TMarkos
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Chapter 66 - Anomie
🕑 Added 2022-06-24 21:41:33 +0000 UTCI note that at this point in my address, many of this body’s members have suffered a deficit in their attention. I can hear conversation, see wandering eyes as I look out over the floor of this dignified house.
I would ask you gentlemen, and you know who you are - do you not recognize the import of what is happening to this country? Does its significance fail to register with you on some level? It is perhaps my failure as a speaker that I have not conveyed it properly, but I will attempt to do so.
Ardalt desires power. This is not an evil in and of itself, no, for all nations require some modicum of power to survive. But what troubles me, and what has become increasingly apparent as these long years unfold, is that Ardalt desires power as its own end. Not to protect its people or to safeguard its well-being, but to accrue like a miser hoarding coin.
Power cannot be an end unto itself, gentlemen. We have sacrificed what we should not in our pursuit of strength and security. I urge caution, here at the precipice; there are things we must not do if we are to remain men. Lines we must not cross. I fear an Ardalt of ravening beasts, having burned our trust and brotherhood to fuel the engine of our progress.
- Stanza’s Complaint to the Assembly (excerpt), 671.
—
Michael moved to stand over where Zabala had the struggling guard pinned to the ground, the other guards milling nearby in consternation. He had worried for a moment that they would intervene to help their comrade, but the man on the ground was in obvious distress; his eyes were wide with mindless panic, rolling and twitching while his breath came in incoherent grunts and gasps. He could do nothing against the iron grip of a fortimens, though. It was perhaps not as extreme as Michael’s newfound strength, but still far beyond what an unsouled man could contest.
As he drew close the afflicted soldier’s eyes locked onto him. The image of a boar lying helpless on the forest floor flickered through Michael’s mind, helpless and terrified. Quickly, Jeorg’s voice urged.
He laid his fingers gently across the man’s brow. The soldier stiffened as Stanza rushed forward into his body, grasping his mind, laying bare the raw and bloody wounds that had been papered over with a thin facade of normalcy. Michael frowned as he saw the shape of it form before him. This was not the devastation wrought by Spark or the brutal suppression of Ardan obruors, but a near-surgical excision. The man was mostly whole. Absent their prodding he would likely have never noticed the loss.
Before him lay a pleasant meadow, save for a hole gouged from its center big enough to swallow a cart - or, Michael supposed, a Mendiko truck. He bent to lay his fingers upon the bare soil of its rim, closing his eyes. Images flashed before his vision; he saw a child playing in a small patch of grass behind a house, walking to a crowded school with a group of laughing students, growing tall and strong as the child became a young man.
The soldier was from a small farming community west of Goitxea, where fields squeezed between the rocky shores of the strait and the towering mountains behind. He had loved it there, but yearned for novelty; when a recruiter stopped by to extol the excitement of military life, he had left with barely a second thought for the rolling fields of his home. Michael saw trembling fingers sign the soldier’s name to a roster - Patxi, named for his father.
The excitement quickly yielded to endless training and drills, of course, but those came with their own sort of joy. Patxi grew strong, relishing the camaraderie and competition with his squadmates. Then came news from Goitxea: the Star of Mendian had descended to address the Batzar for the first time in his memory. The Gardener and the Whisperer had come north from the continent, and Mendian would venture south in return - to Daressa, and to war.
There was fear, of course, but Patxi quickly found that the continent was more of the same from home. He was with the military police, not tasked to the front lines, and his days were occupied with endless patrols or the tedious business of logging supply shipments. One truck rolled up, shining terribly-bright in his memory, a man jumping from the front with a smooth greeting in Mendiko. Patxi sighed and got up; he was the guard on duty. He returned the greeting, walking towards the man with clipboard in hand. The stranger’s eyes were oddly bright-
A hitch in the smooth flow of memory nearly jolted Michael apart from Patxi’s mind. He was touching the wound, now, and Patxi’s agitation was mounting with every passing moment. Michael called upon Stanza, bolstering the paths that he had just traced forward as they extended into the missing pieces of his psyche. There was pain, and fear; a storm buffeted the meadow, wind and thunder crashing around him.
The strength of the reaction surprised Michael. Holding Stanza firmly around the wound, he sent Spark questing outward to peer at the foundations of the storm. There was a structure there that struck him as odd, a pattern to the violence. He strengthened Stanza’s grip on the injury and watched the storm intensify in turn.
