“I see you’ve had no more luck with this subject than with the last one Grosh?”

“Oh I would most certainly not say that Vitor. Can you not observe the remnants of the aetheric release lingering in the containment chamber even now?”

“What I observe about the containment chamber is that it is no longer containing anything due to the rather large hole which has been blown in its side. Through three layers of reinforced Zelkar Iron unless I miss my guess?”

“You have a keen eye Vitor. Yes, I’ve built all my containment chambers out of a mix of Grade 7 Zelkar Iron and Purified Jet Copper.”

“Hmm, clever. That should have given you simply unearthly channeling capacity for grace overflows. I wouldn’t have expected it to fail as we see here. Was the binding laminate flawed during the smelting process?”

“Please. That was the first thing I tested for.”

“You don’t mean to tell me that this was an intentional failure? Caused by the Blessed subject?”

“No. No. They were quite incapable of forming intent well before I placed them into this chamber.”

“I should hope so! You know you are playing with perilous endeavors here.”

“Which is why I thought it wise to invite your review of the proceedings. Trust me Vitor, I have no desire to lose any of more of my population than I need to. I have only begun to advance them and they are showing such promise already.”

“Was that the problem then? Did your modification conflict with the Blessing the subject received?”

“That is one thing I was hoping to have you evaluate. I don’t want to bias your conclusions, but I believe this result points to a more fundamental confirmation of my work, rather than representing a flaw in the technique.”

“I am intrigued as to what the data from this last run might show then. I reviewed your general papers before traveling here, so I believe I can guess what you are looking for, but I must confess I cannot yet see how the conclusions you have drawn would lead to a result of this magnitude. I mean, there’s nothing but a fine mist left of the subject. I had thought our aims were more closely aligned than that?”

“From your papers, I believe they are. We both seek to take the flawed creatures were able to scrounge from the past world and shape them into something more worthy of our domains. In both our cases that has required the sacrifice of some small number of them, not generally in as dramatic a fashion as this I will admit, but the energy output required to leave a subject in this state? Certainly you must see the possibilities here!”

– Neoteric Lords Vitor and Grosh discovering that the bonds of a Blessing could be dissected to far greater effect than they’d previously imagined.

I had been captured. I was helpless. Oh no. How terrible.

Yeah, that had been a distinctly important part of my plan. Losing Diyas however? That had not been on the agenda, and was becoming something of a problem a lot faster than I think anyone else was aware of.

No, we’re aware, Beauty said, her voice pacing around the corners of my mind.

We’ll work something out though! Inhibition was trying to be reassuring, perhaps forgetting that we all knew when the others were lying.

We can change the plan, Reason said, also forgetting that we knew when each other was lying?

She’s not lying, she’s thinking, Beauty said. And she’s right. We need to change the plan. Insikir’s not here and you can’t afford to wait for them to call him in.

I can manage it, I can hold on, I said, ignoring the fact that we can all tell when we’re lying, even when we’re lying to ourselves.

The problem wasn’t so much that the other Neoterics had me in their clutches. The problem wasn’t even that Vitor knew I’d been carrying a blessing from Diyas. The problem was that without that Blessing, all of the divine force that I was supposed to have sent to the realms of the dead months ago was all my problem and mine alone to carry.

I like to pretend that I’m strong, but I really couldn’t pretend that the weight of duty from the mountain of grace I was carrying was something I was even vaguely capable of shouldering alone.

I was maybe one second from going fully divine, and at best about a second more from bursting free from Night’s cloak leaving the End of All Things to feast on one more god after centuries of starvation.

But it wouldn’t just be me who was destroyed there.

Malgenia had so completely captured the domains of death, that my destruction would mean the end of concept of death and everything related to it. Things like ‘life’ and ‘rebirth’ and ‘renewal’, and ‘food’, and so on and so on.

The Neoterics might survive that, but I doubted it. To escape the result of my destruction they would need to fall so deeply into their own wells of power that ascension to godhood would be inevitable, as would their consumption by the Beast.

So I tried.

I gave everything I had to hold the grace I carried inside me. To keep it hidden for just another moment more, because if I didn’t hide it, the Neoterics would take it from me. They would divide me up like they had Kurst. They would each claim pieces of my domains, and they would shunt my grace into whatever holding contraptions they’d devised. That would put off the End of All Things for a day, or a week, or maybe even two, but none of them could appreciate just how much power Malgenia had absorbed from the death of nearly the entire world, and then from every death that followed in the centuries that past.

Kurst had been powerful, and they had drunk their fill of his essence, nearly destroying our world in the process. Had that taught them anything? Certainly not in the sense of ‘perhaps we should never ever do anything like that again’. No, for them Kurst’s death had come as a shock of power as they hadn’t gained anywhere near as much from Dyrena’s ‘death’, but that had made it a puzzle and a challenge.

Helgon had denied them a decent meal as well, venting enough of his power to obliterate the land around him while somehow funneling most of it somewhere the Neoterics couldn’t locate it, despite their best attempts.

