It wasn't... wasn't like that. The ritual was contingent on Heron's presence; the old bond needed to be severed at the same moment as the new one was forged. The realignment of the triad - two verses one - would have locked the heroine in a dark world encircling the abyss, the last bearer of a flickering flame rather than the proud guardian of a thriving world. In time that battle would have worn on her, scratching away at her will until she gave up. It had been obvious, in retrospect: the only weapon that could truly kill the heroine's endless determination was loneliness. That was why...

She needed a comeback. A narrative about how she'd teach the mathematicians antireality equations, corrupting them with knowledge of the void until the temple inverted and became the nexus of madness. The structure of it was all there, a dark promise about a new age of evil, the tools of civilization once again turning to its own ruin. But even as the thought arose it drifted away in her head. Her heart wasn't in it. Pointless threats and pointless speeches, another turn of the wheel, when instead...

"[i]You [/i]will do all these things?" said Sayanastia. "That [i]is [/i]a shock. I presumed you would do as you always do: sit obediently and wait for Heron to rescue you. Though perhaps, with her out of the picture and your attempt to crown a new champion ruined, you finally feel the need to take matters into your own hands?"

There was a flicker of something inside her. She'd lost... so many times. In the end the only thing she could do was accept her place. She was lesser than the heroine, and such was a dragon's pride that accepting that had taken so very long. 

But she didn't yet know if she was lesser than Civelia. And that question raised a flicker of the old fire inside her.

[Spending the Unrescued String: Sayanastia wants Civelia to work towards challenging her directly, rather than hiding behind champions]