Chapter 7 - Illeana - Soul Seer
"Greetings, princess," said the man donning a gray coat and a bowler hat as he opened the door, which disintegrated into purple ash from his touch. With a rhythmic tap of his cane, the man entered the room and stopped beside her violin, his noble visage marked by a meticulously groomed beard. In the dark room lit only by the fire in the hearth, his hawk-like eyes shone like beacons with an eerie purple hue.
Illeana's gaze pierced through the dim ambiance, eyes narrowing into icy slits as they fixed upon his towering figure, "Duke Nathaniel, it's not very gentlemanly of you to come into a lady's room uninvited, much less the princess."
The Duke looked around where she stood, then at the bed where her white dress lay, before he chuckled, "Augustus finally let you become an observer? Here I thought our princess was a dimwit with no aptitude or enough coherent thoughts to form a viewpoint."
“I see, the dog has learned to bark. Weren't you just some lowly landlord before royal father decided to take pity on you?”
Duke held his bowler hat with one hand as he guffawed, his body shaking with laughter, “Our princess is indeed as funny as they said. Do you not see the irony in this situation? This ‘lowly’ landlord now wields power over the destiny of the high and mighty princess.”
Illeana scoffed, "Indeed, calling you a dog is disrespectful to their species. At least they’re loyal to their masters. You, on the other hand, have come to bite the very hand that feeds you."
"Let's not insult each other's intelligence, princess. This has nothing to do with my loyalty. I was the most staunch supporter of the king and still would be if he decided not to be irresponsible and foolhardy. I am just looking out for myself in these troubling times. You see—"
Illeana cut him off, "What audacity! How dare you mock royal father? What gives you the gall to not kneel, grovel and beg for mercy after such a flagrant display of insolence towards the throne?" The performance was about to begin, so it was time to set the stage.
The duke nodded, "I didn't expect to miss that one. But who can blame me? No one would have thought that you’ll overcome the unseen one's influence in such a short time. Not just that, you can even ‘see’ my vision?"
The duke stopped, his expression turning thoughtful for a second before he gasped, “Ahh, I understand. It must be one of those Augustus' famous trinkets. Yes, yes. It only makes sense. As for the gall?” He pointed at his eyes and blinked.
Thousands of new screaming fluctuations emerged in her perception and a purple smog burnt around him that chipped away at everything it touched. He tapped his cane hard at the floor, and a big chunk of the floor dissolved. Furniture and instruments fell to the floor below in disarrayed and fractured melodies as the purple mass droned in the air.
"You better watch your fucking tone! A mere sightless that received enlightenment moments ago, dares to question me? Your title of a princess is nothing but a mere construct in front of the truth. But what would you know?"
"The rash king is going against the unseen one, ignoring his duty to the kingdom, while his foolish daughter is courting death before an entity who, to her, might as well be a god. Bear witness for you're in the presence of a Shadow Artificer with three shades, and it will be my pleasure to consign you to the grave."
Ignoring most of the speech of the narcissist, she tiptoed to the right, avoiding the screaming ray of darkness that manifested beneath her feet.
This is good. He is agitated already. I might be able to pull off Silence of Soulstrings. It was the only greater vision requiring four shades that she had learned with all her heart from the observation record. The reasoning behind doing so was simple. It was a vision that purely manipulated emotions and had nothing to do with souls other than the name.
Ever since Father had explained all about the observation and viewpoint, it didn't take her long to decide how she wanted to observe the reality. Emotions were the root of everything in society, and she firmly believed that the ability to perceive the exact state of someone's mind might as well be the same as being omniscient.
It would take her a long time to get there in reality, but the current empowerment of free representation was nothing short of that fabled omniscience. She could feel the melody of every emotion coming from the Duke, so it was high time she began her performance.
The core idea behind this vision was simple. One had to guide the emotions of their foe in a manner such that one specific timbre never repeated until the vision was complete. Then, at each of these steps, she had to influence the vibrations of Duke to match her own. There was much more to it than just that, but she trusted her intuition and the world to help with the rest.
For starters, she had to manipulate his agitated fluctuations to match her own. Concealing the minor vibrations needed to insinuate the change within her words, she spoke—amusement clear in her voice, "Having trouble reaching a mere sightless, oh great shadow artificer?"
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"Haha, you little whore. You really don't understand the situation, eh?"
Annoyed.
Before she could send another veiled alteration his way, savage vibrations gathered around duke’s hand as he raised his fingers. She swiveled to the right with immaculate grace, and a dark beam whizzed past her shoulders, dissolving everything in its wake.
"Some god you are," she chuckled, her words disguising the subtle guiding tones.
Irate. It changed too fast—she had just barely managed the last one.
"You really thought royal father would leave me helpless, knowing full well what was to come?" Not missing a chance to tighten the noose further, she attuned this new emotion to match her own rhythm as well. Veiled as just another intonation of her discourse.
Doubtful now, are we? But this is almost changing too rapidly! The Observation Record had said that new emotions permeated a soul in a gradual fashion. Even if a person's outward emotions changed in the blink of an eye, the soul was supposed to take its time. As expected, this whole concept of a soul is just sub-standard nonsense.
