Three days had passed since the battle.

Wedges of morning light filtered through the window’s blinds, shining straight into Jace’s eyes. He slowly sat up.

Between Kinfild’s rapid post-battle negotiations with local authorities, the thegn’s damage management, and Lady Fairynor’s desperate attempts to keep everything together, Jace had been left behind in the aftermath. He, Kinfild, and Lessa had been assigned to one of the many guest rooms of the palace, and there he had remained for the past few days. There had been nothing to do but cycle Aes, purifying all the spiritual energy he’d taken in from the completed quests and rest.

A gust of arid wind blew through a window. He stood up from the velvet couch he had been sleeping on and rubbed his forearms—beneath the clothes borrowed from the room’s closet, his wounds had been treated. It was some sort of medical science that he couldn’t explain (it involved a green gel, a bit of heat, and a humming turquoise light), then bandaged. Worked faster than stim shots, and left less scars.

He yawned, then stretched his arms out. Today, he vowed, would be the last day spent here. Then…well, he didn’t know what he’d do. But he’d go do something.

It was time to make good on his class name. He’d go hunt darklings and wander the galaxy, protecting and slaying.

The room’s door hissed open. The sheet of metal slid away into the wall. His eyes widened, and he reached for the nearest weapon: his sheathed Whistling Blade, which rested on the wooden table in front of him. He clasped the hilt, but before he could draw the weapon, he heard a familiar voice.

“Jace—” Lessa began, but stopped herself. “What are you doing?”

“I...” Jace sighed, then lowered the sword. His heartbeat slowed, and he set the weapon back down on the table. “Sorry.”

“Yeah…” she said. She didn’t sound convinced.

“What were you saying?”

“Kinfild wanted us. There’s…” Lessa stepped closer, then dropped her voice to a whisper. “There’s a meeting. Kinfild won’t explain why, but the First Attendant has arrived, and so has the Prime Minister. It’s gotta be important, and Kinfild said you were invited, too.”

“Me?”

“He got you an invite, with you being a worldjumper and all.” Stepping back, Lessa beckoned him to follow. “We’ve got, like, three minutes ‘til it starts. And this doesn’t sound like a meeting you want to be late to.”

Jace nodded, then followed her towards the door. Before he left, though, he snatched up the Whistling Blade and tied it back onto his hip.

They ran through the Thane’s palace, navigating through the winding hallways and massive staircases. They descended through the building, dodging palace staff and patrolling yellowcoat soldiers.

The palace was large enough to fit a small city inside it, and there was more than enough room to fit small hovering vehicles through the hallways. They passed one, a vehicle with smooth edges and an open top, and Jace contemplated commandeering it. But they had already been enough of an inconvenience to the thegn—he’d given them a place to sleep, and that had to be worth something.

“Where are we heading?” Jace asked. It had been nearly three minutes already.

“The courtyard,” Lessa answered. They turned down an open hallway with large windows. “There’s a council-garden there.”

They reached the center of the building and passed through a set of large doors. It led to a short hallway, where four palace guards intercepted them. “No entry, please,” said one of them, speaking gently.

Lessa replied, “We’re here to see Kinfild—”

“The meeting has started.” The guard held out his hand. “Only those with invitations are allowed—”

“Kinfild requested that I come!” Jace said, keeping his voice quiet. He couldn’t see what was around the corner, but he didn’t want to interrupt anything. “So I’m here! I’m a worldjumper, and he wanted—”

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“You’re Mr. Baldwin?” a different other guard asked.

“Yes! And I’m late!”

“And he’s travelling with a candlefolk!” Lessa added. “That’s gotta count for something, right?”

The first guard shifted. Jace couldn’t see his face, but he suspected the guard would look contemplative. Finally, he said, “You two may pass. But if you cause any trouble in there, I will see to it personally that you are removed from this star system.”

“Thank you,” Jace whispered. The guards all stepped aside, and he and Lessa walked between them. They ran down the rest of the hallway and skittered around the corner, then entered an atrium. Steep pillars lined the edges, and green trees filled the atrium. At the very center were the ruins of an ancient sandstone castle with vine-covered walls.

