Throne Hunters Book 4, Chapter 15

There was an unintended consequence to equipping Nessa with both the Twilight Crown and the Aureate Master.

The intention had been to boost her critically low Ego score. At a mere 8, reflective, no doubt, of her cracked confidence and inability to wrest herself away from her angel dust habit, she was so painfully susceptible to the scarecrow mental blasts that just one attack might have killed her.

The Crown and Master would boost her confidence and will to a redoubtable 18, giving her the same rough immunity to those attacks as Harald had enjoyed—while bolstering her emotional and mental resilience.

All good things.

But the Disc of Hollow Watchers bestowed a +3 to Presence, alongside the Crown’s +5.

Resulting in a stunning bonus of +16 to Nessa’s already formidable natural score of 14.

Everybody was examining their new Artifacts, reading their new Window statuses, lost in their own thoughts of advancement and power when Nessa summoned the Twilight Crown to her brow, then activated the Aureate Master.

Harald’s stomach clenched, his mouth dried out, and his heart lurched in his chest as Nessa became something more.

It was as if the chamber in which they hid had become ephemeral, less real, somehow, than the woman who now stood in its center. Details became washed out. The presence of their other friends, from the gently snoring Kársek to Anna and Sam, became inconsequential.

Nessa’s beauty became perilous, her personality dominating the room, her allure unmistakable.  Harald couldn’t tear his eyes away. It was utterly fascinating—Nessa was still clad in the same worn and abused raiding armor, her black tresses tied carelessly back, her face marked by the exhaustion one night’s sleep hadn’t managed to erase—but where before such details humanized her, made her the Nessa he knew and cared for, now they were somehow irrelevant to her grandeur, her majesty.

“Oh wow,” whispered Sam.

Nessa gazed down at herself, turned her palms up briefly, then glanced about the room. When her gray eyes met Harald’s, he felt a shock run down his system, his whole body tensing as if in preparation for battle. He realized there and then that he would die for her, would willingly, gladly sacrifice himself in battle to ensure she came to no harm. A truth that had always been there, one that he held for all his friends, but suddenly it was urgent, pressing against the forefront of his mind, an active desire to save her, to rescue her from danger so that he might earn her regard, might—

Nessa took off the Crown, and the effect faded away rapidly.

Harald rubbed his face roughly, adjusted his pants diplomatically, and took a ragged breath.

“What just happened?” asked Kársek, who’d sat up in confusion. “Were we attacked?”

“Felt like it,” said Sam wryly. “I’ve never been so attracted to someone before.”

Nessa turned the crown about in her hands. “And I’ve never felt… such power. A taste, perhaps, of what nearly dropped Harald when he tried to wield the Crown and the Eclipse Edge before.”

Anna laughed shakily under breath. “Forget needing to dominate the heads of the six Houses. We should just march you into the Council Chamber so that they may happily throw themselves at your feet.”

Sam was blushing, Harald saw, and he realized that his own face was burning. Images had flickered through his mind, less carnal even than simply devotional. That desire to save her from danger—it had been all-consuming, even as he realized it a childhood dream of his that he’d harbored for his mother. A hope that a horrible bandit would break into their garden one afternoon, threaten their lives, and that he’d beat the bad man down with his wooden sword, earning his mother’s admiration.

“That…” His voice was a croak. “I’m going to be brutally honest here. I don’t know if I’ll be able to focus on combat with you wearing that thing.”

Then, to his surprise, he saw that Nessa was crying.

Tears had welled in her eyes as she continued to study the crow, had brimmed and were now running down her cheeks.

“Nessa?” Anna’s voice was soft. “Do you need a moment?”

“No.” Nessa inhaled sharply and raised her chin. “I… Harald? Can we talk?”

After-effects of her divine Presence caused his heart to race, but his own Ego of 26 mastered the impulse. “Sure. Step aside?”

Nessa led him down the narrow corridor right to the hidden door, the light of the lantern fading behind them so they were reduced to shadowy forms. Shadow Fortitude immediately began feeding him a trickle of energy, making him feel more lucid, more prepared for what might come.

