232 Intrigue (1/2)

But Li did not feel fear.

The table's attention noticeably shifted as they felt an intensity dawn upon the room.

A heavy, invisible weight, an aura that spread dread across the body, drawing out goosebumps and sending pricks all over the skin. It did not matter if they were a high vampire or lich, they felt the same aura just as strongly as the flesh and blood mortals.

”Papa, are you okay?” asked Tia from Li's lap. She tugged at his arm which rested at the table, spiked, black vines beginning to grow from the wood around it.

Li heard Tia's words and nodded, giving her a reassuring smile. The darkened vines receded, leaving the table occupied only by wreaths of healthy, welcoming green. The weight in the atmosphere faded, and it was as if everyone could begin to breathe again.

”Sorry, Tia, I was just remembering things. Unpleasant things,” said Li. He gave a knowing look to everyone around the table. ”Forgive me. I let my emotions bleed out, and now is not the time to let emotions rule over us.”

”A surprise, to be sure,” said Meld with a slow, wary nod. Her composure had cracked just a little, having been unprepared to deal with such a powerfully malevolent aura. ”I had never yet seen you to be so…expressive.”

”Ah, there is not much that can irk me. At the least, that is true when I am on my best days.” Li tapped the wood of the table with a finger in absent-minded gesture, some of his mind still wandering.

Wandering to a world choked in thick, dark smog. Smog that had been born out of the belching guts of countless engines and factories that ran without mercy. Smog that had been cursed with deadliness from the usage of nuclear weaponry. Cities covered in biodomes. Uninhabitable wastelands.

And more than even that was an image.

A deeply unpleasant image. One he liked to keep buried. An image on his screen. //BEAST// - Online 730 days ago. The sounds of an argument.

He took in a breath. Exhaled. Memories flowed out. The current situation around him flowed in. Emotions that had flared up, telling him to react and destroy, dimmed as rationality honed by divinity focused his mind.

”I have made a decision,” said Li. ”The Republic must fall, and if it will take my full might to erase it, then so be it. I had once thought myself a non-intervening party, someone that only laid low to do what he loved, but I have already made exceptions.

One more will not make a difference.”

”Do not be ridiculous,” said Li. ”I will admit it. Sometimes, I can be cruel. I can take lives. Toy with those weaker than me. I have no illusions about what I have done, nor do I have regrets, even in the times when my actions were out of my control.

But what I will say is I am no mass-murderer. I do not inscribe the sins of a few upon an entire people and raze them for it. I do not persecute on grounds out of the control of others.

I judge, and, I would like to think, I judge fairly. So no, the loss of life, I will try to minimize. I have come to see a greater purpose now in you, Cicero. You seek to topple the Republic, do you not? We will do that together, for I know you lack the power to accomplish it on your own terms.”

Li turned to Meld. ”And you, hero, what do you think about this? You do not trust me fully, do you? Will you report this back to your superiors?”

”Well,” said Meld as she gazed in Li's direction, her blank eyes staring at him somehow with a surprising intensity. ”Considering you thought to lay out your intentions bare in front of me, I should say you trust me. Somewhat.”

Her composure remained calm even as her next words flowed from her lips. ”And I should assume my life would be forfeit now were I to show the slightest suspicion in releasing this information.”

”Like I said, I judge, and I judge fairly,” said Li. ”You are here behind the duchess's back. You are not in your heroic uniform. Nor are you carrying your badge. And you have concealed your presence. It is difficult even for me to get a sense of where you are. Were you to slip away out of sight, there would be no other sense capable of tracking you.

You did not want to be seen by anyone, especially not the many troops affiliated with the duchess littering the streets.”

”A fair appraisal, and quite right,” said Meld. ”I will state my intentions bluntly. I do not trust the duchess.”

”And yet, you serve her,” remarked Sindra coldly. ”Served her while she let my people be enslaved and killed for decades.”