When Ian visited Euryphel a week later, it was during the day. He’d manifested when the Crowned Executor was in a meeting and had quickly fled into the wall, waiting to come out into the open when the former prince was alone.

“That meeting didn’t sound like it went very well,” Ian observed. He strode up and sat in a chair across from Euryphel’s bureau, his movements casual, though Euryphel detected a slight stiffness to them.

“That’s because it didn’t go very well,” Euryphel replied wryly. “The Kyeilans and Godorans have been difficult to wrangle since they capitulated. Under the federation’s rule, they have almost complete autonomy, but still they find reasons to complain.”

Ian raised his eyebrows. “And Selejo?”

“In contrast, Selejo has been easy to work with,” the prince admitted. “Zilverna culled Maria’s political rivals when their plot to seize control on the of Ari’s descent failed. Even so, he’s been more of a figurehead than proper ruler, deferring to advisers.”

“Maria’s advisers,” Ian said. “Like Kaiwen.” Whom Maria had been in contact with using the transmission artifact.

“Yes.” The former prince frowned. Over the course of their short interaction, Euryphel noticed that Ian’s eyes were lined by dark circles and that his face was sallow. With his Death affinity influencing the body, he should be able to subsist on minimal sleep for extended periods of time. “You look more haggard than usual.”

Ian chuckled mirthlessly and braced his hands behind his head. “Do I?”

Euryphel’s mouth flattened in concern. “What’s happened?”

Ian’s eyes looked toward the ceiling, tracing the patterns of the crown molding.

“Don’t make me question you in scenarios,” Euryphel grumbled softly. He didn’t think that it was anything too serious, but still wanted to know what was on the necromancer’s mind. “Come on.”

The necromancer took a deep breath. “Ancient Ash is knowledgeable and has the mind of a scientist. I’ve become his latest experiment.”

Euryphel waited a moment before speaking. “Can you please elaborate?”

Ian’s lips flattened into a thin line. “Can we take a walk first?”

Euryphel blinked. “Sure.”

Ian followed the former prince, evading detection by heeding the Regret practitioner’s warnings and strategically sheltering in the walls and furniture. By the former prince’s estimations, the walk wasn’t relaxing because the palace was filled with people to avoid. Even so, by the time they reached Euryphel’s personal salon and found themselves alone, they burst into laughter.

“I’ve never gone the long way before,” Ian admitted, still chuckling. It struck Euryphel as exaggerated, peculiar–yet another inconsistency with Ian’s normal demeanor.

Euryphel snorted, trying to remain casual despite his mounting concern. “I usually never go the long way, but you can’t go through my special doorways when you’re just a projection.” He walked over to the whiskey cabinet and pulled out a handle and two glasses. He poured one for himself and Ian using his wind elementalism.

Ian raised an eyebrow. “You know I can’t drink this.” He waved his hand through the glass and it passed straight through.

Euryphel shrugged and used his elementalism to clink his glass against Ian’s, the fluid threatening to go up over the lip. He grimaced at the almost-mess. “Using wind for everything is harder than it looks,” he commented.

Euryphel’s hands had limited motor ability, but he could still use them to hold an already-filled glass to his lips. After taking a sip of the whiskey, he gave Ian a hard look. “We’ve taken a walk, now talk.”

“I didn’t take you for a poet,” Ian joked, but it fell on deaf ears. Euryphel waited.

Ian averted his eyes again, then leaned back and covered his face with his arms, crossing them so his hands reached toward opposite shoulders.

Frustrated with Ian’s reticence, Euryphel entered a scenario and began to pepper him with pinpoint questions, hoping to tease out the best way to approach the conversation. First he wanted to ascertain how long it had been–from Ian’s perspective–since they’d last talked. “Have you been spending time in dilated planes?”

Ian was quiet for a second. “Yes.”

“How long ago did you last speak to me?”

“Not sure.”

“A long time or a short time?”

Ian sighed. “Define long or short.”

“More than a month is long,” Euryphel clarified.

“Long, then.” His arms still covered his face. Were he physically present, Euryphel’s wind elementalism would have been able to sense the contours of his face. Since Ian was a projection, Euryphel’s senses were limited to his eyesight. He could only discern that Ian’s jaw was tense.

“Is Maria still with you?”

“Sometimes. Ash does other things with her, pushes her in different ways.”

“And how does he push you?”

Ian shrugged.

“Does he push you by killing you, like Karanos?”

He laughed softly. “No, Ash’s methods are nothing like Karanos’s. He doesn’t kill me.”

There was a bite to his words that made Euryphel’s hair stand on end. He terminated the scenario and returned to the present.

“Tell me about your training with Ash,” Euryphel said, deciding to be direct. “I’ll know if you leave anything out.” The threat was empty, but Ian didn’t know that.

“Ash separated Maria and I early on since he made different curricula for us to go over.” It almost sounded like Ash were tutoring them in a university course. “He gives us breaks occasionally where we can see each other.”

Euryphel entered a scenario to interrupt. “Can’t you communicate over your bond? She’s your lich.”

Ian’s fists clenched. “He found a way to interfere with that. It was one of the first things he did.”

So Ian’s experienced prolong periods of either isolation, or at least time alone with this ascendant, Euryphel realized.

“And did you get the opportunity to call me during one of your breaks?” Euryphel asked.