Jace and Lessa followed a trail through the ruins, creeping toward the center of the ruins. Distant voices whispered over the ruins, sliding out from between them and beckoning to him.

“Odd place for a meeting,” Jace whispered.

“These are the ruins of Tarrath,” said Lessa. “It’s where the first Council of the Realm-Lords was held—and all the councils that have followed.”

They slipped through the ruin. Jace stepped carefully along the trail, trying not to make any noise.

Past a collapsed rotunda, and beneath a gazebo of winding vines and dead trees, a platform nestled deep into the ground. A large round table stood at the center, occupying most of the ground. Thirty occupied chairs surrounded it.

Kinfild, of course, sat near the opposite side of the table. Jace also recognized Lady Fairynor and the First Attendant. The other councillors were mostly human, but there were a few aliens among them. They all wore fancy suits and dresses.

Jace stopped, his heart pounding. It would be a bad decision—he didn’t belong there, among the nobility and most powerful people of the galaxy. He wouldn’t even look like he belonged, not with his worn-down coat and dented armour. He waited up high on the lip, peering over the meeting. To make sure they wouldn’t see him, he crouched down. Lessa did the same.

“Are we…going down there?” she asked softly. He could barely hear her voice. “We were invited.”

“Not—” Jace cut himself off and flinched away when an old man with a long white beard glanced up at Jace’s hiding spot. The man shouldn’t have been able to see, but Jace wasn’t taking any chances. He whispered, “Not yet.”

The council had begun before they had arrived. A regal and elegant man with pointed ears, stood at the end of the table. “...has been dealt with—as Kinfild has told me—and the system is secure. Our discussion should not center on what to do about Celacor, but what comes next.”

“The Starrealm is the shield of the galaxy,” Lady Fairynor asserted. “We’ve spent millions of lives defending it, and we will continue to do so until the Enemy is vanquished or we are defeated.”

Jace scowled. He opened his mouth and sucked in a breath of hot, dry air. He looked down at the bricks ahead of him, unwilling to look up.

“Who are they all?” he whispered to Lessa.

“They are the most important lords from within the Starrealm,” Lessa said. “The Realm-Lords. They rank above the planetary thegns, and even above the parliamentarians.”

“The question is not the Enemy Beyond the Wall!” snapped another member of the council—a human with a thin mustache and graying hair, who wore a thick black blazer and a robe beneath it. He slammed a fist down on the table. “Another star-empire attacked us. For centuries, the eastern empires have accumulated vast arsenals. They’ve made alliances and built defenses, and now, they are finding every excuse they can to throw their might against us. They have already thrown their might against us. Those were Koedor-Terginian battleships!”

“We expanded our armies and kept pace with them,” said the First Attendant. “It was our fleet that crushed the Koedor-Terginians in the orbit of this very planet.”

“When our force arrived, we outnumbered their fleet five tonnes to one,” said a different man in a military uniform—a black officer’s jacket and a peaked cap. “The Koedor-Terginians did not bring a sizeable force with them—only enough to pacify what orbital defenses Celacor had. They would have been successful had it not been for Kinfild’s warning, or the miraculous destruction of their queen-core. First Attendant, you must not let this successful battle trick you into believing that the navy can defeat everything that these…eastern powers might throw at us—especially if they were to combine their fleets and coordinate their efforts.”

“The Lord High Admiral is right,” Lady Fairynor stated. “If we go to war with the eastern powers, we risk—”

“And why shouldn’t we?” demanded an alien creature with scaly green skin and a mane of red sinew down his spine. “They attacked us! They brought their fleet to this planet, and they unleashed hordes of kobolds on our cities. Should we not bring the wrath of the Grand Fleet to Roteac and force them to submit?”

“We are not yet at war,” Lady Fairynor reminded him. “The Koedor-Terginian Empire has a strong alliance with the Phélese Empire. Should we attack one, the other will join.”

“The goal of this council should be to preserve the peace,” said the elf. “We have not gathered you here to declare war on the Koedor-Terginians. You are here to end this conflict before it begins—you have this one chance. Do not waste it.”

Jace inhaled slowly. That went for him, too.

At some point, he’d have to make himself known. He’d have to interfere…