There's no way for me to hurt you more than your life already did. I know about what you did to your brother and his family. I know it was because of jealousy. I know that you hate him and 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 the things inside you that are 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

192 (I)

Whores

"Before we begin, how much have Udraal and 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 finally said. "I know some generalities, and I guessed a few other things. I know that the Ascendants aren't actual gods. They somehow fused 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 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? I'm not trying to subvert your mind, if that's what you were thinking. 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? If 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 made from bones and lined with plush, red cushioning. At the top of the throne were numerous spikes carrying skulls upon their apex.

Their eyes burned with Necromantic energy as Veronica settled down, slouching in her seat as she regarded her wayward grandchild across the table. "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 she didn't consider such a thing a possibility. "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 law?"

"Some kind of law?" Veronica almost sneered. "You can say that. He broke the most fundamental 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, and that is the True God slumbering in its depths."

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

The 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 Veronica. "Year by year, the Ascendants forget more of who they were. They're becoming caricatures 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 know."

"Would know what? Know that the Ascendants weren't a gaggle of bastards and pawns? Because that would be a surprise."

Cripple turned 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."

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

Cripple sighed. "I am honored."

"No, Cripple really isn't," Veronica said on Cripple's behalf, "but you're right. 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 bucked. 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 held up 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, or 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, though 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 you will 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 said. "Sometimes we merely scream and debate. Other times, we get tired of that. Other contests transpire."

"Alright," Shiv muttered, trying not to think too hard about this. He tried really, really hard not to think about his 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. "I knew my own grandmother when she was still mortal. She was powerful to me, but... she had such taste as well. Deviant taste, such 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, the choice 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 fell 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 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 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 in the Odes, but it was more of an offensive spell, a particularly cruel one that even Ekkihurst himself 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 answered. "It is similar in a sense. My grandmother is no simpleton, nor does she forget everything, but she is a shadow. It's like watching someone you know get slowly 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 an entire person, no matter how hard someone has used that skill, no matter for how long. Well done, Tanner."

"Shiv."

"What?"

"Shiv is my name," he 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 said.

"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. But 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. "The Starhawk 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."

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