RE: Monarch

The clearing grew silent, a distant mournful lark’s cry fading.
I chided myself. Because it didn’t really matter what Thoth’s answer was. Nothing she could say would justify what she’d done. I was fairly certain she’d already given me the answer, long ago. Nevertheless, there was a part of me that needed to hear it. To force her to admit it, even though shame was likely beyond her. Nothing she did was ever permanent, every action whether positive or negative was inevitably undone. Still. I needed to hear it.
“This is new.” Thoth’s eyebrow rose. Her crestfallen demeanor sharpened, and she circled me, suddenly stoic and analytical.
Whatever she meant by it, I didn’t care. I kept her in view, resting my hand on the staff at my side. “We had a wager. Answer the question.”
“It shouldn’t matter to you. It’s never mattered to you before. She’s your anchor.”
I frowned. The last word was uttered like it meant something specific, technical rather than metaphorical. “Speak plainly.”
Thoth shook her head slowly. “Every time news of Lillian Grey’s death reaches your ears, you charge off frothing with rage, swinging the first sharp object you find, half-blind to anything else that occurs.”
“I am
from calm.”
My mind caught on the words, replaying them over and over. “How… how many times have you killed her?”
Thoth tilted her head. “Pardon?”
“Lillian Grey. The apothecary’s daughter. How many—”
“Countless.” The answer came matter-of-factly, simple in its devastation.
My blood sung. I wanted to kill her. To draw my dagger and rush her madly, as I had in the sanctum. For all her magic and skill an amateur’s surprise attack had almost done her in.
Somehow I remained, rooted in place.
Thoth’s eyes narrowed, flitting from my face, to my hand and the staff at my side. After seeming to conclude there was no immediate threat, she breathed a fatigued sigh. “I have a list of names to go through at the beginning of every loop. One that’s only grown longer over the centuries. Those who simply deserve to die. Obstacles that contribute nothing to the grand scheme beyond the roadblocks they create. Deserters to our—my—cause.” She held up a hand to silence me before I could speak. “And before you whinge on and on about the pettiness of a so-called immortal, know that a great number of the latter pose a colossal threat. Not just to me, but everyone around them.”
I had difficulty picturing that until I realized who she meant. “Deserters—you mean the others that came before. Other travelers.”
She nodded. “Who all lost their minds, one by one. Everything about this system is prototypical and by that nature, inefficient. They barely managed to get it in motion, and once it was in motion, they were too afraid to stop it. There is no convenient method of ejecting a problematic agent. Nor can they be easily slain. Addled as many are, if they are simply killed, they will remember the experience, and next time strive to avoid it.”
I flashed back to a lifetime ago, braced against a fountain, my sister burned beyond recognition, cradled tightly in my arms as the green dagger entered my chest.
And Alten had removed it.
Killed me quickly in an end befitting a warrior, instead of letting me die the slower, ritualistic death that Thoth had intended, leaving the blade lodged in my lung.
That was where it began.
Thoth had failed to close my loop, and in that interim, something else had slipped through the gaps, altering fate once more.
“None of this answers the question of the apothecary’s daughter.” I deflected, channeling anger to cover how deeply the revelation had rattled me.
“And yet, it does.”
It took me a second. I closed my eyes. “No.”
“Deny it all you want it doesn’t change the answer. Lillian was part of the second wave. Adjuncts brought in after the fifth iteration, when those first cracks were really starting to show, and the society members realized they had no oversight or methods of intercession whatsoever. They brought in friends, family, and lovers, under the guise of support, with the intention of using them as well-meaning spies. Anchors. One a piece. That was the rule.”
“No. I would
have done that to her.” I hissed.
Thoth tilted her head back and forth. “You’d be surprised how quickly the passage of time erodes absolutes. We didn’t know what it was yet. What we’d have to do. Who we’d become. If we’d had any awareness at all, we would have shipped everyone who we gave a shit about to flauros and stayed as far away from them as possible.” She barked a harsh laugh. “No… I could rake you over the coals, turn her into some grand tragedy. But the truth is, staying young forever? Knowing that one person you care for will always be there? It’s tempting to fools. You probably offered it to her, and she probably accepted. Enthusiastically. Not a hint of hesitance in her tiny mind.”
