Akna’s transformation left Lex completely nonplussed, staring at her in shock as the she-wolf smirked back at him triumphantly.
“Now do you see?” she cooed as she sat down amidst her scattered clothing. “By visiting the Shrine and undergoing the Rite, I was able to transcend my limitations. Now I’ve become a living symbol of the link between my people and the winter wolves. As we were once one, we shall be again, unified under the Night Mare’s faith.”
She pointedly glanced past the edge of the dome then, looking at where Thermal Draft was talking to the members of Fail Forward before turning her eyes back to him. “Imagine if you became something like that for your ponies. You could have wings as well as a horn.”
This time, Lex managed to control his outward reaction, even as his heart began to beat faster.
An alicorn. She was suggesting that this so-called “Rite of Sublimation” would turn him into an alicorn.
It was enough to make Lex glance down at his foreleg again, eyeing the barbed wire there. Was that why the Night Mare had reacted positively to the Rite’s mere mention? Was this the opportunity to become stronger that the goddess had mentioned when she’d brought him back to this wretched world?
If so...the idea was far from unappealing. As much as Lex had grown to despise Equestria’s princesses for being derelict in their duties, the power that they commanded – as well as their limitless lifespans – had still given them strength enough to govern an entire nation for over a millennium. If he were to acquire abilities comparable to that, in addition to those he already had...
Would that allow me to replenish my thaumaturgical spellcasting? The thought was enough to send a shiver down his spine. He’d briefly glimpsed the magical channels in Celestia’s body, back when that oversized nag had visited Vanhoover, and had been shocked at how unimpressive they were. But there had been more to the story, since when they’d fought a short time later, she’d surprised him by being able to overcharge her spells beyond what her physique should have been able to generate. Not only that, she’d done so without injuring herself the way he did whenever he’d forced his body beyond its natural limits.
Which meant that the energy Celestia had been using hadn’t been from overstraining her body’s magical channels. It had come from somewhere else, and since Luna had done the same thing during their fight, the best hypothesis Lex could come up with was that being an alicorn gave them some other well of power to draw upon; a reservoir of magical energy that they could tap into as necessary, like his circlet except far greater.
And if such lazy, self-indulgent creatures as the Royal Sisters had gained that much power simply by becoming alicorns, did it not stand to reason that he – who was already strong enough to defeat them in battle – would gain that much more power if he were to ascend to that state? Perhaps enough so that he wouldn’t need an outside source in order to renew his strongest magic?
To Lex’s mind, it was a distinct possibility.
Except...
“The Night Mare’s test Lex Legis faced, seeking Her dark salvation!” sang Spinner, her eyes still closed as she nimbly worked her hoof over the strings of her lute. “But interference from outside left his body misshapen!”
Was this what the bard had been referring to? That she saw him undergoing the Rite only for something to cause him to fail? Except if that was the case, why would the Night Mare want him to attempt it? Surely, if Spinner’s goddess knew the future, his own could be no less aware of what would happen. Or would that happen at all? Mystaria had said that Spinner’s predictions could be avoided if they were compensated for; if he could become an alicorn, and something attempted to interfere, could he avoid whatever it was that left him “misshapen” now that he was cognizant of it?
But he didn’t have a chance to keep contemplating those questions as Akna spoke up again. “That reminds me, does your slave know a winter wolf named Bolverk?”
That was enough to earn Lex’s full attention, all thoughts of alicornhood and prophecies promptly replaced by suspicion. Bolverk had been Prevarius’ puppet, and while the phistophilus was dead, the chance that Akna was involved in some lingering scheme of his wasn’t something that could be ignored. “Why?”
Akna tilted her head, as though confused at his question. “I don’t have many chances to take this form, but on occasion I’ve managed to slip away from my tribe long enough to meet a few other winter wolves. They’ve all said that Bolverk was one of their mightiest hunters, and that he’s without a mate. A union between us-”
“Bolverk is dead,” snapped Lex, his concern giving way to disgust at what she was suggesting. “Solvei and I killed him a few days ago.”
