82. QUESTIONS OF IDENTITY

Kihrin’s story

The Mother of Trees, the Manol Jungle

Just before the De-Ascension Ritual

I met with my parents in one of the back parlors. Several were spread out through the private quarters of the palace, places where members of the royal family could find privacy, without the threat of courtiers or petitioners jockeying for a few moments of their time. The room also didn’t have much in the way of furnishings compared to its neighbors, which was great because it meant that there was less for me to accidentally disintegrate.

I held a hand up when my mother began to walk up to me. “Stay back, please,” I told her. “I’ve warned you that it’s not safe for you to get close.”

They both looked at each other, then at me.

“Are you Kihrin?” my mother asked cautiously.

“He can’t be,” Therin snapped. “I don’t know why the others just seem willing to accept—”

“Are you Khaeriel?” I asked my mother.

She got the point immediately. Khaeriel, after all, wasn’t in the body that she’d originally been born in. Thanks to the Stone of Shackles, she’d been switched into someone else’s. But that didn’t make her Miyathreall. Then she shook her head. “That seems a different circumstance. My souls were swapped because of the Stone of Shackles.”

“The difference is that Miya wasn’t a god,” Therin snapped. “And Miya’s souls didn’t stick around after the transfer was done. We’re supposed to believe that you’re not Vol Karoth?”

“Dad, calm the fuck down,” I told him.

He did not look even slightly calm. “How can you even say that—”

I sighed. I didn’t need this. Fuck, I so didn’t need this. “Were I actually Vol Karoth the Endless Hunger, Warchild, He Who Will Bring the End, and whatever stupid labels you feel like assigning, would I really be standing here letting my parents lecture me about—” I squinted. “What am I being lectured on? Saving the world, taking possession of my original body from my last life, the fact that I still haven’t quite figured out how not to destroy anything I touch? I promise I’m working on that last one really hard. I’m up to an hour now.”

“I don’t care!” Therin said. “And yes! You’re being lectured on all of that! Damn it, Kihrin, I just got you back, and now I find out that you’re already—” He choked and turned away.

“I’m not dead,” I repeated. “Yes, fine, your biological offspring is dead.Which—okay, yes. That sounded better in my head. I’m sorry. It was unavoidable. I still consider you my father.” Hardly difficult. S’arric barely remembered his father. He’d been a child when his family had left the man behind in a whole different universe.

Therin didn’t look mollified. He looked horrified.

“You must be aware that this ritual might well destroy you,” Khaeriel said. “We have no idea how it will affect you.”

“Xaltorath’s seen it done before, and it never has. I think we’re safe on that front.” I shrugged. “No, the real problem is that this body is unstable, and if I don’t find a way to fix it, my options are—” I paused. Going back to that prison wasn’t possible. And the Guardians would be too immature in their power to do anything on their own. So if this didn’t work, I faced the real possibility of having to walk myself through the Nythrawl Wound breach, because sooner or later I would accumulate too much power and be in the same position I’d been in after Xaltorath. “—not great.”

Khaeriel put her arm around Therin’s waist, turned her face in to his shoulder.

“Please tell me that you intend on surviving all this,” Therin said. “That you aren’t intending to defeat Relos Var at the cost of ending your own life.”

“Janel and Teraeth have already given me this lecture,” I said truthfully. “I’m not planning on dying here. Just the opposite. In case you weren’t paying attention earlier, I have a child on the way. It would be nice to still be around to see that child grow up.” I paused. “Relos Var’s expecting me to sacrifice myself, you know. Now that he knows I’m back, he’ll be expecting me to do something selfless and heroic that he can exploit. He thinks he knows how I’m going to behave.” I grinned. “He thinks I’m S’arric. And if I have my way, that mistake will cost him.”

Therin’s expression turned thoughtful then. “You really are Kihrin, aren’t you?”

I sighed. “Haven’t I told you this?” I tucked my hands under my arms. Honestly, I wanted to give them both hugs. It annoyed me that I couldn’t. It annoyed me a lot.

“They’ll be starting soon,” I said. “I’m going to go watch.”

I vanished on them.

I wasn’t in any mood for teary goodbyes.