His curiosity turned to indignation, and no small amount of disgust. Not content to merely tamper with the man’s mind, the faceless Shine had buried self-destructive violence there as well; Patxi’s aversion to touch and his spasmodic attempt at suicide both stemmed from this sickening graft lurking just below the surface of his thoughts. The grass of the meadow hid a deadly rot just beneath, a trap for anyone seeking to undo the damage and learn the truth of the Shine’s meddling. Even now, it chewed away at the struggling remnants of Patxi’s mind. The Shine had anticipated everything.
Everything but Michael. He marshaled Stanza and Spark in a close duet, channeling his anger until all around him seemed gilt-edged and clear. “Winding, wending, neverending,” he said, his voice resonating across the rotting meadow. “Broken paths desire mending.”
The air shivered, the broken pieces of Patxi’s mind drawing close together; Michael turned his eyes on the tumorous violence that had been hidden within. “Soul devouring, overpowering, rot gives way to cleansing, scouring.”
Spark flared bright, bereft of Michael’s usual doubt; if there was a use for this soul, then here it was in shining clarity. The unnatural rage and fear fell away under his focus, leaving only the broken, bleeding man beneath. Michael wrapped him in Stanza’s warmth. The paths of his life extended tremulously forward across the broken ground.
“Broken mind so sorely used, feel the peace that is your due.” Michael extended his hand, spreading his fingers wide. “Rise once more, reclaim yourself and stand as one reborn, renewed.”
He felt the changes take hold, taking a breath of the clean meadow air before letting his eyes slide open. Patxi sagged in Zabala’s arms, unconscious and breathing softly. His face was covered in sweat, scratched and dirty - but peaceful underneath.
Michael stood. “You can let him down now, he’s not in any danger.”
“Is that meant to be reassuring?” Zabala grunted, not releasing his grip. “Respectfully, jauna - what the fuck is going on?”
“He was the one that booked the convoy in,” Michael said, nodding towards the unconscious guard. “They had a Shine with them, who made sure he didn’t record their entry.” His brows knit together. “Then gouged it from his memory, and left violence there in case anyone went looking for traces of it.”
Emil’s eyebrows went up. “Sophisticated,” he said. “That’s beyond anything I’ve seen before.”
“That’s at least two souls working in concert,” Sobriquet said. “A dediscator to take away the memory and hide their tracks from me, and the Shine to do the rest.” She gave Michael a piercing look. “Ardans?”
He shook his head. “Mendiko.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Mendiko,” she repeated. Silently, her veil wrapped around them. “And Lekubarri owns the truck.”
“I know that name,” Michael frowned, his memory turning back to the problem now that the moment had become quieter. “From the Batzar.” He remembered a tall, thin man with a neat beard, one who had-
“Ghar’s blood,” he muttered, the implications of what he had seen settling leaden and suffocating around him. His mouth was suddenly dry; he licked his lips before continuing. “Now I remember. He spoke in Leire’s favor after her speech.”
“It’s not conclusive by itself,” Sobriquet cautioned him.
Michael shook his head; he might have felt anger, but instead inside him he had only a dull, empty fatigue. “I grew up amid politicians, I know how these things work. Do you think that Leire prepared her speech, knowing that she would be opposed, and simply hoped that someone else would speak in her defense? Does that sound like her?” He raised his eyes, looking at Sobriquet. “Or would she pick a key ally and let them know in advance? Someone reliable. Someone she could count on to get things done.”
Zabala’s face went pale; Sobriquet turned to look back towards the airship.
“I knew she was too fast to volunteer her denial,” she muttered. “But, still - this is dangerous, Michael.”
“We’re all dangerous here,” Michael said. There was a ripple of anxiety from those around him; he looked up to see Sobriquet and Zabala giving him odd looks.
“What?” he asked. “Are we going to pretend we don’t know? That those five men guarding Galen didn’t die?” He gestured irritably at Patxi. “Are we going to ignore him?”
Sobriquet raised her hand in caution. “We don’t know anything yet,” she said. “And even if we found our proof, what then? Can the Star of Mendian be punished?”
She paused, letting the question hang in the air. “This war we’re in moves by her word alone. Our place here exists largely because she demanded it.” She nodded her head towards Zabala. “Look at him, and tell me the Mendiko would do anything to chasten her.”
