Chapter 376: Right Under Your Nose

Rhayne’s fingers stay still inside Lili’s hand.

She doesn’t look surprised that I died. It seems more like she digested that part back during the conversation we had.

What hits her is something else.

"So you never found out."

I look at my sister.

Lili has finally managed to grab her own foot and seems pleased with the achievement.

"No. Not me. Not anyone."

Rhayne follows my eyes.

"In your first life, she was already ten years old."

"She was quite a kid."

"And you died without knowing whether she’d be infected?"

"Actually, I’m certain she wasn’t. What worries me is this life."

"How are you certain?"

"The Deepwarden killed her and my mother before killing me."

Rhayne’s eyes go wide, and the worry on her face changes shape. Until a few seconds ago we were talking about statistics, genetics, and risk factors. Now there’s a concrete child in the middle of it, one who already lost her life once, and whose future is turning into an unknown.

Rhayne lets Lili play with the tips of her fingers again.

"I’ve always wanted to ask more."

I look at her.

"About my previous life?"

"Yes."

The answer comes without embarrassment, but she takes a moment before continuing.

"Ever since that day at the docks."

Of course. That day. That was when I told her about Void Monarch, about the disaster she would become, and about the larger piece holding all of it up. My second life. The ten years that only existed inside my head.

"Why did you never ask?"

Rhayne gives a small shrug.

"Because you didn’t tell me like someone who wanted to talk about it."

She lifts her eyes.

"You told me because I needed to understand what was happening to me. You asked for secrecy first, made the size of the information clear, and then said what you thought was necessary. I understood."

There’s no accusation in her tone.

"And I also thought about the implications."

"Which ones?" I ask.

"All the ones I could."

That almost makes me smile.

Rhayne keeps stroking Lili’s hand while she thinks.

"If I knew details about things that haven’t happened yet, I could act differently just from knowing. If I told someone else, that person could change something too. And every change could make what you remember less reliable."

She looks at me.

"So I stayed curious in silence. By the way, I told Freya, and exactly what you’re describing happened."

"Do you regret it?"

"No."

"That must have taken a lot out of a spy. You could have called me."

"That would have been horrible."

I let out a short laugh.

"I’m sorry."

"I survived. Don’t worry about it."

The mood lightens for a few seconds.

Then Rhayne looks toward the kitchen.

My mother is still in there. I hear cabinets opening, then the sound of something being set on the counter.

"She still doesn’t know?"

I understand immediately.

"No."

"That day you said your family didn’t know. I just didn’t know whether that had changed."

"It hasn’t."

Rhayne watches my mother through the kitchen doorway.

"Have you ever thought about telling her?"

"Of course I have."

My answer comes before I need to decide on it.

"I just never found a good enough reason. Besides the time I’ve never had with them since I came back. I only wanted to enjoy the time with them."

A short silence holds between us, and I keep going.

"My mother isn’t a Diver. She can’t enter Thirstfall with me, she can’t help me with the Deepwarden, and she’d have no way to verify anything I said. All I’d accomplish is putting ten years of tragedy in her head."

I look at Lili.

"Imagine telling her that in another life I watched the two of them die, then died myself, and woke up here again."

Rhayne lowers her eyes.

"She’d spend her life waiting for it to happen."

"Exactly."

My mother already worries when I dive knowing only the ordinary risks. If she knew there’s a life where everything ends badly, every goodbye would be contaminated by it.

"There’s information that helps someone make a decision," I continue. "And there’s information that only hurts. For her, this would only hurt."

Rhayne nods.

"I think I’d do the same."

She stays quiet for a while, but I can tell the curiosity hasn’t gone anywhere.

If anything, now that I’ve opened the door, she seems to be choosing carefully what can come through it.

"Can I ask you something?"

"You just did."

She gives me a look with no patience in it.

"Something else."

"Go ahead."

"You said you got far in that life."

I remember the words.

Far. Not far enough.

"How far?"

"Rank A."

Rhayne goes still for a moment.

"You were Rank A?"

"Yes."

Her eyes travel over me, probably trying to stack ten years on top of the kid sitting in front of her.

"That’s strange."

"Thank you."

"Not like that."

She frowns.

"I know you have experience. You can tell when you fight beside me. But picturing you as a Rank A..."

"I was better looking too."

"I have trouble believing that part."

"Cruel."

She smiles.

Then the curiosity comes back.

"Was Thirstfall that different?"

I think before answering.

"Yes."

"Because of the calamity you mentioned?"

"That too."

I’m not going to dump ten years on her at once, but she can carry this part.

"The world I knew got crueler as the years went by. Ranking started to matter even more. Some regions became practically inaccessible to anyone who didn’t belong to the right organizations. Routes, information, equipment, treatment, all of it started getting concentrated."

"By the Deepwarden?"

"They were an enormous part of it."

Rhayne already knows the name, knows Valerius, and now knows Stardeep.

"What do they turn into?"

I lean back against the couch.

"A cartel with a militia. A global one."

She stops playing with Lili for a moment.

"Literally?"

"Almost."

"That doesn’t sound like almost."

"It’s hard to explain. It was close to an organization running the entire world through power and influence without ever giving a single lawful order."

