Chapter 1447: A Thread of Consciousness

Northern sat across the room from another young man about his own age, and even a stranger would have caught the resemblance. The rest was difference. Northern stood a head taller, while the other was leaner, his muscle trimmed close, his hair combed and groomed, his crimson eyes cold. And unlike Northern, he did not look like someone who had spent days underground without sleep. The grime of the forge pit still clung to Northern, and the shadows under his eyes had a bruised, settled look.

The young man kept his eyes fixed on Northern, and there was no warmth in them. The silence held for a few seconds. Then he spoke.

"There aren’t many clans born with white hair. Name your family, and I’ll reward them if you let me go."

Northern answered calmly.

"Reimgard."

The moment the word left his mouth, the prince’s eyes went wide, and a pressure rolled off him and pushed against the room, his crimson gaze flaring with a killing edge.

"You dare joke with the name of the Greatest Empire?! You could be beheaded for this!"

Northern chuckled.

"Oh please, greatest? That’s a stretch. You lot are still struggling with the Eastern continent."

Some of the arrogance went out of Prince Rigel. He lowered his face for a moment, though his jaw stayed tight.

"Besides, I thought it was an important rule of the Empire not to harm its own blood."

Northern added it lightly, watching the prince’s face.

Rigel held the frown longer than a moment.

"Plenty of people with white hair and blue eyes have come to tell me they’re my lost younger brother. How am I supposed to know you’re not just another one?"

Northern smiled, cocky.

"How many of them kidnapped you."

The prince let himself sink back into the black couch, the fight going out of his face.

He muttered.

"That’s true..."

Northern shrugged.

The prince added, reluctant.

"And I hate to say this... but we do seem to look alike..."

Northern frowned, offended by the very idea.

"I look nothing like you."

Rigel gestured at the corner of his own eye.

"See how the outer corners lift, the same on both of us? We’ve got the same careless look too, though I smile a lot more than you do. Even the jaw’s the same. Ah... you really are, aren’t you?"

The prince’s guard was coming apart piece by piece, and something in the way he looked at Northern had shifted.

"I have a little brother."

Once again the word bit at him, low in the stomach, in a place he didn’t care to examine.

"That’s a stretch. I didn’t come here for a reunion. Not after being hunted down to be slaughtered days after I was born."

Rigel leaned forward, his face breaking open.

"What? No, that’s not possible. That’s not what Mother said. She said you were... she said you were stolen. Taken by the enemy. And when I came of age, I went looking for you. I searched the whole empire for my little brother."

Prince Rigel’s voice cracked on the last word.

Northern glared at him across the room.

’What the hell is this guy? Is he actually glad? This isn’t the reaction I planned for.’

He had expected coldness. Ever since this campaign began he had pictured the day he would meet his brothers and sisters, and every version had them looking at him with the same distant contempt.

He had rehearsed his own answers a hundred times over. This, though. This he hadn’t planned for.

He had shut Rehema out for the same reason, turning his back on that same warmth the moment it reached for him.

’No. These people abandoned me. They don’t get to feel like this.’

He wanted to cut Rigel down the way he had cut down Rehema. But the words kept circling back on him. Rigel had searched so hard, so long, that strangers had figured out they could walk up and claim to be the brother he’d lost.

In truth, there was nothing to say to that.

Still, Northern frowned.

"And you thought the Empire was the whole world? It never occurred to you to look past it?"

Something in Rigel’s gaze changed, and went cold before he answered.

"The Empire is the entire world."

The words came out flat, without a shred of doubt. And with them came a weight that settled onto Northern’s shoulders and pressed down, far heavier than anything a Sage had any right to put out.

A breath later, he understood.

’A Transcendent... just spoke?’

The temperature in the room dropped. Rigel’s face stayed cold and unmoving, and the prince leaned back, crossed one leg over the other, and sat like a sky that ruled over the land.

Then he spoke to Northern.

"Come home, son. I’ll be expecting you."

Northern’s body locked up. The fear came so hard and so fast that he went cold with it, gooseflesh rising along both arms, the small hairs at the back of his neck standing on end, just from standing in the wake of that voice.

Almost at once Rigel frowned and glanced to the side. When his eyes found the terror on Northern’s face, disappointment settled over his own, and he let out a slow breath.

"Oh... it seems Father’s caught up to me. I’m sorry. I didn’t know he’d left a piece of his consciousness inside me."

The pressure eased as the air in the room shifted, and Northern came back to himself. He waved a hand.

"It’s fine. My fault for not noticing—"

The room shuddered. Then it exploded.

Before the dust had settled, before Northern could even turn his head, a staff with a crescent-shaped edge had hooked around Rigel’s neck. A small boy stood in front of him too, one hand leveled at the prince.

Rigel, halfway to his feet, cut his eyes to the side. And when he saw what stood over him, he went rigid, sweat breaking out across every inch of him. It was a creature of obsidian, white markings crawling over its body, a skull mask fixed across its face, a tyrannical light burning in the hollow dark where its eyes should have been.

Meanwhile, Lord spoke.

"Master, we felt a very powerful presence just now. It came off the prince, and it analyzed the entire Spire!"

Northern’s eyes went wide.

’He analyzed the entire Spire? In the same breath he was talking to me? With nothing but a thread of consciousness? And more importantly... I didn’t notice?!’

He dragged a grin up onto his dazed face.

’Damn it. Maybe I’ve been underestimating Transcendents.’