Chapter 10
Mavis made a fleeting attempt to probe for her magic, but where natural ethernano should have responded to the vessels around it, there was only an unnatural stillness in the atmosphere. Either the seal affected it as well, or the magic wielded by the stranger before them was beyond her knowledge.
"You made this seal, right…?" She managed to ask.
The woman gave no sign of admittance or denial. She walked towards them – a step, then another, and another. Her steps did not echo in the vast halls, as if she was walking on soft ground rather than hard tiles.
The seal. Not even sound passed through it to echo in the vast hall, beyond the barrier of his spell.
"Don't come near us!" Zeref warned. Any confusion in his expression had turned to alarm with her approach. "We –"
The curse struck as soon as the warning had left him.
Dark magic rushed forth uninhibited. Her heart clenched for a beat – not quite horror, but a familiar paroxysm of shock-resignation-regret –
Just as quick as it had started, the black tide slowed mid-movement to a crawl, before stilling entirely. It hung like a palpable fog, frozen solid in mid-air.
The woman disappeared from where she stood. Her hunched and wizened figure turned to a blur as she moved with inhuman speed.
The curse dissipated in the space between them as she came back into view, standing at the far end of the cella. There was unmitigated shock in her face.
Then her expression frosted over.
"You are still cursed?" Every last bit of temperature drained out of her words.
"Chronos." Zeref spoke the name with no hint of fear or anger, nor the slightest degree of reverence – as if it was someone of no more importance than an acquaintance in passing. "You made a theophany?"
The woman smiled. There was no humor in it.
"By the God Soul Takeover Technique." Her voice reverberated with the power of hundreds in chorus, yet every syllable rolled out with the sharp precision of one. "They requested for my aid when Mildian fell."
It did not carry the haughtiness Mavis had been expecting of her – she almost sounded as if she was speaking to an equal. For the second time in brief seconds, she felt her chest tighten – this time with something like stuttering hope.
"This curse…" she began.
Zeref's hand tightened against her shoulder before she could finish.
He was trying to pull her behind him – trying to shield her.
Mavis took an involuntary step back. She understood his warning, but she could not catch on to the reasoning behind it. Chronos – if it was who it was – had not displayed malevolence towards them. There was no reason to see her as an enemy.
She had asked him to bring those people back. If she had wanted to save them, if there was even the slightest degree of decency or sympathy in her –
Perhaps her desperation had clouded her rationality, but the fact remained – right then, the entity before them was the only one who could possibly hold the answer they needed.
"It's been three hundred years," Mavis said, abandoning caution altogether. "Hasn't it been long enough? ...For him, at least?"
She whispered the last of it, barely even aware – until his hand tightened against her shoulder again, and her words caught up with her. The motion was gentle, but there was a nervous – almost pleading urgency to it.
Chronos looked at her. It was an intense, almost puzzled scrutiny, as if she could not quite figure out what she was made of.
Then she turned to Zeref.
"You think this was a punishment?"
The mild note of incredulity in her tone was almost enough to make Mavis regret her question. There was just something disquieting – something inexplicably mocking to it.
"…What do you mean?" He asked without inflection before she could.
There was not even the slightest degree of curiosity in it. He sounded as if it was the last question in the world he wanted to make – like he was trying to go through the motions without putting any of himself into it, only because he must.
"You were not cursed because you incurred his wrath, Zeref," Chronos said. There was an assessing light in her eyes, as if she was preying for some desired reaction for the answer she gave, and it shook Mavis to the very core – "You were chosen to bear Ankhseram's mark because you impressed him."
A stunned second trudged by; Mavis turned to Zeref on instinct, trying to gauge his reaction.
There was no shock in his expression – no disbelief. It was just a look, flat and resigned, the like of which she had not seen since the first time she returned to life.
"How?" He asked, impossibly level. "I defied his laws."
He did not want to know.
