Chương 88: Syl

The woman in front of her looked like she'd run straight out of the shower. Emerald-green hair spilled in damp waves over her shoulders, snagging around small horn-studs that pushed through above her temples like bits of polished river stone. Freckles dusted her skin in scattered constellations—some of them oddly heart-shaped—and the clothes she'd thrown on were a riot of colors that had no business working together as well as they did.

She'd rolled her pants above the knee, and the bare soles of her feet left dark, wet prints across the stone threshold. Vera smiled at her.

"Hi to you too, Syl."

"Mira told me to tell you to shut up, you've been gone for over two years," Syl shot back instantly like she'd been holding it ready, fire burning openly in her eyes—and then, a beat later, her voice dropped into something considerably softer.

"Hi, Vera. It's been too long." Vera barely had a moment to feel the whiplash before Syl's voice climbed again.

"NOW WHAT VAULTSPAT BUNK IS THIS ABOUT YOU HAVING A DAUGHTER?!" Vera's smile froze just slightly, but something warm and amused settled in her chest at the sheer familiarity of it. The Syl she knew had always been a bit hard to predict when it came to her personality. She could be exhausting at times, but right now it was just genuinely nice to see. The corners of Vera's mouth pulled up.

"You caught that, did you? Yeah, it's true. She's the cutest little gremlin you'll ever see."

"You already said that to Falko. I'm asking about details." Syl's eyes were wide and fixed on her.

"How old is she? Is that why you've been gone? Who's the father?" Vera's smile faltered slightly. An awkward breath left her, and she scratched the back of her head.

"Those are… kind of hard to answer. The situation's pretty complicated. And personal." Syl frowned. One of her eyes flickered with an almost ghostly light as Vera felt a thin sliver of Resonance push out from her and sweep the surrounding space. Then she looked past Vera to the others.

"You can leave." Falko hesitated.

"Mistress Sylven, about the Walk—""How was I supposed to continue a Walk when this madwoman shows up out of nowhere? I ended it early. It's fine. It didn't disrupt too much." She paused just briefly.

"Though ask Erindael to find me later." He looked even more hesitant for another moment, but then dipped his head.

"Alright." He gestured to the others. All of them filed out. All of them except Moni. Vera glanced between their retreating backs and Syl.

"Erindael? Did you get hurt because you ended things early? Should I have waited?" Syl waved a hand.

"Barely. It's fine. It's not like you haven't done worse before, and this is more important." She turned to Moni.

"When I said leave, that meant you too." Moni had a completely unapologetic expression, like someone who'd just witnessed high-tier gossip that they intended to make full use of later.

"I promise I won't tell sis about this." Syl's frown deepened.

"Your promise doesn't mean much. She'll find out anyway, won't she?"

"Probably." Syl sighed, turning back to Vera.

"I'm sorry. There's nothing I can do about that." Vera looked between them, eyebrows raised.

"How exactly is Mira going to find out about this?" Syl's apology wasn't entirely surprising. Knowing Mira, Vera could think of plenty of things she might do with the information of her having a kid, and most of them were mildly threatening. But the way these two were talking, it didn't sound like either of them planned to tell the woman. It just sounded like they didn't expect that to matter. Moni shrugged.

"Sis just knows things." Vera squinted at her. That was ominous. If there was one person she didn't want casually 'knowing things,' it was Mira. Moni's eyes stayed on her a moment longer, interest still sitting bright in them. But after glancing at Syl one more time, she straightened.

"You said we'd talk later. I'm supposed to be clearing a Cinderback Ravager in Crestfall Rise tonight, but you can get me out of that, can't you? You said you were exploring the city with your daughter this evening. I'll join. See you then."

"Huh? Wait, that's not really what I—" A ripple of shadow swallowed Moni whole, and she vanished into the dark cast by a large stone pillar. Vera blinked. She hadn't actually lost track of her. Tracing the thread of Moni's Resonance, she could tell the girl had slipped through the shadow and come out just around the corner, up a short flight of stairs, where she'd apparently startled one of Falko's people. If Vera wanted to follow her, it would be laughably easy. But she got the sense it was better not to.

