ShadowBound: The Need For Power

Chapter 785: Imposter

Tharionson’s mind raced even though his body would not move. He lay on the cold archive floor with his cheek turned partly against the stone, his limbs useless beneath him, his breathing slow and shallow in a way that did not belong to him. The needle had not killed him. That, somehow, made the terror worse.

Death would have been clean compared to this paralysis, compared to being trapped inside his own body while the figure standing above him wore the face of the one man he had still trusted.

Zion’s face looked down at him with an expression so calm it felt almost obscene, not the calm of discipline or military restraint, but the calm of something standing outside ordinary fear, something that had no need to hurry because the outcome had already been decided before Tharionson understood there was even a game being played.

’Who are you?’ Tharionson thought, the words tearing through his mind with a force his mouth could no longer give shape to. ’What are you?’

His eyes strained upward, following every detail he could still see. The angle of Zion’s jaw. The dark blond hair. The commander’s uniform. The posture he knew too well. Everything was familiar, and that familiarity made the wrongness more horrifying.

He tried to search backward through the day, then through the week, then through the past months, looking for the moment when Zion had stopped being Zion. There should have been something. A shift in speech. A delayed answer. A habit missing from the man’s hands. A wrong look when names were mentioned.

7But memory betrayed him with nothing clear. Zion had been present in security briefings. Zion had reviewed reports. Zion had spoken with the same measured dryness, given the same practical conclusions, challenged Tharionson in the same blunt way only he was allowed to. If this thing had been wearing Zion for a long time, then it had not merely stolen his face. It had learned him.

Or had it?

The thought struck Tharionson with a different kind of sickness. What if this was Zion? What if the man he had trusted had always been something else beneath the skin? What if the commander who had stood at his side, fought under his command, taken private orders, and helped him search through the kingdom’s rot had been part of it from the beginning?

The possibility flashed through him and was rejected just as violently. No. Zion Ardent was not this. Zion could be cold, calculating, even brutal when duty demanded it, but there was weight in him. A human weight. A soldier’s burden. This creature had none of that. Its calm was empty of strain. Its eyes, even with Zion’s face still shaped around them, had become too still, too anciently amused.

Then another question ripped through him. If this was not Zion, where was the real one?

The real Zion. His commander. His last trusted man. Was he dead? Had this thing killed him and hidden the body somewhere beneath the kingdom’s unrest? Was Zion lying in some ditch outside Zone 15, already reduced to another unexplained corpse among too many others? Or was he alive, imprisoned, used, silenced, kept somewhere because his face still had value?

Tharionson tried to move his hand, tried to force even one finger to bend, tried to pull Myst through his channels and burn through whatever poison or spell had stolen his body from him. Nothing answered properly. He could feel his core faintly, distant and muffled, as though his own Myst had been pushed behind thick glass. His mind gave commands, but his limbs remained dead. Even his tongue refused him. All he could do was watch.

The thing wearing Zion’s face eventually moved away from him, stepping around the scattered ledgers and loosened papers with unhurried care. Tharionson’s eyes tracked him, the only part of him still allowed to follow.

The figure bent near the table and began gathering the documents Tharionson had been collecting before the attack: the authorization ledger references, the fragments concerning Article Seven, the old legal summaries, the notes connecting the hidden article to Serah’s case, and the records that tied several recent deaths to those with access to the sealed decree.

The motions were efficient, almost casual, and the sight of those papers being taken made something furious and helpless twist inside Tharionson’s chest.

"You know," Zion’s voice said, and the sound of it nearly made Tharionson sick because it was almost perfect, "for a prince raised in the shadow of command, you have a rather inconvenient habit of thinking like an investigator when you are tired enough to make mistakes."

The voice was Zion’s, but not truly. Tharionson heard it now with the dreadful clarity of someone listening after trust had been stripped away. Zion’s voice had always carried a soldier’s firmness, a grounded weight shaped by years of discipline.

This voice wore that weight as a costume. The cadence was close, the tone accurate, the depth familiar, but something underneath it was smoother, lighter, amused in places Zion would never be amused. It confirmed what Tharionson had already known the moment those golden irises appeared.

