Chapter 396 - 403: The First Evolutionary Choice (Part 1)

For a long time after the Evolution Dominion vanished, nobody in the laboratory spoke.

The Soul Garden had faded completely. The floor was bare stone again, scuffed and scorched in places where the fighting had passed. Liora sat on the lowest step of the stair with the Unwritten Beast asleep across her knees, and she kept looking at her own forearm, where a deep cut had been an hour ago and where there was now only a faint pink line. Kael stood a little apart, his beasts drawn in close around him, and watched the Origin Mother with the narrow, careful eyes of a man who did not yet know whether he was looking at a savior or a very polite catastrophe.

Aether had not stopped looking at her either.

*Of what you may eventually become.*

"Say it again," he said.

The Origin Mother turned from the shattered remains of her crystal. "I am sorry?"

"What you said before. That you were afraid of me awakening." He kept his voice quiet. "I’d like you to explain it."

She did not answer at once. She regarded him with those deep golden eyes, and then she shook her head, slowly.

"I cannot."

"Cannot, or will not?"

"Both." A faint, tired smile crossed her face. "I do not know what you will become, Aether. I only know the shape of the danger. If I described it to you, I might give it a name, and names have a way of becoming roads. I would rather you walked your own."

"That’s not an answer."

"It is the only honest one I have."

And he noticed something. When she spoke of the danger, her eyes did not rest on him. They moved slightly, past him, toward his hands.

She was not afraid of his face or his heart or the sound of his name. She was afraid of what lived in his palms.

*My evolution ability.*

"It’s the power," he said slowly. "Not me."

The Origin Mother said nothing. But her silence was an answer.

Aether let out a breath. Something knotted tight in his chest loosened, just a little. He had half expected, in the dark of his own worst hours, to be told that he was the problem. That his nature, his soul, some flaw at the root of him, was rotten. This was different. This was a tool, and a tool could be held.

"Then let me tell you something," he said.

She waited.

"If my power becomes dangerous, I’ll be the one who decides how to use it."

It came out plainly, without heat. It was not a boast and it was not a promise to be good. It was only a fact, offered like a stone laid on a table.

The Origin Mother looked at him for a long moment. The light in the ceiling crystals shifted, and her silver hair stirred in a draft that came from nowhere, and then, very slowly, something in her face unclenched.

"That is exactly what I was hoping you would say," she said.

Aether blinked. "What?"

She stepped closer and laid a pale hand briefly against his chest, just over his heart.

"Keep your judgment, Aether. It is the only lock that cannot be picked."

He nodded. He did not trust himself to say anything else.

The Origin Mother withdrew her hand. She turned, and for the first time since leaving the crystal, she looked properly at the beasts gathered around him.

"Bring them here," she said. "All four. I wish to see them."

"Remarkable," she murmured.

She stopped first before the Flame Sovereign Pup.

The little creature sat very straight, flames curling low along its spine, and stared back at her with the stubborn dignity of someone being inspected by a general. The thin golden thread beneath its fur glowed faintly.

"This one began as a Fire Pup," the Origin Mother said. "A common lineage. A small flame, a short road." She tilted her head. "But the bloodline is already breaking away from that origin. It has been shedding its ancestry for some time. Whatever it becomes, it will not be a Fire Pup’s descendant."

The Pup sneezed, apparently unimpressed. Aether suppressed a smile.

She moved on to the Spirit Fairy, who perched on his shoulder with her hands folded, trying very hard not to look nervous.

"Soul-based evolution," the Origin Mother said, and there was something close to reverence in it. "Do you know how rare that is? Most creatures grow through the body. The soul follows, afterward, like a shadow. This one grows through the soul first. The potential in her is enormous, and almost none of it has been touched."

The Spirit Fairy’s wings quivered.

The Fallen Succubus stood a little apart, arms folded, her face carefully composed. The Origin Mother stopped in front of her and was quiet for longer than she had been with the others.

"Your bloodline is sealed," she said at last.

"I know."

"It is more than sealed. It is holding you in a shape that is not your own. The power that sleeps in you belongs to a far older line, and it is the reason you cannot return to what you once were." A pause. "You carry a door that has been locked from the inside."

The Succubus said nothing. But Aether, who knew her well, saw her fingers tighten on her sleeve.

Finally, the Origin Mother turned to the creature in Liora’s arms, and her expression softened beyond anything she had shown yet.

"And this one has no destination at all," she said quietly. "Not even I know where it will go."

She straightened and looked at Aether, and her golden eyes were bright.

"Do you see what you have done?"

"Gathered some strong beasts," he said uncertainly.

"No." She shook her head. "You have not simply gathered powerful beasts. Strength alone is common. Any fool with a net can collect strength."

She raised one finger and pointed, one by one, at the four of them.

"A flame that is leaving its lineage. A soul that grows before its body. A sealed ancient blood. A path that has not yet been written." Her voice dropped. "You have gathered beasts whose paths can eventually influence one another."

The words settled into Aether like a key turning in a lock.

*Influence one another.*

He had thought of them as a team. A good team, well matched. But the Origin Mother was telling him something far stranger.

"Their evolutions," he said slowly. "They might become connected."

"Not yet. But in time." She nodded. "Each path leans toward the others. Where one rises, the rest will feel it. This is not something to fear. It is something to understand, because it will make you more than the sum of your creatures, and it will make them more than the sum of themselves."

