Chapter 475 – Overdue Meeting

They were still staring at each other when the door to the storage room opened without warning. A young winged badger darted through the door and threw himself at Sophia.

“Auntie Sophia! You got all quiet and hurt-y! Are you okay?” Kestiben Et’Tart hugged Sophia’s side, then seemed to notice Leo. “And … why does he feel like you? He’s not in the Lifeweb but he feels hurt too. Hurt and scared. I’ve been hurt like that and my mommy holds me just the way you’re holding him. Are you his mommy?”

Sophia reached up with her right hand to pat the worried young badger. “I’m his big sister. His mother’s not here so I have to do her job. Where is - oh, Ekkiba! I figured you had to be somewhere around here when Kestiben charged in.”

The matronly badger with insubstantial wings hovered just inside the doorway. Kestiben’s mother chuckled, then shook her head. “After he ran off again but came here instead of heading home? Of course. I don’t know how he found you; all he said was that you were fading and hurting and he had to go help you.”

“Ran away from me, you mean,” a male voice interrupted. The source of the voice stepped into view after he spoke, an older human man with a pair of antlers that curved back from above his forehead and a pair of white wings. Without the horns, he would have looked very much like an aged angel, though the geometric-patterned top, tassel-covered belt, and poofy, colorful pants were also remarkably non-angelic.

“Kestiben, you can’t keep running away every time we need to … Inspector Ivorha? I was going to come look for you as soon as I finished with Kestiben. What’s this I hear about an Et’Tart in the World Tree’s Heartwood?” The man moved forward into the storage room, which made it uncomfortably full.

“Chief! I, ah, was going to come report to you once we were done here,” Ivorha stammered. “The boy is … his sister pulled him out. I don’t yet know how much it hurt him, but his sister says she’ll need to repair her Sphere. She’s never been Blessed, she doesn’t even know what that means.”

He waved towards the couch where Leo still slept with his head in Sophia’s lap.

“I do not know you,” the white-winged man stated with a puzzled look. “Yet the Guide tells me that you are both Et’Tart. I do not think that there is any way to repair your brother’s connection to the Lifeweb-”

“Because he was never connected,” Sophia interrupted. “I know why you people keep saying things like that, but it’s old. You should listen first. I’m, we’re, mostly Suras. Well, partly Suras; Dad is Asuryan and Mom is human, essentially. And Dad’s more complicated than that too but it’s his Asuryan heritage that’s important here. I bet … I bet he’d probably be able to touch the Lifeweb but maybe not; Mom’s dad is the telepath in the family.”

The older man shook his head. “There are no Suras, no matter how the Et’Unii try to Bless and breed for them, and Asuryans are nothing more than a myth of the World Tree. We lost a great deal in the exodus, but do not pretend you are something you are not. The Suras died to the corruption we fled from. Now, what world are you from, which lost branch of my Clan?”

Sophia felt the desire to give in, to tell him what she knew, to apologize for her presence and defiance in the face of someone who only wanted what was best for her. 

She also knew exactly what he was trying to do, and she knew better than to let him succeed. That was the point of the training her grandfather Russ gave her: to know when someone was influencing her mind or emotions and how to stop it. This assault was especially insidious because it used the Lifeweb and its ability to let her understand things others knew without having to learn them properly, but she could still block it. That was simple enough between her grandfather’s training and the work she did with Shaman Venique.

It also meant that she didn’t trust the other man at all. There were times when using that sort of magic was acceptable, even reasonable. This was not one of them.

“We are not a lost branch of your Clan! If anything, you are a lost branch of mine!” Sophia knew she looked like she was overreacting. That didn’t change anything. She was angry with the supposed Chief of the Et’Tart Clan who was not listening and seemed to believe that she was lying, despite the evidence in front of his eyes. She was even more angry that he’d then use mental magic on a member of his own Clan. It was sleazy and it was all too likely to be part of the reason he held the position he did. “You are looking at a woman who can read the Lifeweb and who does not have wings and a boy who cannot reach the Lifeweb, yet the Guide tells you that both are Et’Tart and all you can think of is that I am lying about who and what I am? Fine, I will tell you who I am! I am Sophia Dalmoti Rothmer of Earth, Lyka, and Tzintkra, Clan Et’Tart of Suratiz, Empress of the Broken Tower of Kestii, and right now I am completely pissed at you!”

Sophia’s aura pushed out around her, filling the room. She didn’t try to restrain it the way she normally did; instead, it pushed against the auras of everyone else in the room. She flared it around Dav, Leo, Kestiben, and Ekkiba, so the space where their auras overlapped hers erupted in wispy plumes of magic that were visible to the naked eye. Sophia could feel all of them, as if they were feathers she controlled.

