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Chapter 2
(In which Gray vocalizes his displeasure and it's impossible to think with his incessant yammering.)
"You can't just do that!" Gray said loudly. "It's insane! Do you have any idea how many people could die? You should!"
Lyon's eye twitched, and he ground his teeth together to suppress his retort. The first few minutes of quiet shock had been much preferable to the torrent of angry rambling that followed. He had taken greater satisfaction in Gray's distress than in his ranting. He was finding it impossible to have a productive conversation about strategies to maximize melting when Gray was talking over everyone at increasing volume. It was terribly distracting, and Lyon couldn't even respond without looking like a crazy person to everyone else. He seethed silently instead, daydreaming about wringing Gray's neck.
"You probably can't even do it." Gray perked up noticeably, sidling into Lyon's field of vision to squint up at the towering demon frozen like an insect in amber. "The ice is supposed to be unmeltable. Maybe you think you've found a way, but it's probably not really going to work. Ur was too strong for that."
Lyon was about fed up. He was regretting that Gray had ever seen this. The satisfaction of hurting him with it was hardly worth the aggravation of listening to him whine about it nonstop.
"That weak spot is looking thinner than ever," Lyon said, interrupting whatever Toby had been saying. "What if we build some kind of scaffolding or funnel to collect the moon drip and apply it there directly? We can set up mirrors to amplify the strength of the light and focus it."
He illustrated his words with his hands, moving them down in a V shape until he was pointing directly at the weak point and highlighting the melted patch of ice. Gray's eyes followed them down, and he went abruptly silent. Lyon smiled in satisfaction once more.
Unfortunately, his reprieve did not last long.
"You've gone insane," Gray said in wonder. "Totally insane. Out of all the reckless, selfish, stupid things you could do…"
Lyon gave up. He'd be able to get nothing done until he could shut Gray up.
"Why don't you supervise here," he said to Yuka, or maybe Sherry. It didn't matter much to him right now with a ghost yammering in his ear. "I'll be back later."
Ignoring their confusion, he spun on his heel and stalked away. Gray followed at his heels, ranting and raving the whole way. Lyon held his tongue until he was safely back in his room with the door closed behind him.
"Will you shut up?" he exploded, rounding on Gray in a fury. "It's impossible to think with your whining. I have more important things to do."
Gray glowered back mulishly. "Like trying to resurrect a demon? That's about as stupid as–"
"Like you have any room to talk," Lyon sneered. "This whole mess is your fault in the first place."
Gray's face twisted up and then smoothed out again, and he looked away. "Yeah," he sighed tiredly, deflating. "Everything is, isn't it?" Then he straightened back up and set his jaw. "You can blame me for my part, but this resurrecting a demon nonsense is all on you. This is entirely your fault. Why would you want to set it loose on the world again? Do you know how many people it will kill? Hasn't it already done enough? How did you even con all these people into helping you?"
"I didn't con anyone. They're all people like you, but less stupid. They've all lost someone to Deliora: parents, children, siblings, friends. They want revenge too. We're just being smarter about how we get it."
Gray stared back. "But… Deliora is already trapped. Why free it again?"
Lyon rolled his eyes. "Don't be ridiculous. We're not setting it free to rampage around the countryside. I'm going to kill it, obviously."
"You're going to…kill it," Gray repeated slowly. He closed his eyes. "You're going to get yourself killed."
"I resent that. I'm stronger than I was. Everyone here believes I can do it."
"And what about Ur? I've done some research, and iced shell doesn't actually kill the caster. If you melt her ice–"
Lyon lashed out, slicing his hand through the air and sending a flock of ice birds diving towards Gray. Gray flinched back, but the ice flew right through his ghostly form and smashed harmlessly into the wall behind him.
"How dare you talk about Ur?" Lyon seethed, trembling with rage. "Don't feed me any of that bullshit. She's dead. You killed her. How dare you come here and talk to me about her?"
How dare Gray suggest Lyon would be the one to kill Ur when he had already done it himself a decade ago? The nerve. As if you could kill ice. As if it could be Lyon's fault.
Gray opened his mouth, closed it again. He looked back at the shards of ice glittering along the floorboards like broken glass.
"Right," Lyon said icily. "I didn't invite you here. I don't want you here. Frankly, I don't have time to deal with you. Resurrecting Deliora is more important right now. I'll figure out a way to get rid of you, but in the meantime, don't get in my way."
Gray stared at him some more and then sighed. "I really thought you were smart enough to learn from my mistakes instead of repeating them," he said quietly, sounding more tired than anything.
Lyon drew in a breath, but Gray was already turning away and drifting across the floor to look out the window. He decided to let it go, for now. As long as Gray was being quiet and staying out of the way, that was what mattered.
"It's too early to say for sure, but it looks fantastic."
Lyon admired the hastily constructed scaffolding funneling the slow trickle of moon drip from the hole in the temple's roof to the weak point above Deliora's shoulder. They had only been able to find a few small, broken pieces of mirror lying around, but they could buy more in town. The focusing effect wasn't strong yet without a better system in place, but it was noticeable.
It could take days or weeks to see a noticeable impact on the state of the ice, but it looked as if it should work. Even if Lyon might have been wary of a gamble before, time was of the essence now. He had always wanted to break through the ice as quickly as possible and the painfully slow process had irked him from the beginning, but Gray's mysterious appearance put a new pressure on his ambitions.
Gray could do nothing to interfere with the process right now, no matter how he might rant or rave or threaten to put a stop to it. But if he woke suddenly from his coma or came back to life or somehow achieved corporeal form again, what then? Their plans had been exposed, and Gray would not take kindly to them. As much as Lyon enjoyed rubbing his face in it, he'd prefer that Gray had never learned of his plans at all and had no chance to intervene.