Aether looked around at them. The Pup stared back, ears flicking. The Spirit Fairy tilted her head. The Succubus, for a moment, let the composure slip, and in the gap he saw something that looked very much like hope.

"There’s something else you must understand," the Origin Mother said. "Before you go further. Before you try to guide any of them."

She lowered herself onto the old stone platform and gestured for him to sit. He did, and the others gathered around, even Kael, who had drifted closer without seeming to notice.

"Every powerful beast," she began, "reaches a moment in its life when it must make a choice."

"An evolution?"

"Not quite. The evolution is only what follows." She folded her hands. "I call it the Evolutionary Choice. It is the point at which a creature decides what kind of existence it wishes to have. It is not simply a matter of becoming stronger. Strength is the easy part. The choice determines everything else."

She lifted her hand and counted on her fingers.

"Its bloodline. What it becomes, and what it casts aside. Its abilities. The shape of its power. Its future evolutions, the roads that open and the ones that close forever. Its compatibility with its master, whether the two of you will be able to walk together or must eventually part. And the limits it will carry for the rest of its life."

Aether felt a chill. "That’s a lot to put on one decision."

"It is everything."

He was quiet for a moment, thinking. Then the question rose to his lips, and he asked it before he could stop himself.

"Can I choose for them?"

"No."

She said it instantly, without a flicker of hesitation. It was so swift, so complete, that Aether drew back a little.

"I know what you are thinking," the Origin Mother said. "You can see the paths. You can compare them. You are clever, and you care for your creatures, and you would choose well. But that is not the point."

"Then what is?"

"You can guide them." Her eyes held his. "You can protect them while they decide. You can stand beside them and show them what you see. But you cannot decide what they become."

Her words were calm, but there was iron beneath them.

"The moment you choose for them, the choice is no longer theirs. The creature that emerges will be a shape you carved, not a self it grew into. It will carry your will like a scar. And the bond between you, which is built on trust, will crack."

Aether sat very still.

He had never thought that it might be a kind of theft.

"I understand," he said quietly.

"Then you have already learned the hardest lesson."

It settled in him like a vow. Guide. Protect. Never decide. It was not a rule he had been given. It was one he had been waiting, without knowing it, to hear.

He did not have long to think about it.

A soft, warm light bloomed beside him.

It started small, a pinprick of gold, and then it grew. Aether turned and saw the Flame Sovereign Pup standing rigid on the stone, every hair on end, its eyes wide. The thin golden thread under its fur had come alive. It was blazing now, a river of light running from nose to tail, and with each pulse a ripple of heat rolled outward through the laboratory.

"Pup?" He was on his knees beside it in an instant. "Pup, what’s happening?"

"It has begun," the Origin Mother said softly.

"Begun what?"

"Its Evolutionary Choice."

The light poured upward, and the air above the Pup began to swirl. The flames gathered, coalesced, and divided. And three shapes unfolded, hovering in front of the small creature like banners in a wind.

The first was a column of roaring red fire, vast and violent, searing the air around it. A shadow of a creature stood inside it, huge and terrible, wreathed in fury.

"Inferno Sovereign," the Origin Mother murmured. "Destruction in its purest form. Flame without restraint."

The second was a shining, golden blaze, warm as sunrise. Where it moved, the air grew clean and bright, and the stone beneath it seemed to breathe. A great, serene figure stood within it, crowned in light.

"Sunfire Monarch. Purification. Regeneration. Celestial flame."

The third was darker. It was a fire the color of the inside of a closed eye, a black and crimson flame that devoured the light around it. It did not burn the air. It unmade it. And at its heart, a figure of cold, silent majesty watched with empty eyes.

"Hellfire Emperor." Her voice was very low. "It consumes matter, energy, even the power of other bloodlines. Of the three, it is the most terrible."

He knew which one he would choose. It was obvious. Any sane beast master would see it.

He did not say it.

Instead, he crouched down in front of the Pup, so that they were eye to eye, and he put his hands on his knees and kept them very still.

"I’m not going to tell you what to do," he said.

The Pup’s golden eyes were fixed on him.

"I just want to ask you one thing." He tried to keep his voice even. It was harder than he had expected. "Which one do you want?"

The creature held his gaze for a long moment.

Then it turned.

It did so slowly, with that same stubborn dignity, and faced the three burning shapes. It looked at the Inferno Sovereign. It looked at the Sunfire Monarch. It looked at the Hellfire Emperor, long and hard, as though weighing something that was not a question of power at all.

And then it turned its back on all of them.

The flames along its spine surged, brighter and wilder than before. Aether felt the heat press against his face. The golden thread flared white-hot, and the Pup, small and fierce and absolutely certain, planted its paws on the stone and let out a bark that rang through the laboratory like a bell.

"It doesn’t want any of them," Aether whispered.

"Watch," said the Origin Mother.

The three shapes shuddered.

They were not destroyed. They were not pushed away. They simply stopped, one after another, like a song that had lost its next note. The red column wavered. The golden blaze dimmed. The black flame folded in on itself. And then, with a sound like a great sigh, all three collapsed into sparks and fell like rain across the stone.

For one breathless moment there was only the Pup, standing alone in a shower of dying light.