She realized it, almost at once. He did not want to know if it was truth or falsehood, if there had been more to the apparent cause behind the fate they were dealt with. Whether it was justice, or punishment, it made not an iota of difference to what either of them had gone through – nor the countless lives that were dead by their hand.
"As have many," Chronos said – unaware, or more likely uncaring. "But he chose you.
"You designed a system powerful enough to resurrect the dead. You conceptualized a gate that could transverse through time itself. Such aptitude and power…such intimate acquaintance with life and death. Our laws, the laws we set upon the human realm when nomos was put to physis, they mean nothing – nothing to you. You have genius unparalleled in centuries. Why would he not choose you?"
Vertigo washed over her so hard that her knees almost folded beneath her. The involuntary question he had made, only the night before, sprang to the forefront of her mind –
Why, when they have…so many of them…shown far less appreciation for life than we ever did?
The hand on her shoulder tightened almost to the point of hurting. She did not dare to bring herself to catch his expression. She had the feeling that she might be the only thing that was grounding him, right then.
Chronos smiled, and any lingering doubt to the mockery in her expression dissipated with it – "Three hundred years, and you never so much as brought yourself to suspect otherwise?"
Zeref did not answer. His hand slackened on her shoulder, all of a sudden. It was a silence from him she recognized – not confused, but premonitory in nature.
It isn't natural, she had said – it doesn't sound like something that could have survived through sheer admiration for prowess alone.
"Ankhseram…sways the loyalty of his followers?" She asked, trying to keep hysteria from creeping into her voice. Whatever the scheme the gods had seen fit to involve them with, it was evident by now that Chronos harbored no good will towards them. If anything, he was Ankhseram's ally and accomplice.
Chronos gave her a side-glance, too brief to be considered a proper response. Her smile widened for a fraction when she turned back to him again.
"You would want to believe that, wouldn't you?"
There was something knowing to the question, like she had seen right through their doubts – had every intention of spreading and pinning them down to be flayed open.
"No," Mavis said, refusing to give ground. She looked to Zeref, and the implications hit her, all of a sudden. His gaze was fixed on her as his face slowly drained of what little color it had, poised to back away.
"No, it wasn't that," she said, raising her voice. "It wasn't. I know. Trust me, I know –"
Chronos gave an insouciant sigh. It sounded almost like dissatisfaction.
"If we could turn your faith with such ease, you need never have bore this curse," she said. "But you – you make us wait. Three centuries. What has kept you for all this time?"
It did not sound accusing. It sounded like an observation, made in convenience rather than deliberation – only the lightest touch of curiosity beneath it.
"Not even gods can influence the will and thought of mankind. Those are gifts sacred to your own. You share his impression before those whom held idolatry for you…you appear as a god in all but name – because they were looking for one.
"But if they should offer you their worship, and pledge undying fealty, and show willingness to dedicate their very lives and beyond – that is their choice alone."
Zeref looked back at her, unblinking. His expression was inscrutable.
"Then…if I have committed the unforgivable in my attempts to erase this fate, it is my choice alone," he finished, of his own accord.
"Why go to such lengths at all – what is it that you desire of them? Death? Mayhem?" His voice was even – perfectly so, and Mavis caught the brief, flickeringly brief glimpse of red, spreading in his eyes like blood across dark waters – "Would they not have chosen someone else to suit their purposes, cloaked him in vague tales and rumors, shaped him to be the ultimate incarnate of evil itself…created a convenient symbol to channel the darkest of their desires, revered him as they execute choices of their own, and guilt could bead and roll off their hearts like water upon wax –"
"Apathy."
He stopped abruptly at the word. His lips trembled for a moment, as if there was more he was struggling to spill, yet was physically incapable of bringing himself to do so.
"They cannot interfere directly with the affairs of our realm," Mavis said, looking at Chronos as she did. "But they found ways of circumventing it…isn't that so?"
Chronos shot her a look, sharp and assessing. Her dismissive slight from before had disappeared. The look from her now belonged to someone who had found cause to view her as an opponent.
