After being quite unceremoniously banned from Lord Bolemir’s BMM, and after the class itself at last elapsed without me, I made somewhat trepidated way to the school’s cafeteria.

With Leif, the Therian, in train.

The awestruck descendant of Wergar the White had hung about my person following the class’s eventual termination, shooting so many timid glances my way, shuffling about his twin tanned feet. When his fellow TA’s gestured that he might follow them, he’d sharply waved them off, instead directing a pair of puppy dog eyes my way.

What did he think I was?

Some sort of legend, in the making? Did he think to grasp tight my coattails, that he might ride them to greatness, as well? Perhaps ingratiate himself to those strong enough to name themselves my masters?

If so, he was in for quite the shock.

I had no masters, none at all. No connections. He’d get nothing of the sort from me. I was nobody, a loser. I knew no one, aside from those who’d traveled here with me. All his affection affected was to make me deeply uncomfortable, and my first thought was to send the lapdog on his way.

But then…perhaps, I was wrong.

Perhaps I knew better than that. Perhaps I knew him better. I’d heard his song, heard it loud and clear. Simple. Brutal. Direct.

Perhaps I was being a fool.

Perhaps the only thing Leif sought in me was to sharpen his own steel. And, was that not what I wanted? Was that not what I had come here for? Was this not precisely the manner of ally I desired?

So I sighed, and merely beckoned him along.

Fortunately, the starry-eyed Shaker abandoned the breadth of his awe in short order, recapitulating instead the buoyant demeanor he’d shown me when first we met. He trotted happily along at my side, peppering me with queries as he did so.

Where was I from? The Cells. Yes, but which one, precisely? Uther. Had I ever met Bastion? No, I hadn’t. Had I met Vaultkeeper? No, I hadn’t. Had I met Soultaker? No, I hadn’t. Had I fought the four Horsemen? No, I most absolutely hadn’t.

And besides, there were only three Horsemen, right now.

So, who’s supporting me? I didn’t say. Who taught me to fight like that? I didn’t say. Who do I have to thank for my Blessing?

I blinked.

“I’m Forsaken,” I said, dryly.

“O–h…kay,” Leif replied, much of his enthusiasm lost.

“Bummer,” he added, awkwardly.

I nodded.

Thankfully, before the wolfman found any further opportunity to inquire after my parentage, we arrived.

The lunch room, like all others in the Institute apparently, was huge.

The more I saw of this place, the more I began to consider that the many heirs what frequented it simply wouldn’t have it any other way. Everything had to be grand, gilded, gaudy. They were the pride of Europe, after all. The cream of high society. The strongest, the smartest, the most beautiful. It was what they were used to. What they paid for.

And so every bit and bauble just had to be breathtaking, every meal lavish and gourmet, each professor world-renowned for their accomplishments. Every weapon must have been passed down, must date generations back, a legendary keepsake from mighty so-and-so after the magnificent battle, or delve, or errantry, of such-and such.

At least in this case the size was more understandable, more appropriate.

These luncheon grounds supplied the whole student body, and all at more or less the same time. I didn’t know just how many students, graduates, professors, and deans staffed the Institute, but it had to be easily over one thousand. And this hall was meant to accommodate them all.

It was massive, downright elephantine, a single, high-ceilinged edifice that seemed a cross between great-mess and church, complete with multiple levels and sky-high, stained glass windows that let in the tinted glimmer of noonday sun. At its other end, the hall opened half onto the central quadrangle, and at ours it played host to a sizeable conglomerate of serving stands sporting just about every single distinct type of cuisine native to the continent.

Leif led me from stall to stall eagerly, dragging me along until I found something that I vaguely recognized, and was about to lead me over to the tables, when I stopped him. I wanted to find Alyss first.

Peering about the throng of studentry, though, I saw neither hide nor hair of my companion. So I closed my eyes and pressed my lips together tight, and sank into the world of songs.

A myriad of disparate colors assaulted me immediately, the material world suffocating beneath the crushing weight of power present just outside its boundaries. It harkened back to the days before I’d reached the Marble stage, before I’d learned to so deftly treat with Shards, when the mere presence of so many Blessed deafened me.

But only for a moment.

I breathed deep, centered myself, and sought the only one familiar to me. It didn’t take me long to find it.