Nevertheless, she hummed a tone with notes that belied somberness, caressing the symbol on her invisible forearm with low vibrations. Seizing this opportunity to also employ her fine-tuning melody, she dampened his rhythm to align with hers.
Then, just like Father promised, hundreds of green motes of light materialized around her and condensed into a pocket watch within an instant.
The playful smile that hung on the Duke's face disappeared in a moment, and his eyes blazed a bright purple as he snapped his fingers. Many patches of darkness appeared all around Illeana, shrieks and droning screeches blasting within her perception.
Not wasting any time, she clicked the knob of her pocket watch, and a green haze enveloped her with a suddenness that mirrored the rapidness of the screaming patches.
The darkness that had vaporized everything in its path until now, entered the haze and lost all its momentum, collating into a dark globule within the green mist as more and more of it poured in from the dark wells outside. Anything that reached the haze was stopped dead in its tracks, moving slower than a mournful violin melody played with delicate vibrato.
Astonished. Just one more phase. The Duke had yet to notice any of her manipulations, so his true perceptions must be blind to truths regarding vibrations, emotions, or even the soul.
The Duke rapid-fired the small beams at her before clapping his hands together. The whole room turned pitch black for a second, and everything disintegrated except Illeana standing within her haze. The entire mansion crumbled as chunks and pieces of debris fell around her, some stopping within her haze.
Her vision turned moist as she envisioned another set of counter tones, fusing them within her words. “Pathetic!”
The Duke glared at her, blood leaking from his eyes. With a rough jerk of his hand, he reached for his bowler hat, and his form began to darken.
Hatred. This is it.
Then, like a conductor guiding the ensemble of emotion to the climax, she raised her hand high, and a wave of muted emotions congregated all around the Duke, surging forth like a tsunami with him in the center.
"Must be fun hiding behind your daddy’s little trinkets, pretending to be all high and mighty. Can’t do anything by yourself, even as an observer? Then you’re better off dying anyway!"
Ignoring his words, she focused on controlling the orchestra of passive emotions with shifts of her hand complemented by her vision. Now it was all or nothing.
"I, Illeana Maximillian, second princess of the Kingdom of Karthain," her veins bulged as she felt the blood pumping through her eyes with wild abandon.
Duke pushed his right hand through the bowler hat, which sank right into it. Before she could do something else, a hand appeared within her sphere, grabbing at her pocket watch—but it was already too late.
The seemingly harmless yet all-encompassing vibrations crashed into the Duke, past his burning smog, constricting him.
Duke's innate pulses of emotions blanked out, replaced by a passive hum, ready to billow or plunge at her beck and call.
"Command you…to die!" Then like an executioner delivering the sentence, she chopped down in a swift motion, and the veins around her eyes burst, blood pouring out from them in invisible gushes.
The man let his bowler hat go, which fell to the ground, and the hand disappeared from her haze. Resting it on his chest, his eyes glowed purple. In a flash of darkness, there was a gaping hole in his chest, the building's ruin visible through it. The body lost the force keeping it afloat, falling into the crater like a ragdoll.
It was over. She had done it.
Taking a deep breath, she twisted the watch’s knob backward with a sharp motion. The forces of the planet remembered to apply to the green mass, and she glided down in a smooth motion, landing in the crater across the lifeless husk.
She fell on her knees as soon as the force holding her afloat disappeared, holding her illusory palms over her eyes as blood seeped through them. She took deep breaths and regulated her breathing, kneeling on the ruined pavement.
Minutes passed by before she gathered herself and hummed an upbeat tone. The green motes, alongside all the dark energy and debris within it, dematerialized into shimmering dots that returned to the pattern on her invisible forearm.
Tucking the strands of her hair behind her ears, she stood up and looked at the aftermath of her first battle of perspectives. This man had obliterated her mansion, including all her instruments and guards. It hurt. It hurt losing everything, but losing control of her emotions would hurt even more.
She took a deep breath and reflected. This is indeed the right path for me. Other than the situation at the end, she handled it well.
Not like she would have lost the watch, as it was bound to her. But even a second outside its protection would have been enough to silence her forever. Didn't matter if she was in free representation—a single touch from that thing could have reduced her to mere notes on a page, never to be heard again.
But the Duke had misjudged the situation and underestimated her too much. Even if she had just finished her enlightenment, it didn't mean she was as weak as others at this stage. Her enlightenment was orders above most.
The vision she had just employed was something she could only emulate as an observer without a single shade due to free representation. With this experience, she felt confident enough in her understanding of the concept to shade her perception with it maybe twice, but that was about it.
Who knew how long it would take her to reach four shades and silence someone’s soulstrings another time? And that was assuming she wouldn’t find a more suitable observation record in the meantime.
She looked at the barely visible crater, polluted with messy and jumbled fluctuations of broken laws one final time, and walked away.
She was leaving as an orphaned princess, but there would come a day when she would play her favorite piece here as the Queen of Karthain.