Chapter 651: The Right to Die

No one answered immediately.

Not because they lacked words, but because any quick reaction would have been inappropriate after what Lyssara had just said.

For more than two hundred years, all of House Vharen had organized itself around the idea that her Continuity was a blessing, a victory over death, an inheritance too precious to be lost.

Daughters, granddaughters, and nieces had grown up knowing that one day they would receive something ancient, something considered greater than themselves.

Some of them had probably been taught to want it since childhood.

And now the woman at the center of that entire tradition was simply saying that she wanted to die.

Kael was still supporting Nerya, keeping one arm around her shoulders until he felt she could remain seated on her own.

The young woman looked exhausted but conscious, and the simple fact that her name was still written on the page as CURRENT SUBJECT gave her a stability she had not possessed only minutes earlier.

The moonlight remained faint around the circle.

The mirrors were still active, but they were no longer trying to merge the reflections.

Lyssara watched everyone from the largest one.

Her face was no longer Nerya’s.

It belonged to a woman Kael had never seen before.

Very light hair, simply tied back.

Gray eyes.

A firm expression that seemed shaped by a life in which hesitation might have been costly.

Mereth was the first to find her voice.

"Don’t say that."

Lyssara looked at her.

There was no hostility.

That made it worse.

"Why?"

Mereth opened her mouth, but no answer came immediately.

Lyssara continued:

"You never knew me."

The old woman looked as though she had been struck.

"I knew you through them."

"No."

Lyssara turned toward the six smaller mirrors.

"You knew Alienne. You knew Liora. You knew parts of the others when the system allowed them to appear through my name."

Liora remained silent inside her mirror, but her eyes were fixed on her daughter.

Mereth tried again.

"But your memories..."

"Some were mine."

Lyssara lowered her eyes.

"Then they stopped being only mine."

Kael noticed she was choosing every word carefully, like someone who had to separate her own thoughts from two centuries of echoes before speaking.

"I remember my husband," Lyssara continued. "I remember a house that no longer exists. I remember running during my first transformation because I was afraid I would kill my brothers. I remember helping build the first version of this ritual because I asked for it."

Nerya slowly raised her face.

"You asked for it?"

Lyssara looked at her.

"Yes."

That mattered.

Kael remained silent.

Inner Moon’s original purpose had not been forced on Lyssara.

At least not in the beginning.

"I was breaking apart," she explained. "When I took my full form, there was another perception inside me. She remembered things I did not remember. I woke up with blood on my hands without knowing whose it was. Then I started remembering her life too. I no longer knew which of us was me."

Sylphie approached the circle.

"So Inner Moon unified the two."

"Yes."

"You wanted that."

"I did."

The page reacted faintly.

ORIGINAL CONSENT: CONFIRMED.

Kael watched the line appear.

"So where did it change?"

Lyssara closed her eyes.

"When I became ill."

The answer was calm.

"I was fifty-seven. My body no longer regenerated like before. The Vharen bloodline was weakening, and the Circle of Rhaden had already fragmented. Some believed my stability was the reason our family had survived the wars."

Mereth seemed to know part of that history.

"You authorized preservation."

Lyssara looked at her.

"I authorized my memories."

The old woman went still.

"Not my person."

The Inner Moon page trembled.

Kael felt the First Archive react even before the words appeared.

ORIGINAL AUTHORIZATION:

PRESERVATION OF MEMORIES, LUNAR EXPERIENCE, AND INTEGRATION METHOD.

IDENTITY TRANSFER:

NOT RECORDED.

Mereth stepped back.

"No."

Lyssara did not raise her voice.

"I wanted my daughters to know how to survive what happened to me. I wanted none of them to wake up not knowing who they were."

A sad smile appeared on her face.

"I didn’t want all of them to wake up as me."

The room remained quiet.

Kael looked at the page.

"First alteration that turned memory into identity."

The letters appeared.

REVISION 2.

AUTHORITY: HOUSE VHAREN.

JUSTIFICATION: PRESERVATION OF BLOODLINE STABILITY.

"After her death," Sylphie said.

"Yes."

Kael asked:

"Lyssara’s consent to the revision."

The page took a while.

No text appeared.

He repeated:

"Consent."

The answer came.

