Echoes of memory, p.35
Echoes of Memory, page 35
He had seen the smile that Evrain had bestowed him after his dramatic interruption. Everyone else had thought that it had been a smile of mercy, Emperor Evrain had smiled down upon Aris’ belligerent outburst like a patient father smiles on the ignorant protestations of a favored son. Aris though had seen something that the others hadn’t. He’d seen gloating in the eyes of the Emperor. He had seen the lust for destruction that his years spent hunting the most violent and depraved Vealand had to offer mirrored in the Emperor’s eyes.
He pleasured in watching Aris struggle. He pleasured in death.
Aris knew with certainty that Evrain lusted after the destruction that his affirmation of Edrian Woll’s plea for a military presence in the city was bound to bring.
Why? He could guess whatever happened would mirror the destruction of Portin and Brinhold, but he had yet to find the answers for why Evrain wanted to bring that havoc again. Why would Emperor Evrain lust for the destruction of his empire? What good could possibly come from the destruction of his own holdings? From the razing of his empire? The answer was beyond Aris.
“I need to know,” Aris decided. “I can’t play it safe. I need answers and there’s no time to wait for them to come to me anymore. I have to figure it out before we’re all damned.”
He would do it. He would delve into the Emperor’s memories. It was the only way to assure that he knew what they were facing.
If he were to die from what he did, Kestrel and Wallace would still be there to continue the fight.
He had to do it.
As the Cabinet meeting ended, Aris created his opportunity. He approached the Emperor to make one last effort of dissuading him from allowing Edrian Wolls to bring in the military to quash the sporadic violence plaguing the city.
He had to try to stop them. Protecting the city was his job. He needed to talk to the Emperor. He needed to see if there was any way to reason with the man.
At least, that’s what anyone watching from the outside would see.
Aris waited besides Evrain’s plush champaign velvet chair, trying his best to only appear as if he were simply trying to plead with the emperor for any unseen eyes that may be watching.
“May I have a word with you?” He asked.
The emperor smiled, it was the same predatory grin disguised as indulgence as before. “Of course, come walk with me,” Evrain said as pushed up to lift himself from the small throne.
As he did so a tremor shook his hands and he pitched forward.
Aris’ time had come.
His hand shot out to the Emperor’s hand to steady him and help him right his footing.
At the touch, a world of memories flowed into Aris.
He was in a beautiful portico. The walls were decorated with stunning turquoise tiled reliefs depicting various scenes of sea life. Stingrays danced on the walls besides schools of fish. A picture of a giant clam holding a pearl the size of his head was surrounded by two gargantuan octopus guardians on either side, each acting as sentinels protecting the precious underwater jewel. Stylized sharks swam over the walls and beautiful mermaids danced throughout the whole relief.
The scene was truly majestic but he cared little for it. Why would octopi guard a giant pearl? It was layers of petrified spit wrapped around a grain of sand. It was an irritant immortalized by poetry. Only fools cared for such nonsense. How could he celebrate the beauty of the pearl when he had seen the lives it cost obtaining it?
It was just another example of the needless extravagance of those highborn bastards who sought to control the world by controlling the memories of others.
They sickened him. They wasted so much money on building these needless things. They were spending thousands of coins on decorations when they could use that money to fund research delving into the true depths of the magic that they thought they controlled.
They were children playing with mud-pies, thinking they were baking the most fabulous desserts.
They were content with far too little. They were swimming in an ocean of thought. They were ascending the highest peaks of human knowledge, but they contented themselves to splash in the puddles. Happy to rest at the base of the mountain, never to climb it.
He was going to change that. He would change everything.
He swore it to himself. He would unlock the full potential of the magic that they held. He would never allow himself to be content with the piddling knowledge his contemporaries, his teachers, held. He would dive to the deepest depths of Memory Magic.
He would be the greatest mage to have ever lived. He would make himself immortal one way or another.
Aris stumbled back at the the shock Emperor’s memories. He prayed that Evrain would only believe it to be him being put off balance by catching his stumbling lord.
Aris gripped tighter as he tried to steady himself and the Emperor.
“We’ve prepared him. He is ready for us. There’s little left of the man whom he used to be. He’s a blank slate. This will work,” he thought to himself.
Or was it himself? It had been decades since his mind had been his own. Oh, it was true that he was the one who commanded his fate, but his wasn’t the only voice taking residence in his head. The voice had been his constant companion for more than fifty years now. It had been the one who’d guided him. It had found him when he had been young and full of blind ambition and had given him focus.
It had given him direction.
A purpose.
He was no longer the young student who wanted to prove his teachers wrong. No longer the ambitious whelp of a Memory Mage with delusions of grandeur. He’d already surpassed that. He’d become something else entirely. He’d become someone else.
He had become a canny and clever mage with a grasp on magic as of yet, unseen in the world. He had become everything he dreamed he would ever be and it was due to the voice that had found him and guided him.
