Chương 126: She Who Did Not Rise

Morvessa learned of Drakhar's death three hours after Voragna's. That was far too fast for her taste. Not because she liked Voragna. She did not. Not because she respected Drakhar. She found him loud. But two Demon Generals dead in so little time meant one very unpleasant thing. The world was going to demand attention. Morvessa opened one eye. Around her, the Drowsing of Thaal slept poorly. Ash marshes stretched beneath a heavy mist. Silent palaces leaned over gray waters.

Administrative roads vanished into black reeds. Towers of records, as tall as dead cathedrals, had been sinking slowly into the ground for centuries without anyone deciding it was worth straightening them. Her domain did not live. It persisted. That was more reliable. Morvessa lay upon a throne too large for her, in a hall whose curtains had not been opened in thirty-seven years. Her pale skin seemed almost translucent. Her long, fine horns looked like dry branches.

Around her, servants waited without moving, because they knew that causing unnecessary motion in this room could cost them an entire week of slow administrative agony. A messenger, kneeling before her since morning, was trembling. Not with impatience. With exhaustion. Morvessa finally looked at him.

"Repeat it. Slowly." The messenger swallowed.

"Voragna is dead."

"I heard that. The irritating part."

"Drakhar as well." Morvessa almost closed her eye. Almost. Then she sighed. The mist in the entire chamber grew heavier. The messenger sagged farther toward the floor, as though his own body had suddenly remembered how tiring it was to remain assembled.

"What a vulgar age," she murmured. An advisor stepped forward carefully. He was old, dry, dressed in a robe covered in dusty seals.

"Lady Morvessa, the succession has now entered an active phase. If two Generals have fallen, then the human candidate can no longer be treated as a passing anomaly."

"I hate active phases."

"Yes, my Lady."

"They involve meetings."

"Probably, my Lady."

"Roads to close."

"Yes, my Lady."

"Armies to raise."

"Perhaps, my Lady." Morvessa slowly turned her head toward him. The advisor paled.

"Perhaps?"

"With your permission, it would be prudent to mobilize at least the mist legions." She looked at him. For a long time. Long enough for the man to regret using the word mobilize in a room where there were still pieces of furniture capable of hearing it.

"The mist legions are quite comfortable where they are."

"My Lady, if Zayn Veylor crosses Thaal—""He will not cross Thaal."

"How can you be certain?" Morvessa closed her eyes. The hall grew colder.

"Because I am going to explain to him that coming here would be profoundly boring." The advisor hesitated.

"You wish to negotiate?" She opened her eyes again.

"No. Negotiating requires answering afterward." Another servant, younger and therefore still unhappy enough to believe in urgency, dared to speak.

"But my Lady, if the Black Throne has sensed him, then he could become Demon King. If he takes the Throne, your domain will have to acknowledge his authority." Morvessa remained silent. Then she asked, "And if I fight him?" The servant raised his eyes. Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

"You could stop him from reaching the Throne."

"Or he could force me to stand up." No one answered. That was clearly the worst possible outcome. Morvessa placed a pale hand upon the arm of her throne. Stone turned to dust beneath her fingers.

"Voragna wanted to know what he would become by eating. She died. Drakhar wanted to know whether he could scream loudly enough. He died. Cassiel will want to put a price on him. Seryth will want to steal a reflection from him. Lyséa will want to look at him as though looking were a strategy. Vaelthor will want to be offended by his existence." She sighed again.

"They all have very active flaws." The advisor asked softly, "And you, my Lady?" Morvessa looked at him. A faint smile appeared on her funeral face.

"I have the only flaw that always survives the others." The mist spread. In the gray waters of the marsh, thousands of sleeping silhouettes stirred without waking.

"I wait." The letter was written on a skin so thin that Elyra first thought she was holding a dead leaf. They had found it in the middle of the red road leaving Vhur, laid upon a stone, with no messenger, no visible seal, no obvious trap. Which made it more suspicious. Zayn stopped in front of it. The road to Ghelkar descended westward, between ash ravines and abandoned chains. Behind them, the Forges of Vhur still beat like a warrior's heart.

Ahead, the Comptoirs waited with their vaults, their black towers, and Cassiel. The letter, meanwhile, came from the southwest. From the marshes of Thaal. Lumeï emerged halfway from Elyra's cloak.

"I do not like this thing. It makes me want to sleep and apologize." Zayn lifted the letter.

"Finally, an original feeling." Elyra stepped closer.

"Don't open it with your right hand." He looked at her. She pointed to his marked palm.

"Avarice reacts to anything that resembles a taking. A demonic letter could be bait." Zayn smiled.

"You're becoming paranoid."

"I travel with you."

"Valid argument." He opened the letter with the tip of the scythe. The skin unfolded slowly. Very slowly. Slowly enough that the scythe growled.

"Even her paper is lazy." Gray words appeared. Elyra read them aloud.

"Zayn Veylor." The next line took several seconds to form.

"Voragna is dead. Drakhar as well. That is regrettable, mainly because everyone is now going to make noise." Zayn remained still. Elyra continued:"I am Morvessa of Thaal. I will not come to challenge you. I will not invite you. I will not send an army, unless one of my administrations shows initiative, in which case I will punish it for excessive energy." Lumeï blinked.

"I think I almost like her. That is worrying." Elyra went on:"Do what you want with the succession. Kill those who tire themselves trying to block your path. Take the Throne if you truly insist on sitting on something that attracts so much trouble." Zayn gave a soft laugh. The letter kept writing itself beneath their eyes.

