Chapter 14 | Her Resolve

Three weeks after Germany, Matthias was back to filing reports.

The reports had not become more interesting.

He found that reassuring.

Yuki's Gothic festival had lasted two days. Several of Joseph's allies had stayed at the Strauss castle with them, recovering from the battle and developing unexpectedly strong opinions about the great hall's decorations.

Aki had eaten three full meals without commenting on any of it.

Yuki counted that as approval.

They had come home afterward. Matthias returned to work on Monday, and once everyone had recovered, the alarm started ringing at five again.

He still disliked that part.

But Belial's cheek had healed. Astreal no longer favored her injured arm, and Aki could lift Gungnir without anyone watching his bandage.

Matthias would take the early mornings if everyone could be there to complain about them.

On Saturday, he came downstairs after breakfast and found the twins clearing the table.

"Let's go shopping."

Belial paused with a cup in her hand.

"For what?"

"Clothes. For the two of you."

"Master, we already have—"

"The last time was interrupted."

She looked at him.

He held her gaze.

"I'd like another try."

Belial set down the cup.

"I'll get my bag."

Astreal was already heading for her coat.

Matthias took out his phone and messaged Aki.

This time, everyone would know where everyone else was.

Aki replied that he and Yuki could stay nearby. A second message arrived almost immediately, from Yuki herself.

Ooh, that mall? There's a pair of boots I need to look at. We'll be around, babe!

Matthias read it twice.

Convenient.

He put the phone away before she could send him a photograph and ask for an opinion.

By late morning, he had acquired several bags and no better understanding of women's clothing.

Belial stepped out of a fitting room in a red dress.

"This one?"

He looked up.

The color set off her golden hair. She turned toward the mirror, then back toward him, waiting.

"Yes."

Her smile widened.

"You answered very quickly."

"Would you prefer I thought about it longer?"

"No."

She smoothed the skirt with both hands.

Astreal emerged from the next fitting room wearing another red dress. She adjusted a sleeve, checked how it moved when she lifted her arm, and examined the seam beneath it.

Matthias watched her turn toward the mirror.

"Is something wrong with it?"

"No. I'm checking."

"You've checked the last three."

"And this one is better made."

Belial glanced at her sister, then at their reflections together.

"They look lovely beside each other."

Astreal met Matthias's eyes in the mirror.

"Your opinion, Master?"

He had chosen both. That should have made answering easier.

It didn't.

"I'd like you to have them."

For a moment, Astreal stopped inspecting the sleeve.

Then she nodded.

"These, then."

At the counter, Belial reached toward her bag.

Matthias handed over his card first.

She looked at him and let her hand fall.

He couldn't give them anything they couldn't afford themselves. He'd known that before leaving the house.

But he could remember what Belial had smiled at. He could notice which dress Astreal returned to after checking three others.

The receipt printed.

He took it, along with the bags.

"Lunch next?"

"You've been carrying things all morning," Belial said. "Let me take some."

"I can manage."

Astreal glanced at the handles digging into his fingers.

"Your grip is too tight."

He stared at her.

"We're not in the basement."

"The observation remains valid."

Belial laughed and relieved him of two bags.

They came through the mall's main entrance shortly after noon.

Matthias was deciding where to eat when the prickling began at the base of his skull.

He stopped.

Sylvia stood on the pavement ahead.

Again.

Belial moved in front of him. Astreal took the other side, her empty hand held slightly away from her body.

Ready to summon the tomahawk.

Sylvia didn't raise her hands.

Her robe hung loosely from her shoulders. The fabric was creased, and the shadows beneath her eyes had deepened since Germany.

She looked as though she hadn't slept properly in days.

Matthias tightened his grip on the remaining bags.

Tired didn't mean harmless.

Behind Sylvia, people continued toward the shops. A woman steered a child around the place where she stood. Farther away, a car waited for pedestrians to cross.

Nobody else knew what had happened the last time this woman came here.

Belial glanced at him.

He touched her wrist.

"I'm staying close."

Then he stepped just far enough to see past her shoulder.

Astreal moved with him.

Sylvia's gaze followed his face.

No portal opened.

For a moment, neither spoke.

"Was it worth it?" Matthias asked.

Sylvia's eyes narrowed.

"What?"

"Germany. Your people. Everything you've done to bring back a dark lord."

He waited until a pair of shoppers had passed behind them.

"What does the world get that's worth all of that?"

Sylvia looked at the bags in his hand.

Then back at him.

"You think destroying Chaos settled anything?"

"It settled the thing trying to kill us in that forest."

"And the rest of the world continues as before."

"Yes."

"The Gods keep their power. The people beneath them keep suffering. You call that a victory?"

Matthias shifted the handles in his hand.

"The people who came home alive might."

Her mouth tightened.

"You refuse to look beyond them."

"Then explain it."

Sylvia studied him. He couldn't tell whether she was deciding what to say or whether he deserved an answer.

At last, she spoke.

"Order has no reason to change when nothing can oppose it. The powerful keep what they have. Everyone else is told to endure."

"And a dark lord fixes that?"

"A dark lord challenges it. Gives the Gods something they cannot ignore."

Belial's fingers rested lightly against his sleeve.

Matthias kept his eyes on Sylvia.

"By giving people something else to be afraid of."

"They're already afraid. Of hunger. Of war. Of whoever has power over them. Removing a dark lord doesn't remove any of that."

"I didn't say it did."

"Without an enemy to face together, they turn on each other. At least a dark lord gives that conflict a direction."

Matthias thought of Joseph asking the families' allies to come to Germany.

People who had never met him had stood beside him in the forest. Some had been badly hurt doing it.

He understood why a shared enemy could bring people together.