I explain the details to her, without going into every organization they would absorb. Rhayne listens to all of it without interrupting.

"So when you saw Halcyon today..."

"I already knew how big that tree could grow."

She looks at the backpack where she put Arthur’s letter. Rhayne takes a few seconds.

"You said your heart was destroyed."

"It was."

"But you never said who did it."

"The Deepwarden. Valerius, the celebrated Warden."

Her expression hardens.

"Because you tried to bring them down?"

"Because I became a problem. I got hold of an item they wanted. Ironically, the same one that brought me back."

"That sounds like a very Dryden Sands way of saying the same thing."

"Maybe."

I don’t need to explain the Aion Codex, Rae, the altar, or everything that led to that moment. Those are doors into another conversation, and some of them still hold things I’d rather not put into circulation.

Rhayne notices I’m not going further and respects it.

Which is exactly what makes the next question harder to refuse.

"And me?"

I look at her.

"You already know the important part."

"I know what happened with Void Monarch."

She tilts her face slightly.

"I’m asking about before that."

"Rhayne..."

"I’m not asking you to tell me every single thing that happened to me."

She says it carefully, without pressure.

"I just want to know how much you really knew about me when we met."

That one I can answer.

"Very little."

She seems surprised.

"Very little?"

"I already told you everything I knew. I knew your name. I knew about a few things that happened involving you. I knew what Void Monarch would eventually become. But we didn’t spend time together."

She looks at me a little disappointed, waiting for something more.

"Besides, the Rhayne I knew from a distance back then isn’t you anymore."

She understands before I explain.

"Arthur. Right?"

"Among other things."

Her expression changes.

The conversation about the orphanage is still fresh.

"He didn’t exist in my story about you," I say. "You didn’t have that training when you got to the Academy. And that alone changes years of decisions."

Rhayne looks thoughtful and sighs. Then she stares at me for a few seconds.

"And Freya?"

The question catches me off guard.

"What about her? Out of nowhere like that..."

"Does it have to do with you? The two of you are a lot closer now. And I know you. I know it isn’t flirting."

This girl pays attention.

"It does."

She waits.

"And I told Freya more than I should have."

Rhayne says nothing.

"At the time I thought I was handing her the truth so she could decide what to do with it. The result was that I started contaminating every choice she made."

Rhayne frowns.

"How?"

"After she knew I knew her future, any advice from me carried different weight. If I said something was dangerous, she had to wonder whether I remembered someone dying there. If I asked her to trust someone, it could look like I already knew the outcome. If I tried to stop a decision, she couldn’t tell whether it was concern or whether I was pushing her toward the future I wanted."

Rhayne listens closely.

"Did she get angry?"

"She told me to get out of her room."

"Ah..."

"It was fun."

Rhayne makes an expression that says very clearly she doesn’t believe that last part.

"She was right about one thing," I continue. "Knowing your own future changes how you make decisions even when nobody is trying to control you."

I look directly at Rhayne.

"I don’t want to do that to you."

She stays quiet for a while.

Then she nods.

"That’s why I never pushed."

The answer catches me.

"You’d already thought about that?"

"Den, you literally told me that in the other life I became a calamity."

Fair.

"I spent days wanting to ask about every detail. Then I realized that if I knew, I’d probably start looking for signs of everything you said."

She looks at her own hands.

"I’d rather find out who I’m going to be from here on."

It’s a much more mature answer than I would have had at eighteen.

Maybe at forty-six too.

Lili lets out a sound and goes back to playing with her feet now that Rhayne’s hand is gone, and Rhayne just smiles at my sister.

"But I can still ask questions that don’t destroy my existence, right?"

"Depends on the question."

"When did you come back?"

The question sounds harmless, but knowing Rhayne, I can tell she suspects something.

"The night before I met you at the Academy."

Rhayne stops and lifts her face slowly.

"When you helped me with the entrance exam?"

"That was practically my first night in this line of events."

Rhayne’s hand comes up to her mouth.

I recognize that expression.

She isn’t thinking about me.

She’s doing math.

"Den..."

"I know."

"No, wait."

She turns more toward me.

"Arthur started training me almost two years before I entered the Academy."

"Yes."

"And he gave me that deadline before disappearing."

I nod.

Rhayne looks at the backpack.

"He said that if I got good enough and reached the Academy inside that window, I’d find someone."

"I remember."

"But you hadn’t even come back yet."

The sentence comes out quieter.

Now she understands completely.

"You were still living your first life."

"Yes."

Rhayne goes a few seconds without speaking.

"So there’s no way Arthur predicted you, because your actions hadn’t changed anything yet."

"Now you’re finally seeing the mess that’s in my head."

She looks at me.

"He knew beforehand."

"Maybe."

"Den, he wrote your name in a letter."

"True."

"He knew your father. He knew I’d find you at the Academy. He set up my training inside a specific window, and he did all of that before the moment you came back ten years."

The way she lays the pieces out makes it sound worse, even though I’ve already been through all of it.

"That’s why the letter bothers me so much."

Rhayne looks at the envelope inside the backpack as if she could see it through the fabric.

