RE: Monarch
Chapter 40: Enclave X

It was with a great deal on my mind that I entered Ralakos’s estate. His man-servant, a tall infernal in fitted regal wear ushered me into the sitting room, a gaudy hybrid of lounge and library papered dark red, with golden accents. After a matter of minutes, another estate staff entered with a tray of tea and confections. I took them politely, though I’d already come to realize that most infernal preferences in snacks were far too saccharine for my tastes. Even the tea was made from tari root, which gave it a taste and thickness similar to if someone had dumped a dozen caramels into the cup and topped it off with cotton candy. But, I ate them anyway, as I’d learned that if I didn’t Ralakos would “prepare something more to my tastes”—and I would be stuck in middling conversation for hours longer than necessary.

“Welcome!” Ralakos exclaimed, as if he had not seen me only a few days before. He entered the room, two books held under his massive bicep. They almost looked like normal books under his arms, but when he passed them to me the weight alone nearly dragged me off my chair. I grunted, using every muscle in my core to heave them onto the couch beside me. Ralakos slapped me on the back with friendly aplomb, then took a seat across from me, placing his feet up on the table. “Nethtari said you had a question for me?”

“Yes.” I leaned forward. “I’m hoping to hunt a few asmodials across the surface caverns. Nethtari and Kilvius intend to sponsor me for an emissary—“

“And you intend to seal some errant demons and use their ashes as a boon.” Ralakos said, understanding immediately. He tapped his chin with a finger. “Clever. But far too dangerous.”

I chuckled nervously. “Don’t get me wrong. I’d be a fool to take them on by myself. Even if I was foolhardy enough to strike out on my own, there is the problem of their natural resistance to my element.”

“Yes,” Ralakos rumbled, “a pity, as sealing some of those moronic upstarts would certainly send a message.”

I jumped on the opening. “That’s why I’m hoping you might allow me the use of your men. They go out on patrols and skirmish with the asmodials anyway. Should we stumble across a few them, it would be a simple matter to put the plan into action.”

Ralakos peered at me. “And you are… confident in your abilities?”

“…Within reason. At the very least, I would not be a burden. Erdos has been thorough in his tutelage, though… he is a difficult to please.” I admitted the last part grudgingly. The man was a consummate professional but it was clear from the start he resented teaching me—more-so the fact that he was effectively babysitting a child rather than brooding, or stormily staring off into the distance, or whatever the hells it was he usually did.

“It’s interesting… that you are so primed to crush an uprising beneath your heel.” Ralakos said, his tone taking the musical lilt it often did when he was playing devil’s advocate.

I scowled. “That’s different.”

“How so?” He asked.

“You told me yourself, months ago, that demons are effectively soulless. They lack any form of empathy. All they respect, in the end, is strength.”

“Walk with me, would you?” Ralakos asked.

I stood and followed him through his home and out the backdoor. We walked beyond the practice yard down a clearly aligned path. Unlike the craggy stone ground near Nethtari’s home, the stone around Ralakos estate had been quarried out and was instead filled with and imported sod. Before us, in the courtyard, was a massive, spherical gray boulder. There were thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands of spherical black outcroppings that looked strangely like…

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“It’s a memorial,” Ralakos said quietly.

“From the war?” I swallowed.

The infernal made a slow sweeping gesture. “This was the result of the last time a royal member of House Valen decided that an entire group of people was below them. Less than human. Demi.” He walked towards the obelisk, hand held out gingerly until he found what he was looking for. My son, Xarmos, died that day, as did so many others.”

And that was the problem I kept coming back to. There was such a gulf of pain and anger that separated us now. Even my closest ally within the infernal government bore such deep wounds.

“I’m sorry.”

He waved his arm in a flash of movement. “I don’t want your pity. Or guilt. All I ask, from you, young Cairn, is that you ascend such things. Demons are demons. They are, at the end of the day, monsters. But much danger comes from thinking that your enemy is all the same—and worse, that they are less than you.”

I nodded.

Ralakos put more effort into teaching me over the next hour than he had in the prior six months combined. He walked me through a new way to meditate and gather mana—using my entire body instead of just simple breathing techniques. It felt significantly slower initially, but according to Ralakos, absorbing mana through a larger surface area than my lungs would allow for exponentially faster regeneration over time. The last thing we covered that day was the concept of additional elements.

There were several schools of thought on this, Ralakos said. The first was the concept of pre-destination. The theory that some magicians were simply selected to be bound to a single element, while others had the ability to awaken two, perhaps even three. The opposing theory was that all magicians had the capacity to unlock all elements—it was just the rate of growth that differed. Meaning that, in the highly unlikely scenario a magician was immortal, they could, in theory, eventually learn to access every individual leyline. For the infernals, second awakenings more often than not occurred within the sanctum, though there were often exceptions to this rule.