“Don’t pretend as if you knew her.” I snapped.
“Oh, but I did.” Thoth’s lips tightened. “For the three or so centuries that followed, we were close. All of us. No one outside the group could understand us, and after a few iterations we stopped being able to relate to anyone outside the oldest of elves and each other. Our anchors didn’t do well over that span—either they fell increasingly frightened, and clung to their chain with mewling insistence, or tired of doing nothing while the world ended over and over and grew meddlesome.”
I felt heat light like a fire in my chest. “If this is your way of displacing blame back onto her—”
“—There is no question of blame.” Thoth’s voice grew heated. “Lillian Grey cost us everything. Her weakness. Her
and incessant immaturity cost entire iterations. Potentially more. Unlike the rest of the anchors, she refused to see reason. She could never wrap her head around the fact that nothing we did was permanent. That there was a difference between actions that would be remembered, and those that would disappear without scars.”
“She didn’t like your brutality, and you didn’t appreciate her judgement.” I interpreted flatly, reading between the lines.
brutality?’” Thoth stabbed her fingers against her leather cuirass, aghast. “Do you think it just appeared one day? Sprung up from nowhere?”
“Maybe not. We were in it for a while. It doesn’t take long to numb to killing.” I stared at her, struggling to hold back the hatred enough to form a coherent thought. “But I’ve seen your sort before. My entire life. Sulking in corners with dark eyes that stare out beneath helmets, clad in loathing. Absent valor. The soldier who ‘accidentally’ looses an arrow and starts a war. Men and women whose minds are twisted long before they ever see bloodshed. Those that stalk the aftermath of a battlefield, snuffing out the dying with their bare hands, when a merciful swing from a sword would do. Maybe the situation enabled it, made it easier. But I’d wager you always wanted blood. That the violence simply amplified your nature.”
Her mouth moved, soundless, a dozen half-formed words emitting soundless from her lips and falling inert. “A wager you’d lose.”
“In truth, I don’t really care any more than the dead that litter your wake.” I studied her, still not sure if I believed, well, anything. “You clearly benefited more than the rest.”
The razor’s edge of a blade pressed against my throat. Murder crackled in the air, and for a moment, the screeching that plagued my ears every time she’d come within a mile of me in the past returned. “Say it again.”
I nearly did. But there was no question in my mind that to do so would invite death.
Still, I was beyond being rattled by mere threats. I shifted to look at her dead on, letting the knife bite in. “Have my words offended in some way?”
“They’re the lucky ones.” Thoth hissed.
Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.
“Spare me.” I rolled my eyes. “Any who hold the misfortune of your attention can hardly be lucky.”
“And yet, at the beginning of every iteration, they wake burdenless. Free from the weight that should lay heavy on their accursed shoulders. Surrounded by those they love. Free to luxuriate however they’d prefer, with no guilt, no atrocities darkening their mind, the bitter spite of failing the entire world utterly lost to them.”
“What shit heels.”
“Of course you make light. Because you cannot understand.”
“Indeed. I can’t.” I said, my voice cutting. “However unburdened they might feel, you’re leaving out the part where you inevitably come along to ruin it, scoring your list with feather and blade, tormenting those who once called you friend.”
“I don’t torment them.”
“For once in your life, stop lying.”
“They were my friends.” Thoth insisted. Her eyes reddened, and she swatted away smoke from the fire. “Some closer than family. Others family still. When I removed someone from the loop, I was often cruel, because they knew. They knew how important it was, how much we were needed, and despite that were still too weak to stop their minds from fraying. But after? Once they’d forgotten?”
Her mouth turned downward.
“It wasn’t fun anymore. Seeing people who had grown to monuments rendered low. Watching someone who once held the strength to move mountains squeal beneath a knife, piss themselves in fear. I can hate them for their desertion without desecrating their memory. It is a small kindness. Easy to afford. No.” Her eyes flicked to me. “I save the real torment for those who deserve it.”
“Me of course.”
“Yes.”
