Akamori stood down in the hanger area watching Cenine and a group of Emerald Knights blast the black blood oozing from the bulkheads with astral magic. They scoured the walls clean with brilliant golden white blasts of raw plasmic energy. It was a process he’d seen the Brotherhood employ with lasers once in his downtime. He couldn’t be certain, but he thought he heard a faint shrill scream coming from the blood.

He saw Amara walking away from Cenine looking crestfallen. Like the Knight had just kicked Amara’s dog.

“What’s eating her?” He asked the Knight.

Cenine sighed haughtily. “Little priestess just learned her favorite pet primal escaped.”

“What?”

“Luffa rounded up a group of primals, opened a void portal and fled. They’re now fugitives. And I would be chasing them were it not for the absurd request to cleanse this vessel. Now leave me be.” She said, blasting the wall with a beam of plasma from her palm. As she blasted along again, he tried not to imagine the poor woman he found almost covered in the black goop. The way it screamed when burned away almost made it seem alive.

“ Ugh, that’s a thought I need.”

Cenine paused her work to glance back at him with a haughty but questioning look. “What’s that peasant?”

“The blood. I thought I heard it screaming while you guys were cleansing the ship.”

Cenine nodded with a frown. She spun on her heel and gestured for him to follow. “I suspected as much as well. Just what exactly have you dragged upon us?”

Akamori turned back to the clean deck plates. The blood was gone, but he could still feel the lingering void magic presence. He shook his head, still trying to dislodge the nightmarish interior he’d first been thrust into. “I don’t know.”

She scowled at him. He missed her attitude and how toothless it was. That was unsettling. He’d actually missed her poor treatment of him. It was endearing in that hateful older sister kind of way. But there it was.

“I’ll tell you what it is. It’s corruption. Absolute corruption. And it’s extremely difficult to be rid of. Like a cancer that crawled straight out of the umbral plane.”

Akamori bit back a shiver at the idea. “You might actually be more right than you know about that.”

Cenine’s brow arched curiously. “Is something the matter? I’ve never seen you appearing so…. off balance?”

“Yeah. Just got a lot on my mind lately.”

“Remember your training, peasant.”

He grinned, patting the scar from the wound he’d taken during their opening spar. “How could I forget?”

The chestnut haired elf’s eyelids fluttered as she tried to resist the urge to roll them. She opened her mouth to speak but paused when shouting caught both their attention.

“You can’t possibly be serious, Morwen! We need this ship now more than ever. You can’t just keep it!” Arch Priest Erlaut said, fists balled up tightly at his sides.

“As I told you before, I brought back this ship to help us fight the Sauridius, not to languish in orbit on some jumped up guard mission. The fight is out there, Erlaut, and I mean to be in it. I can’t sit around here and wait. The longer we let them have the initiative, the more they’ll make us hurt for it. You used to understand that. What’s changed?”

Akamori couldn’t tell because the two were at the opposite end of the hangar, but the Arch Priest seemed to glance around almost manically. Like he was coming undone. “Is it me? Or does he seem a little unhinged?”

“The Shacklers and the attack on the capital have left everyone with scars. Some deeper than others.”

Akamori frowned. The Archpriest really was fraying at the edges. He just hoped the guy could keep it together long enough for them to stop Ominek and the Sauridius. In front of Erlaut Morwen sighed.

“You sent me Anazi to find allies and weapons. I have. But those are no good if we don’t actually field them. The whole point of getting this spell ship was to wield it against our enemies. Why anchor it to Eryn? What purpose would that serve?”

“To protect the wellspring and our people,” Erlaut said, his raised voice turning heads.

Morwen placed a calming hand on Erlaut’s shoulder and the mania seemed to drain out of him, leaving a weary mage in its wake. “I’m sorry. Dealing with the Shacklers on our world has left me jumping at shadows. But make no mistake. Eryn is the final target. I’ve… seen it coming.”

“You’ve had a prophecy?”

Erlaut hesitated. “No.” He said reluctantly. “It comes as a fevered dream. I wake up in a cold sweat. It feels real.”

Morwen frowned. “That explains why you look like you haven’t been sleeping well. Unfortunately, I can’t leave the Thefaris here. The fight is out there. And that’s where we’ll be. You have the Emerald Fleet here to protect the homeworld. That will be enough.”

Erlaut frowned. Clearly he disagreed but had given up voicing the objection. “Very well. I’ll not abuse the point with you. You deserve that much, at least.”

“Thank you. I also wanted to thank you for dispatching the teams you have to help with the cleansing of the ship. We could not reclaim many portions of the ship because of how rapidly the blood retakes any ground we force it to give up.”

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

Erlaut smiled bitterly. “Just imagine what we could do with it fully in our custody.”

“Erlaut. Don’t push it.” Morwen chided softly.

“Alright, alright. I’m just saying. I have so much more resources we could fully put to field aboard this ship.”

“Then why don’t you?” Morwen asked with a raised brow. He’d baited himself with that one. Even Akamori could tell he’d really stepped in it.

“Because I can’t fully commit to supporting you if I can’t be certain you won’t be there to help when your people need you most.”

Akamori slapped his face into his palm. Even Cenine flinched. Morwen took it in stride. A ghost of a smile flickered across her features. She got him with that one.

