The Insane Regressor: Throne of Pride

"The infiltrator’s trail ended near the Ninth District, specifically at the mouth of the water passage, before that Taboo descended and everything vanished," Lysandra said. "And then a man with crimson eyes turned up inside the Eastern Grain Warehouse in a body that didn’t match his rank, and he moved in exactly the same way as someone I used to know," Lysandra continued, laying out one piece of information after another as she waited for any reaction from Ravian.

Ravian didn’t comment, and his expression didn’t change, as though he had already expected every bit of it.

Which bothered Lysandra all the more.

"And when I got close to him, his presence disappeared entirely," she continued. "It didn’t dim, it didn’t move away, and it didn’t blend into the presence of the people around him. It simply ended."

"I should have been more careful, apparently. You saw the color of my eyes," Ravian said at last with that same distinctive smile of his, as though he couldn’t have cared less about everything she’d just laid out.

Lysandra didn’t comment on what he’d said, nor on that provocative smile of his—not for the time being.

"Why did you run from me?" she asked quietly.

This time, Lysandra’s voice wasn’t angry.

It was lower than that, and heavier.

Ravian looked into her eyes before answering.

"Because if you called out my name in front of other people, the whole chain would be complete," Ravian said. "Ravian disappeared near the City of Light, an unidentified infiltrator escaped the fort afterward, his trail ended near the Ninth District, and then Ravian turned up alive with a different body after the disaster."

Lysandra didn’t need him to spell out what that added up to.

"I’d go from being a missing man to the prime suspect in a disaster that killed thousands of people," Ravian said.

"I didn’t put your name in my report," Lysandra said suddenly.

His gaze froze on her for a moment.

"What?"

"You heard me," Lysandra said. "I didn’t mention that the man I chased through the Eastern Grain Warehouse shared some of Ravian’s features, and I didn’t tell anyone that his presence vanished in front of me in the very same way yours vanished back at the fort."

Ravian stared at her in silence.

He hadn’t expected that.

He had assumed it would end with her reporting what she’d seen, driving the investigation deeper, and that would be that—exactly the way it would have gone with anyone else.

But Lysandra had buried the most important part herself and hadn’t prompted an investigation into him at all.

"Why?" he asked her.

"Because I didn’t know whether you were the person we’re looking for or one of the people we’re supposed to be saving," Lysandra answered. "And I wasn’t prepared to hand you over to the Empire on the strength of a suspicion I couldn’t prove."

Ravian continued looking at her.

"But don’t mistake my silence for blind trust," Lysandra continued. "I kept your name out of that report so that I could hear the truth from you, not so that I could help you hide it from everyone else."

Ravian nodded slowly.

"That’s more than I would ever have asked of you," he said.

Silence settled between them for several moments.

A man passed by at the end of the street, but he didn’t so much as glance at the two of them, and he continued on his way until he was far off.

Lysandra waited until he’d disappeared before turning back to Ravian.

"What happened in the Ninth District?"

Whatever remnants of humor had been left on Ravian’s face vanished.

He could have invented a story.

He could even have handed her a story with just enough truth in it to account for everything she already knew without revealing a single dangerous piece of the truth.

But if he did that after she’d admitted what she had buried for his sake... it would feel wrong.

Ravian felt a faint ache in his heart, and his eyes gleamed for an instant.

’This F*cking Pride,’ Ravian thought.

Pride was pushing back against his desire to lie in this particular moment because Ravian would feel like scum if he lied after what she had just done for him, even if she’d dressed it up to herself as nothing more than duty.

’No! I can’t tell her everything!’ Ravian forced Pride back down inside himself, if only partway.

"Robert found me after I entered the district," Ravian said at last. "He’d been investigating the fighting ring and the slave markets, and somehow that led him to investigate how I’d gotten into the capital."

Lysandra’s expression shifted slightly at the name.

"Inspector Robert?"

"Yes." Ravian nodded.

"He was one of those who disappeared inside the district," Lysandra said, placing a hand on her chin in thought.

"Because he was in there with me," Ravian said.

Lysandra’s entire body nearly jolted at his words.

"What?" she said.

"He knew I hadn’t come in through any gate, and he used an ability tied to Truth to expose one of my answers as a lie," Ravian said without taking his eyes off Lysandra. "And that was when I knew he wasn’t just an inspector."

"The Ambassador of Truth," Lysandra whispered.

"The Ambassador of Truth, as they call him," Ravian confirmed.

A heavy silence settled between them.

Lysandra had heard the official reports, and she knew that Robert had been tied to Truth, but she hadn’t known that Ravian had faced him directly.

"He tried to kill me," Ravian told her.

Lysandra’s eyes widened further with every word Ravian spoke.

"And what did you do?"

He looked her straight in the eye.

"I tricked him, and I killed him."

Lysandra didn’t blink for a full moment.

Even her breathing, which had remained steady from the moment the two of them left the manor, paused for one short beat.

"Robert was Seventh Rank," she said slowly.

"I know." Ravian nodded.

"And you’re Tenth Rank," Lysandra said.

She was reminding herself far more than she was reminding Ravian.

"I know that too." Ravian nodded again.

"...How did you kill him?"

"I buried a dagger in his heart," Ravian said with absolute calm.

He had just disclosed a catastrophe on the scale of the entire Empire as though it were worth nothing at all.

"A Seventh-Rank man doesn’t die that easily," Lysandra said in denial.

"He does, as far as I’m concerned," Ravian said. "Rank doesn’t change where the heart sits. It only makes reaching it harder."

"And I reached his heart... easily." Ravian shrugged indifferently, but his eyes gleamed with pride.

It looked as though the Ambassador of Truth had been worth no more in his eyes than an ant.

And that was partly true. Ravian had any number of plans that could have killed Robert with ease, but he had never found a reason to use them.

At least, that was how things stood until he saw the reward the System would hand him if he killed the man.

At that point, Robert had already been sentenced to death.

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