Mother of Midnight

Chapter 198 – In Spite of all my Rage

Today, a Nexus Arbiter showed up.

Kivvy didn’t look up from her work, but her fingers twitched around the fine tools in her grip. She had heard about the fight Vivienne and Rava had against one of these things—that had been enough for her to never want to meet one in person. Yet here it was, standing in the workshop, watching, its presence like a weight pressing down on her shoulders.

She risked a glance toward the other sisters, their hands steady, their movements precise, as if nothing had changed. But she knew better. They had noticed too.

The Arbiter stood near the central workstations, its featureless mask betraying nothing. The light of the forge cast flickering shadows over its polished form, reflecting off the intricate etchings in its plating—symbols she had no desire to decipher. It said nothing, did nothing, only observed, but that was what made it worse.

She cursed internally, forcing her focus back on her task. She knew better than to speak out during work, especially now. Her hands remained steady as she soldered a delicate piece into place, the scent of burning metal mixing with the ever-present tang of oil and ash.

Her mind, however, was on something else entirely.

They had taken her firearm. Stolen her creation. And what had they done with it? Tried to dismantle it? Reverse-engineer it? Good. She hoped they had. She hoped they had tried to take it apart, study it, attempt to replicate it—because the moment they tried to, they were in for a very nasty surprise. She had made good on Vivienne’s idea.

A self-destroying mechanism, disguised as a failsafe. A flaw that would never appear until the weapon was pulled apart by anyone’s hands but her own. The very thought of it brought a sharp, satisfied smile to her lips. Brief. Fleeting.

But now? Now she was working on something new. Something better.

The pieces lay before her, innocuous to the untrained eye, but she knew what they would become. A firearm built not just to fight, but to win. Compact, lethal, and beyond anything they had ever seen. She had learned from her mistakes. They would not take this one from her.

Still, the Nexus Arbiter was a problem.

She would have to work around it.

Kivvy worked, day by day, her hands steady, her mind sharp. Every moment she could spare, every second when her master or the Nexus Arbiter wasn’t watching, she dedicated to her firearm. The days bled together in the workshop, indistinguishable from one another, the same mechanical motions, the same dull hum of machinery, the same choking heat of the forges. There was no sky here, no sun, no wind—only the endless rhythm of creation and control.

She wasn’t allowed to see the sky until she was transferred, whenever that might be. It was never her choice.

Gathering the aetheric crystals was the hardest part. She had to be careful. Precise. The crystals were rationed, accounted for. Each sister was given only what was necessary for their assigned tasks, and only their assigned tasks. If she was caught taking more than her share, even chipping away at the edges, there would be consequences.

So she made do. She learned how to make do.

She would feign mistakes, produce slightly flawed work just often enough to justify needing another crystal. She would pocket the smallest shards, fragments no one would bother reclaiming, and she would hide them. In the seams of her uniform, in the gaps between her workstation, beneath the panels of machinery long since broken and abandoned. Little by little, she collected.

Kivvy knew she was talented, even among her sisters. She had always known it. It was something she took pride in, the one thing she could claim as her own. She was faster, sharper, more precise. She understood the why of things, not just the how. But talent alone wouldn’t be enough.

Charging the firearm was a slow, agonizing process.

Her celestial aether was pitiful, barely a flicker compared to others. It had never been developed. Never allowed to be developed. Goblins weren’t meant to be strong. They weren’t meant to be powerful. They were designed to be capable of as little as possible outside of how they could assist in a laboratory or workshop. A cruel, deliberate limitation, woven into her very being.

A flaw, imposed from the moment of her creation.

It infuriated her.

But she refused to let it stop her.

Piece by piece, bit by bit, she fed the firearm. It wasn’t much, not yet, but it would grow. She would make it grow. And when it was ready, when the time came—

She would be ready too.

Vivienne snarled as the priest carved another piece of her essence away, pain searing through her like molten glass poured into raw wounds. The sensation should have dulled by now—she had suffered it enough times—but instead, it only sharpened her clarity. Her thoughts were no longer muddled, no longer sluggish with forced compliance.

Rage anchored her.

White-hot, seething, consuming—focused into something precise, something cruel.

They had wheeled Liora in again today, just as they had before, testing her reactions like she was some thing to be measured and studied. She gave them the same response every time, ensuring they continued their pathetic attempts to manipulate her. If it meant another glimpse of her daughter, she would let them think they had control.

But Kaelen was here now.

He stood on the other side of the barrier, watching her with those cold, detached eyes, the same way a butcher appraised livestock before the slaughter.

Vivienne wanted to break him.

She wanted to hear him scream.

Did he have a family? A wife? Children? People he loved?

If he did, she would take them from him.

She would carve them apart piece by piece while he watched, force him to see their terror, their agony—to know what it was like. She would eat his hands and legs first, slow, deliberate, making sure he was awake for every moment. She would show him the grotesque, wet ruin of his own flesh between her teeth.

