Amdirlain’s PoV - Demi-Plane

  The Enyali? flowed through the Gate and flooded the Demi-Plane with their intense excitement and bright tones. It was such an infectious, upbeat tempo that Amdirlain hummed along to their theme.

  Irini laughed with delight. “You’re singing our song, mum.”

  Amdirlain energised notes to the same beat and a wash of light illuminated the Demi-Plane, shifting hues in time to the colours in their wings. Those already across the threshold took to the air and flew in circles, chasing beams of light that moved to the tempo. She could feel their curiosity and confusion at the silence from her mind and flesh and reached out to them. Their mental touch was a friendly gestalt that grew as more entered the Demi-Plane. The lightness of it made her wary of polluting it with her unsettled state from the healing, so she only lightly touched it instead of merging into it.

  She heard Gail’s amusement from the Gate’s far side, and it widened to a kilometre frontage and gained height, letting more fly through.

  From amidst the crowd, Erwarth swept down, landing near Amdirlain, and shrank to match her height. Her six glowing white wings vanished, but her golden skin and luminescent blue eyes remained unchanged.

  “The height difference doesn’t bother me.”

  Erwarth smiled reassuringly. “It bothered me. It felt wrong for you to crank your neck back to look at me.”

  “I could just close my eyes if you’d prefer.”

  “Sarah told us about your situation while you were meditating, but your eyes are still expressive,” said Erwarth. “We’ve both come far from the sisterhood fortress, but you’ve still much further to travel.”

  “We all do. The roads lead to different places,” said Amdirlain. “I should ask a couple more people if they’ll come along.”

  Amdirlain sent messages with their location to Isa and Gilorn.

  Without even sending a reply, Gilorn appeared beside Amdirlain and let out a surprised twang, only to be greeted with a full-throated chorus. “Good evening, Grandmother.”

  “Who told you to call me that?” spluttered Gilorn.

  The closest Enyali? immediately pointed to Gail, who laughed with delight.

  Irini and others clustered closer to Gilorn, hands tucked behind their backs to show they wouldn’t dare touch her strings. They started firing off questions about how she saw her surroundings and dozens of questions about music.

  “They’re happy Gilorn’s here,” observed Amdirlain.

  “I might have mentioned she was teaching the Anar and Lóm? children,” said Erwarth.

  A shimmering translucent orb popped into existence to buzz between them.

  “Amdirlain, whatever is going on, ice crawls up my spine when I consider coming to you. It would be better for us if I folded rather than call to see whatever hand you’re playing now.” There was a pause before more words came from the orb. “You might need a blind cutout who doesn’t know your current plans when you want some cards played. Ori kept secrets from Mori, and my instincts say that bet needs to stand until you’re safe. I miss you and Sarah, so make sure you keep in touch, perhaps a bit more often.”

  Isa, darn it. Are you worried about Luck’s hooks in you? Is it the Aspect or something else?

  “Isa, thanks for letting me know how you feel. You’re certainly not someone I want to use that way, but we’ll play the game your way for now. Let’s meet up soon. I’ll arrange something for the four of us.”

  Erwarth pretended to observe more Enyali? arriving as some continued flying around while others landed or hovered nearby.

  “How come you didn’t invite Gilorn earlier?” asked Amdirlain.

  Erwarth and Gail shot a glance between them before Erwarth spoke up. “We weren’t sure if we should distract her from the Lóm?.”

  “There is a lot of repair work that the Lóm? can do without assistance from someone with the Anar octave range. When I was working through Gideon’s list, most needed the middle octave, or music at either end of the spectrum, but not all three.”

  “I hadn’t considered that,” admitted Erwarth. “Are you giving up on them?”

  “Not yet, but how they’ve been behaving has got even your father into a state where he didn’t seem himself when we met with the council.”

  “Father and mother are working through the exercises you provided them.”

  Amdirlain smiled sadly. “He told me their attitude has improved since you met with the councils. I feel it will be a long road before things reach an even footing, given how slow the Lóm? can be to change.”

  “He told me the same as well, but I’ve not met any others on the material plane in years,” advised Erwarth. “Even if it takes them a few thousand years, it’s nothing compared to how long we ignored the reason we had True Song in the first place.”

