 30

Psycho-Cartography 82 > 85

"Yeah," Shiv said. "I suppose it is. But you best mind how much you try to influence me. Might not end so well for you.” He infused his Silver Tongue with Dread-Taint, and watched as Veronica’s pupils dilated.

"Huh. So that’s why Daughter’s so terrified of you…” She shook her head, and let out a quiet laugh. “Remarkable. A boy cowing a god. Well. Are you ready to continue, then?" Veronica asked, shaking off the dread.

"Yeah. Where were we?"

"Roland Arrow. Submission. And this is where we lead into Udraal. See, Udraal is motivated by one thing. Do you know what it is?"

"Death," Shiv replied. "He wants to pull people back from being dead. He wants to use me as an incubator for his mother," and Shiv hesitated before he revealed the next bit of information to Veronica. "He wants me to bring back the Great One."

Suddenly, the Legendary Councilwoman's demeanor shifted. Shiv caught a slight tightness in her jaw.

"You didn't know about that," Shiv said. Now it was his turn to grin. He taunted her with a glare, but Veronica composed herself.

"No, I didn't. It's mad. It's audacious. I think it's impossible, which means that it is the most Udraal plot I can think of." She breathed and wrinkled her nose as she looked off to the side. "How disturbing. He intends to do the same thing with his mother, doesn't he?"

"Yeah," Shiv said. "Not only her, though. Supposedly, I was supposed to bring Adam's sister back into the world."

"And his mother," Veronica said. She fell silent, and then nodded. "I see. Rose Van Erren… Hawgrave and Stormhalt mentioned her. Gods, boy. You have any idea how valuable you are?"

"Ten legendary skills. Worth a bit in market terms," Shiv said dryly.

"No, no, no," Veronica snorted. Her body flared with Dimensionality, and she was suddenly beside him once more. Her transition was instant, and a wave of pressure slammed into the Deathless. He shifted half a step back before he used his tides to blunt her arrival. The chandelier above shook. The fairies clinging to its tips giggled and swirled amidst the minor tempest erupting between the Councilwoman and the Deathless. And when that cleared, Shiv found Veronica staring at him, eye to eye.

"That is not your value," she said, utterly serious. "That is the system not knowing what to do with you. I'm certain of that now. It's trying to get rid of you because you're breaking its architecture. You are a threat to Strife itself. After all, if people can just come back from being dead, then the weight and value of their deaths is diminished. The poignancy is diminished.”

Which means that Strife is diminished," Shiv said.

"Exactly. The fact is that you did bring back Rose Van Erenn, which means you can do that for any number of people." And suddenly, Veronica's stare softened and became calculating, plotting. "Far more than ten Legendary Skills. That's just a thing of power. We have plenty of power in the Republic. What we need is something else. Something not even the gods can provide. But then that also means the Great One can be resurrected as well. At least theoretically." The legendary councilwoman puffed. "Ah, this is troubling. But it also might present an opportunity."

Scorn flowed through Shiv with every heartbeat. As long as he continued looking at Veronica, the feeling of animosity didn't fade. But he also studied her, observed her demeanor and how she reacted. The disquieting thing was that she remained controlled, composed. She was right. Some of the Ascendants were unstable. Shiv remembered facing Catherine, Daughter, even Cripple. But not Veronica. No, she wasn't nearly as powerful as a god, but there it was, that cruel wisdom that governed all her actions and reactions.

"How does it work?" Veronica asked.

"How does what work? Me resurrecting someone else? No idea."

"How did you manage to embed Rose inside one of your skills? And which one?" Veronica asked.

Shiv considered telling her, but kept his mouth shut as he found a new angle to exploit. "You want to know? I want to know something else. Why'd you call my mom a whore earlier?"

"Because that's what she was. For a long time," Veronica said flatly. "A literal whore. It’s the reason you exist at all.”

“Listen, Veronica: Listen to me very carefully—Fuck her for what she did, but also, fuck you.”

"Oh, don't be that way. Most of us are born from literal whores. Most Pathbearers are literal whores. What do you think happens in a society not governed by rule of law, but by self-interest and desperate scarcity? Man, woman, elf, automaton, goblin, human, everyone is exploited to some extent." A near snarl of anger left Veronica, and Shiv could tell she was genuinely outraged. She didn't seem to hate his mother for being a whore, though she definitely hated his mother. 