Would he beg? Would he cry?

She wanted him to cry.

She wanted to dig her claws into his ribs, to pry him open and let him watch as she pulled his insides apart with the same clinical detachment he showed her now. She wanted to listen to him wail as she ground his bones into dust beneath her heel.

And when he was nothing but a wretched, broken thing, trembling and empty-eyed, she would lean in close, her voice a silken whisper in his ear.

"Does it hurt, darling?"

Let him feel powerless. Let him know.

Her lips curled back, a growl reverberating in her throat, but she held herself still. Not yet. Not yet.

She needed to wait.

Patience had never been one of her virtues, but rage had sharpened her, honed her into something colder, crueler—smarter. She couldn’t let it consume her yet. Not now.

Not while he was still here.

That angelic bastard, Zerathiel.

She didn’t know what he was, exactly. Not fully. But she knew he was faster, stronger—powerful in ways she couldn't yet counter. She had seen glimpses of it when he was near. Felt it in the air, thick with celestial weight, pressing down on her like an unseen force. If she fought him head-on, she would lose.

So she wouldn’t.

Not yet.

First, she needed to eat.

They underestimated her. The clergy, the priests, the acolytes—all of them.

They spoke around her as if she were some witless animal, some thrashing beast too broken to understand what was being said. As if she didn’t listen. As if she couldn’t remember.

But she did. She always did.

They let little details slip.

Who was traveling. Who would be gone for the night. Which rooms would be left unguarded. Where the bodies were kept. Why they needed her.

Tiny, careless scraps of information, insignificant on their own—but when woven together, they painted a picture.

And she studied it well.

She would wait for Zerathiel to leave. Not the first time they said it. Not the third or fourth. No, she would wait until they were so comfortable speaking around her that they forgot she was listening. Until they were convinced she was nothing but a caged thing, harmless in her confinement.

Only then would she move.

So she bided her time.

And in the stillness of the night, when the only souls awake were the acolytes shuffling through the halls, cleaning, murmuring to themselves, she tested the edges of her prison.

The aetheric bindings that held her pulsed with energy, shifting, adjusting whenever she pressed against them. They were designed to mend themselves if cracked, to absorb force and correct their own weaknesses.

But they didn’t need her full strength to break.

No, she only needed to find where to strike.

So she experimented, slow and methodical.

A gentle push, barely a whisper of force. The bindings shuddered and reformed.

A sharper press. They rippled, shifting, compensating.

She tilted her head, black eyes gleaming in the dim glow of her containment.

Interesting.

She would not rush. She would learn this cage, study it the way she had studied the voices of her captors.

And when the time came—when the foolish little priests were sure she could do nothing—she would tear free and leave with her daughter.

“The samples we have retrieved from both specimens have proven fruitful,” said a priestess—Uuna.

Vivienne had learned her name through overheard whispers and she was glad she had. That way she could sing her voice while she cut through that wretch’s flesh with her claws. The woman who watched her with cold, detached eyes..

“We are currently trialing a new conversion method, and so far, we have been successful!”

Kaelen nodded, barely sparing her a glance. “Good. I thought this thing would be useful. Is the barrier holding?”

Uuna dipped her head. “Yes. Sometimes it enters a rage state and causes extensive damage, but so long as we supply it with aether regularly, the damage repairs itself almost immediately.”

Vivienne curled her fingers, feeling the remnants of pain where they had taken their samples. They knew she was strong enough to shake her cage, to threaten its integrity, and yet they still thought themselves safe.

Fools.

Kaelen tilted his head, watching her with cold, scrutinizing eyes.

“It is strange—I was under the impression it was a thinking creature, one who could speak, but as far as I have seen, it hasn’t said a single word.”

Vivienne let out a slow, deliberate growl. Because I choose not to.

If they thought she was mindless, all the better. If they thought she was nothing but a slavering beast, a broken thing tamed by their cruelty, let them. It would make the moment she proved them wrong all the sweeter.

Uuna hummed. “It seems mindless, like all aetherbeasts. Though maybe it lost its mind at some point. The other one can be spoken to and is coherent, though its samples are less valuable.”

The other one.

Vivienne would kill anyone who touched her daughter.

“Likely because that one is a bit more mundane, despite being able to hold a conversation.” Kaelen’s lip curled faintly, as if amused. “This one is a champion.”

Uuna’s brows rose. “Is it?” She turned to regard Vivienne with renewed scrutiny. “It seems weak for a champion.”

Come in here and say that to my face.

Kaelen gave a sharp chuckle. “This thing wiped out half of the fortress city of Drakthar. Both sides took on tremendous losses. It was part of the reason we were able to take the city in the end.”

Vivienne went still.

She had no memory of that.

Blankness. A yawning void after—

After Rava died in her arms.

Her lips curled back, a snarl slipping free before she could stop it.

She had done that? She had wiped out half a city?

She wished she could remember.

