Not as clever as you think, indeed.
For all of this Iliaya’s power flaunting, she was less impressive while trying to penetrate Anna’s defences. The prods were there, of course, but it seemed the empress and her own ghosts were as limited as they were in projecting her power across any real distance.
Once again, Christina was proven right. It irked Anna.
Christina had worked out the hard illum limit for soul magic only days prior. Iliaya unwittingly confirmed a lot of what she and Anna suspected: unless one had access to spectacular levels of illum, such as a god seemed to enjoy, then striking across long distances required a prohibitive cost.
Ryder had burned out Tallah’s Ikosmenia mask, something that even staring at an illum hearth had failed to do.
Panacea had nearly blinded them with her presence both in Grefe and at the Rock.
Both had used considerable illum resources to achieve their manifestation, and both seemed unable to repeat the feat in quick succession. Else why would Ryder have allowed Adamar’s tempering on the boy’s seal? And why would Panacea not simply follow the thread to one of her other healers in order to bully her pet?
The simplest explanation dictated that both simply couldn’t achieve these spectacular feats on a whim. Even gods, or whatever it was that passed for such, needed a store of illum to use.
Now, Anna observed Christina’s suspicion proven true: empress Catharina and her lapdog bypassed this limitation by burning a proxy soul for fuel. Rhine Amni’s, more precisely. Anna saw the wraith hovering behind Iliaya, hidden from everyone else, but not from her senses.
Not clever enough, my ass. She had to suppress a feeling of smug satisfaction, even while she admired the monstrous efficiency of what these old witches had achieved. Cruelly efficient, but not sustainable, simply relying on Rhine’s soul would only take them very far. With Tallah’s improving layered protection, it was a matter of time before their conduit unravelled under stress and they lost this precious window into their enemy’s mind.
That concern had been the catalyst for this entire effort. If the empress destroyed that particular soul, they’d all lose important avenues for later. And Christina had a lot of plans for later.
Anna followed the Amni sister’s jerky movements around the room. Once she knew what to look for and what to block out, it became child’s play to see through Iliaya’s protective glamours and wards. Rhine was there, right next to the others, a cringing, shivering wretch laden with all the most terrible signs of long torture.
Fear washed off the wraith in gagging waves and it was all Anna could do not to burst out in anger. She had pleasant memories of this girl from back when they’d met at Hoarfrost for those short seasons.
A pyromancer of spectacular capacity with the wit and moral fibre of the true gentry, Rhine Amni had been everything Tallah was not: gracious, kind, inquisitive, humble, and strikingly beautiful.
Seeing her in this pathetic state was nothing short of witnessing a vandalised piece of fine art. The anger made it easier to continue the plan’s execution.
Thus far, events progressed according to Christina’s designs, if with the added wrinkle of having to deal with an unknown player. Iliaya was not a foe to take lightly. Her defences were, indeed, spectacular, at least with regards to herself, as were her attempts at prying open Tallah’s mind. Subtle manipulation was this one’s speciality, but it proved insufficient against Anna preparations and her will’s full effect.
While Iliaya chatted, her power constantly prodded and poked at the wards Anna had erected around Tallah’s mind. Without a need to hide the manipulation, there was a good chance that the witch could actually pry her way in.
‘We will not get another chance quite so ripe,’ Christina whispered through her secondary iteration. Like Rhine’s wraith hid behind Iliaya’s presence, so was the second Christina skulking behind Anna’s. ‘Do you sense the sister?’
Anna’s reply was a ripple of her power, as if Iliaya’s constant prodding had managed to upset her balance. It got a momentary push from the witch. Of course, she rebuffed the effect and regained her balance.
Message sent. For now, she didn’t have Christina’s subtle control of a secondary, so they avoided using one here.
Christina’s presence slithered behind Anna’s back and whispered in her ear. ‘Good. Do what you need to. Time is short. I don’t believe I can maintain the wards at your calibre, so do not tarry.’
In the very narrow space between heartbeats, Anna vacated her shell and Christina slithered inside, maintaining the seamless illusion of continuous protection, their variation hidden by Tallah’s continually flaring anger.
What was being discussed mattered little now. Tallah wanted information: why was Ort attacking people, where Falor headed, how long Catharina had known of her survival. Paltry things, and ones Iliaya was almost too glad to impart. The last thing Anna heard of the conversation was an admission that Tallah’s appearance in Valen had been a genuine surprise for the empress. She’d been certain her wayward Justice was hidden out in Solstice.