Michael turned to face Zabala; the fortimens was staring wide-eyed, pulsing a fear beyond anything Michael had ever felt from the man. He lowered Patxi gently to the ground, then stood.
“How about it?” Michael asked. “If I’m right, she killed her own soldiers. Lied to our faces about it, too. You know she’s capable of it.”
Zabala shook his head, his lips pressed into a thin line. “I can’t have this conversation,” he muttered. “She’s the Star of Mendian.”
A cool emptiness blossomed in Michael’s chest. “And that’s enough?” he asked.
Zabala brought his head up sharply, his eyes narrowing. “We take oaths,” he spat. “Three oaths. To the country, its people and the Star of Mendian. Every soldier here spoke those words. I’d like to think most of them meant it.”
“And this doesn’t bother you?” Michael asked, walking over to kneel besides Patxi.
“Of course it fucking does!” Zabala snarled. “I don’t want to see him lying there, or think about the dead men at the jail. I trained with Etxarte for years, and he’s dead now too. Even more I never met died taking this city, and more still will die taking every shitty fucking corner of this country.”
He glared at Michael, then Sobriquet. “But the Star of Mendian wants Daressa free, so here we are. That’s the job. Mendian lives in peace because sometimes it fucking doesn’t - and we all knew signing up that we could be the ones called on, if the need arose.”
“It seems to me that dying in battle carries a different feel than being murdered at the Star of Mendian’s command,” Michael said. “If she is your commander, she should have your trust. Do you really think it’s the same, dying like this instead of facing an honest enemy?”
Zabala shook his head, some of his ire fading. “It’s not,” he admitted, gesturing to Sobriquet. “But she’s right. You’re assuming a lot, and even if you find your proof and it is the Star’s orders that set this in motion - then those men died by one Star’s command in the name of protecting the next, even if they didn’t know it. It’s unpleasant, it feels wrong, but it’s little different from Extarte in the end.”
A small, sad smile crept onto his face. “Or me. Only difference is that I lived, but we both know it could have been me.”
Michael felt numb, Zabala’s voice sliding over his ears in muted tones that seemed only half like words. Sobriquet’s hand settled on his shoulder and squeezed gently.
“I’m sorry, Michael,” she said. “There’s no answer you’ll find that will hold Leire to account, and even if you did-” She looked away, then towards Zabala. “If you break her, you break Mendian. Daressa can’t survive without their help.”
He jerked away from her touch, steeling himself against the spike of pain the withdrawal provoked. “So it’s fine, then,” he said icily. “Leire gets to do what she wants, as long as she frees Daressa in the bargain?” He turned to face her; the expression she wore for once matched her emotions, anguish clear in her eyes.
But beneath the pain, steel endured. “I’m not saying what she did was right,” Sobriquet said quietly. “Only that there is no way to punish her for what she did without also condemning all of my people to death or erasure under Saf’s rule.”
Michael stood quietly as time slid by around him, stewing in a morass of his own thoughts. Eventually, he looked up; Sobriquet was still looking at him with concern writ plainly upon her face, pain and fear sounding in strident chorus.
But - not the usual fear that emanated from all who knew the truth of his soul. This was fresher, clearer, tinged with worry and guilt and a slew of smaller, fractured feelings that swarmed close around it.
He listened to what they were saying. Spark did not give him any inherent ability to understand the emotions he felt from others, and they often grated in strange, foreign ways upon his mind. It took time and familiarity to know them for what they were.
Michael knew no heart better than hers. Her fear resonated with him - the fear of having to choose, to walk down one path and leave all the rest behind. There were many paths forward from here; for a brief, dizzying instant he saw gilt-edged images of his own form walking away from here, alone.
There was temptation down that path. Sera’s refusal to take his side unreservedly was like a knife in his chest, burning hot with each heartbeat. It kindled anger in him, resentment - but alongside that he felt her pain. There was a twinned knife that she bore, for this rift between them. He could insist, and deepen it, taking the solitary path, or-
He let his breath out slowly, the tension bleeding out of his shoulders. “Okay,” he said. “You’re probably right.”
She stepped forward, hugging him tightly; Michael let his arms settle around her in return.
