When Serenity returned to Aeon, there were six days left until the eclipse. Six days left to prepare or do anything he’d left undone.

There was not really much left to do; they’d been preparing for months and everything was almost ready.

The following day, they escorted Jeff, the man Ekari rescued from the infirmary, to Lyka where Serenity sent him back to San Francisco.

Blaze spent most of the trip muttering about the man’s resilience and resistance to greendust; apparently, Earth-humans actually had a specialized part of the liver that would not only filter out greendust and slowly render it inert if the level was too high but that could also store it and release it if the level inside the liver was high and the level in the bloodstream was low. He found the same adaptation in Rissa. It was missing in Serenity, but made sense; he didn’t have a liver.

It made Serenity even more convinced that Earth had a high level of World Core dust from the destruction of much of the World Core at some point in the past. Blaze was tremendously puzzled by it all; it implied that Earthlings had adapted to have a way to more or less safely use the bits of a World Core that had exploded; Blaze could understand that if they were common, but he couldn’t figure out what it was.

Serenity thought about all of the Earth legends that stayed rare yet known, the high incidence of bloodlines, and the fact that Rissa’s entire family seemed to be Talented. Any of those could be related to the presence of World Core dust, but it was also possible none of them were. He’d have to see what Blaze found when they got back to Earth.

Three days before the eclipse, High Priestess Karin was invited to their rooms. That was short enough that Lykandeon wouldn’t miss her if she stayed; hopefully, it would be long enough for Blaze to help her enough to make it through when Lykandeon died.

Serenity was planning on Lykandeon’s death. If he didn’t die, he’d try to kill Serenity; even if he failed, he’d know that Serenity had attacked him. There would no longer be a reason to keep their opposition quiet.

Two days before the eclipse, Serenity was called to Lykandeon’s chambers again. It happened irregularly, but seemed to be becoming more frequent; he’d been called in right before the mission to the last church, as well. Serenity tapdanced around Lykandeon’s questions, trying to seem like he was becoming more agreeable and starting to lean in Lykandeon’s favor without actually agreeing to anything.

He knew he’d managed the “not agreeing” part, but he could only hope that Lykandeon believed he was slowly being corrupted. It was a good thing that he wouldn’t have to pretend for much longer.

The day before the eclipse, Serenity and Ita went to the Tower of Broken Swords. It wasn’t commonly visited, but Serenity still didn’t want to set up the ritual he’d planned too far in advance. He wanted to be here when he initiated the ritual, but he couldn’t be here and the Water Garden at the same time.

Ita could substitute for him in a well-defined ritual like the one he was planning for the Tower, but she couldn’t substitute for him at the Water Garden, and he wanted to have the ritual he was establishing available at the Tower of Broken Swords in case he needed it to distract Lykandeon. Having it available might be important.

It took hours to set up the ritual, then more hours to walk Ita through the steps of the ritual until she had it completely memorized. Sillon would stay with her; Serenity had wanted to leave Kerr as well, but she insisted on staying at the suite; there wasn’t anyone else to guard it, after all. Blaze would be busy with Karin, Ekari would be worried about her mother, and Rissa would be watching Jenna.

None of them quite trusted Rourke’s offer of guards. He’d been very helpful, but at the same time they still didn’t know why he’d been so helpful other than possibly some lingering loyalty to Karit or Princess Karin. Sure, he seemed to be a good man, but that didn’t always hold up when blurred loyalties were on the line. He’d have guards stationed outside the suite; he refused to do less when Karin was with them.

There would have been no way to keep the importance of the night of the eclipse from Rourke, so they didn’t even try.

The World Cores of Aeon and Lyka would have to wait, along with the humans in the complex near Lyka’s Core. It was all too likely that assaulting either would draw Lykandeon’s attention; after all, Lykandeon spent most of his time at Aeon’s Core. The best time to attack would have been when Lykandeon was distracted by the eclipse, but if that went well he wouldn’t be a problem ever again.

Serenity didn’t even know where the “Legions” were, so he could only hope that those people could wait and they’d be able to get a better handle on them after he dealt with Lykandeon. It might take some more annoying political wrangling, but High Priestess Karin was potentially the second-in-command of the Eternal Church. It wasn’t like there was a succession plan in place; they’d have to fight for it, but it should be possible to get her in control and then use that to find out about the Legions.

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Serenity also didn’t know where Arkandaeon had gone after leaving his Instructor post in the Tutorial; Rourke hadn’t been able to locate him. Serenity suspected that meant he was under the protection of another branch of the Church; the Legion seemed likely, but it wasn’t the only competing possibility.