As Christina’s secondary settled in Anna’s skin, the real work began. It was time they recruited a spy of their very own.
There were always more layers to a mind than there were stars in the night sky. In-between the layers existed interstitial spaces where concept and thought clashed. These were the perfect places in which to hide the anchor that kept the empress tethered to Tallah, and it had taken Christina and Tallah a lot of effort to pinpoint exactly where the bastard intruded.
Anna dipped into that hidden layer. A grey space of howling fragments of thought, blinding hopes, and terrifying fears. A stormy no land of sensation mixed in with imagination, this layer of Tallah’s psyche was not one in which they delved often.
Tallah, Christina, and Iliaya became mere shades flitting through the storm. The irony was not lost on Anna.
And there, in conceptual storm’s eye, waited the wraith, alone and cringing outside the meeting’s coherent bubble, shunted here by her minder. Her presence was the only thing sharply defined in this place, but she was almost hidden behind a cloud of her own making.
Anna approached the girl on silent feet, careful not to spook her too soon.
There was much to take in. The soul reflected in the body. And what happened to the body reflected in the soul. Rhine was a harrowing treatise on how a person could be broken beyond repair. She’d been flayed, shattered, taken apart and put back together, raped, and destroyed. The memories of her suffering swirled around her so tightly clustered that they obstructed almost all view of her true self.
Anna’s anger flared. Of their clique, only she and Tallah could really understand what she now witnessed. Tallah for having lived it, Anna for having inflicted it.
Rhine’s murder had been a monstrous affair that Anna could barely have matched at her worst. That entire story was written in scars and the cloud of terrifying memories, clear as a summer’s day.
Threaded through the half-glimpsed horrors was a tendril of control, the leash imposed by the empress’s binding, tying together the whole sordid affair. A similar binding to the ones that gave Tallah her connection to the ghosts, this one was far more aggressive and demanding, an obedience imperative. Its threads were wrapped around the wraith’s throat.
Rhine existed in deathless terror. Her body’s suffering had long-since ceased, yet she relived every moment of her terrible murder, kept in suspended half-life and enthralled to the empress and her dog.
Iliaya did play the role of monster terribly well if all Anna saw circling the sister was true. Torment did not cease upon death.
Even souls could heal and rally. If there are as many within the empress as we assume, then her inner sanctum should be constantly on the verge of disaster without plenty of allies to guard her. Then again, the poor thing looked like she didn’t have a drop of fight left in her.
Even a husk could be useful with the right approach.
Anna snuck closer, pulsing out her illum to envelop the spirit, fighting to not let herself be swallowed in the tempest of memories and sensations. She could isolate Rhine just as easily as she could Tallah, though this needed a far more deft touch. It was Christina’s insight into soul magic that helped sharpen Anna’s own skills, else she would never have dared this approach.
Rhine did not react to her presence. She hovered near her mistress’s shade, hands wringing, head lowered, eyes staring nowhere. From up close she resembled more of her old self, the colours brighter on her, her frame fuller, eyes glittering.
Promising. I expected far worse.
Anna reached out a hand, slipped it through the gusts of horrid memories, and touched the girl.
It proved a mistake.
Rhine jumped aside and squealed like a kicked dog. She dropped to the ground, arms over her head, her entire body compacted into a shivering, trembling ball of fear. And she kept screaming and kicking her legs, gurgling yowls of insane terror that wouldn’t abate, drawn up from the depths of her stomach.
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Anna had heard screams like that before. She’d inflicted them and knew precisely how far a mind had to be pushed to reach this level of unhinged terror.
For the first time in a century, Anna’s anger exploded inside her chest. Not annoyance. Not wounded dignity. Here and now, she wished death upon the empress. She wished the woman be brought inside Anna’s sanctum, ripped apart into a web of bones, muscles, organs, entrails and veins, to forever mutely scream in unending agony.
Anna wished she could visit upon empress Catharina a century’s worth of the finest horror her insanity could conjure up. And it would not be enough to quench this fury.
If this was the anger Tallah felt every day, then Anna gained fresh respect for the pyromancer’s control. To feel this and remain sane was in itself an act of titanic will.
She dragged in a deep breath, held it, then released it. Rhine kept screaming and shivering, inching herself back on the ground, like a wounded animal fearing another lash, yanking on the snared foot to rip it off.
