After the clean up was over, Zalia checked to make sure Ember was ok, then found Aylie.

She had gone inside the vault again thankfully, alongside a whole group of farmers. Zalia kicked the farmers out, sending them in the direction of Tristan hoping that having something to do would pull him out of his past.

Zalia leaned against one of the benches at the back, watching Aylie manipulate a plant slowly and carefully.

“That was risky.”

Aylie turned to look at her.

“So were you.”

Zalia nodded once, accepting the point.

“How do you feel?”

Aylie shrugged.

“Your ability did a lot, you don’t have any feelings about that?”

Aylie shrugged again.

“Their souls are different. They killed my family. They would have killed you.”

Zalia sighed deeply. Aylie had almost whispered that last part.

She walked over and sat next to Aylie, lightly caressing the plant that she was manipulating.

“They are different, yes. We don’t know why they do what they do. Perhaps it is a mindless need for violence or some other malevolent reason. A creature of another race from their world did kill your family and if these ones had their way they would have killed us all as well. They will probably try to do so again. Do you know why they are doing that?”

Aylie didn’t respond for a moment, curling the plant around Zalia’s arm before returning it to its original form.

“No, why?”

Zalia leaned back, hands behind to support herself, and looked past the gently floating lights at the ceiling.

“I don’t know. I have no idea why they’re in this world at all. They are invading, for a reason unknown to me. Yet I still feel... bad that this fight happened.”

“Bad? Why?”

“They just lost their entire family. Yes, they attacked us, yet why did they do that? Do we know that they did that out of malice, or is there another reason behind it? What if someone is forcing them to, what if they do it out of fear, not hatred. Maybe, some of them are stuck between us and something else threatening their lives.”

Zalia looked down and Aylie was staring at her with confusion and a little bit of anger.

“So you’re saying we shouldn’t fight back against them?”

There was bite to her tone and Zalia didn’t blame her.

“I… no, that’s not what I’m saying. I think we should do what we have to do to survive, to get justice for our friends and family. But, I don’t think we should be happy or careless about it. And I’m not saying you are either of those things I just…”

Zalia trailed off, unsure how to continue her thought. She wasn’t the best at verbalising sometimes but wanted to pass over this feeling, this way of seeing things, to Aylie.

Aylie didn’t reply and luckily, the anger had gone from her expression. Maybe she was too young for Zalia to try teach her about this kind of thing, hell, Zalia didn’t fully know what she was trying to say either.

“It’s… it’s necessary to fight them. Whatever their situation is, they are trying to harm us and our friends and we can’t let that happen. I don’t want to let this entire thing turn me callous to the troubles of others though, to make me see any other living creature as lesser or monstrous. Does that make any sense?”

Aylie nodded slowly, though she did look quite confused. Zalia didn’t blame her.

“I’m sorry, I’m not explaining myself very well. I want you to have a normal childhood, to experience love, safety and warmth. Yet I can’t lie to you about what is happening in your kingdom, your home and what I, and possibly you, will have to do to protect it. This whole situation is unfair to you.”

Ayie quietly latched onto her side and hugged her tight. Zalia leaned forwards a little and wrapped one arm around her.

“I’m doing my best,” Zalia whispered.

She felt Aylie nod against her side.

“I know.”

They stayed that way for a little while, until Ember came in and wordlessly pulled them both up into a tight embrace as well. Zalia could feel that Boreal was out there still, hunting down the tracks of a few of the shapeshifters that had escaped. Zalia probably should have joined her, to rid themselves of as many of the enemy as possible, but the dying words of that demon haunted her.

It had said that the right of preference had been lost. The right of preference to what? The town?

If that is what it had meant, it would mean the town was now open to attack from other demons as well, though hadn’t it been already? There had been many of the Tin rank flying type attacking when she had arrived after all.

She couldn’t understand what it would mean unless she managed to catch another shapeshifter and ask it questions without it exploding, which didn’t seem likely. They would just have to get the entire town protected better in that case, which meant she would need to talk to the Silver rank Enchanter as soon as possible to determine if her ritual would work on a larger scale with their type of magic.

She sighed. Could it wait? Probably not.

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Zalia was with Ember out the front of the house after they had left Aylie in the vault. It would do her good to think a little about things before Zalia complicated her thoughts again. The warmth and safety of the vault would be good for her as well, though Ember had said that her emotional state, while certainly not settled, wasn’t tumultuous.

Zalia leaned her head onto Ember’s shoulder.

“I’m so tired,” she whispered.

Ember stroked her hair gently.

“That’s because you keep taking on such huge responsibilities silly.”

Zalia closed her eyes, breathing in Ember’s scent, now containing a little hint of woodsmoke. An addition from the blessing perhaps.

“I couldn’t just leave the town like this. You wouldn’t have either.”

