Chương 141: Chapter 102 - Ruminations

++Agrian, my brother, was always… a blindspot. I see that now. Retrospect has made it obvious. This blindspot of mine would cause a great many problems for me, but at the same time… I do not think I could have wished for a more valuable ally than the one it turned him into. ++ - From the writings of Isabel Vornholt, 'The Great Lich'. 1, 891 A. E. Agrian's spasms of violent, manly anger started to diminish fast as Isabel continued to be gone.

He tried his best to sustain them, to add fuel to the fire by thinking of all the circumstances and failures that had gone into her disappearance. It didn't work. When father was wronged, or imagined he'd been wronged, the rage came to him fast and his limbs thrashed out almost of their own volition, destruction followed. Agrian had been like that for seconds at best. He was emptied of the fury now, hollowed out and withering. And he felt weaker.

Like it had been what was animating him, the fire boiling steam to move the pistons of his brain. Now, sadness was all that remained. It crept over him like some predatory insect, limbs moving slowly, but surely covering every inch. He let it. Men didn't cry, Agrian had known that since he made the mistake of letting father see his tears about ten years back. But what did he care now? His sister was gone, almost certainly dead, and it didn't seem like there was any more to be lost.

Humiliation was nothing next to grief, so he let the tears fall and just sat there shivering in bitter misery and helplessness. He was alone in his room, so nobody actually saw. Still, Agrian got the impression of eyes on him. He always did. Even he couldn't sulk forever, though, circumstances simply didn't permit it. Shortly into his session Agrian was interrupted by a knock upon his door and shot up to stare at it in shock.

He spent several moments doing nothing but staring, and was snapped out of his reverie only when a second knock returned. That, at last, got him moving. He was half-tempted to just ignore the sound and continue sulking, but he didn't know who was on the other side of that door or what their business was. One did not simply ignore summons in the army, not unless one was fond of digging latrine pits. He took a while to wipe his tears and make himself look halfway-presentable, then answered it.

Agrian's decision to do so was vindicated in an instant, and his delay made to look all the stupider, because standing on the other side of the door, he saw the Demigod Aryqatan. His eyes hurt looking at her. She was tall and glowing, like usual, and the divine glare now was intense enough that, dark as it was, his eyes weren't accustomed to it. Agrian took an instinctive step back and fought not to do the terribly disrespectful thing of averting his gaze.

"Good evening," Aryqatan said smoothly, stepping past Agrian without another word, certainly not bothering to ask permission, and entering his commandeered apartment.

"You have picked out a good set of rooms for yourself," she noted idly. Agrian didn't like that. Didn't like being complimented for what was, he had recently decided, essentially no more than stealing ability. Someone had lost their home so he could squat in this one. And the other day, he'd gone into a rage and destroyed a bunch of their furniture. But ruminations like that were unpatriotic, and certainly not something he'd be sharing with an actual fucking Demigod when she was standing right before him.

"Thank you, your Divinity," he replied instead, not sure what else to say. If there was one good thing about speaking with the servants of the Gods, it was that all the formalities usually meant you had a response ready at any given part of the conversation. Aryqatan didn't seem like she would've noticed, regardless of what Agrian said, though. Her eyes seemed foggy and unfocused. He knew better than to ask about it, of course. A Demigod's innermost thoughts were no concern of his.

Besides, being made privy to them might make him explode, or something.

"You are probably assuming that my reasons for being here are not to make a social call," the Demigod continued.

"That would be correct. I'm here to ask you about what happened with your sister." Agrian wanted to puke. She didn't mean anything malicious by this, he knew. She was doing what she needed to. Getting information, learning what she could. Even still, the Demigod had just casually suggested dredging up the worst thing to ever happen to him. Apparently he didn't manage to keep the fear of it off his face. But to his surprise, when Aryqatan read it on him, her gaze softened.

"I'm sorry," she told him calmly.

"You have my condolences. To have lost your sister young as you are, barely into adulthood, is a terrible tragedy. I know this is hard for you. But it really does need doing." The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation. Agrian didn't know what to make of that. Nu'chista had been chastising him almost every other sentence, and he knew people around the city were starting to whisper about his own competence, or even involvement, regarding Isabel's fate.

But this kindness was what finally broke him. It was all he could do to keep the tears from re-emerging then.

"... Thank you, your Divinity," he wheezed.

"I'm ready to answer any of your questions, and I'll be as honest as I can. Ask away, please." He wanted to revisit the past, now. Anything but the present. She started asking. Agrian was careful and kept his story straight. One good thing he'd managed to do was keep rehearsing it, even making sure to do so backwards so that he couldn't be tripped up by any out-of-order questions. Apparently, his practice had paid off and left him with a performance that even a Demigod was fooled by.

