Chương 82: Book 2: Chapter 17 - Synchronicity

Author Note: If you read Book 1: Chapter 58 - The Innermost Cave before July 20th, 2026, the logging consortium timelines discussed in this chapter will not make sense. I had to clean up a couple things in earlier drafts so it fits together cleanly. Apologies for any confusion this may cause (one of the considerable downsides of publishing unfinished work in real time). Appreciate everyone's understanding.

The problem, stated plainly: the System throttles the long-lived, and we do not know why, or how, or by what measure it decides a given creature has had enough. Studying the System's direct functions outside the conclave of the tenth rung is an apostacy, but V insists that simulations are not a violation of the Supreme Will - I defer to his authority on the matter.

- SAMARA-7, Design Note, Project HEX LIARRA The wagon bounced over a rut in the road, my uneasy sleep once again disrupted by the intrusion of pain and fog. I blinked awake, the sun was further in the sky now, the same dirty canvas above, sagging and yellowed. My mouth still tasted of copper and ginseng, another of Caden's potions sitting unopened beside me. Someone had folded the blanket under my arms like a child, my bow lying along the boards beside me. Dario - we must have stopped to water the beasts.

I lay still and took quick stock of myself almost without thinking, an instinct ingrained in me by a mother I hadn't seen in thirty years - and never would again. My feet felt cold, toes responsive but slow. An improvement at least. My ribs were sore from the racking cough that still tickled the back of my throat, but I held my breath and bit my tongue, resisting its pull. The worst of the pain had not abated, an aetheric ache that ran deep into my back and down my legs.

I tried again to recall the System interface but it did not come, not even an error message to explain the absence. I knew what late-stage Aetheric Ossification felt like, had lived with it for most of the last thirty years, but even then I could feel the System - this was something else, something much worse. For over a hundred years I'd had the System, what would I even be without it?

"It'll come back." I turned away from the voice, rolling onto my side to face the wall. Answering that message had been the worst decision in a life full of bad decisions. For the first time in my life I'd been happy, but I let the promise of excitement ruin everything.

"I know what it's like to lose the System. I'm going to undo this, Liarra. I promise," Caden said in that overly earnest way of his. He may have even believed it, but then Caden Gray... or Cassius Petracca... or whoever the fuck he was today believed a lot of things he couldn't actually know were true. My face was burning red when I turned to look at him, though from the fever or my simmering rage was unclear even to me.

He looked like he'd been dragged behind the wagon rather than riding in it, a burn on his neck still shiny from the fresh skin he'd grown over it. I hated that I owed him my life... again. I hated that he had the audacity to look so damned sorry about everything.

"You mean like you promised you wouldn't use the Genesis Engine? That sort of promise, Caden? Or is it William today?" It bothered me that it bothered me so much, his lying. I was a liar myself; my awareness of my own hypocrisy only made me angrier. I'd never lied to him though, nor to Dario... you didn't lie to people you cared about, not when it mattered.

"I didn't actually promise not to use it-" he started but wisely thought better of that approach.

"Look, there was a lot going on back then that I couldn't explain to you, didn't have the words. I understood what that thing was in ways that I couldn't possibly make you believe, I didn't want you to leave on bad terms." If my System had been working, I'd have slapped that contrite look right off his face so hard even he would feel it. But then, he was Gold-Rank now, what he felt was hard to guess at... yet another thing that didn't make sense.

"I had no choice," he continued, barreling past the growing fire in my eyes.

"I have a plan, Liarra, it's working. I'm going to do all the things we talked about..." He trailed off, rubbing a hand across his face. Why should I be the one feeling bad? He'd used us, treated us as expendable pawns in his pursuit of whatever fresh First Magi horror he thought would allow him to take the next step toward the only thing he cared about: his fucking revenge.

"Millions of lives are at risk every second so that you can what? Make yourself rich?" I asked, not attempting to hide my disdain. When he'd found us there in the dark, limping back to the warded cave, half dead and covered in black sludge, I'd actually felt bad for the way I'd treated him. Then he'd started talking...

"The whole planet is at risk, that's what I'm trying to tell you!" Caden said, exasperated.

"You're right, it's selfish that I want to live, that my life is a threat to everyone and everything, but would you have me kill myself? Is that really what you want? Let them win because to fight back is a risk? We're slaves to the System they built, I may be the only one who can do anything about it."

"And who asked you to? Supposing you're right, supposing this is some planetary harvest of our energy - we've gotten along fine this long not knowing." I'd truthfully only half-believed his outlandish claims about the First Magi being some ancient race of alien conquerors, that they'd destroy our entire planet if they thought it was too messy to salvage. Him being the missing son of Duke Merek Petracca was hard enough to swallow, but at least there was proof of that.

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"Ignorance is bliss? That's what you're going with? You're livestock to them, animals." He sighed, putting his head in his hands.

"See, this is exactly why I couldn't tell you - the way you're looking at me right now. You think I'm insane."

"I don't know what you are, Caden, but I know that it's not my problem anymore." He flinched at that, a deep pain flashing behind those eyes that were far too old for his face. I regretted saying it, though part of me certainly meant it. I pushed myself up on my elbows, immediately wishing I hadn't.

"Water," I said, any excuse not to look at those eyes. It upset me how quickly he produced it, already in his hand before the question had even been asked. He'd changed so much in the two years since I'd left him, the boy I feared would be lost had grown into a much harder, darker, and more terrifying man. I drank it down, it was cold and soothing on my throat... another one of his seemingly endless tricks.