“I…” Her voice was soft, broken. “When I put the Crown on, when I doubled it’s power with the Master. My Ego rose to 18.”

“Right?”

“I hadn’t realized that would…” She took a deep breath. “That would force me to gaze with… I don’t know, greater clarity? At my own life. My weaknesses. My…” She hesitated, looking for the right words, her whole manner exuding panicked helplessness. “Just all of me.”

“Ah.” A number of things revolved and fell into place like the innards of a lock. “I see.”

“Even now I find… I don’t even want to contemplate the…” Another ragged breath. “Look, I’m just going to put the Crown on so I can talk to you.”

“Sure.” Harald steeled himself as she raised the Artifact to her brow, and when it settled upon her head it was as if an oven door had been suddenly thrown open. He felt him will assaulted, his desire to drop to his knees before her growing by the moment, a sense of shock that he was so privileged to be able to stand this close to her, to call Nessa a friend, but by the gods, how had he resisted her at the Black Note all those nights ago, when she’d massaged him between the leg with her foot, when she’d offered to—

Harald summoned his will and crushed the rise of yearning and overwhelm. With methodical power he marshalled his own inner strength, and brought his yammering mind and suddenly shivering body to heel.

But her Presence was 30, six more than his Ego. It was a constant battle.

“There.” Her voice had grown calm, remote. “Everything seems so simple the moment I slip this on. The complications I make for myself. The excuses. My weaknesses. My coping strategies. Is that what you felt upon receiving your Demon Seed?”

Harald dry swallowed as he sought his voice. “I think so. Minus the, ah, divine levels of Presence you’re hitting me with right now. I… I rose to Ego 18. That’s what you’ve got, right?”

“Yes.” She sounded thoughtful, calm. “No wonder you acted so strangely. It’s as if one’s will is a source of light, and the more powerful it becomes, the weaker the shadows that drown us. Oh Harald. I’ve been so…”

Harald stood, fighting for self-possession, to be the friend she needed right now and not some mindless sycophant who’d rush to agree and comfort her at any opportunity.

“It’s not as if I’m more intelligent,” she mused. “I don’t suddenly understand human nature better. It’s just that I no longer need the crutches and blindfolds that I bound myself with before in order to survive. But Harald. Once I’ve seen through them like this, how can I go back?” Concern bled into her voice, subtle but with an undercurrent of rawness. “How can I dare to remove the Crown and lose this insight, this power of mind?”

“Then never take it off,” he said, trying to sound flippant. By the gods he wished Vic were here. “I wouldn’t mind.”

“This must be hard for you.” Her concern thrilled him. “Harald, I must tell you some things while I have this lucidity so that you can understand me, can help me, when I take the Crown off. My thoughts—I can’t bear to think of certain things, my memories are dangerous. They extend into the present because I’ve not yet faced them, so that it’s as if I walked surrounded by lethally barbed thornbushes at all times, bushes of my own creation, shadowy projections from my path that keep me from growing, from moving forward. A punishing labyrinth of illusions.”

“How… how can I help?”

“When I remove the Crown…” And she did so, taking it off her brow so that suddenly he could breathe again, his chest no longer tight, his mind expanding, his blood cooling abruptly. “Ah. That’s… oh by the angels, I’m so fucked up.” Pain contorted her voice, barely held at bay by barbed irony. “I know what I understood, I can think of it, summon the… truths?  About myself? But suddenly they lack all power to help me… no.”

And she replaced the Crown.

Harald’s head rocked back as if a wave had washed over him, a powerful current that he yearned to pull him under.

“There. By the angels, this is enough to drive one mad.” She stood in silent for a moment, and Harald was glad to simply be there, within touching distance of her.

But no. He was stronger than this. He wrestled his mind under submission. “You could spend some time just wearing it. Could allow its influence to help you figure these problems out. Maybe… maybe not around us—” Though leaving her presence was the last thing he wanted. “But… perhaps it could help you permanently, rearrange your thoughts… so that when you take it off…?”

