The Ashbastion looked the same.
That was the first thing Ashen noticed as their convoy cleared the outer gate. Two years since the last invasion had been enough for the fortress to shed every visible scar; the walls rose with the same monolithic majesty they always had, as if being breached had been someone else's problem.
The soldiers on the ramparts carried themselves differently, though. A tension in the shoulders that hadn't been there before the day the wall came down.
Some things the stone kept even when it pretended otherwise.
He didn't linger on it. The group split at the inner courtyard without ceremony.
Seraphine squeezed his arm before heading toward the chapel district, her step lighter than the occasion warranted; that was simply how she moved. Alice went the other direction toward the administrative wing, already pulling documents from her satchel before she'd cleared the archway. Ashen watched them both go, then turned to what remained: Lucia and Sabrina.
"Let's go."
***
He turned the upcoming meeting over in his head while they walked.
The logical play was Lucia. She could sell anything to anyone; her tongue worked like a precision instrument, and Cornelia was exactly the target she could dismantle from the inside out before the woman noticed. By the time the Sin Lord realized what she'd agreed to, the ink would already be dry.
That was also the problem.
He wanted Cornelia as a real ally; a genuine one. Duping her into a short-term agreement would win this meeting and poison everyone after. She was too sharp for anything less than the truth to hold, and too proud to forgive being handled.
More than that, his instinct said to be straight with her, and he had learned to trust that particular instinct.
So here he was, walking toward the one conversation that had every logical reason to go badly.
*
Cornelia was on the sofa when they entered.
She lay across it diagonally, red hair spilling over the armrest, one leg crossed over the other, a wine glass balanced between two fingers. The room was her office; papers were stacked neatly on the desk behind her, orderly and ignored.
The sofa was where she'd chosen to receive them.
She looked at Ashen with an unhurried appraisal, red eyes moving over him, and then narrowed.
"Was it the Saintess this time?" she asked. "Swept away on another honeymoon, little heartstealer?" Her gaze settled. "Or maybe not so little anymore. You've gotten stronger."
"Commander." Ashen smiled without addressing either observation. "Good to see you well. You look as elegant as always."
She didn't press him on where he'd been for a year. He'd half-expected her to. Instead, she gestured toward the opposing sofa, and he and Lucia settled into it. Cornelia's gaze drifted past them to Sabrina, who had taken her position behind her master.
"Little sis." Her voice turned warmer. "Long time no see. Don't you miss me? Come here."
Sabrina didn't move immediately. Her eyes went to Ashen first in a brief, unhurried check.
Cornelia watched without comment. She had designed that loyalty herself; complaining about it now would be irrational.
Ashen gave a slight nod. Sabrina crossed the room and settled beside Cornelia on the sofa, and Cornelia swept her into a thorough embrace without preamble.
"You're staying here for the rest of the meeting, you cute doll."
"...I still have to serve my master refreshments."
"I'll do it myself."
The wine bottle resting on the side table lifted on its own. A cup slid from the compartment in the wall and settled in front of Ashen and Lucia; the bottle tilted and filled it. Ashen lifted the cup, took a sip, and passed it to Lucia, who drank from it as well.
"Thank you."
"You're welcome." The faint tension from the opening exchange had gone out of Cornelia's shoulders. She looked satisfied. "I'm in a good mood after seeing this little girl in such high spirits. Ask whatever you came to ask. As long as it isn't outrageous, I'm willing to grant it."
Ashen smiled, a little bitterly, and said nothing for a moment. He knew better than anyone how "outrageous" his current demands were.
'Well. Here goes nothing.'
"I came here for an alliance."
Cornelia tilted her head. "Aren't we fairly allied already? Or am I missing something here." Her hand moved through Sabrina's hair at a slow, absentminded pace. "I wouldn't lend this one to just anyone, for the record."
"We are. And I think of you as more than an ally; closer to a friend." He meant it. He had counted her efforts during his trial; he had counted the Pit, and every obstacle she'd quietly absorbed on his behalf without making it a transaction. Whatever happened today, she had earned that much honesty from him. "What I'm asking for is something more specific."
"Then be specific."
As Ashen racked his brain for a way to gently breach the subject, Lucia silently offered the cup of wine back to him from where she sat cross-legged at his side.
It wasn't that she didn't want to help; he had been the one to instruct her to only observe.
Ashen took a sip and gave her a grateful smile before smoothing his expression once more.
"Before I explain what kind of alliance I had in mind, I need to ask you something first. It matters for the rest of this conversation."
"Ask."
"...How long have you held this frontline, commander?"
"More than two hundred years," she answered in a heartbeat.
"Two hundred years." He let the number sit between them. "In all that time, you held these walls. Denied those monsters entry every time they came. Even when they arrived in the millions."
"That is so."
"Even when they came in the billions, the Bloodwall held them. Every time it rained, every time you despaired or rejoiced; the duty never stopped."
"Yes." Her voice stayed even. "It's an eternal chore. I see no way out of it myself. When I die, the next Wrath Sin Lord holds the line; same as my predecessor held it, same as the one before him."
