Woe had returned from the Empire chastened by his reckless shifts from one shell to another. He'd taken on so many totems in such a short period. Was there even a bit of Woe left, from all the facets he'd taken on? Even without a spark to pollute his soul, he felt diminished, less himself. Maybe he should have refrained from growing his newfound power for changing shape. The power itself, understandably, had a twisted potential even in lieu of an Emean parasite. Woe knew better, he should have known better. What was the saying? "Power is the most dangerous of cages?" And yet he'd found his way through the gate and thoroughly locked into its corruptive embrace.
He supposed he could fracture once more, and remove the taint, as he had Ziell's and his aunt's mark. As he'd left behind Lethroda and so offended Chamadarst that he'd withdrawn his Championship.
What lengths wouldn't Woe go to prove that he didn't give a damn about any of it at all, anymore? He thought he wanted a world that was predictable, salvageable. At the cost of integrity, at the cost of morality or anything at all, he would have seen it done. Perhaps that was his error, to want anything for others. Perhaps disunity was the guiding principle of mortalkind, and Immortals for that matter.
The past few seasons had given him much reason to ponder, and consider where he stood. So it was no surprise that he found his way through the gates of Chamadarst's Temple, to revisit the heart of his sin. That of pride. A desire to place himself above mortality, above terms of morality or grace or affection. Had he only ever been trying to prove to his mother, that he was just as swift to give unctuous liberty toward his grayness of heart? A repeat of the episode with Elisabeth, only reiterated for Winston in full view of the Immortals and heroes of Scalvoris, exposing his callous intent for consistency and safety?
Chrien was a menace, even now she was still every bit the force for destruction. Woe had nothing to prove to them. She deserved to be caught in a trap that would crush her, many times over. Cassion could stuff his saccharine story of redemption. Chrien was irredeemable. If Woe knew anything, it was his own domain of Redemption, and she to his mind could never occupy it.
Among his kin, the other mortalborn of the world, the other children of Divinity... Hart, Llyr, and so many others he'd met over the years, there had to be others who understood that such saccharine dichotomies bore no anchor in reality.
So as he stood in the midst of the Onyx King's temple, the place where many deals were wrought and recorded, he waited in shadow to watch as the faithful milled about, awaiting one who bore signs of being more than any mortal. If any place would attract the exceptional mortalborn kin, it would be Yaralon, and all came to the Temple of Chamadarst who wished to do business of significance.
