After a few moments, Sonder walked back out through the same gates she had gone in just a moment before.
In her free hand rested the two shards from Vault Seventeen.
Aronia's stomach dropped. That was a very bad thing.
Only terrible things could come from the two shards alone, but now, someone had eight of them.
The Archives had just failed at the one thing they existed to do: contain dangerous things.
Aronia tried to think of some bright side to this, some scrap of hope.
Maybe the fragments could not bring in the end of the world? She had to evidence that they could.
That didn't calm her.
Sonder looked down at the two newly acquired shards.
Then, with practiced care, she fitted them among the others embedded within her staff.
Sonder adjusted the two new fragments with surprising care.
The staff seemed to accept them.
There were no explosions or destructive magical waves sweeping through the halls.
Everything became quiet. The ringing alarm faded, and the shouts of the wardens disappeared. Even the ever-present hum of the containment wards seemed to retreat into nothing.
Aronia remained, as did the corridors and the stone walls and Sonder herself. Everything else had fallen away.
It was as though the Archives had become an empty version of itself.
Only the two of them existed. Sonder lowered the staff.
"I don't want to destroy the world."
Her voice echoed strangely in the stillness.
"I don't want kingdoms of dominion. I don't want people to kneel before me. I just want one person. I want to save him. Nothing more and nothing less. And after that…"
Her fingers tightened around the staff. "I want to be done. I don't want the shards or the mask. I don't want Endirth's power. I want to put it down; I want to rest. I want to be free of this pressure, this weight on me."
The silence lingered.
Aronia believed her.
Or rather, she believed that Sonder believed every word she had just spoken.
"That is a noble goal," Aronia said. "Not a very good speech, but the sentiment is there. But it isn't a promise you can keep."
She pointed at the staff. "Power doesn't ask what your intentions are. It changes you. I've spent fifteen years reading reports written by people who were absolutely certain they would remain themselves."
She shook her head. "They never did. You already have enough power to frighten every archivist in this mountain. You can just ignore wards and layers of magical protections that kept literal monsters and nightmares contained. You can just walk through walls. You can defeat trained wardens without so much as drawing your sword. And yet you're still searching for more. More power."
"Eight shards are not enough."
"And after you found the ninth? What if you found the tenth? What if you found all of them and still don't think its enough?"
Sonder's silence answered it.
Aronia exhaled tiredly.
"So no." She planted her feet. "You cannot leave with them. No matter how noble your reasons."
Sonder regarded her with something that looked almost like regret.
"You cannot stop me."
"I know."
Aronia adjusted her grip on the notebook still clutched in one hand.
She was just a researcher.
Not a soldier. Not a duelist.
Certainly not someone who fought immortal sorceresses carrying fragments of some wizard king of supposed legend.
But sometimes a researcher was all that stood between an artifact and the outside world.
She stepped forward.
It was not a particularly impressive charge.
Merely the determined advance of a woman who had decided that someone ought to do something.
Sonder did not raise her staff. She did not cast a spell.
She simply continued walking, straight toward Aronia.
There was no impact; no collision.
The sorceress passed through her as effortlessly as she had done with the walls.
For one heartbeat, Aronia felt impossibly cold.
Then Sonder was behind her.
Aronia spun around. The corridor was empty.
Blackbird Sonder was gone.