Keeping up appearances was as important at the 11th hour as it was in the 1st, and Tallus maintained that air of Magistrate-isms as dutifully as he could. He pored over the work sent to him at his office in the Royal Quarter, waiting for literally anything to be said about the arrests. No word ever came though – it was as if the Duchy had simply purged itself of its problems, and had no need to address them anymore.

Tak tak…tak

Tallus glanced up at a large nearby window, and saw – perched on the exterior windowsill – a well-known hawk. He nonchalantly put his FlexiGlas tablet down, grabbed his cloak, and stepped outside. There was a meeting-park just outside the Ministerial building, and he walked beneath those sun-dappled boughs, until he could pause at a table at the center of the courtyard.

There was no one else around, and the hawk landed on a low-hanging branch.

“It’s been two days, and not a single bloody word. From you or the Duchy. What the Hell is going on?”

The hawk chirped, and spoke without moving its beak, “Things are getting busy on the other side. After the arrest, I just parked my mantle on the cot and pretended to sleep most of the day. It’s been more of a challenge to dispose of the meager meals they keep providing than it is to fake the imprisonment.”

“…How are you doing that?” Tallus wondered, looking as though he was just enjoying the afternoon fresh air as he lounged against the table on one of its benches.

“Toilet. Have to fake needing that as well. Convenient, right?”

“Kourin and Phex are going to be wondering soon when they should come get me.” Tallus pointed out, and withdrew that old-tech phone from his uniform-jacket, “What do I tell them?”

“My assistance with this grand scheme of yours was always contingent on allowing me to make preparations for a succession.” Latheroux’s hawk-mantle explained, “I’ve built too much to just leave it to rot on a whim. You can leave when we’ve successfully gotten the Duke into Sargonian custody. That still proceeds apace, with the transfer expected to take place during the Dawn of Ages.”

“So, if there’s no changes there, what did you come to tell me?”

“The Fafnir were nearly wiped-out a few days ago; I can count the survivors on one hand…and a thumb, I suppose.” Latheroux explained, “Scyrexianori transferred into its next host.”

“You’re certain?”

“I can’t claim to know anything about how it works, but I do know what it looks like when it does. Yes, I’m certain.” He said, and fluttered down to land on the Magistrate’s shoulder, “All this hurry up and wait you’ve been doing since Scyrexian came into being will suddenly switch to panicked rushing once it gets to Gabriel. After more than three centuries, another week ought to be nothing.”

Tallus stayed quiet for a moment, “…And you’re certain you’re willing to give Lugios over to that thing? Just like that?”

“Scyrexian said that it leaves its hosts the same way it found them. If everything goes as it should, Gabriel will be Scyrebriel for all of half a day, then be let go again, no worse for wear. It already knows to seek out Kourin under the vortex once it has him, so there won’t be any further delay. The only hang-up right now is trying to get Gabriel and Scyren in the same place at the right moment.”

“Scyren? Like…the singing death-mermaid siren?”

“It names itself in combination with the host it has. Don’t ask me why; I don’t know.” Latheroux answered, wings fluttering briefly for balance, “In any case, the Dawn of Ages is when everything will come to a head. The Duke will go to them, Scyren will go to Gabe, Scyrebriel will go to you three, Scyrexian will go back to where it came from, Gabe will be released, you come to me, and then we all leave.”

“…And if any part of this plan doesn’t go as expected?”

“Then it all goes to shit and we don’t go anywhere. What more is there to it?”

Tallus turned his head to face the bird and gave it quite the look, “You’ve put a great deal of faith into this thing that appeared out of nowhere. We have no idea if it’ll be able to pull this off. And the way Far’nah is rushing head-first into Rylen’s loving arms, it’s clear that Kitez will be flooded with Luminaries soon. If we can’t get off-world, what kind of shit-storm will we be stuck living in?”

“You three have been living in the shadows all along. If this doesn’t work out…then you should consider blending into the Luminary population instead, and just try to live your lives. You can’t protect the Wanderer forever.”

That didn’t seem to satisfy, and Latheroux quirked his hawk-head.

“I know how much you all want to go home.” He said instead, “But this is the best shot any of you will ever get, and it’s a miracle the opportunity presented itself at all. We go full steam ahead on the expectation that it might not work out. You will all be okay in the end though, no matter what happens. I’ll make certain of that much.”

“…I really hope so. Being a Magistrate kinda sucks. I’m ready to quit this.”

“Just hold on a little while longer.” The hawk advised, and suddenly looked alert, “Someone’s coming. See if you can’t get a skiff available for next week. I’ll find you if anything changes.”