ABSENT.

Lyssara smiled without humor.

"It’s difficult to ask a dead woman."

Kael looked at her.

"But apparently it wasn’t difficult to use her name."

"No."

Mereth stood before the mirrors, and for the first time Kael did not see the head of House Vharen.

She looked like nothing more than an elderly woman realizing that a fundamental truth of her life had been built upon something no one had dared question.

Nerya, on the other hand, was looking at Lyssara.

"Do you really want to disappear?"

Lyssara did not answer quickly.

"I don’t know what disappearance means for me."

That caught Kael’s attention.

She touched the inner surface of the mirror.

"I have no body. I don’t sleep. I don’t feel hunger. I can’t touch anyone unless the system puts me inside a living person. For a long time, I didn’t even know other women were trapped with me."

She looked at Alienne.

Then Liora.

Sarena.

Velis.

Maura.

Arieth.

"When a new bearer arrived, I felt new things. Love for people I had never met. Fears that weren’t mine. Memories of children I never had. And the system told me all of it belonged to me because I was the preserved identity."

Kael understood.

"You were altered too."

"Yes."

The answer came almost like relief.

For the first time, someone had said it aloud.

Lyssara was not only the invader.

She was also a victim of her own preservation.

Her original identity had been deformed by centuries of accumulation until even she no longer knew where she ended and the others began.

"Then we won’t decide for you," Kael said. "Or for any of them."

Mereth looked at him.

"What do you intend to do?"

"Ask."

Kael turned toward the mirrors.

"One by one."

Alienne was first.

When Kael asked what she wanted, she took so long to answer that he suspected there might not be enough consciousness left to formulate a choice.

Then her eyes moved toward an imaginary window inside the reflection.

"I want to ride."

Umbra blinked.

So did Kael.

Alienne seemed to realize the impossibility and laughed quietly.

"Not now."

Her smile faded.

"I want my memories separated. If my family wants to keep them, they can. But not inside another person."

The page recorded:

ALIENNE VHAREN:

MEMORIAL PRESERVATION CONSENTED.

IDENTITY TRANSFER REFUSED.

Liora came next.

She did not look at Kael.

She looked only at Mereth.

"I want to talk to my daughter."

Mereth brought a hand to her chest.

Kael stepped away.

That did not need him.

Mother and daughter spoke for only a few minutes, but time inside that room seemed to stretch.

There were no great revelations.

Liora asked whether Mereth still grew roses in the south wing.

Mereth replied that the plants had died twenty years ago.

Liora complained that she had always overwatered them.

Mereth laughed while crying.

It was small.

Human.

When they finished, Liora said:

"After this, you can let me go."

Mereth closed her eyes.

"Are you sure?"

"I am."

The page recorded her choice.

Sarena wanted to remain as a consultable memory available only with the explicit consent of descendants.

Velis refused any preservation.

Maura asked that two specific memories be delivered to the family and that the rest end with her.

Arieth remained silent for a long time.

When she finally spoke, she asked:

"What if I don’t decide today?"

Kael answered without hesitation.

"Then you don’t decide today."

The page vibrated.

NO DECISION RECORDED.

TEMPORARY PRESERVATION WITHOUT AUTHORIZED TRANSFER.

Arieth nodded.

It was perhaps the most important answer of all.

Not choosing yet was also a choice.

Finally, Lyssara remained.

She watched the individual records appear around the mirrors, and for the first time in more than two centuries, no line said they were all her.

Kael asked:

"And you?"

Lyssara stayed quiet.

"I want the method to survive."

Sylphie frowned.

"The original method."

"Yes. There are werewolves who may still suffer what I suffered. Inner Moon helped. Before all of this, it truly helped."

Kael nodded.

"Memory and integration between states."

"With the consent of the same person."

"No hereditary transfer."

"No using descendants."

"No identity preservation after death unless explicitly chosen."

Lyssara looked at him.

"Yes."

The page began writing.

ORIGINAL PURPOSE REFORMULATED UNDER CHALLENGE:

STABILIZATION OF SELF-PERCEPTION BETWEEN STATES OF THE SAME SUBJECT.

POST-MORTEM PRESERVATION: ONLY WITH EXPLICIT CONSENT.

