RE: Monarch - Chapter 199: Fracture VI

The sense of blindness and deafness was nothing new. What was absent was the feeling of clarity. That was all that separated the void that I created from the void I entered when I died. But this time the clarity was dim, muted. Like the feeling that comes seconds before drifting to sleep.

I got the sense that relaxing in this state would mean never waking up again.

With haste, I turned my focus inward. I’d avoided doing so up to this point because I wasn’t sure if I could. There weren’t any mirrors in the void, so it seemed as impossible trying to get an outside look at yourself without one. But I didn’t have eyes. There was no physical barrier restricting me from doing so. And as alien as the sensation was, as I changed direction, my perspective shifted.

Before me was a colossal mass of gray, asymmetrical malformed matter, bound by rings of ethereal blue that pulsed and bulged at strange intervals.

To be blunt, it was staggeringly ugly. Briefly, I wondered if all souls looked this way, before discarding the thought as useless. I got the sense—more intuition than logic—that the mass had once been perfectly circular, degrading over reincarnations and resets, the circular bindings served as desperate patchwork, discarding any attempt to maintain form.

Ralakos, a leader of the Enclave to whom I owed much, had implied that my soul was ancient. Reaching the end of its divine existence. Perhaps this was what he meant.

I circled the mass, an endeavor that felt as if it took entirely too long. There was no sense of scale, nothing in the void to compare the size to. It could have been as large as a tower or small as a stone. I paused, at a section of the gray mass that bulged between two strands of indigo cording that shifted violet in color. It looked unstable, but when I brushed it, felt solid enough. Beneath the two strands was a dark plate of obsidian, sitting snugly against the section where the gray material looked to be sliced open, binding the wound together. I touched it, and almost immediately felt a warm, calming presence.

Maya.

So the obsidian resulted from our bond. A piece of her soul, grafted to mine. I lingered near it in a moment of gratitude before I continued on, completing the circle. There were many scars from injuries nearly as grave as the one that’d almost killed me before the enclave, only they’d appeared to form on their own.

I moved back, confused. By now I’d completed a full circle. Judging from the pain and how quickly the injury had immobilized me, I was sure there’d be a dire looking wound, and that the wound itself would be obvious. But there was nothing.

Unsure of what else to do, I continued in the same direction, intending to retrace my path more slowly this time.

Instead of finding myself at my starting place, there was a whole other side to the mass I’d somehow missed. And as it turned out, the wound was obvious. There was a crater-sized gap, the bands of magic that held it severed, floating outward, the blue-coloring growing dim. The crater was riddled with glowing crimson lashes I assumed were the soul’s equivalent of an open wound.

The lashes seemed to move with purpose. They snagged pieces of detritus from the surrounding environment, bringing them back towards the wound and merging them into place. But given the extent of the damage, they might as well be building a castle with grains of sand.

If I had a mouth, I would have frowned. I’d never heard anything about a soul rebuilding itself. From all accounts, it was the opposite. They simply degraded and inevitably failed.

A single eye peered the center of the lashes, its iris as crimson as the surrounding strands. It stared at the place I was standing, several crimson lashes rubbing its surface. Considering the lack of eyelid, it was likely clearing its vision.

It squinted. “How are you here?”

“This is my soul. What are you?”

“Oh. We are not supposed to speak to you.”

I paused, dazed at the idea that my soul had a voice. “That’s it? No hints. Just ‘not talking to you?’”

The thing continued to stare, holding its silence.

Fine. Whatever this was, I didn’t have time to spare. My consciousness was growing dimmer by the second. Even if I found the problem immediately and fixed it with no issue—which was unlikely—there was no guarantee I’d have the acuity to recreate my corporeal form after the fact.

I prodded at some of the torn tissue, trying to ascertain the best way to repair it. The less I created from scratch the better, so I’d need to gather up the pieces floating around and puzzle together what I could, before I resorted to creating something from nothing.

Without thinking, I reached out to the closest floating chunk. Given that I had no appendages or body to speak of, naturally, it didn’t work.

“What are you trying to do?” The eye peered at me.

I nearly joked about how it couldn’t talk to me, then thought better of it. “What else? I’m trying to piece this monstrosity back together.”

A lash of red waved in my face. From this distance, I could see tiny glowing hairs it used for grip.

“Fine! We will… accept… your aid. The arch-fiend will be angry, but not as angry as if we lose the soul completely.” It wiggled the lashing appendages towards the matter, demonstrating its lack of reach. “Push them towards me, and I’ll do what I can.”

At the mention of the arch-fiend, I understood. My unexpected passenger resulted from my demonic contract, and it was working to repair the damage. Nothing like this was explicitly mentioned, but demons were masters of the written word. Likely hidden somewhere in careful wording and fine print. They had a vested interest in ensuring that my soul survived, so naturally, they took precautions.

I followed the creature’s instructions, pushing the chunks of matter back towards it. It fastened them in place, while I used the fire of absolution to fuse them together. It was far easier to use magic in this realm than interact with anything physically, which perhaps made some sense.

Once most of the chasm was restored save the corner, I maneuvered the last piece towards the whole, feeling a sense of accomplishment. Yet the demonic being did not relax. If anything, it grew more irritable, its lashing appendages pressing up against the corner of the gap. “Won’t fit. Why won’t it fit? Fit before. Why not now?” The tiny arms scrambled against the edge, prodding the mass, until they paused. The eye squinted. “Something in the way. Under the protective layer.”

I drifted closer, focusing on the spot its many legs outlined. There was a swelling of the flesh, as if there was a tumor beneath, pushing the corner of the soul-matter outward and shrinking the gap to where the missing piece wouldn’t fit.

Not unlike a tumor.

I maneuvered a spark of absolution towards the swelling, paying attention to the structure and composition of the top layer before I burned it away.

A clear glass sphere glinted like a star through storm clouds. Its structure looked familiar somehow, as if I’d seen a similar object before.

Unless I’m going crazy, that’s a memory orb.

They were rare, and prohibitively expensive even for my means. And as far as I knew, purely physical. So what the hells was one doing in my soul.

“There’s the skerpa.” Before I could stop it, the eye reached out, pried the memory orb free with a sickening squelch, and flung it into the void. For a moment it looked as if it might fly forever before it halted mid-flight, then rocketed back towards the opening.

The demon eye grew wide as it scrambled to cover the hole. “It’s coming back. Stop it! Stop it now!”

Unsure of what else to do, I maneuvered my presence between the orb and soul. It stopped at what would have been chest level, and rolled, its sapphire glow rotating as an invisible force attempted to push it past me.

“Stop it!” The eye repeated in a panic. It was struggling to maneuver the corner piece and shield the fissure from the oncoming orb at the same time.

“Trying.” I grunted, struggling to adjust myself to no avail. This wasn’t going to work.

There was another possibility. From my brief interaction with them, I’d learned that most memory orbs could only be used once, the fragile shell that held them together consumed after the memory was absorbed. There was a possibility doing so would be the end of me, that I’d be spreading my consciousness too thin. But when Ozra reviewed mine, it had been almost instantaneous.

Gotta risk it.

I focused on the core. There was a flash of light, and my surroundings changed.

It was confusing, because while I was almost entirely certain I was back in my body, I wasn’t in control of it. I was in the remains of a castle. The little writing present was in a language I didn’t understand, the colors and decor entirely foreign. A feeling of power that washed over me, complete and overwhelming. My own power.

And Thoth stood beside me.