A pillar of song burst forth from the throng in front before me, towering above its lesser kin, a howling choir of long dead and lost souls. It was black as midnight, and eerily lime-green, but I reached towards it without a hint of fear.

With deft tendrils of purest immaterium, I ever-so-slightly flicked at the moaning tempest. Immediately, a single shadow broke off from all the rest, emerging from the whirling nightmare to peer at me for just a moment, then diving back down. It would inform First, without delay. My work here was done.

I opened my eyes warily, a diver emerging from the very furthest reaches of abyss, only to hear my own admirer’s voice.

“So where’s this friend of yours, stalker?” Leif inquired, grinning at me.

“Just there,” I directed, gesturing towards the approaching sorceress whilst I carefully gauged his response. I could almost predict it, by now. The widening of the eyes, the bunching up of the shoulders, the drawing back of the neck.

I knew what came next.

“A pleasure, my lord,” Alyss said, bowing towards the Therian.

“Oh shit, she’s a Nycta,” Leif exclaimed.

Alyss stared at him.

“You’re a Nycta,” he repeated dumbly, pointing at her for emphasis. Then he turned my way. “You’re friends with a Nycta, stalker? Not cool. Not crash.”

I frowned.

“Yes?” I bit back, tersely. “And why shou–”

“Well if it makes you feel any better, my lord, I’m a bastard, too,” Alyss snapped. “Forsaken. Like your friend, here. Why, I do hope you’ll find it in your heart to forgive my parentage. I’ll certainly do my best to choose them better next time,” she all but snarled.

This time, I stared at her.

Leif did, too.

The both of us stared as one.

This was…unthinkable, almost. It was so unlike her. Had something happened? I paused for a moment, but the sorceress said nothing more, certainly displaying no intention to apologize, instead glaring daggers at my novel companion.

“The Maw would’ve killed me, without her there,” I declared, firmly locking eyes with the wolfman. “We’d have died alone. In the dark. All of us.

“I trust her with my life,” I said.

He regarded me for a moment, then shrugged.

“Ok, Katakh,” he surrendered. “Whatever you say.” He strode forth, gesturing for the both of us to follow. “Come on, then, Slaver. Let’s find some friends. Food always tastes better with friends.”

I fell into step behind him, Alyss following quickly after me. I tried hard to catch her eyes, but she very pointedly ignored me.

Worrying.

“Oh, look! There’s Niko!” Leif exclaimed, grinning as he pointed towards the end of a table with a number of grey-and-black garbed Slavs already seated at it. Near its edge, sure enough, I saw the Slavic Lord in question, Dean Bolemir writ small, his bizarre song throbbing rhythmically with that black fire.

But, this time, Niko wasn’t alone. To his left, and just at the very edge of the table, there sat another heir.

My first thought was that he looked nothing at all like a warrior.

In fact, he was the opposite of his luncheon comrade in perhaps every conceivable way. Niko wore his dark hair cropped short, and accompanied it with a thick, wiry black beard, but this youth’s tresses were pure silver, and quite long, to boot. They fell past his face in pools of liquid metal, though the majority he’d bound up in a great ponytail that fell far beyond his back.

Niko’s physiognomy was that of a grizzled soldier, with strong temples and a brick-laid jawline, but this heir’s features were waifish. Androgynous. Feminine, almost. He sported high, well-pronounced cheekbones, an elegant brow, and not a thimbleful of facial hair. Indeed, he was the very picture of Aristocratic comeliness.

But his beauty had been marred.

His clear, albinic eyes were troubled by drooping circles, his fine mouth soured into a perpetual scowl, and his gaze remained ever-roving in the distance, fixing on nothing in particular, drifting aimlessly about the buzzing cafeteria.

His song was nowhere to be seen.

If not for the faint hum of Entropy I detected from him, and the deep, rich, black-red heart of clotted blood sitting like a tumor just above his navel, why, I might have even thought him mortal.

At last, I’d found him in the flesh.

Piotr the Prodigy.

~~~

Kamadme, Heir of Old Blood

Attunement: Haemokinesis(Ma) 16

Grain: Hemophilia

Marble: Thalassemia

Core: Ichofusion

~~~

“Hey, cunt!”

Leif shouted salutations at the Prodigy’s sworn sword, who returned his greetings with a usual grin, and an equally genial salutation.

