Lyria's Arc

Chapter 14 of 9

Lyria's wolf was calm now, and her plan was whole. But calm did not answer the worst question. If the judge broke the seal, Malgoros would wake. And she had nothing that could hold it. A blade could not chain a thing that had outlived six kingdoms. She needed to know what could. She went back down the worn steps alone. The vine-choked walkway to the cell was dark, its stones cracked and tangled with old growth. Malgoros waited behind its glowing seal, bone-white and still, two red points where eyes should be. "You came back," it said. Flat. Dry. "I came to ask you how the seal holds," Lyria said. "You've watched men die trying to break it. You know it better than anyone." "I do." It tilted its cracked skull. "Why would I tell you how to keep me caged?" "Because you want out," she said. "And you'll enjoy watching the judge fail more than you'll enjoy him winning." The red points held on her. "The seal feeds on certainty. Every fool who tried was sure. Their conviction fed the binding stronger. The last one was certain he had the method right. He is dust now." Lyria's mind moved fast, the way it did before a fight. She read the shape of it. "Then a doubter can't break you. But a doubter could hold you." "Perhaps." A pause. "The seal was drawn on the floor. It draws from the one standing inside its ring. If someone unsure took the caster's place, the ring would drink their doubt instead of their belief." She climbed up and found Adrian in the bench chambers. He leaned over a table marked with an old war map, tracing routes with one finger. He looked up, sharp. "You look like you've been talking to the thing under us," he said. "I have. I know how to keep it sealed." She told him. The ring. The doubt. Belief made it weaker; doubt held it fast. Adrian was quiet a moment. "You want to stand in the ring during the final trial." "I do." "You're the least sure person I know." It was not an insult. He said it plainly, like a fact off his map. "You never think you belong here. That's the weakness that saves us." "Then it's finally useful." She almost smiled. "I'll cover the bench," he said. "You cover the ring. If the judge cracks the seal, you take the caster's place before Malgoros stands." Lyria felt the fear settle into something solid. She had an answer now. Not a weapon. A stance. If Malgoros woke, she would step into the ring and doubt it back into its chains. But she had traded one problem for a worse one. To hold the seal, she had to stand inside it. And she could not fight the corrupt judge while chained to the floor beneath the hall.