She seemed to hate the concept of there being whores at all. "The Republic is many things, Shiv. You've seen the ugliest sides. You've seen what our Inquisition does to maintain the peace. But I'm telling you, before the Republic, everything was misery. For the destiny of anarchy is not absolute freedom, but a fated monopoly when someone or some group finally gains a threshold of power. Following that, it is entropy as they gradually lose that power after a long period, after mistakes build and the system they made breaks down."

"But my mother didn't grow up in an anarchy," Shiv said. "She grew up in the Republic."

"She grew up poor in the Republic," Veronica snapped. "She grew up barely a citizen. As such, she was barely a person. The fact that people like her still exist is a fucking humiliation. The fact we’re still clinging to this ridiculous nobility system makes me want to end the nation myself. All that we have struggled for, and we’re still, but savages compared to our ancestors of the Pre-Integration" Veronica grew quiet, and her fury settled. "I have many things against Roland Arrow, but he is a good man in his bones. Despite all the terrible things he's been forced to do, that is not his nature. Which is why you have not suffered extreme indignity in your childhood. You are no whore, Shiv.”

She's right, Shiv twitched. "What do you even know about my childhood?"

"By now, enough," Veronica said, looking him up and down. "Enough to know that no one has used you as a thing. They might have alienated you. They might have hurt you. They might have mocked you. But they did not use you as a thing."

A beat of awkward silence followed, and Shiv risked the question. "Did someone use you as a thing?"

Instead of responding with fury or sorrow, Veronica just laughed. She tutted and shook her head. "No, no, boy, I'm on the other side of the equation in your mind. I'm the user. I've always been the user. My grandmother made sure I was so. It is… something I am forever grateful to her for.”

"And is that because she was used?" Shiv asked.

"Probably," Veronica admitted casually. "But that's the thing. I'm an outlier, and so are you. People say trauma makes us stronger, scars make us harder. But I disagree. Conditioning, training, the right lessons make us powerful. But the wrong kinds of wounds, that leaves you in pain for a long, long time. And it misshapes your soul. It misshaped your mother's soul. Perhaps she was already misshapen, but whatever she experienced didn't help."

Veronica waved her hand, and she teleported a glass cup into being. It was filled with red wine, and she gulped it down.

"Sanguine Noir," Shiv recognized.

"Oh, you know your wines."

"Somewhat," Shiv said. "They're part of the set list Georges used to have. I was mostly focused on the menu items, but I picked up the wines after a time. Comes naturally eventually.”

"Ah, yes. Georges, a great and rebellious chef. There's another person who's been used and cast aside."

Shiv's fist tightened inside his manacles. "Explain."

"No, I won’t," Veronica stared at him. "Just like you didn’t explain which skill Rose Van Erren was nested inside prior to her resurrection. So, let's move on to your parents and Udraal instead. But to do that, we need to start with someone else. Roland had always been a great talent, though his parents weren't anything spectacular other than winning some honors and being promoted to minor nobility. After drawing the Starhawk's attention, their boy was a monster." She pressed her lips together and aimed her next words directly at Shiv's heart. "Frankly, he's a bit like you."

Shiv grunted with displeasure. "Really? You're going to say that to my face?"

"I'm going to say anything I think is the truth. Because it is. Of course, he was a lot more precise than you are. Probably wiser in terms of strategy and tactics. Far more aware. Much nicer." With every passing compliment she offered Roland, Shiv's eyes narrowed in annoyance. "But he's also not nearly as hearty. Doesn't like fighting the same way you do. And he isn't calculating and controlled where it counts."

"Where does it count?" Shiv said.

"The part where you're more like me than your mother. The part where you like to hold your own leash, rather than letting someone else pull you around." The Legend Councilwoman smirked. But this time it was a deliberate action. It faded immediately, and she pointed at his face. "Psycho-Cartography. Just like I guessed earlier. You're mirroring my actions slightly. The skill's got its hooks in you deep. Tell me, does it talk to you as well?"

Psycho-Cartography: Be very careful what you say from here on out. I might be compromised as well.

"Yeah," Shiv admitted. "Yeah, it does. It's probably half the reason why I haven't done anything too stupid lately."