“Perhaps. But so many things are clear now. Harald, I have to confront my past. I can’t run from it any longer. My father, Lord Cranock Ermarine, he’s still alive. Well, waiting to die, more accurately, in our country estate some thirty miles from Flutic. I have to face him.” Her voice quickened with surety. “I have to bring him to account for his abuses and manipulation.” Another sharp inhale. “Harald, I am the spitting image of my mother. Who died giving birth to me, and for whose death my father has blamed me for ever since I could understand language. He exalted me and loathed me and toward the end, when I began to enter puberty…”

Harald’s throat closed with horror.

“I would sneak away to learn the sword, at first I knew not why, but now I see it clearly: I knew that one day I would have to defend myself, and one night, I did.” Her voice had grown rushed, her tone panicked, as if even Ego 18 could barely keep the horror at bay. “His behavior toward me had grown… perverted, horrific, over that last year, but one night, when drunk, he tried to…”

Her voice quivered as she fell silent.

Harald wanted to comfort her, but was struck dumb by the combination of her power, his outrage, and the other unthinkable nature of her tale.

“But I fended him off with my sword. Cut him down the arm, and left him roaring as I fled into the streets. I never returned. Six months later I met Vic, and life, well, it took its own path.” Her voice eased as she moved past the memory of that night. “But… the damage he did to me. I can see it now. Obviously. It was so profound, he instilled in me a self-hatred, convinced me I was responsible for the death of Mother, and later, when I told myself that was ludicrous, I just couldn’t force myself to believe the truth.”

He could sense her shivering, shaking in the dark.

He wanted to reach for her, to pull her into a hug, but nothing had ever felt so perilous as touching her skin. If he did that, he didn’t think he’d be able to control himself.

By the angels and demons both, standing next to her right now was like being inches from an inferno. His emotions roiled and leaped, and he wanted nothing more than to quit the dungeon immediately, to fight their way through the Dungeon Plaza, to ride to this country estate and destroy this man who’d dared her, traumatize her, who’d so perverted the role of ‘father’ that he deserved nothing but complete hell for eternity—

“Everything has followed from there. My weakness. Hiding behind my strength with the blade. Only the fiddle and the sword have ever been truly mine, and I…” Her voice caught. “Harald. I won’t be able to talk of these things without the Crown, and will burn with shame when I think of what I’ve told you. When I remove it, don’t address this directly. I can’t face it. Instead…”

Harald waited, his vengeance-laden righteous indignation train of thought frozen by her trailing off.

“I can’t depend on Artifacts for my healing. I have to raise my self-esteem and will by myself. Already I can feel it happening, as I see now that our friendship, the Throne Hunters, my role as Delve Captain, has been earned. Is real.” She laughed, then, the sound bitter and heart breaking. “Did you know that right up till this moment I didn’t believe in your sincerity? Couldn’t let myself? And was closing up, like a house boarding all of its windows and doors, against the truth? I’ve been… so reduced. So quiet and cynical and terrified. Because if I believed I’d earned this all, then it would imply I was worthy of it, and if that were true, that would be a direct assault on my own feelings of terminal insufficiency, which would lead me to confront the pain that has so utterly destroyed my foundations…”

“You’ve earned all of this,” said Harald, and despite the effects of the Crown upon him, he felt the utter conviction behind his words as solid as granite. “Nessa, you are our Delve Captain, one of my best friends, an inspiration and a genius with the blade. I… I would die for you, with or without the Crown.”

Her fingertips brushed his cheek, and it was as if his skin burned.

“I know,” she whispered. “Do you think I’ve forgotten what you risked to rescue me from Wirmas?”

A flash of that Helm of Wrath-induced madness passed before his eyes, the hobgoblin bodies being torn apart as if by another’s hands—

“Harald, I love you.” Her voice trembled with a sudden excess of emotion. “I could never say that to you without the Crown, and even now, even with Ego 18, those words make me want to run away, to laugh, to—to pretend I’m joking, but I love you. Not as a brother, not as a lover, as… a true friend. Remember the night you stood by the front door and refused to let me search out a hit of angel dust?”