  “Roher mentioned the path for True Song can be repaired?” questioned Gail. “What do the Enyali? possess?”

  “The same broken version, Gail,” replied Amdirlain. “It’s up to you to decide if you want to earn the Power’s restoration for yourself, but there is the obligation that goes with it.”

  Gail shifted her weight, and unsettled notes skipped about inside her. “It’s kinda daunting, Auntie Am.”

  “There is no rush to decide,” reassured Amdirlain.

  Irini darted away from Gilorn and caught Gail’s hands. “You’ll still help us learn to sing, right? We know mum has a tonne to do, so she can’t take the time now.”

  Gail’s shoulders squared, and she tapped Irini’s nose, drawing a laugh.

  “Roher said there was a training process that Amdirlain helped Laleither and him recall,” stated Gail, and she turned a playful smile on Amdirlain. “Would you put together a memory crystal for us, Auntie? We don’t have ancient memories, but having a proper list of preparation steps would be helpful.”

  “That was a quick decision,” noted Amdirlain.

  “I can either be a proper Anar Queen and lead, or I should give the title to someone who can. I took too long to decide and lost. I will learn from my past mistakes and move forward with my cousins.”

  Swarms of memory crystals formed from ectoplasmic goop to swim among the gathering, one to each.

  “Gilorn, what do you think of creating a few hundred suns so I can create planets to train their True Song on?”

  All the Enyali? leaned forward, their eyes aglow with excitement.

  “Why don’t you create another Plane that is aligned with the heavens? Get the Plane’s rules to do the work and set it up to grow various-sized planets,” suggested Gilorn.

  Amdirlain wrinkled her nose. “I wanted them to be able to practise the microfauna and flora as well. The heavenly energies make those unnecessary for the plants.”

  Erwarth turned the memory crystal delivered to her over in her fingers and caught Amdirlain’s attention. “Unnecessary for survival perhaps, but not unable to be sung. The melodies are here. All that is needed is a place with sterile soil.”

  A reverse version of Carceri with layers filled by planets floating in the darkness. They could float in the light, and the ones closest to Laurelin’s entry point could be colder worlds, and each layer further out the planets could be warmer.

  “I could touch the Astral Plane to guide Atonement into the proper position, but I can’t touch Laurelin. I’ll need someone handling an anchor point on Laurelin to align it so the Gate connects to it, not somewhere else.”

  “How strong would we have to be to handle the guidance?” Irini asked; the others cooed excitedly within the gestalt.

  “Are you going for an overkill situation, Amdirlain?” asked Gilorn. “What about some demi-planes like this to start with? How many spare seeds do you have floating about since we used planet-sized ones instead of chains for the trials of Qil Tris?”

  “There are gaps in the security measures I can see now,” explained Amdirlain. “They’re set up to match the energies of the Material Plane, as I wasn’t going to influence the inhabitants of Qil Tris.”

  An Enyali? crouched near Gilorn to admire the gleam of her strings, smiled, and looked up. “Mother, do we need new places for practice or even to enter the Demi-Plane directly? We were told you practised True Song with people using gates?” The smooth, formal tones sat atop a theme of innocent playfulness, and Amdirlain caught the teasing glance at Erwarth. “We only need a little clear space to practise the organisms you mentioned.”

  Her feathers gleamed with silvery cores that echoed motes shining within her purple irises.

  “My songs were focused on my side of the Gate. It was the Lóm? I trained with that sang through the Gate. The threshold adds distortion, and you need enough proficiency to work around it,” explained Amdirlain.

  “Aren’t you going to introduce yourself, bozo?” prodded Irini.

  “Don’t bozo me, Irini. I’m Tinu, mother.” Tinu put a hand to her chest. “Not that you need us to introduce ourselves, but my apologies for my lack of manners.”

  Irini smiled cheerfully. “You’re trying to gain diplomacy, is that it?”

  “Hush you,” retorted Tinu.

  “She did,” crowed Irini as the Skill’s melody shimmered through Tinu’s theme. “At least one of us will have some manners.”