That didn't mean he wanted to provide them with one.

"So you create something that hurts people," he said, "and count on them joining together to stop it."

"They need a reason to change."

"Do they get any say in what it costs them?"

Sylvia didn't answer immediately.

Her gaze moved toward Belial, then Astreal.

"You weren't so concerned about those costs in your former life."

Matthias felt Belial's hand tighten against his sleeve.

"I'm asking you now."

A delivery van passed behind them.

Matthias waited for the noise to fade.

"If you're right," he said, "and the world keeps producing dark lords because of the suffering already in it, why do you have to force it?"

"We have waited."

"Then wait. You don't have to add to it."

He wasn't offering to approve the result. He wanted her to explain why it had to be her hands pushing someone toward it.

Sylvia drew herself straighter.

"Since Vlad, we have—"

She stopped.

Astreal's expression didn't change.

Sylvia looked away from her.

"Since the last viable candidate, the cult has preserved its purpose. Centuries of work. We can't keep waiting for a chance that people like you will destroy the moment it appears."

"So you tried to kill me in a parking lot. Then you went to Germany."

"Yes."

"And after all that, you're standing here again."

"Still here."

She said it without hesitation.

Matthias looked at the creases in her robe, the hollows beneath her eyes.

He had expected anger. Perhaps another threat.

That quiet answer was worse.

She had lost people in Germany. Lost the entity she had tried to protect. Whatever she had thought would happen during the eclipse was gone.

And she had come back to the same pavement.

What would ever be enough to make her stop?

"Sylvia."

She watched him.

"Have you considered leaving it?"

"The cult?"

"All of this. You, personally."

For the first time, she seemed unsure what he meant.

He glanced toward the mall doors.

"Go somewhere without looking for a fight. Get a coffee. Find something you want to do that doesn't depend on turning me into someone else."

Her eyes narrowed again.

"You think this is a joke."

"No."

He hadn't meant it that way. Hearing the suggestion aloud, he could understand why she might.

A coffee wouldn't undo what she'd done, or make the people she'd hurt forgive her.

But he didn't know how else to ask her to imagine an ordinary afternoon.

"You had a life before this," he said. "There must be something you wanted from it."

Sylvia's fingers curled against her robe.

"You know nothing about my life."

"You're right. I don't."

He kept his voice quiet.

"But you still have one. You could spend what's left of it doing something else."

She stared at him.

Matthias waited.

Beside him, Belial remained perfectly still. Astreal watched Sylvia's hands.

From inside the mall came a burst of laughter, followed by the sound of the doors opening again.

Sylvia turned away.

He almost spoke, then stopped himself.

He had asked. Another speech wouldn't make her answer differently.

She paused with her back to him.

"I will not stop."

Purple light passed over her robe.

Then the pavement was empty.

Astreal moved first, checking the space where Sylvia had stood and the people beyond it.

Belial released Matthias's sleeve.

"Are you all right?"

"Yes."

He realized how stiffly he'd been holding the bags and loosened his fingers.

His phone buzzed.

Aki.

We saw her leave. Are you three all right?

Matthias typed back that they were. No attack. They would explain what she'd said.

A second message followed.

We'll stay close until you're in the car.

He put the phone away.

Belial was still looking at the pavement.

"I don't think she can picture it anymore."

"What?"

"The life you asked her to go back to."

She shook her head.

"She has spent so long making this her reason to get up every morning. You asked what she would do without it, and she had nothing to say."

"Maybe she just didn't want to tell me."

"Perhaps."

Belial looked at him.

"But I wouldn't count on her changing her mind."

"Neither would I."

Astreal returned to his side.

"Her former husband was fortunate to leave when he did."

Matthias turned toward her.

"You think she would have hurt him?"

"I think someone that committed to an occult purpose might eventually decide a person close to her has a use. An offering, for example."

Belial's expression tightened.

Astreal glanced once more toward the street.

"Leaving was sensible."

Matthias looked down at the shopping bags.

He remembered Yuki explaining that Sylvia had once been married. There had been ordinary days in her life too, before every conversation became about Gods and dark lords.

He couldn't know which of those days she regretted, or whether she regretted any.

He did know about the monsters in the parking lot. The cultists she'd left behind in Germany.

Understanding how she'd reached this point wouldn't make the next attack less real.

"We'll tell Joseph," he said.

Astreal nodded.

"Everything she said."

For a little while, none of them moved.

Then Matthias looked toward the mall.

"We still haven't had lunch."

Belial blinked.

"Lunch?"

"That was the plan before she arrived."

He lifted one of the bags slightly.

"We managed the clothes this time. I'd like to manage lunch too."

Belial's shoulders relaxed.

"Somewhere else?"

"Somewhere else."

"I know a place," Astreal said.

"Of course you do."

She held out her hand for a bag. This time, he gave it to her.

They walked toward the Škoda together.

Belial slipped her arm through his. On his other side, Astreal stayed close, her attention moving between the parked cars and the road.

Matthias sent Aki the name of the restaurant.

Yuki answered before Aki did.

Save us seats! And wait until you see the boots.

He showed the message to Belial.

She smiled.

At the car, they put the bags in the back. Astreal took the driver's seat and checked her mirrors while Matthias fastened his seat belt.

Belial leaned forward from behind him.

"Did you enjoy this morning?"

He turned toward her.

"Yes."

She searched his face for a moment.

"So did I."

Astreal pulled out of the space.

Matthias watched the mall slip past the window. He wasn't convinced Sylvia would leave them alone. After what she'd said, he had no reason to be.

But Belial was beside him, Astreal was taking them to lunch, and their friends were arguing about boots in the group chat.

He could still have the rest of his Saturday.

He intended to.