Chapter 4 Zayn #4
He sighed heavily. “It’s a real bitch of a thing, isn’t it?
Something you can never truly escape, something you have to fight not to keep at the forefront and influence all that you do.
And trauma that stems from others more powerful delivering harm…
that adds further complexity. It eats at you.
It hardens you. It makes you hypervigilant.
It can lead to decisions being tainted by the past, rather than the present state of things.
” He rested his head back against the chair.
“I’ve spent my life fighting against that, giving those not strong enough to protect themselves power and protection from me.
I’ve been tortured mentally and physically, had my magic stripped from me, watched Morien almost murder those I love, watched him actually murder my mother and my sister, I’ve died because of what he enacted, I’ve had him almost take my body and my power as his.
” His gaze hardened as he looked out at them.
“And yet. I’m not only my trauma. I don’t pull that into high-level decision-making that affects so many.
I don’t let what was done to me dictate who I am now, how I act. ”
Fuck. Me.
That was a lot. The things he’d suffered through… I didn’t even know about a lot of that, meaning maybe Win didn’t either.
No wonder. It was beyond brutal.
I saw Vax wincing and Evira staring sadly out at him.
And a haunted silence fell over the battlefield.
“You’d never allow your son to be the personification of all of that,” Raquel surmised as the reason Sylas had revealed all of that.
It was more than that. He was humanizing himself, yeah.
But not just in the sense of showing them that he wasn’t just supreme power—just a thing representing that.
It seemed he was demonstrating that he understood so deeply the trauma that had caused these reactions and actions in them.
There was a whole bunch wrapped up in it.
And it was genius, once again. But also deeply fucking sad.
“You’re telling us he’s not ever gonna be the second-coming of Morien,” Hale said, in that blunt and harsh way he kept putting out there. “Because of how you raised him in light of what happened to you?”
“He’s not only my son. He was raised by Velra, Cassius, and Lazriel, all who were persecuted—just for what they are.
Like what you’re doing to Winter now.” He shook his head.
“The line between you and Puritas is growing thinner and thinner. And we need to see to that before you cross it. That begins with me asking for your help.” He shifted in the chair, and I could see it cost him to move to the edge and sit up straight as he looked out at them all.
“Ruxnoth has twenty necromancers down in Sanctus with him. They’re significantly supporting the construct and keeping it undetectable.
And they’re also shielding him personally.
There are two ways for me to breach that shield, but I won’t be doing either.
Because one way involves me siphoning them all—some who hold power sets close to mine.
To break the protection permanently, I’d need to pull from all twenty at once.
I do that, I will die, which will screw you all over and destabilize the balance.
And my son—the one you all hate and fear—has pleaded with me to try to spare them, give them a chance, rather than just wiping out a threat.
The second way…” He took a beat, then revealed hauntingly, “It involves using Risen Reckoning on them—on the living.”
“Wait,” Hale said. “You know you could use that fucked-up spell to break through it and get to your boy, but you’re agreeing not to do it?”
“That ‘fucked-up spell’ was never designed to be used on the living. Its purpose was only ever to return the illicitly risen dead back to proper death state. Anything else is a huge violation being perpetrated by anyone who performs it, and to the balance of nature and death. I’d imagine it would put you at ease to know that I’ve found a way to prevent it from ever being used on the living again.
But to pull that off, I need Winter’s contribution. ”
“You could really do that? After all this time?”
“Winter hadn’t come into his power before on his necromantic side. Now he has, we can undo the very spell that strikes fear into the hearts of all of you. Once I see to that, it would only be able to be used to return the risen dead to the Valley.”
“What about the death-touched?” a vampire asked.
“Vampires are only touched by death. The same with Wraiths, Shadowmancers. Their ‘living’ aspect would protect them. They can’t be read as true death state.
That’s not how it works.” He shifted his grip on the cane.
“Now the help I require from you involves using a variant of your creation, Nihilumbra, to see to the necromancers. To subdue them. I use the word ‘variant’, because I’d need you to develop a version that would grant me immunity—temporarily, so relax, I know you feel you must keep it as a fail-safe against me—so I can ‘attach’ it to all twenty of them, which I’d need my magic active and not compromised to be able to do. ”
“And what about Winter’s place in all of this?” Hale asked. “Ruxnoth explained through those holoscreens that—”
“He explained nothing!” I called over.
