Damius Marks joined his son, Marcus, and his lovely young fiancée in the royalty tier of the upper shelf overlooking the vorago.

Despite the efforts of everyone around him, he chose not to eat just now. He was still shaken by the Sykihr orb’s behavior. It seemed a sudden warning for an object that largely had the power to see the future.

“Are you sure you don’t want a plate of beef from the stables, Father?” Marcus’s face reflected Damius’s own heedless glare back at him, the lines in his still-young face yet to form.

“I’m fine.” Damius scanned the audience, making a mental check of everyone who was still alive that he needed to remember later.

Being the oldest living man—and Damius Marks was the oldest living man on Aallandranon—the faces of mortals came and went with such regularity, he didn’t bother trying to keep track of any one person’s life events.

He did find it useful to remember names. He liked to believe he could put a name to every single individual’s face throughout the ages that he might have encountered.

He was a little surprised to see Duke Falworth Senior still bobbling in his seat as he chuckled at something his wife, Sasha Falworth, said in his ear.

Falworth had married a woman twenty-years younger than him, and Damius Marks had been there for the consummation of that marriage. He had watched each of the many wealthy dukes below disrobe and mount their partners, used the powers of the orb to experience what those men had felt as they shot their shot in their newly wedded wives; put his hands into theirs as he groped and squeezed the flesh of their prize.

There was no sweeter taste than new love, pure passion, and the desperation to meet in the lower middle as vigorously as possible. Thousands of years of being exposed to the shadow of mankind's needs and desires had warped Damius to the sickest and dirtiest of old men. It also happened to be what fueled the orb’s magic as well as granted him unnatural longevity.

His eyes moved up to the different factions that were required to attend the Tornetum. He saw the largest faction of the hunters guild that took up a full quarter of the stands. Then there was the guild of Omne in mostly white next to them.

The other side of the large coliseum was a patchwork of other guilds and factions: skinners, archers, alchemists, mathematicians, and a myriad of less important factions. He noted the workers’ faction, the musicians, the dancers; they were all represented for the event.

Marks continued scanning, then noticed the two Talea monks.

The bald man standing next to the other monk saw more than he knew. He looked up at Marks and Marks had the unsettling feeling that the man was reading his mind.

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Those strange monks had odd powers that he himself didn’t fully understand. Their religion and practice had existed for the entirety of his life.

Even the Church of Omne wasn’t as old as Marks himself, but this practice of living in the mountains or forest, meditating for hours upon hours on end, focusing on their breathing, and practicing with that signature stick in a group: it was oddly appealing in a spiritual way—that’s if Marks would ever consider giving up his worldly ways to join them.

Upon that part of the proposal, Damius Marks, like everyone else in the world, only scoffed at the idea. Give up everything, including one’s identity, for nothing in return? He couldn’t for the life of him understand how anyone could go through with the commitment.

But then Marks took a look at the girl standing next to him. He thought nothing of her at first, but then his whole body went cold as the connection was made.

Damius almost got to his feet when he realized that she had to be the same person from his vision. The hair, the stance, the stick in her hand: there was too much in common for it to be a coincidence. There was no doubt in his mind that she and the girl from the vision were one and the same.

He licked his lips, blinking rapidly as options began to arise in his mind. He was ready to move, but he would need to be calm and cool. It was still early yet in the grand scheme of events.

One thing Marks was aware of regarding the Sykihr orb was that the future it told could be avoided, but it required a cautious unraveling, like that of an armed trap. He would need to guide her to the end of his choosing because what he saw in that vision could never come to fruition.

He could not allow a useless monk who chose to keep no earthly possessions to somehow take control of the Narcuss throne. It couldn’t happen on his watch if it took him collecting all three of the Remel orbs from their carefully placed locations and holders.

“Woah,” Marcus sat up in his seat. “Who is that?” Marks was largely unaware of his son’s frame of mind or experience. He merely thought Marcus to be going through the same process of thoughts and feelings that all Aallandrons in their early thirties went through.

It was as boring to someone like Marks as a three year old’s thoughts and experiences would be to a thirty year old. The intellectual contrast was just too wide to bridge.

But Marks couldn’t help noticing that Marcus’s gaze was fixed firmly upon the girl in the Talea uniform. He checked his eyes twice to see that his only son was gawking at the girl across the stadium with his mouth open like a boy in an all boy’s school gazing upon a girl from an all girl’s school for the first time.

Behind him, Ersonia was talking to one of the other duchesses.

Marks considered Marcus once more, then he thought of the vision. He thought of the way that orange orb had flashed to life like an alarm, warning him of what was coming at him faster than he could realize.

Why was all of this happening so suddenly? And why did it feel like the great Damius Marks was losing hold of both control and his sanity?

Action needed to be taken, and it needed to be taken right away in order to wrangle this hypothetical scenario out of any of the many universes of possibilities before them.

Elimination. That was what needed to happen. His eyes darted back and forth as he concocted a plan. He got up. Both Ersonia and Marcus stared at him.

“W-where you going?” Marcus asked.

“I’ll be right back.” Marks said and made his way to the stairs.