Woven vines formed rudimentary clothes, a touch of my will and the barest whisper of divine command transformed it into rough fabric. Unfit for even the poorest of kings.

But not too humble for a Servus.

On the edges of my vision, I saw figures scrambling to kneel as I walked through the corridors of the apartment complex that I had set my former servant up in. Luxurious by the standards of most, but far less than what the servants and workers of even a minor Imperator noble’s household would be accustomed to.

It wasn’t a punishment for Livia, far from it, I had known early on as my legend climbed that it was best for her not to be an obvious weak point for me that others would exploit by harming her.

The door’s sign was marked.

My mind reached out to hijack the electronic mechanisms in the locking system before I thought better of it.

This was meant to be a farewell that I hoped in vain would go smoothly and without any guilt on my part. Best not to start the conversation by breaking into her home. Even if I technically owned it by being Governor until I left and literally owned it by my funds paying her rent and providing for her necessities.

I knocked twice, a quick rap of my knuckles against the door. I winced when paint flaked off and I saw dents where the finger joints had struck.

I could hear the sound of a ceramic bowl being set aside and the stainless steel utensil clattering around with the movement. It was hard, but I held as much of my senses back as possible. That had grown to be a challenge far more than the tricks I had been taught long ago by Antonias could so easily deal with.

Livia moved away from the door, back into a further room which confused me only until I heard the sound of a handheld weapon being loaded and the safety being taken off the gun.

Smart girl. I thought. Not that it would be any use against me.

I heard her pace to where I assumed the control panel for the door’s camera was and then the tapping sound of her fingers against the glass screen. Her heartbeat skyrocketed.

“Shit.” Livia said softly to herself.

When she finally opened the door to let me in, I was surprised to see how she had changed. Not in Rank or anything transcendent, but merely from the passage of time. We both had aged, but for some reason I hadn’t thought of her looking older either.

“Hello, Impy.” Livia said to me.

She didn’t look well. Dark circles around her eyes made her look almost like a raccoon and though she was dressed in expensive clothes they were unkempt. Her brown hair was untidy.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

Livia shrugged.

“Interesting times we live in.” She said, pointing to the screens in front of her apartment’s couch. The screens were showing scenes of the devastation caused by the clash of Golden Imperators.

I sighed.

“Yeah. You could say that.” I replied.

“So what’s up? Do I have to move to another apartment or a safehouse like the last time?” Livia asked.

“No. I came to tell you I’m leaving for Terra.” I said.

She groaned. “Alright, I’ll start packing my crap. Give me like an hour.”

“What I’m trying to say is that I came to say goodbye.” I said.

“Oh alright.” Livia said.

I was taken aback at how well she had taken it.

“When will you be back?” She said as she retrieved her bowl of what I could tell was some kind of seafood dish involving a lot of spices.

“Never, probably.” I said honestly.

Augustas liked his Golds to stay right at his side on the homeworld and if we weren’t smited by the heavens, I would be taking his place on the Dominium’s throne while he did whatever it was that Platinum Imperators found more valuable than what he was endowing to me.

The bowl of seafood dropped from her hands. I caught it with telekinesis and set it back on the counter of her kitchen.

“You’re what?” Livia said.

“I’m leaving permanently. I came to say goodbye.” I said.

“You’re just leaving me to rot here?” She said incredulously.

I looked around the apartment.

“Well, I’ll tell my replacement to give you a place that’s a bit more extravagant.” I said.

“That’s- that’s not the point at all. I don’t care about the stuff. I care that you’ve dragged me around, left me on my own on a world I had never lived on, and then now you’re kicking me to the curb?” Livia said.

“Well, I was kind of fighting wars and busy being dead and committing treason, I couldn’t bring you into a warzone unless you wanted to get sent to the realm of the dead long before I did.” I said.

“I didn’t mind before because you always came back for me eventually or physically couldn’t because you were murdered, but this is you actually just choosing to abandon me.” Livia protested.

“What do you want from me? To let you come into a fullscale bloodbath on Terra?”

“Yes! I want to go where you go.” I said.

I paused, thinking of her crush I had had to quash on Sunburst Station.

“Is this about lingering romantic feelings? I’ve told you before that I’m not interested.” I said awkwardly.

“You made that clear long ago. I don’t want to be with you, Adrias. I want to be you. I want you to make me like you.” Livia said.

“I can’t train you to be my equal.” I said, shrugging.

“Don’t train me. Remake me.” She said.

“That’s beyond me.” I said.

“You were transformed, Antonias was mutated, the Servi rebels were transmuted by Alchemy. Why not one more?” Livia argued.

“At least two and arguably all three of your examples are monsters now.” I said. I was self-aware, perhaps not as often as I should have, but I knew what I was. Glory rarely came without the gruesome, and the line between hero and villain depended mostly on who told the tale.

My errors could be just as potent as my successes, and that was reason enough to shoot her plea down.

“Livia, when I mess up, I really mess up. I know nothing of this process. The Regent made the ring that changed my Path, death itself corrupted Antonias, and I know no alchemy. You’re asking a sword to be a scalpel.” I said.

“I don’t care what shape the cutting tool takes so long as it still slices.” Livia said.

“You should care. You really should. Even with the care of a master surgeon, the sword disfigures where the scalpel merely scars.” I said.

“Do you know what I see when I look in the mirror?” She said.

“What?” I said.

“Weakness.” Livia said.

