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"Hegemone," you say, "go. I'll be the one to stay."
The last keyward of Pandaemonium stares at you. It's just the two of you left, now. Some of the other warders have already died, as their magicks spiralled out of control. All of the others have obeyed Hegemone's order to leave, to lock up their prisoners and throw away the key.
It's the just two of you, and the looming specter of your parents, hanging over every conversation you've had with her since Lahabrea and Themis left for the last time.
She says, "I would have thought you'd be among the first to volunteer."
To spend your aether for the sake of the star. To take part on the creation of what you can't help but think will be your father's final masterwork, the god that will save the world, with Themis as its heart.
For once, you don't take it as a jab, an implication that sacrificing your life is all you're good for. At the moment, you're the envy of every other keyward, perhaps every person in the world.
After all, if you can't perform even the simplest of magicks, there's no way for them to go wrong, for the affliction over the land to turn your creations into monsters. It's left you with a strange sort of confidence. For the first time in your life, your disability is an asset.
Which is exactly the line of argument you've prepared, so you're unprepared for Hegemone to give in so easily. She just closes her eyes for a moment and mutters, "Like father, like son. I see that there is no changing your mind. Unfortunately, I cannot simply hand over the keys to you and leave. Lahabrea must be informed and approve the process."
You half-expected something like this. You just nod, stiffly, and say, "Then we'd better summon him."
----
Lahabrea looks even worse than he did the last time you saw him. Even if his soul is whole - and thank goodness for that, for the magicks the Convocation is crafting are something that requires every bit of his ability and attention. You can't imagine what would happen if half of him was still locked up in this prison.
He hears you out with an expression that you know for faint resentment for being called away from his more important work by this matter. But at length, he nods, and says, "Hegemone, you may go."
She hesitates, and Lahabrea continues, "I will join you momentarily. I simply want a private moment with my son, before the gates are sealed."
"Of course," Hegemone agrees, and her robes swish over the ground as she makes for the entrance.
And it's just the two of you.
"I won't disrespect you by asking if you're certain," Lahabrea says. "Though I'm certain that Elidibus will be disappointed that you won't at least attend the ceremony."
The ceremony. You see red for a moment, anger flashing through your blood.
"Call it what it is. The sacrifice," you snap. After a moment, when your anger crumbles the way it always does under his gaze, you add, "Themis and I have already spoken about it. I understand the Convocation's decision, and his commitment to doing his duty." After all - the both of you are equally committed; in many ways, you're doing the same thing. You know that whoever remains behind in Pandaemonium has little chance of survival. That you don't have magicks to go awry and cause the creations to break out is only a small point in your favor.
"But I can't agree with it," you finish. "So - we've already said our goodbyes."
And Themis and Lahabrea are the only people you have to say goodbye to. The third person - that trail went cold and disappeared. It stops at the knowing smile of Venat, the former Azem.
(When you met her, you understood, suddenly, why Themis was the first person in your life to see you as fully separate from your father. It was because he, too, lived under the shadow of a titan.)
Lahabrea narrows his eyes, just slightly. "Surely you haven't avowed yourself to Venat's faction."
The thing is, you don't think Venat is at all wrong, when she says that the god that will take shape from the sacrifice of half your people needs some form of limitation, to prevent things from spiralling too far in the other direction. The fact is that this plan, even if it is for the most selfless goal possible, reminds you far too much of your mother's more selfish ends.
(That's why you couldn't believe that Themis had agreed to it. Why the two of you couldn't see eye to eye, and why you parted ways.)
(He is Elidibus first, after all, even if he was Themis to you.)
But what you say is, "What opinion I might have about it doesn't matter. I'll be here, after all."
Lahabrea simply nods. He's wise enough to see that there's no way that the two of you will see eye to eye either, and that you've given him a way out of having to have that conversation, even if you said it sulkily as a child. He raises a hand, and you feel his careful concentrration as he pulls at the wards of Pandaemonium. It is a longer process than it was when he promoted Hegemone, because he is as at risk of having his magic spiral out of control as anyone, and so he takes extra care.
Finally, a crystal resolves itself into his hand. You reach out, and he passes it to you. The keys of Pandemonium. You say, "There is one other thing. It was my intention to leave a memory crystal, as a record, in the event of... As a failsafe."
"That is wise," Lahabrea agrees. There is respect in his expression, then.But that is no longer the thing you crave most in the world.
The forging of that crystal takes only moments, as well, and you tuck it into your pocket. And then there is very little to say except -
"When the world is righted, I will return for you," Lahabrea says. And you understand him well enough, now, to detect his backhanded way of admitting that he cares,. That he will come himself, rather than simply sending someone, to see what has become of you.
It's the closest he will come to acknowledging the possibility that you will not survive.
You say, "Then I'll be waiting," instead of goodbye.
Lahabrea nods, sharply even for him, and turns on his heel. You stay where you are, eyes alone moving as you watch his stride to the doors. For a moment, they open, and you can see Hegemone in silhouette, taking one last look at you.
Lahabrea does not look back. And then the doors close, shutting out that gap of light and outside air. And you feel more than you hear the moment that those magical doors lock.
And then it's just you, alone in the dark, with the monsters that, like you, your mother made.
----
You don't know how long it is, after that, but it isn't long. You don't feel reality stabilize. But what you do feel is the way it tears at the seams - Pandaemonium shakes around you, and something falls - the space twists -
Something shatters, into fourteen pieces.
In the collapsing extradimensional space, which takes that just a little bit longer to rend itself apart, you live only long enough to realize that the shattering thing is you.
And then -
(Where others flew, you already had to walk.)