Anna embalmed the poor thing in her power and added in every ward she could think of, weaving quickly before Iliaya could catch on.
In a moment’s inspiration, she regressed her outward appearance, back to the small, mousy girl she’d been back at Hoarfrost. Lank, greasy hair cascading down to her waist. Squinted brown eyes. A frame wide of shoulder and narrow of everything else, like a man’s.
“Rhine, it’s me,” she said as she crouched next to the poor spirit. She had to remember what her voice had sounded once, that nasal whine due to her crooked nose. “It’s Anna, Rhine. Anna Theala. You know me. I’m a friend of your sister’s.”
Granted, this Rhine was not the girl of Hoarfrost. She’d lived a full life since then, lost a child, lost a husband, fought a rebellion and was beaten. But Anna couldn’t reach out to that Rhine, only to the one she and Christina knew.
For a heartbeat there was no reaction aside from the continuous wailing screams, the wracking sobs and pleads for mercy. Maybe this Rhine didn’t remember Hoarfrost. A century had passed since. So much had happened.
Anna didn’t dare another touch. A psyche this fragile could very well shatter under the gentlest touch. Every sensation swirling around them was of pain. Unending pain.
The screaming stopped as if for an in-drawn breath. Rhine shuddered. Fingers dug into her hair, griped madly, relaxed slowly. She hiccuped. Shivered.
“A-Anna?” The wraith hiccuped again and grew very still. “Anna? Why…”
A flash of recognition brought fresh hope. Electric sparks arched inside the dark cloud. Small flashes of better memories, little silver slivers of moments from a different life. One without pain. One entirely without fear.
One where Rhine was protected and loved and cherished.
The dark threatened to close back so Anna spoke quickly, trying to coast more of the old Rhine.
“I’m here,” Anna said, trying to sound comforting while swallowing down the bilious anger. “You’re safe with me, Rhine.” She needed the girl anchored into the moment, else it would all be much harder to manage. Time was ticking by.
“They’ll hear,” Rhine whined and trembled. “They always hear.” A keening whine escaped her throat and her words got lost in it.
“Nobody can hear us, Rhine.” Anna double checked her warding. It held. “I’m making sure of that.”
“They’ll know,” Rhine protested, not raising her eyes. She held them tightly shout, the skin around them sickly blue. “They know. They see it in me. They’ll hurt me.”
“They won’t see this. I promise you.”
Christina’s plan hinged on absolute secrecy. Their influence on Rhine could not be spotted and could not be observed. If it was, then the whole idea would fail.
“Rhine, we don’t have much time.” Anna took a shuffling step closer to the wraith. “I need your help, Rhine. Tallah needs your help.”
Again, the wrong thing to say. At mention of Tallah’s name, Rhine broke down into hysterical crying, that fragile clarity already lost.
“She hates me.” Rhine hiccuped the words. “She hates me! I try and try and try to go to her, but she burns me and pushes me and rejects me. My sister hates me!”
Not what was expected at all. Christina’s worry had been that Rhine resented Tallah. They’d prepared for naked, vengeful hatred. Not this.
How does one deal with spurned hope?
“Why would you think that?” Anna asked. “Tallah doesn’t hate you.”
New memories again, half-formed images and sensations. A wall of flames. Effort. Demanded success. Always failure. Punishment.
It’s well Bianca’s not here. This would break her if she saw.
Rhine had been tasked with contacting Tallah. But once Christina had figured out the empress’s tactic, she’d devised protections against it. The empress’s cane broke on Rhine’s back, even if the failure wasn’t her fault. Every failure to reach Tallah was punished, each time worse than the previous
“Tallah doesn’t want me alive. She wants me dead.” Rhine brought her arms around her knees and hugged herself tight, pressing her forehead down on her legs, face hidden by a dark, smokey stack of self-loathing. “I did bad things to her. She wants me dead.”
In a way, that was true. Anna had to guard herself lest she confirm the poor girl’s fear. Tallah could not handle Rhine’s existence as anything more than a broken spirit within the empress’s menagerie.
“That’s not true,” she lied carefully. “It’s why she’s sent me. We need your help, Rhine. And only you can help us.”
Silence descended for a time. The shades argued mutely around them, Tallah making her demands and Iliaya countering. They’d come to an agreement eventually. Christina would stall for time where she could, but time was still ticking away. If help couldn’t be gained by compliance, then Anna would force her way forward.
