Psina (1)
Cassion regretted it.
That bastard. He never said a word.
Elain's reaction had been anything but ordinary. Even if you already know, play ignorant for now — just tell him first, he'd said. Those were not words that belonged in the Grand Duke's mouth. They meant Elain valued Harad every bit that much.
By nature, that Grand Duke despised wasting time.
Is it because of me?
Elain and Harad were many times closer than the time they'd spent together could explain. At least, that was how it looked to Cassion — and his own share of it had been considerable, since contact between Harad and Elain had thinned out ever since the Cassion spy affair was settled.
And yet, looking back, Elain had been looking after Harad long before that. Enough to make Cassion jealous.
What little contact there'd been, though, was trivial stuff.
Cassion had once surveilled Elain's every movement — to be precise, only whenever Elain met with Harad. The first time, Elain had picked a fight with him; the second, he had come to apologize and cover the bar tab. After that he had gotten Harad out of jail, and later still, Harad had personally delivered the heads Cassion sent in to the Inner Castle.
Back then, Elain had been openly furious with Harad — his sin, the injuring of several 1st Knight Order knights. Then one day, out of nowhere, Elain gifted him everyday necessities and money. Even that about-face was hard enough to swallow, but Elain went so far as to bring Harad along on the hunt. Into the Boundary. It meant he trusted Harad enough to share his life with him.
The Cassion of those days hadn't been able to bear it. But now, with his head clear, a question nagged at him.
How had they grown so close?
There had been no reason for it, no pretext. They weren't even the sort to meet often.
I know Harad is close with Lady Ellen, but...
The person Harad met with most was Ellen. Not Elain. And yet he was close with Elain too — far closer than anyone could have imagined.
At the Sacred Ground of Fire, the Grand Duke spared my life. But even then, Elain had asked for Harad's opinion first. He'd declared he would do as he damn well pleased, yet in truth he had been seeking Harad's agreement. Not issuing a command, not delivering a report. Which meant they had been as good as close, even then. Elain treated Harad not as a vassal but as an equal.
No — perhaps as more than that.
He'd heard it was the same when Rick the Tunneler was spared. Even then, Elain had tried to bring Harad around.
"Sir Cassion."
The words pulled Cassion back to himself. Elain was glaring at him, and the look in his eyes was stone cold.
"I told you to speak."
The Grand Duke had ordered. Yes — an order. The kind he never gave Harad.
"The Sun belongs to a woman. That was the Prophecy of the Moon."
Our king belongs to a woman. That verse was the prophecy as Harad had first known it. It was afterward, through Cassion, that he came to realize the "king" in question was the Sun.
"That is correct."
"And why should that matter."
Elain pressed down on him with a crushing weight, true to Serzilla form.
"You may not be aware, but..."
"No need for the long version. Get to the point."
"There are no two identical Origins in this world."
"I know. Even sharing a concept, they differ in form and nature."
Elain seemed to have a fair grasp of what an Origin was. No doubt Harad had taught him.
"Precisely. Many Origins resemble one another, but examined closely, every one of them is distinct."
Except for those that weren't. Origins no one could ever confuse — absolute, unmistakable.
"There are Origins that cannot be mistaken for anything else. The Sun and the Moon are exactly that."
No flame anywhere could resemble the Sun. No pallor anywhere could be taken for the Moon.
"The Sun named in the Prophecy of the Moon must be Harad's Origin."
The Sun was no ordinary fire. No flame alive could imitate it.
"I imagine so."
And what of it. That was the face Elain nodded with.
"My Origin is the Point. A very, very small point. It erases the presence of what exists."
Among the many, many Points there might be, Cassion's was the only one from which such magic was possible.
"And yet there is a way for another magician to come by a Point exactly like mine."
Elain's eyes widened slightly.
So Harad hadn't told him, after all.
"I die. Then my Origin is born anew, lodged within someone else."
Elain's eyes kept widening.
"The Prophecy of the Moon said the Sun belongs to a woman."
No flame could be mistaken for the Sun. The prophecy pointed at the Sun, and at nothing else — and Harad's Origin was that Sun.
"...You are telling me Harad will die?"