He tallied that up with his other sins as Aryqatan finally nodded in satisfaction.

"Good," she said. Whether she'd spotted discrepancies or not, Agrian didn't know and suspected he wouldn't for some time. If he was her, he'd want to keep an eye on a known liar before calling them to their face.

"Was that…was that all?" Agrian asked. He really didn't want to be around her any longer than he had to. Didn't want to look at divinity. The longer she was here, the more he thought about what was happening beyond just himself. The worse he felt.

"Yes," she said after a moment.

"That's all for now. I…That's all." Agrian got the impression she'd be back, or that other people would pay him visits on her behalf. He got the feeling his interrogation wasn't even halfway done. She'd probably come close to warning him on reflex, but kept it secret to avoid tipping her own people's hand. The Demigod started for the door and he watched her leave, feeling more wretched by the step. Just as she was opening it to head out, he reached a breaking point.

"Your Divinity," Agrian blurted out, watching with genuine surprise as she actually stopped.

"I'm…uh, sorry to bother you, but…I have a question." She turned, looked at him expectantly.

"Ask," she told him. Agrian spent long seconds trying to think of just how to go about doing that. The words were adhering to his tongue, like they didn't want to leave. He practically had to force them out.

"The Gods," he spat out at last.

"They…" Agrian trailed off, realised he had no clue what he was even going to say. Fuck. Here he was, with a Demigod waiting to hear him out, and he felt like he was formulating the dumbest sentence of his life.

"... They're forgiving, right?" he asked.

"They…do you think they can forgive a failure like…like mine?" It sounded pathetic, even to him. This whimpering little begging ask weaseling its way from his lips, probably tainting her ears. He wanted to look away, but couldn't bring himself to. Just met her gaze and waited for the disgust. He didn't see it though. Just sympathy, which was almost worse.

"I don't know," Aryqatan said after a moment.

"I…" she trailed off, and Agrian thought he saw a wave of bitterness cross her own face.

"... The Gods are mysterious," she said at last. Then continued more sharply.

"If they can't forgive something, it's because it doesn't deserve forgiveness. How you deal with that, how you live with it, is up to you." It was about the least comforting thing Agrian had ever heard, but it also struck him as the most honest.

"Thank you," he said without thinking. He meant it. Aryqatan didn't say anything more, just nodded sharply and took her leave. Agrian felt the room get twice as big without her in it, and he wished it was twice as small. He wished he didn't feel so damned alone. Sleep was beyond him, Isabel, the memory of Isabel, kept bugging him where he lay and jerking him back into high consciousness. He tried going for a walk, secretly hoping some attack would come and give him something to do besides sulk.

Some outlet for his rage. No such luck. The rebels of Orapathaqi knew how to always be where they weren't wanted, at least. Agrian stumbled towards a pub, then stumbled away from it. He considered spending time at a whorehouse and, once again, drifted away. His mind became a river of ideas and dismissals. He truly didn't know what to do. Agrian Vornholt, the great magician prodigy. He'd had options. He'd had a future.

Maybe he still did, after all plenty of people were praising his attempt to rescue Isabel, buying his story entirely and singing about the great hero Vornholt. But whatever future he enjoyed now, his little sister wouldn't be in it. At last, Agrian thought back to seeing Laiel Fiq at her apartment. He'd heard the bastard was sniffing around about Isabel. He'd not had anything going on at the time, didn't have anything now, even, so he'd cut him off when he caught word the magician was heading to her apartment.

Agrian did a lot of stuff without knowing why lately, but this one he could explain. Isabel's secrecy and paranoia about having her room searched, the amount of time she'd spent cooped up in that apartment, and the fact that she'd taken an Orapathaqin priestess as her servant, all led to one very uncomfortable conclusion when he took her necromancy into consideration. Even he hadn't looked at the sectioned-off parts of her apartment. He didn't want to.

Agrian figured he'd see a great many things there that he wouldn't be able to unsee, and he didn't want to remember his sister like that. Maybe I should be glad she died before the mutations could start. If there were any. Another thing to consider, Isabel had seemed fine, but she must've been practicing necromancy for a while, right? To have controlled it as she did, even overpowering another necromancer by herself.

She wasn't so much of a genius to achieve that level of mastery in an afternoon, a week or even a month. Typical Isabel. She'd given him more questions to chew on, but now she was gone and he couldn't come to her for any answers. Agrian realised then just how much he'd always leaned on her for certainty. And then he remembered that his sister was probably dead because of his fuck-up, and suddenly focusing on his own confusion and uncertainty felt like the most pathetic thing in the world.

He stopped walking at a low, crumbled wall with a smashed-out section close enough to the ground for him to sit on. As soon as he was down on it, Agrian felt all the strength leave him. Why could he never do anything right?