"Arthur knew about you while you were still living in the future."

That sentence gives me a new kind of discomfort.

If what Arthur did is connected to my return, the cause has to be somewhere that crosses the regression itself.

Footsteps come from the kitchen and we both go quiet.

My mother comes in carrying a tray and notices the change immediately. Her eyes go from me to Rhayne.

"Why did you two stop talking?"

"We didn’t stop."

"You did."

She sets the tray on the table.

"Were you gossiping or flirting?"

Rhayne goes red immediately.

I look at my mother.

"Are you that desperate to be a grandmother? I’m only eighteen. Not happening."

Rhayne turns even redder.

My mother stares at me.

"I asked if you were flirting. Not whether you intended to get the girl pregnant today. Have some respect for her. Idiot."

"You skipped more steps than I did. By the way, I’m sorry, Rhayne."

"You’re the one who brought up grandchildren. Now be quiet, I didn’t raise you like that."

"Yes, ma’am."

’My mother would never understand that sometimes the one talking is my twenty-eight-year-old mind, not the eighteen-year-old one.’

My mother smiles like someone satisfied at having won an argument that shouldn’t exist.

Rhayne now finds enormous interest in her own lap.

"I’m joking," my mother tells her.

An awkward silence cuts through the room, but the tray saves the situation.

There are sandwiches with shredded dried beef, egg, tomato, and some greens. The bread is lightly toasted, and the smell makes my stomach physically twist with hunger.

My mother hands one to Rhayne.

"Eat. You must be hungry after today."

"Thank you, Mrs. Sands."

"For the love of God. Call me Ingrid."

"All right..."

My mother smiles at the use of her name while Rhayne takes the first bite and chews carefully. Right after, she looks down at the sandwich.

"This is really good."

"It’s been a while since I made it with dried beef."

"I’ve never had it like this."

"Then eat more."

My mother nudges another sandwich slightly toward her.

I watch Rhayne for a while.

Something’s wrong.

It takes me a moment to notice.

"You eat normally here."

She stops with the sandwich near her mouth.

"Excuse me?"

"You’re eating like a person."

Rhayne stares at me.

"What do I normally eat like?"

"A weather event."

My mother starts laughing.

Rhayne closes her eyes.

"It’s my class!"

"Your class makes you eat like Oliver?"

"I don’t eat like Oliver."

"Dangerous argument, young lady. You might win."

She ignores that.

"In Thirstfall, when I use OXI, especially with Void Monarch, my body gets absurdly hungry. I don’t know exactly what process causes it, but it’s been happening since the first time I used Void Monarch."

"Because you take in OXI a different way?"

She nods.

"Void can pull energy from sources a normal Diver doesn’t use like that. After certain skills, it feels like my body spent hours running."

She takes another bite.

"It doesn’t happen here."

"Den..."

My mother looks at Rhayne.

"Does he always pick on you like this, Rhayne?"

Rhayne thinks.

"Almost always."

"Good. You can complain to me."

"Betrayal inside my own house."

"Women stick together. Deal with it, you can take a joke."

Rhayne lets out a laugh with her mouth full and nearly chokes.

"The two of you are more alike than you realize."

She says it between coughs before we all go back to eating.

The conversation gets lighter for a few minutes. My mother asks whether Rhayne wants to wash the clothes she brought, offers her a towel, explains where she can leave her shoes, and insists she take a shower before thinking about anything else.

Rhayne tries to offer help with the dishes.

My mother refuses.

It’s strange watching the two of them together.

But Arthur stays at the back of my head.

Rhayne’s sentence won’t leave.

Arthur knew about you while you were still living in the future.

I need to ask a question.

I just don’t want to throw my father’s name onto the table like it’s any other subject.

I wait for my mother to finish part of her sandwich.

"Mom."

She looks at me.

"Can I ask you something about Dad?"

Her face changes a little.

It doesn’t close off, but it sharpens.

"You can."

"When he was diving, did he talk much about the people he knew in Thirstfall?"

My mother thinks before answering.

"Some of them. Why?"

"I’m trying to confirm something."

She waits.

"Did he have close friends there you never met?"

"Definitely. Your father only wasn’t a politician because he couldn’t lie."

My mother picks up her glass.

"He spent a lot of time in Thirstfall, Den. I knew a few names. Others he only mentioned when he was telling a story."

"Did he talk about people who worked with information?"

She frowns.

"Information how?"

"Informants. Espionage. People who sold knowledge about other people, routes, guilds."

Now she realizes my questions have a direction.

"Does this have to do with what you two were doing in District 3, or with what you told me when you got here?"

"Honestly, I don’t know. It might have to do with all of it. That’s why I’m asking."

"Den... be careful."

I don’t want to worry her more than necessary.

"We found a name today. I just want to know whether you’ve heard it before."

Rhayne has been watching us closely while my mother sets the glass down on the table.

"What name?"

I start with the surname.

"Lancaster."

She thinks.

I can’t read anything right away.

"Lancaster..."

She repeats it quietly.

I wait.

My mother looks at me.

"Why that name?"

I breathe slowly.

"Did Dad have a friend named Arthur?"

Her hand stops in midair, reaching for another glass.