Interruption.

"Stop!" the world seems to flicker. Everything halts. Madeleine is paused, mid-retreat, her face a relief of pain and mortal terror. No blood flows from Garnier's wounds. Even the minute waves of the Lac D'Givre remain in place, held by a powerful magic.

The one responsible appears on the deck before you. Sally, betrayal and anger flaring in her normally warm brown eyes.

"This is over, Iain." she intones furiously, and with a wave of her hand, the magic of the Tome is dispelled.

-

You find yourself back in the royal crypt, your eyes taking a moment or two to adjust. From a summer's day on the water, to the dust and silence of the last Itherian kings.

The Tome of Precia lies open on the stones before you, turned to the pages that, when you were the one to read it, represent the final days of Bryce's life. Before his **** and forcible siring of your father, at the cruel hands of Akkhadia of the Cult.

Erika is exactly where she was before you entered your trance, kneeling close by, her swords drawn, ready to defend you from any who might intrude and strike you down as you are immobilised, sailing the red river of your royal ancestry.

Of course, the older woman hadn't contended with Sally. Your cousin, understanding the magicks of the Tome better than you, had been able to wrench you from inhabiting King Bryce.

"I trust the two a' yous know exactly how reckless what you just tried to do is, aye?" Sally pants. Most likely, she's been running to catch up with you.

"I've been looking for this thing since before you were born, Völva." Erika speaks up.

"Aye, and if even half the things I've heard about what you and Einar wanted to do with it are true, you're the last person I'd entrust wi' it!" the Beathan mage says, throwing up her hands in frustration.

"Karasson was going to use it to kill Madeleine." Erika says, standing up, bringing herself level with Sally. "As we've all tried to for the last twenty years, you recall?"

"There are better ways to go about it than whatever... madness Iain was attempting." Sally protests.

"The Kvart's plan seemed sound to me. Killing her when she was a child, when her parents brought her to the Itherian court."

"Which never actually happened, not in our timeline, you are aware? Bryce was murdered a month before Garnier was due to visit. All we have to go on that they were planning to visit Itheria is a few court records, and Akkhadia was known to manipulate such things."

"They did come here." you speak up. "We had cakes."

"Ohhhh, you had cakes. A' course you had cakes!" Sally says, exasperatedly. "Look, I'm taking the Tome to Gaelica. Don't try to stop me. The Tall Willows will decide the best way to employ it, if we should even use it at all.

"We'll never beat the Coalition in a conventional war." you tell her. "They've too many men, too many resources."

"Iain, you were aware, if you'd... changed history with the thing. The way you were going to... You'd never have been born, aye? Bryce never going to Luxem means no Edward, means no you. You understand that, aye?"

"I'm accustomed to sacrifice." you respond.

"Then sacrifice this." Sally responds. Turning quickly on her heel, the mage dashes from the crypt, the Tome clutched in her hand.

"We should get after her." Erika says. Already the older woman is already in motion, tossing you the golden, octopodean trooper mask you'd used as a disguise to move through the capital.

Ascending into the light of an early dawn, the Coalition morning sermon blasting out from a nearby communicator, you put on your mask and set out into the subjugated capital, after your cousin.