When Heroes Die

“Titans of a bygone age heed my words: Do not disdain the fruits of our labour for the forgotten remnants of a time long past. Cease this madness immediately.”

– Antigone Strides-Ever-Unyielding, amphore for the Chorus of the Gentle Hand, moments before the Fall.

Shutting off the senses that had been briefly re-enabled by the actions of the Tumult, I took a moment to think.

I had a few problems now that the fight was over.

It was time for me to make progress on the first one. That was figuring out where I was.

I opened my eyes.

I was met with a plain of greys and blacks. A forest of petrified trees emerged from salted earth that glimmered under the moonlight. Several of them had impact markings. My protective barrier had likely done some damage to them while the Tumult had been swinging me around.

Next problem.

Could I move forward without losing the Horned Lord?

I had a hunch that I could. I believed that the place which was not a place where the angels resided was dimensionless. It was my main reason for choosing to put the Horned Lord there, rather than anywhere else. It wasn’t my only reason, but it was the most prevalent one. I didn’t want to deposit the Horned Lord in one of the hells, only to have it wander away.

I took a step forward and fell face-first into the salt.

My continued inability to perform basic bodily functions frustrated me to no end. Cheeks silver, I crawled forward naked a few feet just to confirm my unfounded hypothesis.

Even that was a challenge for me.

Good. The Tumult still remained locked firmly in place, exactly where it was before I had moved.

It didn’t seem particularly bothered by its new change in living arrangements.

The Horned Lord… looked like it was trying to lie on its side and return to sleep. I wasn’t entirely sure, considering there weren’t any reference points there for me to use. It was still the impression that I received.

That was a relief.

Could I move matter into the space the Horned Lord occupied?

Gods Above, please forgive me this blasphemy that I’m considering. It is for a good cause.

The Angels sent me a sense of reassurance to tell me that it was okay in response to my prayer. It still felt wrong to me, even if I knew that it was fine. I felt as if I was littering somewhere holy. I knew that it was irrational. If the Angels didn’t have a problem with it, then my concerns were unfounded.

That didn’t stop me from feeling offended by what I was planning on their behalf.

I also felt guilty about putting the Horned Lord there in the first place.

It was unlikely that the Tumult could continue directing the Ratlings from where it currently was. My plan was to shunt parts of Creation in there and transmute the materials into both food and a temporary living space for the giant Ratling.

Unfortunately, it would need to wait until a day had passed to safely confirm either way. I’d take care of the Horned Lord until it fell asleep once more. I could find somewhere to put it once it had started hibernating, and then eject it from the home of the Choir of Compassion.

It was time for me to confront the problem that I was avoiding dealing with.

Shakily, I climbed to my feet.

Do I just fly over to the others now?

No. If I kept relying on my abilities here, I’d never manage to acclimatize to my body again.

I turned on all my senses.

Pain. So much pain. It felt like someone had simultaneously driven nails in my ears, poured salt water down my nose and was scraping my skin with a cheese grater.

I whimpered, then reflexively shut my senses back off.

I was already back on the ground.

It made me realize the likely reason that the different Angelic Choirs chose heroes in the first place. They needed an anchor to humanity even more than I did. The Choir of Compassion was so compassionate that they couldn’t conceive of something or someone not belonging in their home. A home invader in the minds of the Angels was simply another person that they could offer compassion to.

With time, I had come to understand that it was why they hadn’t snuffed me out when I had first encountered them. They had looked away to shield me from their presence. It wasn’t because they hadn’t noticed me at the time.

No matter how frustrating it was, it seemed that I’d have to do this one sense at a time. Which one to start with? All of them were overwhelming. Touch. I’d start with touch.

The horrible sensation of ants crawling all over me returned. I yelped and floated an inch off the ground. With nothing to distract me, even the sting of salt against bare flesh was more than I was able to tolerate.