“I’m so sorry,” she said, her voice muffled by the embrace. “It’s not right, but I don’t see another way. I wish I had a better answer.”
He pulled back, managing a smile. “Maybe we don’t need an answer,” he said. “But I have a question we could try instead.”
—
They sat in the airship’s observation area in silence. It was only Michael and Sobriquet, quietly watching the Mendiko base disassemble itself around them. The army was a massive, complex construct of men and machinery, but it moved with a singular will.
“Not long now before we’re on the move again,” Michael observed. “To Imes.”
Sobriquet nodded. “Imes,” she repeated quietly. “It seems unreal. Just a month ago I thought this day would be years in the making.”
Michael squeezed her hand, but said nothing in reply. The door behind them swung open; they heard quick footsteps.
“This is not a good time,” Antolin said. “We’re scouting along our advance route; my soul is crucial for guiding their movements. I can’t stay for long.”
“That’s fine,” Michael said, rising to face the grand marshal. “We wanted to let you know the results of our inquiry into Galen’s abduction and death.”
Antolin raised an eyebrow. “Oh?” he asked. “Quick work. What did you find?”
“That they infiltrated the base through the north gate by posing as a supply convoy,” he said. “They disguised their tracks by manipulating the gate guard with their souls - a dediscator to wipe the man’s memory, and a Shine to drive him towards suicide should anyone come looking too closely.”
The expression on Antolin’s face grew steadily darker as Michael spoke, and by the end he looked ready to spit upon the decking. “Barbarity,” he said. “Were you able to learn anything about the perpetrators before he killed himself?”
“Oh, Michael stopped him,” Sobriquet said, rising from her own seat. “And healed him. That’s how he was able to find out that the men who attacked the base weren’t Ardan or Safid.” She paused, watching the anger on Antolin’s face shift to consternation.
“They were Mendiko,” Michael said. “Dispatched here from Estu shortly after Galen’s capture, aboard one of Lekubarri’s trucks.”
Silence returned to the room. Antolin’s face had gone expressionless after Michael’s first sentence, but beneath his quiet mien Michael felt the storm raging - anger, sorrow, loss. He remained silent and let it play out, even as the noise of another door opening heralded Leire’s entry into her enclosure.
Her eyes found the three of them, narrowing as she sat in her chair. “You had something for me?” she asked.
“A question,” Sobriquet asked. “Have you communicated, directly or indirectly, with batzarkidea Lekubarri since the battle for Leik?”
Antolin slowly turned to face her. He said nothing, but Leire’s eyes lingered on his face for long, quiet moments. Eventually, she looked back to Sobriquet.
“You hold a terrifying amount of power for someone so young,” she said. “Both of you. It may be just as well that my time is ending.” She leaned back in her chair, then gave a small nod. “I arranged for Galen’s death, via intermediaries.”
Michael blinked, taken aback despite the flare of anger her words provoked. Words warred within him unsaid; when he finally spoke his voice was low and rasping.
“Why?” he asked.
“You know why,” she said. “We all saw your death pass rather too close for comfort during the battle. Considering the stakes, I decided that it would be best to obtain a measure of surety.” She folded her hands in her lap. “You said yourself that you had determined to kill the man, in the moment. It was-”
“I had to watch him die,” Michael said. “I had to excise what was left of Galen from my mind and cast him into the void.” He took a step closer to Leire. “Do you have any idea what that felt like?”
Leire pursed her lips. “Not pleasant, I’m sure,” she said. “I told you that you would have to grow accustomed to that; his was hardly the only soul you will receive through affinity born of hatred.” She nodded towards the window, and the soldiers packing their gear. “I daresay it may be the norm before this campaign is through.”
“And you think this justifies everything?” Michael demanded. “Necessity above all?”
“Survival above all,” Leire retorted. “Your survival, and Mendian’s. I told you before that it was all that matters. I don’t care a whit about your opinion of me. You may damn me or revile me as you wish; every breath you draw to curse my name is one that I have now secured for you.”
There was a long silence after she spoke. Michael did not trust himself to speak amid the rising anger within him. It was only when Antolin stepped forward that he realized not all of that rage was his own.
He stood ramrod-straight before Leire’s seat, his shoulders square and his head high. “Does the Star of Mendian have a preference as to what I should tell the families of the five men who died when the prisoner was abducted?” he asked. His voice was cool, his eyes looking directly ahead at the foot of Leire’s seat.
