“Everyone will… everyone can do it themselves…” Nirael murmured, her words like damp ash drifting. Her blood-red eyes flared like coals in wind. “What are you planning?”
Lucimia licked her dry lips, like cracked clay after drought, and let her idea trickle out like a stream.
“Pick a few common herbs, add some witch dust, or something similar, like pinches of spice into a pot.”
“Use a simple, easy Magic Array to bind them, like threads knotting a net.”
“Tell people it’s a human-made remedy, since magic is a human craft, like a loom worked by our own hands.”
“In truth, the array lets me embed my Devouring Authority, a shadow woven through that net.”
“Once they ingest the herbs, their illnesses and curses will melt like frost under morning sun.”
“The hard part is linking me with a simple array, like throwing a bridge through fog.”
“And where the energy for Devouring Authority comes from, like feeding a furnace without a coal yard.”
“Your virus and Ment’s curses carry energy, like barbed thorns soaked in poison.”
“After Devouring, how do we spend that absorbed energy, like draining a swollen cistern without flooding the fields?”
“I’ve ideas for the link, and the absorbed energy can be routed to you, like a river diverted.”
“The only issue is the mid-stage cost, the fuel for the fire, and I have three plans.”
“First, we use Elyssus’s energy, like tapping a buried spring.”
‘Elyssus?’ Nirael and Desty started, like birds bursting from reeds.
“Right.” Lucimia nodded, her motion like a reed bowing. “I didn’t truly kill Elyssus.”
“I only Devoured part of its Authority Power, like biting a chunk from a dark apple.”
“Fuzzy Orb locked it up, a caged star humming with surplus light.”
“I feared overflow, so I went with slow nibbling, like moths working a banner.”
“But its resistance was fierce, like iron roots gripping stone, and my gnawing barely left a mark.”
“So I burned myself instead, like a candle guttering in a draft.”
“So your idea is to use Elyssus’s energy for the burn,” Nirael said, her voice like a measuring line. “It would cover Devouring Authority’s cost and also finish Elyssus, two birds with one arrow.”
“Mm. But here’s the hardest knot.”
“What is it?” Desty asked, her breath like a small bell.
“The knot is how to move Elyssus’s energy,” Lucimia said, the words like a tight cord.
“I only locked Elyssus away; its energy still belongs to itself, like a tied bull that keeps its rage.”
“I have no reins that reach it, no handle to turn.”
“Mm…” Nirael sank into thought, her silence like rain pattering on stone. She thought long and found no path, like fingers counting wet pebbles.
“I don’t have a way,” she admitted, her tone like a dull blade. “Your Authorities are in absolute conflict, like flint against water.”
“It leaves you two in a standoff, like antlers locked, and you can’t fully Devour it.”
“Looks like this plan fails.”
“Mm, I think so too,” Lucimia sighed, her breath like wind through reedbeds.
She had known this plan would likely break, like chalk under pressure, and offered it to see if Nirael had a hidden door. She had none.
Lucimia turned the thought toward Ment, like a compass to iron. Maybe the god of curses could do it, since Ment stole Nirael’s energy like a thief in fog. But he’s the enemy, and enemies don’t lend hands.
“Then the second plan,” she said, her voice like a thread drawn taut. “When Devouring Authority Devours curses and disease, it swallows their carried energy like a tide taking driftwood.”
“We can use that energy to replace my consumption, like feeding the furnace with its own smoke.”
“But—” she pivoted, her words like a blade turning— “absorption comes after the trigger, like rain after thunder.”
“The usual order is spend, then absorb, like planting before harvest.”
“We could say that energy comes straight to me as fuel, like sap feeding the tree.”
“But absorbing others’ life and soul brings pollution, like soot in the lungs, and I won’t do that.”
“So the second plan is: the fuel comes from the people themselves, like breath offered to a flame.”
“We tweak the Magic Array so users passively become my followers, though different from the usual kind, like tributaries that don’t know their river.”