Without it, he’d only ever have been an ambitious pup. Nothing more. He owed everything to the voice. It was his guide. It was the one who had made him surpass even the most legendary of the Memory Mages.
Soon it would make him immortal.
He just needed the extra power to fuel his transformation. The voice had told him what was needed. It had never led him astray yet, so he wouldn’t break his faith now. He would trust it. He would take it at its word.
He knew if he did so, he truly would be immortal. He would defeat death. And not just in a metaphorical sense.
He just had to believe.
Just believe and raze the city.
Without the destruction of his kingdom, he wouldn’t have enough power to transfer his consciousness. The voice had told him what it needed for the change. It had instructed him in what was to be done.
The voice had never lied to him. He would trust it. It was going to grant him his every dream.
It just needed chaos to fuel its power.
It fed off the terror. Destruction was its feast. It was gluttony that gave him power.
He would feed it if it meant his own immortality.
Aris flinched as he drew his hand away from Emperor Evrain’s and bowed deeply with an elaborate apology.
He kept his head low.
What had he just seen? His mind flooded with millions of possibilities and he didn’t trust himself to look into the eyes of the Emperor at that moment.
What he had recalled in those memories was alien. No place in history looked like that. It was like something from the fairy stories that he told his twins to take them into their dream worlds every night.
Had he seen the imaginations of a long senile mind? Was that it?
No.
It had been real.
Under Wallace’s guidance, he had long ago learned the difference between manufactured memories and those that were real. But how? How had that been real? It was as if Emperor Evrain had been in an entirely foreign world or nation lost to time.
A forgotten history.
How?
And what had that been at the end of his brief, but powerful vision? What had he seen? Was that the key to the reason that Emperor Evrain had just deigned to call in the Military to deal with the fires his secret force of Mages had started?
Most importantly, what did it mean, when in the vision, Emperor Evrain had declared he would become immortal?
“You’ve been bowing far too long. Look up. Look at him. Don’t let him know you’ve seen anything. Don’t let him know anything is wrong. Don’t let him know that you too are a Memory Mage.” He chided himself. “Look up now. Smile apologetically!”
Aris raised his head to see Evrain staring down at him with a curious look.
He saw bemusement in the Emperor’s eyes mixed with something else...Something dark.
It was the same look that Aris had seen in the brief reflection he’d glimpsed during that strange vision he had just received at the touch of the Emperor.
There was madness in his eyes but no insanity there.
What he saw was calm, calculated, and crazy, but not insane.
That predatory gleam terrified Aris.
Chapter 55
“HE KNOWS. HE SAW US. He saw you. We must destroy him. We need to send our Inquisitors after him. We have to sic our Forgotten on him. He’s too dangerous to keep close!” Evrain whispered to the air as he retired to his private chambers and stripped off his rings and fineries.
He paced around the room, not bothering to look at the fine golden gilded furniture that decorated the lavish apartments. His housing stood in stark contrast to the spartan stylings of his keep.
He hated the sparseness of his throne room. It didn’t befit one of such rank as he. It was an embarrassment. But it was a useful annoyance. Though most of their noblemen lived lavishly, the commoners, the low-folk, looked up the most to those who, while immeasurably wealthy, chose to live humbly. It was a backward foolish mindset kept by idiotic yokels, but he was no fool. He wouldn’t lose their loyalty with frippery. Rather he would wield their pathetic assumptions like a tool. He knew that keeping his throne-room, his keep, simplistic, eased his ruling.
It may not be much, but only a fool would make their governance harder than it needed to be. Yes, he planned to destroy them. He always did and always would destroy those he ruled. It was his nature. They were unfortunate, but necessary sacrifices. Still, why make the destruction of the nation harder than it needed to be? Yes, they were going to crumble and tear each other apart, but why not rule well and let them pleasantly plump up until the day he tore it all away from them?
They were his chosen sacrifice, and he would treat them well, feed them well until it was time to lead them to the slaughter.
He just hadn’t expected the slaughter to come so soon. This vessel should have lasted longer. He should have had at least another decade before the tremors started. But they had come earlier than he ever could have expected.
He should have had more time. He still needed time.
Why had they come so early?
“He knows!” Evrain shouted again, rage at his weakness and at Aris boiling in his veins. It was all he could do to restrain himself from trashing his rooms in a fury at his helplessness.
“Does it matter?” that old familiar voice asked him.
“Of course, it matters!” he insisted.
“Really? Why? Others have found our secret before. Ones that were much closer to us than he is. He’s no threat,” the voice spoke in its raspy, but sugary tone. “Trust me. When have I led you wrong? This Aris is no threat. He may be exactly what we need. Remember what we talked about?”
Evrain’s panic slowly started to subside and he threw himself into his gigantic bed, burrowing into the cotton covers.
He was right. He had faced others who had gained knowledge of his mastery of Memory Magic before. He had even dealt with a few who had known of the voice guiding him. Even those who knew his deepest secret weren’t able to take anything from him.
They had all been dealt with.
