"I'd like to know what that book says."

"It's simple, it's the story of the first scion in your lands and how we came to your cities. How we gave you a means to live and build your empire. It is the story of how you cowered in hamlets prostituting yourselves behind timbered walls. You were no more than a dozen little forts before we arrived. With the scions fire you became twelve cities connected and enclosed. Once you were safe behind the great walls you fought petty battles amongst yourselves until Salton installed its Queen as empress and set up the capital and its imperial protocols. What I tell you now is something that you must never write down you must never share.

This book tells how we lived across the narrow channel. Here you live in a world with rampant ever evolving species of creepers; a world where life is constantly trying to devour all that you know. Where we came from there is only order. These graven that you've found sprinkled within your lower classes; across the channel these graven are dominant. They live in cities like yours, but without walls, the monsters are all eradicated or domesticated. The humans there are bought and sold as slaves. In fact, this land, this empire that you have all created is just a development of the slaves that escaped from across that channel. You were ignored and on your own until the scion were sent to reclaim this lost tribe of chattel."

"And who are the scion?"

"We are hybrids of graven and humans; we live long lives but eventually grow old and die. Our only solace, our only consolation, is the gift of life, of birth. The members of our order sent here are in exile as punishment for our sins or for the sins of our families."

"Why doesn't the empire across the channel just conquer us?"

"You are conquered; they allow you the fiction of independence as long as tribute is given. One hundred slaves and a thousand hectares of gold are sent every month."

"What shipments?"

"The shipments are carried out by a partitioned order within the EIS. They are stationed in a narrow cove outside of Salton and have operated completely separate from all other departments. The empress knows nothing of her fealty or of her true history. The secret section of EIS doesn't even know what it is doing they believe they are dropping off these shipments as a secret pact with Thermica."

"Then who are these so called queens?"

"These queens are engineered graven that have gone rogue, they formed a secret sect that is able to control the creepers, they've engineered distinct physical characteristics and are continually developing more. These renegades are powerful and hard to kill. The old queen wants Landrey to bring Terra to her because of the child in Terra's womb. The Queen has a daughter and that daughter is Terra's half sister she is the offspring of old king Reynolds of Galleria. The old Queen wants the child conceived from Ragnar; there is much power in this incest. The old Queen has designs and plans for this child. The old hag has been quiet, but her time is coming to an end, her daughter is coming of age. I suspect the old mother wants to go out with a bang."

Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.

"Can they be killed?"

"There are two of them. They have some human traits, they give birth and they die. The mother is nearing her end. Her child has made a handful of her own graven highly placed humans that she's turned to be graven drones. Their graven die if you cut out their parasitic hearts, they are between the legs right where your sex organs are. The Queens are harder to kill; you'll have to tell me how you did it if you ever come back."

"Why doesn't this great empire across the sea kill these renegades?"

"I think I've given you the wrong conception of your importance. This empire you live in here is just a backwater colony of escaped slaves. If you all were killed by a great fireball from the sky, the news would only be mentioned as a minor curiosity. You are being sent by your EIS because these queens have wreaked havoc on the empire in years past, but that is all they know. They must never understand how inconsequential they really are."

Damon handed the Scion her book. He didn't believe what she was saying, not yet, but her story was plausible. He remembered the first time he'd been given the EIS file that explained the empires narrative about the Master; the great human healer that would one day give mankind true peace. He read the origin story of this larger than life figure. The truth stung. As a child he'd always thought the Master was a bit pedantic, but he still admired the ideal of a commitment to the people. To learn the Master and his ideology was a myth cooked up by some imperial committee to monitor subversives and to keep them in line, it was hard to accept. This revelation was greater than that; there were now myths within myths.

The Scion stood up and peeled back Damon's sleeve. "Ah yes, you are an admirer of zero."

"Are you going to tell me that zero is a myth?"

"No, Elderon was real she was one of the first scions to be exiled. She is celebrated here for her parables but in the larger scheme of things she was just an outcast. Her musings are not remembered in her native land. If they are read at all they are a source of amusement."

"Zero, it just means nothing. That is all there is. Why is it wrong to understand that?"

"Yes, I remember her words. We are all going to become everlasting nonexistence. Only by understanding the nature of zero will you be able to appreciate all that exists and has value."

Damon rolled back down his sleeve. "Is that wrong?"

The Scion smiled. "Well according to Elderon you are not wrong, but I have my doubts, personally, I would never believe anything a scion says."

Damon thought about that a lot as he lay in his hammock that night, trying to anticipate the troubles that were on the horizon.