Gods above, she missed that gruff, steady woman. The warmth of her presence. The solid, unwavering way she stood beside her.

And she would never see her again.

Not in this wretched life.

But I will mourn later, she told herself. I am busy plotting cruelty.

Kaelen and Uuna would suffer. Not just pain—pain was nothing. No, they would know terror. They would know the moment where they realized, too late, that they had made a fatal mistake. That they had sealed themselves in a cage with her, not around her.

She would find out if Kaelen had a family. A wife. A child.

If he did, she would make him watch as she peeled them apart, piece by trembling piece, just as he had done to her.

She would break him.

Uuna too.

But she would take her time with that one. That one deserved more than death.

"Then I wonder," Uuna mused, eyeing the reinforced barrier, "if this cage is sufficient."

There was no true concern in her voice, only mild curiosity, as if discussing a particularly troublesome test subject rather than a creature that had, by their own admission, wiped out half a city.

Kaelen, however, remained unconcerned. He waved a dismissive hand. "After Zerathiel subdued it, it lost much of its power. Without anything to feed on, it will stay caged."

Vivienne let the words sink in.

Her lips curled ever so slightly.

Fools.

Yes, she was hungry. Ravenous. A hunger deeper than flesh, deeper than aether. It gnawed at her bones, at the very core of her being. It was a craving beyond instinct, beyond reason—something old, something ancient.

But she did not feel weak.

No.

She felt stronger than ever.

Something inside her had cracked open, peeled back like flesh beneath a knife to reveal something vast, something that should not be seen.

They thought she was drained.

They thought she was less than she had been.

They could not feel what she did, the slow build, the shifting of something deep within her soul. 

Fools. All fools.

They would be lambs to the slaughter.

Protect the young mistress.

It was the first thought. The only thought. The thought that sat curled up in the hollowed-out spaces of her mind, whispering through the cracks in her being, needling through the warping joints and twisting limbs.

The golden thing had come. A towering figure of radiance and authority, something beyond her—above her. But above was not a place she understood. There was no above. No below. No sky. No ground. There was only the young mistress. There was only the task. The role. The purpose.

She had no power to stop it. No strength to tear into the glimmering thing and pull out the soft, screaming parts. She had tried, once. The memory skittered away like loose thread unraveling. It didn’t matter.

They wanted the young mistress. That was wrong.

So she ran. Not far. Never far. The young mistress was there, so Renzia was there, folded into the shadows, slipping between moments, watching with empty sockets that still somehow saw.

The young mistress stayed alive.

The young mistress would stay alive.

She whispered it to herself. Repeated it, over and over, like a mantra stitched into the fabric of her being. She clung to it, fingers grasping, scraping, tightening until the thought pulsed like a living thing inside her.

She would wait. She would lurk. She would watch.

Renzia followed. Silent. Unseen. A shadow stitched into the edges of the world.

The shining man led them forward, dragging her mistress into the maw of the enemy. The golden thing, the thing wrapped in radiance, in divinity, in wrongness. They took her. Tore her apart. Carved her into pieces, hacked away flesh and bone until nothing remained but scraps, then stuffed what was left into a cage.

Renzia twitched. Fingers flexed, curling and uncurling in jagged, unnatural motions. Her head tilted, neck creaking as if the joints inside were rusted shut.

They had taken her mistress.

But the young mistress still breathed.

So Renzia followed.

Moons passed. Time slithered forward, slow, heavy, dragging itself along. But it did not touch her. It did not see her.

She skulked in the dark, pressed herself into the gaps between sight and silence, melted into the corners where things were not meant to be.

Never did they see her. Not the priests, not the guards, not the golden thing.

Never did they catch the flicker of movement, the twitch of a limb just outside the reach of light, the distant creak of something shifting, something waiting.

She was there. Always.

Watching. Stalking.

Waiting.

She would save them. She would.

She followed them through the wilds, where trees stretched their skeletal arms toward the sky and the wind howled like a chorus of starving beasts. She followed them through the snow, where her footprints did not linger, where the cold bit and gnawed but never found purchase on her. She followed them into their towering city, a monolith of pale stone and forgotten sins, and something inside her stirred. Faint. Distant. A thread of recognition buried deep within the splintered labyrinth of her mind.

She did not stop.

She followed them through the iron gates, past the walls that loomed like silent sentinels, through the veins of the city that pulsed with life. She followed them into their church, a thing of reverence and rot, where prayers clung to the air like cobwebs, tangled with the scent of old stone and burning wax.

She watched. She waited. She learned.

And when they weren’t looking—when the veil of darkness wrapped itself around her, pressing close like an old friend, when silence settled like a thick, smothering fog—she followed them still.

Beneath their church, beneath their faith, beneath the weight of their sacred lies.

She slipped through the hidden passages, through halls carved into the bowels of the city, where the air was thick with damp and secrets whispered against the walls.

She followed.

Unseen.

Unheard.