Chapter 92: Valdemar #3

  The very next loop (35). Just past midnight…

  “So pathetic…” Valdemar muttered as he looked at Stanford’s corpse.

  The body sat upright in a chair, five knives embedded in its chest, pinning a piece of paper half-soaked in blood that read: Traitor.

  Valdemar stepped closer and pulled one of the knives free. He studied the blade as blood slid down its edge, glinting beneath the room’s Lumen light.

  “Hm,” he murmured, the sound distorted through his voice modulator.

  Suddenly, Riven burst into the room.

  “V, I heard what happened—” he began, breathless, before freezing at the sight. “Holy shit. That was…unexpected.”

  “He killed himself,” Valdemar said absently, red visors still fixed on the knife.

  “What?” Riven shook his head, baffled. He pointed at Stanford. “But I've been told – “

  “Viktor,” Valdemar cut in, making himself clear.

  “Oh.”

  “Oh indeed.”

  Riven rubbed the back of his neck. “That’s bad. I checked before coming—the guys told me we’ve only secured about seventy percent of the blood samples from the Blood Storage.” His expression tightened. “If from now on he starts killing himself every time something goes half-wrong, we’d have a lot less time to collect the rest.” He exhaled sharply. “How many loops do we even have left?”

  Valdemar raised an index finger to his mask—where his lips should be—then rotated it slowly in the air as if to gesture they were being listened to.

  Riven stiffened. His eyes widened in fear. “Shit. Sorry.”

  “No harm done yet,” Valdemar said.

  Riven exhaled in relief. “Good…”

  “But stay careful,” Valdemar continued calmly. “I’ve shared these things with you because I trust you. Don’t make me regret that.”

  That was a lie, of course. Valdemar only ever trusted himself. But telling people what they wanted to hear was one of the most proven methods of manipulation in existence.

  Riven nodded, visibly appreciative of his words. “Yeah. Sorry. I won’t slip up again. Promise.”

  “As for your concern,” Valdemar went on seamlessly, “put it aside. He won’t be killing himself again so easily. I have a contingency.”

  Riven visibly relaxed, a grin creeping onto his face. “Which you’re obviously not going to tell me about?”

  “On the contrary,” Valdemar replied. “My plan is simple: I’m going to speak with him again. I was planning to anyway. This merely forces the conversation sooner than intended.”

  Riven nodded, confidence returning. “Well, every plan of yours ends up working. I’m calm.”

  “Good,” Valdemar said, sliding the knife back into Stanford’s chest with indifference. “And as for our dear Graham over here, Thea must not hear about this when she wakes up. Do you understand?”

  Riven frowned. “But she’s – “

  “Doesn’t matter,” Valdemar interrupted, repeating sentences he’d already grown tired of saying. “She has a crucial role in today’s plan. I can’t have her distracted.”

  Riven hesitated, then sighed and nodded. “Sure.” His gaze drifted to Stanford’s body. “What do you want to do with him now?”

  Then, Valdemar proceeded to play out the rest of their conversation exactly as he did in most of the previous loops.

  ***

  After instructing Riven on the next steps regarding Stanford’s body, like always, Valdemar proceeded to meet with the Primarch, as he did every loop.

  Seeing the man wearing that white wooden mask—a clear mocking attempt—was infuriating.

  The first time—back in the original timeline—it had been mildly annoying at worst. Perhaps even slightly amusing. Now, thirty-five loops in, it was starting to get on his nerves.

  Not only was Dalton Rose a thousand steps behind him, but he was also too arrogant to recognize it. Too arrogant to show the proper deference. To keep his head down. To bark when Valdemar told him to.

  No…Dalton Rose insisted on projecting control outward, even when he had none internally. But that was just the man he was.

  That, more than anything else, was his greatest sin.

  A sin for which he would die today.

  And not in some glorious way. Not even by Valdemar’s hand.

  No.

  He would die with his skull crushed to a pulp by an automaton valet carrying a silver tray.

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  The Head of Solvane will lose his head—a fitting, and poetic, punishment for someone like him.

  Either way, outwardly, Valdemar maintained his calm and composure, playing their conversation similarly to how he always did up to that point.

  “Don’t try to mimic me. You’re far beneath,” he said coldly—far colder than usual.

  Dalton Rose chuckled. “And people call me arrogant.”

  “Because you are,” Valdemar replied, deviating from his usual response.

  Before the exchange could spiral into where he didn’t want it to, he continued.

  “I need you to keep Vorrick occupied this run. I don’t want him in the Divine until the damn Expo. Make sure the order passes through a long chain of people.”

  The Primarch’s eyes widened. Then he laughed.

  “My, my. Had Casten finally managed to get to you?” Dalton teased. “That one ‘damn’ just now spoke volumes!”

  Valdemar smiled beneath the mask. ‘It’s always so easy to bait you, Dalton. It’s not even a challenge anymore…’

  “No,” Valdemar said calmly. “He’s overcomplicating things. With or without him, I won’t fail. That outcome is simply not in the realm of possibility.”

  “But what did he do?” Dalton asked, visibly intrigued. “Oh wait, don’t tell me. I’ll ask him myself!”

  “What good would that bring you?” Valdemar asked, neither impressed or threatened. “You’ll forget everything by the end of the loop.”

  Dalton grinned. “What if I’m Dolos’ looper?”

  “You’re not.”

  “And how would you know?”

  Valdemar’s red visors would’ve rolled back into his skull if that were possible.

  “Because I am,” he said, before switching into a slightly more threatening tone. “And I assure you—if you deviate even slightly from your usual trajectory, I will remember it. Because I can carry my memories across loops. Do anything that interferes with my plans, and our arrangement ends.”