Michael looked higher, and saw the flicker in Leire’s radiant soul. It was only for an instant, the briefest of interruptions in that blazing, deadly halo. Something shattered, keened - and then was gone, masked behind the light once more. Her face betrayed no sign of what had transpired save for a tightness around her eyes.
“I do not,” she said quietly. “I trust my grand marshal in this matter.”
“And I am your grand marshal, Your Radiance,” Antolin said. He raised his head at last, looking her in the eye. “No less - and no more.” He held her gaze, saluted, and walked from the room with a measured pace.
Eventually, Leire turned back to Michael. “I hope that as the years pass and you grow in power, you remember what it was to be limited,” she murmured, her voice thick and hoarse. “To content yourself with unpleasant solutions because you could find no better path forward. To be - less than perfect, even as perfection is demanded.”
Michael took another step closer. “Are you asking for my forgiveness?” he asked.
“Your understanding,” she said. “I am on your side, whether you want my aid or not. I have placed all my hopes in you.”
There was another pause; Michael nodded. “I do understand you,” he said. “I understand your fear.” He walked to stand up against the wall of her enclosure, his own face reflecting back dimly from its surface; he looked through it to meet Leire’s eyes.
“There are things worse than death,” he said quietly. “That is the truth that gave me my soul, that I was forced to remember when you pressed Galen’s soul upon me. To exist in ways that twist and warp what you are meant to be is only torture, so I want you to listen very closely to what I am about to say.”
He looked her in the eye. “I imagine we have affinity between us by now, enough that you will pass to me when you die - your soul, and what remains of you along with it. If that remnant of you is the same woman who betrayed me, who murdered those men under guise of help, who lied to my face about it-”
Leire half-rose from her seat, frowning. “Michael-”
“If that is still you, on that day,” he said, speaking over her, “then there will be no way to reconcile with that remnant. I will not accept those things within me. That conflict, that division, will burn between us until I am forced to cast you into the abyss - just like the man you murdered.”
He walked forward until he could stand no closer to the glass, the barrier melting away in his vision and leaving only Leire. “Sofia once told me that only an informed choice is a choice,” he said. “She was right about that. So choose, sometime before you die. Decide if you aspire to something better than bare survival no matter the cost, or if the concept is so foreign to you that you would rather cease to exist entirely.”
Michael took a step back, then turned towards the door; Sobriquet had not moved, watching him with an inscrutable stew of emotion that he could not pick apart. She met his gaze with a small nod, though, and moved towards the exit to the room.
They walked out arm in arm. Behind them, Leire said nothing as the heavy bulkhead door yawned wide, then slammed shut once more.
Comments
TMarkos
You're absolutely correct in that it is functionally identical to the default case for pretty much everyone throughout history; "Jeorg" even uses this as an argument when he's debating Mike over cutting Galen's low soul loose. The reason he brings it up to Leire is that she has frequently expressed interest in the idea of him retaining low souls, and has more recently said that his inheritance of her low soul would make her motivations clear to him. This indicates that she has been assuming for some time now that her low soul would come to Michael after her death. As someone who has (both in the story and in epigraphs) talked a lot about the concerns she has surrounding her mortality and legacy, it's not a stretch to think that Leire derived some level of comfort from the idea that her low soul would end up with Michael as he completed her work. Michael's rejection therefore carries some weight with her, as it contradicts that assumption, denies that comfort and generally calls into question a lot of her suppositions about how he would carry out her legacy moving forward.
Earnest
The threat Michael makes here does not make sense to me. He threatens that unless Stellar fundamentally changes who she is, when he inherits her high and low soul through affinity he will cut the low soul loose and let it cease to exist. This seems like a nonthreat given that everyone who has ever died except a handful of people we are aware of experienced the same fate of not having their low soul held onto. This is just the standard way death works and what Leire would have assumed would happen to her for her entire life. Am I missing something? Does someone else understand how this might be a functional threat?
Blorcyn
Fantastic. Thank you for such a detailed reply.
TMarkos
Tea does sound lovely.
WachTraum
And by addressed you mean released in a brutal bout of soul conflict between probably the most dangerous souls on the planet? Or do you envision a group therapy session over tea?
