Void System: Every Heroine Makes Me Stronger

"That shouldn’t have come back with you."

The woman’s first words reached Severin before the warmth of the room did.

He kept the sword lowered and looked past her.

Pale stone enclosed a low table set with 2 simple seats, a glass carafe, and 2 cups. A broad arch opened deeper into the residence. The opposite wall had no door, and the floor under his boots held no trace of the black Hall that had released him.

The woman stood several steps away, upright and unhurried in an ivory gown. Golden-blonde hair fell over her shoulder. Clear green eyes moved from the blood on his blade to his face.

The gown left her collarbones bare. His attention caught there, then returned to her eyes.

"What came back with me?"

"I was hoping you could tell me." Her gaze settled on the sword again. "Your name?"

"Yours."

Her eyebrow rose. "You arrived in my rooms armed."

"And you know where your rooms are."

She waited. He gave her nothing else.

"Maerith," she said. "Goddess of Wisdom."

"Severin Morcant."

The title changed the danger. It didn’t tell him what she could do.

"Where am I?"

"My personal divine area. The Trial sends its survivor here."

"You expected someone."

"A candidate." Her eyes passed over his torn shirt, loose calf bandage, and the darkened edge of his sword. "Not this result."

He flexed his left hand once. The cut across his palm had nearly sealed, but the movement still pulled.

"How much did your Trial tell you?"

"That you survived all 5 stages. It recorded every change it made to you, not your thoughts."

"And the part it didn’t make?"

"That’s the problem."

Severin glanced through the empty inner arch, then at the blank wall opposite it.

"You made the Trial."

"Yes."

"Then start with why I’m here."

Maerith looked at the torn cloth over his right shoulder. "You’re thirsty."

"That wasn’t the question."

"No. It was the part I can answer without asking you to trust me."

She crossed to the table and poured water into both cups. Nothing glowed in the carafe or the glass. She drank from the nearer cup, then set it down.

Severin chose the nearer side of the table. From there, he could keep Maerith, the inner arch, and the opposite wall in view. He leaned the sword against the stone edge within reach of his right hand.

His palm hurt when he lifted the cup. He shifted the glass against his fingers and drank.

Cool water eased the scrape in his throat. It did nothing for the heaviness in his legs or the ache waiting beneath his right ribs.

Maerith stayed standing.

"My last clear memory was Earth," he said. "A bed. Then your Trial."

Her eyes sharpened slightly at the unfamiliar name.

"Did you take me?"

"The Trial did. I made it and gave it authority to choose a living candidate."

"From Earth."

"From any world it could lawfully reach. I didn’t choose Earth or you."

"Body and soul?"

"Yes."

He set the cup down before the tender line in his palm made him loosen it.

"Send me back."

Maerith took too long to answer.

"I don’t have a verified route."

The mattress shifted. The sheet dragged across my shin when she turned beside me.

The memory was gone almost at once. The weight of the empty cup remained under his hand.

"Not yet," he said, "or not at all?"

"I don’t know."

He watched her. The answer didn’t change.

His fingers tightened around the empty cup, then eased.

"Then show me what you do know."

Maerith moved around the table instead of answering. She stopped beside the pale stone where he had appeared and touched 2 fingers to the floor.

The room stayed ordinary around her. She looked at the stone, then at Severin, and for several heartbeats seemed to weigh both against something he couldn’t see.

When she straightened, her next words came more slowly.

"The Trial’s record is coherent," she said. "It selected you, moved your body and soul, tested you, and changed you. That chain is intact."

"But."

"Something joined you after the crossing began and before you woke in the first chamber. It has no origin in the Trial’s record. The Archetype System can’t place it, and I can’t open it."

Severin remembered cold stone under his back. Nothing before it.

"You can see when it joined me."

"I can narrow the interval. I can’t see the event."

"Could it have caused the crossing?"

"The Trial began moving you first." She paused. "Beyond that, I won’t pretend evidence I don’t have."

"Can you remove it?"

"No."

"Can you stop me from leaving?"

"If your actions give me reason to believe you’re a threat, I’ll try."

"What would count as reason?"

"What you choose to do. Not what I fail to classify."

Severin reached for the carafe. Pain tightened across his palm before his fingers closed around the handle.

Maerith took it first and refilled his cup. She didn’t mention the wound.

"It’s called the Void System," he said.

Her hand stopped above the table. "The Archetype System gave it that name?"

"It detected the name. It couldn’t give it a grade."

"What has it done?"

"Kept me alive."

"That tells me the result."

"It tells you the part I’m willing to trade."

A trace of amusement reached her eyes and vanished.

"You intend to ration every answer."

"You pulled me out of my world. You can inspect everything your Trial did, but not this. Handing you the rest for free would be stupid."

"You think I might take it."

"I think you might try." He lifted the refilled cup. "Those aren’t the same thing."

Maerith moved to the far side of the table and sat, leaving the inner arch in her sightline.

"Give me a boundary, then."

Severin watched the water settle before answering.

"It’s mine. It doesn’t answer to your System. I don’t know where it came from."

"Can it act without your choice?"

"Not that I’ve seen."

Maerith didn’t press the word seen.

"Then I won’t call it hostile because I lack a name for it."

"Generous."

"Accurate."

His attention stayed on her a little longer than the answer required.

"Why build a lethal Trial?" he asked. "What did you expect the survivor to do?"

"Learn what threatens the Material World. Then choose whether to oppose it."

"Choose."

"Yes."

"Not serve you."

"No." The answer came quickly enough to cut across the rest of his question. "A servant who can’t refuse me is useless for what comes next."

"Useful," Severin repeated.

"You prefer honest words."

"I prefer knowing the price."

Maerith rested her hand beside her untouched cup. "The price was a stranger’s life placed inside a Trial he never agreed to enter. I believed doing nothing would cost more lives. That belief doesn’t excuse what I did to you."

He had expected a defense. She didn’t give him one.

"What do you intend to do now?" she asked.

"Learn enough to make my own choice."

"From me."

"You’re the first person here with answers."

"And after that?"

His gaze moved over her once before returning to her eyes.

"I want what you know," he said. "I want you too."

Her answer came a breath late.

"Those are separate matters, Severin."

"I know."

He pushed the cup aside. "Start with the threat."

Maerith answered.

"Goddesses and Angels are forbidden to enter the Material World. If we carried our conflicts there in person, it would become our battlefield."

"But another Goddess found a way around it."

"Yes."

"And the Trial was your answer."

"A lawful countermeasure. It could choose, test, and bring back someone capable of acting where I can’t."

"Someone random."

"Someone free to refuse."

"Assuming they survived."

Maerith’s mouth tightened, but she didn’t look away. "Yes."

"Who broke the rule?"

"Her name is Varexia. Goddess of Destruction. She gave power to a ruler below, and the damage has already begun to-"

The wall opposite the inner arch bent inward.

Maerith was on her feet before the crack appeared.

A line opened in the pale stone, too dark to be shadow. It crawled from the floor toward the ceiling while the wall around it sank as though something on the far side were pressing a blade through soft metal.

Severin set the cup down and caught the sword with his right hand. The sudden turn woke the ache beneath his ribs. His left hand closed around the hilt beneath the right, and firm pressure bit across the nearly sealed cut in his palm.

No wind came through. No heat.

A chip of stone flaked loose beside the line and vanished before it reached the floor.

The inner arch remained empty.

The black seam widened. Red-black light showed through it, followed by the outline of a woman on the other side.

Maerith faced her.

"Varexia."

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