I’m afraid, Sagan, that you won’t like this scene.

[SS]: “Is my liking everything about you required for us?”

Not required, but preferred. I wish I could guarantee you that all the time. But…

[SS]: I reach over to squeeze his hand. “We both have things we can’t change. Decisions that make less sense in hindsight. Regrets. I love you not despite but because of them. They make you who you are now. Mine.”

I swear I don’t deserve you, but I vow to spend the rest of our lives aspiring to it.

[SS]: Break time.

Okay. We’re back. Well-fed and snuggled fully. He’s ready to go.

Sprite, you’re not in love with me. So maybe you won’t find the next memory as hard to reconcile. But for Pehton, Xelan, and Sagan—This might sting a little.

“King Nox is our leader. He would die for us. We must fight for him. And if Eternity calls, we must die for him. For all Icari. Elden demands it.”

A million troops recited my words back to me. Five. Six… Ten times.

That’s how many I required for the repetition to take hold and anchor in their minds. “Warrior caste” meant more intelligence, speed, strength, and healing upgrades. They were the ultimate Icarean specimens, but they were still simpler than the average human being.

Easy to program.

Easy to use.

Welcome to camp.

[SS]: “Oh. Is this the camp you sent Caedes to later in Nox’s Verse?”

The very same.

While Nox rationalized assassinating a Brother of Yu to appease the Primary, I established the new Icarean regime. Weapons forging. Fighting formations. Coordinated strategies that utilized every gift inherit to those born Icari. Winged or otherwise.

Day and night. It never stopped. My training course ran the lengths of land masses through the lava fields and under a black ocean. Traps and obstacles jeopardized every centimeter.

Agility and balance tested down rivers of lava over a familiar route. Thanks to Xelan’s technological contributions.

Speed races in the sky carried them over a sea inhabited by sticky whalesharks. They surfaced and gulped Icari whole. Unlucky troops avoided their mouths but fell victim to the natural adhesive secreted from the beasts’ scales. Carried into the ocean, unable to escape. You can breathe forever underwater with a nacre. They could still be down there…

It was even harder for those on foot left to swim the behemoth-infested waters. I lost count of their losses, but I was proud of my troops for every whaleshark carcass that washed up on shore.

They practiced zig-zag maneuvers through stalactite-riddled caves. Among them, I strung razor wire. I lost over two thousand flying troops to this trap. Cleaved them clean in half. Those without wings faced gold shrapnel mines scattered in the stalagmite labyrinth.

I loved it. It was the most vigorous exercise of my life. The only track I ever felt truly tested my killer physiology. With every lap I survived, I knew my worth as a soldier to Cinder.

Especially once the throne granted me wings. But I’m ahead of myself again.

After nightfall, when the waters and caves proved too dangerous, we retreated into the arena for one-on-one training. Anything and everything you could imagine. We practiced it there and innovated new techniques daily.

After that, we took them to stalls. There, we hosed the sweat, dirt, and blood off of them with high-pressure hoses. The water bruised over their barely healed wounds.

In the regular barracks, they ate, slept, and bathed communally. Not at camp. We broke them in for the first year. They ate their only meal alone in their cells while listening to recordings.

[SS]: This sounds so familiar. “What was on them?”

My voice. I read the Verses to them along with every address Nox ever gave. On repeat.

Then I woke them two hours later, and we started again. Eventually, we amassed enough graduates and officers that I took a less active role. As a supervisor, I could leave and attend to other affairs. But I never missed the morning lecture.

[SS]: “So this later becomes—”

Patience, amos. You’ll spoil the reveal for those not as brilliant as yourself.

Nox visited occasionally. We kept an audience house only for his on-sight inspections.

“How are affairs here? I want to see their progress.” In recent years, he smiled less. Frowned more. But always with something akin to pain in his eyes. I thought perhaps whatever took his mother was claiming him as well. Now I recognize it as a sign of things to come.

If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

“Your majesty, I advise limiting your appearances before the army.”

My King stopped at the door connecting to the arena. His frown deepened. “Why is that?”

Casually, I shrugged one shoulder. I wasn’t about to put myself between Nox and his own troops. I merely wanted to suggest, “To keep to your schedule. If I may…”

He waved for me to go on; the frown lessening.

The whip he gave me stayed holstered at my hip. I rested my hand there as I lectured Nox. “You are not an Icarus of formality. You prefer to be comfortable with those to whom you speak. Your soldiers worship the King that spends hours learning the names of all their children. It is an admirable trait in a leader, but detrimental to your royal obligations. If I offered to let you speak to them for thirty minutes, you would take that minor concession and stretch it into hours. And then I would spend tomorrow apologizing to the court for your irresponsibility.”

Nox grinned. “Sounds as if very little of that is my problem.” Then he held up a hand to stop me from arguing. “But, yes. My duties see me here for only ten minutes or fewer. One day, I will find enough time in my schedule to run your course myself. I appreciate you incorporating a once-through in the lava drain. Has Xelan set any records yet?”

I almost winced at his name. We barely saw each other over the years since the Icarean population moved to the Castle. When we did, it was intense, which I appreciated since we maintained exclusivity, but it was also fleeting. Like fireworks. Hot and gone.