“Fucking asshole,” he muttered to the both of us as he led us towards the man. “Fucker placed first in BMM, last year. Careful around him. Guy’s a sick fuck, a sick fuck. Fucking monster. Nearly took my head off in a spar.” He snorted. “Suits my fucking family better than I do.”

He paused, nodding once to himself, as if internally confirming his own words.

“What’s up, cunt?” Leif snarled as we reached the table, baring a wicked pair of canines just a touch too sharp to be human.

“Ah, little shchenok!” Niko grinned cheerfully back, not at all put off by the Wer’s vitriol. His eyes lit upon us, his black song burning just a touch brighter as he noticed my companion. “And, you bring friends! Come, come. Sit with us!”

Leif nodded happily, plopping himself down whilst we followed suit. He glanced about the table and seemed poised to serve up yet another barb, before his eyes widened upon one of its occupants, his smile fading considerably.

“My lord Tepes,” he murmured, quietly inclining his head in Piotr’s direction with none of the biting sardonicism I’d seen him display not moments prior. “May I offer my deepest condolences. Vselin was a good man.”

Surprisingly, his face seemed twisted about in a genuine, heartfelt grief.

But the Prodigy did not reply.

He remained quite as distant and disconsolate as ever, eyes still roaming aimlessly about the great hall. I couldn’t even tell if he’d heard the Therian.

Leif noticeably hesitated, then, regret and a hint of anger vying for control of his expression.

“This was wrong.” He declared, with a peculiar vehemency and a rumbling growl. “What happened, it should never have been. The High Lady had no right to…if my grandfather ha–”

“Da, da, ok, priyet, ok!” Niko jerked up in his seat suddenly, quickly cutting off the wereman’s words. His gaze darted nervously about the massive hall in a momentary and unusual display of fear, though I couldn’t imagine why.

Politics, perhaps. No doubt Alyss would inform me later.

“You give condolences, korosho,” Niko said, uneasily. “Is kind of you. Very kind. We appreciate.” He licked his lips, directing a meaningful glare towards the Prodigy sat just beside him.

“Piotr appreciates,” he prodded, intensely.

Whereupon, finally, the silver-haired heir roused himself from grim silence just long enough to spare the Wer Lord an ever-so-brief glance and ever-so-minute nod, before promptly returning himself to it.

Niko watched the whole affair transpire with an uncontained grimace. Then he turned to us.