If Akna was upset by the news, she didn’t show it. “That’s a shame. I was hoping to bring him to the Shrine and have him pledge his faith to the Night Mare so that he could undergo the Rite. Then, we could each have worked to bring our kindred together, each of us wielding a piece of the Umbral Regalia, uniting all of our kind under our own...” She paused for a moment, before looking at him. “I believe the word is, ‘dynasty.’ Is that right?”
“There’s nothing right about what you just said,” sneered Lex.
This time Akna didn’t ignore his disdain, frowning at him in turn. “I’m already under pressure from the rest of my tribe to hurry up and breed,” she snapped. “I need to find a winter wolf – a leader among their kind who will pledge himself to the goddess – to impregnate me so that I can give birth to a new bloodline that will rule our combined people!” Huffing, she glanced at Solvei, her expression turning sour. “If only your slave was male, she’d be perfect.”
“Stop calling her that!” hissed Lex, his eyes flaring. “Solvei follows me of her own free will, not because I force her to! For that matter, this obsession of yours with using the Night Mare’s religion to remake your culture is a product of your having used one of her living weapons! Those things alter the mentality of whoever wields them, molding their thought processes so that their beliefs and ideals match hers!”
Akna’s eyes widened at that, but she squeezed them shut an instant later, brow furrowing as she shook her head. “So what?”
“‘So what’?!” echoed Lex, aghast. The idea that someone wouldn’t care that their mind had been tampered with was beyond his comprehension. “Your thoughts and feelings, the things that make you who you are, have been twisted according to someone else’s design!”
“And I say so what?!” repeated Akna, opening her eyes to glare at Lex, her calm falling away. “How is that any different from the life I was living up until now?! Everything I believed growing up, I believed because other people convinced me!”
She rose to all fours then, her lips curling back in a snarl. “As far back as I can remember, my grandmother and the elders and everyone else in my tribe said that the best way for me to make a contribution was to speak to the spirits and make weapons for our warriors and give birth to pups, all so things could stay the same! And I believed it because I didn’t know any better! But now I do!”
She stalked forward then, until her muzzle was within a foot of Lex’s face. “Headhunter told me that I could do more, that I could help my people live better, more fulfilling lives if I dared to be more ambitious! And he was right! Who cares if I needed someone else to help me understand that; now that I know those old traditions are holding us back, I’m going to shatter them all! Once they’re gone, and everyone has accepted the Night Mare, she’ll remake our culture anew!”
“The Night Mare doesn’t build a society,” retorted Lex, his voice full of scorn. “It’s leaders do.”
On the surface, what Akna was spouting was remarkably similar to what he wanted for Equestria. But Lex had spent years coming up with a comprehensive system of ethics, one which guided everything he did in his efforts to reform his homeland. Akna, by contrast, seemed to be under the impression that once she’d assumed power, and forcibly introduced the Night Mare’s religion, everything would fall into place. “You need to evaluate what you’re doing through an axiological schema, one that properly qualifies both goals and implementation methods as imperatives-”
“What are you talking about?” huffed Akna. “I’m just going to make everyone else use Headhunter, the way I did! Then they’ll all realize that things need to change!”
Horrified, Lex needed a moment to find his voice. “...you can’t be serious.”
“It’s the perfect plan,” retorted Akna. “This way, instead of having to fight with my tribe when I introduce the Night Mare’s religion, they’ll all accept it with open arms! And the winter wolf I take as my mate will do the same for his people with whatever weapon he retrieves! We’ll both-”
“What you’re proposing is an absolute betrayal of your people’s trust in you,” rumbled Lex, a dangerous tone in his voice. “They have the right – everyone, pony or adlet or winter wolf or any other sapient creature has the right – to personal autonomy with regard to their thoughts! Any attempt to abrogate that, outside of extremely limited and highly specific circumstances, is monstrous!”
