They came back to the mountain bearing news. The strategy had succeeded with the Sun-Striders though the win came at a price. The small group who had switched to the mirror had vanished within. Scouts indicated the flawless duplicate had collapsed inward and vanished after carrying the defectors along. They had vanished, probably to be inhabitants, in one of Vernia's carefully crafted displays.
Moreover the Queen's reply was not simply an intense repetition of the same. It represented a individual intensification.
A communication came through intended for Cassiathon, not the Compact. It was a well-crafted photo, brought by a tainted bird that turned to ash upon releasing it.
The picture depicted a dining area. It was cozy illuminated by candlelight. At the table were two individuals: a man and a woman with sharp eyes captured while laughing. They were his parents. The researchers from Project Phoenix. The photo dated back—prior to the collapse prior to the trial prior, to their demise.
On the side in graceful handwriting it read: A keepsake, flawlessly maintained. No sorrow. No absence. Only the joyous instant, eternally. This is the present I give. The conclusion of grief. The conclusion of remorse. Is the anguish of their absence truly worth the delight of the remembrance?
It struck him where it hurt most targeting the vulnerable human aspect of his being. It wasn't a proposal, for authority or tranquility. Rather it was a proposition to heal a intimate pain.
Cassiathon gazed at the picture for a period isolated in his room. He retained recollections of them that weren't mixed with the purple glow and the shrieking steel of the catastrophe.. Here they appeared, intact and joyful. Vernia was presenting him with an opportunity to reclaim that version of them kept in a preserved state. To exchange the painful reality, for a lovely flawless fiction.
The longing felt like a pain. To avoid being an orphan. To regain a fragment of his lost history.
He refrained from revealing the photo to Tania or his father. This decision was one he needed to reach within the solitude of his spirit. In one hand he gripped the orb his father had handed him—the emblem of a destined conclusion—and, in the other the warm deceitful picture.
The truth was pain. The lie was comfort.
He reflected on the Sun-Striders picking their imperfect society. He considered the Weaver labeling him a regulation. He recalled his statements, to Vernia: the chaotic unexpected happiness.
The happiness of his parents captured in that picture was genuine. Yet it was a single instant. An instant that sparked events, including their courageous ill-fated decision to become part of Project Phoenix aiming to rescue the planet. To isolate that instant and halt it to disconnect it from the sequence of causes and consequences that shaped their identity… would be to dishonor the decision that brought him into existence.
That would render their sacrifice pointless.
With a purposeful movement he allowed a slender strand of his grey death-energy to graze the edge of the photograph.
It. Burned nor rotted. It just... Erased the picture. The paper turned blank then disintegrated into dust.
He opted for the complex reality instead of the flawless soothing falsehood. He decided to bear the sorrow. It seemed like both a loss and a triumph.
He realized, with certainty that this was merely the initial strike, in a fresh campaign. The Queen had moved from ideology to personal combat. She would locate each anchor every person, every treasured recollection and present a flawless effortless choice.
She had stopped attempting to persuade him. Instead she aimed to dismantle him shattering one belief, after another.
And the next target, he feared, would not be a memory. It would be a person.