Chapter 12
For a moment, Rys saw death. Sirion focused enough magical energy in her lance to vaporize everyone in his party in an instant. Her wings flared with light as she drew on her reserves of power.
Despite that, she waited. “Well, aren’t you going to answer me? Where’s your silver tongue?”
“I’m a little rusty,” he replied, regaining his confidence now that he knew that death wasn’t imminent. “I have quite a few centuries of dust to shake off.”
“Ah, yes, because that is exactly the sort of thing that convinces me that you are who you appear to be.” The angel smiled at him despite her words, but there was an edge to it. “Enlighten me.”
“Rys, is this wise?” Fara whispered.
“I don’t recognize her race,” Sirion said, almost certainly overhearing the warning. “How curious.” She tilted her head. “I do wonder if it’s wise to check the Library.”
“I’m not sure that you can,” Rys replied, choosing his words carefully. “What would be your reaction if I told you that we’re in a pocket dimension, separated from Harrium, and reproducing past events?”
Everybody stared at him as if he had gone insane.
Naturally, outright telling anyone this sort of thing was pretty crazy. At least, ordinarily. Most people wouldn’t believe him. In the worst case, it might even trip the defense mechanisms—he didn’t know how they worked, after all.
But angels were the only beings that Rys knew of that manipulated time and space on a regular basis. If anyone understood the power of the Labyrinth, it would be them.
After all, Azrael had foreseen his own death in the Cataclysm. Perhaps Sirion might believe Rys.
Sirion clicked her tongue before brushing aside her long hair with a hand. “I see. That would explain things. Your apparent weakness, your presence here, the fox, and the reason why I cannot contact any other angels. Of course, I can’t tell whether you’re lying right now. Convenient, no?”
“The opposite,” Rys growled. “This would be very easy if your soulsight worked and you could tell truth from lie.”
“Hmm.” Sirion watched him carefully. “The Angelic Library exists outside time and space. The information I can access through it shouldn’t be dependent on where I am, but I do wonder ‘when’ I am. And what you are. You still haven’t answered my question.”
She twirled her lance and raised an eyebrow.
The Angelic Library was a repository of knowledge that the angels used to store and retrieve information. It existed outside of Harrium, and Rys had been told it existed outside of time and space, like Sirion said. He had always wondered what that meant. The angels never acted as if they knew the future, but they theoretically should.
What use was a library that contained all knowledge if they didn’t use it? This was probably why the angels had never given him access to the damn thing, no matter how hard he negotiated with them.
“I’ll answer your question if you answer mine: if I tell you the truth, will you store it in the Library?” he asked.
If this angel was a fake, there was no risk. Whatever she did would have no impact outside this pocket dimension.
But what if she had access to the real Library? What if she stored information about Rys in the present, and alerted Azrael to his revival?
In fact, that might have already happened.
“I won’t. Until I know what you’re doing here, the risk of fundamentally damaging Harrium itself is too high. The Library says that the past is immutable, but you are here. If this isn’t a pocket dimension, my actions may fracture spacetime and induce indescribable chaos. Everything accomplished in the Cataclysm would be undone in an instant.” She snapped her fingers for effect. “This conversation is between us.”
“We can believe her?” Fara asked.
“You’re new at this, aren’t you?” Sirion said with a smile. “Angels don’t lie.”
“Not directly, anyway,” Rys said. “Fine. I am Talarys. Within a century, I will be sealed away on the Tolaran Archipelago. When I awaken, Harrium is on the brink of ruin, all angels are gone, Azrael is the only active archangel, and I am trying to regain my lost power. We’ve worked together before, Sirion. Do you distrust me now?”
Fara’s and Alsia’s eyes widened at the admission that Rys had worked with Sirion before. He was stretching the truth a little. She was the angel that he negotiated with as the liaison with the angels, to be precise.
“I have never trusted you, Rys. You may be a delight in bed, but intelligent women shouldn’t trust a man called the ‘Incubus King.’” Sirion laughed, but her expression darkened. “That archipelago… I dislike this. Forgive me, but I must be sure.”
Rys stiffened. He expected her to attack, to cast a spell, or to do something.
Instead, she blinked. A moment later, her demeanor changed. Her shoulders slumped, her eyes grew weary, and Sirion aged centuries. Not in appearance, but in how she expressed herself.
She had connected to the Library, he realized. In doing so, she had found all the information and memories of her present self. Or more accurately, the last version of Sirion to exist on Harrium.
After all, Sirion was long gone. Just like so many others.
She looked around herself and her eyes focused on the shards. “I cannot help but feel this ended up being a waste. The Cataclysm was the ultimate in Pyrrhic victories. We lost so much that we could not afford to win again. But we did. This is tiring, Rys. How can you approach me and be so confident, after returning to a world that tries to ruin itself time and time again?”
“It’s the only world I have, in case you haven’t noticed. I can’t exactly fuck off to Heaven,” he said drily.
“If only it were that simple.” Sirion’s smile turned sad.
“You believe me?” he asked.
“I know more than you do, I suspect.”
That bothered him, but he was used to that when dealing with angels. Sirion would tell him as much as she felt he should know, and nothing more.
“Why did you destroy the portal?” Rys asked. “I always wondered how the dragons did it, but they never did. Did they?”
“That’s not a question you need to know the answer to. But isn’t it obvious? Without the Infernal Empire, there are no divine beings deciding the future of Harrium. It would mean freedom for the mortals that are native to this world,” Sirion explained.
“How’s that working out for them?” he said glibly.
Her expression became pained.
“Are you sure that the past can’t be changed? You just tapped into the Library and saw the future, didn’t you?” he asked. “At least, from your perspective.”
Sirion was so real and lifelike, he genuinely wondered if she was fake. If the Labyrinth could reproduce an angel lord and her access to the Angelic Library, what couldn’t it do?
“The past remains immutable, but the future is always uncertain. The Library tells me of events that took place in your history, which tells me that the fate of the Harrium you know is decided. But you can change what happens once you return to the present, even if nothing I do here changes the events taking place right now.” She gestured around herself. “It is an odd feeling. Freeing, perhaps, to know that my actions have no immediate consequence.”
But they did have consequences. Everything that Sirion told him was immensely important.
“Can you tell me about the archipelago?” he asked.
She laughed at him. “Oh, no. I know a little of it. But it is before my time. Unlike the archangels, I don’t have tens of millennia of inherited memories. Only Azrael could help you there.”
Disappointing.
“Is this it, then? I learn that the angels were behind the fall of the Empire and the current state of Harrium, and nothing else?” Rys asked.
“Not everything can change the course of history, Rys,” she said. “How many things have you done that are of little importance to where you ended up in life?”
He scowled, refusing to accept that. “If you are certain that the past can’t change, why not prove it? Put something in the Library.”
“Perhaps I could,” Sirion said. “But I am an angel lord. My responsibilities outweigh my personal desires. Just as I destroyed this portal despite my misgivings—which proved correct in the fullness of time—so too will I allow my life to take its course. Goodbye, Rys.”
“You realize this truly is goodbye for me,” he said, staring at one of the few angels he had ever known personally.
“I know. It means a lot to me that I actually have a chance to tell you this, given my true self didn’t.” Her smile turned brittle. “I will entrust Azrael to you now, as I have nobody else I can turn to.”
After those words, Sirion’s wings closed around her body and she teleported away in a flash of light.