It was that, more than anything, which had convinced people like Vaingloth to proceed with caution in eliminating their fellow Lords. With Helgon’s passing, the assumption was that all of the other Neoterics had worked out contingency plans towards making the power they held inaccessible on their demise, and each then tried to figure out what plans they could make for themselves.

Except of course, there were no plans. I had no idea how Helgon had managed what he had but both I and Malgenia were certain it wasn’t an option available to her or any of the rest.

She’d never shared that conclusion with Vitor from what I could tell though, which was curious given how close they were.

The mountain bore me down to my knees, and crushed my arms, metaphorically speaking, and I had to wonder if maybe the extra days from letting them dissect me might not be worth it. The world would be hopeless doomed, but at least people would know and could say goodbye? 

I hated that. I’d fought too hard to survive Malgenia to die to a Neoteric I didn’t love, but as the mountain crushed me flat, I had to admit that I just couldn’t do it alone.

You’re not, Responsibility said and I felt the bloom of a Blessing grow in my heart.

You never have been, Clarity said and her words brought a new Blessing as well.

By hairwidths, the mountain began to rise, and my traitorous heart rejoiced.

NO! If you’re with me, then when they dissect me, they’ll get you too! I had to reject them. I had to break the bond between us, or…

Or what?

We were dead no matter what right? What hold did consequences have over us anymore? If it was impossible that we were going to get through this because that gods-be-damned idiot Insikir wasn’t here and we couldn’t risk leaving any of them alive, then why not keep striving together?

“Are you sure your bonds are going hold your sister Vitor?” Tallgrim asked. “Her aetheric flow is worrying.”

“Perhaps we should begin with the division now?” Wepan sounded hungry. “Insikir retained his divine fragments, he won’t mind missing out on this.”

“No, no, we should keep things fair and balanced,” Vitor lied to them.

I didn’t have the mental link with him that I did with Beauty and Inhibition and Reason but I had Malgenia’s memories of each time Vitor spoke to their father, the vast majority of which were lies, especially their last conversation. Vitor had used the same smooth, honeyed tone when he’d assured his father that “of course I will make you the first among all the other lords”.

And he had, in a sense. Their father had be the first of the nobility in their country who’d died during the Sunfall. By Vitor’s hand. With glee in Vitor’s eyes.

I couldn’t see him, but that same hidden glee was lurking in every syllable he spoke.

The Neoterics were going to die today whether it was by my hand or not it seemed.

It needs to be us, Responsibility said.

All of us, Clarity added, and I heard her words echo far deeper into my soul than I’d imagined sound could fall.

“You should share your vault configuration so that we can ensure none of this happens again,” Wepan said. 

“I would be delighted to! This much bother coming up once is more than once too many. Let’s never have a repeat of this,” Vitor lied. 

Why was he going to kill his sister though? Or had he realized at last that I wasn’t Malgenia? I had to wonder about that because wondering what was happening inside of me was far too much for me to process.

“What about your sister’s cache? We all agree with you that she needed to be removed given her contact with the Beast, but can her hoard of divine fragments be unearthed once she’s passed?”

“She didn’t keep a hoard. She only grasped select gods, the others she allowed the rest of us to capture,” Vitor said. “I will dismantle her domain, dispose of her followers, and tidy up. You know, all the menial tasks. If any of you should wish to join me, you are of course welcome. Perhaps one of her little retinue will attract your fancy?”

“No offense meant Vitor but I wouldn’t touch anything your sister had a hand in, especially not a concubine. Who can imagine what sort of plagues they might carry!” Hanshel said.

“I assure you, that was not the use she put her population to,” Vitor said. “I mean, you have seen her art exhibits have you not? That is where her tastes have always lain.”

“What is taking Insikir?” Tallgrim asked. “There are definitely substantial transformations occurring at the deepest aetheric levels within her.”

“She is struggling. Exactly as I imagined she might. But you see I know a secret Tallgrim. I know the source of my sister’s powers. You know she is different than the rest of us. Her immortality has a different hue than ours. Where we are sustained by our powers, she had a special ritual devised which allowed her to sustain herself on the lives of those close enough to be Blessed by her, who she sacrificed instead. A ritual which I know how to turn against her!”

“But why would she do that?” Tallgrim asked.

“Because the domains she collected had nothing to do with preserving life. She needed to take their lives as her own, and had any of those rituals failed, she would have been lost to us.”

“But if she’d lost control of her power…”

“I was well aware of the danger. That is why I modified her ritual to make these binding spells just for her,” Vitor said. “I knew she would eventually fail, or the ritual would weaken, or some other problem would arise and I would be free, FREE at long last, of her. Did you know that they called us twins? Twins! As though we were ever, in any sense the same! You all have lived with the Beast hovering over us from the Sunfall till now? I have lived with a Beast hovering over me since I was in the womb! Can you imagine what it took to wait till this moment? Can you imagine how I have longed for this exact instant to arrive?”

And the lies had all fled, leaving in their wake only a truth that Malgenia was fortunate never to hear.

“Well then, let’s not keep you waiting any longer,” Insikir said and I could feel the newly forged soul splitting blade he carried with him.