“So,” he began, forcing a smirk. “How you like Degrasi’s lecture?”

~~~

Alyss Nycta, youngest daughter of Cell Nycta, scion of slaves and slavers, watched her uncouth companion make conversation with his fellow Blessed.

She didn’t join in, herself. They were, at the moment, discussing those rather mind-melting contents of the eccentric Immortal Circade’s lecture, and Alyss had never been one to care overmuch for the mechanics of Blessings. And, right now, she was in a particularly poor mood, besides.

Blessings were tools. Weapons. No matter how her young companion might attempt to convince her otherwise, she’d always see them as a means to an end. Nothing more. No, what Alyss concerned herself with was not the Shards, themselves, but those who wielded them.

Gods, she thought. I really am a Master.

Her lips twisted sourly.

A Master.

A Slaver.

Her repugnant upbringing was, in a darkly ironic manner, causing positively no end of troubles for her at the moment. Her second morning lecture, taught by the Anglican Master, Lord Piers, had not gone well. In lieu of true training, he’d instead subjected them all to a series of simple, one-on-one conversations. The rules of which were equally so.

He’d told them to make each other cry.

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That was it. That was his lesson. Bring each other to tears, break each other down with words alone. There were few students in his class, less than twenty, and the lot of them knew nothing of one another.

This is ridiculous, she’d scoffed the moment he’d said so, better judgment eschewed for fear of strangers poking about inside her head. We’re Masters, not Thinkers. How is an exercise such as this supposed to help us grow?

The Dean of Command had eyed her then, with a soft smile that made her temper flare as it rarely did so. It was a smile of safety, of slimy security, one both arrogant and condescending, one that told her he already knew her, knew everything about her, down to her very bones.

Not every Blessed is so unguarded to mental manipulations, Lady Nycta, as those mortals your namesake entertains, he’d purred. A true Master learns to work within the confines of their victim’s mind. To play on their weaknesses. Their insecurities. To threaten them, with their own deepest, darkest secrets.

A true Master, he’d whispered, has won before they’ve stepped one foot inside your head.

His words reminded her so distinctly, so thoroughly, of Father.

She’d hated it.

And so, she’d hated him.

Most of all, though, she’d hated how he’d hated her, too. Even him. Even a Dean. For some reason, Alyss had thought that they, at least, might be immune to the animus borne against her patronage.

Alas, no such luck, she sighed.

Despite all of her ample cynicism, Alyss hadn’t expected it to be this bad. She really hadn’t. She certainly hadn’t expected Nikolai’s to be the more moderate disposition. The Europeans treated her like a plague.

She was all alone.

Yes.

Yes, she could see it. She could see it, even now. Even as her companion entertained them, engaged them in surprisingly exuberant theory. They smiled at him, laughed with him, bosom friends so soon, and their delight seemed genuine, too. But, every now and again, their eyes would flicker back to her. Back over her. Back to tracing the contours of her midnight robe, the lime-green sigil that stood wretched on her breast, clanking chains wrapped around a pitch-black box.

Her mark of shame. She’d been a fool, to imagine Bern might allow her to escape it. It would follow her forever.

Yes.

Forever.

Forever, daughter, you are mine.

Just as your mother w–

Alyss felt a sudden and unexpected wetness upon her shoulder, and yelped, startled from her awful memory, jerking back. Her eyes flitted about her surroundings, but she quickly discovered the cause for her alarm.

A stain, colored a deep, rich, red, seeped slowly into the fabric just above her clavicle. It was cold, and damp, and tingled slightly.

Someone had spilled their drink on her.

Alyss’s gaze flashed upwards, then, and she beheld a tall, lean, stately woman, with eyes of a beautiful blue.

But it was a cold beauty, too. The beauty of frozen spring, in the heart of winter. It well matched the rest of her. Prim dress, stately features. Short locks of chestnut-brown, trimmed to just above the chin. Her shade was a saber that seemed wrought of glass, but queerly fractured. And, on her lapel, her insignia. A single, glowing, white-grey sword.

Alyss’s throat tightened as she recognized it.

House Estoc.

The Great House that stood Lord Paramount of the Triarchy, ruling Franco-Anglica in all but name.

The stately woman smirked at her, smirked down at her, full lips curving into a cruel, sadistic grin. She was flanked by a pair of similarly-grinning, Frankish-looking youths, eagerly awaiting the impending confrontation.

And by Lord William Price II.

The Prince of the Elgin Palace, at least, had the remnant decency to appear uncomfortable, shifting awkwardly from foot to foot as he refused to meet her eyes. Too much honor to join in the mockery, too impotent to arrest it. Or too fearful, perhaps. Between the Frankish and the Anglican factions in the Triarchy, it was well-known who really held the power.