What next? Clothes. I was naked. This needed to be amended. Even the idea of fabric touching my skin felt like acid pouring down my throat.

Could I just stay naked?

It wasn’t like there was anyone nearby who would care about my state of undress. Any Ratlings that approach would just die, and the other two had both seen me naked already.

Human. Think human.

What was the smallest item of clothing I could cover myself with? I wanted as little material touching my skin as possible. I was already contemplating creating a skin tight layer of vacuum around me just to make this easier to cope with.

No.

I spent another hundred heartbeats arguing with myself about what to wear. It took far more effort than I liked to convince myself to make proper clothing. I ended up wearing slippers, a sweatshirt and sweatpants. They were in theory white, but for the time being the entire world was grey. It was horrifically garish to look at, but it was the most comfortable set of clothing I could come up with after experimentation.

Comfort mattered more to me at the moment than fashionability.

I could feel the others gradually making their way towards me. To be more accurate, I could feel the now familiar blade approaching. I wasn’t sure how Laurence was moving, but I was willing to bet my daughter had something to do with it.

Good.

That was good.

I had tried to convince myself to make a form fitting bodysuit to better acclimatize, but that was pushing skin contact too far. Even garments as loose as these were painful. There was too much information. However… I’d just spent a week learning to live in a slice of heaven that felt like hell. There was no way that I wouldn’t take the time to pull myself out of another one.

I dragged myself to my feet a third time.

My limbs shook as I stood.

I wasn’t going to fly or teleport myself back to the others. There were no Ratlings nearby. Actually, why were there no Ratlings nearby? It was odd. Either way, I knew that they were safe. That meant I could take the opportunity to learn to walk again. It was humiliating, but it had to happen sooner or later. It was better for it to be sooner than later.

I wasn’t going to be changing my location like that again except in an emergency. It was quick, effective and unlike trying to actually teleport wasn’t exhausting. The cost to my humanity was the problem.

I manifested a length of yew and grabbed it in my right hand. The rough grain pulled against my skin. It reminded me of running my hand against sandpaper. I started to walk forward. My initial progress was slow.

I moved the stick forward carefully and poked it into the ground.

Trudge.

Poke again.

Trudge.

Trip. Fall. Pick myself back up once more.

Trudge.

Right and Left were… loose concepts for me at the moment. Distance was even harder for me to grasp. I kept having to hold my left hand out in front of me, moving it backwards and forwards to try and familiarize myself with depth once again. I was so used to thinking of everything within my sphere of influence as being one place now that the oddity of seeing so much from only a single point within it was exceedingly disorientating.

Trudge.

To my dismay, it seemed like Innovate was not able to help me learn how to walk again. Learning a skill that I had known in the past wasn’t an innovation. These frustrations hearkened back to the cost I had once paid at the end of my time on Earth Bet. They reminded me of the monster that I had become. It wasn’t something that I liked to recall.

I pitied the Horned Lord.

I was certain it was intelligent. Not only that, I was certain that it was smarter than I was. It would be stupid to think otherwise, considering the Tumult was thousands of years old. It had to actually survive that long. I couldn’t imagine what it must feel like to be handled in this manner because of a compulsion it had no choice in. It was the best I could do. I felt guilty about shunting it somewhere so awful, but… it was a testament to how dangerous the Horned Lord was that I’d felt it was necessary to resort to such drastic measures in the first place.

I wanted to try and negotiate with it when I had the opportunity. It would take some doing. I’d need to move the right objects into the angel’s home, then change them into oversized tools for reading and writing. That didn’t mean that it couldn’t work. I didn’t know why the Horned Lord didn’t just send the excess Ratlings into Keter. There was almost certainly a good reason, aside from avoiding swelling the Dead King’s numbers.

I hoped to bring about an end to the spring raids. I wasn’t sure what I could realistically offer the Tumult for the cessation of long term hostilities, but I would be a fool not to try. This was a unique opportunity. It was an opportunity that it was unlikely anyone else had ever had.

