Chapter 2415: Plan For It

The room had settled by the time Sylas finally stopped moving, with Cassarae stretched against one side of him while Nosphaleen had claimed the other and Xarvenya rested nearby with considerably more dignity than either of them.

The earlier heat had faded into a more soothing warmth, and neither one of them seemed particularly interested in pushing Sylas toward the next problem waiting outside.

It was Xarvenya who eventually broke the silence, though her tone remained calm enough that Sylas almost missed the weight behind the words. "That woman from before, the one who interfered with you in the World of Spirits... I think she may be the same person responsible for my brother’s death."

Sylas looked toward her.

Xarvenya didn’t elaborate immediately, instead staring toward the ceiling while sorting through memories that had long since stopped being simple grief. "The methods are different, but the feeling is the same, especially the way she interferes without properly appearing herself. Whoever moved against my brother preferred forcing events from the shadows as well."

Cassarae’s expression lost some of its laziness, while Nosphaleen remained quiet and watched Xarvenya from the side. Sylas considered the words, not for the possibility of truth, but for Xarvenya’s tone instead. It was trusting and vulnerable in a way he hadn’t seen from her since those events in the past.

He already knew that she was correct, he had already known of what she said, but that wasn’t the point.

"I’ll kill her eventually," Sylas replied.

Xarvenya turned her head toward him.

"You don’t need to worry about it."

There was no flourish to the words, nor any attempt to make them comforting, and that was probably why Xarvenya accepted them so easily. Her expression softened by the smallest degree before she nodded once, seemingly satisfied with the certainty rather than the promise itself.

Cassarae snorted from Sylas’ other side. "You really do have a strange way of reassuring people."

"It worked."

"It did," Xarvenya admitted.

...

Sylas stayed with them for a while longer before eventually leaving, and not long afterward he found his father sitting alone outside, looking out over the land surrounding their home.

Conversations between the two of them had never required much effort, but they were rare in a different way, usually interrupted by Isolde, Elara, some crisis, or Sylas disappearing into another part of the universe.

Cedric glanced toward him when he approached and smiled. "Your mother got to you too, didn’t she?"

Sylas sat beside him. "She thinks I should be home more."

"She’s right."

Sylas didn’t argue, and Cedric’s smile deepened slightly before his gaze returned to the distance. "You know, I had ambitions too when I was younger, not quite like yours, but enough that I could’ve spent my whole life chasing them if things had gone differently."

Sylas looked toward him.

"Then I met your mother." Cedric laughed under his breath, shaking his head. "Isolde would never have chosen a man who didn’t know how to sit down once in a while, and I wasn’t interested in finding out whether she was bluffing."

His father had chosen his mother over whatever greater heights he might have reached, and Sylas had never considered that choice strange when he looked back on their life before the Summoning.

Cedric and Isolde had both been successful enough to give their family almost anything they wanted, but they had never once treated success as something worth placing above the home they built.

"This is just my life now," Cedric continued, though there wasn’t any regret in the words. "I made that choice a long time ago, and I’d make it again."

His expression shifted after a moment, becoming more serious. "But the world is different now, and I don’t like that my son has to keep standing at the front every time something happens while I sit behind him."

Sylas remained silent.

Cedric looked at him and smiled before reaching over to pat his shoulder. "Don’t dim your light for my sake, not that you ever would. I made my choice a long time ago, but maybe it’s time I broke free of some of the choices that came with it."

He paused, then chuckled. "I can only hope your mother doesn’t hate me for it."

Sylas didn’t say much in response, but after leaving his father, he found himself thinking about the words more than he expected. Being trapped in that cult masquerading as a Guild probably hadn’t done much for Cedric’s spirit, especially when he was now surrounded by a universe that constantly reminded him how far behind he had fallen.

It sounded like his father wanted to start moving again, and Sylas didn’t see any reason to stop him.

His last visit of the day was to the Creation Tower, where Magnus remained buried in his own work and seemed perfectly content with the arrangement. His progress was going well enough that Sylas didn’t bother interrupting until his grandfather noticed him standing nearby and looked up with a broad smile.

"When are my great-grandchildren getting here?"

Sylas blinked once. "I don’t know."

Magnus frowned as though this answer offended him personally.

"The process could be faster or slower than normal depending on what they want," Sylas explained. "I have methods of doing either, but they seem to want to synchronize the births."

"All three?"

Sylas nodded. "None of them are showing yet, so I assume they’re waiting for something."

Magnus’ brows rose. "Waiting for what?"

"I have no idea." Sylas paused before adding, "Sometimes it feels like they expect me to bring another woman home, even though I have no intention of doing that."

Magnus stared at him for a moment before bursting into laughter, the sound carrying through the Creation Tower until Sylas’ expression flattened. It took his grandfather several seconds to calm himself enough to speak again.

"It’s harder to block a broken dam than it is to build one before the flood comes." Magnus wiped at one eye, still amused. "If you really don’t want more women, then you should probably be more conscious about it instead of treating the matter casually."

Sylas’ gaze narrowed slightly.

"Otherwise, whether you plan for it or not, more are probably going to appear."

Magnus returned to his work as though he had said nothing particularly important, but Sylas remained standing there for several seconds longer. For some reason, he couldn’t shake the feeling that his grandfather hadn’t been talking about women at all.