For a moment, the two parties merely regarded one another, in silence.

Before the Maw, this would’ve been their end.

Or hers. One, or the other, but nevertheless resolved at once. Her shades and Nightmares would’ve reacted instantly. Reflexively. Instinct sourced from a childhood of torture. Gods, back in the Dungeon she’d well and gutted Taiven, when all he’d done was rouse her from her slumber. Back then, she couldn’t stop her servants responding to her base emotions.

But even now, they should still be dead.

Dead, where they stood. This was an insult. An unforgivable offense. An act of war. She had no choice. She couldn’t just let it go. Her father had impressed that on her, agonizingly. Strike, before your enemy has the chance. Kill, before they kill you.

Because that worked so well for her in the Maw.

The Frankish girl drew closer, her knifelike smile filling up Alyss’s view. The sorceress glanced at the now sweetly-stinking patch upon the nape of her coal-black dress, and…still, hesitated.

All the while, First, her Nightmare, waited patiently with its brethren in her soul.

It gave her no impression of its own desire, its intent. It would follow in whatsoever path she chose. Alyss knew not what the Frankish girl’s Blessing was, precisely, but then, it didn’t really matter. She glanced back upwards, at the girl’s curling grin, and short-cropped hair. She stared into her cold, blue eyes.

Alyss narrowed her own, and peered deeper, and thought she noticed something, ever so deep below.

A midnight world.

Filled with corpses.

And a single, bright red, beating heart.

The Frankish girl jerked back.

She startled at Alyss, recoiling, her cruel grin replaced by a subtle frown as a hint of trepidation infected her previously mocking regard.

But she swiftly recovered.

“Ah, mais pardonnez-moi, mademoiselle Slaver,” the girl sang, as her twin entourage snickered. “That black and green, why, you sink right into the shadows. I did not even notice you.”

She inhaled, deeply and dramatically, making a show of smelling the vintage she’d laid to rest on Alyss’s clothes.

“Ah, but perhaps this suits you better, no? Ettina de Gau, 605 sweet. Sweet, and sour,” she sneered. “Like blood. You like blood, don’t you, Slaver? Mais non? You must.” She bent down low.

“Just, you have others draw it for you.”

Alyss pursed her lips, momentarily unsure how to reply. Was a show of strength necessary? Could she ignore this? Should she say anything, at all?

Oh Priest, she sighed internally, for the hundredth time since they’d made land in Cambridge. This would all be so much easier if Caleb was here.

Then she noticed Taiven snap to attention.

Honestly, she was surprised it’d taken him this long. He was like that, these days. Increasingly so, since they’d arrived in Europe. For all he’d teased her caution, he was…more vigilant, of late. More aggressive, perhaps. Perhaps it was the Dungeon’s lingering effects. Perhaps his Mover Blessing was changing him more than he liked to admit.

These days, he was always watching, always using that Sensory Projection of his. Always ready. Ever alert. And increasingly protective, too.

Protective of her.

Her companion rose from the table at once, his too-swift, too-fluid movements betraying the Major Shard that lurked under his skin. He flowed towards the Frankish girl in less even than an instant, flowed right up to her, positioning himself firmly between the two of them.

“Hey, what are we talking about?” He exclaimed, happily. “Blood? Blood-something? I heard blood-something.” Unlike the Frank’s, Taiven’s grin was genuine. Innocuous. Downright harmless. Bereft even a trace of cruelty.

And yet, when combined with the little flecks of ruby lightning that sparked sporadically from the corners of his eyes, and the soft scent of ozone that permeated the air, and the way his neck craned just a touch too far forward…

His eyes never left those of the Frankish girl, but Alyss knew better than to think her companion unawares. He was looking, now. Even as he spoke. Looking all around.

Taiven saw everything.

“You know,” he said, conversationally, “I’m no stranger to blood, myself.”

His smile deepened.

“Want me to show you?”

Alyss shook her head, inwardly, at his bravado.

It wasn’t put-upon, that much she knew. Not right now. He really meant it. If it came to a fight, Taiven would fight.

If he needed to kill, he’d kill.

The Maw had changed her companion, too.

And sure enough, just as it always did, Taiven’s reckless bravado paid right off.

The Frankish girl drew backwards a good ways, all the wind and surety vanished from her sails. Her eyes floundered back and forth, flipping between the two of them. Alyss could hear the gears turning in her mind. She could see them twist together. Piers’ lessons, unpleasant as they were, were already beginning to bear fruit.

She felt she could see the heiress’s thoughts.

He’s not a Slaver, clearly. I don’t recognize him, so he can’t be from around here. Then, I’ll insult his lowborn status. Attack that, instead. But, wait a moment, now. He’s clearly strong, too. He must see my crest. He must know my family. Still, he shows no fear. He must have some backing, then, but…whom? Could he be a secret heir? A plant from far out West? A rising star?

