I Thought I Was Collecting Systems, Not Overpowered Wives

Chapter 57: Saga 57: The Hollow Choir

Deep beneath Songrel’s surface, in a chamber lit only by cold, flickering witchlight, a gathering of robed figures stood arranged in a loose circle around a raised dais. At its center, a man with sunken eyes and skin the color of old parchment surveyed his assembled followers with quiet, calculating patience.

"The Church grows suspicious," said a voice from among the gathered robes—a woman with silver hair cropped severely short, one of Umbra Black’s senior operatives, known within the organization only as Third Vesper. "Azure Blake’s arrival complicates our timeline considerably, Cardinal Vane."

Cardinal Malrick Vane—stripped of his official Church title decades ago, though the honorific persisted among his followers out of habit and old loyalty—steepled his fingers thoughtfully. "Complicates, yes. Prevents, no. We’ve operated in patience for over a decade preparing for this moment. A handful of foreign hunters, however skilled, will not undo years of careful groundwork."

"They defeated Paul’s herald and the awakened Ruin beneath Renodin’s palace," another voice offered, cautious. "Their combined strength shouldn’t be underestimated."

"I don’t underestimate them," Vane said, something cold entering his tone. "I simply recognize that strength alone rarely wins wars fought in shadow. Azure Blake understands swords and spells. They understand very little about patience, about the slow erosion of trust and support that precedes any true collapse."

Third Vesper inclined her head slightly. "And the Saintess herself?"

"Ariandel remains the key to everything we’ve built toward." Vane’s expression, if it could be called that beneath the cold detachment he wore like armor, shifted into something almost fond, almost regretful. "She carries bloodline authority the Church itself doesn’t fully understand, authority tied to Songrel’s founding covenant. Remove her, and the entire foundation of the Church’s legitimacy crumbles with her."

"You still call her by her given name," Third Vesper observed carefully. "After everything."

"I trained her, once. Before the Church claimed her for their own purposes and stripped away everything that made her interesting." Something bitter crept into Vane’s voice, old wounds surfacing despite his usual composure. "She deserved better than becoming a symbol paraded before crowds who’ll never know the person underneath the ceremony."

"And yet you intend to kill her regardless."

"I intend to free her from a cage she never chose to enter," Vane corrected sharply. "Whether she survives that liberation is, unfortunately, a secondary concern to the larger purpose Umbra Black serves. The Sunlight Accord has bound too many nations under Songrel’s thumb for too long. It ends now, one way or another."

He rose from the dais, robes pooling around him like liquid shadow. "Prepare the next phase. If Azure Blake insists on standing between us and our objective, then Azure Blake becomes an obstacle to remove, same as any other."

Third Vesper lingered a moment after the others began filing out, studying her leader with an expression carefully schooled into neutrality. "Cardinal Vane. If I may ask—when you speak of freeing her, do you truly believe she would thank you for it? Or is that simply a story you tell yourself to justify what comes next?"

Vane’s expression didn’t change, but something in his posture tightened almost imperceptibly. "Careful, Vesper. Questions like that border on insubordination."

"I ask out of genuine curiosity, nothing more. You’ve spent considerable resources on this operation, more than strategic necessity alone would demand. I find myself wondering what personal stake drives that level of commitment."

"My reasons are my own," Vane said, voice going cold enough that Vesper finally inclined her head in acknowledgment and retreated toward the chamber’s exit without further comment.

Alone once more, Vane allowed himself a rare moment of stillness, staring at nothing in particular, memories surfacing he’d spent years trying to bury beneath ambition and cold calculation. A young girl, barely more than a child, laughing freely before the Church had claimed her and taught her that laughter itself was unbecoming of her station.

"Soon," he murmured to the empty chamber, uncertain even himself whether the word carried threat or promise. "Soon, Ariandel, this will all be over, one way or another."

He extinguished the witchlight with a wave of his hand, plunging the chamber into darkness, and allowed the cold, patient calculation to reassert itself over whatever fragile sentiment had briefly surfaced.

In the corridor beyond, Third Vesper paused at a junction, glancing back toward the sealed chamber door with an expression that betrayed more uncertainty than her earlier composure had suggested. Years of service to Umbra Black had taught her many things about patience, about sacrifice, about the cold arithmetic of a cause that justified considerable cruelty in pursuit of its ultimate goals.

But something about Vane’s tone tonight, that brief flicker of old grief beneath the calculation, left her with a question she wasn’t certain she wanted answered.

’Does he actually believe what he tells the others,’ she wondered, ’or has he simply repeated the justification so many times that the truth of it no longer matters to him either way?’

She continued down the corridor without further hesitation, filing the question away alongside countless others she’d learned, over years of service, never to ask aloud.

Back within the sealed chamber, Vane remained a while longer in the darkness, tracing one finger absently over an old, tarnished pendant hidden beneath his robes—a small keepsake he’d carried since long before Umbra Black existed, since before ambition had reshaped him into whatever he’d become. He didn’t examine it often. Tonight, for reasons he couldn’t fully articulate even to himself, he found he needed the reminder.

"Forgive me," he murmured to no one, to the memory of a laughing child he’d once sworn to protect before circumstances and cold necessity had rewritten every promise he’d ever made. "Whatever comes next, know that this was never meant to be cruelty for its own sake."

The pendant offered no answer, of course. It never did. But the ritual of holding it, just for a moment, was enough to steady him before he finally turned and left the chamber behind, back toward the cold calculations that awaited him.

—

End of Chapter—