She worked tirelessly on the Automations for what must’ve been a few hours. It was a good thing she was familiar with every part of her creations—it allowed her to work quickly. Every time she sent one out, she hoped she’d hear news that the demons were slowing down enough Rhuni and Mekha could come back. When she was forced to take a break—too tired to work longer—she hoped they’d have returned by the time she woke up. But still she was disappointed, though that quickly got replaced with a sense of dread.

Then, just as she was beginning to work up the courage to go out and find them, they returned.

Helyana was too pleased to see them—too focused on making sure they weren’t critically damaged—to notice their expressions. “Thank goodness you’re both safe! I was starting to get worried, you’ve never been out that long before. Did you really spend the whole time out there..? Oh, Rhuni, it looks like they’d torn a bit of metal from your arm, I’m sure that must be uncomfortable. Here, go and have a seat at the workbench. You, too, Mekha. Neither of you think you’ve sustained serious damage, do you? I don’t want to leave something left unattended for too long.”

Mekha nervously shook his head. “No, we weren’t damaged that badly. I think it mostly just drained our energy stores…”

“Well, then, you can both rest when we’re finished,” Helyana decided. She went to grab her tools and scrap metal while Rhuni sat down at the workbench. “I assume nothing happened to your souls while you were out? Actually, no need to answer that. I’ll take a look at them before I let you go.”

Rhuni and Mekha glanced at each other. Looking back on it, it must’ve been a part of some silent conversation—a drawing of straws, perhaps, to see who should say something first.

And it seemed that Rhuni lost, because she slowly asked, “How are we more ‘human’ than other Automations?”

“I’ve already told you,” Helyana responded. She hadn’t thought much of it. “The two of you have souls. Souls are what allows humans to think and feel. Other Automations only have regular power cores—with your power coming from your soul, you’re more human in that regard.”

“You’ve answered why, Mother, not how. We both know by now that our power comes from our souls, and our souls are what allow us to be like you. What I meant was how you came across our souls… what made them capable of sustaining us.”

Mekha nodded cautiously. “You never told us that story. You’d told us everything else about it—the first Automations you created, how you researched souls… but you always just skipped to the part where you had ours. You never said how you got them.”

Slowly, Helyana began to realize where this was going. It was something she thought she’d keep from them—a burden she was going to prevent them from bearing. She thought about it for a moment, before deciding she’d try something else, and see if they’d be satisfied. “Why are you asking about this?”

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“You heard the citizen say that the leader of the Fallen’s Angels was with the demons,” Rhuni said. “He was the only one there, in fact, that could speak. He… mentioned a part of the reason why demons were becoming so frequent, and why they were taking new and unfamiliar forms. He said there was an imbalance in the world, one that caused the chaos formed from it to take on a more physical shape…”

“I don’t see how this has to do with your souls.” Actually, Helyana was beginning to form a guess. She didn’t know whether honesty or fake ignorance was going to be better in this situation, however.

“He said that a lot of the imbalance had come from humans, in a way. They were tainting the lands in ways the Fallen One didn’t like. That’s why the demons originally attacked—because the Fallen One ordered them to. And in that chaos, the newer types of demons were born, but it was slow… until something that happened three years ago. The leader of the Fallen’s Angels said that someone tipped the balance, causing an instability that humans wouldn’t be able to reverse… by altering the one thing that humans were never supposed to conquer: souls.”

Helyana stopped her work and grew silent.

“Mother,” Mekha began, his expression growing unreadable, “are we a part of this? Are we one of the reasons the demons keep attacking Cyrene?”

“Of course you aren’t. If anyone’s at fault here, it’s me—but I don’t regret what I did. Even if I had the opportunity to go back and tell myself three years ago that this would happen… I still wouldn’t change my mind. You’re worth more to me than that.” Helyana meant it to be reassuring—after all, she meant every word of it.

But the twins didn’t seem so convinced.

“Can you finally tell us, then?” Rhuni asked quietly. “About how you came across our souls?”

“Alright,” Helyana said with a nod after a moment’s deliberation.. “I… was hoping I wouldn’t have to, but I see that the two of you aren’t going to accept ‘not right now’ as an answer. I must warn you, though, this isn’t a happy story. One doesn’t make breakthroughs just because they wake up one morning and decide to get to work. There’s always a purpose… and a past experience that drives the whole thing forward.”

Neither of them looked deterred; in fact, they both gave her their full attention. She sighed and continued.

“Everyone could see from a young age that I was going to be something amazing—that I’d make history. Eventually, I had everything I could’ve ever wanted—several prominent inventions, wealth, fame… but, truly, all I ever wanted was a family. That’s what ultimately drove my quest to make Automations, more than my desire to help humans—my want of a family. But I soon found that they were nothing more than husks. All they could do is follow orders. At least the ‘friends’ and ‘family’ I’d surrounded myself with clearly wanted something—they wanted my wealth, or my fame. But the Automations wanted nothing. They could do nothing but fight demons and fulfill basic tasks.”

She tried to avoid both of their gazes. She knew, by now, that their anger was likely replaced by confusion, or perhaps caution. But she still didn’t want to look at them, in case she was wrong. “What… seriously made me look into souls was when I found that, no matter how hard I tried, I would never be able to have a family of my own. I couldn’t have children, not even if I found a man interested in more than just what I could give him. And I thought… I’d just make a family. So I learned everything I could about souls—how to give them a physical form, how to use them as a power source for Automations…”

Slowly, Rhuni prompted, “And where did you get our souls?”