Orthos snorted. “A dragon,” he said, “does not back down from a challenge.”
7
Most of Mercy’s job didn’t involve the sacred arts. She was known as a representative of her family, and the closest to her mother that most people would ever get, so she was there to listen and reassure more than anything else.
She would never say so out loud, but she was better at listening and reassurance than any of her relatives who outranked her.
Even if Uncle Fury were still here, he was fundamentally incapable of listening to anything that sounded boring. Which meant most things. His version of reassurance was “Don’t worry, I’ll kill it!”
Aunt Charity was a great listener, but people tended to find her unnerving. It was rare that they walked away reassured rather than pressured.
Her mother…was another matter entirely.
There were Archlords and Overlords throughout the family that could perform this function, but it meant something different when the daughter of a Monarch received people personally.
She met a member of the Council of Moongrave and assured him that there would be no further damage to the city, and that the clan would cover expenses. She asked about his family and found that his youngest daughter had not only reached Lowgold but was showing great promise in applying her sacred arts to a fledgling delivery business.
Distant relatives who were only technically members of the Akura clan came to her with questions, but what they really wanted to know was that they had access to the head family. She answered their questions, heard their problems, and dropped in details about their situations to show that she was paying attention.
Local sects wanted to know the clan was backing them. Foreign emissaries from the Ninecloud Court and Dreadnought City complained that they hadn’t been able to contact their Monarchs. She even authorized the reallocation of resources to house and care for those who had been displaced by the Titan.
That much was fairly normal, but there were two things that everyone was worried about, and that made Mercy’s burden that much harder to carry.
For one thing, all the Dreadgods were awake at once. Most people didn’t know that they were more powerful or intelligent than usual, but all four hadn’t rampaged at the same time since the Dread War. That made people understandably upset, especially since everyone in the city had seen the Wandering Titan attempt to cross a portal to attack Moongrave.
That was the more immediate worry, but there was another disaster everyone had witnessed. They had all seen the sky go black and the world shake. Not everyone comprehended the battle in the heavens, and not everyone realized that the shattering of stars was a threat beyond Monarchs, but they had all seen it.
Some asked her if that had been the work of a fifth Dreadgod. Still others assumed Malice had sheathed the world in shadow because she was displeased with them, or because she was fighting with another Monarch.
Mercy met with everyone she could, staying vague about the cause of the incident, but spreading the word that her mother was personally keeping them safe.
Most of her visitors went away from her in good spirits, which pleased her. She preferred it when she could send people away happy.
But her own confidence was shaken when a messenger construct darted into her room in the form of a white hawk. It burst as it conveyed its message in a loud male voice.
“The Titan has changed course. It has not stayed to feed on the Tower. I repeat, the Wandering Titan has not remained in place to feed. It is marching due northwest. We project that it is on a straight-line course to Moongrave. I repeat…”
The messenger didn’t identify himself, but technically it wasn’t necessary. He was clearly one of the clan scouts they had left to observe the Titan’s movements.
Mercy made a mental note to find out which team had sent the message first and reward them, but it stayed in a distant corner of her mind. Most of her thoughts were buzzing.
She’d fought a weakened Titan, and she would hesitate before doing that again. Now it was coming here, to the city where she’d been born, with its full power.
Mercy called an end to her visitors for the day and deactivated the rune-lights in her office. The shutters slid down over the windows until she was in darkness. Shadow aura was strong here, and she had an easy time conjuring her Book of Eternal Night.
The construct floated in front of her as she flipped through its thick pages. The fifth page contained her Dream of Darkness, and she spent most of her training time immersing herself in the technique.
Which was kind of like bathing in nightmares, so she looked forward to mastering that technique so she could leave the page behind.