Catching up to her just to prove a point would probably embarrass the girl more than anything else, and that wasn't what she wanted. Besides, it was true that she'd asked to speak with her. And given the faint trace of the Graven Daughter she'd caught in Moni's Resonance, there were things worth asking about—things that had to do with Serel. Vera glanced back at Syl.

"…Do I have the authority to give her the night off?"

"You don't," Syl said.

"Oh."

"But I'll allow it."

"Aww. How nice."

"Don't give me that." Syl grabbed Vera's wrist and pulled her through the doorway with enough force that Vera was fairly certain anyone below the Tenth Binding would have had their arm dislocated from their shoulder. The doors swung shut behind them with a resonant boom. Compared to the dimmer corridors and stonework of the rest of the guildhall, Syl's quarters were like stepping through a portal into another realm entirely.

The floor was carpeted in soft blue-green grass that had no business growing this far underground, the walls replaced by the broad trunks of pale trees that pressed close and wound upward, while the ceiling consisted of clusters of tiny glittering lights scattered across a dark expanse like stars in the night sky. It was warm, luminous, and looked like something out of a nature documentary that had decided fairies were a reasonable addition.

Syl pulled her along toward a narrow stream that cut through the middle of the space, babbling over smooth stones. Vera's arms came up on an instinct she wasn't prepared for when Syl suddenly threw a straight kick at her out of nowhere, the impact causing her to stumble back onto a moss-covered boulder at the stream's edge. Meanwhile, Syl dropped onto a rock in the middle of the stream and sat there, feet and shins submerged, running a hand back through her damp hair.

Some of the fire from earlier had gone out of her face. An uncomfortable feeling settled quietly in Vera at how normal that whole thing had looked for her.

"You're an asshole, Vera," Syl said.

"I'm… sorry?"

"No, you're not." The woman looked at her steadily. Vera rubbed her cheek.

"Well, no. But I could work up to it, if I knew what I'd done wrong. Other than the disappearing for two years part." This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

"You don't think you need to be sorry for that?" Vera opened her mouth, then closed it.

"Yes and no?" she said after a while.

"I've already apologized for that more times than I really wanted to, so I don't feel like doing it again." Looking back, she'd probably been a bit too quick to be so subservient when she'd first met Elaria, mostly out of fear that the woman was going to try taking her head off. It had felt like the wisest move at the time, but she'd since learned that Elaria was more reasonable than that.

That said, she still felt she'd more or less hit her personal ceiling on being sorry for something that hadn't even really been her fault.

"I think there has to be some kind of statute of limitations on these things," she added.

"Or maybe you get a free pass after a while. Though it would've been easiest if I could've just sent a memo to everyone."

"Asshole," Syl said again.

"That's… fair?" The woman folded her arms across her chest.

"You don't even know what I'm angry about, do you?" Vera paused.

"…So it's not the disappearing?"

"It is that as well." Syl's eyes stayed on her, and something heavier passed over her face.

"I thought you were dead, Vera."

"Ah." Vera went quiet for a few seconds.

"I am sorry about that. Genuinely. But I didn't have much say in what happened." A silence settled between them, with only the stream filling it. Eventually, Syl exhaled.

"Still not what I'm angry about."

"It's not?" Vera gave her a questioning look.

"Then what is it?"

"It's been over a week since I heard you were back," Syl said.

"And I had to hear it through rumors."

"Oh." Now Vera understood.

"Was it that hard to send an Ashmark?" There was a sharpness in Syl's voice now.

"Just a quick one. A simple 'I'm fine. See you later. By the way, I have a daughter.'" Vera grimaced.

"I didn't really think about it."