If I could find a way to satisfy both parties in the short term, then… hopefully it would make the situation better until I found a long term answer.

Poke forward with the stick.

Trudge.

My breath came quick and heavy.

Trudge.

The crunch of salt under the soles of silk slippers was fortunately muted enough that my ears didn’t want to kill me.

A break. I needed a break.

Muting my sense of touch, I took a moment to lean against the shattered base of one of the petrified trees. The tree had a broad base and large, gnarled roots. It was wider than I was tall. I’d enable my sense of touch again once I’d had a moment’s respite.

I hadn’t really understood how inhuman I was. Not until the false face I was wearing had been stripped away.

I’d do my best to ensure that the Tumult didn’t suffer the same fate.

I’d try to make the Horned Lord’s stay in my own personal room in heaven as comfortable as possible. There was no reason for me to torture it. I wasn’t that kind of monster. It was lodged firmly within my presence, and it seemed that wasn’t going to change. That meant that I could use one spectre a day to make its time in prison more comfortable for it. I suspected, but could not confirm, that I was partially shielding it from the angel’s presence.

I reshaped the trunk of the tree into a cushioned velvet chair. In theory, it was comfortable. Unfortunately, I wasn’t in a position where I could appreciate it. Taking a seat, I pushed my hair out of my eyes and looked up at the stars above.

The night sky was cloudless.

Even in shades of grey, it was breathtaking to look at. It was something that I doubted I would ever become tired of. The sky on Earth Bet had been polluted by city lights. It almost didn’t matter where you went, you couldn’t observe the stars like this.

I started up another prayer in thanks. It was a belated thanks for all of us having made it through the fight alive. I stopped myself as an epiphany struck me.

There was something I had been lying to myself about, and it was time that I finally stopped. I took a moment to acknowledge a truth that I had been shying away from for some time.

I was religious and that was okay.

Nothing changed.

It was funny.

A part of me had expected something to happen once my denials had ended, but why should anything change? I had believed in my Gods for a while. All that had changed was my acceptance of it. It was still a relief to me. I felt as if a weight had been lifted off my shoulders. A weight that I had put there on my own.

My growing faith had been something that I was afraid to admit to myself. The reasons were stupid, but that didn’t make them just go away. I wasn’t sure what my dad or friends back on Earth Bet would have thought of my beliefs if they were around to talk to me. Would they judge me? I liked to think that they would have been supportive of my newly discovered faith, but the doubt would always exist. It would always be there, worming away at the back of my mind. It was a question that I would never have an answer to.

But at least I knew that none of the people I had come to care about now would view my beliefs as wrong. None of them would judge me for being faithful. This wasn’t the world I had come from before. Everyone I had met was religious to some extent. Even the people I was fighting against. It was more unusual here to lack belief than to have it.

It just meant that I fit in with everyone else. I wasn’t so special after all. What a surprise that was. I could pray, wear my robes or go to church with a guilt free conscience. The priestess who had given the gift to me had been right. I was a sister of the faith. I wasn’t an imposter who didn’t belong.

It felt good.

I might be an outsider, but slowly Creation was becoming my home.

I just needed enough time to adjust to the many differences.

The alternate me whose life I had viewed had been more devout than I was. That was undeniable. It didn’t mean that I didn’t have faith. I was probably more devoted to the Gods Above than most people. I’d defined being faithful as something so extreme in my self-denial that it wasn’t reasonable at all. Being prepared to give my life away to my Gods wasn’t the entry requirement to the House of Light. I didn’t need to be willing to go that far. Hardly anyone would make it through the door if it was the general expectation.

“What are you doing, kid?”

“Resting. Giving thanks to our Gods,” I replied.

It took effort. I spoke slowly and made sure to properly enunciate what I said. It was only one more problem among many.

“Fight’s over?” her voice was resigned.