His gaze slid past Deliora to where the ghost sat on the other side of the chamber. Gray sat against the wall with his knees drawn to his chest, although Lyon couldn't tell from here how well his edges lined up with the wall and floor or if he appeared to interact with the physical surfaces at all. His unblinking gaze never left the demon, and he hadn't moved an inch since they had first descended after sunset to supervise. Lyon couldn't tell if he was just sulking or quietly scheming away, as he hadn't spoken a word since his earlier tirade either.
The rhythmic chanting of the group performing the ritual aboveground echoed hollowly around the chamber. Lyon barely noticed after all these years, but he supposed it must sound eerie to Gray, although he didn't acknowledge it. Gray looked a bit eerie himself, cast in the purple glow filtering through the skylight and shimmering on the ice. Being a little bit see-through did not help.
"Do you think it's fine?" Yuka asked.
Lyon tore his gaze away from Gray and frowned at him. "What?"
Yuka exchanged a look with Toby, raising his prodigious eyebrows. Lyon scowled and shook his attention away from Gray. He needed to focus.
"We threw the scaffolding together with what we had on hand so that we could test it tonight, but we should build a more permanent structure once we're sure it's working," Yuka said. "Maybe we should give it a few days to be sure, but we can start gathering materials. Assuming we're moving forward with that, do you want to copy this design or make any modifications?"
"It looks fine to me, unless you have anything you'd want to change. Let's build it. We can continue observing while we gather materials and build to make sure we haven't missed anything, but let's go ahead and get started."
Yuka lifted his bushy brows again, but Lyon ignored the unspoken question. He was feeling a great deal less cautious than usual tonight, and he wanted to see some progress fast. He was willing to take some risks.
"I'm sure Lyon-sama is right!" Sherry said. "We still have a few days before the moon wanes enough to be useless. We can observe and get everything together now, and then take advantage of the new moon to build."
That seemed an eminently more sensible idea than Lyon's. He needed to stop and take a breath and not do anything hasty and stupid just because Gray was suddenly breathing down his neck.
"Exactly," he said, not willing to admit that wasn't what he'd meant at all. If Sherry was going to leave him room to claim the credit, he'd take it. "The new moon will be the perfect time to focus on construction, while we don't have to worry about the ritual every night. Let's make sure we have all the supplies we need before then. Send someone to the mainland if we need to."
"Okay," Yuka said. "Sounds like a plan."
"Oh. On another note, have we run across any mages who work with souls around here?"
"Souls?" Toby asked, puzzled.
"Like a seith mage?" Yuka asked.
"Yes," Lyon said. "I suppose so."
They looked past him towards the demon suspended in the ice, brows drawn together in confusion. Lyon glanced back too, but he was watching Gray.
"Not that I know of," Sherry said. "But we've mostly avoided the mages on the mainland, and the villagers here are useless even if we wanted to reveal ourselves to them. We can check when we make our next supply run, though. If there's a seith mage around, I'll find him for you!"
"Great, let me know." Lyon dismissed Gray and turned away. Time to wrap things up before his friends started asking questions or calling him out on his strange behavior. "We've seen enough for tonight. I think I'll retire. You can do the same or supervise the ritual, if you want."
The others exchanged looks again, but shrugged and filed back out of the room. Lyon followed behind them, but paused just outside at the sound of a low hiss. Stepping back again, he peered around the doorway.
Gray was still on the far side of the room, but now he was on his hands and knees, one arm stretched out in front of him and his hand hovering there in the air. The gossamer thread looped around his wrist stretched taut across the length of the room. Lyon didn't feel the pressure of it, but he pulled his own wrist back experimentally. It felt like nothing, but Gray hissed again and his body lurched forward a couple of inches.
"Lyon-sama?" Sherry asked from down the hall. "Are you alright?"
"Yes, of course," Lyon said without looking her way. "Go on ahead. I'll be up in a minute."
After a brief pause, footsteps started up again, echoing off the stone walls and then fading away. Lyon waited until all was quiet again before addressing Gray. He was learning how not to look too crazy to his friends.
"Are you coming?" he asked.
Gray had not risen to his feet, only maintained his uncomfortable-looking kneeling position, head bowed. He did not answer immediately.
Lyon took another step back and whipped his arm backwards. The invisible thread thrummed in the air, and Gray lurched forward and fell flat on the ground, arm stretched in front of him.
Lyon eyed the string around his wrist with new interest. He might not be able to punch or strangle Gray or even use his ice to fight him, but he could still hurt him after all. It didn't bring quite the same satisfaction as a solid, physical twist of the knife, but it was better than nothing.
"I'm going back to my room. You can come or not." He smiled thinly. "Although it looks like I might just drag you along like a lazy dog."
Gray finally looked up at him. His expression was blank, but his eyes were dark and hollow like twin voids.
"You can be angry with me," he said, his voice a raw rasp. "You can blame me if you want. But this demon killed my parents, my friends, Ur… It took everything from me. Is it so impossible to give me a moment to grieve?"
Lyon hesitated. Gray and Deliora had a long and storied history, none of it good. Digging up old traumas rarely went well.
But to be fair, Gray wasn't supposed to be here at all. And really, didn't he deserve the pain for everything he'd done?
"You can have all the time you'd like once you're dead. In the meantime, I have more important things to do than cater to you. Come or not, but I'm leaving. Deliora will still be here tomorrow."
Lyon turned on his heel and walked briskly back to his room, dragging Gray along behind him.