“I know, that’s part of what I like so much about you.”

Zalia lifted her head back up and looked over at where the farmers were beginning their work. She could already see Healing Presence helping the planted seed to sprout, little stalks shooting their way out of the ground. This could be the beginning of a turning point for the town with a large number of the shapeshifters eliminated and food being grown. Those words still weighed heavily on her, however.

“One of the demons told me that we had sealed our own fate and that the right of preference had been lost. That now we will all suffer and die.”

Ember frowned, turning to her.

“Maybe it was just trying to unsettle you?”

“... maybe. I didn’t feel like it was lying though. What if we did just open up the town to attack from other demons? They never seem to work together from what I’ve seen, maybe there is a reason behind that. I’ve only seen different types working together in those last days in Cormaine and that was certainly not a normal situation.”

“None of this is a normal situation.”

Zalia looked at her pointedly.

“Alright, alright. Well, what do you want to do then?”

Zalia chewed on her lip, thinking about it.

“Well, I want to use this ritual on a larger scale for the whole town through the Silver rank Enchanters power for one.”

“Well, that’s something, but Zalia if there really is a much larger number of higher ranked demons that will now come to attack the town, we won’t be able to stop them all.”

“I… I know. There doesn’t seem to be much that I can do about it. All I can think of is finding someone more powerful to come help but who is close enough?”

Ember also stopped for a moment to think, though she didn’t look happy when she spoke.

“We could see if anyone from the Morning’s Shade will be able to come help. There are a few Gold rankers there after all.”

“Mmm. Maybe, I’ll think about it. It’s not a bad idea.”

Ember pulled her into a hug.

“I don’t like it either.”

Zalia hugged her back.

“We can’t let our personal feelings get in the way of possibly saving the entire town though.”

“I know.”

Zalia held on for a moment more before breaking away and striding towards Tristan.

“Hey!”

Tristan looked over from where he was talking to his guards and met her in the middle.

“What’s up?”

“Firstly, sorry for not telling you the entire plan.”

Tristan frowned.

“Huh?”

Zalia blinked at him.

“The huge ritual, exposing the shapeshifters and then taking them down?”

Tristan shrugged.

“I thought that was just you being ridiculously strong again. You planned all that?”

“More or less.”

Tristan sighed heavily.

“How exactly did you kill the sun and drop the stars on them?”

Zalia scratched the back of her head awkwardly.

“Thaaaat… wasn’t me. That was Aylie.”

Tristan stared at her blankly.

“The child. The Tin rank child.”

“Yeah.”

“Ok then, let me ask a different question. How did the Tin rank child kill the sun and drop the stars on them?”

Zalia watched Boreal walk past towards the river, half coated in blood, before replying.

“She was blessed by a star god. Anyways, sorry for not clueing you in. I kind of needed you to be out of the loop to deceive the shapeshifters.”

“She was blessed by a wh-”

“I want to go see the Silver rank Enchanter now, to see if they can do what I did to this park to the whole town. It would be an extremely strong protection if they could.”

Tristan sputtered.

“Cool, I’ll wait for you over here whenever you’re ready.”

She walked off, back to the ever warm Ember.

“Zalia!”

Tristan quickly gave his guards a few orders, then ran after her.

“You are going to have to explain things more sometimes you know.”

Zalia considered it.

“No I don’t.”

Tristan grabbed her arm.

“What did you mean when you said she got blessed by a star god.”

“I meant it literally. Ember got a blessing too, stick around long enough and you might get one of your own.”

She tapped her chin thoughtfully.

“Though, you’ll have to get in line. I definitely owe Boreal the next one.”

Tristan gave a resigned sigh which made Zalia feel a little bad.

“Look, I get tired of explaining all the things that happen all the time to multiple people. Sometimes I just want to be around people without having to explain myself.”

Tristan eyed her, but accepted it with a nod.

“Alright, let’s go.”

He made off and Zalia quickly went inside to collect Aylie. Ember and Boreal followed along and the five of them re-entered the city. It was obvious that the passing of the demons had caused a disturbance because people were hiding, some inside and others in alleyways. There was a stench of fear hanging in the air and it made Zalia sick.

Tristan soldiered on though, making his way to the centre of town. There, he stopped before a large, mansion-like house. The home of the Enchanter. She could tell, because there were several visibly glowing runes on the building and floating over it. There were even more out of her direct visual sight that her heat or even vibration sight picked up independently. This person was not messing around.

“Well, that’s scary.”

Tristan gave her a crooked smile.

“Oh they aren’t so bad. They’re quite nice, once you get to know them and they forgive you for existing. And once you get over the fact that many of these runes are there specifically to kill people who want to speak to them. It’ll be fun!”

Zalia narrowed her eyes at Tristan, but didn’t push for more information. Fair was fair.

“Alright, in we go then.”