I lowered my gaze from the sky towards Laurence. Her once white cotton robes were stained with grit. She was hauling herself forward with two makeshift wooden crutches. I wasn’t sure where Yvette had found the branches. My daughter was standing on Laurence’s right. Her jaw was stiff, and her hands were clenched. Her eyes roamed all over the broken plain.

“It’s dealt with. Want help?”

Laurence shook her head.

I cleaned my daughter off with a thought. I’d have done the same for the Saint, but unfortunately I couldn’t.

There was something different about Laurence. A sense of acceptance that hadn’t been there before.

“You will always be too late,” the words were bitter and bleak, but also laced with sympathy.

“What do you mean?”

Scrape. Clomp. Scrape. Clomp.

The sounds were muffled. I felt sorry for Laurence.

I reshaped the earth into a second and third seat. She rested her blade against the arm of the makeshift chair, sat down on my right and groaned. Yvette took the chair on my left.

“Your story. I always wonder what could have changed, if I’d arrived a sennight early instead of late.”

“I don’t think our stories are the same.”

“Really?” she challenged. “What’s it about?”

“What’s what about?”

“Your Name.”

I hesitated.

“Trying to do the impossible.”

My cheeks shifted to a different shade of grey. I averted my eyes. It was embarrassing to say it out loud.

A wrinkled hand laid itself on my arm. I allowed myself to feel it. It took effort to suppress the wince.

“Your Name will change. What do you think it will change into?”

That was news to me.

“I don’t know.”

It meant that I needed to worry about one day losing my Graces.

“I don’t know either, kid.”

“Can you guess?”

She had more experience with namelore than I did.

“It depends on which impossible thing you are trying to do. Tell me something.”

I turned back towards her. There was a sincerity to the cast of her features that was hard to dismiss.

“What?”

“Do you arrive before or after the disaster?”

I took a moment to think before responding.

“I think you’re right and wrong. Dealing with disasters is a part of making the world a better place. It's one of the many steps on my road to a perfect world, but it’s only a part of it. Sometimes I’ll arrive late and need to pick up the pieces, but it's possible to enter a land with no problems and still make it better than it was before.”

“Taylor’s right she spent a lot of time improving things in Rhenia without fighting anyone I don’t think she needs disasters to be a hero.” Yvette rattled the words out. Despite the support, I could hear the anger in her voice.

It would take some time and a more complicated discussion to mend this wound.

“And so the fool who cut nothing was cut out herself,” she whispered to herself.

“I’m not following.”

“You’re a better answer to the same problem.”

I thought I understood what she meant. She amputated sick limbs. I removed the sickness and tried to heal the limb afterwards.

“There’s still a place for you.”

There were so many unrepentant evils that needed to be challenged. It wasn’t as if the world was lacking good for her to do. I couldn’t possibly do everything on my own.

“Heroes get to pass on the torch.”

“You sound like you’re planning to die soon.”

“Definitely not,” Laurence sounded offended at the thought. “There are plenty of bad habits I need to beat out of you before my final swing of the hatchet.”

That sounded like it was going to be unpleasant.

“Ready to go?” I changed the topic.

“What was your old home like, Taylor?”

I guessed that was a no.

“Better in some ways. Worse in others. The society I grew up in was much kinder than all of those I’ve seen so far in Calernia, even if it had problems of its own.”

“They would have considered me a villain there.”

It surprised me how accurate her guess was.

“They would have,” I agreed.

My lips were dry. Thirsty. Was I thirsty?

I frowned and made all three of us glasses of water. Yvette gulped hers down greedily. Laurence and I both drank at a far more measured pace. My sense of taste was still absent, but I’d deal with that later.

“What was your most desperate fight?”

Should I talk about Scion? There wasn’t any reason not to. If there was anyone who would understand what the fight was like, it would probably be Laurence.

“There was a villain of sorts. We called him Scion.” I started to manipulate the moonlight, and recreated some of my memories of the fight. “We thought he was a hero at first. Then he did all of this.”

