Interlude

A convulsion wracked Evrain. This wasn’t supposed to be happening! Not yet. He knew he was deteriorating quickly, but not like this.

This shouldn’t be! He still had a few years left in this new body. Right?

It had barely been more than forty years since he had taken a new host. He should have another decade in the very least.

This shouldn’t be happening. Not to him.

Not now.

“Why!?” he asked the voice in his head. “I was supposed to have more time. We’ll need to move everything forward. There’s not enough time! I haven’t found a new body yet!”

It remained silent. Betraying him.

Evrain hated this weakness. It was only by a small miracle he had been alone when this latest seizure had taken him. He was glad for it too. He didn’t want to have to kill anyone. He had already had to have three servants slaughtered to keep his secret.

The murder didn’t bite at his conscious. But more dead were bound to bring trouble, regardless of his weaponized Forgotten.

Somebody was always looking and despite his reach, he couldn’t have Forgotten take everyone’s memories.

“We’re going to need to speed up the time table.” Evrain thought. Or was it the voice that’d been his constant companion for all these centuries? It was getting harder and harder to tell between the two. “I don’t have enough energy yet. We need more chaos. More fuel to take a new host.”

But how? He hadn’t prepared. He hadn’t had enough time. It’s true that the Mountain Campaigns had fed him and had expanded Vealand’s borders and therefore given him the potential for more fuel, but that had been nearly two decades ago.

He was fueling unrest on the borders, and slowly poisoning the outer cities, but his time was running out.

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He cursed himself for not keeping any of the Wendig Tribe alive. He hated to admit that the creatures terrified him. They had been beyond his reach. Their minds immune to his touch.

No man was beyond his reach, but those monsters weren’t human and his lack of control with them scared him. At the time they had been an alien factor. Something he couldn’t control, and Evrain destroyed what he could not control.

What a fool he had been. If he hadn’t exterminated them, he would have a perfect source for the chaos that fed his transformation.

He would have to make do without.

Maybe he could cause unrest with a fire. He hadn’t used that method in a while. It was simple, too simple, but sometimes crude methods were the best.

Yes a fire. He could blame it on the rebels.

He could say that Aris failed in killing all the rebellion. Aris was becoming a wildcard anyway. He knew that the General had found the connection between the kidnappings and the Inquisitors. He didn’t know what Aris Ravenscroft would do with the information, but he could use any reaction from the man. If he did come after the him, Evrain could use his betrayal as fuel.

He could mine the discord that Aris’ turning against him would certainly bring. If he stayed loyal, he could manipulate the man into believing the rebels hadn’t truly died and send him on a campaign of terror, destroying any whom Evrain declared to be fighting against himself.

Yes, it was perfect. He would use a fire. Fiell was too packed. Too many wooden huts too close together in an ugly shamble that he hated. It would be so much easier to destroy than the old Capitol. Water was limited in the mountains, even with the White river running through the center of his ramshackle city.

Now he just needed to find a new host.

His Inquisitors said that they’d found someone. Maybe he could use that. They told him that the child was connected to his Minister of Defense, Edrian Wolls. That he had been searching for the child ever since he’d caught wind that the young girl hadn’t died like had been reported.

Edrian had thought the child’s existence hidden from him, poor fool. He’d known about the youngster almost immediately after Aris had reported on the planned attempt on his life.

He always knew.

After he had learned of the child Edrian Woll’s was so afraid of he had kept an eye out for any news dealing with the young girl. His interest had quickly waned when he learned of her death.

A dead enemy was a forgotten enemy if he wished them to be.

What harm could a dead child do?

Now though, with the news that she hadn’t died, his interest peaked.

Edrian had feared what the child knew, that was why he had ordered her death, and what scared the Minister intrigued the Emperor.

He had nearly forgotten sending his Inquisitors to search for more information on the fallen child, so when they had returned with news of her survival and her current condition, Evrain’s interest peaked. She sounded like the perfect candidate. Her body would last a long time, and it had been many long years since he’d taken the body of a woman. It would be interesting.

It would be fun.

End of Interlude