“Don’t look at me like that,” said Elys.
Cyril tasted blood in his mouth and realized he had bitten his tongue. His voice was hard and empty. “He killed you?”
“Me, my guards, and over four hundred civilians.”
Cyril rubbed his forehead and stared at the floor. “Yet you’re still alive.”
“Turns out being the Phoenix’s Vessel has a few benefits,” said Elys, her voice full of false cheer. “Eternal rebirth. Cyclic reincarnation. The Titan of Fire doesn’t have raw power like Behemoth, you know. It has a soul that can fundamentally never be extinguished. If its material form is ever destroyed, it carries all its knowledge on after reforming a new body. That’s how it’s existed for so long. It can’t stop itself.”
Cyril walked around the table in a few rapid steps. Her trembling fingers were digging into the table. He rested his hand on top of hers.
“That sounds like a nightmare.”
“Sometimes,” she admitted. “It can be useful. Still, I recommend you never die. It’s almost always a bad time.”
He had to admit he was curious about how the ability worked. She still looked like herself, albeit seven years younger or so. Before his inquisitive thought process began to unravel, he refocused himself on his sister’s face. He had never seen her worried or distraught, though he knew that behind closed doors, the pressure of a prodigy’s life would have inevitably caught up with her.
“You’re in a terrible position,” he said. “It must feel like the fate of the entire tribe rests on your shoulders. If you don’t surrender, all of their lives are at risk.”
She shot him an annoyed glance, as if she couldn’t believe he was bringing the topic up, but her face quickly softened. “It feels selfish to put myself before everyone else. When the time comes, I’m not sure if I can’t honestly refuse and sacrifice everyone for my pride. On the bright side, Leviathan hasn’t been seen for almost five years now. Most people think he’s in the middle of a prolonged breakthrough. So, at least we have some time.”
“It seems pretty simple, then.” Cyril sat down in the seat beside her and snapped his fingers. “We become strong enough to defeat him.”
“I guess no one told you about the size of Leviathan’s empire? He’s upset some old monsters, but he’s also made a lot of people rich and powerful. His mercantile fleets dominate the seas and set up routes between isolated civilizations once thought lost to the wild.”
Cyril leaned back in his seat. “He’s tricky, he’s not omniscient. Not yet, at least. The world resents a tyrant. Once he starts crossing the wrong borders and shows his true colors, he’ll make powerful enemies. We don’t have to overwhelm Leviathan in a physical fight right now. A single deathblow won’t do it for someone like him. Thwart him, isolate him, kill him through death by a thousand cuts. That’s how we win.”
Elys stared at him with her lips quirked in an uncertain smile. “That’s pretty morbid. Guess you’re probably no longer the spoiled little brother I used to know, are you?”
Cyril shrugged. “I killed a couple hundred monsters, lost my arm to an Ascended, stumbled upon a cursed inheritance or two, forced Lady Firouza to retreat, and had a couple divine visions along the way. Oh, and of course, I bonded with Behemoth in the first place.”
Elys couldn’t resist smiling. “I’m glad you made it back, Cyril. Nobody else is very fun nowadays. Everyone takes me so seriously. Tell me more about your journey, before someone ends up interrupting about some meeting or another.”
Cyril was happy to recount most of the details since he had woken up. Leaning forward, Elys listened attentively. When he began describing the battle at the oasis, he found it difficult to make eye contact with her. He apparently still harbored some residual guilt over the violent encounter.
“Be more careful next time,” was all she said. “Draw as little attention as possible until we’re in a better position.”
He glanced up at her in surprise. For a moment, he thought that perhaps she had misunderstood his explanation, but that was no more than insecurity on his part. Of course she saw straight through him. Elys had always had an uncanny knack for uncovering the truth, and her advancements would have only made her more terrifying. Though, it seemed she still had an obvious blind spot--she had never been able to properly apply her wisdom and empathy toward herself.
“Tell me,” he asked her, “was it selfish of me to come back home? Knowing that risk of revealing my association to our family?”
Elys crossed her legs. “Maybe. There’s no precedent for what we’re going through. Who can reasonably expect us to be perfect? And it’s not like the tribe’s in the best situation either. My death set my cultivation level back significantly and required years for me to resurrect, and even then it was into the form of a child. I’m stronger now than I was back then, but Leviathan suffered no real setbacks.”
“You’re right,” Cyril admitted. “Our best chance is working together. If Leviathan was able to grow that powerful by himself in a short period of time, we should have the same potential.”
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
“Also, to be honest,” said Elys, “do whatever you think feels right. It’s possible to always make the most logical choice and still cruel fate will laugh at all your plans. May as well be a little selfish.”
Loras spoke up for the second time in its deep, resonant voice. “Then listen to your own advice. Follow your heart and see where it leads, instead of praying for martyrdom.”
Elys’ eyes flicked over to the metallic cultivator, and she scanned its armored figure as if truly noticing its presence for the first time. A smug little smile appeared on her face. “You know, my family tells me that all the time. It’s different when a stranger tells you, though. Maybe you’re right. After all, what I’m doing so far isn’t working, and honestly, I hate losing.”
Cyril nodded sagely. “Same.”
Loras grunted in agreement.