Both of them sat in silence for a while and watched. It didn’t take long until Yvette looked away.

“What happened in the end?” Laurence asked.

She gripped my arm until it hurt.

“He killed himself. We convinced him. Didn’t feel like a win. I always ask myself if I could have done more. Could I have saved more lives if I had made different choices?”

She looked at me knowingly. Her words from earlier came back to me.

“It’ll never leave you.”

“I know.”

“This was a victory.”

“It doesn-”

“It was a victory. It doesn’t matter what price you paid. You were victorious in the end. A better land will rise from the ashes left behind.”

“Why do you believe that?”

“It has to be a victory, or else none of it means a damned thing.”

Was that the right way of thinking about it? I wasn’t so sure. It would make it easier to think about, but I felt like it would be a lie that I’d tell myself to sleep easier at night.

Glass panes rotated high in the sky around spires towering over us. The mirrors were suspended from imaginary strings. The light of dawn was refracted through prisms into vibrant hues that were then reflected across a myriad panes above. It was a sight that was still taking time for me to acclimatize to.

I had tentatively turned colour back on, but was suffering a migraine for it. It would take more than a few days before I felt like a person again.

I was just glad that my plan with the Horned Lord was a success. My attempt to feed it hadn’t failed. I hadn’t tried communicating with it yet. I was still plotting out what to say. All that was left once that was done was waiting until it ate its fill and returned to a state of hibernation.

“You never mentioned that you were heading to a Titan city kid,” the Saint said. Her voice had a hard edge.

Should I reduce sounds?

No. It didn’t matter how sensitive I was to everything. I’d cope. I had to.

Laurence sat on a comfortable wheelchair with her sword across her lap beside me. I could have levitated us on an island to finish the trip, but there was no specific reason to travel any faster. There was a very good reason to keep travelling at a measured pace.

After taking over a day to rest, we had continued our journey towards the city of mirrors. It had taken some effort on my part to convince the two of them of the necessity of the side trip. Two more days had passed before we finally arrived.

The battle had cost all three of us in some way.

“This was really built by Titans?” The Titans had died out thousands of years ago. It was difficult to imagine a place like this lasting so long in such pristine condition. Everything looked fragile.

I licked my lips absently, and Yvette passed me a flask. Taking a sip, I passed it back and sent a smile of thanks her way. She returned a small smile of her own. There was still an open wound between us that we would need to talk about in private. A wound that I couldn’t allow to fester. The intervening days had at least thawed her temper a little.

Laurence certainly knew something was up. I didn’t think she knew the specifics. I doubted she would have allowed the matter to pass if she did.

“Are you sure you should be digging up whatever is here? It’s probably best to let this corpse remain buried.”

“I thought that if a hero digs up graves, it’s just pre-emptive inheritance?”

Her lips twitched.

Finally. It had taken me forever to elicit a proper smile.

“Every night I have visions of this place. I’m supposed to repair something deeper inside, but I’m not sure what it will change. How do you know it’s a Titan city anyway?”

The size of the buildings might be a give-away, but I wasn’t going to rule out the possibility of other plus-sized races.

Laurence turned her head away from me, then pointed towards one of the shaded walls of a colossal building. I moved closer to inspect what she was pointing at. On the walls were intricate inscriptions carved on a minute scale. All of it was in a script that I didn’t recognize. It wasn’t just another language. I was tempted to call it High Arcana, but… it didn’t fit. Whatever this was felt older. As if it was a precursor to the magic that existed today.

Who decorates the walls of their house with dangerous magic? This place is insanity.

“That was carved by a Titan’s hand. I’ve never seen a city like this before. I doubt that anything like this still exists anywhere else. There are enough hints to tell who lived here.”

“We should be careful.”

I could probably learn a lot if I made notes on the walls of houses around here. Until I knew much more, it wasn’t a risk that I was willing to take.