"Right. Your mother lacked that skill, but she made up for it after a lifetime of pragmatism. Your father was a talented Pathbearer, but there are plenty of talented warriors who water the ground and feed the worms." Veronica paused, and her gaze went distant once more. "Pity. I really wish he could have picked up the guitar rather than the hammer and the shield. He was far better a musician than a vanguard. But ultimately, it doesn't matter what I want. The heart bends along its own path."

"You know something, Veronica?" Shiv said again. "I think you're full of shit."

Veronica nodded but gestured for him to continue on.

"You talk a lot about futility, but you're a Legend. You're a Legendary-Tier Pathbearer. You're a councilwoman. You push responsibilities away, personal responsibilities, things that make you feel uncomfortable. And then you take on the burdens of the Ascendants and an entire nation. I think you're just afraid of being weak."

Silver Tongue 39 > 47

Psycho-Cartography 85 > 90

And for the first time, Veronica Chandler bled in front of Shiv. A trickle of blood ran down her nose, and another current followed from the corner of her eye. Shiv took a step back, surprised by the development. He wasn't sure what was happening. But then Veronica gave a chirping laugh.

"That was a good shot, boy. You probably have a good chance of developing a cutting Rhetoric Skill as well. What do you have right now? Silver Tongue?"

"Yeah," Shiv said, "something like that."

"Well, keep working at it. And feed your Psychomancy as much as you can. I told you before, it is your shield. It's going to continue to be your shield. No matter if you're your own man or if one of us finally manages to get our leash around your neck. Regardless, you're right. That is my flaw. I don’t like being so human. But it doesn't change the facts. Your father's flaw was that he felt weak. I placed him in a good orphanage. I ensured that many a good term came his way. He had choices. Opportunities to pursue other talents. Opportunities that would have ensured a kinder life, a safer life."

"But he didn't want that," Shiv said.

"No. He probably wanted the same things every martial path-bearer wants. The delusion of self-control. That he was the master of his own fate. It's probably what drew him to Roland Arrow, to your mother, to Rose Van Erenn. Like-minded people who accepted him. Who fed that empty hole inside his chest. And he became their burden as well. They all outpaced him towards the end. He was talented, but ultimately, talent is a spectrum. And we all hit a bottleneck at some point."

"All of us? I don’t know what you’re talking about. What's that like?" Shiv asked.

Veronica closed her eyes and let out a breath. "Your father would have hated you. Your mother, well, you were probably the kind of idealized Pathbearer she wished she was. And that was the entire reason you came to be at all, you see. Jealousy. As the Starhawk used Roland Arrow and Rose Van Erenn for part of his plans, Udraal caught sight of them. And he discovered what Matthew intended."

"I'm missing a few pieces here," Shiv said.

"Wait a moment," Veronica replied. "I'm going to illustrate who your parents were as people, so that you know what kind of foolishness drove them to conceive you." Veronica paused. "The Starhawk wanted to create a subversive vessel. Now. I ask you, how do you avoid becoming a caricature as a skill? How do you maintain stolen godhood with regard to the Great One without losing yourself? Hm?”

“I don’t know,” Shiv said.

“Think. Don’t just ask. Think.”

And he did. Shiv thought hard about what Veronica was saying, and slowly, a startling guess came to him. “You said the skill… It reduced someone down to their most essential traits.”

“Yes,” Veronica nodded.

“And that caused them to lose themselves over time. Stop being people, and just turn out to be…” Shiv paused. “So, if someone was skill-bound to the Great One to begin with, if they had no history or personality before.”

Veronica’s grin was wide and pearly white. “Oh, yes. That’s right, boy. Follow the logic. The Starhawk had a phylactery prepared during the Eclipse War. But that wasn’t to free the others. No. That was far later. At first, he deigned to make his own hidden, subversive god. But one that would grow and develop perfectly. Because she would be born as a skill. Born as a False God. Born to the Starhawk’s rightful servants: Roland Arrow and Rose Van Erren.”

“Holy shit,” Shiv breathed.

"Oh, Adam is very, very special, as was his sister. But ultimately, that didn't come to be. For you see, the skills ingrained within Rose during the conception of her children were compromised. They were compromised because of Udraal's own plan, tainting the phylactery they brought. And, also, there was another child conceived during the process.”