“Self-hatred won’t wash away what you are. Not alone.” I said.

“What did you see in your reflection when you still had brown in your eyes instead of violet?” Livia asked.

My eyes narrowed. I didn’t like to have that reminder of my past shoved directly into my face.

“I never hated myself.” I said.

“Oh?” She scoffed.

“I never let my birth define my self-identity. I felt only the desire to be more than the world expected of me.” I said.

“And after you cast off your lesser flesh to claim a borrowed one, how did you feel about what you were?” Livia said.

“It doesn’t matter to me. What is done is done.” I said. “Should a man weep because he once only had an infant’s strength? I feel nothing when I think of my origin.”

“Liar.” She said assuredly.

“Be careful who you call a liar.” I said. “You might not like the response.”

I nodded in the direction of the screens showing my fight with Nero and Vespasias. I was far too done with this damnable day to be polite.

“You won’t hurt me.” Livia said. “I know you.”

“People keep on saying they know me, and they all still don’t understand as much as they think they do. Even when they were stuck in my head.” I said.

“What?” She said, confused.

“It’s nothing.” I said, shaking my head. “Don’t worry about it. Why do you think I won’t hurt you? I am a god of destruction to these people.”

“We have history.” Livia said.

“I’m not afraid to cut people out of my life.” I said. “Pick a stronger reason.”

“I don’t think you’re cruel enough to kill me for insulting you.” Livia said.

I laughed bitterly.

“Mercy and I have been distant friends at the very best and close enemies more often than not. I am exactly what people whisper about me.” I said.

“You’re an animal to your adversaries and careless to bystanders, but I would be disappointed to learn that you’ve changed so much that you would kill an insect for words.” She said.

“You’re not an insect.” I said, taken aback. “Not to me.”

Livia suddenly looked as tired as I felt.

“I am an insect compared to you.” She said. “You just don’t remember what it’s like to be nothing.”

We lapsed into a dull silence, united by weariness and what remained of whatever tattered remains still existed of our friendship. Could one call it a friendship if you weren’t even sure you had been friends at all?

“I called you a liar,” Livia finally said. “And I still believe it, no matter how hard you deny it or whether you threaten me or not. Tell me the truth. How do you feel when you think of what you were?”

“Shame.” I finally said. “I’m ashamed that without my family’s murder that I would have lived and died having accomplished nothing at all. My name forgotten before my corpse turned fully to soil.”

“Imagine Adrias, imagine for the briefest moment what it would be like if you were in my place and you were constantly reminded of what you lacked by a superior being continually being in your life. A superior being who had once been as lowly as you.” Livia said.

“Even if I could make you into an Imperator or something like that, I’m leaving behind plenty of Imperators. Only Antonias has managed to follow my footsteps and be at my side. The others don’t have what it takes to seize triumph. And you don’t either.” I said bluntly.

“Your Impy friends have been left behind not because they lacked the opportunity but because they lacked hunger.” Livia said.

The word twisted around in my head, bringing with it dangerous associations in this context.

“Hunger for what?” I said, testing her.

“Freedom. Hunger for freedom.” Livia said, her eyes almost burning with something.

“And what is freedom?” I asked her.

“Freedom is being strong enough that no one can take your liberty away. Freedom is being able to take others’ liberty from them when they try for yours.” She said.

Eleutheromania. I thought.

Then I shook my head. A foolish train of thought.

“I’m sorry, but the answer is no. Whatever I augment you with will only amplify the weaknesses in the human heart.” I said. “Farewell-“

She pulled out a Keenknife, the incredibly sharp blade glinting in the soft light of her apartment’s lightbulbs. For a moment, I wondered incredulously if she was trying to threaten me of all people with a pocketknife.

“You know that won’t do anything to me.” I reasoned with her.

“It’s not for you.” Livia said, before turning its point towards her own chest.

“If you try to kill yourself, I’ll rip that out of your hand before your neurons fire.” I warned her.

“I’m not going to kill myself right now.” Livia said.

Her emotions felt truthful, I thought. I decided with morbid curiosity to see.

Livia calmly used the impossibly honed tool to deftly slice around her left side of her chest through her clothing, opening a cavity and severing internal connections, scarlet fluid pouring out.

Even as she pulled out her heart with her free hand, Livia’s expression never changed. Only her will and a Silver Servus’s tenacious ability to bear a master’s harshest beatings kept her standing without a heartbeat.

She held out the organ as an offering to me. Her arm remaining outstretched as her lungs repaired damage enough for her to speak clearly.

“If my heart is weak, I’ll cut it out so you can replace it with something better. Carve away everything that’s weak if you have to. I don’t care if you make me into a hero or a monster so long as I’m closer to being free.” Livia said.

“Even if the entity that emerges isn’t even really you anymore?” I asked.

“I wasn’t going to be me much longer anyways.” Livia said.

Dark implications were slithering around that sentence. Just as I had seen fire in her eyes at the thought of liberty, now I could see the despair that had been in the King of Heroes’s gaze the first time I spoke with him.

There were many routes ahead of me that I could choose to deal with this, but they all seemed to end in two ways, the first of which I could deal with and the second that I could not.

I picked the first and pushed the heart back into her gaping chest.

“Heal.” I ordered her body. “You have twenty minutes to pack.”

As I leaned against her wall, I noticed a strange wall hanging. Roughened wood like the sides of crate that had been crudely branded with a flaming heart, the symbol of Lucanism.