"That's admirable." He kept his voice soft. "To give your life to a single duty. Not many could carry that." A beat. "But is it really the only way?"
Cornelia said nothing.
"I'm sure you've thought about it. You've had two hundred years to think about everything."
"..."
Ssssttt—
"What are your thoughts about counter—"
"Shut up."
The word didn't come from Cornelia's mouth.
It came from everywhere at once.
Darkness swallowed the room. When Ashen's vision adjusted, two red points hung before him; enormous and motionless. He expanded his awareness and understood. They were eyes. Pupils belonging to something vast that had taken the shape of a wolf, and the wolf looked down at him with a wrath so old it felt geological.
'...Was I wrong?'
He held still. The pressure came from outside and within simultaneously; outside from the manifestation's sheer presence, within from something he hadn't expected to feel.
'Even you don't understand?'
The bitterness came before he could stop it.
'Why? The picture is clear. How can you look at two hundred years of this and not see that staying put just delays the same end?'
"WHY!!!"
His own voice surprised him. It came from somewhere below thought.
"Are you content with only this, Cornelia?!"
"You of all people should know it best. You've seen it. You see it every day!"
"Your life is a prison! A watchdog chained to a dying wall! Every dawn, another corpse! Every night, another scream! Your fortress crumbling stone by stone, your army butchered man by man, your people praying for salvation that never comes!"
"And still you stand here! Still you bleed for them! Still you throw yourself into that abyss knowing full well it will never end!"
"Your blood will soak these same stones, your bones will rot beneath this citadel, and when you die, another will come and take your place; bound to the same damned wall, to the same endless slaughter!"
The darkness dissolved.
The room returned. The sofa, the wine, the papers on the desk behind her. Lucia had not moved; she sat with her hands in her lap, watching. Sabrina's expression had not changed, though her body was enveloped in unnatural stillness.
Ashen found himself standing over Cornelia. He hadn't remembered rising. His jaw was tight, and his eyes burned with rage eerily reminiscent of the wolf that had just gazed down at him.
"You know all of this." He forced the volume down. "So tell me, Cornelia Arde. Am I really wrong to reach out to you?"
She looked at him. Her expression gave nothing away.
"Are you the same as them? A coward numbed by fear and lulled by false peace?" He held her gaze. "Or is the real you that warrior?"
"Are you brave enough to strike back at those beasts that took so much from you? Mad enough to take this hand and drag this whole race into bloody revenge?"
He raised his hand between them, palm open.
"Or are you a toothless wolf that doesn't dare to bite back?"
Cornelia looked at the hand.
Then she lowered her head, and her hair fell over her face. Her shoulders rose. Rose again. Her grip on Sabrina's sleeve tightened slightly, then released.
"Pf—"
He blinked.
"Pfft! Hahahaahahahahaaha!!!!"
Her head snapped back as the laughter took over; full, melodious, helpless. It had been sitting in her chest for a long time, and it went on for nearly a minute. Ashen kept his hand where it was. Lucia's gaze moved between them once, her thoughts unknown.
Eventually, Cornelia looked straight at him, reached up, and caught his hand in a grip harder than he'd expected.
"Finally~ …I still can't believe it," she said while steadying her breath. "The thing I'd been waiting for was right beside me all along, yet I was too blind to see it."
"Why did you only come now? Do you have any idea how long I've been waiting? Haaah~"
She wildly grinned, and her grip tightened even further.
"What you just said. If it was a performance, if you're trying to impress me, get something out of me, or play some game; now is your last chance."
Her lips curved.
"After this, if I find out it was just the barking of an ignorant man... I might get disappointed." A pause. "So disappointed I'd have no choice but to kill you. Slowly, bit by bit, until my wronged soul is soothed. Do you understand?"
"Impress you?" Ashen's eyes didn't waver. "What I've set my mind to, I'll do with or without you. You're a convenience; never a necessity."
Cornelia's smile widened. "How bold. I don't dislike that."
He let the air settle. The harder words were done now; she'd taken his hand, and that changed the register of everything after. He kept his voice steady.
"What I wanted to say, Miss Cornelia, is simple. Defending is just prolonging the end. I'm sure you've felt that all the way to your bones."
"Oh, yes." The laughter had gone out of her voice; something more weary sat in its place. "Unlike my fellow Sin Lords, I've felt it. For a long time. There was just never anyone like-minded who shared the view."
"Well." His grip held. "Here I am. No need to doubt me. Because in the end..."
"To stay still means a small death; to struggle forward means to live, even if only for a moment." He looked at her without blinking. "And I refuse to die. No matter how small the death is."
Cornelia looked at him for a long moment.
"Hmm… for someone who claims they're not trying to impress me, you're doing a terrible job at it, Heartstealer~"
Ashen let out a small laugh, the last traces of tension slipping from his shoulders.
"Don't worry about it. Being impressed with each other only makes things easier between us anyway."
"True~ In that case, why don't we talk about this alliance of yours in a bit more detail? You've got me intrigued."