Jackal Among Snakes

“Okay,” she nodded easily.

“You remember Mr. Butler? Bogart?” Argrave put his hands together. “I saved him. He’s the reason why everyone’s panicking, running about everywhere.”

Sophia went through uncountable emotions, and by the end of it all, only watched Argrave with her wide, uncertain red eyes.

“All that’s to say… your father doesn’t have power everywhere. I’m as much a king as he is, and I want to help you. But to do that, I have to understand things. Can you tell me about your brother?”

Sophia blinked her eyes and looked at the ground, then looked up suddenly in what looked like horrified revelation. “Then Sir Ghost… is King Charles? And you… you… came back from the dead to take revenge?”

Argrave smiled at her. “If that’s what you want, Sophia. But most of all… I want to help your brother, if I can—help him as I helped Bogart. And I think you’re the only one who can help me help him. Can you tell me his name? Can you tell me anything at all?”

Sophia played with her hands, and the hem of her red dress for a long time in quiet. Argrave waited patiently. “My big brother’s name is Griffin. He’s one hour older than me. He likes knights, swords, blueberries, and snow. He’s…” After she’d listed the mundane things, Argrave had little doubt that the more emotional memories were surfacing. What they did together, how they lived—their arguments, shared triumphs.

“He stopped daddy and the maids from punishing me when I made a mistake because I’m stupid,” she continued, suppressing her tears with practice a seven-year-old shouldn’t have. “And when daddy took us to the cellar, where those people were…” she started shivering badly. “Griffin did everything daddy wanted me to, because I couldn’t do it, because I’m a baby. Then, to punish me, daddy would leave me in the cells overnight, with all of the…” her eyes went distant, but Argrave got the image. Her father left her among the recently tortured—enduring their resentment, enduring the sight of their misery. To them, she was the daughter of the man that had tortured them. It would’ve been terrifying for anyone, let alone a small girl.

“My brother was going to be the best knight in the whole world, stronger than daddy, and he was going to make sure we never had to do anything we didn’t want to. But then the red knights came, a-a-and…” she trailed off as her shivering became more and more intense.

Argrave walked back over to Sophia and knelt down, tremendous guilt welling up from within for unearthing such memories. “You don’t have to say anymore, Sophia. I’m sorry,” he told her. “Your brother sounds like an amazing person. I’ll do my best to bring him back, just like Bogart. But you’ve got some things wrong.” He shook his head. “You’re not stupid at all. You’re one of the brightest girls I’ve met. And you’re no baby. You’re brave beyond imagining.”

Sophia started to cry, finally. She seemed to be very self-conscious about making any noise. Argrave tried to reach for a pillow on the couch to offer her, but she fell onto his arm. He hesitated for a moment, but he felt if anyone deserved it, Sophia did. He held the broken girl carefully, even as his mind danced with uncertainty.

There’s too many coincidences for me to idly dismiss things. The boundless power within Sophia. The looping of time, reconstructing herself and all else. And the very thing we came here for—Gerechtigkeit—has some connection to Sophia. I can’t very well ask the Heralds how they’re related to Gerechtigkeit, and I doubt Sophia knows anything. As for the Heralds… I don’t know how I’d find them, and given their power, I don’t know how I could compel them to speak. He considered the possibilities. Maybe Griffin became Gerechtigkeit. Maybe the Heralds made him—another endless trap to empower themselves, much like Sophia is. Argrave felt as though he was near the truth, yet not quite grasping it.

But there was another part of Argrave that sang a little louder than his caution. Even before all of this, the Alchemist had confirmed that Sophia and Gerechtigkeit were linked. Argrave saw the path that led to her freedom—all he’d need to do was get his companions on the other side in their proper place, and they could both be freed without a doubt. He wasn’t quite sure what that freedom entailed for this microcosm, but surely anything would be better than this. It was clear that Sophia hadn’t mastered—indeed, she wasn’t even aware—of her powers. If he got her out, they could spend their time answering the harder questions in safer lands, where people like Dario and Traugott couldn’t hope to reach.

Argrave couldn’t deny he’d become somewhat personally attached to the idea. Sophia, though born a princess, never truly had any adult to rely on. To be punished physically for the smallest infractions, to be exposed to the most heinous crimes of humanity, to have her mother killed by her own father… it was a wonder she hadn’t gone insane. He wanted to bring her to safety, to a better life, where they could parse through the truth of it all.

“S-sir Ghost said that you have to go!” Sophia realized with a start after she’d spent a good deal of time crying. “I’m sorry, Sir Ghost. I-I—" she began to stammer, but Argrave patted her head lightly.

“You’ve done nothing wrong. Never have. I’ve got all the time in the world right now, and I’ll figure things out. So…” Argrave rose to his feet. “Don’t you worry about a thing. Let me take care of it.”

#####

After talking with Sophia, Argrave wrote down a detailed list of his plans. It bothered him that he’d need to rewrite this every time he returned to the beginning of the loop, but at the same time, he did truly have all the time in the world. Or at the very least, a great deal of it.