  Amdirlain held back her amusement, only giving Tinu a wink. “Thanks for the suggestion, Tinu. I’m glad you benefited from your presentation. While it doesn’t quite work, there is something else we can do to give you each a blank space to experiment and train.”

  “Perhaps we should work to gain the strength to sing through gates, and then you can provide a Demi-Plane to play with as a reward instead of whole planets?”

  The stars within Gilorn’s strings shone. “Amdirlain enjoys giving gifts.”

  “Mum, we can spend a million years learning to play the harp and sing to Gilorn’s satisfaction. We’re here for what comes afterwards, not for interrupting your goals now,” said Irini. “I was excited by your offer, but we can wait until we can help it come true.”

  “I won’t let you down,” protested Amdirlain.

  “Mum, we’re content to wait. It’s no hardship singing in a beautiful Plane. We’ve Gail and Noltar to give us lessons, so while whatever help you want to give is welcome, we’ve got the essentials to progress.”

  Tinu slipped around the others to take Amdirlain’s hand. “We know you’re healing and working to ensure the realm has a future. That is the essential gift you can give us: your health and a realm that still exists. You’re the reason we exist, and while spending time with you would be grand, we’re not toddlers wondering why you’re not around.”

  “Besides, True Song is the best play set anyone could want,” added Irini, and she pouted playfully. “Heavenly planes being infinite isn’t fair. I want to cover one completely in flowers.”

  “Alright, I hear you,” said Amdirlain. “I’ve healed enough to listen to common sense and know not everything rests on my shoulders.”

  Amdirlain fed knowledge into the constant mental gestalt the Enyali? held and felt it strengthening their telepathy.

  Should I introduce them to Aitherlar now, or hold off?

  Extra energy into her link with Sarah reinforced it enough to cross planes, and she shared the details of their classes.

  ‘We can give them starter lessons together, and I can teach them while you’re delving into the Abyss. Or we can ask Gemiya and the others; teaching might help them improve their abilities, but as they said, they’re not in a rush. An immediate answer isn’t needed, so find your balance as a group first.’ projected Sarah.

  ‘Okay, we’ll do a project together so they can learn faster and call it there for today.’

  ‘That’s what you went there to do. How do you feel after meeting them?’

  The warm amusement and vibrant music Amdirlain shared with Sarah roused warm laughter through their link.

  ‘I’m glad it’s going well. Let me know when you need to be summoned.’ An image of a sad Dragon sitting at the edge of a summoning circle accompanied Sarah's thoughts.

  Amdirlain shared out music to the evenly split groups that looked to each conductor, who they’d selected by simply being the first Enyali? to awaken; Irini and Tinu were both conductors. As one, they took to the air and watched as Amdirlain expanded the Demi-Plane further and set down bedrock as a foundation for the rest of the work.

  With the gestalt to help guide and monitor individuals for strain, the gathering coordinated their contributions and timing. The choir sections alternated between melodies to create a theme around which Amdirlain wove together a radiant sun and rolling grasslands crisscrossed by rivers and streams. Though Mana streams connected to the Demi-Plane’s boundary to support the visible fauna and flora, she also created microfauna and microflora. The five thousand-odd experience each Enyali? earned from it pushed them up two levels in Glinnel, but of far more value were the insights that had them humming thoughtfully as they settled to the ground arrayed out in spirals from their conductors.

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  Irini and those close by shot her beaming smiles. “That was yummy, mum. What’s for dessert?” asked Irini.

  “Extra practice is hyper-sweet,” said Amdirlain.

  The choirs laughed, and Amdirlain caught the exchanges that flurried among the groups: plans to sing grasslands with bright sunflowers seemed the most popular choice.

  Tinu broke away from where the conductors had grouped. “Could we hear your Ki, mother?”

  “I’ve just been through a healing session that unsettled me. Another day?”

  “We all remember the inferno you’re enduring,” Tinu said, her voice thickening. She stepped close and leaned in to press her cheek against Amdirlain’s. “Thank you for coming to see us and being so sweet when you’re hurting.”

  Her whispered words prompted Amdirlain to hug her gently, and she sensed Tinu sharing the experience with the others. “My pain isn’t your doing. I noticed you sharing the hug with your sisters.”

