Niris fluttered his eyelids, not quite sure what was going on. He looked at the angel who had just entered, then asked again to be sure.
-Are you Lou? The last master of blades?"
The newcomer looked at the convalescent with amusement.
-This very one," she confirmed with a smile.
The prince frowned.
-Aren't you supposed to be... dead... a good hundred years ago?"
The swordmaster laughed at his most sincere remark. She was expecting a reaction like that, but not such a shock.
-That's what I thought too, but apparently other people had different plans for me," she replied, glancing at the Emperor. He was looking at her, his eyebrows furrowed.
-What do you mean he has to recover in three days?" she asked him suspiciously.
He looked like a wolf brooding over her cub, ready to tear apart the slightest intruder likely to pose any danger to it. The swordswoman sighed. She knew the fierce protective instinct of angels towards their offspring. The idea of having to confront the Emperor on this subject did not make her happy, but she knew that Aroslan was a wise man. He would know how to make the right decision if she presented it to him correctly.
-What I mean is that Niyari won't wait quietly for your son to recover before trying to regain control of his body," she replied. Now that she's done it once, the breach is created and it will be very easy for her to come back. I trapped her for a while with my energy when I was still in the Niris bracelet, but that won't last very long. By my reckoning, in three days' time, she'll have regained enough strength to take over your mind."
She finished her sentence with a look straight into the prince's eyes. Her yellow eyes iridescent with orange surprised him and he instinctively turned his head towards his father before returning to the young woman. She didn't look half his age when she died, and that was very disturbing for him.
-So what do you suggest?" continued Aroslan, who had not lost the thread of the conversation.
-I'm going to guide him to learn how to subdue Niyari's will," explained Lou. In the meantime, he'll need to regain as much of his natural energy as possible to be able to withstand the shock, and above all to be able to make Niyari's attempt at control more difficult. If she succeeds, I can't guarantee that I'll be able to get her back into her spiritual lair."
The line between the emperor's eyes intensified. He understood perfectly well what the master of blades was saying, but he refused to admit it. He refused to face the idea of seeing his son suffer yet again because of that damned demonic spirit. He refused to face his feelings of guilt again.
-How do you intend to do that?" he asked, like a child who needed confirmation of something he knew for a fact but asked anyway in the hope of hearing a different answer.
-Do you know any other method than the one you're thinking of?
Aroslan turned a worried gaze towards his son. He was already afraid of him, but he was still finding it very hard to accept. He was going to have to accept that he could no longer protect his son from the fate to which he had bound him long before he was born.
Niris, who understood nothing of what they were saying, cleared his throat before asking again.
-So... you've come back to life?"
This time Lou burst out laughing. The remark had taken her so much by surprise that she couldn't control the laughter that came over her.
-You could put it that way? she said, having regained her composure with great difficulty. Even if, technically, that's not exactly how it happened. In reality, I never really died."
This time, Niris looked at her with bewildered eyes. He felt as if he was hearing nonsense after nonsense.
-Don't look at me like that," lectured the angel who didn't like ignorant people. Death is a difficult concept to grasp. Some people will tell you that it's the disappearance of the soul and the body, others will tell you that it's the separation between the body and the spirit. In either case, you can say either that I was still alive until now, or that I am well and truly dead, even now.
The angel drank in her words, his mouth ajar with perplexity. He loved complex philosophical subjects, and this person standing in front of him seemed to be the most complex philosophical problem he had ever known.
-Shortly after sealing Niyarii by forcing her to take physical form, the situation became increasingly critical and I decided on my own to extinguish myself to prevent a war from taking place. I immersed myself in a sleep that leads to death within a few years, a method used by Aesthian warriors who were too proud to suffer defeat. It's called the Faesk method and is a painless process of voluntary death. In a few years' time, my mind was to have died out naturally as my heart gradually stopped, but my body was cryogenically frozen during the process. It took a while for the Council to find me, and my mind had already partially disconnected from my body. So they decided to complete the disconnection and keep my mind and body separate. My mind was trapped in that bracelet you had around your wrist
Attentive to his speech, Niris swallowed. There was nothing more fascinating than meeting someone who had almost experienced death before coming back.
-In other words, I no longer had any control over my body or any consciousness when this happened," she continued, pleased to see her pupil's attention. My body was cryogenically frozen by the Council and my mind was captured by your Empress of Egea at the time. Everyone had anticipated the future by preferring to keep me in pieces rather than let me go into the wild. But technically, the link between my body and my mind has been severed. So in a way, you can consider that I'm dead and that what you're looking at is just a zombie."