"Sure you didn't. Now you're a liar and an asshole." Vera didn't argue back. Because it had been a lie. If she wanted to, she could have easily asked Vander or Elaria to get word to Last Hearth even without an Ashmark of her own. She had just… not done that. Deliberately. She'd wanted to push this a little further down the road. After all, she'd been afraid to confirm the very thing she'd just confirmed.

"Hey, Syl," she began.

"Did I ever tell you about the time I had to bail on my Blackspire 'Deep End' achievement run because I had a flare-up and knocked myself out for half a day on tramadol until Mira called me at five in the morning?" Syl stared at her, a puzzled crease forming between her brows.

"What? What are you talking about?" Vera smiled faintly.

"Never mind. Just rambling." There was no way Syl wouldn't have remembered. She'd been on a call with Vera when it happened. It's just that this Syl didn't know that. Vera had felt that was probably the case from how naturally the woman had acted earlier, pulling her in here, and from how she'd barely reacted to Vera mentioning a memo—like the word was just a random word, not something that didn't belong in this setting.

For a moment, with how familiar Syl had seemed at first, Vera had let herself think this might be the same person she'd talked to through the monitor now and then. That maybe Syl had gotten here earlier and had already figured out all of these things Vera was still working through. But no. This woman belonged to this world, through and through. And in her, she saw a person who wasn't quite the same as the current Vera. It was… disappointing. There was no other word to describe it.

Vera had probably been hoping for more here than she'd let herself admit, even knowing to expect this as a possibility. Did that mean Mireya and CinderCtrl and the others were the same? Or was there still a chance one of them was like her?

"Vera," Syl said. Vera pulled her gaze back from where it had drifted to the stream and the way the lights above scattered across its surface.

"Yeah?"

"Are you okay?" Vera's smile came back.

"Why wouldn't I be?" Syl studied her. She leaned back on her hands as her feet swayed idly in the water, but her gaze only sharpened.

"You're brooding." A short snort escaped Vera.

"I'm brooding?"

"Yes. You're a brooder." She shook her head slowly. It had been a while since anyone had said that to her. Her mother used to, sometimes, but never seriously. Her gaze drifted back to the stream.

"Mm, you might be right. I'm just being a bit maudlin, though."

"Maudlin? Are you drunk?"

"No, but maybe a tad too sentimental."

"How so?" Syl asked.

"How…?" Vera dragged the word out.

"You sure you want to hear it? It's probably more of a me problem."

"Would you talk to Mira about it?"

"Probably, yeah." She and Mira had talked each other through some pretty raw things across a lot of late nights.

"Then it's fine. Talk about it as much or as little as you want."

"Well, that's an awkward answer. Not sure how much to give with that."

"That's not anything new with you, Vera."

"I guess not." She supposed that, regardless of what version of 'Vera' she was, she wasn't particularly open about these things unless she had to be. She had come here prepared to interrogate the guild NPCs for information and see if there were any cracks—some hints at the seams between Ashen Legacy and this world—but she didn't really want to do that with Syl. Even if they hadn't been the closest in the guild, they'd still been friends, and this woman still felt like her friend. Vera let out a slow breath.

"I'll just go right out and say that my memory's a bit patchy. If you were hoping for a proper explanation of why I disappeared for two years, I can't really give you one. What I know is that I asked for House Hollow's help to be sealed away, and there's something wonky about all of it, but I'm still trying to fit the pieces together." Syl's expression shifted.

"So you've forgotten things?"

"That's right."

"Like what?" Vera gave her a flat look.

"You're seriously asking me what I've forgotten?" The woman paused, then a flush crept over her face, catching across her freckles.

"I mean—you must have some idea, don't you?" Vera watched her for a moment, then chuckled.

"Some, yeah. I've probably lost a lot of the finer details, but most of the bigger things are still there. What's confusing me most is what happened right before I disappeared. Do you know anything about that?"

"Do you mean after the Chainfather Ascendant was killed?"

"Yeah." A thoughtful look settled on Syl's face.

"I wasn't inside the Crucible of Echoes with you, so I don't know what happened in there. But I do remember you being just slightly... off after that. Nobody else seemed to bring it up. And then you disappeared not long after."