“When they combine herbs and channel magic into the array, they spend their own energy, like runners paying with sweat.”
“My Devouring is only lent, like a borrowed blade, and followers paying a price for divine power is normal, like tolls on a bridge.”
“It all happens without them knowing, like moonlight lifting the tide, and the absorbed energy will flow back to them.”
“Mm… that sounds workable. What’s the third?”
“The third is much the same,” Lucimia said, her tone like ink laid twice. “But the absorbed energy flows to you.”
The small room fell quiet, silence pooling like dark tea.
After a while, Nirael spoke, her words like pebbles dropped in water. “Plans two and three both work. How do you spread it?”
“It needs a name that travels, like banners in wind. Too few users can’t stop Mystic Return Smoke.”
“That’s simple.” Lucimia’s confidence rose like a lantern. “Mystic Return Smoke stumbles in two ways.”
“First, it works poorly. It’s suppression, not healing, like a lid on boiling water.”
“Hours later, the sickness returns, like a tide coming back, but my method cures to the root.”
“Second, quantity is scarce, supply starved, like a well in drought.”
“My method isn’t scarce. Everyone can do it themselves, like baking bread at home, and no coin spent.”
“Then we stage it,” she said, her plan unfolding like paper. “Have a Plague Follower catch a disease.”
“Let him collapse in public, like a felled tree in a square.”
“I step out and demonstrate once, in full view, like fire struck before a crowd.”
“I tell them it’s my independent research, born from the Independents’ thought, like a seed sprouting on bare earth.”
“We can’t rely on one Mystic Return Smoke; we must invent more, like forging new tools.”
“Have other followers fan the flames with words, like bellows to a forge, and the crowd will be convinced.”
“The actor should be well-liked, known by all, like a neighbor with open doors, to raise trust.”
“Though,” Lucimia added, with a shrug like a leaf falling, “we don’t have to brand it as Independents.”
“We can say I’m a Grand Mage who lowered the difficulty of Healing Magic, like steps cut into a cliff.”
“That way they don’t need my made-up herbs, and it’s even easier, like water finding a channel.”
“This method…” Nirael sounded hesitant, her voice like a ripple crossing a pond. “This method… does seem to work!”
“As Olivya said, she who deceived Elyssus is truly wise,” Nirael praised, the compliment like silk laid smooth.
“Uh…” Lucimia froze a little, scratching her cheek like a shy cat.
“With Ment’s Mystic Return Smoke useless, I can unleash the virus wildly,” Nirael said, excitement sparking like lightning.
“I won’t fear his smoke settling like silt.”
“Once I’ve absorbed enough energy, I’ll gather giant worms, like a crawling storm, and corrode the city walls.”
Seeing her glow, Lucimia poured cool water, her tone like shade under noon sun.
“Don’t celebrate too soon. Stopping Ment’s smoke is only the first move, like the opening in chess.”
“They’ll change strategy, like clouds shifting, and we must lay the board in advance, or we lose the harvest.”
“Mm. You’re right…” Nirael smoothed herself, her calm like snow on tiles. “What do you think they’ll do?”
“What do we need to prepare?”
“Let’s see…” Lucimia fixed her gaze on the red-eyed rat statue, those eyes like rubies in dusk, and memory rose like mist.
She recalled Nirael’s image she’d glimpsed in Gendi’s memory, a sketch like spring paint.
Light-green hair flowing long, like willow streamers.
Young in face, yet her words felt centuries old, like rings inside cedar.
Gendi and Shebelle were friends of her era, like stones sharing a riverbed.
Their bond looked bright, the three playing like normal children in sunlight.
Until Nirael was deceived by Ment, like a kite cut from its string.
All right, Nirael doesn’t spin so many schemes, like a blade kept simple.
She knows she can’t outplay Ment, so she asks me, like a traveler seeking a guide.