TMarkos
Again I find myself lamenting the lack of the menacing-glasses-push emoji here on patreon. Fair to say that the tension between Mike and Leire will have to be addressed at some point.
WachTraum
I was thinking about the dangerous Secret Sobriquet talked about after Micheal got his soul and the way it involves Luke. What are the Chances that Stellar, terrified of Micheals threat and her legacy, tries to find a more *controllable* host for Micheals Soul? Stellar seems to me one of the better ways to kill a potens of Micheals caliber.
TMarkos
I addressed some of this in my reply to Blorcyn's comment (below, currently at the bottom of the comment stack) but one thing I'd draw attention to is that Mike constantly finds himself meeting people first in a scenario where there is no inherent conflict between what he wants and what they want, and then later there is such a conflict - Sofia being the most prominent example. I like this as an author because it lets me explore the relationship first before things get adversarial, to lay a foundation for how that conflict later plays out (or, as with Sobriquet, doesn't) and to highlight the aspects of their character that are situationally malleable. It is a hazard of writing that you know your characters a little too well, and I think that sometimes I fail to make their motivations and rationale as transparent as I should. Writing from Mike's PoV exclusively makes this difficult, and sticking to that PoV is a deliberate decision because I wanted the reader to learn and assess more or less in lockstep with him. The only exceptions are the epigraphs and supplements.
TMarkos
One of the things that I've tried to portray in the story is that the souls do alter the way people see and interact with the world. If you can see better, hear better, listen to peoples' emotions, bend steel with your bare hands - that's going to have an impact on your general worldview. When the BoEV depicts their "archetypes", therefore, that's just observation of how a given soul or skew of soul tends to push people given the extra information and capability it provides. It's the same thing Luc has been warning Michael about ad nauseum, incidentally, although he's convinced such changes can't help but be wholly nefarious. When writing the miniature-whodunit in this chapter and the last, I was a bit conflicted over how much misdirection and investigation to put in - some variants of this arc in my head had them spending multiple chapters running down leads. In the end, I figured that there wasn't much the Sobriquet/Mike combo couldn't figure out in short order using the same "I'll point you to it and you figure it out" dynamic they used all the way back when they first met to ferret out the truth of the destruction in Leik. A lot of the pieces in this arc are deliberately reused former dynamics like that, which I mostly lifted and dropped without changes. The other major one is the sacrifice of a prisoner to prepare Mike better for what's ahead. If you recall, Antolin did almost exactly the same thing early on in their continental campaign when he felt Mike was too reluctant to use his power for violence. Mike was pretty angry about that one too, but he accepted Antolin's good intentions even if he maintained his disagreement. Leire has influenced quite a few characters in this story, Antolin and Jeorg chief among them. They both took very different lessons from her, though. Antolin, by virtue of his close association with her, is much more like Leire than any other character. You can learn a lot about Leire by observing their characters, although it's not really anything you couldn't glean from her dialog and epigraphs. As she said before (c21): "As such I find myself playing the villain on occasion; it is in turns tiring, amusing and vindicating - and above all, necessary." Michael's ability to act rationally is greatly helped by his soul. He explicitly references both Spark and Stanza here, which both provide a crucial objective perspective that he can rely on instead of making emotionally-fueled decisions. I had always intended there to be an eventual conflict where Sera's additional motivations (for Daressa, etc) pull her in directions that Mike finds difficult, and she's referenced her fears about the reconciliation of her revolutionary persona with her personal life. This ended up being a much softer conflict than I had initially envisioned, because in the end empathy really does make things like this a lot easier. Not to say this is the last we'll see of it...
TMarkos
Smoke is a very good way to mitigate Stellar, but Kevin's point is accurate - at that point you're not really stifling it as much as opposing it, increasing the total force bound up in the system. If Mike had a bunch of opposing souls he *could* notionally strive for some sort of zeroing-out point like that but he'd be setting himself up for massive, destructive failure if he ever had a particularly bad day.
Kevin Zhang
I think Micheal has a better chance of sealing stellar with stanza. If he seals with smoke, a single lapse in either of the souls would doubly fuck over.
