Chapter 1099: Rejected

The following morning in Manhattan, Edmund Hensley’s assistant brought Eclipse’s reply to his breakfast table.

He put down his spoon before she had finished crossing the room.

"Well?"

"They’ve reviewed your application."

Her hesitation irritated him. He held out a hand for the tablet, expecting to find conditions she considered unfavorable, perhaps a request for proof that he could provide the funding he had offered.

The letter occupied very little of the screen.

"Following review of the information submitted, Eclipse will not be proceeding with your application for Dungeon-Born admission. We will not be arranging an assessment visit or the requested private meeting. Thank you for your interest."

Edmund read it again.

"Where’s the rest?"

"That’s the entire reply, sir."

He dragged a finger down the screen anyway. Beneath the signature was the message his assistant had sent, including the offer to finance housing and infrastructure for the settlement.

They had received it. They had answered it with this.

"Who reviewed it?"

"The letter doesn’t specify."

"Then find out. I want someone from their leadership on the phone."

His assistant reached for her own device while he pushed the tablet across the table. It struck his water glass, spilling a cold pool around the bowl he had barely touched.

An attendant hurried forward with a cloth.

"Leave it!"

The woman stopped beside his chair. Edmund tried to rise, too angry to remain seated while somebody decided he wasn’t even worth a meeting, but his legs shook beneath him. He caught the table’s edge and sank back with a sharp breath.

"Sir, please..."

"The call."

His assistant moved closer, waiting through the connection with her phone held against her ear. When someone answered, she gave his name and explained why they were calling.

"Yes, he received the decision. He would like to discuss it with-"

"Give it here."

She placed the phone beside his plate and enabled the speaker.

"This is Edmund Hensley. I would like to know whether anybody with the authority to make decisions has actually read my proposal."

"Mr. Hensley, your application has already been reviewed."

"By whom?"

"I can confirm that the decision-"

"You can put me through to your employer. I’ve offered to finance an entire settlement, and some fool has decided to send me a dismissal."

His assistant glanced at the attendant, who was still holding the cloth beside the spilled water. Neither woman moved while Edmund leaned toward the phone.

"One moment, please."

The receptionist placed him on hold.

Edmund sat back, breathing hard. Across the table, his assistant retrieved the tablet from the water and wiped its screen with a napkin.

"Lady Ashborn will speak with you, sir," the receptionist said when she returned.

"Mr. Hensley."

The woman’s voice from the speaker was low and entirely flat.

"I’m told you’re making a scene."

Edmund’s next breath caught before he could speak.

The Shadow Monarch.

His hand left the table’s edge. A moment ago, he had been ready to demand someone’s job; now his assistant was watching him struggle to find an appropriate greeting.

"Lady Ashborn. Thank you for taking my call."

"I reviewed your application."

"Then... perhaps there has been a misunderstanding."

"There hasn’t."

He looked at the tablet beside his assistant’s elbow. His offer was still visible beneath the letter, substantial enough that he found her answer difficult to accept.

"I can do a great deal for your son. The facilities he needs, the people to build them, the funding to keep everything running. I would have thought a discussion was worth your time."

"You will not bribe your way into my son’s home."

Heat climbed into his face.

"Bribe? My lady, I’m offering to serve him. Everything I’ve built would be at his disposal. My companies, my wealth, all of it."

"You may serve him from Earth."

Edmund leaned toward the phone, unwilling to let her turn his offer into a donation.

"Surely we can arrange-"

"Your application remains rejected."

"Why?"

"Because you are not suitable."

For a moment, he could only stare at the phone. Beyond the windows, morning sunlight shone across Manhattan, catching on the glass fronts of buildings he could recognize from his chair.

"I am willing to leave."

"To leave, yes. And to return with everything my son can give you."

"You can’t possibly know that. I want-"

"A longer life."

Edmund’s mouth remained open around the rest of his objection.

"Yes," he said at last. "Years I could spend serving him."

"Years you want to spend here."

His assistant lowered her eyes to the table. He wished he had kept the phone against his ear; having her listen while this woman dismissed his offer made him feel exposed in a manner he deeply resented.