Argrave got the first of many messages to his companions. And once he did, he realized the enormity of what he was doing.

The difference in their flow of time was frightening. Time advanced in intervals of five seconds for those he’d left behind, but for Argrave, every loop took three hours. A single minute for them was thirty-six hours for him. An hour was ninety days. Twenty-four hours was nearly six years. He doubted that his companions would be that incompetent to leave him stranded for six years, but at the same time the prospect was so haunting that Argrave didn’t dare calculate beyond the initial figures.

If Argrave harmed Sophia—truly harmed her, with the intent to kill—the loop might reset. But Argrave resolved himself never to do that. It was the least that she deserved, having put up with what she had.

Still, his explanation to them would take, at the bare minimum, sixty seconds. Even if they understood and obeyed him absolutely and immediately, they’d need to find exactly what he asked, and execute it perfectly. Five, ten minutes? Twenty? Either way, he’d undoubtedly be trapped in this little bubble for weeks—and not normal weeks, either, but one where he’d be conscious for all twenty-four hours in its seven days. He’d been fretting about lacking time to gather information, but the reality was that he should’ve been more concerned about how to fill up that time.

On the first couple runs, Argrave did his research. He went to each of the three power-mongers—the elder, the mayor, the silver-tongued priestess, and asked them all the questions he could muster. But the Heralds gave these cudgels of theirs no identity—they merely gave proof of power. They were crucial to the plan, and Argrave learned a great deal about them.

Thereafter, he learned everything about the castle and its denizens extremely intimately. He learned how to make people do what he wanted, or how to make them tick, or what drove them to be as they were. Even the king wasn’t immune to Argrave’s scrutiny. And his scrutiny confirmed something obvious—the king wasn’t mentally well. He made Orion look like the most well-adjusted human in the world, and he was sure Induen himself would’ve been a little taken aback by the depths of Norman’s deranged cruelty.

But after a point, Argrave realized he’d learned everything that he needed. The three power-mongers—he needed to gather them in the castle when the loop ended for his companions to deal with, but that one wasn’t as difficult as it sounded. His intimate grasp of the people within the castle made it all too easy for him to walk around like a second king, ordering people about. They took him for a secret servant of the king, obeying him absolutely. And that was an easy role for him to play.

While Argrave might scour the city, searching for vague answers about the Heralds from each and every ornery citizen… his endless treks through time not only frightened him, but enticed him. He kept his knowledge, his memories, but returned everything back to normal at the end. That was frightening, yes… but also a tremendous opportunity. What for?

Why, experience.

Argrave could practice what Castro had—shortening the casting time of spells. He could create new permutations of spells using segmentation. He had no new spells to learn, but he could simply make them. But most important of all, Argrave could finally deal with a fatal weakness of his—one that’d reared its head in the fight with Emperor Ji Meng.

Argrave stared at the Good King Norman as he walked out into the training hall, looking around curiously. Finally, the red-eyed man settled his gaze on Argrave.

“My servants told me of a man from the Heralds, come bearing a message,” the king said, walking up. “Yet you seem rather far from their kind. Spill your mind, or face a death unkind.”

Argrave smiled. “Congratulations, Good King Norman. You’ve won the lottery.”

The rhyming king didn’t answer right away—even the insane could grow confused. “What?”

“You’re a shitty father, but a good fighter. So, I’m going to kill two birds with one stone, you see. I’m going to fight you, time and time again, until I can put you down with ease.” His heart swirled with chaotic impulsiveness and sheer, unabashed nervousness as he stared this monstrous king down. “And once you die… well, I’d like to see what happens to this place. Maybe the truth will come out. I’m all out of leads, anyhow.”

Argrave was many things, but a fighter he was not. Castro had proven that. Argrave preferred to ambush and destroy in one fell swoop, but failing that, he was just a tall guy with a little too much magic. Things were moving beyond the point where ambushing would suffice. Even Emperor Ji Meng had nearly killed him hand-to-hand, and this was with divine artifacts and the Domain of Law empowering him to be at his peak. Now, however, he had the time to actually learn things. Who better than a terrifying conqueror with strength and skill enough to kill him many times over?

“My, my,” the king said in wonder as he walked in slowly. “I thought today was to be boring… yet it seems today I’ll be scoring. How very darling. Perhaps you’re worthy of adoring…”

Argrave could take one hit thanks to the Inerrant Cloak, and had long ago strengthened himself with the Domain of Law. He had tested shamanic magic, and it still functioned—he could teleport away. But death, torture—he didn’t care to experience either of those. If he did, perhaps he wouldn’t escape from this loop alive. Or sane.

With Good King Norman as his foe, death seemed a very real possibility. And that gave him incentive to give it his all. For the future, for Sophia, for Anneliese and everyone else he held dear—Argrave had to be more.

“This is long overdue. I’ll be putting you in your place, and making me worthy of mine,” Argrave called out.

“I love you more every second, darling.” King Norman smiled wide, and filled his chest with air.