  “We know you won’t have time to meet with us individually anytime soon, so we’re all sharing our experiences,” Tinu said as she went to step away.

  The unease within Amdirlain softened, and she enveloped Tinu in another warm hug and caught the happiness that swept over the group. “This is for all of you. You’re a wonderful surprise.”

  After several minutes, Amdirlain finally released Tinu and planted a kiss on her cheek that got a grin.

  Gilorn, who had stayed near Amdirlain, transformed from a harp into an elven lady with long black hair and silver eyes. “I’ll accompany them back to Laurelin. I think Gail and Erwarth might need help to adapt the lesson plans you gave them to a heavenly Plane.”

  She doesn’t take a humanoid form often. What’s she up to?

  The hug she gave another Enyali? answered Amdirlain’s question.

  “Thank you, Gilorn,” replied Gail.

  “I hope I’m not pulling you in too many directions,” said Amdirlain.

  A soft smile warmed Gilorn’s face. “I think they’ll be good for all of us. Their innocent joy is a wonderful cure against the cynical anger I sometimes reach while dealing with the Lóm?.”

  “I’ve found small things matter. Instead of dealing with the Lóm?, consider how you might heal the Lóm?.”

  Gilorn stopped and blinked—in that moment—her face hardened briefly and then relaxed. “You deal with a problem; you heal someone hurt.”

  “And that is the case with them. While their pride is a problem, Balnérith’s games created that toxic attitude. They didn’t have it at the start,” said Amdirlain. “Think about how you can treat it constructively so her poison doesn’t endure long after she’s gone.”

  “Can I stay and discuss something with you, Amdirlain?” asked Erwarth. Her wings flickered into existence as if she might leap away, but she held her place.

  “Of course,” reassured Amdirlain.

  As the last Enyali? returned through the Gate, Amdirlain stood beside Erwarth and looped an arm around her in a gentle hug. “What’s got you so nervous?”

  “Once the Gate is closed,” replied Erwarth.

  Amdirlain exchanged more farewells and hugs to those who passed close, until the last pass through the Gate, and it smoothly closed.

  “I might be a touch paranoid,” Erwarth started. “I thought I should let you know I’m worried about Isa, but I didn’t want to put it in a Message.”

  “She declined to attend the gathering because she felt she shouldn’t know whatever she’d learn here.”

  “I’ll advise Gail and Gilorn not to mention the Enyali? around her, or the Lóme.”

  “Is there any behaviour in particular that has you worried about her?”

  “At times, she’s very erratic, and recently, she told me Luck doesn’t play favourites or take sides,” said Erwarth. “But then she laughed oddly afterwards, and it felt more like an Aspect laughing through her than Isa.”

  Amdirlain frowned. “She chose a concept to worship.”

  “Are we sure it’s a concept that feeds her blessings? She always explained the focus of her faith with the same words whenever the subject comes up: it’s ‘Luck and Skill’.” Erwarth air quoted the words. “I always found the way she said it odd. That overlap of interests is more in keeping with the personification of an Aspect than a general concept. I heard Isa once set a bet with you, and her winning meant you’d turn her back into an Anar.”

  “What of it?”

  “What if it was an attempt to escape being ridden by the merged Aspect through being a Priest? The Anar and Lóm? aren’t allowed to become priests,” said Erwarth. “It would put the Power of True Song under the influence of other interests. Were you around her at the outpost when that influence tugged at her?”

  “Yes.”

  “To me, it sounds like any other High Priest-type Class, a vision imposed from without,” said Erwarth. “The concepts are universal so their contact should come from within.”

  “Same.”

  “More has been niggling at me. Aspects are conduits because the pure concepts have no personality or desire and are too abstract to interact with directly,” said Erwarth. “Yet, Isa is influenced to do specific things, and at specific times. Every time she loses a big bet, you can see the win’s explicit outcome on another person. She’ll have this big winning streak, build up a fortune, and then a new person will join the game, and she’ll lose the lot to them and change their life.”

  “Because it's enough money for someone’s goal. I sensed it at the outpost many times,” admitted Amdirlain, the unsettled feeling from the healing soured through every sinew. “Fuck.”