"My interests here could benefit him considerably," he insisted. "With the time and strength to oversee them myself, I could expand-"

"Your holdings. Your influence."

He stopped.

"You want power to exert your will on Earth. Everything my child offers is another means of continuing the life you already have as an Earthling."

The cold certainty in her voice made him grip his napkin beneath the table. He had imagined returning to his offices with a body that could carry him through a working day, looking at investments without wondering whether he would survive to see them prosper.

Of course he wanted those things. He had so much left to enjoy, so much he could still accomplish if his body would stop failing him.

"And what is wrong with wanting to live?"

"My son’s dungeon accepts those whose ties to Earth no longer hold them here. Everything you want is still here."

"I could make his world my home."

"And plot how you may one day return to your true home."

Edmund looked toward his assistant, searching for something he could offer that would make this conversation reasonable again. She stood with both hands clasped before her, helpless to supply it.

He couldn’t let the call end here. Taigi, the Dungeon-Born woman beside Kaiden in the broadcast, had died on a recording and stood alive before the world afterward. Somewhere inside that dungeon was the chance to wake without counting the medicines awaiting him at breakfast.

"Then I won’t return."

His own voice sounded too eager. He swallowed and tried again.

"I’ll remain inside his domain. I’ll make a vow never to leave, if that’s what it takes. He can set the conditions himself."

"Why should my precious child be burdened with overseeing you?"

Edmund went utterly still.

All that money, and she was asking why her son should trouble himself with keeping him. His assistant stood beside the table, close enough to have heard every word, while the attendant waited with a cloth in her hands.

The humiliation hurt so badly that he struggled to answer without shouting.

"There would be a binding oath. He wouldn’t have to oversee anything."

"Would that make you content to live under his authority?"

"I’ve just offered him everything."

"To obtain something you want. What happens after you have it?"

Edmund reached for the phone, then let his hand fall beside it. He wanted to speak to someone else, someone who understood that an offer this valuable deserved to be negotiated.

"You assume a great deal about me, Lady Ashborn."

"You are demanding an exception already, making a scene until someone you accept addresses you."

"I’m asking you to reconsider an unreasonable refusal, nothing more."

"Now it is his people’s decision you consider unreasonable. Soon, it’ll be his very rule."

The answer caught behind his teeth. She waited, leaving him to hear the attendant move at last, laying the cloth over the water creeping toward his sleeve.

"I would discuss it with him. As any man with something to contribute should be permitted to do."

"Until he agreed with you."

"You make cooperation sound sinister."

"Once you had secured the life you wanted, his authority would become an inconvenience. You would want him gone."

"That is an outrageous accusation!"

Edmund struck the table with his palm. His bowl jumped, and the attendant drew her hand away before he could hit hers.

"You would accept people with nothing to offer and turn away everything I can bring because you’ve decided I might disagree with him?"

"I will not give you a place in my son’s home from which to work against him."

"I have built businesses that support hundreds of thousands of livelihoods. You don’t get to dismiss that on a hunch!"

"But I do."

"Lady Ashborn, please-"

Vespera cut him off then and there. "The mana apocalypse began over ten years ago now. Relics like you and the other old men in suits have had ample time to accept that and adapt."

The assistant’s presence had become unbearable, but sending her away now would mean admitting how badly the woman on the phone had humiliated him.

"You think the future belongs to you?"

"I intend for my son to have one. I will not let poisonous snakes enter his court."

"You arrogant-"

"My offer still stands."

Edmund stopped with his hand braced against the table, unable to reconcile her words with everything she had just said.

"What offer?"

"You wished to bend the knee to my son. You may."

"You just refused me."

"I refused to admit you into the dungeon, but Eclipse does accept sponsors. We tolerate a few relics in suits who make themselves useful."

His assistant looked away as he sank against the back of his chair. On the table, the letter of rejection remained open beside his untouched food.

"You expect me to give him my life’s work?"

"You wanted to serve him, did you not? What is the purpose of this call?"

"And what would I receive?"

"You would die knowing your life’s work helped my son build a better future."

"..."

"And if you ever speak to my staff like that again, I’ll kill you."

Vespera ended the call.