Shiv felt his throat go dry. Veronica pressed on. Divinity burns inside of you, Deathless. But it is not the kind of divinity that makes one a god. No, it is a corrupted kind. A fragmentation of the system's purest mana." A dark expression settled over Veronica. "You were conceived around the same time Adam's sister was. The arrangement made then was done by Udraal because your mother was tired. Tired of being second fiddle. Tired of being weaker than Roland and his beloved. And when Udraal came to make an offer, she took it. Not knowing it would cause the death of her consciousness to see her replaced.”

“Replaced.” Shiv’s words were little more than whispers by this point.

A pitiful expression settled upon Veronica. "Who do you know that wears bodies like clothes? Hm? Who struck the deal with her.”

“Oh… Oh, fuck,” Shiv breathed.

“Udraal hollowed your mother out. He wore her as a vessel. You were not conceived by your mother when the time came to ruin the Starhawk’s great plot. You were conceived by Udraal. And your father didn't know. Not until the very end. And by that point, when the revelation came, it struck him harder than any hammer blow. And his mind, it shattered. Vera was dead—a whore to power, whoring her body and soul literally, to the one person she shouldn’t have.”

Nausea began to overtake Shiv. He wanted to throw up. He wanted to find Udraal to kill him. The wrongness of his birth had grown, magnified by several times over. He tried to speak but clamped his jaw shut as bile nearly erupted out. "Fuck!" Shiv grunted.

Veronica stood beside him and rubbed him on his left shoulder. "I know. I'm sorry. I know. Of all the things I wish to inflict upon you, of all the things that I will, I don't have it in me to do this. That's why I'm going to tell you to surrender to us. The Ascendants are not perfect, but at least there's a future. There's a future I'm fighting for. And if you're with us, then maybe we can crawl away from entropy. Maybe we can get back to the golden days. With Udraal, you will always just be a thing. He will always use you like he used your—well, he is technically your mother, isn’t he.”

Shiv stopped himself from throwing up. Barely.

The Legendary Councilwoman waited, and when he didn’t break, she kept going. “And once you are spent—and he will spend you—he's not going to let you hold on to that power. He's going to make more deathless. He's going to make himself deathless. He's going to ruin your entire existence just to see his experiment come to its desired fruition."

With every word came a blow, and Shiv felt his mind reeling, felt his body writhing and bending as if he was back in time, back when someone was driving a crystalline, hardened fist into his breaking bones. Blood flooded the Deathless's mouth, and he realized there was no difference between taking psychological damage and physical damage when speaking to Veronica. And judging from that dangerous glint in her eye, she was planning to use this on him for quite some time.

"Oh, oh, you didn't know at all, boy. Your mother, this is why she was the whore. She's the whore of the highest order because she sold away her soul just for that faint hope, that crippling little desire to outdo Roland Arrow just once, for her blood to mean something. Your father, he didn't even understand, but he went along with it. And when you were made, you were made from atrocity. In the end, your father didn't have a chance. The Starhawk couldn't see it coming. And Roland… his heartbreak wasn't even something worth mentioning. Their fates were sealed when He Who Walks Beyond realized what they were doing."

Psycho-Cartography: Gods, just gods. Why… Why is the system like this? She... she could be lying. She... no, she's not. She's not. You can read it in her voice, she’s not…

The acceptance of the vile truth hit Shiv like a bomb to the gut. He fell to his knees, and blood dribbled out from his mouth. Cripple reached down to pick him back up, but Veronica held up a hand. Slowly, the Deathless lifted his gaze, and he met his grandmother in a fierce glare. He spat what remained of the bloody mess choking his lungs and painting his teeth at her feet. Things inside him were broken. Things inside his mind felt raw, like someone had used an abrasive stone to scrape his brain until it was a festering wound. 

But despite all this, he fought back against it all. He forced himself to stand, even though he wanted to stay kneeling there, broken and wailing on the inside. He couldn't afford that. His past might be a nightmare, but there was still the future he had to fight for. If not for him, then for Adam, Uva, Valor, everyone else. He wasn't alone. He had more responsibilities than his own feelings.

And frankly… Fuck… Fuck whatever happened to make me. I am my own man. I am my own man. I am my own—

“That’s right, my boy,” Veronica breathed. “Be the pillar. I see you now. You’re like me. So very much like me.”

