Chapter 222: Interlude: She Who Remains

“Leianaleine.”

Leian turned, cocking her eyebrow. She wasn’t surprised to see the man hovering two meters away, hands primly clasped behind his back, black formal robe billowing in sparse wind. There was no actual wind here, although the wall of glass in front of her which she was looking through might give the impression there should be.

He saw her cocked eyebrow and corrected himself. “Leian Blue-White of Agialsis.”

“If anyone should know and use my proper name, it would be you,” she commented mildly.

“You called yourself that when you were only Leian Blue-Gray of Agialsis, not White,” he said, taking a step closer.

“I was Blue-White,” she corrected, still speaking mildly. She could tell it only made him tenser. “My predecessor had died. As you should know. Are you certain you wish to revisit these old memories, Berren?”

A thousand years ago, he would have flinched. By now, she’d made such an allusion as well as more explicit threats many times. And he knew she would not usually punish him any more than she already had, certainly not over a few words.

Of course, that didn’t mean she hated him any less. Their hatred was old and well-worn, though, almost comfortable by now.

“You’ve already enslaved my soul for an eternity,” he said in answer to the unspoken.

“You killed the closest thing I ever had to a family,” she replied, unperturbed. It was the worst of his crimes, not the only one. She didn’t bother listing them all out. They both knew.

He stopped, then sighed. “I suppose I can’t fault you for your adherence to tradition,” he said grudgingly. “More of us would be lost if you didn’t. We are the only survivors of the Aishan.” He paused, seeing her cocked eyebrow. “Well, you are the only survivor. I am dead.”

“So you are,” she agreed pleasantly. “So?”

“You are acting stupidly, mistress,” he said. “Anyone looking at it logically would see that keeping me around even in this form is a liability, a security risk.”

“Having you keeps me on my toes,” she said. “It keeps me sharp for other threats. If you manage to slip out of my chains, you’ve earned it. It’s not like I don’t have other precautions.” She smiled sardonically. “It’s the Aishan way.” Not that that was the reason she kept him around. Not the only reason, at least.

She wondered if he would actually leave, even if he could. If he was even trying as hard as he could, or would be trying as hard if there was an opportunity. They’d both settled into a comfortable relationship, by and large. And she was the only thing anchoring him to his own past, the only thing he had left.

She could have gone delving into his soul and his mind for the answers, but she didn’t. Not only was it distasteful, but he was also rather skilled. She would not have been able to be sure that she saw the entire truth, anyway. It was what made it enough of a challenge. Besides, she had other concerns at present.

“What did you come here to say, before you started stalling for time?” she asked.

“I wasn’t stalling,” he sniffed.

“Well, I assume you’re not talking to me for the pleasure of my company.”

He visibly released a deep breath, although, of course, he didn’t need to breathe, then bowed slightly. “Mistress, the goddess Alianais has left another packet of news and information for you. I have also assembled an updated report on the Hive Queen known as Regina.” He paused for a moment. “Apparently, her former identity is one Dr. Regina von Woltan.”

Leian nodded. “Go on.”

He opened his hand, revealing a small sphere of spinning air with a dull orange glow coming from its center. Leian reached out her hand and he placed it there carefully. She brought it up to her face and blew on it, causing orange sparks to fly and drift into her eyes, ears, nose and mouth.

Leian stood up. With a casual wave of her hand, another affectation, the glass in front of her parted like a sliding door and she stepped outside, gazing at the landscape outside her home. This corner of the Mirrored Halls was rather stable, she hadn’t allowed it to change for months. Currently, it showed a vista of a deciduous forest stretching to the shores of a sandy ocean beach. She liked the fresh sea air.

Berren followed her outside, half a step to the side and behind her.

“You do like playing god,” he mused.

She glanced at him, wondering briefly how much of her thoughts he’d seen on her face, or if he’d simply guessed where her mind was going. “I am a goddess,” she reminded him.

He shrugged and gestured dismissively as if throwing something away. “That hardly matters. Everyone knows some of our people’s past leaders could have been gods if they’d chosen to, but they didn’t. It’s not like any god is the pinnacle of power.”

Leian shot him an amused gaze. “Is that so? Still doesn’t disqualify me from ‘playing god’ as you put it, even if this wasn’t literally the Divine Home.”

“Well, you are the only person in this world with a Soul Name,” he conceded. She knew his pride would never bear it if his master wasn’t at least the biggest fish around if he had to be bound. Or perhaps that was an uncharitable assessment. He continued talking, however. “At least for now.”

Leian stretched out her hand, then closed her fingers around a silvery strand of light, like wires wrapped around each other and interwoven with glittering points. It was another visualization she didn’t strictly need, but she preferred having a distinct action to access the System. Having it rattling around her mind all the time would drive her wild eventually, in her experience.

She quickly gazed through the relevant parts, sifting through the mountains of information at her fingertips. She was able to process and understand it much faster than a mortal, but the System contained so much information that trying to take it all in at once would be futile anyway. There were no particular surprises this time, and she quickly let it flow from her direct awareness, turning back to her companion to continue the conversation.

“There aren’t enough people in this world for another Soul Name to be claimed,” she said. “And we have barely any contact with other worlds, no one from here would be known there.”

“I have been wondering about this,” he said in a musing tone. “Why here? Why are you not in another world?”

“You know what happened to Haven.”

“Yes, but why Haven in the first place?” He folded his hands in front of him. “You could have run to any number of places.”

She frowned. He hadn’t brought this up in at least a few centuries. “I was originally made to infiltrate Haven,” she reminded him.

“I recall quite a few people didn’t believe you were really an Aishan, originally,” he said in the same musing tone, as if that would hide the intent behind his words. “Oh, one of our people, ethnically, yes, but a mage? Perhaps someone tried to give it to you later in some unorthodox experiment.”