I refused to let it ruin my good mood. “No, your majesty, but any day now. Probably the same day you can join the run.”

The King’s grin softened into a smile. In a rare show of affection, Nox squeezed my shoulder, patted it, and headed for the exit. “My agenda is demanding, but perhaps you can pay my brother a visit as my emissary. Offer tidings and a banquet in his honor to entice him to grace us with his presence.”

Fuck, I was blind. Why couldn’t I see this for what it was?

Instead, I said, “Of course, sire.” We waved as he left.

As I finished my administrative duties later that night, I went out to the battlements overlooking the arena. Twenty million of our vast army survived the camp thus far. I was so very proud of them. Proud of me.

My people—

I glimpsed a flash of white. Since I was the only being on the planet with white hair, I safely assumed it was clothes. A labcoat. I rushed after the specter.

Outside the arena, Xelan let me reach him, but he kept his back to me. “You possess a talent for leadership I never imagined.”

His tone bothered me. It didn’t exactly denote a compliment. I took it anyway. “Thank you, my Prince, but why are you skulking out here?”

“Because I wanted to see you.”

This baffled me. “You are free to come inside. These are your soldiers, too. Your brother wishes to hold a banquet for you in the coming nights. Will you attend?”

He turned then, and I finally saw the disappointment in his eyes. In his sad frown. “Does he really want Bin for our ally or is there an ulterior motive for befriending such a peaceable civilization?”

That question put me in a bind. I knew the Tritans asked Nox to assassinate the Yu leader in exchange for opening the conduit to Earth, and it bothered me more after meeting the man. As I’ve already mentioned, genuine people are rare, but I also knew that after meeting with him, Nox resigned himself to find another way. He wanted to join with Bin’s forces, to rebel against the Tritans.

Unfortunately, that was more than I was permitted to explain to the younger brother. It was altogether quite damning. “My Prince. No harm will befall Bin. He is an ally to Cinder, and your brother enlisted his aid to prevent harming Earth’s ecosystem with our presence. Please…”

Begging. Uncommon for me.

I took another step toward him. “You spend too much time on your own—with only Colita as company. Surely you see how damaging this isolation is?”

In fact, Xelan looked wilted. His labcoat was old and dingy. Stringy hair. Drained complexion. His mania cost him too much this time. Squeezing his eyes tight, he observed hoarsely, “You and Nox breed death together and leave it in your wake. I thought you were different from the other Icari. I thought—My mistake.”

He fucking flew off.

[SS]: I won’t lie. I’m on the edge of my seat.

I knew he wouldn’t go back to the lab, but I had an idea where he went. It required gear to get there. I was suiting up and packing when a knock came from my door.

“Enter.”

Nox’s enormous figure swallowed the space when he stepped into my rooms.

“Your majesty. I…” Wasn’t sure how to finish that sentence.

He zeroed-in on the pack and gear. Before I could offer anything, he already surmised, “Another episode?”

“I believe so.” Cinching my utility belt, I checked everything again. “I will go to him.”

“I will take you.” I started to argue, but he narrowed his gaze at me until I stopped. “The mountain is too high to climb in less than a day. Without wings, it will take hours. Let me at least take you to a nearby ridge so he never knows I was there.”

Again, I wanted to wince. Even then, I could tell Nox hid a wealth of emotions. That his brother would refuse him so much—It hurt me. But Xelan needed us, and that’s all that mattered. “Thank you, your majesty.”

I didn’t ask for wings. To receive them was an honor, and I knew Nox planned something for them. But fuck, did I wish I had them in that moment.

It’s awkward being held by your best friend of no romantic interest for hours. As promised, he left me on a ridge nearby an old camp we frequented as children. The tallest mountain on Cinder boasted a breathtaking view of its old capital. The conglomerate cities were once beautiful, now dilapidated, like an abandoned ant hill.

I found Xelan kneeling over that view, head in his hands. He wept for a people that loved him, but that the Prince never left his lab to see. Always benefiting from his research without ever speaking to him.

These years alone took their toll on him.

I was still an entire ridge away, but I could hear him sobbing. I knew nothing that would ease him. And the more I thought on it, the more I realized my presence might antagonize him. To have his secret sanctuary exposed. Would it comfort him to share in his pain? Or would it leave him with one less private haven in the storm?

Fuck, I was walking home.

Climbing down the mountain took two hours longer because I kept to crevices where he wouldn’t catch me spying on him. The entire way back to the castle, I thought of nothing but the heart breaking on that crag. The manic isolation was killing him. The longer he went without exposure to others, the less he could function around them.

Xelan can never be alone. Do you understand me? Don’t let him spend more than a day working by himself at the most. If you aren’t vigilant, it starts a cycle of self-isolation and striking emotional-erosion.

I’m not sorry to share this with your Shadow, Xelan. Perhaps, in the eight thousand years you spent as a proud Progeny parent, you found a way to manage it. But I think we both know it never goes away.

[SS]: “I might redact this.”

It makes you uncomfortable?

[SS]: “Yes, I’m uncomfortable knowing this information. It’s encroaching on a medical condition, and Xelan’s entitled to his privacy in that regard.”

Of course, amos. As I’ve said, I leave the censorship to you. In that same vein, let’s continue with the next time I saw Xelan.