As he got to his feet once more, Veronica wore an expression of surprise and naked pride. "Oh well, how was that?"

Shiv grunted, and then he slammed his forehead into her face. A loud crunch filled the air. Veronica flashed red-gold and silver, but a trickle of blood running down her nose became a rapid flood thereafter. Despite this, she took no steps back. She betrayed no hint of pain. And in that moment, he felt more kinship with her than at any second prior.

“Veronica,” Shiv growled.

“Yes?”

"Fuck you and fuck Udraal," Shiv snarled. “I told you to keep your words away from my mind.”

Veronica teleported a handkerchief into her hand, and she began to clean her face up. "Well, at least you got all that anger out. So now you know the whole sordid affair with your family and the pitiful emotions that drove them. I'm going to have you make a choice."

"No, fuck that," Shiv interrupted her. He pulled hard on his manacles. The overflow tides he'd been cultivating slammed into the Orichalcum, and it started screaming. The magical spells holding his mana at bay rattled and flared, but came apart as if a rope being pulled by two titans. A rattling sound filled the chamber as the manacles broke apart in a burst of red-gold shrapnel. It splashed into Veronica's dimensional armor, and still, she took no steps back. She waited for him to strike her, but he stood there with both fists balled, trying to control himself.

"Fuck that. I'm not playing with either of you. I don't care what he did right now. I'm getting out of this prison. I'm not going to be led around by some dog of the Republic. I'm not going to let you break my mind, let you make up whatever excuse you want, and go along with your fucked up plans. I'm going to offer you a deal instead."

Veronica's eyes widened. "Oh, me? Now this is a surprising turn of events." She briefly eyed Cripple. "Quite the scheme you two have concocted."

"I had no part in this," Cripple said, though he wasn't particularly good at lying.

Veronica waved him off again, not caring about the Ascendant's deception. "That's fine. We all lie. We all have our own interests. Tell me what you want. Try to sell me on it."

"I'm giving you a way in," Shiv said. "A way to stay connected to me. You can try stopping me right now, but there is nothing stopping me from leaving this room."

"Well, aside from me," Veronica said, sounding slightly offended.

"You're powerful, Councilwoman. But no. I’ll leave whenever I want. Hear that truth in my voice now, so listen close. I want Cripple to leave one of his avatars with me. That avatar will follow me. That avatar will make sure I don't damage your precious republic any more than I have to keep myself safe."

Veronica frowned. "So far, it sounds mostly beneficial to you. You gain a bodyguard."

"Not a bodyguard. A preventative measure." Veronica's eyes darted about. "Against Udraal."

"Yeah, because I know how powerful he is. And you do too, probably more than I. So, if he tries to make a move on me, or he tries to force me to do something, Cripple's avatar will activate, and he will give you our position, so that we can bring the full might of the Republic against him."

"Of course, of course," Veronica said, her voice trailing off. "And you're using Udraal against us the same way. Very, very clever. A balance of power, with you in the middle. I should call you Fulcrum, instead of Deathless. Are you sure you've never been trained in politics or espionage?"

"No," Shiv said. "Technically, I'm still mostly just a chef."

Veronica laughed. "Well, I have an additional condition." She walked back over to her stone table and picked up a tome there. As she returned, she handed it out to Shiv.

"What's this?" he said.

"This is a sync-letter. I'm sure you've encountered one, considering your dealings with the Inquisition."

Shiv had. He recovered a sync letter from Master-Advisor Oldsmith. That was how Adam fooled the Inquisition into attacking Gate Theborn. It was also how they knew the Inquisition was coming in the first place. "So what? You want to be my pen pal right now?" Shiv asked.

"No. I wish to train you," Veronica said.

Shiv paused. "Okay. First off, fuck no."

Then something clapped him across the side of his face. The Deathless flinched, and his right ear was ringing. He shook his head and glared at his grandmother. The anger inside him coiled back like a serpent and threatened to snap. But then she spoke once more, and the fire inside his gut was blunted.

"Did you even see me hit you?"

Shiv paused. He didn't answer, but that was answer enough.

