Chương 129: 1.102

The Son of Rome At some point in our journey through the Augur's Orphic faith, the raven's mantle had changed. The furthest outpost of the Howling Wind Cult estates on Kaukoso Mons was manned by a Sophic cultivator near the peak of his realm. He was an imposing figure, likely chosen for his stature as much as his advancement, with scars and a permanent scowl to accent the controlled malice in his dark eyes. In the faint light cast by his iron lantern's flame, he looked menacing by any man's standard.

He flinched when I stepped into his lantern's light. The ravenous shadows of the raven's mantle had taken on different shapes for Griffon and I, back when we first consumed and internalized the Rein-Holder's starlight marrow. Griffon had chosen to wear the rags carelessly around his waist like he did his own Rosy Dawn attire, and so as a raven his midnight cloth pooled around his feet and merged with the shadows of the night.

It made it seem as if he was waist-deep in shadow wherever he went - like he had come from Tartarus itself, and a portion of him still resided there. Though it hadn't been a conscious decision at the time, I'd donned my mantle like a legate's cloak - draped over one shoulder, bisecting my body with shade. On the second night of our hunting, Griffon had laughingly remarked that I looked like I was peering out from around a corner, no matter where I happened to be.

Both of us had covered our faces with shrouds, obscuring our easiest identifying features. That was before we had our second taste of madness. Now, the raven's mantle was changed. The man on guard was my senior in cultivation, yet he took three steps back as I stalked further into his light before finally overcoming his unease. He clenched his empty fist and set his feet, standing up straight while I closed the remaining distance.

"Stop," he commanded. I took two more steps." Stop." His pneuma rose and his influence clenched into a white-knuckled fist. I stopped just inside of his reach. He was an imposing figure, nearly as tall as me and more heavily muscled. It didn't mean much. Before, the raven's mantle of midnight cloth had appeared to an untrained eye as if it was made of pure liquid shadow. The raven's ability to store and retrieve items from our actual shadows had lent itself to that illusion. That was all that it had been, however.

An illusion.

It was an illusion of a different kind, now. I reached into the liquid shadow of my raven mantle. The guard tensed, ready to lash out. The attack never came. The grizzled night guard stared in bafflement at the olive branch I had pulled from my cloak and held out to him. The entire limb was made of ivory.

"What is this?" he asked, looking up at the shadowed void of my veil.

"Why are you here?"

"A peace offering," I replied.

"I've come to speak to Aleuas."

"You're out of your mind." I waited patiently. In the distance, an eagle's cry echoed alongside the Storm Crown's thunder. The man on guard grimaced and reached out to take the ivory olive branch.

"Fine. Peace. I'll send word to the main estate-" His hand slipped through the branch like it wasn't there at all. I stepped past him, and when he reached out instinctively to grab my shoulder, his hand moved through the raven's mantle like it wasn't there either.

"No need," I told him. From the moment I'd stepped into his lantern light, I'd tasted the ash of burnt chestnut wood in the air.

"He already knows." I stalked into the shadows of the Hurricane Hierophant's domain and vanished.

"You must be Solus." Stolen novel; please report.

"I must," I echoed.

"By what measure must I be anyone?" Aleuas scoffed behind his viridian curtain.

"By mine. You may be nobody out there, but while you're here in my domain you are whatever I deem you to be." The marble floors of the Hierophant's estate were cool beneath my bare feet. The private bedroom of the Tyrant's hurricane domain was a clear contrast to Bakkhos' own subterranean quarters. Bakkhos' private rooms had been impressive in their own way, carved as they were out of the depths of Kaukoso Mons, but they hadn't been nearly as opulent as the courtyard he'd built to house his oracles.

Aleuas' bedroom was far more grand, covered floor to ceiling in fine windchimes of every shape, size, and material. Precious statuary abounded on every shelf and table space, and silken finery worth more than an average citizen's entire estate hung negligently over the backs of chairs and lounging couches. There was an artful chaos to it all, reminiscent of the meditative mess that Socrates had made of Bakkhos' room for one of my lessons.

The statement was clear - what the average man, even the average cultivator, might hand down to their children and grandchildren as a priceless relic, the Tyrant could discard upon the floor without a moment of regret. It was a powerful statement. And it was an illusion, as much as my olive branch of ivory was. Bakkhos' private quarters were simply furnished by comparison, because he had an entire mountain and city of wonders to act as his display.

Damon Aetos' office was nearly bare, because there was no one west of the Ionian that he felt he had to impress. In the end, the Hurricane Hierophant's statement of his standing was as thin as the viridian curtain that separated his side of the room from view. He could still kill me with a thought, of course.

"So I am," I conceded. I pulled another ivory olive branch from my cloak and offered it to the silhouette of Aleuas behind the curtain.

"Your son-in-law said you wanted to thank me in person." Aleuas barked a laugh, rattling the chimes throughout the room.

"The sheer audacity. That's four times you've insulted me, now."

"Four?" Behind the viridian curtain, the Hierophant raised a finger.

"First you ignored my graceful invitation, extended from the hands of my own adopted heir, like I was some barking dog beneath your notice." A second finger rose.

"Next you took from me. Sank your teeth into my influence, consumed my strength, in the moment when my need for it was greatest." The curtain whipped and fluttered along with the wind chimes, the Tyrant's ire rising steadily. The nature of his tyrannic pressure was similar to Damon Aetos' judgment, but the quality of it differed. It was far more furious, and less finely controlled. It wasn't enough to send me to my knees. Not yet.

"You took from me again." A third finger.

"Stole my own heir out from under me, stole my daughter's groom-to-be. Stole my hero." I had thought long and hard about my approach to this conversation, while we waited tensely on the Eos for Sorea to return with Anastasia. I had spent the trek back to Olympia refining that approach, cementing it in my mind's eye. If things went the way I intended them to, I would leave this opulent chamber with an ally to match against the First Son to Burn. Otherwise, I would die.

"Fourth and finally," Aleuas intoned, the threat of death in howling wind.

"Having done all of that, you come to me now with a shrouded face and ask me to thank you for the privilege." I placed a foot against the back of a plush leather lounge and kicked it aside, sitting down in the now empty space on the floor. The Tyrant's pressure slammed down onto my shoulders. It was more of the same.

"Is my furniture not to your liking, scavenger?" he asked me mildly.

"It wouldn't carry my weight," I answered, crossing my legs and settling my elbows on my knees.

"So you cast it aside and make a mess of my domain?" My face was covered, so I made a show of twisting my head around to regard the hurricane suite's controlled chaos.

"My mistake," I said at length, and helding the ivory olive branch out again.

"I apologize - four times for before, and a fifth for kicking your couch. I've come to bargain."

"To bargain. Tell me, then, boy. What could a raven possibly hope to offer this king?" We stared at one another, each of us behind a veil.

"Your son," I told him. After a long and heavy silence, during which not a single wind chime stirred, Aleuas reached out with a hand of focused wind for my offering of peace. Of course, it was the same branch that I had offered the man at the estate's outpost - an ivory deception. It wasn't real. It wasn't something that mortal hands could grasp. The Tyrant in his domain plucked it from my hand and carried it back through the viridian curtain on a current of wind. His silhouette twirled it between his fingers.

"Bargain," he commanded me. Now came the difficult part.