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“Nonsense and you know it,” she shot back. Leian was not sure how that could have even possibly worked, faking an Aishan? She shook her head. “Anyway, I knew Haven better than other worlds, I’d even been there briefly, and it was well positioned at a nexus of travel to other worlds. That’s really all there is to it.”

“It had nothing to do with the Tyrant?” he asked curiously.

Leian’s fingers twitched, although she didn’t clench her hands. Time had worn away these rough edges, too, or at least smoothed them. Nowadays, every reminder of him didn’t send her into a fit of rage (or worse, anxiety, or depression). “I won against the Tyrant,” she said quietly, more to herself than her companion. “He’s gone. I outlived him. If that isn’t the definition of victory, what is?”

“He wasn’t -“

“Stop,” she interrupted him, glaring at him as his jaw snapped shut. The memories of cold dungeons and the smell of blood, metal and bodily fluids might be old, but they had not faded. I escaped, and he’s long gone. “I will not speak about this. And you should be grateful for my mercy.”

He took half a step back and bowed, still silent.

“I suppose it doesn’t answer why I’m still here,” she mused, calm again. “But I’m hardly going to take off while everything is going down.”

He nodded and cocked his head.

“Let’s get back to the matter at hand,” she said. “Our latest information from elsewhere is just as sporadic and unhelpful as ever, even if it is interesting, so I’m hardly going to rely on it. This world has enough to keep me busy, anyway. Speaking of, I should do another general check of the System.” She glanced at him. “What do you think, Berren?”

“What about this parasite field?” he asked cautiously. “Or suppression, was it? An old method from the time of the old war resurrected.”

Leian scoffed. “Hardly a problem,” she dismissed. “You think my System would be unable to deal with something like this? Whoever released the information in the end, it’s nothing that would make me even break a sweat to deal with. I could probably modify the System to stop it completely, but it’s better to let things develop for now, I think.”

“One might not think so, considering the trouble there seems to have been with the integration of the Hivekind,” he commented, clearly finding his conversational footing again and regaining his bite.

Leian smiled slightly. “You’d think so, wouldn’t you?”

Not giving him a chance to respond, Leian stepped forward again, exerting her will. The landscape appeared to shift around her as she moved through the Mirrored Halls — although it might be more accurate to say that it moved her — and she emerged on the coast of an ocean, feeling the surf beneath her now-bare toes.

“Don’t tell me you — Oh, who am I kidding, of course you would,” he sighed. “Is there anyone you trust?”

“Well, if there is, it isn’t you,” she replied cheerfully. It wasn’t quite the truth, she supposed; she actually did trust him rather a lot, more than almost anyone. Usually, she would not agree with the old adage that ‘trust is knowing someone so well you know how they’ll react before they do and are fine with it’, but in his case, it somewhat fit. She wasn’t sure what it said about her, considering the whole point about him being a dead person whose mind and soul she could see.

"And Alianais?”

“Is a good friend. She can just be such a Havenite sometimes.”

“Did you disagree on what to do about the Hive?” he asked, stepping up beside her, presumably so he could see her expression better.

Leian sighed and shrugged. “She’s going to set herself up for failure if she continues like this,” she said. “Being distrustful and cautious is all well and good, but she already freed Regina from her egg and set her into the world. Which I think is the right thing, don’t get me wrong; I might have had misgivings, but really, letting her live a life and get the Hivekind back is truly the least we should do. And she might be needed.”

“Because the Mesen might come back?” he asked, frowning.

“The Mesen,” she spat, grimacing. “Let’s hope they leave well enough alone. It should be decades or centuries at least. But I suppose you’re right that having a Hive like this, and its Hive Queen, would help protect the world if they come.”

He mirrored her grimace. She knew he disliked the Mesen as much as the next man, or shade, although he had not expressed much concern. Then again, he rarely expressed himself to her in any case.

“You do realize that your being here is only going to make it more likely for them to attack this world,” he pointed out now.

Leian fell silent, her grimace deepening. As much as she wanted to deny it, she knew he was right. The Mesen might have taken their technology in a different direction, and a lot of it had simply been lost, but they wouldn’t miss the chance of getting their hands on a real live Aishan. Perhaps especially her.

“Well, I suppose I am who I am,” she murmured. From everything she knew, at least several centuries had passed in the outside multiverse, even if this world had been on a fast track.

“Look on the bright side,” he said with a smirk, “at least your Soul Name didn’t turn out to be Defector.”

She rolled her eyes and showed him her middle finger, a gesture she had picked up from the original cultures of this world. “Very funny,” she grumbled. “Can’t think of anything new to needle me about?”

“I would never, mistress,” he assured her.

“Well, if you have time to be mouthy, you have time to work,” she said. “Go do a check of the System’s base architecture and then collate information on the Hivekind’s integration and the handling of other rare or new species.”

He sighed performatively, then bowed.

Leian listened to his footsteps as he left. She didn’t turn her head to look at him, but she didn’t need to do that to watch him, especially here. The fact he even bothered with actually walking audibly for a few meters was an affectation, of course, but he did like to do little things to seem more alive to himself and others. Her servitor wasn’t what she was really worrying about currently, though, and Leian sighed when he was gone.

She called up more information from the System again, reading through it quietly, even as she paced up and down the edge of the beach. The gentle sounds of the waves and the water lapping against her toes weren’t able to calm her, however.

Leian shook her head as she stared out at the waves. The continent was being engulfed in war once more, her friend was running headlong into problems of her own making, her other friend was caught up in it all … and Regina was still building up her hive and would only keep overthrowing the established order, escalating all of this.

What the hell was she supposed to do?

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