Harald nodded, heart pounding, pounding, those three words echoing like delirium in his head.

“I love you, and I love Vic, and I love Sam, even Kársek and Anna.” She laughed again, surprised. “It feels so good to say that. To open my heart. To allow myself to… to be vulnerable.” He could hear the tears in her voice, but the gladness there was so raw, so pained, so beautiful, that he couldn’t think of anything to say.

“Life is so short, and I’ve wasted so much if it trying to numb myself, to hide from my past, to distract myself from my wounds, to deny the beauty and goodness that has been around me.” He could barely make out her shaking her head. “To think I might have continued like that, forever, without these Artifacts. What a blessing they are. How unfair that everyone is denied their clarity.”

“You need to carve those words into your heart,” rasped Harald, forcing the words out. “I love you, Nessa.” Her overwhelming presence made it so easy to say, but so dangerous. He wanted to expound on the notion, elaborate for eternity how wonderful she was. “You are a true friend. Take off the Crown, remove the Master, and I’ll say it again and mean it even more. You are a true friend, and I love you.”

She bowed her head and he thought—he couldn’t be sure—hugged herself tight.

Helpless, still overwhelmed, dazed by lust and desire, an urge to protect her and worship her, Harald stood, helpless, till she leaned in and rested her brow against his shoulder.

Only then did he carefully, tentatively, wrap his arms around her, but so lightly, so cautiously, as if any real pressure might tip him over the edge.

“Life is so beautiful,” she whispered. “I thought it was ugly, but that’s not true. It’s the beauty that’s hard to bare, when one feels so much pain.”

Harald allowed himself to hold her a little tighter. “Pain can’t destroy beauty.”

“No, it can’t. But it can hide it. It can cause us to turn away.” She pulled back and wiped at her cheeks. “But I won’t hide any longer. I’ll try not to, at any rate. When I remove this Crown I know I’ll panic, but these realizations, they’ll stay with me. Maybe they won’t make sense, but I can always put on the Crown, can’t I?”

“For as long as we own it,” agreed Harald.

“For as long as we own it.” Nessa took a shuddery breath, then seemed to collect herself. “Well. When we emerge from the Dungeon, when we have a spare day, I will ride out to my country estate and confront my father.”

“I’ll ride with you if you’ll have me.”

Her hand found his own, her grip callused by years wielding the sword. “Of course. Thank you, Harald. For everything.”

They stood thus for a moment longer. “I’m going to remove the Crown,” she said at last. “I’m sure it won’t go well. Perhaps if you hold me tight, keep me with you here, I’ll be able to ride out the panic and horror.”

“Let’s do it,” he said.

She stepped into his arms even as she willed the Crown to disappear.

The second it was gone, her entire body tensed as if she’d been stabbed in the back.

Harald kept her close, his inflamed devotion losing its unnatural edge so that he returned to himself, to his love for Nessa, and to his joy, to his profound satisfaction, he confirmed to himself that everything he’d said to her, his every word, remained true without the Crown’s influence.

But now she stood frozen in his grasp like a forest bird cupped between one’s palms. Her breath was becoming shallower and quicker by the moment. “Harald, I’m fine. I’m just going to take some time to myself.”

“Hold in there,” he said, keeping his arms about her. “You asked me to hold you tight.”

“I’m fine, Harald. Let me go.”

“Put on the Crown and ask the same, and I will.”

And she did. The Crown materialized about her brow, and she sagged, the tension fleeing her body. “Oh fuck. Oh fuck, oh fuck oh fuck.”

The whole world had faded away again but for her within his arms.

“That was awful. I wanted to run and never stop. It was like a madness. Harald, I… I think for now I need to keep the Crown on. I’ll remain here, if necessary, while everyone prepares to head out. But I think I need to sit with these revelations in a place of control before I try and face them alone.”

“Sure. Whatever you need.”