"Is that all you know?" Vera filed away the fact that Syl apparently hadn't been in the final raid with her, at least in this world's version of events. She wondered why. Had the woman's level in the game played a part? Syl hadn't grinded things nearly as much as Vera and a few of the others, being only level 243. Syl gave her an apologetic look.

"Yes. I'm sorry."

"No, it's fine," Vera said.

"Maybe some of the others who were in the Crucible with you would know more?" She shook her head.

"I've already talked with Elaria about it. She didn't seem to know anything either."

"Elaria?" Surprise crossed Syl's face.

"When?"

"Ehm… somewhat recently. We actually ran into each other in Marrowfen, believe it or not. She came to investigate things after I killed Veyrith."

"Wait, so it was true that a Silent Lord came back?"

"It was."

"That's… worrying."

"I mean, yeah. Duh. But do you mean for some reason beyond the obvious?" Syl nodded.

"Things have been getting more dangerous over the past year. There's of course The Silence Between, but it's been more than that too…" Vera turned that over quietly. She wondered if it had anything to do with what Veyrith and the Whisper-Matron had told her about the Slow Reckoning. This thing that was bringing the world closer to 'Truth.' She wanted to ask what Syl knew about that, but that was a whole other conversation, and there were things she needed to cover first.

"Elaria doesn't know what I did in the Crucible, and neither do you, but that doesn't mean the others won't," she said.

"Might as well track them down and ask. Do you know where everyone is? I heard Mira was somewhere in the Thryne Passes near Darnelle." Syl's expression fell.

"What is it?" Vera asked. The woman was quiet for a few seconds.

"Not all of us are still alive, Vera." Vera went still.

"... I see. Which ones?"

"Talandra, Kai, and Moss are all dead." Syl's eyes dropped to her feet, her toes trailing slow circles through the surface of the stream.

"We're still not entirely sure how it happened, but I found their bodies myself. Thorne and Strake are missing as well, and I haven't been able to find them. I don't know if…" She didn't finish. Their player tags moved through Vera's head, one after another, alongside the voices she'd known and argued and laughed with for years. Talandra Vey. IronBoundKai. MossAggro. Thorne. Strake. That was already half of their guild. Gone. People she might not even get the chance to meet in this world.

Something heavy settled over her shoulders.

"What about Nyx and Cin?" she asked. Syl just shook her head.

"I'm not sure where either of them are right now. Nyx, I think, has decided to go her own way—she doesn't want to be involved with us or anyone else anymore. Cinder was looking into what happened to Thorne and Strake, but I haven't heard from him in months. And Mira's in the Thryne Passes, like you said, but beyond that I can't tell you much."

"So you've basically been keeping this whole thing afloat by yourself." A humorless smile crossed the woman's lips.

"Someone had to, didn't they?" Vera was quiet for a moment, then lowered her gaze.

"... Yeah. I suppose someone did. Thank you." She'd never placed too much weight on Last Hearth as a guild, not really. To her, it had always been more about the game itself and the people she played it with. But sitting here now, she found herself sincerely glad that someone cared enough to keep this thing she had a hand in creating standing. Neither of them said anything for a while. The stream filled the silence.

Eventually it was broken by a loud sound, and when Vera looked up, she saw two spots of red high on Syl's cheeks where her hands had landed.

"They wouldn't have wanted us sitting here being all sad and dreary," she said, with a firmness that sounded like it was mostly aimed at herself.

"Especially not now that you're finally back. We should be focusing on the present." Vera watched her, then let a small smile form.

"Yeah. You're probably right."

"Good." Syl's eyes narrowed, and just like that, the fire was back in them.

"Then focusing on the present—tell me about this daughter you somehow got while you were gone." Vera held her gaze for another beat, and a sly thought slipped in at the edges of her smile.

"Actually, why don't I do you one better? How do you feel about meeting her in person? Oh, and my 'better half,' while we're at it."