Kronokai was a soldier—consumed whole—the understood best of Vysara’s men. He was the only she would allow to take her—the only she’d permit to be taken by her in willingness. He’d not a heart—nor a mind—only a cock to lead his path.

That was what she expected of her men.

She would make them all this way or see them dead in the stirrings of Synthesis. Kronokai’s lack of sensitivity was demeaned and revered amongst the women of Rheinmasst’s upper echelons in class. They’d seek this stud in visage of all their men—each purer than they’d ever presume, all the while lamenting every bit of everything.

Countess had seen all to understand that Woman was alone in godhood—to hold impossible cruelties of malicious and contrived standard which judged every man based on the trauma a civilization neither party had seen to create imparted on them all, and upon manhood in least addressed ways.

Men would often sacrifice themself the most for women of hierarchy—no matter the sex or gender or combination or lack thereof in charge. In cruelest societies they’d wear the badge of dishonor for unfair roles they’d be thrust into by privileged females they saw fit to show their feathers for by playing the most evil thing imaginable—an empty shell of emotion; some male to breed and disregard and torture and blame as their scapegoat.

What allowed Big K to make his name was compliant and perfectly honed ignorance. He was an artist of self-denial. As he’d led Echo through the lower levels of this static palace of eternal dark, she’d read this all plainly from his body language.

He’d like her better in his heart than Vysara and thought Echo still had a cock herself. The math being done was obvious to this woman from his stupefied and calculative, falsely confident demeanor embedded with increased flairs of masculinity he would presume her attracted to in a sumptuous delicacy of bleakest blindness.

The cisgendered women of Rheinmasst’s underclass were horrified of Echo by their own summation. She’d hardly needed to look.

Patterns of movement would flare and freeze in her peripheral vision and told tales. Heightened tightness in voice and unnecessary statements of superfluousness to those they’d have near spoke of insecurity. Echo was prettier than them and they could all tell Kronokai wanted to fuck her—that was her verdict.

She would be there in the middle—as always—wanting no part in any of it—trying to help them all as best she could to escape the grasp of their evil overlords while they’d resent her reflection of authenticity for existing in face of their own self determined death-grip onto the denial of their own complicity in everything around them.

People weren’t always the best at understanding themselves and Echo found it frustrating.

Her detective work had oft been thrown off by the layers beneath and below which would feel her home and everyone else’s nightmare, so they’d ignore. She would find peace in steering them by allowing release into her subconscious desire to ruin people’s feelings and letting it flow from her like tantric, disfigured grace.

With those like Kronokai it would work despite the incongruence of her understanding in their depravity. She’d been muttering something to herself no one but her would understand in any place Echo would stand again.

“I need a Watson.”

Echo convinced The Countess of a place she’d need to see below the surface. Thrice obfuscating her truest purpose. She spoke of the cellar furnace—its fiery design—the way she’d feel its beating biological heart ever tortured by the inferno. She told The Queen she’d wanted to see it. She’d allowed The Empress to believe themself in control until they actually were for a while.

They’d see through her layers—the top two.

She’d wanted to help the people and Vysara knew this. They’d respected it even if they would never allow it. There wasn’t a way to hide it any longer and by expressing this falsely told desire she was outing herself—Countess wasn’t fully in control.

Echo’s presumption was correct that they’d err to find deeper reasoning for her purpose in the direction of this furnace. Knowing it would pass the entertainment district of artists and sycophants that called to someone of her spirit, but moreso that she’d find there most interested others with a different flavor of genitalia.

Vysara was always projecting. It sent them on journeys of circular thought and Echo knew this one would surely end with their spiral at this point, seeking no truer meaning from this layered girl, finding revealed some delightfully devious need beneath the waves of her most hidden sea.

This would allow Kronokai to find unknown peace as she’d eventually split from him in the bazar with clearly stated intentions of blatant lie. She’d revealed them as if to a confidant—knowing it would confirm his instructions—begging for a personal defiance of Vysara he’d already been granted leave to permit—showcasing a chance for the man-boy to win her confidence and exemplify how cool he thought he was. He’d accepted as expected, failing more miserably than could be imagined.

Surprising depravity was unsurprising to Echo. He’d pretended it some great undertaking and added a halfhearted rejection as punctuation.

She’d placed a hand on his shoulder as he turned away and caught the break of a grin on the edge of his mouth before he’d shunned it and asked the sickest question imaginable—some blackmail demanded for her separation.

Echo found means to wipe the disgust from her face and agreed but would kill him instead when the time came.

This exchange proved undoubtedly frustrating to Kronokai—he’d not gotten what he wanted right then and the way she’d persisted showed reflection of what he felt inside and that seemed unfair—there was disgust in his heart toward the woman he now loved as he made way to take some filth off the street.

Echo Béleaph had truly come for the furnace.

Rory would be needed for saving the masses in Rheinmasst. Horus hadn’t even cared to try with Echo on the issue. He’d known her not fit to the task.

She was a healer’s healer—that was her path. The rest of the people would be lost to her givings of shits for how they’d transgress upon her always in ignorance and force her to figure out why she hated them all so goddamn much in retrospect by her broken need to understand.

It was really because she loved them all. She loved everything, and it broke her twice over, again and again to be made for feeling the opposite. It cursed her to curse others. It tore her into shreds and had her rebuild herself a warrior of a greater truth—her own—which included the ample and needed space for everyone else’s always, no matter how intimidated from trying to compete her attitude of challenge might enforce some dissuasion for other’s efforts to show through at the task.

She knew it would bring her the best alone and inspire others in time and prove her right for she was the best and most excellent and so was every other mother fucker.

Lion’s Heart—she would call this beasted heart of inferno as she stood beside Semblance and ignored the screams of those being cast into the pit around it from above—their guttural churls of belching from body as they disfigured in the white-bright, roiling coals of hyperchrome was unpleasant.

Semblance trailed behind in amazement of the ignorance displayed on their journey—seeing to mark the man, Kronokai, whose whispers to her sister she’d not heard but understood through sight and heart—finally carving space out of the spotlight would allow her the rest she’d need to integrate back. Ultimate judgement of the man would be for Ecatosh alone—now to be seen through on this target by Echo herself.

These echoes of each other would find fury beside another. Truth of purpose to burn like this upward reaching power of lightforce borne of destructive glory around a forsaken power of love.

They would wish to see it fall upon deserving targets—understanding their own perspectives only two in which would need to script the deed.

Like every challenge of civilization, the answer to justice was communal, there was no other solution to the question. She’d only been chosen to scream her part and that was clear. It was why she’d forsaken the love she held inside for challenge of herself in seeking purest and highest purpose.

Sin’s portal had proven a duplication. Understood this was. Echo saw herself through the passage beside Semblance, that very act which sealed them into this chronic form, and it brought her here to Rheinmasst where she’d use the tool they’d carried along; to deliver that final remaining bolt into the beating heart of evil inside all and release herself from falsely stated intention at last—surrendering to the will of Ecatosh in brutal fashion, and starting the chain reaction which would be the very reason Rory was summoned from sleep.

They’d a people to save and Echo needed help.

I’m embracing that I love the stylings of writers specifically like Gene Wolfe as I open Latro in the Mist, and accepting that my replacement for his literature and history and scholarly research is pop culture and my feelings.

‘Does spider-man point.’ ;D

Time Throws Fire | Part Eight | Chapter Forty-Eight

the second novel in The Foundry series

Time Throws Fire

Part Eight| Synthesis

Chapter Forty-Eight

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