"Why do you even care what I think?" I asked, annoyed.

"You've achieved more in five years than I have in a hundred, you're Gold-Rank, a prodigy. You don't need me, you never did."

"You don't know how wrong you are," he said, turning his face away. The wagon bounced again, water from the cup splashing on my face. It had been nearly a week since we entered the dungeon, and we'd been travelling most of the day. The trip back to Eastwatch had been slower than expected, Caden insisting we enter unnoticed.

That stipulation had led to the acquisition of a reappropriated turnip cart pulled by two plow beasts old enough to have seen the Cataclysm - it didn't help that the roads were not in any condition for wagons.

"I have a house," I said, laying back down, letting the boards relieve the pressure.

"A life."

"I know."

"You don't, actually. You've been to the city, but you haven't seen it. Couldn't be bothered to step out of your way for one moment." The canvas above me had a rip in it and I could see the whiteish blue of the sky.

"Dario has a garden there, loves to see the plants grow in the forever spring of the climate barrier. Our neighbors bring us eggs, our lives are never at risk."

"Liarra-""I have a profession that people respect, a name that they recognize. I walk through the city and I hold my head high because I'm proud of who I am now." I coughed, the itch that could never be scratched. Something dark passed behind Caden's eyes.

"It's a good life. Maybe not the life I thought I wanted, but it's good and it's mine." He didn't say anything. I felt a warmth from the driver's seat where Dario steered the wagon, his curse pushing his emotions through the thin canvas.

"Lia," he said, the rumble muffled slightly by the fabric.

"I'm not being cruel," I insisted, closing my eyes.

"I didn't say you were."

"You said my name in that disapproving way, you think I don't know when I'm being scolded?" He didn't answer, just clicked the reins and the wagon jostled onward. Caden sat in the straw, knees out wide, and stared at his hands like they belonged to someone else. He looked contemplative, at war with himself.

"There's something I haven't told you, about the lab," he said, struggling to get the words out.

"There's always something you haven't told me," I said, a bit sarcastically.

"I promised you in the cave that I would never lie to you again, that I'd tell you everything. This... when you hear it, you may wish you hadn't." Something in his tone gave me pause.

"Spit it out."

"They weren't studying Aetheric Ossification, not specifically," he said. I looked over at him, he appeared older to me suddenly, weathered and worn down.

"They were running an experiment designed to better understand the System's effect on mana. Much of how the System works is restricted information even to the Exaltians. I don't know his exact motive, but someone called Vorric was trying to reverse engineer a sickness that affects the System itself. Your people were simply the first phase. Apparently it didn't work and he abandoned the project." I could feel the anger now coming from the front of the wagon.

Whatever Dario had seen in that facility had shaken him, he had refused to tell me anything about it - now I could see why.

"There were case numbers, autopsy results, procedures and trial descriptions."

"What are you saying?" He stopped, considering whether to continue.

"Elves. Sun elves. Every trial group in the file was from the same cluster of villages. There's a reason the poison has had no effect on Dario or on me, it was genetically targeted."

"When were these trials?" I tasted bile in my throat.

"Thirty-two years ago." He clearly understood the implication of that.

"No."

"The weapon was released unbeknownst to the native population. After several years of allowing it to propagate, a logging consortium, sanctioned by the local Adventure Guild authorities, were used to collect the... specimens for dissection." I'd told myself for thirty years that those children had been taken. Sold. That they were probably slaves somewhere but at least alive. I could feel Dario's sorrow, amplifying my own.

"Local Guild authorities. You mean Alastair Thorne." It was a ridiculous coincidence that he couldn't possibly expect me to believe. That somehow Caden and I would cross paths at random on a caravan in Carriston having traumatic histories that both converged on the same man. It was absurd.

"Not just him, but yes. I know how it sounds, that I'm using your trauma to convince you that my fight is your fight, but I swear it's true. We have proof. I took the archives from the facility, his name is in them - when we're back at the estate I can show you."

"And where was your father when all this was happening?" My back was seizing again, the pain making it hard to think.

"He was the Duke, could he not stop it?"

"I... I don't know." It was an honest answer, one that hurt him to give, even if it wasn't a satisfying one to hear.

"I don't know. That's the truth." His father's sins were not his, I knew that, but I couldn't stop the anger and betrayal I felt.

"If Thorne really was involved, this can't be a coincidence, you and me, all this... Thirty years the lab was closed up, thirty years it's untouched. It opened for you because of that ring you carry, but who else knows you have it? Who sent you there?" He was looking past me now, past the canvas, gears churning in a head I'd never understand.

"Caden."

"Isabella Thorne."

"The daughter? What does she have to do with any of this?"

"I don't know, not entirely, but I intend to find out." My back seized from the base of my skull down through both of my legs, every muscle cramping at once.

"Liarra, don't move," Caden said, his hands on me. The wagon thudded to a stop, then the pain did too.

"Breathe out," he said, calming, his magic flowing through my body.

"Focus on my voice." The flap at the back of the wagon opened, light streaming in bright and blinding.

"What's wrong with her?" Dario. Urgent. Scared.

"She's having a seizure, I'm doing what I can," came a distant reply, my thoughts fading into dark.

"But we have to get her back, quickly." The ground moved under me and I let the world disappear, my guilt fading into peaceful nothingness. Without the System to tell me if I was alive, I really wasn't sure - but if this was death, I supposed it could have been worse.