The Insane Regressor: Throne of Pride

For a moment, Lysandra couldn’t find anything to say.

Ravian was talking about killing a man three whole ranks above him as though he were explaining some simple problem.

But she knew him well enough to recognize that he wasn’t boasting; he had never been that kind of man.

He was simply telling her what had happened.

"And after he died, the Taboo of Truth used his corpse as a vessel for her Descent," Ravian continued with complete coldness.

"You’re the reason Truth descended," Lysandra said, her eyes widening.

"I’m the reason she was given a path to descend," Ravian corrected her precisely. "But I didn’t summon her, and I had no idea she would descend if Robert died."

As he spoke, Ravian watched every detail of Lysandra’s body language.

Lysandra’s fingers tightened slightly at her side.

"And everyone who was inside the district?" she asked.

"I wasn’t the cause of that." He shook his head as he spoke.

The answer came at once.

"I didn’t go to that place to kill anyone, and I didn’t summon Truth, and I didn’t knowingly or willingly cause the deaths of the people living in that district," Ravian said, keeping his eyes fixed on hers. "Everything I did was an attempt to stay alive."

Lysandra watched him for a long while without saying a single word or taking her eyes off him. She simply looked at him in complete silence.

Then she nodded.

...She had believed him.

’Good.’ Ravian’s guess had been right, by the look of it.

"There were two traces inside that district," Lysandra said after a moment. "A trace of Truth’s Descent and a trace of a soul-core detonation."

Ravian didn’t answer.

"Was the second one yours?" she asked, her gaze strangely sharp this time.

Two full seconds passed.

Then Ravian opened his mouth.

"Yes."

Lysandra’s breathing changed noticeably this time.

Her eyes moved to his chest, as though she were trying to see the soul core inside his body with her own eyes.

"You detonated your own soul core?"

’That’s the first thing that comes to your mind?’ Internally, Ravian was badly shaken, though he didn’t let any of it show.

"I had no other path open to me," he said.

"That means you..." Lysandra faltered over the words.

She stopped before finishing the sentence.

Ravian answered her anyway.

"I nearly died there," Ravian said, and anyone looking closely would have seen his gaze tracking every reaction Lysandra showed.

He knew that what he was saying was dangerous, but if it worked...

Then he would have someone like Lysandra as an ally.

And if he caught a reaction or an intention he didn’t like...

Then he would simply kill himself and start the day over. But if the gamble paid off, the one who stood to gain the most from it would be Ravian.

Lysandra didn’t move.

The anger vanished from her eyes for a moment, and what took its place was something closer to disbelief and...

Fear?

"Don’t say something like that as if it were so simple," she said, unable to settle on any particular expression, leaving her with a flat one in the end.

"There’s no complicated way to say it," Ravian said. "My soul was all but wiped out, my body was partly destroyed, and the last thing I knew was that Truth was trying to do something to me before I lost consciousness."

"And then what?" Lysandra pressed.

"And then I woke up eight days later," Ravian said, and said not one word more than that.

"What? How?" Lysandra asked in a rush, obvious worry in her voice.

"I don’t know," Ravian said without hesitation.

Lysandra narrowed her eyes, but Ravian continued before she could accuse him of dodging.

"And this time, I’m not keeping the answer from you. I truly don’t know," he said. "Something rebuilt my body, but I don’t know what it was, why it happened, or whether it could happen again."

"Is there any trace of Truth left inside your soul?" Lysandra asked.

"Not as far as I can feel," Ravian answered calmly.

"That isn’t a reassuring answer."

"Because I don’t have a reassuring answer to give."

Lysandra stepped closer to him.

She placed two fingers on his wrist, then closed her eyes for a moment.

Fine threads of her soul power spread through his body, but she didn’t try to breach his core or delve into the depths of his soul.

She limited herself to examining the surface of his presence.

Ravian didn’t stop her. Nor did he need to. This was the decisive moment.

If he got it wrong, he would destroy everything he had built.

After several seconds, she opened her eyes and withdrew her hand.

"Your soul is strange," she said.

"I could have guessed that much on my own," Ravian said, turning his gaze away.

"But I can’t feel any echo of Truth," Lysandra told him.

"That’s good." He nodded.

"And it doesn’t mean you’re completely fine, either," she said.

"I never said I was completely fine in the first place," he said with a smile.

Lysandra paused at that answer.

He was being honest.

For the first time since their conversation had begun, he hadn’t tried to offer her reassurance he didn’t have.

"Does anyone else know you were inside the district?" Lysandra asked with a strange look in her eyes.

Ravian’s smile widened at that question.

"House Viola knows only that Rayan was somewhere nearby, but they don’t know that Rayan is Ravian," he answered. "And they don’t know what happened between me and Robert."

Lysandra nodded calmly, her gaze drifting slightly.

"Sir Karius," she said suddenly.

Ravian looked at her, waiting for her to finish what she was saying.

"He searched for you himself," Lysandra said. "And he didn’t stop after failing to find you in the forest right away. When the infiltrator’s trail turned up inside the fort, he and the fort commander issued a joint order sending us to the capital."

Ravian lowered his gaze a little.

He wasn’t surprised that Karius had searched for him, but he hadn’t expected the man to continue following his trail all the way to the capital.

It seemed Karius was rather more attached to him than he needed to be...

Then an old memory came crashing into his mind.

’You look so much like him.’ Isabelle had said that to Ravian once before, the first time she saw him with Karius, telling Ravian that he greatly resembled her brother Ariel in both temperament and appearance.

Ravian shook his head, not wanting to draw conclusions too soon, and decided to focus on what was in front of him.

"Are Malrik and the others all right?" he asked at last, changing the subject after achieving his initial objective of drawing Lysandra to his side through honesty, even if that honesty was incomplete.

Ravian knew perfectly well that Lysandra had a pride of her own exactly like his, even if it wasn’t of the same magnitude. And even if she saw the truth laid out before her as plainly as day, she would still guard it because the person standing before her had trusted her with it.

Ravian smiled, looking into her amber eyes.

And that was what he liked about her.

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