Chapter 22 #2
“Yes, all right. We’ll dance. A little, Lazriel. First I need to speak with Evira. Give me five, okay?”
“Sure. But if you try to slink away, know I’ll hunt you down.”
Sylas wasn’t the least bit fazed. “Don’t I know it.”
“Evira is over in the living room with Ariana and Vax,” I told Sylas.
“Thanks. I won’t be long, then the four of you can enjoy the rest of your night without business infringing upon it.”
“Business?”
He nodded. “Remnant has asked me to give her a line to The Shadowed. It’s something that may prove helpful with her new role.”
Holy shit. That was some major validation. The Shadowed didn’t exactly give a line to just anyone. It was very limited, restricted. Remnant must’ve been observing and analyzing her while we’d been down in the Shadow Tunnels.
He wasn’t here now, despite his closeness with Ambrose. Being who he was, all covert and that, he couldn’t really be in a public setting like this.
Sylas jolted all of a sudden, then slapped his hand to his temple.
His eyes narrowed and a deeply focused look came over him for a few moments.
“What’s going on?” Lazriel asked, coming around to his side and rubbing his arm.
“Kai mind-linking me.”
“You only allowed that for emergencies. Is it one? Is it that monster? Has he—”
“No.” He ground his jaw. “It’s… urgh, Winter. Why? Well, I know why, but still.”
“Win’s in trouble?” Lazriel and I asked in unison, adrenaline thrumming through me, as I swung my head to see that Win was now gone from the couch. Evira and Vaxan were talking with Ambrose, Evira laughing at something he said.
“Not trouble per se. I just need to see to something.”
“All right, then I’ll go with you, get Velra and Cas as well.”
Sylas laid a hand on his shoulder. “No. Let me handle it. Just a few moments.”
“Okay,” Lazriel agreed, picking up on something in his tone that I guess only those who were his loves would get the whole meaning of.
“I’ll go make sure Cassius and Ketheron don’t start cooking up a storm in that ace kitchen Ambrose made for Keth.
I saw them dart in there a few moments ago. They could get lost in it for hours.”
“I know the feeling,” I said.
“Wanna come?” Lazriel asked me, noticing my interest.
“I’ll follow. Just gonna grab a drink.”
“Sure.” With that, he took off.
Sylas gave my shoulder a squeeze, then headed out down one of the hallways.
And, yeah, I followed. Tailed him, whatever you wanna call it.
He slipped out through the front door, and I stuck to the shadows on the porch once he’d cleared the steps.
Winter was just a few feet in the distance, half around a corner but still visible. He was standing with Kai and having what looked like an intense discussion.
I discreetly cast an auditory enhancement spell and listened in right as Sylas burst onto the scene with urgent strides.
Win jolted when he saw him. “Dad,” he choked. Then he swung his head back to Kai. “You… mind-linked him?”
“Yes. He needed to be made aware of this.”
“So that’s my answer, then? You won’t collaborate with me on the spellwork?”
“I haven’t said that.”
“It would take more time, but I can see to it on my own.” His eyes hardened. At Kai fucking Hunter. Oof. That was hardcore. “To be clear,” he then rumbled.
Kai scrubbed his hand over his face, then looked out at Sylas. “This is you right here.”
“Please. I held back with the out-of-the-box, pushing-the-limits spellwork because Winter wasn’t comfortable with Necromancy until recently. This is you and Cassius, all that you taught him.”
“Dad, I can see to this.”
“A spell of this complexity and magnitude isn’t all I’m concerned about.
Nor what I’m even actually focused on. What you want to do here, offering Temperance—and the supernatural world as a whole—this additional fail-safe isn’t necessary.
Note the word ‘additional’. You and I are already working on a solution to forever prevent Risen Reckoning from being used on the living.
That’s their number-one fear, especially when it comes to you, a truly immortal being who can’t be… eliminated.”
“It might be their number-one fear, but it isn’t the only one. Not when it comes to me.”
“Concessions have already been made,” Kai reminded him. “With the Risen Reckoning fail-safe, we’re beyond even that. If we do this, you’ll essentially be bound by a leash, Winter.”
“I’m well aware.”
Sylas cursed and shoved a hand through his hair. “Win, fuck.”
“Tell me you could stop me if I really fucking lost control and went all out with my power.”
“Win—”
“I’m talking absolute certainty, Dad. Not the slightest doubt present.”
Sylas hesitated, and I saw Kai looking startled and tossing him a questioning look.
Sylas averted his eyes, then addressed Win, “If this is about what you said in the Veil when—”
“It’s not,” Winter insisted. He shoved a hand through his hair and took a breath, his voice softening a little as he said, “I know now, despite Ruxnoth getting into my head for a bit there. I know, thanks to some reframing I’ve been able to do, and help from my loves, that I could never become what they fear.