“Our first priority is to stuff you full of as many alchemical concoctions, elixirs, natural treasures, and the like as possible,” said Elys. “Frankly, it’s embarrassing that you’re still in the Middle Condensation Stage. The children are stronger than that nowadays.”
Cyril rolled his eyes. She knew exactly why, because she had been the same way at his age. Their parents had raised both of them under the same philosophy.
Most cultivators bonded with a spirit as soon as they feasibly could and attempted to artificially ascend at a breakneck pace, hoping to ride the momentum until their accumulated impurities formed a final, impenetrable bottleneck. Their parents had always emphasized perfect foundations and patience while searching for the optimal spirit to bond with. Why rush recklessly toward the peak as a thirteen year old and burn out by twenty, when a proper cultivator could live for centuries, or even millennia?
“I’ve never turned down a free drink in my life,” said Cyril. “Bring out the elixirs, then. I have an ability to rid myself and others of impurities. I haven’t experimented much with it, but don’t be stingy with the alchemical materials. These foundations are absolutely solid.”
Elys narrowed her eyes. “Since when were you so utterly shameless, little brother?”
Cyril kicked his feet up on the table and crossed his hands behind his head. “How long do you think you could last out there without your silk bed and personal chefs before you went insane, dear sister? This armor looks nice, but the chafing is absolutely outrageous. Could you throw in some clothes with the rest of my allowance? Where’s the nearest hot bath?”
Elys clucked her tongue at him as if admonishing a rogue chicken. “It’s already been arranged. I asked a couple of my men to fetch you a storage ring filled with some of our best materials. Yes, that includes some of your favorite self-cleaning tunics and slippers. It’s actually unbelievable--you can’t tolerate some sand between your toes, but the Titan of Earth wanted to bond with you.”
Cyril shot her a discerning glance but decided to keep his rebuttal to himself.
“There’s something else we should talk about,” said Elys, some of the cheer leaving her voice. “Since my encounter with Leviathan, the Sect of Sacred Tears has had a small embassy within the tribe to keep an eye on us. Uncle Asher went to capture their emissaries, as well as the foreign cultivators permitted within our territory. We hope to slow the spread of your presence to the outside world for as long as possible.”
“Ah,” said Cyril. “That’s where he ran off to.”
Elys nodded. “You probably know what this means. Recent upsets caused by certain someones within the desert will have brought a lot of scrutiny down on the region. Kidnapping their diplomats will definitely trigger an investigation, if not outright war. For now, the desert remains a low priority for Leviathan and his empire, but we have a problem if matters continue to escalate.”
Cyril leaned back, arms crossed, and considered the dilemma. Truthfully, he was no real tactician, though he’d listened in on a few war councils and read a few books on the subject. Grasping these sort of politics required an insight and predictive ability he simply wasn’t equipped with. All he could do was agree with his sister’s assessment. Sometimes there were simply no good answers.
After a few minutes of contemplation, a knock on the door signaled the arrival of one of Elys’ men--the veteran she had sent off earlier with some whispered instructions. He presented a band of pale, smooth jade to Elys upon a red silk cloth. She casually picked it up and underhand tossed it to Cyril.
He snatched it out of the air and managed to slip it onto his index finger, though the process was a bit awkward with his prosthetic hand. At some point, he would need to figure out how to actually have it serve as more than a chunk of metal without any fine motor control.
Spatial storage rings were quite the rarity, even for someone of Elys’ uplifted significance. He doubted anyone but her and their parents had one. Crafting them required a unique combination of techniques and talents, including the ability to imbue dimensional Space qi into inanimate objects. Transference of such esoteric properties probably required a marid-level spirit or an unprecedented genius, which tended to drive up the cost of things.
Cyril examined the band upon his finger. “Jade, huh? Not your usual rosegold or rubies or whatever. Is this a gift from a suitor you’re passing on to me or something?”
Elys grinned. “Yes, Leviathan gave it to me.”
Cyril began coughing and attempted to pull it off with the help of his awkward darkalloy hand, then stopped when Elys started laughing at him. His cheeks reddened slightly when he realized she had been joking. She had often teased him about how gullible he could be, though he liked to think of himself as more earnest.
Shaking his head, Cyril sent a thread of Earth qi into the ring and activated it. It projected a personalized spatial field with about a five-foot radius around him. He sensed that, by exercising his will, he could manifest the contents of the ring anywhere within the zone, though it was by far the simplest to extract something into the hand wearing the ring.
Writing in the spirit language wove its way across his vision in golden light, describing the contents of the storage ring. It seemed quite a large one as well, containing about a small room’s worth of items. Focusing upon the specific item brought an image of the object to mind, and he could summon anything with a flex of his will.
He searched through the catalog of contents, forcing his face to remain stoic. Pills in elegantly labeled bottles, vibrant herbs leaking dense spirituality, multiple pairs of his favorite outfit, elixirs stored in stacks of cushioned boxes. Oh, yes, this will do for now.
“Oh, yes,” said Elys. “One more thing. We have a treasure that you should appreciate, but it destroyed any type of artificial spatial construct we attempted to store it in. We found it while searching for you, actually.”
Cyril frowned. “And what is it?”
“We think it’s a fragment of Behemoth’s body.”