As I felt Kael's shivering limbs pressed against me, I realized that a weapon that needed its wielder to function was a variable I hadn't prepared for.
"Go to the window, Kael," I commanded, testing the leash. I had to apply a mental pressure, a silent nudge of my own nature, to break his physical grip.
"Watch the street. Make sure the surroundings are safe."
Kael's fingers dug into my shoulders, his knuckles white. He resisted for a long, agonizing second, his eyes searching mine for any hint of mercy.
He didn't want to move.
Every instinct in his new, divine-saturated soul was screaming at him to remain exactly beside me, to keep "cradling" the heart that was currently the only reason his own world had color.
Finally, with a jerky, uncertain movement that looked like it caused him physical pain, he stepped back. He walked to the floor-to-ceiling windows, but he didn't look at the street He kept his head turned, his flickering eyes never leaving my face.
Every few seconds, a light fixture in the room would float upward an inch before dropping.
He was still pulsing the 15th Name, an unconscious, rhythmic reaching-out, as if trying to keep a tether of weightlessness connected to my heart.
He was an addict, and I was the substance.
"Malakor," I said, turning my attention to the fanatic.
"The 58,000 Clons. They are digital signatures. Traceable."
"Already moved, My Lord," Malakor said, eager to prove his worth. "Kael... he routed them through thirty-two shadow accounts in the Low-Vat districts while you were... transitioning.
To the Church, it will look like the money vanished into a gambling ring in the slums. We are ghosts in this hotel."
"Good." I closed my eyes for a moment, letting the darkness take me.
The Migraine was still there, a dull throb behind my eyes, but the Plausibility "Tax" had stabilized at a cost that made every breath feel like a transaction.
I was at the absolute limit of what this vessel could handle.
I needed to increase my body's endurance soon by learning the next name, but first I had to find a suitable way to justify my knowledge of the Law of Probability.
"I need to see the most perfect geometric shape in your city." I said, My voice was barely hearable.
Malakor thought for a moment, then said, "My lord, there is such an object in the Royal Museum…"
I felt Kael's presence shift at the window.
The gravity in the room spiked suddenly, making my lungs feel heavy. His new emotions were manifesting as a physical weight.
"You cannot go, Master!" Kael said.
His voice was strange now. A mix of his old mechanical tone and a new, breathy urgency.
"The Royal Museum is located in the White City, in the uptown district of the city of Zonia. It may be dangerous for your health to be outside for so long."
I turned my head to look at him.
"I did not ask for a mortality report, Kael. And I certainly did not ask for you to manipulate the local gravity in response to your anxiety."
"I am... afraid," Kael said.
He looked down at his own hands, which were glowing with a faint, blue-purple light. "If you go, you may get hurt... I do not like that, Master..."
He took a step toward the bed, his feet leaving indentations in the marble floor as he unintentionally increased his own mass to stay anchored. He was struggling to move away, yet his every instinct was demanding he remain exactly beside me.
"Stay at the window, Kael," I said, my voice like a slab of ice. "Do not let your 'attachment' become a malfunction. I do not need a tool that has feelings for his user."
Kael stopped, letting out a low, mournful sound—a sound that was almost a sob.
He stayed by the glass, a sentinel of flickering resonance, watching me with a hunger he didn't understand.
I lay back, the silk of the bed feeling like cold water against my feverish skin.
The Law was quiet for now, but I knew it was merely waiting for my next impossible movement.
I looked at the ceiling, at the gold leaf and the expensive shadows, and felt the immense weight of the task ahead.
And yet, as I felt Kael's Gravitas pulses tugging gently at my heartbeat from across the room—that rhythmic, desperate attempt to keep me buoyant—I felt a strange, uncomfortable sensation in my chest.
It was the feeling of being watched by something that was starting to love me.
Not romantically, of course.
More like the love that a child has for his father.
It was a disgusting, human sensation. It tasted of weakness.
And for the first time since I descended into this "meat-box," I felt a flicker of genuine fear.
Not of the Church or the Law. But of the child I was accidentally building out of cold steel and my own divinity.
"Kael," I whispered, the darkness finally pulling at the edges of my vision.
"Yes, Master?" The response was instantaneous.
He was by the bedside before I could even blink, his hand hovering near mine, the blue light of his eyes reflecting in the black hole of my own.
He was unconsciously making the air around my hand weightless, a small, private miracle he performed just to be closer to my skin.
"Do not... look at me like that."
"I cannot help it," Kael said, his voice vibrating with a terrifying, shimmering warmth. "You are the Light. Everything else is just... shadow."
I didn't answer.
I couldn't.
I let the darkness take me, drifting toward a shallow sleep while my body remained in the luxury of the Obsidian Spire, guarded by a fanatic and a machine that had just discovered it had a heart.