"Exactly. You're a Legend, I suppose. But you're a Legend who got there because the system is forcing you. The system is confused about you. You’ve been fed far more power than experience, and you need a proper hand to guide you.”

Shiv scoffed. “I already have some.”

“You speak of Valor Thann? Or the broken fragments that remain of him?”

“Better a shadow of a Legend than one that wishes to keep me under her heel.”

Veronica snorted. “Fine. Resist now. But hold on to the sync-letter. In time, you’ll come to seek me. Trust me, boy, you need more power. You need more everything. And Udraal, he's going to give you certain things. He's going to open certain doors for you, but he doesn't care about your advancement in that way. He just wants you to be a proper experiment. He wants to use you. I want to use you. But the way I will use you is to make you the best instrument of the Republic as possible."

"And I'm not going to be an instrument," Shiv shot back. “For anyone.”

"You don't want to be an instrument," Veronica corrected. "But whether you are, remains to be seen. We're going to start with rhetoric with you. And also philosophy, theory, everything Roland neglected to train you in, actually."

The whiplash Shiv felt was immeasurable. "You batter me with your words? You nearly make me throw up by revealing Udraal is my mom? And now you want to train me? Felling really?”

"Of course. Well, one of many people wants to train you. And as for your little plot, I'm assuming you're going for the mana core right after this. I need you to avoid killing my wardens if you can. You were gentle before. I'm going to ask you to stay gentle now. If you do manage to break out, I will focus on containing the other prisoners. You will have an opening to escape from the Republic. But I advise you against returning to Blackedge. We have a detachment placed there. They will see you coming. Your teleportation will be intercepted, and you will likely be recaptured in short order."

"Udraal is going there too," Shiv said.

"Ah, well, that changes things. The detachment will be killed to the last man, the Ascendants will spawn in, and the chaos will continue. You have somewhere else to hide?"

Shiv didn't say.

"Oh, Gate Theborn. Very well. And is the gate populated by dignitaries from the Abyss?"

Shiv didn't reply to that either.

"Well, good. That can be used to your advantage. The Ascendants are many things, but willing to start a fight with the Five Faiths is not one of them. Especially not now when the North and the South are closing in."

"What do you mean by that?" Shiv asked.

"Please, boy, we're not the only surface nation. And after the Tarrasque went on a bit of a rampage through our territory, it makes us look vulnerable and weak. Now, we diverted it to the Southland, where the Feathered One and the other gods of sacrifice have to deal with our issue. But the Jutun of the north are still coming, and the Southerners will come seeking war once they push the Tarrasque out of their own territory. We’re about to have a chaotic period again.”

Shiv just stared at the legendary Councilwoman. "Is everyone a godsdamn mess in this world?"

"By 'everyone,' do you mean nations? If so, then yes. Because there is no such thing as 'everyone'. There is an infinite amount of 'I', as in countless individual path-bearers who are vaguely aligned or share similar communities and interests. The act of politics is arranging them, herding them, treating them like sheep while you are a shepherd. But then again, you are a sheep pretending to be a shepherd because you number among the 'I'. You understand?"

Shiv blinked. "I don't think I fully do."

"Good. You're perfectly naive and ripe to be cynical and refined. I look forward to breaking your heart, perhaps quite literally. Now, get out of my office, get on with this little rebellion you've planned, and keep me informed about how it all falls apart. This might work out for me better than I expected…”

"So what, no counter-offer? You're just gonna take my demands?"

Veronica let out a breath and adopted a pitying look. "You're desperate, and I want my own way in to the great game. Especially without my grandmother mucking things up even more. I am going to use you to the best of my ability. And right now, that's not keeping you in a lab of some kind. Letting Udraal deal with keeping you safe from the world, while I focus on undermining him at every angle."

Shiv was utterly speechless. "Wait, so you're going to use him to do what you couldn't for me?"

"It's not a triangle we have here," Veronica replied. "It's more like a set of lines that break dimensional boundaries. There are things he's going to use us for. There are things we're going to use him for. There are things you're going to use both of us against each other for. And the other way applies as well. Oh, and Shiv," Veronica said, "do be wary. You're going to be running into Enoch's new avatar soon." She drew a long breath and steeled herself for the next request. "The one called Rebis. I want you to kill him. As a punishment for Enoch. Consider that my condition for going along with this silly little scheme.”