Ivory sensed no threat, but caution urged her. "Many would claim your words as some threat towards me."
"It's not." There was finality in his tone. An assurance of motives.
Is it genuine or another act? She asked. "What would you have me do then? Smile and prance like some moss-headed woman."
"I think prancing would seem an alien thing on your person, but smiling, that might be a different phenomenon."
Ivory looked to him and found a stray beam of light had descended on his person. Radiantly white like some spirit. An Isavra. Closing her inner self—the one who warred against his acceptance, she said, "This must be done. Like my ancestor, shirera had held the seat despite the squabbles of men."
"Shirera of the line?"
"Yes. As she did, I mean to fight this war and win it."
"Good." He smiled, "To war then."
Ivory paused in startled amazement. This man…What bravado he has. "You talk big for an Aspirant."
"The Almighty has nothing against ambition."
"Am I to believe that this was what you wanted? Ambition."
"You could accept this, but I know the details of what sort of ambition I speak would be lost to you." He smiled, placing the book atop the sleek table. "I was not approached by Geld, I came here, or to be exact, I requested to come here."
Ivory frowned. So you were a spy…Just not for Master Geld but for the theocracy. Ivory felt a coldness in her heart.
Kabel watched her, silent. Then, "In my order, we told stories of the valor clan. About your famous black jails. Well, to be exact, a wandering scholae told us. We learned many things about that. The good and the bad. The tragedies, too. Many brushed this off, but I wondered about the people and their rulers. A good ruler brings prosperity to the people. And as the prophecy says, god will rise from the clans. An evil ruler might become an evil god. So, say I am here to prevent that."
"So you fancy yourself the chain to hold back the evil?" Ivory looked into his eyes and saw sincerity. A piercing innocence.
"I fancy myself a person who sees the potentiality that the prophecy says. Even if that's not the case, a happy ruler means prosperity. However, you, your grace, are not."
"Nonsense, I'm a highness!" Ivory lost control, her voice resounding through the vast chamber.
Kabel stared at her and leaned back. "As I said. But for now, let's work on that smile."
"I think you say a lot for a mere aspiran—"
"Oh my dear, what do we have here?" A new voice rolled into the room, and Ivory drew familiarity from it. She turned, quick with a gasp of excitement.
"Aunt!"
And Ivory saw standing on one of the steps, a woman, short, old, and veiled in transparent black. The woman—aunt Illenna Valor, was a dwarfish figure, hands resting on a cane the same size as her. Older in the visual way of wrinkled face, saggy cheeks, one that was purposely lightened by heavy makeup. She wore the black x-buttoned coat, popular for some reason. Below that was a long skirt. Sleek and well-heated pressed. It covered her entire legs.
Behind her, two handmaidens followed. But in mere moments, they faded into the background. Ivory no longer took notice of them.
She stood. "Aunt, should you be up? I mean, you're sick."
There was a flash of irritation. Aunt never liked mentions of her illness. "I am well enough to move." Illenna said, "But don't mind me, I overheard the words of your aspirant. Bold statements indeed."
"I speak only my truth." Kabel stood up and bowed. "I mean no offence."
"No offence." Illenna rasped. "That's what the theocracy says each time it destroys a clan or kills a highness. Like you killed my brother, Gladwell."
Kabel stayed silent for a moment. An unnerving thing—strangely bizarre as Ivory rarely saw the Aspirant without words.
Then. "I dare not point fingers, but the death of Former Highness Gladwell was known as an attack by the Odiums."
"You misting instigated them!" She snapped, raising her cane. But Ivory held them, leaned, and said, "Sorry, Aunt…" She turned to Kabel. "Please leave."
"Your grace." He bowed and left.
Between a sword and a written highness order, which has power? Oh almighty above, we should pray the darkCrowns never learn the truth of this—Author, a member of a vassal clan, killed for not providing a sign caster.