Ian nodded. “It’s the longest one yet.” He trailed off and shuddered.

Euryphel snapped back to the present. “When you’re not on break, what does Ash have you do?”

“It depends. He has separate curricula for Beginning, End, Sun, and Remorse.”

“Affinities,” Euryphel murmured. “You said that Ash has more than two–that he’s achieved what most consider impossible.”

“Yes.” Ian removed his arms, revealing his face. He wore a serious expression, his jaw set. “He has four. And he’s experimenting with trying to awaken in me–and Maria–others.”

“And has it been working?” Euryphel asked. His entire body felt both electrified and tense. He really wasn’t sure what Ian’s answer would be, and he didn’t know whether his trepidation stemmed from Ian gaining an affinity or failing to do so.

Ian snorted. “Yeah.”

“As in, ‘yeah’, Ash’s methods have been working?”

“What do you think I meant?”

Blood pounded in Euryphel’s ears. “What affinity has made the most progress?”

“Which of my affinities after Death is highest? You should remember.”

The word tumbled from Euryphel’s mouth. “Remorse.”

Ian’s lips curved up. “We didn’t even start with Remorse since Ash doesn’t have a Remorse affinity. We only switched after wasting a week trying to develop my End affinity without results. Developing my affinity for Beginning during the day and Remorse at night–that’s been my life for the past who knows how long.”

“So you’re a Remorse practitioner now?” Euryphel almost entered a scenario just to collect his thoughts.

Ian shook his head. “By only the barest of margins. When I practice with Ash, I can get a small sense of his emotions and nothing more.”

Euryphel took a big sip of his whiskey. “Ian.”

“What.”

“You are in Eternity. You have all the time in the world to raise your affinity. You know that, right?”

“But I don’t have all the time in the world, Eury. Our world is doomed unless we take action soon.”

Euryphel narrowed his eyes. “You don’t need a Remorse affinity to save our world, Ian. You’re already plenty powerful.”

“I need to defeat Achemiss,” he protested.

“I thought you said that Ancient Ash would probably give a return beacon to you, so you wouldn’t need to rely on Karanos’s?”

Ian covered his face with his hands and leaned forward. “Ash he hasn’t mentioned anything like that, so who knows. Regardless, Achemiss wants our world to end to secure his immortality, so we won’t be safe unless he’s gone. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s somehow involved in our world gaining the Infinity Loop technology in the first place. He sure knew an awful lot about it when he first reached out to me in my dreams.”

Ian’s voice was starting to waver, as though the necromancer was on the verge of collapse.

“Ian, it’s okay,” Euryphel said slowly.

“No, it’s not. I’m trying to do the impossible but all Eternity has given me is a stupid dagger and a useless Remorse affinity that isn’t even high enough to use outside of nethereal energy confluence.”

Euryphel didn’t follow the last part of that sentence, but at this point understanding Ian was secondary to deescalating his mental state.

All Euryphel wanted to do in that moment was pull Ian into an embrace and tell him that he wasn’t alone, but Ian wasn’t really there. The executor gingerly deposited his drink and walked over to where Ian sat, sitting down on the floor. He crossed his legs and faced the other side of the room; Ian’s legs were on either side of him.

“Ian,” Euryphel said softly. “You’re not the only one trying to save our world.”

“I know.” He paused. “I wasn’t the only one trying to win the war against the Ho’ostar peninsula, either. But tell me, in the end, didn’t it all come down to me?

Euryphel didn’t have a good response for him. “It’s different now.”

“When we last spoke, you confided in me your difficulties and doubts with the Darkseers. It’s not different.” He took a deep breath. “Ash controlled his entire home world for years. Absolute control. If we could do something like that, maybe then we’d be able to excise all traces of the Infinity Loop. Coincident with the death of Achemiss, our world would be free to develop organically.”

Euryphel stiffened. “What Ash did was absurd.”

“What Ash did worked. Thousands of years later, his terrible deeds are reduced to legend and his world lives on. Ascendant Kuin said as much.”

Euryphel was only now realizing the depths of Ian’s desperation to find a solution at any price. “I see Maria’s influence upon you,” Euryphel grated. “She, too, exchanged people’s freedom for safety and comfort. But that’s no way for people to live.”

“I never said it was,” Ian remarked. “But impossible problems call for drastic solutions. Eury, I should probably go.”

Euryphel froze. His head whipped around to face Ian, peering up at the seated necromancer’s face. He saw a dark line that traced the line of his cheek from an eye to his lips–the trail of a teardrop. “Ian–wait.”

He would do anything, say anything to make Ian stay.

The Crowned Executor entered a scenario, then recursed, searching for the right words.

In the end he found them and sacrificed his integrity for love. “You’re right that our power isn’t enough.”

Ian blinked and nodded slowly.

“I want you to know that no matter what you do, regardless of the methods you employ, I’ll stand by you. Even if you descend into madness or do irredeemable deeds, you’ll never be alone–I promise.”

“Maria said that, too,” Ian whispered, “but it’s different. Hearing that from you…” He shuddered a sigh. “Eury, I feel so relieved.” He broke into silent sobs. His hands draped over Euryphel’s chest, just over the executor’s folded hands, and he stayed there, shaking, for a solid minute.

Euryphel said nothing. He’d already said too much.