“Ah, yes. Just like how my people were there for me when I returned from saving one of our allied worlds, no, the whole sector from soul shackling after Hidros. Just like how I was forced to strip all the citations and promotions from my people and pass them off to a petulant dead noble’s son. Those people you mean?”

Erlaut wilted and had the good sense to look like he genuinely felt bad about it. “We both know I had nothing to do with that whole affair.”

“True. However, I haven’t seen you exactly falling over yourself to set their wrongs right. I had to do all of it on my own. I see no reason that trend shouldn’t continue. I can find allies when and where I need them.”

Erlaut’s features twisted for a moment and Akamori was worried he might have to stab a bitch.

“Morwen. Eryn is exposed, and an attack is imminent. I can feel it. You can’t leave our people exposed.” The Arch Priest said after recollecting himself.

“And I won’t. But I fully intend to take the fight to the enemy, and protect our allies who have been sacrificing of themselves for a lot longer than Eryn has.”

That won some points with the Brotherhood marines in ear shot. It was always a sore point of contention that the Brotherhood seemed to supply meat for the grinder and got little in return. Akamori never liked how the relationship between the Federation and the Brotherhood shook out. He could still remember Rayshe’s unabashed animosity and how callously he was willing to sacrifice lives like useless Darstryx pieces.

Such moves are the hallmarks of weakness and feeble minds. Thanaton hissed mentally.

The Black blade has the right of it. Useless sacrifices court an early betrayal. Bahumet added.

It was hard to discount sage advice like that, so he said nothing whenever they felt like being vocal with him. In a lot of ways, it helped eat away at his sense of growing isolation from the squad and feeling alone. His path was taking down a road the others couldn’t understand or walk. His journey was now well and truly his own.

Morwen and the Arch Priest continued their conversation in more hushed tones, pulling Akamori’s attention back to Cenine at his side. He was about to ask her how much longer they would need when the air went frigid. Frost raced along her armor and his breath turned into a white cloud. They both exchanged confused looks before alarm immediately set in for both of them.

A very, very large umbral portal cracked open reality and deposited a vicious looking umbral dragon onto the flight deck. In a casual sweep of its front claws, it knocked over one of the sleek golden Erynian spell fighters. Sparks sprayed out in a wide wave as the fighter screeched to a halt against the far wall. The dragon’s chest warped as it inhaled to roar.

The Emerald Knights ceased blasting the wall with plasma and redirected all their attention to the dragon. Its eyes glowed umbral purple in a menacing challenge. The golden armored knights obliged. The knights attacked the dragon like golden flies badgering a horse. They didn’t stand any chance, and Akamori knew that instantly. They lacked the power. But he didn’t.

With Thanaton in hand, Akamori casually strode towards the fighting. If the knights wanted to get smacked around, he would not disabuse them with the notion they could handle themselves. Let that be the dragon’s job. Two of the knights fell victim to a tail stab, speared to the deck with a wet splat of blood.

Cenine howled in anger and lunged, but was knocked aside casually as the dragon eyed Akamori’s advance. She slammed against the side of the Indra and fell to the ground in a heap. The knights were an appetizer, Akamori the main course. Akamori rolled his head, stretching out his neck. As he did so, he let his grip on his aura slide. All that near divine power erupted in roiling black, gold and pallid white fire around him. Any remnants of the black blood boiled away in a pained hiss.

The dragon bared its fangs, its chest distended with a great breath that was exhaled in a baleful plume of void breath. The black violet fire crashed against Akamori’s aura like a solid wall, spilling around and scouring away any spots of black blood the purification teams missed. Akamori’s aura wavered several times before surging into and against the attack. The only signs of struggle were the grimace on Akamori’s face, and the subtle rasp of leather boots sliding against the deck from the force of the attack.

The attack ceased, leaving Akamori standing defiantly. Everyone else had gathered the injured Emerald Knights and withdrew to a safe distance. He flicked a quick glance around to double check no one would be caught out in the open. Confident he was free to fight how he wanted, he turned back to the dragon as it settled back down on all four feet again.

“Well. Now that we’ve settled who we are, how bout we make this fun? Let’s have ourselves a duel. You win, and you can deal with whatever everyone else feels like doing with you. I’ll be dead, so it won’t be my problem anymore. But if I win, you stop screwing up our ship and we have ourselves a nice chat. Deal?”

The dark dragon huffed, its head dipping in agreement. Then it shrank down and morphed into a man with two wicked black axes. He bore an uncharacteristically human look for a morphed dragon. For starters, he had hair and eyebrows. His ears weren’t pointed, his teeth weren’t sharp, he had an actual nose, and his skin was skin, not scales. Akamori had to double take just to make sure he missed nothing.

“I accept your terms, as I’ll accept your head.” The dragon said with an accent that hinted at the faintest of draconian.

“Oh? Getting a little ahead of yourself?”

The dragon in his morphed form wore a simple set of black slacks and a black blood-soaked shirt. He scoffed at Akamori dismissively. The dragon was handsome in that magic, over-saturated way. Features a little too perfect for natural attractiveness. Not that he had much room to talk, his own features were fast heading that direction too.

“No. As I said, I’ll only settle for your head.”

Akamori blinked and then squinted suspiciously. “Was that a head pun because I said, getting ahead of yourself?”

The dragon shrugged gently. “Yes. So?”

Akamori sniffed and leaned back, grinning. “I changed my mind. I think I like you now.”

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