“Yeah.”

The bird took off and vanished through the trees, and beneath the palace, Latheroux opened his one eye, hearing the sound of the noon-time meal distribution starting further down the hall.

“What’s the Duchess going to do with us!?” One of those arrested Magistrates pleaded, voice muffled by the walls. No answer was given, as had been the case every previous time the question had been asked. A tasteless, unappealing gruel was slid into the woman’s cell, and further, one by one, until each had its share…even Mardu, in the very last room.

That bowl only joined the growing pile of untouched earlier portions.

.

Donivan’s family was the first to hear the devastating news as Rylen kicked-off the notification-tour. Lequerion and Furion did their own on the mainland, each making their zig-zagging sweep over the course of two days. By the time they were done, and all the information had been sent for the families to attend the Memorial, both father and son were broken-down by the experience and returned to Agartha in miserable silence.

They dropped off their armor in one of the Sixth Wing repositories at the base of the southern landing-spire, and as they descended to the ground-floor, it occurred to the elder that they were missing someone.

Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

“What about that first-year?”

“…Bianca?” Furion wondered, eyes heavy with the stress of the task being finished, “Lord Rylen’s been dealing with that since the arrest. It’s a pretty cut-and-dry case. Might even be done already.”

“Damn…”

Furion set the back of his head against the inside-elevator wall and looked up with regret, “She had such a promising future. And in a single moment…”

“It was her choice.” Lequerion reminded, “You said she blasted by both Corbin and Jense, after the fact. They tried to call her back and she never stopped. …She made her bed.”

“I know…” The younger sighed.

The door opened again, and they were released into a large public-transit hub, with mag-trains on raised platforms and dozens of smaller, private vehicles around the bottom. Light poured in from the outside through the various entrances and exits.

“So where will you go, now that the hard part is done?”

Furion paused, looking out at the hundreds of people in the hub, “…Probably go and bother Ren. You?”

“Go and bother Seth.”

“Why not both? They ought to be in the same place.”

“Both is good.”

.

The College at Agartha was a sprawling campus, half a city unto itself, located on the outside the landing-spire ring. Pristine white buildings, anywhere from two to eight-stories each, rose up from corridors of glossy marble walkways. Glass-covered water-channels coursed throughout, opening up into ponds and park areas. Above, following pre-planned ‘roads’ that were marked by hovering lights, went mass-transit carriages, ferrying people from one end of the campus to the other at speed.

One section of the city-within-a-city was dedicated to the training and education of the afflicted, and that was where the two elder Rydells expected to find their younger third. One such space was like a large gymnasium; a massive indoor open-area with a number of protected dome-like structures within, each offering their own space for those with ‘gifts’ to practice controlling them without worry they might hurt someone.

And within one of them, near an external wall, was a dome temporarily-engulfed in flames.

Furion spotted his younger brother sitting outside that dome, data-panels hovering around him, and an arm up as the heat of the blast seemed to threaten the security-doors. The amazed teen looked over it again though as the maelstrom settled-down again, and he got a clear view of both Prince Iresha…and his fully-armored Fafnir sparring partner.

With the dome as big as a school-gym – and supported by a net-like latticework of structural beams, making it look like an overturned basket – that red armor could hover and maneuver easily. Wings were spread wide, and curved outward as Ren came hovering down to the ground again. She’d spotted their guests coming, and pulled her helmet off, giving a ‘stand down’ wave to the Prince on the other side of the space.

Iresha heaved for breath, eyes flaring as brightly as the flames his hair had become, and he slouched out of his stance in confusion, “What’s…why did you stop?”

“The boys are back.” She answered simply, and shook her hair free from her flight-suit’s skullcap, “Take a breather. You’ve improved a lot in a short period of time.”

The Prince just slouched, his fires going out like a sad candle, and he pouted as Ren went by, “…Fine…fine…”

She went for the locked doors and uncovered the inside panel to trigger the release, and waited as it hissed and rolled out of the way. She didn’t dare show any excitement for seeing either of the two Fafnir – she could see on their faces that they were exhausted; mentally and physically – and instead of simply going to them, she parked her armor to the side and stepped out of it. Hands went up to tie her long hair into a ponytail, and cautiously approached.

Lequerion had his arms crossed as he looked on in confusion at Seth’s data, eyes all-but spinning as the teen tried to explain what he was doing.

“…I started tracking the movement of the Cloud inside the pod, since I still can’t trace the effect of the Limitless directly.” He was saying, moving his hands around in the same way the data-points traced, “Ignoring the obvious way it gets pushed around when the fires are blazing, it actually seems to swirl-around in the seconds before ignition. On here it just looks like flocking birds or schools of fish, but it…flows like water, following paths and coalescing.”