Blorcyn
Yeah. This is really useful. She /has/ been upfront and we've noted her upfrontness. But when Michael and others have denied her, we've attributed that to her letting him have his agency, and her being willing to shelf her objections, after raising them and having had her say. We've assumed she'd fret and raise plans with him to mitigate it, suggest courses of action that he might not be comfortable with... But it's completely at odds with her character by excerpts, and her characteristic introduction where she BLEW UP an army for the sake of politics and the best path to her mind. She's signalled clearly, and we, like Michael, have not correctly interpreted how she's behaved because she's an ethical, old, on-side lady. She respects Michael's value, not his agency, and that's our mistake but a very well-crafted mistake for the story, and absolutely hits like a gut punch to realise it.
jaen
Hmm, fair point about being driven by fear and this leading to suboptimal decisions, pretty human. Maybe I just didn't get that it clouds her judgement to this degree – because really, what she's done had only marginal chances for success against the Three of Eight combo, so such high risk play seemed weird than one when you could control the fallout by playing straight – because it's certainly harder to gauge that if we're only ever in Mike's PoV (or maybe I just missed hints). Getting in Leire's head would help, but I'm pretty sure this is a deliberate decision to stick with Mike only. Right, I never assumed she explicitly wanted them dead, but given her experience and this apparently being someone trusted I can't imagine she didn't know it would be a likely outcome. And such calculated callousness only made it worse when the jig was up. Given she's presented as pragmatic, calculating and competent it's surprising she would've made this choice, unless that fear is really bordering at crippling. Though I guess you could also argue that for all her might she's ultimately human and it thus to err is Leire (but then it would be nice if the story pointed that out at some point). I would certainly welcome some treading of this ground when there's some downtime between the story beats, because I feel like I'm missing some part of the picture here.
Blorcyn
The excerpt -- I just got it. I just got that the Institute is Stanza's/Gardener's folly, in the way that the Safid's holy book kinda paints his soul to be. I think I expected them to have good parables, but the idea that they're able to identify the errr 'narrative archetype', if that makes sense, into which soul holder's for the big eight fall is both horrifying and completely in keeping with the setting, I suppose. So, Leire and her Marshall are on a break. As much as I hope she turns it around and can resume the sort of synthesis with Michael that she had before and he warns her to seek, here, I think perhaps her having one of her pillars kicked out from under her may not help that effort. Fantastically exciting chapter, in terms of engagement. I know I'm constantly blowing smoke up your arse in these patreon replies, but I want to emphasise that I am not often a smoke blower and it's a deliberate desire on my part to engage with you on every chapter that I can because you're so good and I'm not just enjoying you as a reader, I'm baffled by you as a fan and aspire to sell herring as well as you do. You're able to lead us down the garden path very very well. In this plot, my first thought was Leire/Antolin to bolster Michael. Protect the asset. It's obvious to us the reader that he would be better with Galen's soul/power, so it's obvious to them too. Then Leire and Antolin who have by the standard by of Michael's understanding of politics been pragmatic but straight shooters (they want a good relationship with him, and around their edges the threat of their utilitarian spectre lurks) and it makes sense. Leire is open, says she doesn't regret him being stronger, but denies the crime. Fine. I take her at her word as the reader. So I think. We're being pointed at Ardalt, so it's probably, knowing you, the third path of the Safid seeking this rarefying ideological conflict that we hear so much about. So of course, you find the fourth path. The investigation shows such sophistication of technique in their soul use that it /is/ mendiko, and what's more we have a link to a stout Leire supporter in starting this war. Aha, I think. You won't trick me. I'm glad I didn't come down here and waste the words at the time of reading that memory scene. I suspected you would trick us again, and it would be someone who is paid by the Safid or Ardalt to support a war, so support Leire, but be working for them. Again, the Safid's ideology allows all kinds of counter-intuitive strategies for worthy opponents. Then, of course, Leire admits it at the questioning. Your ability to trick us is so good now that your straight down the path resolutions that you tell us about, are playing out as twists. Sensational stuff. The reason I'm so pleased is that you are consistent in making a world and characters who refuse to play along with our assumptions. You have in and out of story told us what you want to write, and how great power affects the soul holders. And we keep trying to assume good people will be good and bad people will be bad. When there're not 'bad' and 'good' people. I've just read the above comments and replied to one of yours, and this more of that. We need to take people at their word, but, like Michael, we keep struggling with the people we see and the people that they are, and how we want to put people in and out of Michael's camp. It lets you play terrible and brilliant tricks on us. Anyway, Michael's reasonableness continues to suprise me. Perhaps it's too much Royal Road and arch-fiction exposure, but choosing to not deepen a rift and go with his principles (a wonderful foil to Antolin/Leire's relationship fracture here, and his warning for her) is so different to the general thing that we see in male protagnosits. It reminds me of UNSONG, which you may or may not have heard of -- the main character in that is a very intelligent but ordinary man. He loves his love interest but looks at other women sometimes. I remember this because it's so unusual to not have a Knightly purity or a lothario in an MC. Here I felt the same sort of thing. Normal human experience in an abnormal world, Michael is doing a fantastic job at showing that and remaining grounded when he really should be up to his shoulders in blood and megalomania at this point, if this were many other popular RR writers.