“And an apothecary’s daughter.” I said flatly.
“Yes.”
I asked, once again needing to hear the answer. “What could she have possibly done to deserve what you did to her?”
Thoth’s voice was bitter and cutting. “Lillian kept your eyes firmly fixed on lives already left behind. On the future after the iterations—Because of her, you could never really let go of who you were, the way the rest of us did. You were still trying to be the person she loved, for a future of which we had no promise. And all that was before she awakened. Then it all got worse.”
The words rocked me. I shook my head, not sure if I’d heard correctly. “Lillian—Lillian awakened?”
“Most of the anchors did. She wasn’t special.” Thoth glanced at me. “Are you familiar with the foraminous soul?”
I was. It’d come up rather often, in my studies. “The theory that new souls are rarely born. Most have existed for many lifetimes, and as they continue to exist they develop wear, or gaps. Reincarnation smooths the fissures with mana, and once the person is born, they are more likely to develop some sort of magical talent later in life.”
“Then you probably also know that turmoil is conducive to widening those gaps. A painful, drawn out death is more productive than a quick and merciful end. Over the span of a single lifetime it hardly matters, but over countless? The difference is stark. We knew it. And often leaned into it, especially when the iteration was clearly lost to us. It’s the reason many of us grew to such grand heights. But that also meant in the early iterations our anchors outlived us—which more often than not meant watching us die, often horribly, then living out the rest of their days shrouded in grief until Ragnarok’s not-so-merciful embrace.”
“A huge oversight.” I realized, trying very much to think of anything but Maya. “They’d be affected nearly as much as we were. Probably more.”
“Mhm.” Thoth agreed. “Some were still happy in their original role. Supporting those who acted, while learning and training enough to leverage their new abilities and protect themselves. Most, unfortunately, wanted more. And all the society saw was the potential of inexperienced, highly motivated blades to their army.”
I thought back to the story she’d alluded to. “The new additions. The ones you despised.”
Thoth shook her head. “There were others still before them. Those admitted by fame rather than potential. Still. The reshuffling compounded an already metastasizing problem. That all they had accomplished was making our bodies immortal, while leaving our minds in unmitigated peril.”
“And this was Lillian’s fault how?” I asked. But somewhere, deep within, I knew the answer.
“Because she was never committed to the mission. Lillian was committed to you. A seemingly minor difference. One that added up to the heavens, given time. And as she developed in power, growing in competence and capability beyond the point she could reasonably be ignored. She never forgot the iterations that ended posted by your sickbed, wincing over some hideous magic or terrible wound, watching, as your vitality drained to nothing. And in the hardest of times—when we were defeated, broken, doomed to watch the current iteration end once more—she would come to you. Like a siren in the night, whispering.”
I shook my head, feeling my mind swim, reminding myself that this very well could all be a lie. Another manipulation from a twisted mouth that would like nothing more than to hurt me.
But it didn’t feel like a lie.
Then again, none of her stories had.
“How would you know?” I looked up suddenly, eyeing her with contempt. “If Lillian came to me in confidence, how was that any business of yours at all? Were you spying on us even then?”
Thoth balked, then threw back her head and laughed. The cruel noise cut off oddly at the end. “Spying? We were all so entangled that there was no telling where one of us ended and the other began. Not spying. Listening. You told me. Voluntarily shared the burdens. Spoke the siren’s words secondhand.”
“Yes, of course. I shared that my lover was having doubts with what must have been the least sympathetic ear I could find.”
“Oh, I was not a monster to you then. Not yet. You were quick to turn a blind eye. Because back then, the things I did benefitted you. All of us. The fact that you found my methods unsavory was always overwritten by the sheer convenience that I was always the first to step up to do whatever was necessary, often without being asked, while the rest of you wrung your hands and equivocated. You did not take umbrage with the reality that I enjoyed the work until far later.”
“So,
told you.” I repeated, sick to my stomach, still not fully believing it but ready to move on.