None of them fought the effect. Sophia was certain they could have, but they trusted her enough not to fight. The plumes reached nearly to their skin, then settled into an ever-shifting protective corona around them.

Inspector Ivorha was not so trusting. The plumes of magic that formed around him roiled violently in the conflicting auras as they were pushed farther away from him. They settled a little over a foot from his body, far closer than his aura would normally reach and closer than Sophia would have expected if she thought about it. Despite his clear resistance, he retreated several steps with his wings lifted, clearly torn between fight and flight.

Sophia barely paid the inspector any attention. All of her anger was directed at the Chief of the local Et’Tarts, a man whose name she still didn’t know who wanted to run her life without asking her permission. 

Plumes of magic gathered in front of her and pushed towards him almost like a spray of water from a firehose. The leading edge diverted to either side, but within moments there was a coruscating wall of mana in front of the Archon, pushing closer and closer to him. When he stumbled back a step in surprise, it followed, restrained by his own aura rather than by the distance. 

His aura wasn’t enough. Sophia’s mana plumes pushed closer and closer to him, telling him just how very unhappy she was with him. They stopped at about two inches from his skin for a moment, then a loud cracking noise rang out and the plumes rushed to cover him, wrapping around him like a blanket. 

Sophia didn’t want to hurt him. She just wanted him to know who he was talking to, since he clearly didn’t believe the truth when he heard it and wasn’t willing to give her the chance to prove herself normally.

He fell to his knees, then shouted “Stop!” 

Sophia glared at him but allowed her aura to withdraw. The moving plumes of mana swirled slowly, ready to move forward again if she needed them to. “Say your piece but don’t try to influence my mind this time. Or anyone else’s; I will know.”

That wasn’t entirely true. She thought she could tell if he attempted to influence the Lifeweb; that ought to affect more than one person, and that meant it would be detectable by her as well, since she was also in the local Lifeweb. What she couldn’t do was detect any other form of mental influence on anyone other than herself. 

She reached out across the mindlink to Dav. “Can you watch for any sort of mental influence on Leo or yourself?”

“I will watch,” a mental voice interrupted. Sophia hadn’t thought about Taika in quite a while; the chinchilla hadn’t commented on anything in weeks, so Sophia had essentially forgotten he could hear them. “I felt that intrusion, I am glad you pushed it out.”

The brightly colored fluffy rodent appeared snuggled in the space between Leo and the back of the couch, as if he’d been there the entire time without being visible to the rest of the room.

“You are stronger than you look,” the chief opened with a compliment, or at least what Sophia suspected he considered a compliment. “And you have proved your point; only the Et’Unii patriarch can break my Shield the way you did, and the Et’Unii choose their patriarchs based on their Suras heritage. You clearly bear that heritage and have learned to use it. Why do you claim to be Et’Tart instead of Et’Unii? They would welcome you with open arms.”

Sophia sighed. This was clearly going to be one of those conversations, one where the other party was intent on making her look like she was in the wrong even though everything he said was innuendo and falsehoods. 

Maybe she was jumping to conclusions, but in her opinion there was no reason to give the benefit of the doubt to someone who started with mental influence magic.

“I am not Et’Unii. My Clan is Et’Tart. It is not the Et’Tart of Arcatiz but the Et’Tart of Suratiz. I have not been reticent with that fact. If the Guide says that I am Et’Tart, it must have some way to link the two, but that link goes back to when you Archons fled from the Asuryan homeworld.” She counted it as yet another sign that something was very weird about the Guide. It seemed less weird than the language overlaps, but it was probably all related. 

Sophia smiled as she thought of something that would probably completely tick off the Et’Tart chief. She gave a moment’s thought to not saying it, but she didn’t really think he deserved the consideration and it might make him say something he shouldn’t. She wasn’t really sure what her goal here was, but if she could get him to leave her alone long enough to get through a Gateway to Dav’s homeworld, that would be enough. “If anything, your Et’Tart Clan abandoned us. We are the senior branch of the Clan. We may well be larger, too; there are hundreds of Et’Tarts on Suratiz.”

“That is not how it works!” The chief protested. “No Clan is older than the Et’Tarts; we came through the Way as a Clan, which few others can say.”

Sophia’s grin widened. “Which means that the Clan on the other side of the Way is the original, which is my exact point. Now, what do you want from me and why should I give it to you?”

The Et’Tart chief seemed to gather his wits again. He straightened and shifted his expression so that he looked caring and slightly frazzled. Sophia admitted to herself that it was a good look; if she didn’t know it was false, she might well believe it. “I want to help you. Isn’t that what the Clan Chief should do?”