“If it’s so monstrous,” taunted Akna, “then how come the Night Mare made it so that her greatest weapons all have that power?”
Lex didn’t have an answer for that, nor was he interested in trying to find one. Instead, he held out his left foreleg, putting his hoof right in Akna’s face. “Prostrate yourself before me.”
Akna had no chance to respond before the Night Mare’s divine authority seized her, forcing her to obey his command as she immediately dropped down, pressing her belly and chin to the ground.
Her eyes widening in alarm, she tried to struggle, but couldn’t manage to do anything more than wriggle slightly as she maintained her subservient posture . “Wha-”
“Remain silent. Do not use any magic you possess.”
Lex stared down at the prone adlet-turned-wolf then, his glowing eyes staring into her terrified ones. He hadn’t known for sure that divine authority would work on her – it hadn’t on the other adlets when he’d attempted to use it on Toklo’s companions a few days earlier – but he’d suspected that it would. After all, not only were winter wolves subject to it, but according to Akna she’d gained that ability via a religious ceremony performed under the Night Mare’s auspices, which made it all the more likely that it would leave her vulnerable to the power that same goddess had given him. But there was still one other hypothesis that needed testing.
“Return to your humanoid form.”
Shuddering in pain as she involuntarily complied, the quiet chorus of wrenching ligaments and shifting bones filled the hemisphere, leaving Akna gasping for air as she changed back into an adlet. A moment later she’d completed the transformation, now folding herself compactly with her shins lying flat, hunched down and bending at the waist with her jaw on the ground, arms forward and palms down in forced supplication.
A thin smile crossed Lex’s face then. As he’d expected, divine authority still worked on her even like this. He could still feel her trying to squirm as the Night Mare’s power kept her still, with no more success than she’d had a moment ago. Which meant that he no longer needed to listen to her half-baked plans and petulant arguments. Instead, he could simply force her to obey him.
“Now, you’re going to answer my questions, simply and directly. You will not scream or call for help, or otherwise do anything except tell me what I want to know.” He didn’t bother asking if she understood, nor warning her what would happen if she disobeyed, since it was literally beyond her ability to do so right now. “First, tell me where the Shrine of the Starless Sky is located.”
“A half-day’s travel from here,” whimpered Akna quietly, “north by northeast, beneath the river.”
That last part made Lex frown. “What do you mean ‘beneath the river’?”
“The Shrine is underground, in a cave system” answered the compelled adlet. “The only way to reach it from the surface is through a nearby river. It flows underground, and if you dive in and follow the current, it will take you there.”
Lex digested that for a moment. That certainly explained the “starless sky” part of the Shrine’s name. Likewise, he hadn’t considered the possibility that it was a subterranean in nature; if not for what Akna had just told him, they likely never would have found the place, despite how closely they’d followed Mystaria’s map.
But Lex dwelled on that for only a moment before thinking back to the possibility that Akna had raised regarding the Rite of Sublimation.
The Shrine was almost certainly not where Grisela and her twisted family were operating from. Whatever promise of power it held, his immediate priorities were to recover Woodheart and slay the monsters that were terrorizing the nearby village. But with no further leads as to where they were, and with wandering in the wilderness in hopes of stumbling onto them not being a viable option – doing that would, at best, accomplish nothing; at worst it would leave them vulnerable to another ambush – there was no compelling reason not to go to the Shrine.
In fact, if he successfully completed the Rite and gained sufficient power, that might enable him to achieve the goals that were, as of now, proving elusive. Not just rescuing Woodheart and slaying the monsters, but maybe even separating himself from Solvei and returning to Equestria with Thermal Draft. All of it, potentially solved with a detour of less than a day.
His mind made up, Lex leaned closer to where Akna was trembling on the ground.
“Tell me everything you know about the Rite of Sublimation.”