  He paused, watching closely for any crack in the Primarch’s grin.

  There was none.

  “Looks like I’ve managed to rattle you,” Dalton said, his grin widening in satisfaction.

  Valdemar ignored the remark and went straight for what mattered to Rose.

  “You want to keep the status quo, don’t you?” he said. “You want more crystals to sustain this style of life for as long as possible and have House Rose be in power forever, right?”

  Dalton opened his mouth, but Valdemar raised a finger, silencing him.

  “It was a rhetorical question, Dalton. Don’t answer,” he said. “I’ll say it again, if you hinder my plans in any way, you'll lose everything. When the time loop ends, and Erebus remains just a memory, I will be known as the savior of the world. And not only will I claim everything to myself, I will also have you publicly hanged, and your House’s legacy reduced to nothingness.”

  Despite his words, Dalton Rose’s smile never wavered.

  “Understood,” the Primarch said with the same grin on his face.

  ***

  After that exchange, Valdemar continued on foot toward his final destination of the night.

  Normally, he used his Vitrum to teleport there, but this loop he wanted to walk for a bit. He still had time to get there.

  With each step, he reveled at how perfectly everything played out with the Primarch.

  Despite the threat hanging over him, Dalton Rose would certainly approach Casten Vorrick this loop. Driven by curiosity, wounded pride, and the desire to understand what he had done to provoke Valdemar’s rare display of irritation—a fake display of irritation.

  And that was exactly the point.

  By interrogating Vorrick, the Primarch would keep him occupied as intended and, more importantly, out of Viktor’s way. At the same time, he would also place Vorrick—Dolos’ true Champion—in genuine danger. Depending on how the encounter unfolded, he could draw the attention of Erebus, pushing Prime Security into unfamiliar territory and increasing the likelihood of a Mark.

  This past loop, Valdemar had foreseen Vorrick approaching Viktor and had countered it in the most efficient way possible, setting up two contingencies in motion at once.

  First, he managed to make Theo Vorrick—someone whose existence he only learned about the loop before that—follow his brother. Thus creating the animosity and chaos that proceeded to draw Erebus’ attention.

  Secondly, and as a backup plan in case Theo Vorrick was too stupid—he was a rotting corpse, after all—he set Alice Verldson in motion.

  Through carefully formulated messages, his Libra agents managed to seed suspicion within her. Suspicion toward Viktor, toward Trent Jones, and even Casten Vorrick himself. She hadn’t just followed him because she suspected something was wrong at the Expo, she was alarmed from the early morning.

  At the end, she wasn't really needed—Theo Vorrick did the job—but Valdemar never left anything to chance.

  Nothing was left to chance where he was concerned.

  Every action and every hesitation were always part of the plan. Even the smallest micro-influences were accounted for, with hundreds of backup plans and adjustments for every possible scenario.

  Except one...his own failure.

  But that wasn’t possible. He could never fail. After all, he could never be wrong. He was unique. Someone who was wronged and shouldn't be still existing, but despite everything still was. Thus, being wrong was impossible for him.

  Now, all that remained was to repeat this exact sequence once more in the next loop, ensuring Viktor spent the next run unbothered and inconsequential within the Divine, nudging Erebus' ever-evolving average closer to the baseline.

  ‘But what if Casten Vorrick and Dalton Rose decide to work together against you?’ a voice spoke to him in his mind—feminine, yet carrying something feral beneath.

  Valdemar scoffed softly. “Oh, come now. You don’t truly believe that.”

  ‘They have worked together before.’

  “It was theater,” Valdemar replied. “In truth, they could not be more opposed—ideologically, at least. Either way, I ruined any chance for such an alliance to last the moment I directly approached Rose.”

  ‘Interesting,’ the voice said. ‘And still, you risk much by trusting that two variables outside your direct control will behave exactly as you predict.’

  “There is no risk because I know they won’t,” Valdemar said calmly. “And as you know, I’m never wrong.”

  ‘Ahhh…’ the voice purred with satisfaction. ‘This confidence of yours — ’

  “Is the reason we’re here,” Valdemar finished.

  A brief silence followed.

  ‘And your body?’ the voice asked at last. ‘How does it fare after so many...infusions?’

  “Never better,” Valdemar answered, his mechanical voice uncharacteristically sounding joyful. “Would you like to see?”

  ‘Show me.’

  Valdemar dismissed his COG, returning the device to the Inventory Dolos had provided him with.

  The moment it vanished, the air around him seemed to change.

  Then, a simple man with a mask—or perhaps never quite that simple—he rose into the night sky.

  Gravity simply ceased to apply.

  With his body flaring with the green aura of Aero, he accelerated upward in a flash.

  The city fell away and Skyhaven’s lights blurred into glowing golden dots as the platform shrunk beneath him.

  He pierced cloud after cloud, wind screaming uselessly past him, unable to resist his passage.

  Higher. Higher. And even higher.

  He climbed beyond the altitude where aerial traffic dared to roam—so high that, were there another platform above Skyhaven, it would have been built where he now drifted freely.

  Finally, Valdemar slowed.

  To withstand the cold air that accompanied such elevation, his body flared red with Ignis. Combined with the green of Aero, the aura surrounding him was now a new, unfamiliar brown.

  He turned horizontal in midair, folding his hands behind his head as though he was lying on an invisible field, gazing out at the stars scattered across the void.

  ‘Impressive. And you still have so many loops ahead of you,’ the voice murmured, anticipation and expectation heavy in every word. ‘So much more strength to gain.’

  Beneath his mask, Valdemar smiled.

  “Soon,” he said softly. “Soon, dear Urthran.”

  much more screen time during this volume.