Sylas eyed me, his lips quirking. Then he told Hale and Raquel, “He fed you a narrative. Ruxnoth intends to use Winter to power Sanctus eternally. Ruxnoth is straining to maintain it himself. He also wants to bring his construct onto the mortal plane and then do what all power-hungry fuckers dream of—to reign supreme over us all. I suspect he’ll use the power he’ll then have at his disposal again when he forces Winter to carry the weight of Sanctus in his stead, to bring that about. ”
I saw Sylas’ fingers dig into the chair as he had to explain Ruxnoth’s sickening plan to use Win that way. Not just using his power, which was bad enough, but to do something that would hurt others.
“You’re saying he used Winter as a scapegoat, so we’d focus on your son, instead of that True Celestial as the chief threat,” Raquel spoke. It wasn’t a question, but a statement as she realized the validity of it in real time. She eyed Hale, some indecipherable looks exchanged between them.
Hale asked Sylas, “What about the True Celestial? Stopping him?”
“Solutions are being worked on.”
“His power isn’t normal Celestial power. How can you hope to work around that?”
“He’s the king of workarounds,” Evira spoke, finally dropping the wall.
She’d kept it going through most of the conversation, because it had been tense subject matter, and she hadn’t wanted to take any chances. I’d also seen Vax hyperfocused on Sylas, likely planning to snatch him at any second if things took a turn, and bring him behind it.
“Ryker would argue the ‘prince’ of workarounds, I believe,” Vax said, winking at Sylas.
Sylas smirked. “He is certainly the ‘king’ where that’s concerned. I prefer ‘master of’ anyway.”
Some chuckles rang out.
Sylas told them, “There’s nothing I’ve come up against that I haven’t been able to find a workaround to. Same with Ryker.”
Hale and Raquel exchanged a look.
Then they both nodded, as Hale told Sylas, “All right. We have a deal.”
“Just so you’re aware, seeing as though you’ve gone out of your way to put your cards on the table, while Temperance will work with you and stand down regarding your son, we’re not the only ones you need to worry about,” Raquel told him.
“We’ve gotten word that King Heryn of the Light Fae Realm is planning to deploy units to come at you.
He wants to use you to forcibly annihilate the threat they believe Winter to be.
” She gestured the length of him. “If you’re still unwell… ”
“I won’t be. But thank you for the warning.” He pushed out of the chair, using the cane heavily. “Besides, I’m not unprotected.” He turned and called into the distance, “Velra. Go ahead and drop it now. You too, Cas.”
I frowned. What the—
In the next moment, a film none of us had even noticed materialized. It shimmered then dropped—an illusion, and a heavy-duty one at that—to reveal Sylas hadn’t been alone this entire time.
There, lined up side by side a few feet away was Velra, Cassius, Lazriel, Remnant, Kai, Ariana, and Vorzyr.
Holy. Hell.
Gasps and curses rang out over the battlefield, everyone shrinking back.
“Now,” Sylas said. “To be clear, you have nothing to fear from me. But should you come at my son’s loves again, use them in your plans if there are any bumps in the road with our agreement, I’m far from being the only one you’d need to be concerned about.”
He was good. They all were.
Sylas knew he couldn’t threaten Temperance directly after everything that’d been said, and the root of their trauma and fear being in Necromancy. But he also couldn’t let something like this stand. It was dangerous.
So he and his close family and allies had come up with this instead. Workaround indeed.
“Understood,” Hale and Raquel answered in unison.
“Good. Then all will be well for us all.”
A few moments passed, then Raquel gave Sylas a chin lift, offered us an apology, and Hale dispersed their army, and they headed out.
So that was why Vorzyr hadn’t burst onto the battlefield to back us up.
As he’d been talking with Evira and applauding the awesome wall she’d erected and held for so fucking long too, he’d mentioned that he’d received Vax’s message and passed it onto Kai who’d been with Sylas.
Kai had briefed him and Sylas’ loves because it concerned Temperance—a Winter issue.
And then they’d come up with that plan earlier, sending Sylas in, but remaining as immediate hidden backup behind an illusion cast by Velra and being boosted by Cassius.