They separated by mutual accord.

She laughed shakily. “Life. What a shitshow.”

“No kidding.” He grinned at her in the dark. “We’re going to need to figure out how to handle your Presence, though. Even with my 26 it’s hard to keep my thoughts straight.”

“I understand. I’ll think on it while you gather the others.”

Harald took a step back. “I’ll go get them. I won’t share what you said, just that… for now, you need to keep the Crown on while you figure some things out.”

“That’s fine. You can tell them I’m finally opening myself to many old wounds, and that it’s too much for me to handle without the Crown. I’ve nothing to hide from them.”

“All right.” He took another step back. “You going to be fine here waiting for us?”

Her words echoed her amusement. “Yes. Some alone time will allow me to go deep.”

He took a third step back, then, realizing he simply didn’t want to leave her due to her all-consuming Presence, he wrenched himself free and walked up the passage to their chamber.

Kársek, Anna, and Sam all were waiting, eyes wide.

“Is she…?” asked Sam.

“Remember how I was, when I emerged from the Dungeon?” Harald paused. “Actually, nobody saw the first few hours. I just wandered through the city in a daze. My mind was overcome with realizations as my will broke through old lies like a charging Plaza golem. It’s… it’s a lot. But I think it’s for the best, in the long run. Right now she can’t take off the Crown, because doing so causes her panic, but I think, in time, things will settle and find a new, better equilibrium.”

Everybody nodded gravely.

“We can wait here for as long as she needs,” said Kársek. “This healing is of paramount importance.”

“That’s true.” They didn’t need to go hunting right away. With the Disc of the Hollow Watchers and the Death’s Proxy brooch, they had time if they needed it, limited only by their provisions. “I’ll let her know we’re happy to wait till she’s ready.”

Anna’s expression was grave. “If she wants any of us to sit with her, to talk, or just listen, we’re willing. More than willing.”

“I’ll let her know.” And then, to his surprise, he found himself smiling. “By the angels, it’s as if she’s come back to life. All of her, even the parts that were laid to rest in the darkest recesses of her mind.” Tears burned in his eyes as a feeling of joy filled him. “This could be the best thing that’s ever happened to her.”

Sam took his hand and squeezed it. “We’ve all changed, we’ve all grown so much in the past few months.”

Anna’s laugh was surprised. “I can still barely believe that I’m down here with you all. And to be honest, I’d not have it any other way.”

Kársek stretched. “All good things.  Though if we’re to remain a while longer, I’ll resume catching up on my sleep. Notify me if I can help in anyway.”

“I’ll go tell Nessa,” said Harald.

“No, I’ll go.” Sam touched his arm. “My Ego is 20 when I equip the Eclipse. I’m sure I can sit with her for a spell without losing my mind.”

“I don’t know,” grinned Harald. “I saw you blushing before.”

She mock-glared at him and punched his shoulder. “Her suddenly impossible beauty and allure have absolutely nothing to do with my wanting to be with her.”

“Maybe we should tie a rope around your waist so we can haul you clear when you lose control,” smiled Anna.

“Countess!” Sam’s mock-indignation was undercut by her amusement. “Actually, not a bad idea.”

Harald chuckled wryly as Sam disappeared into the dark hallway, then glanced sidelong at Anna. “Now you know what raiding with the Throne Hunters is like.”

She crossed her arms and smiled in a bemused fashion as she watched Sam disappear. “I was clearly doing it wrong the first time round. This approach is far more rewarding, terrifying, and heart-warming.”

“Actually, since we have some time alone now, I was wanting to propose something.”

Anna turned to him, eyebrow arching, and despite her poise Harald thought he saw her breath catch. “Oh?”

He grinned and took up the Dawnblade from where it was propped against Nessa’s pack. “I’ve been wanting to test your skills. Up for a little practice?”

Anna blinked, then laughed. “I thought you’d never ask.” She drew her own blade, a slender, one-handed weapon, and cut it swiftly through the air with obvious skill. “I thought you’d never ask.”