Kate Yen
Awesome chapter! I was thinking about how Michael might deal with the downsides of Stellar, as being stuck in a cage would be as stifling for the narrative as it would be for his social life. I realized - if Michael could seal away Spark at the expense of Stanza, could he not do the same with Smoke? It is, after all, even more directly opposed to Stellar than the life-axis souls are to one another. Even a more permanent kind of mutual annihilation doesn't seem out of the question. Saleh has to go, one way or another, so I imagine he'll follow pretty closely behind Leire. (Or she'll defy expectations and live until right before the end of the story, I suppose)
TMarkos
Her primary motivation, as Mike said, is fear. She's done nothing but comment on matters of Mike's safety since they began fighting on the continent, even as Antolin is pressing him to involve himself in battles again and again. From her perspective it's the primary concern in the war, more so than their notional objectives. As she said a couple of chapters ago, it's all meaningless if Mike dies. Anxiety and fixation lead to suboptimal decision-making. Add to that, she didn't go to Lekubarri and say "hey, I need this guy dead and please kill a few Mendiko folks while you're at it." Her message would have been vague, so she could make a convincing denial that wouldn't trip Sobriquet's spidey sense, conveying only the general shape of the problem and its extreme urgency. Lekubarri's interpretation of that combined with the execution of the team that actually did the work is what resulted in five dead men. There may be some exploration of the issue when everyone's in a place where they can discuss it frankly, but right now that's not really the case.
jaen
Oh for sure, she was certainly presented as very pragmatic from the start, but even then it was a bit outside of how I modelled her, so I would have to – as they say – update my priors. I didn't expect her to sacrifice lives of her subordinates for a short lived bit of plausible deniability that in the end didn't buy her much and even earned more animosity – I think with a more "direct" approach Mike would still be nonplussed but not outright betrayed and played with (and no Mendiko would have to die for that). So I'm not sure what she could stand to gain here. Is this a politics thing where she needed plausible deniability for either Mendiko or Ardan consumption and Mike's attitude was a necessary sacrifice? Or maybe it goes to show that's shes a bit too far gone in playing her role, as Anatolin's reaction seems to indicate? I'm not quite sure what to make of it right now.
TMarkos
She's said a few times that she's prepared to give up everything to secure Mendian's future, and Mike is that future as far as she's concerned. You can bet that she thought about the wording of that "every breath you draw to curse my name" bit ahead of time, on the presumption that Sobriquet had a good chance of fishing out the truth despite her skullduggery. If you look at where she shows surprise or unexpected reactions during the chapter, you'll get a good idea of where reality diverged from her plan a bit.
TMarkos
I was anxious, as I said in another comment - this little arc had the potential to disrupt the flow of things so I was trying to keep it as short as I could without messing with the overall pace of the story. I think I like where it ended up!
jaen
I was honestly considering this was some dissent brewing and instead it was just Leire being her mercenary self, heh. I guess it shouldn't be surprising given how we met her, but I still didn't expect her to actually do this. Especially with this cold, calculated subterfuge that didn't really seem to buy her much given how easily they unraveled it - while she might've bought Michael some resiliency, it also seems she had lost enough goodwill that it might not have been worth it, over a more plain "too dangerous to live" approach.
Pariah
Damn, that, my good sir, was a climax if ive ever seen one. Good on you my man
TMarkos
Thank you for reading! This was a big one (plotwise, not by volume) and I was anxious about how it would turn out. I'm glad you enjoyed it!
Alexandria Clarke
Thank you for such a beautiful chapter
Alexandria Clarke
HOLY FUCK