“Aye. Shared burdens. Told all about how she’d whisper to you come morning that what we were doing was abhorrent. An end that required all this blood and pathos could not possibly be worth the means. That the nobler course was to simply accept that the time to save this world was long past, and lumber quietly into the darkness, hand in hand.” She gazed at her gauntlet as she spoke, introspective. “A romantic sentiment to be sure. As stupid as it was poisonous.”
I cocked my head. “Poisonous how?”
“Our circumstances remained in deadlock for iterations. However much Lillian and the rest of the detractors that skulked behind her wanted the cycles to end, they weren’t courageous enough to move on their own. It took an eon to gather that courage. Lillian was the first to abandon us voluntarily. To request that her loop be closed. Once it was, the possibility of desertion spread, festering through our ranks like a contagion. And even when she was gone her words never left you. The premise of leaving all this behind for a normal life festered in your mind, just as it did in the others.”
Something about her explanation felt like a smokescreen. It took some thought to piece together why. “How close was it? Come Ragnarok. Were we ever close to winning? Even at the height of our power?”
“That doesn’t matter.”
“It matters a great deal.” I argued. “If we were simply bashing our heads against the wall over and over, it’s only natural that people would have doubts.”
“Even now you defend her.” Thoth shook her head, breathing an amused sigh. “I always thought you developed a great deal over the course of the iterations. But perhaps in some ways, you did not grow at all.”
“Spare me the superiority.”
“I was not always your superior. You learned more quickly than all of us. Absorbed knowledge like a sponge. Sacrificed more to climb to the apex of your potential than anyone I’d ever met. And you just taught anyone who approached you. Shared your knowledge, your power. Within your heart you held more generosity than the grandest fool. Later on, when those who remained could barely look at me, you never turned your back. Instead, you narrowed the gaps in my knowledge. Taught what was lacking. Even after—” her voice cracked. Immediately, the burgeoning emotion in her expression was wiped to neutrality, and when she spoke again, her words were ice. “—after you came to hate me, you were a far better master than any I have known. You never lost sight of the goal, even when the fire that drove you had long since puttered out.”
“And that’s why you go out of your way to torment me, every iteration?” The words flowed out of me, simmering with barely contained wrath. “Because I looked out for you when no one else would? Because I shared my knowledge with you even when I must have known the risk, even then?”
“I did not come to hate you for what you did, but for what you would eventually do.”
“Leave you behind.”
“The part without the whole.” Thoth trailed off. Then the corner of her mouth quirked. “But the rest is outside the parameters of our wager. I’ve answered the question of why I choose to end Lillian Grey in the manner I see fit, and why I choose to do so every iteration.”
“So you say.” The idea of sleeping near her, sharing the same space, was suddenly too nauseating to stand. I began to gather my belongings and my bedroll, taking the meagre possessions I’d gathered since the firestorm, stuffing them into my satchels and bags. “For all I know, you’ve spent the last hour filling this cave with the stink of your lies. This was a waste of time.”
“Ignoring the truth because it doesn’t suit you—where I have seen this one before?” Thoth mocked.
“In most people, I imagine.”
“Where are you going?”
“Away from you.”
“There are critical matters we have not discussed regarding the state of this world.”
“Then I’ll strive to uncover them.”
Thoth hissed. “You’ll die long before that.”
“Should that come to pass, death shall welcome me with open arms.” I approached the mouth of the cave, feeling relief simply from the fractional distance.
“Don’t delude yourself. I will find you again.” Thoth said. Yet even with the echo, she sounded smaller than before.
“All the more motivation to treasure the solitude while it lasts.”
I paused at the mouth, half expecting a warning or threat. None came. I turned back, and took one last look at the lanky figure, wreathed in shadow. An undeniably lonely image, albeit one I couldn’t find the slightest fraction of sympathy for. Hesitation stayed my boots at the point where stone turned to dirt. I’d chosen to tolerate her for the good of the cause. Now, by leaving, it felt like I was abandoning that intention. But I wasn’t, not really. She would find me again, and was likely to be more agreeable when it was clear that I did not need her help, any temporary joining clarified as exactly that.
If anything, she’d be more forthcoming.
I shook my head, clearing the lapse.
A gentle breeze brushed my neck as I left the stuffiness of the cave behind.
And embarked into the darkness beyond.