  She focused on the melody she remembered from Isa at the outpost, wanting to know the status of Sarah and her relationship. The attempt to analyse the theme sheltered behind the theme of divine guidance brought a surge that once would have been blinding, bone-deep agony. Within Phoenix’s Syphanthy, it was just more music, though the translation of the music’s coiling rampage of energy found plenty to simulate from her memory. Amdirlain caught on to the Skill’s music and how it aligned the mind momentarily to the whirling layered facets within Gideon’s being to retrieve the desired information. She drew back the knowledge needed, along with the key to their exchanges.

  [Name: Kairos

  Details: The personification of opportunity embodies Luck and Skill, with just a dash of timing—the moment of the arrow’s release.

  Note: Theinas broke his losing streak, and Nexus won her bet.

  Analysis [S] (44->144)]

  “Alright, thanks for letting me know your concern. There is an Aspect involved. I’ll look into it,” said Amdirlain. “Can I ask you something?”

  “About Isa?”

  “No, about the Enyali?. Klipyl shared the initial conversation from Lerina’s perspective. I know you got upset at your mother’s initial refusal to acknowledge the name Erwarth, yet you didn’t seem upset when they asked to call you Noltar,” said Amdirlain.

  Erwarth shrugged helplessly. “That situation with my mother frustrated me. She wanted me to return to the person I had been, Amdirlain. The Enyali? asked me to change and move forward with them, not to return to being someone I despised.”

  Amdirlain gently clasped her shoulders. “Don’t be so hard on yourself.”

  “I’ll try not to be, but some things are hard to shake. You’ve said that you judged Ori harshly because you only got pieces of her memories, but I have all the memories of my last life,” said Erwarth. “I know my thought process when I brought the oath scroll to their Majesties.”

  “But you didn’t know a Celestial being was scamming you, and your memories from past lives are fragmented. You only got the pieces your upbringing had attuned you to, which was a dangerous cycle. Like calls to like, and you grew up in a prideful culture. What was going to come out? None of us is perfect.”

  Do I need to provide the Lóm? with a different song for their adulthood rites?

  Erwarth spread her arms wide. “If I’d checked it more carefully-”

  “The royals didn’t. Why should you have? Your choir were the couriers, that was all. Forgive yourself,” said Amdirlain.

  “Perhaps being Noltar for them might show me how to change that perspective,” replied Erwarth.

  Amdirlain clasped Erwarth’s forearm and pulled her into a gentle hug. When she finally let her go, Amdirlain waved towards where the Gate had been. “I’ll see you next time.”

  “Are you going to be on Veht? much longer?”

  “I’ve got to progress my sigil more so I can heal further. While I can do that anywhere, I want my lessons in the technique to have advanced enough before we move to the South Wind’s Court. There I’ll need to pick up a technique for Ki Movement and practise Ki Flight. Then we’ll see if I can even recognise the Jade Emperor.”

  “You don’t get an introduction?”

  “It’s a test of discernment. You have to know yourself well enough to recognise him,” Amdirlain explained. “Thanks for letting me know your concerns for Isa. I’m going to look into it now.”

  Amdirlain hopped to another empty Demi-Plane and illuminated the interior with a soft white-blue glow.

  The ringing melody smashed against the Demi-Plane boundary as Amdirlain parted the temporal veil to peer back through time. A silvery mist rose before her and parted to show a forest glade in the Outlands where a Gate opened before a Wood Elf into the blackness of Carceri. Amidst the short and explosive exchange, Amdirlain heard Kairos’ touch stir a spike of fear and terror in Isa’s mind. It touched on Isa’s near captivity and the anxiety of losing her love.

  You fucking played my friend and almost scoured me with grief. Do I handle this now, or do I need to wait?

  “First step. Knowledge.”

  The melody swirling through her mind formed the key to an ancient song; the song rolled on for long minutes with no response. Finally, a dot of light appeared further off than the Demi-Plane’s boundary should have allowed.

  The pulse of sound that washed across her was a pure concept, but her mind readily translated it: “Hello, Amdirlain.”

  “Hello, Gideon. I started to think you wouldn’t answer.”