TRANSFER BETWEEN SUBJECTS: PROHIBITED WITHOUT INDEPENDENT CONSENT FROM BOTH PARTIES.

AUTOMATIC HEREDITY: ENDED.

Kael read everything.

Then looked at Lyssara.

"And you?"

She smiled.

This time, it was much lighter.

"I already told you."

"I want to hear it after you know there’s another option."

Lyssara went still.

Kael continued:

"You can remain as memory. You can keep selected parts. You can wait. You can ask the First Archive to record only your history. You don’t need to die because you think it’s the only way to free Nerya."

Her expression changed.

Perhaps no one had ever offered her that.

She looked at the other women.

Then at Nerya.

"If I remain, will she stay connected to me?"

Sylphie answered:

"Not necessarily. We can separate the connection."

"Completely?"

"It may take time. But yes."

Lyssara closed her eyes.

For two centuries, her survival had always carried a human cost.

Now someone was telling her it did not have to.

When she opened her eyes, something was different there.

"Then I want to sleep."

Kael tilted his head.

"Explain."

"I don’t want another life."

She touched the mirror.

"But I also don’t want to decide the end while I’m still learning which thoughts are mine."

Arieth smiled in the mirror beside her.

Lyssara continued:

"Preserve only enough for me to wake if I choose. No body. No descendant. No borrowed dreams."

The page recorded:

LYSSARA VHAREN:

VOLUNTARY PRESERVATION IN INACTIVE STATE.

TRANSFER: REFUSED.

REEVALUATION: ONLY UPON SUBJECT REQUEST.

Kael nodded.

"Better."

Lyssara looked at Nerya.

"I’m sorry."

The young woman tensed.

"You tried to erase me."

"I know."

"You used my memories."

"I know."

"You remember my first kiss."

Lyssara closed her eyes.

"Unfortunately."

Nerya turned red.

Kael looked away.

Umbra did not show the same courtesy.

"That sounds interesting."

"Umbra."

"I’m only observing."

Nerya let out an unexpected laugh.

Small.

Tired.

But hers.

The page reacted immediately.

AUTONOMOUS PATTERN CONFIRMED.

CURRENT SUBJECT STABLE.

NERYA VHAREN: 100%.

The moonlight broke apart.

Not violently.

The lines crossing Nerya’s body simply detached and returned to the floor.

The mirrors stopped sharing the same glow.

Each one began sustaining only the woman associated with it, and the largest one, where Lyssara remained, gradually darkened as her preservation entered the inactive state she had chosen for herself.

Before disappearing, however, Lyssara looked at Mereth.

"Stop calling this return."

The old woman nodded.

"I will."

"Teach their names."

Mereth looked at the six mirrors.

"I will."

Then Lyssara disappeared.

She did not die.

She did not continue.

She rested.

The Inner Moon page floated in front of Kael.

For several seconds, no inscription appeared.

Then the First Archive wrote:

ORIGINAL PURPOSE: VALID.

HEREDITARY ALTERATION: CORRUPTION CONFIRMED.

SUPPRESSION OF LATER IDENTITIES IN FAVOR OF THE ORIGINAL SUBJECT: CONFIRMED.

INTERGENERATIONAL CONSENT: INVALID.

Kael waited.

The final line appeared.

PURPOSE CORRUPTION: CONFIRMED.

Sylphie looked at him.

Kael counted mentally.

Voiceless Choir.

Hollow Throne.

Garden of Bones.

Inner Moon.

"Four."

This time, Nerya heard him.

"Four what?"

Kael put the page away.

"Problems I would rather not have found."

Umbra appeared beside him.

"Lie."

Kael looked at her.

"How?"

"You prefer finding them before someone worse does."

Kael stayed quiet.

Sylphie smiled.

"She’s right."

"This is getting irritating."

Nerya tried to stand.

Her legs failed.

Kael caught her arm before she fell.

"Slowly."

"I spent nine months fighting seven women inside my head."

"Then sitting for five minutes won’t destroy your reputation."

She looked at him.

"Are you always like this?"

Sylphie answered before he could.

"Unfortunately."

Nerya laughed again.

And in that room built to ensure that one dead woman would never cease to exist, the most important sound was that of someone new finally having enough space to begin.