Messier, of course, but now wasn’t the time for hesitation.
Finally, the wraith hiccuped and raised her eyes. Red with crying. Hollow and sunken. But still alive. The spark in them was very much the sign of life Anna hoped for.
“H-how?” Rhine whispered, terrified of being heard. Her gaze flickered all around, then found Iliaya where the ghost stood and gestured with her staff.
“We need you to survive, to listen and watch and remember. Nothing more.” Anna met those wretched eyes and held their gaze, drawing them away from the jailer. “Nobody will know. I will give you a gift. Keep it safe and hidden, and it will protect you. They will never see anything again but what you want them to see.”
“They’ll know.” The protest came out as a low, scared whine. “They see everything. They’ll see this too.”
“They won’t, I promise you.” She gave Rhine her best, crooked smile. “You trust me, Rhine, don’t you? We’ve always gotten along well, you and I. You know you can trust me.”
She raised her hand and manifested a small illum construct, a tiny clone of herself. She and Christina had spent a long internal time working on the complexities of their illum construct. It was meant to hide itself, listen through Rhine’s ears and watch through her eyes, then deliver it all as information every time Catharina attempted contact.
And it would feed off Rhine’s illum to sustain itself, hide and cover the tracks of its presence. A little at a time. It would grow stronger. Smarter. More powerful. Until it would, ultimately, unravel Rhine and take her place, an indistinguishable copy.
A blade beneath Catharina’s rib.
Anna hesitated for a brief moment, hand held away from the poor girl. This was true death she offered, not just banishment. Nothing would remain.
Tallah will hate us for doing this. She’ll understand, but she’ll hate us.
Rhine looked up at her with frightened hope in her eyes.
“Will I help Tallah?” she asked. She fell silent for a long time. When she spoke again, it was in a secretive whisper. “They fear her. Both the Jailer and the Lady. They fear my sister.”
That much was obvious from this request to parlay. If Catharina had utter control over the situation, she would never have agreed to talks of any kind.
But to hear it so plain was heartening all the same. Rhine shrunk back in on herself, tightening into an anxious ball, trembling but not looking away.
“Bad,” she whined. “They’ll know. They’ll know I’ve spoken out.”
Anna’s hesitation ended and she reached out, hand opened, tiny clone gripping her fingers.
“Take this.” She had to force the words past the lump of anger in her throat. “And you’ll never have to fear their punishment again.” Whatever other questions she wanted to ask were of secondary importance to Rhine accepting the construct. They’d likely never have another opportunity as good as this.
Rhine uncurled. Every movement she made was an effort of will, Anna saw. It took all the wraith had to reach for Anna’s hand and to offer her fingers for the construct to grip.
Last chance to abort. Once the thing activated, Rhine was doomed. And so was the empress.
“Will it hurt?” Rhine asked, her fingers inches away from Anna’s.
“Will what hurt?” Anna asked, straining to keep her voice level.
“When this destroys me?”
Breath caught in Anna’s throat. She tried to pull her hand back, but Rhine grabbed her wrist. The touch was paper light, but the desperate madness now filling the ghost’s eyes gave Anna pause.
“How?” was all Anna could ask.
Rhine pointed above Anna’s head. A small cloud of indecision. Guilt. Lies.
In her indecision, she’d let slip the most crucial information. This was all for nothing!
“Will it hurt?” Rhine asked again.
“I don’t know,” Anna said, unable to drag her hand away.
“Will you tell her I did this?”
Anna shook her head. No. She couldn’t tell Tallah about this. There was no telling what she’d do if she learned of this, especially of her sister still existing in coherence.
“Good. Never tell her. Promise me.” Rhine tried to smile. It hurt her to try, but she still did it. “Please.”
“I… I promise.”
Anna had never hated herself. Even when she did the work and held off the sold trap, she didn’t hate what it showed her. That old her, the crazed blood mage, was pathetic but not a part that Anna could hate.
She hated herself now as Rhine’s fingers uncurled from her wrist and then opened up for the illum construct to pass over. And Anna did nothing to stop the exchange.
This was necessary.
She hated it.
Before she could say more as Rhine drew the construct to her chest, the world shifted and Anna found herself flung in the high-backed chair in Christina’s office. She crashed in it with a soft squeal of leather against bare skin, the chill shocking her.
Christina was sat at her desk, a cup of tea in her hand, a tired expression on her face.
“How did it go?”
Anna wanted to scream.