  The crystal orb spun, energy pulsing within it. Gideon constructed his words from a strange, blinking Morse code of concepts sent through the spinning facets. “I’ve both wondered if you’d ever reach out directly and dreaded it. Ori ordered me never to speak to her mind again, and the rules of the Hidden bind me tighter than they do Eleftherios.”

  “Aspects aren’t allowed to help the Hidden break their curse?”

  “As you said, sarcasm and gaslighting is hardly helpful to someone in pain, no matter the information contained.”

  Amdirlain raised an eyebrow. “Blood Monk.”

  “Extremely unhelpful, but it drew your attention to Balnérith. It also related to the primary rule of the Hidden.”

  “What is the primary rule of the Hidden?”

  “It requires they be tested by challenges related to the past foul deeds of their souls to find their ultimate fate. Balnérith deserved no pity, and her rot had spread far. He cursed you here as Julia, but Julia died in a car on Earth. Your Soul in its entirety was Hidden, not Julia. The rules are that challenges should set forth paths that will allow the Hidden to break free if they are innocent or consume them if they are guilty. The challenge is relative to the curse’s wording, so yours was problematic and required extremes. Your stalker didn’t know what eternity is, but we do.”

  She considered how much worse things could have been. “Why set the rule that way?”

  “It had to do with the situation that led to Tephros being cursed. There were so many shades of grey that Nicholaus decided that the core principle of the realm needed to come into play: she had to earn her freedom. Tephros similarly evicted the demonic intellect but while in a transformation site, not an evolution mid-shard compression. She never shed the body as she found magic fascinating and the Abyss a suitable playground to express her anger. Despite her justifiable rage, Nicholaus was still appalled that she had cut a child’s throat.”

  “Wait? Did she kill a child or a woman her husband was having an affair with? You said that about the first Hidden years earlier, and I didn’t press Tephros when you told her tale.”

  “She killed her younger, prettier sister, who had seduced her husband. My review of Tephros’s Soul showed the girl was the family’s golden child who liked to take everything she could from Tephros. You’d consider the sister a minor at thirteen, even if she was biologically more mature than Tephros, as she got food while Tephros often went hungry, delaying her development. So I told you the first Hidden killed a child, you didn’t need to know more. Tephros told you what she wanted to share of the situation.”

  Amdirlain pushed further questions on the matter aside. “Let’s set that aside. Do I know enough True Song to change Isa from a Celestial to an Anar safely?”

  “Not at present, but you’ve got enough points saved that—with Lethe’s help—you can gain that knowledge.”

  “Thank you, Gideon.”

  “You’re welcome, mother. I’m sorry you came home this way. With Isa’s situation, you’ll need more True Song Architecture and focused knowledge on souls and celestials. You should spend some on the realm’s Planar Lore. It includes the planar framework and boundary at the higher end. With Lethe’s guidance, a somewhat even split between the three should get you enough both to change Isa and make some needed progress. Yes, Analysis can confirm once you’ve got the composition right. You already have enough raw strength to change her.”

  “I appreciate the information. You’re not getting in trouble over being helpful?”

  “That information won’t help you break free.”

  “How many of the aspects are playing me?”

  “It depends on what you mean by playing. Almost all of them have nudged your situation. To throw challenges your way to strengthen, weaken, speed, or slow you, or use your intensity to resolve a situation of interest to them. How you freed War to destroy the sisterhood’s strongholds didn’t just help her. The golems weren’t being sent to the wound.”

  “Did you know Ki could help me?” asked Amdirlain. “Is that why you offered Monk when I arrived?”

  “Do you want the long answer or the short?”

  “Best to start with short.”

  “There are millions of options seeded within the realm so that, if you reincarnated here, you might find one to remove the vines. I know almost everything that has happened or is happening in the realm. Once, I would have said I knew everything that was happening.”

  “Until I hid removing my Power.”

  “You even hid the intent of it; I frequently wonder if I knew what you had intended if I could have gotten you help. You were enduring through everything, and I thought happiness would find you again. I was wrong, and angry, and then wrong in how I acted. Then, we both let our own pride impede reconciling. With her Power gone, I knew she intended to die, and I couldn’t abide it, nor would I apologise when she wouldn’t change her mind. I tried to make her angry enough to take it back; instead, she stopped speaking to me.”