“Absolutely. Do you know where to go?”

“I do.”

I could feel the threads of my story tugging at me. We were close.

“Good. Lead on then.”

I took one last look over my shoulder.

The salted plain to the south of us was deserted as far as the eye could see. It was as if there was an invisible line that neither the Ratlings nor the hunger would dare to cross over.

“It would be interesting to know what drove them off.” I pondered out loud as I started to walk forward.

I felt the back of my neck cool off as the shadow of the large buildings blocked out dawn’s light. It was a welcome respite from the scalding that I had been forcing myself to endure.

The roads of the mirror city were tiled with alternating black and white blocks. The perimeter of each block was perfectly uniform. It reminded me of a modern city. Unlike a modern city, there wasn’t a speck of dust to be seen. The rhythmic thumping of boots, the rolling of wheels and my stick against the pavement was soothing to the ears.

The derelict city was tranquil. I let my eyes roam as the others followed behind me. There was something almost reverent about the place. As if it was a monument to a time long gone.

“There’s a very complicated working built into this entire city which I don’t even begin to understand that is keeping them at bay it would be interesting to figure out but I think that it would probably be common sense for us to remain outside.” Yvette added.

That gave me cause for concern.

“You think it's too dangerous?”

“I’ve said it before I’m not stupid anything that can keep away the Ratlings for thousands of years without any active maintenance is dangerous and we would be stupid to ignore that just looking at the buildings is risky for us I feel like if I sneeze on the walls I’m going to cause a sandstorm in Callow.”

I sent an illusory egg her way. She pouted at me, then moved aside. I had to make it vanish before it cracked on one of the massive buildings. I wasn’t willing to find out if anything bad would happen if I interfered with the walls.

“Both of you focus,” Laurence said sharply.

I was focusing.

We reached an intersection marked by a way stone. It featured detailed carvings in the Titan’s script that I wasn’t even going to attempt to read. I certainly wouldn’t risk entering any buildings that weren’t related to a story, either.

The sharp pull of the story informed me that we should be heading right. I took a look around. Everything was so large, the doors and windows clearly designed for people far bigger than we were. Not only that, but the surrounding buildings were completely alien in both construction and geometry. There were even odd triangular prisms floating in mid-air. Why would you even build a place like this?

“Thought you knew the way forward?” Laurence pressed.

“I do. Just looking. This place is beautiful in its own way.”

“Taylor…” Yvette tugged hard on my robe.

I turned to her, then looked where she was pointing. Rats ran down my spine. The road on the left was blackened, scarred as if by sorcery. Buildings had shattered front faces. There was writing carved into the side of one building.

The beat of my walking stick on the tiles rang out as I hobbled closer to read it.

You who come after me: Witness the innumerable follies of the Titans who came before.

The words were carved in Old Miezan.

“Something need killing?” The wheels of Laurence’s chair thudded against the tiles as she moved closer. She had her gaze locked on the road and was actively avoiding looking at all the walls. It was likely the only reason she hadn’t spotted it herself.

“No…” my throat had become dry. “I think this is a holdover from Triumphant.”

I hadn’t thought it was possible for Laurence to look more alert than usual. Somehow, she managed to.

Then I saw the first threads of a story coil themselves around Yvette.

I couldn’t see what the story was, but I could tell that it was important.

“Come on. We’re investigating.”

“This is a really bad idea I feel we should just leave what if there’s a demon Triumphant left those lying around right I don’t think we should go any further.”

“There isn’t a demon,” I answered.

I would be able to tell if there was.

“Levitate me. We go on,” Laurence said.

I expected that her reasons differed from mine. I’d bet she wanted to smite whatever evils remained. Nonetheless, I heeded her request.

We descended the scarred streets in silence. They sloped gently downwards. Unlike the rest of the plain, this city was not flat. Laurence had drawn her blade.