Ivory led Illenna to the spherical seat, watching as the handmaidens moved to the side darkness, blurring deeper into the background. Unseen. She dismissed them from her perception and sat beside Illenna, staring down at the old, wrinkled hands holding the cane.
Even seated, she refused to drop it.
"To think my little nephew would one day hold against me," Illenna said, tone strung with sadness.
Ivory frowned, holding in the smarting feeling within. "I didn't do it for him," she said, "I did it for you. Harming an Aspirant is…"
"It's the best thing in the world." Illenna rasped, "If not for the plagues that often follow after it."
"Those plagues remind us."
"It does…." she laughed, her voice like coughing wind. "Tell that to Clan Noctis. I think they don't need remembering. Maybe they would prefer to forget. Ah, your father would have laughed at this."
Why? This isn't particularly funny. Ivory pondered in passivity. "We must learn nonetheless."
Illenna passed her a gaze, smiled, and said, "I suppose we do. Now, tell me of this attack I heard of."
Aunt with her spies. Ivory quipped and said, "There's nothing much to it. I was attacked and I defended myself."
She frowned. "You're right, there is nothing important in that. Might as well be leaving."
Also, her tantrums. Ivory wore pretence. "Please, aunty, don't go. Let's talk a bit."
"Then tell me of this attack." She said, eyes meeting Ivory's. Black pupils in clear white sclera. Too new for the puckered face, they dotted. Ivory stared at the wall ahead—smooth. A deliberate thing. Though she preferred the crispier surface.
Everything was changing. She, too, needed to do so, maybe.
The same tale. "After the meeting with the castWarer."
"Miralin, right?"
Ivory suppressed the wonderment. "I did not see you there."
"If I did not want to be seen, do you think you would have either way?" She said, "But no, I did not come. Others told me of this."
Ivory archived this words—a thing she did with vague awareness. This was the way she recalled memories. Recorded, retrieved. She said, "When I returned to my chambers. I sensed a presence. An intrusion."
"Fine valor senses," Illenna commented.
"At first I thought it was some defence employed newly by the clan's castWarers." A lie. "But it was not. There was something there. A figure. Darkness…" She went silent as the burden of the memories flashed into her sentience. It was unnerving. The eerily black robed figure was disquieting.
Illenna tapped her fingers on the cane's top. "How then did you survive? I don't think any help came to you at that time. Neither does it seem like you requested it."
She won't stop, will she? Ivory sensed Illenna had grasped a trace in her. And now, like some beast, was sniffing out its patterns. She glanced at the handmaidens—a duo buried deep in the dark backgrounds.
"Do not worry about them." Illenna said, "They won't say anything."
"Yet."
"Yet." Illenna nodded and tapped her fingers on the table.
Expectedly, Ivory envisioned the next occurrence as a voiding of external sound, however, that did not happen. Now, this took significant control of her countenance as the point that Ilenna's finger rested rippled into a trigon shape. It expanded, stirring more trigons within trigons. It was a repetition of forms; more within more.
And it grew. The shiftings distended, spreading over the table, to the ground, to the walls. The shapes seemed protuberant, and in the next moments, the room protracted. Growing larger with the recursive triangle. Everything pushed wider, and Ivory saw then, the handmaidens pushed further back, as though the chamber had turned into an impossibly massive hall with the women at the most farthest.
The repetitive motion waned, the trigons growing slowly in their expansive motions. Same was for the chamber, which had turned into a dark hall, roofed the height of a mountain, length, like that of the longest base. She was awed, but normality quickly returned.
This can't be real, right?
Just then, an orb rippled into existence, floating high above them. A source of light in the massive hall. It hovered, circling round overhead.
"Is this distance enough?" Illenna wore the smile of a prideful thing—a creature that knew itself superior in the currentness.
A normal thing in relation to what she had achieved. Ivory said, "Aunt, it seems you have made another leap in your casting. This is beyond what you could do before."
"Perhaps I always could, but chose not to." She said dryly.
There would be great terror in that. Ivory suppressed any physical motions and said, "Maybe. And if so, that's amazing."