That brought them to the day of the eclipse. As far as Serenity could tell, everything was ready. He’d doublechecked his analysis of the ritual at the Water Garden and set up all the contingencies he could reasonably arrange.

Rissa had even attempted to see the future; she wouldn’t tell him what she’d seen past “I’m not going to even try to stop you”. Serenity took that to mean that she saw a good chance of a positive outcome and didn’t want to limit his options.

Serenity headed to the Water Gardens before sunrise on the day of the eclipse. They weren’t secured in any way beyond a simple fence; they were simply “not accepting guests”. Serenity bypassed their “security” easily; his Sovereign Form could pass through the fence without any real effort. He planned to stay in the form until the eclipse started; it would let him observe while not being seen.

An hour after dawn, the workers arrived. They frantically cleaned the middle pool area and set out seating and some tools that Serenity wasn’t sure he recognized. He hoped he was wrong, at least; he hadn’t predicted torture, just death.

An hour after that, a group of armed acolytes and priests led some very confused chained commoners in through the front gate. They were chivvied to the central pool and confined by anchoring the chains of the person at the head of each coffle to a set of posts. They were generally Tier Two, but there was one Tier Four and three Tier Threes.

The chains and posts were strong enough to hold people of Tier Five or Six; more than that, Serenity could see the mana flowing through them. They would disrupt Skill use. A skilled actual mage could get around being chained and manacled like that, but a Skill user or semi-trained mage wouldn’t be able to.

The only person other than himself that Serenity had seen cast magic in a manner that might get around the chains was Blaze. It was clear that it wasn’t common.

Soon after that, the workers went away; the guards who came with the prisoners stayed for another hour before they left as well.

There were still two hours to go until the eclipse began. Serenity waited impatiently; he couldn’t start anything until he knew no one else was coming and no one would be investigating the pools he intended to alter.

Half an hour before the eclipse was to start, Lykandeon arrived. He was alone and he went directly to the central pool. He looked through everything and set a few things up, but it seemed routine and unhurried. When he seemed confident he was ready, he walked over to the Tier Four prisoner, spoke to her, and released her.

Serenity turned away after a moment more. He’d seen worse in the past, but that didn’t mean he wanted to watch. He was fairly certain she’d “enjoy” everything Lykandeon did to her, and that definitely made things worse.

He was certain that Lykandeon justified it to himself by saying she was going to die anyway and this way she’d die happy. It didn’t make Serenity feel any better about the matter; mind control didn’t actually make things better.

On the other hand, Serenity now knew that Lykandeon was going to be occupied until the beginning of the eclipse, at which point he’d need to start his own ritual. It was the perfect time for Serenity to set up his countermeasures. They didn’t have to be ready when Lykandeon started; they only had to be ready by full eclipse. Still, the sooner he had them ready the better.

Serenity hurried as fast as he could float to the nearest pool linked to the central pool, then shifted to his chimera form and started following the plan. This pool only needed a minor line adjustment, which he could easily do with his claws. Other pools needed everything from his own blood to certain herbal additives. One even took a handful of monster cores placed in specific locations in the pool.

He had to adjust every single one of the pools that linked to the central pool. Several of the adjustments would have been easier if he’d dared to contaminate the central pool’s water or alter a few lines there, but he wasn’t willing to take that risk.

Serenity could have done all of the changes by adjusting the runes, but using the right tools required more preparation but was both faster and more effective at the time of casting the ritual. This time, he had the luxury of preparing in advance; there was no reason not to use the better tools.

He wasn’t done when the light level started dimming, but he was done well before the full eclipse. The last step was the actual interference in the spell, and for that there were a couple of ways he could do it. He’d settled on one that was powerful and took advantage of his unusual ability to be in multiple places at the same time. The shadows were barely beginning to change shape when Serenity’s fourth Sovereign Form reached the final pool he was going to inhabit for the ritual and they all moved above the water.

It was definitely too bad that his Sovereign form couldn’t actually enter water; that was going to be required to actually manage the modified ritual. He was going to have to somehow think with four brains that weren’t made to be duplicated; Serenity had practiced but he definitely wasn’t looking forward to it. It was better than the other options, but that wasn’t saying much.

He waited for Lykandeon to begin the ritual; Serenity couldn’t start directing the changes until the ritual itself was started, and he’d know that when he felt it.

The ritual started moments after the eclipse became total.

Serenity shifted one form of his after another into his dragonling form and splashed into the middle of each pool. Even if Lykandeon heard him, he couldn’t come to investigate. Serenity doubted he’d be heard; the prisoners were screaming, and that should cover the soft splashes.