-Fascinating..." said Niris, amazed. But how did they manage to reconstitute you if the link was really severed?"
The Master of Blades smiled. She loved the quick-wittedness of her future apprentice.
-At the time, they had no idea. So they gambled everything on the future, and they were right. Cryonics was in its infancy but it made remarkable progress in the years that followed, keeping my body in remarkable condition and, above all, still alive! Incidentally, the Empress who sealed my spirit in this bracelet was a genius with seals. My spirit was remarkably preserved by her technique, which has endured without major change to this day. And your father and Jibaru are excellent masters of natural energy. It wasn't difficult for them to set up a reverse Faesk method and find an unstoppable method of linking my body to my mind."
She paused, savouring the effect of her story.
-As my body and mind are still of this world, I might as well be considered alive. Fascinating, isn't it?"
Lou finished with a flourish. Niris looked at his father with excitement. He absolutely wanted to know the way his father had worked out with Jibaru, the palace mage, to reconnect the mind and body of the last master of blades. His father sighed as he saw the stars in his son's eyes and gave in.
-We used an extremely advanced sealing technique combining necromancy and creative use. Basically, we transported Lou's spirit directly from the bracelet to her body by doubling the seals, i.e. we undid the seal on the bracelet at the same time as we did the seal on her body. In this way, her spirit was completely transferred without any loss. Once the seal was complete, his spirit was sealed in his body but not connected to it. So we recreated the link between the spirit and the body by using creative energy directly with the natural energy that was still circulating in his body to make the link as effective as possible, and we added a necromancy technique called Agash that can restore the souls of still living bodies. It consolidates the link we've recreated with the natural energy in case a rift appears."
-Wow," said Niris, admiringly. "That's really impressive! Did you two do that?"
The emperor smiled faintly. Indeed, it was a feat that they themselves had not thought possible until the moment they did it.
-Since when have you mastered necromancy? I thought you didn't like this art because it's too limited with the link between life and death", he questioned her, unable to hold back his questions any longer.
-Remember what I've always told you, you must always know about the things in our world, even if they don't attract us and sometimes repel us. The more knowledge you accumulate, the more you open up to the world and the better you understand it when you are destined to govern it. Knowledge is a form of wisdom, and there is no knowledge that deserves to be set aside on the pretext that it does not merit our attention. It is a form of judgment to refuse to know what others know differently from you."
Nris nodded vigorously, proud to have such a wise and open-minded father.
-This operation wasn't without its difficulties," intervened Lou, who brought the conversation back to a less cheerful subject. Your father gave an enormous amount of his energy to achieve this result and he was very weak. Besides, I haven't recovered all my power and I have to strengthen this link all the time. In reality, this is just the first step on a long road. We can't be sure of anything at this stage and anything could happen at any moment. We're walking on quicksand, but without the help of your father and Jibaru, that quicksand could have been a bottomless pit into which I could have fallen at any moment. They did a remarkable job.
Aroslan nodded, looking grim.
-What do you mean?" asked Niris, worried.
-We spent almost three weeks finding the best possible combination and putting the seal in place and then recreating the link took a total of nine consecutive days without a break."
-Nine days??? reacted Niris, who couldn't believe what he'd just heard. It's impossible to stay awake for that long and use natural energy for more than three days in a row! How did you manage such a feat?
-We called on the angels with the best energy connection in the country. They took it in turns for nine days to support our natural energy network throughout the operation. At the same time, we were on a constant drip feeding our bodies with sugar. The final constraint was rest. We had no choice but to turn to the sleeping fairies. With their illusion of sleep, they were able to trick our brains into thinking we were asleep while we were awake. Of course, by then our bodies were exhausted. I was bedridden for a week and now I have to replenish my natural energy, just like you."
Honestly, your father and Jibaru had a near-death experience," corrected Lou, who wanted the young prince to understand the seriousness of the situation. It was an extremely risky operation, even for energy manipulators of their caliber."
Aroslan bit his lip. He saw his son's anxious gaze land on him.
-Don't worry, Jibaru and I are both in good health," he tried to reassure him by holding his shoulder. I'll be back on my feet in no time!
Niris took his father's hand without saying a word. He was full of emotion inside. Since waking up, he had had so much information to digest that he didn't feel able to absorb anymore. Yet he had to. He knew he had to. This was only the beginning of a long, arduous, and painful road. His grief had only just begun, and he was going to have to get used to the fact that his loved ones could be put in danger by the mere fact of his existence.