I haven’t been twisted or tainted. My ruthlessness is purely directed at Ruxnoth.
The threat that he is. But, Dad, I’m a threat of that magnitude to them, to Temperance, and a lot of people out there.
Right now public opinion is in my favor for once, but one mistake, or time just marching on, and that could shift.
With this fail-safe, it nullifies all of that.
That fear of me and what I am can’t take root again. ”
He sighed with so much heaviness that it had my gut twisting for him.
Because he was right.
He needed this. He needed to do this. It would bring him a lot of comfort, as screwed up as it was that it even needed to be this way at all.
But it was this way, and we just needed to do what we always did—work around what others didn’t understand while still unapologetically being who we were.
Things weren’t perfect and they never would be.
That was just a fact of life, embedded deep into reality.
So we just had to roll with it and work things in a way that fit us.
“You understand?” he asked Sylas.
Sylas stared out at him for several moments of painful intensity.
Kai was grimacing at the emotion bleeding out everywhere.
He wasn’t the only one.
Movement in my peripheral vision caught my attention, and then Evira and Vax were quietly and stealthily stepping out onto the porch with me.
“Love you,” I mouthed to them.
They mouthed it back, then wrapped their arms around me, as the three of us looked on.
I smiled when Win noticed us, or maybe felt us even, and discreetly acknowledged us.
That we were here with him.
And he wasn’t hiding it this time.
Sure, he’d gone to Kai quietly, but that had been to see if this could even be done. Win didn’t hide shit anymore, not in the way he used to. He just liked to have all his ducks in a row before he brought things up.
The three of us knew damn well that if he’d wanted to keep us out of this, he would have ensured he’d felt our approach long before we’d been standing here watching and listening.
Sylas then stepped up to Win and clasped his shoulders. “I do understand, son.”
“Yeah?”
“If the narrative concerning you is disarmed, you believe you can be free.”
“And you? Do you believe that?”
Sylas smiled sadly. “What I believe is that doing this will bring you peace.” He gave his shoulders a squeeze. “So you’re gonna take it. Do this. It’s what’s right for you, what you need.”
Win’s eyes shone at him, then they hugged tightly.
When they eased back, Sylas gave Kai a chin lift.
“All right,” Kai said, striding closer, “So with your idea to use Nihilumbra alongside the mechanism of the Encompassing Inhibitor to create this fail-safe, there are some aspects that’ll need to be reworked.”
Winter gave a nod, listening with that deeply concentrated look on his face.
Kai went on, “As you know, the Encompassing Inhibitor was developed by Arcanum Order several decades back to be used on Ketheron when he was considered a threat. Not due to anything he’d done, but because that sick fuck, Corvin Morvain, had a hold on him.
In that particular case, the moment Corvin attempted to influence Ketheron again, the moment his power touched him, the Encompassing Inhibitor would nullify Ketheron’s magic and power.
In your case, we’ll forge it so that if your power becomes unstable—if you lose control—a response will be triggered that will activate a flood of Nihilumbra through your system, which will nullify your magic.
Now, there are times where you may have to reach new heights of power to perform a certain spell, or in a future battle where things are chaotic by nature.
With these parameters in place, it could trigger the nullification unnecessarily.
So, we won’t have it automatically activate. ”
“You’re saying somebody should hold the trigger?”
“Yes.” Kai held up his hand at Sylas. “Not you. Not any of his parents. Not Ketheron. Not his loves. No one will trust in that. Might as well not have the fail-safe at all, the public will never believe you’ll actually activate it.”
“Ambrose,” Winter said.
“Ambrose?”
“Definitely. He can see the forest for the trees when things get crazy. He cares about me so he’d be very careful about using this, but he also would actually use it if it came down to it.”
“And the world, given what they think they know about him, would definitely believe he’d use it,” Kai agreed.
Sylas gave a nod. “Yeah. It needs to be him.”
“All right, then. We’ll make the ask, then see to the spell,” Kai said.
“Tomorrow,” Sylas spoke in that non-negotiable tone. “Let him enjoy the party tonight with his loves.”
“I’m sorry, Kai. I know you don’t like these sorts of social events, but pulling you aside to get into all of this—”
“Winter, you’re right, I don’t. So don’t think twice about it.” He grinned at him. “You did me a favor. High-level, complex spellwork talk… that’s both a reprieve from this and a treat for me.”
Sylas chuckled.
As Kai started to head inside, I rushed down the steps with Vax and Evira, accidentally startling Kai in the process.
He just shook it off, though, and bounded up the porch steps and back into the house.
Sylas caught sight of us, kissed the top of Winter’s head, then strode on past, smiling out at us.
And then we were on Win, wrapping him up.
He chuckled as we damn near smothered him.
Too bad, that was what he was getting from us.
What he always would.
What we’d always bring to each other.
For every fucking moment going forward.