Jackal Among Snakes

Chapter 678: Supernova

After the conversation with Griffin, which had given him so much to think about it felt as though his mind might never rest again, the pointless words exchanged with the Herald had brought him back down to the ground. He hypothesized they had deliberately sent someone who made no attempts to hide his disdain. They weren’t fools—they had seen Argrave’s behavior, seen what decisions he’d made, and come to the conclusion that he couldn’t be bargained with. By sending some undiplomatic, arrogant pencil-pusher with no real authority, they had called out his attempt to deceive them. To what end, he wasn’t entirely sure.

Only, Argrave was almost certain they had no idea their ‘valuable asset,’ Gerechtigkeit, had talked to Argrave about a way to circumvent their ability to find the weaknesses in mortalkind. The primary catalyst to the cycle of judgment was promising not to accept the help of the Heralds, provided Argrave in turn took direct control of the human race. Argrave wasn’t Anneliese, but he thought Griffin had seemed earnest in swearing to a fair battle if he did so.

The question that Argrave had to ask himself was if he should follow through with what he’d swore to. Words exchanged with mass murderers meant very little to him. He believed in honor only among honorable people—and someone who’d killed Vasquer and enslaved the Gilderwatchers wasn’t honorable. Argrave had said what he felt he needed to, in that moment. Perhaps Griffin had been doing the same.

Generally speaking, it was a bad idea to follow the advice of someone trying to kill everything alive.

On the other hand, there were several clever adages about how those sharing enemies made excellent friends. Argrave could find no logical holes in the plan Griffin had suggested. The Heralds exploited envy and greed to find those willing to betray and undermine any resistance against them. They lent power comparable to that of a god. Argrave wasn’t sure that blocking mental interference alone could keep the Heralds from turning his people against him—they seemed beyond the powers of the world, somehow. Only by exerting his own will to control the wills of others could he be certain that he would suffer no betrayal.

Lorena had changed the body of the silver knight into an anchor that either of the suns’ power could latch on to. Whatever deal, if any, Argrave struck with them would be enacted, using the inert power within the corpse as one of two focal points—himself being the other point. Whether that was having the suns protect all souls from outside interference, or influencing them toward his viewpoint… the deal he struck would be carried out.

Argrave found it rather frightening how tempting it was to exert his will upon everyone.

So much of his time in Berendar had been spent fighting against things like ambition and greed. They’d fought tooth and nail to bring peace to Vasquer, and long after to defang the nobles who wanted to keep an iron grip on the people they deemed peasants. They’d fought the Ebon Cult, whose Castellan sought to usurp Gerechtigkeit in some fashion. They’d fought Emperor Ji Meng, who’d come seeking to plunder and conquer Berendar—and that had come with its own assortment of local interests, like Governor Zen. All mortal opponents, and all driven by selfishness.

Life would be so much easier if everyone simply obeyed.

didn’t trust people not to listen to the words of the Heralds. Some bastard, given the opportunity, definitely would eke out their own little paradise at his expense. Without enslaving everyone, there would never be an

there was some truth to it. Could he honestly say that he wouldn’t impose his own subjective morality onto the majority? The world would be a peaceful place, true… but it would be a planet of mirrors, all looking to each other to receive the same

had said it clearly—he’d earned this right with might and main. Argrave didn’t think that alone was sufficient. Anneliese, Elenore, Orion, Galamon, Durran, Melanie, Raven, Nikoletta, Elias, Mina, and the countless others he’d met on his journey that he’d come to call friend… to do this would be to erase them. Even if the people that’d been given the ring crafted by Artur were exempt from his control, the whole rest of the world would be twisted into some grotesque perversion of a perfect

could be reading stolen content. Head to

be destroyed by

this was something he couldn’t do, he felt a profound sense of loss—that mortal instinct to own, to control, to possess, to deprive another of something to enjoy alone.

protect them from themselves, and protecting them from everything did not protect

Argrave chided himself.

needles. He stood suspended in between two masses of fire. It took him no time at all to realize what he had been caught between: the two suns, the stars around which their planet rotated. One star was orange—bright and all-consuming.

couldn’t feel any heat radiating out from them, but he did feel probing tendrils of what constituted their souls reaching out and probing at

the tendrils of being the stars sent forth. When, finally, the two forces met… he was drawn

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for an eclipse as they shielded their eyes. They all stood around two altars. One of them held Argrave, his chest rising and falling steadily as he breathed in what appeared to be nothing more than sleep. The other held the silver knight that Orion had slain, its severed head haphazardly reattached and its sword and shield laid across its torso as though it was being buried

back, fidgeting. “Raven, is

the suns. I

above. Anneliese clenched Argrave’s hand tightly as he rested, though