"Yes. And the next magician to carry the Sun will, in all likelihood, be a woman."
The Prophecy of the Moon did not point at Harad. It pointed at some woman yet unborn who would carry that Sun once Harad was dead.
"The Prophecy of the Moon has never once been wrong."
Harad could die at any moment and it would surprise no one. No — he would die. That was what the prophecy declared.
At some point, Elain's eyes had blown wide open.
"...Did you tell Harad as well?"
"He already knew."
"I imagined as much. Clever bastard that he is."
Crack. The sound of something snapping came from somewhere — from inside Elain's mouth.
"And yet he never said a word."
The voice was murderous. The eyes that had been stretched wide now sat low and sunken, and the frost rolling off them raised gooseflesh on Cassion's skin.
"Are you busy?"
"Pardon?"
"I asked whether you were busy."
"No. Not busy."
And Cassion, a very busy man, answered.
"Follow me."
Elain moved. North — toward the Boundary.
The ground was dark and sodden. The dampness was what grated — it was mana, unmistakably. Corrupted mana, of the Boundary.
So it wasn't magic after all.
The scattering of the search parties had not been that woman's doing. Corruption — the mana of this region had turned each search party down its own different road.
"The space itself is tangled, then."
The search parties were in spaces that were the same, yet not. And in a space like that, Cassion had found Compaso — or so it went.
So he Manifested his Origin.
Cassion's Point devoured the presence of whatever it touched, making it as if the thing had never existed. That must be exactly what he had done to this region's corruption. Put another way: short of Manifesting an Origin, there was no means on earth of cracking this space.
Witless bastard. And he had never breathed a word of this crucial fact.
Harad's brow creased. Cassion surely hadn't done it on purpose. He'd forgotten, or never known — which was somehow more infuriating still, from a man who had the gall to call himself a magician.
Either way, they had their lead. The space could be broken — that much was certain. Compaso, hauled back alive by Cassion, was the proof of it. Shatter the structure of this region's corrupted mana, and the space would right itself.
"For the record, I didn't kill Compaso."
"..."
The woman did not answer.
"Ah — Jeshult, that one I did kill."
"..."
Same again.
She'd called him "our Ios," hadn't she. Apparently the only thing that mattered to this woman was Ios.
Ios's Origin had been Painting. Only recently, the 1st Knight Order had run into three magicians on a search — two of Ink and one of Mirror. Two of Ink. And that shabby den of his had resembled ink, too.
Magicians of a feather flocked together. Kindred Origins, or ones that served one another.
"A bereaved kin of our Ios, are you? Or his master?"
"You dare defile that name with your tongue?"
"If not me, then who? I am the one who saw our Ios's last moments."
The woman's body shook and shook.
Harad kept his focus on his surroundings. No shift in the space yet — which meant Delic and Pissarro had still not broken through this region's corruption. They needed more time, then. Or someone on this side would have to break it first.
Which would be difficult.
He could not move rashly. Harad was still working from the assumption that the woman was 5th-tier. No — she certainly was.
She had called Ios — 4th-tier — "our Ios." Which put her a rung above him, at least.
Though there was one more option.
Breaking it himself was beyond Harad. But the woman's power — that, he could put to use.
"Our Ios did leave some last words, as it happens."
"..."
"Aren't you curious?"
Her trembling sharpened. Harad caught her ears pricking, ever so slightly.
"Introductions first, then. I've given mine."
"...Psina. Fifth-tier of the Ivory Tower."
The woman surrendered her tier without protest. That was the Outlands' way — they did not hide themselves. Among their own kind they even disclosed their Origins. Origin was talent; tier was pride.
A stranger. Psina. The name was unfamiliar. So was the face. A magician he'd never come to know in his past life, then — and in all likelihood no kin of Ios's, either. Ios had been a decent-looking man, in his way. A fine high nose, especially. Nothing broad and flat like hers.
Taking a while, it seems.
The space remained as it was. At this point he could only hope it kept taking its time — otherwise, it meant no one could break it at all.
"The last words went something like this."
Harad said it barely above a whisper, and Psina's face drew a shade forward.
"Waaah! I don't wanna die!"
"..."