Mavis ignored the piercing glare that lanced like a dagger to the side. She walked before Zeref, forcing herself to look up into his eyes.
"The way your subjects revere you when you showed little to no care towards them, the way cults who have never even seen your face worship you…it borders on religious," she said. "You created these dark legacies, unable to decide if you wish to destroy, or to be destroyed… and you convinced yourself that what people made of them was their own doing."
His eyes were the black of burned out coals. He had heard her, she knew, he couldn't possibly not have – but he did not look or move or speak. His breaths were catching in his throat as he stood, so still that he barely seemed alive at all.
"You do not care, Zeref. At least, not always," she said, merciless, hating it as she did – "That – that apathy is precisely what they want of you."
"It would end, eventually," Chronos said, her voice cutting in like a dousing flood of cold water. She had made no move to stop her, and there was no disappointment or anger in her face now – only patience and calm disapproval, like she was dealing with misbehaving children. "All of time and space, spited even by death itself… The more you lose, the less you are moved. Life or death, good or evil, faith or heresy…they make no difference if you should live to an eternity..."
"What about you?" Mavis shot out, grasping at the first thing she could to stopper it. "You held on to Mildian for centuries, in the hope that they –"
"She did," Chronos said. Her calm mien broke for the briefest of moments, before smoothing out again.
Mavis stared at her. A cold horror intermingled with pity washed over her as realization caught on.
"Is this what you meant?" She asked, barely above a whisper. "Not even gods can influence the will and thought of mankind…" The full understanding of their situation sunk in at last, sparking something within her, sick and furious at once – "And you think – you think he's taking too long –"
"I see." Zeref spoke up beside her, all of a sudden.
She swiveled around to look at him in surprise. The empty expression he wore had fallen away. He gave her a reassuring nod, before turning to address Chronos again.
"The takeover technique has bound you to her soul," he said. "You claim his name. But his powers are directed entirely at your will."
Chronos nodded, slowly, as if in approval. "You have always been the cleverer of us," she said, something close to envy coloring her tone. "You chose your own with caution – you know to wait for the right time…"
"I am not him," he cut her off.
"Not yet," she refuted easily.
"It won't happen."
The denial wasn't made with desperation. There was a confidence to his voice that had been absent before – something akin to grim satisfaction. Mavis did not know how it could have come by, when he had been all but in catatonia only moments ago. It was as if he had found a hidden card against their opponents – one that even entities as ancient and powerful as they had failed to foresee.
"If it has not happened by now, it won't. They will be waiting for a long time yet." He smiled – actually smiled at that, and she felt her heart leaping straight into her throat – "You are not him, either."
Before them, Chronos went deathly still. "This is my wish."
"It is an obsolete wish, in any case," Zeref said. He had taken the revelation from her with passive silence, with no outburst of grief or anger as he internalized it – and now, he returned one to her with what seemed to be a similar detachment to his pity. "Ankhseram will not bring them back. When the curse struck, I killed the entire academy. He held no regard for the lives of those in his worship."
"They condoned heresy," Chronos said icily. "The rest of this city was faithful."
"Why that moment, then?" He asked in an even tone. "If this curse has been his machination, all along – why choose that precise moment for it to strike, when I had engaged in heresy for most of my life?"
Silence stretched on between them. For the first time since this encounter, he seemed to have placed her on the defensive, but it brought about no satisfaction – every facet of it was laced with the implicit realization that someday, they might find themselves in her place.
"They did not condone it," he said, when no reply came. "They were on the cusp of expelling me, when it happened. I was not born of Mildian – it would have ended in my exile."
"They could have lived," Chronos said. The divine power in her voice had dwindled down to nothing, leaving it quiet and lonesome – unmistakably human. "You saw them…had you not? The last that survived of them gave all that remained of their magic to protect this shrine from the onslaught. They were defenseless. They trusted that I could save – if I had mastered this technique sooner, I could have…"
"You couldn't," Zeref said, bluntly. His voice softened, "They could have lived, had the best mages amongst them still been alive."