He could use General Ravenscroft. He was still an invaluable tool if wielded correctly. His uprightness had always been a source of friction. It had kept the other cabinet members in balance. His righteousness acted as an equilibrium. He was a dividing line. An upright post that others measured their morality by. That sense of morality was useful. One that, when properly manipulated, could advance a cause and change the world.
Aris wasn’t the first, nor would he be the last, paragon to be used and manipulated, but his unyielding nature might make him one of the most effective that had been set against him on the board of life.
No, he wouldn’t kill Aris, The Emperor reassured himself. The General was too valuable of a resource to so callously discard.
He just needed to find out how to use him, and the more he thought about it, the more an idea formed in his mind. Yes, this would work perfectly. The frustration, the chaos that it would cause on the already unstable populace would be the perfect fuel for his upcoming transfiguration.
He WOULD use Aris.
He would take his virtue and wield it as a weapon against him.
“Welcome home darling,” Corrine, who’d seen Aris approaching the gate of their estate, his visage a storm-cloud of emotions, greeted him with a kiss. Best to calm the raging sea before it boiled over.
Aris responded with a quick peck on the cheek and the slightest of grins.
His mood was even worse than it had been for the last two weeks, and she hadn’t seen his brows so darkened for years. The last time she remembered seeing the anger and concern knitting his features so much was when they had first met immediately after the death of his brother Van.
Van.
Why did that name tug at her heartstrings so much?
Ever since she’d grasped Wallace, it felt as if something had loosened inside her. Still, no matter how she tried, she wasn’t able to retrieve the memory, but still, she felt SOMETHING.
What was it? Why did it feel like there was a gaping hole?
“How was your day my heart?” Corrine asked, not deterred by his darkened mood.
She would break through that shell of his.
‘My heart.’ Those two words stung Aris.
He wasn’t her heart.
He was a thief.
He’d stolen her love from the one that had been stolen from her. She had been his brother’s beloved. She was Sephira’s true mother. He held no claim to her heart. He was just an imposter. He was nothing more than a place-holder for a long-dead brother that he had never be able to live up to.
Even now in death, Van overshadowed him and was better than he could ever dream to be.
How could he look at Corrine the same, how could he love her like she needed when he was nothing more than a fake? When he had all but stolen her love from her? The very sight of her caused him pain and she had caught onto that.
He’d heard her crying at night, thinking he was asleep. He knew how much he was hurting her, but what could he do?
She deserved better than him. She deserved better than a pale replacement of a man who had been willing to give everything to fight for what he’d believed in. He could never live up to his brother Van’s legacy. Every day that he had worked under Emperor Evrain, he betrayed the memory of his brother.
He had known it since the day that they had taken his brother's life, but still, he had remained in Evrain’s service.
If he wasn’t a coward, he would have broken free from the emperor’s control years ago and he too would have sacrificed himself, but he was a coward. He could never be Corrine’s ‘heart’ and it ate at him.
It was all he ever wished for, but Evrain had stolen him from her.
Yes, she was by his side, but she wasn’t his.
Not really.
“What’s wrong?” Corrine asked, she could practically feel the tension radiating from his tight form. It hadn’t escaped her that his posture had seized when he caught sight of her, and it filled her with pain.
She hated that the sight of her caused that reaction in her husband and it was worse that he refused to tell her why. She wanted to scream and beat the reason out of him! What could have happened to warp him so? Was it Wallace? Everything changed when he had arrived back in Aris’ life.
First, the young man Kestrel had appeared and he had captured Sephira’s attention. Corrine wasn’t sure her niece recognized it yet, but she had fallen in love with the scrappy young recruit.
Corrine wasn’t sure how she felt about that. It was true that he had transformed himself from the porcupine demeanor of a street orphan into a respectable young man —even the twins loved his company, and he treated them as if he were an older brother— but was that the life for Sephira?
Kestrel, while well-intentioned, would bring her pain. Would their love outweigh the misery?
Something deep inside her, something nearly lost and forgotten, told her that it would be.
Along with Kestrel, Wallace had seemed to open a door to her husband Aris. It was one that shouldn’t have been opened. She didn’t know what he’d done, but ever since her husband had started meeting with the grizzled old soldier nearly every morning, something had changed in him.
He had both become warmer and more distant. How was she supposed to reconcile the opposing personalities that her husband’s old commander brought out in him?
Wallace, too, had changed Sephira. She knew of her niece's meetings with him. Sephira never spoke of them, but also made little effort to hide them from her.
It seemed that no matter how she looked at it, Wallace kept finding his way into the middle of every problem her family was currently facing. He was a fork in a river, dividing the flow of the world around him into two separate streams. He was a rock in the rut of fate, changing the course of the lives of all he touched.
Everything came back to Wallace.
“What’s wrong?” Corrine asked again, dismayed by the silence of her husband. She desperately wanted to break him out of the morose shell he’d descended into over the last week and a half.
“It’s the Emperor,” came Aris’ quiet answer, surprising her. She hadn’t expected a response. “It’s almost as if he wants to destroy Vealand.”