It all seemed like good information in theory, but none of it shed light on my particular situation. Neither of my parents nor their ancestors had magic, so it wasn’t related to my bloodline—Sera was the exception of course, but I assumed that had something more to do with who her mother was rather than any blood we shared. I had been burned with a specific type of magic in a past life—one that was usually racially specific—then somehow acquired it in the next.

I asked Ralakos what he thought of Barion’s macabre research: attempting to force an awakening via exposure and suffering. He scowled, saying he found the very implication reprehensible.

“The concept of a foraminous soul is as outrageous as it is antiquated.” Ralakos shook his head. “When we are born, our souls are pure. When we die, our souls are damaged. Between lives, pure arcane energy repairs the soul—whether you want to call that god, or the devil, or whatever else—but it doesn’t do a perfect job. Residual magic left behind after repairing a soul is where manifested elements come from.”

I sat up a little straighter. “And you know this for a fact?”

“No. It’s all theory. Practically philosophy. Is it theoretically possible to chip away at a soul until it’s mostly porous, leaving more room for magic to manifest? Perhaps. But it would take countless iterations; we know, relatively definitively by now that most souls have been around for thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of years. Pathos is a natural part of life. For a man like Barion to believe he is capable of causing enough cumulative suffering to forcibly honeycomb a soul is more than hubris; it’s addle-brained narcissism.”

The sudden surge of paranoia slowly disappeared, and I relaxed a bit at his rebuff. It was for the best that Barion was wrong. If he had been right, it changed things for me in a way I’m not sure I would have been ready for. There was a brief mental image of exposing myself to various magics, over and over to the point of death, just to try and accumulate more power. It made me shudder.

The first awakening was the easiest. It typically happened within the first five to ten years of a magician’s life. The second was much harder, and if it did happen, usually happened within the sanctum. And the third would happen for anywhere between two and three percent of magicians, usually in the last ten years of the magician’s life. There were a handful of magicians within the Sanctum—ancient infernals that had retired from traditional life—who had reached a fourth awakening, another point for the rate-of-growth argument, Ralakos said.

Ralakos must have passed on my intentions to Erdos because the man’s borderline dour mood had crossed over into the realm of practically intolerable. He pushed me much harder over the coming weeks, and it was rare that I left the training yard able to raise my arms above my head. The infernal fighting style centered around targeting pressure points and opening veins, and he would literally beat the concepts into me until I could barely move. His punitive focus on me was made all the more clear by contrast with the way that Jorra would leave practically unscathed, while I limped away, or on worse days, leaned on him for support.

It was with this in mind that we waited for him in the courtyard. I meditated, trying to recuperate some of the mana I had lost working on spell weaving earlier that morning, when Erdos finally made his appearance. From the first moment, the interaction was unusual, as he was not alone. A red adolescent infernal dressed in a simple black gi entered with him.

She looked close to my age. Taller than Jorra, but a bit shorter than me. Clearly, she was related to Erdos in some fashion. She had the same stern face and tightly wound mouth. The infernal walked past us, not even bothering to acknowledge our existence, pulled a curved practice sword from the rack, and began to run through a complex kata, one that I’d never seen before. Her motions were liquid smooth, as if she’d been practicing every day of her life. The stern face and utter focus reminded me more than a little of Annette, though this girl likely had more physicality in her little finger than Annette had in her entire body.

Jorra jolted upright, an uneasy expression clouding his face.

“You recognize her?” I asked

“Bellarex,” Jorra muttered, “Erdos’s daughter. They say she was born with a sword in her hand. Cut her way out of the womb.”

I laughed, but Jorra’s face stayed grim. “I saw her fight a violet once, at a festival exhibition. A full-grown infernal. Took a beating, but in the end, she shredded him.”

Erdos approached us and we stood. It could have been my imagination, but his face seemed extra smarmy today. He spoke in that annoying nasal tone of his.

“Good morning, children.” Erdos said.

We both stood. “Good morning, Master Erdos.”

“It has come to my attention that I will be bringing our royal guest along for a little expedition in a few days.” Erdos’s lip curled. “Obviously, not my first choice, but unfortunately this decision is out of my hands. I was able to make Ralakos come to his senses on one particular point, however.” He smiled wolfishly, and I suddenly had a strong desire to be anywhere else. “To determine whether Prince Cairn will be dead weight, the fair master has agreed to a test.”

“And what test is that, Master Erdos?” I fidgeted slightly where I sat.

“It’s simple. I’ll even give you an advantage. Two on one. All you have to do to pass the test is land a hit on that weakling girl.” He pointed to where Bellarex had been standing, but she was no longer there. There was a whisper of wind behind me and a sudden flash of danger. I dove to the side, a wooden training sword embedding itself into the ground where I’d stood only moments earlier.

Dirt flew as Bellarex yanked her sword from the ground and spun, body a blur as the wooden sword whistled towards my neck.

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