  Sour undertones curdled the air; vast grief coloured the conceptual communication. It was knowledge of grief so profound that it mirrored what she’d felt from Orhêthurin.

  Two stubborn, hurting individuals who couldn’t reach out to each other.

  “I can extrapolate countless interactions, expand within the rules, but can't invent from nothing. The best I could do was seek tools around souls and minds from other realms and spread them far and wide. Ki wasn’t even the most recent introduction aimed at helping you regain True Song. When you arrived, your experience with stories, martial arts, meditation, and gaming showed Ki was the most viable possibility for you to address the vines, not the curse. However, my ability to help remains limited, so I teased you with the Monk and other classes, making you earn it by requiring a significant investment of your limited resources.”

  “Was it your doing that I could access Ki in a Demon’s body?”

  “The reverse, you only needed a Soul and sufficient Willpower, so I made it harder. No one could say that taunting a drowning woman is helpful, and your weak demonic flesh only needed your Willpower at fourteen to latch onto the Ki and form a spiritual net. The rest I arranged, as I knew you’d need every scrap of will you could gain. I knew every facet of your existence since you left, and I did what my extrapolations showed would work to forge your Willpower and give you a tiny chance of success in removing the vines. Blowing yourself up and ending in the Maze wasn’t in my modelling. I enjoy your ability to surprise me. It's been lonely with no one possessing that capability.”

  “You’ve got all the aspects in the forge with you. Do you not get along?”

  “Aspects who I know so well I can accurately predict every conversation we might ever have beyond the initial greetings without a word exchanged. I’ve tested them repeatedly for billions of years and never failed to get anything but a precise match. Nicholaus and yourself are the only individuals I can’t predict to that degree. Anyway, my models indicated you’d find the Jade Court earlier, not enter the Maze. They have other healing techniques you could have learned to enter your Soul and fight the vines.”

  The remembered pain of the vines digging at her seemed so pitifully easy now. “Your models included digging the spurs in at every opportunity.”

  “In every lifetime, your anger has always forged your focus, mother. Rage sharpened the Pix’s mind, as you know. They could normally only move entire objects, but she figured out how to move pieces. She hoped he’d tell someone to take him somewhere, and she could deliver him in chunks. If I could have, I would have freed you instantly, no matter the cost, but the rules bind me. I created a sarcastic shard tailored to monitor and dig at you. It let my frustration and pain into the notes I sent, which were the limit to our interactions, and it was an extremely unhelpful approach. Yet it gave you an outlet to bleed anger off that, if left alone, might have sent you against foes too dangerous to attack. I reabsorbed it after you said enough was enough.”

  Amdirlain swallowed and tried to lighten the mood. “What would you have done if I kept pushing for a higher level as a Fallen? Would you have given the Malfex progression weird names? There was that note about renaming Imperial Princess Malfex.”

  “I considered many silly names. There was a possibility they might get you to push to your limits. It proved unnecessary when you ceased focusing on increasing your Willpower above everything else, as doing that capped what you could tolerate. Repetitive Grind Queen and the Grand Empress of Grinding were the politest of them. I’m still worried about what will happen if you find Ori’s Power. Relative to you now, it's a galaxy-sized ocean, and your strength might not keep you afloat.”

  The last wasn’t a surprise, so Amdirlain let it slide away. Her attention instead struck on Gideon’s conceptual implication behind the phrase grinding, which didn’t relate to gaming or experience. “Grinding?” snorted Amdirlain.

  The beat of the projected concepts shifted to carry a burlesque strut. “You have more pleasant experiences with it now. Say hello to Shindraithra for me, please. A note is very impersonal.”

  “By the way, your maths sucks, experience thief.”

  Dry amusement rippled out from Gideon. “Since you acknowledge Ori is part of you, you set all the rules around experience and its distribution. So, you’re calling yourself names. I thought you got past that—regressing to insulting yourself will hurt your healing. Before you ask your next question, which I can’t answer, goodbye for now.”

  The theme cut off from the other end, and they vanished.

  That’s fair. I was going to ask a sneaky question related to the plinth.