-Why have done such a thing if it was so dangerous? Why not let the Master of Blades die in peace?" he asked in a small voice.
-Because our ancestors feared Niyari would return," his father admitted. Because I couldn't think of a better way to protect you and the intergalaxy. Niyari is once again a danger, and someone we thought dead has reappeared, more powerful than ever. There was no other way out if we wanted to avoid another war! Lou is the perfect person for that!."
He saw the look of fear in his son's eyes.
-I'm not powerful enough to protect you, Niris," he said in a voice that almost trembled, his eyes responding to his son's fear. Niyari isn't the demon of chaos and destruction for nothing. She is extremely dangerous, for you and for the intergalaxy. And Zorkiel... is totally unpredictable! That's why Lou was kept in the first place, and we agreed with the Council that it was time to bring her back. We had no other choice, otherwise, we would have acted differently, either for her or for you!"
Niris clasped his father's hand between his. Seeing the pain in his eyes and imagining the suffering he'd had to go through over the last two months. The situation was catastrophic, there was no denying it. He knew that there was more at stake here than just their lives. As his father had said, it was the peace of the intergalaxy that was at stake.
-Niris, the reason I was able to intervene against Zorkiel at Yerpena is because you are my descendant. Your mother was one of the last angels in my line, so I'm your ancestor through your mother. You are the heir to the line of the last Master of Blades.
She paused to make sure the young angel was listening carefully.
-We've agreed with the Council, with your father's consent, to pass my legacy on to you in due form. So I'm going to teach you the voice of the Master of Blades so that you can both control Niyari as we plant fragments in you, and fight Zorkiel when the time comes. You should know that as more fragments are implanted in you, Niyari will grow stronger and harder to control. The best way to control a demonic spirit is to learn how to use blades.
Niris nodded, trying to follow as best he could.
-So I'm going to make you my heir and give you the tools to master Niyari. I know I'm not leaving you much choice, but I'd still like you to give me your consent yourself. You have three days to think about it. You'll need to have made up your mind by the time we chain Niyari inside you. I know it's short notice, but time's running out."
She hesitated for a moment, then turned to the Emperor.
-I'm counting on you to explain to him what he has to do tomorrow to recover his natural energy," she said.
-Don't worry, it'll be done," replied the resigned emperor.
-Take care, Niris, and rest well," she said, heading for the door.
-Thank you," replied Niris deferentially.
This woman may have been undead, but she was nonetheless full of presence and exuded a certain aura.
-What did she want to talk about? What do I have to do tomorrow?" he asked once the master of blades had left.
-I'll explain everything tomorrow, you need to rest for now," said his father, stroking his head affectionately.
Niris nodded and let him rearrange the pillows around him. Then he remembered the letter given to him by the President of the AEMS. He opened his keychain and selected the little missive that appeared right in front of him.
-Here's a request from President Morgenson for an alliance from the AEMS," he said, pointing the little blue barrette at his father.
His father took it and put it in his own key ring.
-All right, I'll examine it later," he replied, without taking the time to open it.
There was silence for a moment and the two angels observed each other without saying a word. They were conveying a whole host of emotions in their eyes that they couldn't express because they felt so tired inside. They stayed like that for a while before Aroslan broke the silence.
-I'll leave you to rest," he said, rising to his feet. Get your strength back for tomorrow, I'll come and see you in the morning.
He gave him a tender smile as he pulled the blankets back into place.
-I'll tell Jabiru to come and see you too, he misses you terribly even if he won't admit it," he continued.
Niris returned his smile. The emperor stroked his hair one last time before turning back. He followed him with his eyes and kept his gaze riveted on the door after he had closed it behind him for a few moments longer.
He sighed and turned to look ahead. He suddenly felt very tired. He was about to bury himself in his sheet to sleep when his strange dream came back to him. He sat up and opened the palace's dematerialised library.
It was accessible to all angels anywhere at any time from their identity chip. It was one of the marvellous resources the angels had set up for their peers and one that Niris used regularly. This haven of knowledge was full of answers and often provided a solution to his questions.
He looked for the book he had in mind and opened it. It was a history of the ancient angels. He opened the search bar and typed "Irène de Mezara". The search engine took him straight to a chapter entitled "The Pamiltes dynasty, reign of the cursed queen (369 to 537 of our era)".
He opened it and began reading, but soon drifted off to sleep, unable to fight the drooping of his eyelids.