"But do not come to Thaal. Do not wake my marshes. Do not burn my records. Do not force me to rise." The final words appeared darker.

"If you touch my domain, I will show you that Sloth is not the absence of violence. It is violence that has understood it can wait for your own body to surrender in its place." The letter folded itself shut. Then fell into dust. Elyra remained silent. Zayn looked at the dust on the road.

"She won't fight."

"Unless you go to her."

"For now, I have nothing to take back there." The scythe murmured, "A shame. I would have liked to see a swamp die of boredom." Elyra studied Zayn.

"You're really going to ignore her?" He resumed walking west.

"For now."

"That's reasonable."

"Don't say it too loudly. It might pass." Elyra followed. And yet she could not stop herself from looking back one last time toward the southwest. Morvessa had not bowed. She had not fled. She had simply decided that Zayn was not yet reason enough to make the effort of existing more than she already did. In a way, that was almost more unsettling than a challenge. In Thaal, Morvessa felt the letter die. She closed her eyes again.

"He read it." The advisor bowed his head.

"What do we do now, my Lady?"

"Nothing."

"For how long?" Morvessa sank deeper into her throne.

"Until doing nothing becomes more tiring than doing something." The advisor paled slightly.

"And if Vaelthor wins?"

"Then he will want to reorganize my domain. I already hate the idea."

"And if Cassiel wins?"

"He will try to charge for sleep."

"And if Seryth wins?"

"She will put mirrors in the marshes. Very rude."

"And if Lyséa wins?" Morvessa was silent for a second.

"She will smile too much." The advisor hesitated. Then finally asked, "And if Zayn wins?" Morvessa opened one eye. In the depths of her pale pupil, something very old passed through. Not fear. A slow, incomplete recognition, almost forgotten.

"Then the world will begin speaking again of a pain it never had the courage to let die." The advisor did not understand. Morvessa closed her eye.

"Wake me only if he comes within a day's march."

"Yes, my Lady."

"Or if Vaelthor descends from his towers." The advisor froze.

"You think he will?" Morvessa did not answer immediately. Very far to the northeast, the white citadels of Ivoryn seemed almost visible through the world's fatigue.

"Vaelthor will not endure for long a being from below making the entire continent raise its eyes." She sighed.

"Pride has always been the easiest thing to wake. That is why it believes itself noble." Then Morvessa stopped speaking. The room understood that the audience was over. Several servants backed away in silence. The messenger who had brought news of Drakhar remained kneeling too long. A secretary approached him. He had been dead from exhaustion for ten minutes. No one thought it worth moving him immediately. In Thaal, even corpses waited their turn.

The road to Ghelkar was shorter from Vhur than from Voragna's lands, but it was more dangerous. Not because it hid monsters. Because it hid almost none. A demon territory left empty always meant that some power had already decided who was allowed to pass through it. The first sign of Cassiel came at sunset. A black-gold coin was planted in the middle of the road. Zayn stopped in front of it. Elyra sighed.

"Him again."

"Yes."

"Do not pick it up." Zayn glanced at her. She crossed her arms.

"I know you well enough now to say that before your hand moves." The scythe snickered.

"She's improving." Zayn observed the coin. It bore no face. Only an open vault chamber. Empty. He smiled.

"That's not an offer." Elyra frowned.

"Then what?" He looked westward. On the distant cliffs, something gleamed. Hanging vaults. Chains. Black towers. Ghelkar.

"A provocation." The coin split on its own. A voice emerged from it. Not loud. But clear. Cassiel.

"Two Generals dead, a new Downfall, a trophy of Vhur in your hand, and still that way of walking as if the world personally stole the ground from beneath you." Zayn placed the tip of the scythe on the coin.

"You sold Elvarin."

"I moved a value. Drakhar consumed it. Voragna had prepared it. Elvarin himself had made himself sellable long before I intervened." Zayn crushed the coin. It did not shatter completely. The voice continued, amused.

"But I understand. You did not come seeking nuance."

"No."

"Then come to the Vault District. Not to the House of Unnamed Claims. Not to the docks. Not to the offices. You seem to have very little taste for rooms where people talk too much." Elyra murmured, "At last, someone understood that." The coin glowed.

"So come where I keep the things that must never be lost. You do not want to negotiate, Zayn Veylor. Very well. Come steal." Silence. Then the coin fell into dust. Zayn smiled. Elyra already felt that smile promised broken walls.

"It's a trap," she said.

"Yes."

"And this time he wants you to walk into his vault."

"Yes."

"So he has planned what you're going to do." Zayn resumed walking.

"No."

"No?"

"He planned that I would try to steal something from his vault." The scythe laughed softly. Elyra closed her eyes for a second.

"And you're going to do something else." Zayn looked at Ghelkar's hanging vaults in the distance. His right palm opened slightly. The mark of Avarice burned there like a black coin.

"I'm going to steal the vault." Lumeï whimpered.

"Why do his bad ideas keep getting bigger?" The scythe answered happily, "Because he's learning." Elyra watched Zayn walk toward Ghelkar, covered in blood, ash, and inner fire, carrying within him the remnants of Voragna and Drakhar. She thought of Morvessa, who had chosen not to move. Then of Cassiel, who was inviting him into his vault. Then of Vaelthor, somewhere in the northeast, surely too proud to let this succession continue without him. And she understood that the demon kingdom had changed its nature.

At first, Zayn had crossed through their domains. Now, the domains were positioning themselves around him. The succession was no longer waiting for him at the Throne. It was walking with him.