More and more buildings fell into ruin as we followed the trail left by Triumphant. We turned another corner.

There was a massive parabolic dish carved into the ground up ahead. The inside of it was covered with what must have been tens of thousands of tiles. A bridge extended into the middle, where a solitary stone stele stood. The surrounding rubble suggested that there had once been a building enclosing the dish. The tiles were engraved with runes. All three of us moved closer.

Our procession ground to a halt when I smashed face-first into an invisible ward.

“What?...” I blinked and rubbed my face.

It didn’t even look like it was there to my senses.

“This is incredible how was this ward even put together I’ve never seen something so impressive before I can’t even begin to understand it.”

I tried probing it with my abilities but was met with no success. That didn’t surprise me. I had an adversarial relationship with wards. However, I was astonished that I couldn’t sense the barrier at all. I could see it and touch it. That didn’t mean anything. To my non-human senses, it was as if it wasn’t even there. I tried to change the environment within the barrier.

I failed to achieve anything of note.

Maybe by using Persevere I could either see it or break through, but I wanted to save that for the Horned Lord. Considering how well defended this was, breaking through here might be risky. Triumphant either hadn’t managed to do it, or had considered breaking through unwise. I preferred to be cautious. Unfortunately, I didn’t think I could be. There was a story here that was tying itself to my daughter, and it would be remiss if I didn’t put more effort into thinking about what it meant.

So I decided to pray for advice. Should I leave this alone, or should I go ahead?

The latter received a seal of angelic approval.

“Laurence.” I turned to her.

“You want me to cut something?” she asked. I hadn’t even finished my sentence.

“Please.”

She focused, then lashed out with her arm.

“Sever.”

The barrier shattered at the point of impact. The sound of a shrieking banshee rang out. I winced in pain.

Laurence’s break had not been permanent.

Even now, I could see the break mending. The process was slow. It seemed that the Titan’s work wasn’t so easy to unmake.

All of us stepped through.

I took a moment to examine some of the runes. The mental impression of an absolutely gigantic, undying dragon wormed its way into my head. The dragon appeared to be chained with abstract bindings, split into countless small pieces and partitioned away. I was missing most of the context for whatever I was looking at. It was without a doubt the most ambitious spell that I had ever seen before.

“Oh,” my daughter said.

It was an understated admission of something. I wasn’t entirely sure of what.

“What?”

In the time I had spent looking, she had walked across the bridge to the Stele in the middle. She beckoned to me. I approached. It took me between ten and twenty heartbeats to work out what I was looking at.

It was the contents page for the ritual I had been examining.

The ritual was so fiendishly complicated that I didn’t even have the beginnings of an idea of how to safely subvert it. I wasn’t even sure that I was reading this summary correctly.

“Make copies of every inscription here, ma.” Yvette whispered under her breath. Her eyes darted distractedly from one inscription to the next below us. “Actually, make more than one copy. Number them as well so we know which order to read them in.”

She looked up at me briefly. Her expression was hard to read. I guessed that it was a mix of guilt and reaffirmed belief in me. I didn’t feel like I had done enough to earn it.

That talk needs to happen, and soon.

I licked my lips and began to do as my daughter asked. It would be difficult and take hours to finish. I wasn’t sure how I was going to copy some of the symbols near the bottom of the dish. There wasn’t an easy path down there, and I couldn’t risk damaging anything. That didn’t make it any less essential to do.

“What is it?” Laurence asked.

“It’s an extremely dangerous trap that needs to be dismantled carefully.”

I had known the Ratling’s problem would not be simple to solve. I hadn’t understood just how insurmountable the problem would truly be.

“Better to break or leave it.”

“Disarming it is beyond us,” I admitted, “but the continent might not survive if it breaks, and we cannot afford to leave it alone. There is no telling who might stumble over it.”

If I wanted to give the Ratlings a choice, I was going to need to find someone who knew how to remake an evil god.