Within the dome, Iresha couldn’t help himself, and lit-up again to finagle-around on his own for a bit. In real-time, Seth pointed-out to his father the way things moved before the Prince even did anything.

Ren went right around the two and stepped into her partner’s waiting hug, careful not to return it too tightly, “Glad you’re back.”

“Yeah, me too. What was all this about?” Furion wondered, looking over at the Prince, “Giving away trade secrets?”

“Every single one.” She answered, and pulled back just far enough to move her arms up over the man’s shoulders instead. She felt him bend his head down, and just held there a moment, brow to brow, sensing the deep sigh as it inflated and deflated again from her partner’s chest. Ren offered what comfort she could in a kiss, but she knew it was just a drop in the bucket, and it would take many more to find some sense of normalcy again.

“…What’s all this over here, then?” They heard Lequerion asking, pointing at the other end of the footage, “All this swirling around where I think Ren is? Is that it hitting her?” He turned on a heel to gape at her, “You just let the kid hit you?”

Furion went up to his normal height, and inadvertently took the Dame with him where he’d still been hugging her. Ren widely side-eyed him, but then turned back to the older man, “…I…guess? I mean, it’s not like it hurt. Flying at hypersonic is way hotter than that.”

“Oh. …What were you trying to accomplish then if you took the blast face-first on purpose?”

“Easier to see how good he is with the fire if he’s aiming at a moving target. There’s nothing like that here though. This place is all about making sure the kids can turn their power off in a pinch, not how to get good at using it.” She explained; that seemed to satisfy, and Lequerion went back to his youngest. Ren just dangled there, feet nearly a foot off the ground, and was perplexed to find Furion just…walk off with her, “Wh-where… Hey!” She started, only for a question to manifest, “…How are you even doing this? I thought you were crippled outside your armor.”

“I have the same healing factor you do.” Furion puffed, “The bruises are almost gone. The breaks just feel like little pinches now.”

“So where are you little pinching me to all of a sudden?” Ren wondered, rather enjoying herself then, and found that question answered soon after asking it. She felt the ground under her feet again and she stood on her own, just around 30 feet away from the others, “…Furion?”

“…I know it’s nothing to worry about normally for you to take a fireball straight-on, but…considering the circumstances?” The Captain started, looking a bit worried, “You were so worried a couple days ago that you’d lose control and hurt the family. That’s a whole-ass Prince you’re cavorting with.”

Ren blinked a couple times, but then pulled her hands down, and put the backs of them against her partner’s chest as she stared at her gloved palms, “…Seth was trying to do his diagnostics, like you said. Prince Iresha just…kind of popped-up on his own.”

“And his minders? J’ard? The Sargonian guards?”

“He explicitly ordered them away about two hours ago.” She answered, “You’re going to think I’m mad, but…when Iresha started using his fire under the dome, I…could see it. Not the fire, obviously anyone can see that…but like…something under it. Something else. I told Seth to see if he could find it, and I went in there with the kid to test some things out.”

“And?”

“…The swirling your dad saw around me…was me pushing the fire away.” Ren explained ominously, “I don’t know how I’m doing it, but…the fire never touched me.”

“I feel like I should be excited by this but I’m also just a tiny little bit concerned?”

“It was your idea to try and figure this thing out. I’d rather be a proactive participant to finding the answers, than sit back and hope others can figure it out after the fact.” She noted, and turned her hands around to press them to the man’s front instead, then lowered them to find his hands. She slipped her fingers into his palms, and as she felt the clasp around them, she held firm in return, “Gabe’s been trying to call me, too. I listened to the first message he left, but…I could feel Scyrexian writhing at the sound of his voice, so I stopped. I don’t know what I’m going to do when he shows up at the Memorial.”

“I’ve got your back, don’t worry.” Furion reassured, “There’s still a day and a half.”

“I’ve got to face him somehow… I only need a minute…”

“You know you’ll need more than that.” The Captain puffed, “You’re going to talk to a talker. He’s going to want answers. So, unless you plan on dumping and running, you’ll have to stamp it down a while longer. Do you want me to-”

“Noooooo no no, no. Absolutely not.” She pulled back and set her hands into a T-pose to stop him, “If you’re there with me, he’ll just think I’m being pressured. You need to be far away.”

“Alright, alright… I guess that’s fair… Open mic, then?”

“…I think I just need to deal with it myself. I’m the one who got me into this mess. I’ll…message you if I need an escape-hatch.”