"Not to your liking?"
Psina's frame quivered.
"Then how about this one? Please spare me, Master Psina."
At that, Psina's hand cut across the empty air, and an ink-black stroke tore through the world.
"...I shall kill you, and leave not even a trace behind."
Psina. A magician he had never seen before. Never so much as heard of. A magician who had no business being here at all.
So it was his fault, in the end.
The future had changed, and the culprit, naturally, was the regressor. Because Harad had killed Ios, Ios's master Psina had come south.
Compaso saw my face, and Jeshult carried it back to the Ivory Tower. Compaso had witnessed both Ios's death and Harad's flames — and Gulen, who had been there, would naturally have seen them too.
So the three magicians the 1st Knight Order had encountered were bait. Bait to goad the 1st Knight Order — and, with them, Harad.
Then why hadn't she crossed the Great Wall? Why wait at the place where Compaso died?
The one who had come to this region was Cassion. Had her disciple been Compaso, her presence here would have made sense — but Psina was Ios's master. If she truly wanted vengeance, she should have come over the Wall.
No need to puzzle over it. They had met, after all.
For Psina, it had even been a stroke of fortune: the 1st Knight Order had sent its request for aid not to Cassion, but to Harad. Whether by design or accident, it was the perfect ground for her — this region had done her the favor of splitting the search parties apart.
How long before—
The flame rising before him like a shield was punched through. Harad flung his upper body far back. The stroke drawn moments before carved through the spot where his heart had just been.
"That flame!"
Psina raked her own throat. Her fingertips, frozen in midair, shuddered as well — but her eyes were unmistakably composed. Rage, yes; yet her reason did not so much as waver.
Befitting a 5th-tier. He had goaded her temper, but she showed no sign of squandering her magic. He would have to buy time. Though time, of course, was no ally of Harad's either.
Psina's fingertips began embroidering ink into the air. The strokes she drew there resembled swords, and the moment each was finished it launched like a slashing blade. There were more than ten of them.
Ink?
Yes — it looked like ink. Much like Ios's. But the power was worlds apart, and to Psina it had been nothing more than a casual flick of the hand.
Harad swung Pater. No — swung was too generous a word; he simply brought the blade to bear, warping the paths of the strokes. All ten of them shaved past him.
Call it finesse — finesse bought entirely with Pater's quality. This peerless sword did not break. It never did.
He couldn't do that twice. His whole body was howling. Push it any further, and he felt his frame would come apart at the seams.
"You mongrel."
Psina sneered. Her hand crossed the air once more — strokes again, drawn this time in a single light, downward sweep.
The mana packed into those strokes left the last volley far behind. And this time there were dozens. Dodging looked impossible; slipping them along Pater's edge looked worse.
Harad's left eye stained itself pitch-black. Flames swayed within it, and scarlet fire spread across the dozens of incoming strokes.
The arithmetic doesn't work.
He had layered it over his body, but Projection was Projection — which meant only by Projecting could he unpick Psina's magic. The matchup favored him, and Psina was drowning even that advantage beneath overwhelming mana.
And even that — even that was, to her, mere reconnaissance. Preparation, all at once.
The world was trembling. Psina's mana, and the surge of her Origin.
"No mercy at all, I see."
While Harad dismantled her probing spells, Psina had finished her preparation. Her Origin had passed wholly through the enormous window that was Psina.
"Ah — my Lord."
It was a Brush. Psina gripped it like a master holding her tool — and yet all Harad could see was the Brush. Its presence stole perspective away. The world became the Brush, and the Brush felt like the world.
"For you are the mighty Stroke, O Lord."
Psina venerated the Brush as a god. That was why the Outlands had no gods — they worshipped Origins.
A measure of depth crept back. The Brush still struck him as enormous, but it no longer felt as vast as the world itself — because, at some point, a black sun had risen into the sky.
"A king far too good for the likes of you."
Psina had known at a glance what it was — the Sun's shadow. And that it was no Manifestation, merely a paltry Projection.
"Thus does the Prophecy of the Moon proclaim."
So she said, gazing down upon Harad.
"You will die today."
Psina's Origin.
The Brush painted over the world.