This was not his commander speaking. This was something using the memory of his voice.

"I will admit," the imposter continued, stacking the gathered documents with almost delicate precision, "I underestimated your drive. Most men with your burden would have broken into rage by now and called it duty. You, though, kept looking. Even with the court rotting, your mother unraveling, your father surrounded by jackals, and your kingdom turning on itself, you kept pulling at the thread."

A faint smile touched Zion’s face, but it did not reach the golden eyes.

"That was impressive. Irritating, yes, but impressive."

Tharionson glared up at him from the floor, or tried to. He could not know how much of the expression reached his face. His body felt like a prison built from meat and bone.

The imposter glanced back at him briefly, as if he could read the hatred regardless. "Do not look so offended. I have seen far worse heirs do far less with far more. You are far smarter than I gave you credit for, High Marshal. A few more hours, perhaps a few more days, and you might have become a true problem."

He placed the last of the documents atop the stack, then stretched one hand over them. Space folded around his palm in a silent, controlled distortion. It did not flare violently or tear open like a battlefield spell. It simply bent, the air turning inward as a narrow dimensional slit formed above the gathered records. The papers lifted slightly, edges trembling as though caught in a current, and then vanished into the space as the slit closed without leaving a trace.

Tharionson’s heart lurched.

’Space magic.’

The certainty landed like a hammer. Zion Ardent did not possess space affinity. Tharionson knew that as surely as he knew his own name. He had fought beside Zion, trained with him, reviewed his capabilities, and trusted his limitations in real combat calculations.

Zion’s affinities were not unknown variables. He had no such magic. He had never shown the slightest indication of spatial control, dimensional storage, or distortion. Whatever stood before Tharionson had just confirmed itself beyond any doubt.

The imposter turned from the table and walked back toward him, his boots stopping near Tharionson’s shoulder. Slowly, he crouched, bringing Zion’s familiar face close enough that Tharionson could see the golden light resting behind the eyes like embers buried beneath polished glass.

"You have questions," he said softly. "So many of them. They are written all over your face, even if your tongue cannot serve you right now."

His smile deepened, though it remained strangely gentle, almost conversational.

"Fortunately for you, I am in a generous mood. It has been a productive day, and I find that I enjoy rewarding useful effort."

Tharionson wanted to spit at him. He wanted to burn the smile off that stolen face. He wanted to grab him by the throat and force every answer out of him until the archive stones were black with flame. Instead, he could only lie there and listen.

"The real Zion is alive," the imposter said.

The words struck Tharionson so hard that for a moment the rest of the chamber seemed to fade.

Alive. The real Zion was alive.

Relief tried to rise in him, but it was poisoned instantly by suspicion. If this creature was telling the truth, then why? If Zion was alive, where? In what state? For what purpose?

"I did consider killing him," the imposter added, as if discussing a minor administrative option. "It would have been clean. Simple. One body, one hidden grave, one less loose end. But that would have been wasteful. Commander Ardent is a useful man, and useful men should not be discarded until their usefulness has been properly spent."

Tharionson’s eyes narrowed as much as the paralysis allowed.

The imposter tilted his head, amused. "As for where he is, I am afraid even I cannot tell you with perfect accuracy. Somewhere within the kingdom, certainly. Buried beneath enough misdirection that even my own memory of the location has been deliberately made... inconvenient."

He tapped two fingers against his temple.

"A precaution. There are minds in this world that can pry open secrets if one carries them too clearly. So I made sure not to carry his prison clearly. Clever, is it not? Cruel too, perhaps, but one must have craftsmanship."

Tharionson’s mind seized on the answer, trying to force usefulness from it. Zion was alive. Somewhere in Solara. Hidden so thoroughly that even the imposter had obscured his own memory. That meant there was a method. A prison. A spell. A route. Something that could be found. But the thought slipped under the weight of another question.

How long?

The imposter seemed to read that too. "How long has this been going on?" he asked, smiling as if Tharionson had spoken aloud. "Longer than you would like. Not as long as it could have been. This face has been convenient, but it was not the first one I wore."

He paused, and for the first time, his smile turned openly cruel.

"The first was Lady Aleah Olian."