Can I risk this?

Can I attack him?

Can I–

On, and on, and on.

All the while, as the seconds passed them by, none among them said a word. Their lunchmates beheld the evolving confrontation with a wide range of emotion, but no apparent inclination to intervene. Lord Nivokov looked disapproving, frustrated. His Slavic train appeared deeply uncomfortable. The Therian that Taiven seemingly adopted looked on with wide, excited eyes, and the prodigious Piotr paid no attention to them at all.

But Alyss only watched her companion.

Taiven stood firm. Stalwart. Unmoving.

He cast no glance towards her, in turn. He did not apologize. He must have known she disapproved of his behavior, and yet, he did it anyway. He didn’t care what she thought of him. Alyss might have been alone in all Bern, but Taiven would never abandon her.

Her stomach twisted in a pleasantly unpleasant way.

When you return, daughter mine, you will marry War.

The children you bear for him shall shake the very foundations of this world.

And just like that, the feeling departed.

“Defending her, sale con?” The heiress snapped, at last. “You a Slaver, too, little boy?”

Ah, the feigned ignorance offensive, Alyss nodded, understanding. A good choice, she thought. Simply ignore the worrying implications of Taiven’s existence and attack him directly.

“You a Slaver?” She sneered, again, rallying, bringing her slight frame back up towards Alyss’s companion. Close.

But not too close.

Just in case.

“Maybe,” the girl smirked, nastily, “Maybe, you’re her slave?”

“Putain, mais c’est comme ca,” one of her entourage encouraged, snickering.

“Degueu, Sabine,” the other differed, face souring in disgust.

Taiven frowned at them, pursing his lips for a moment. He appeared deep in thought. Alyss’s breath caught in her throat.

Then, he shrugged.

“Fine, then. I see,” he muttered, nodding to himself as he did so. “Blood, and wine.”

He snapped his fingers, pointing Alyss’s way.

“You’ve spilt one, already, thanks to my companion. That’s unfortunate. You deserve recompense.”

He shrugged, once more.

“But, my apologies my lady, I don’t have any wine on me.”

He sighed.

“So you’ll have to make do with blood, instead.”

So saying, Taiven nodded one last time, summoned that soulbound sword of his from nothing at all, raised it up high, and, with neither a hint of resistance nor discomfort, promptly sliced off his left arm at the shoulder.

From behind him, Alyss heard the wolfman choke.

From in front of him, Alyss saw the Prince of the Elgin palace turn about-face, and retch upon the ground.

Taiven held his swiftly-exsanguinating appendage out towards the Frank.

“Here you go,” he encouraged.

The Therian stared at her companion, in blatant disbelief for reasons Alyss knew not. The heiress’s twin entourage gaped at her companion in a mixture of fear and revulsion. Even Lord Novikov looked disturbed.

But not Piotr.

The Prodigy’s distant gaze was no longer quite so distracted.

Instead, it had fixed itself upon her freshly-amputated comrade, regarding him with what Alyss could only describe as an intrigued curiosity, for the first time wrenched from his despair.

Taiven’s bloodied stump gushed a profound quantity of viscera onto the floor, and Alyss had to suppress a groan. She felt the distinct urge to massage her forehead in her hands. He was doing this on purpose, she knew. He could very well have healed the injury in an instant, or less. He was trying to unnerve them.

And, unsurprisingly, it was working.

The cruel heiress’s already pale face had whitened further, though, to her credit, she gave no other outward inkling of her discomfort. Her mouth worked open and closed to no particular result, her hand frozen awkwardly out before her, quite unwilling to accept the Mover’s revolting gift.

“Uh, here you go?” Taiven tried, a second time, waggling the arm about in front of him, causing flecks of blood to fly about in all directions. His arm, she noticed, he was finally allowing to heal. “Seriously, take it. I don’t want it. Now, or all the blood’s gonna dra–”

“Oh, mais fils de pute,” one of the heiress’s entourage let out a sudden curse, his eyes widening in awful recognition.

“Sabine,” he hissed at the girl, who remained quite frozen, “Sabine! Ce connard est Katakh.” His eyes flickered towards Alyss. “Les deux, ils sont Katakh.”

The heiress’s gaze darted towards her follower’s, flashing with hatred. Some unspoken communication passed between the two of them.

Then she turned to Taiven, snorted once, and left.

Leaving behind them only a still-very-much-queasy Prince Price, who nevertheless seemed reluctant to follow.

“Ok, bye!” Taiven called out politely. He snapped his fingers, causing his own macerated limb to vanish from sight, disappeared to whatever personal storage Shard he utilized. Then he sat back down, took a deep draught of water, and pointedly ignored the gaze she knew he saw her sending his way.

“Fucking Priest’s fucking blood, stalker!” the sandy-haired Therian laughed delightedly, clapping her companion on the back. “That’s the fucking spirit! Fuck those Frankish pricks! Fuck ‘em right! Fuck ‘em rigid!”

There was a chorus of grunting assents and hear, hear’s from the Slavs in Lord Novikov’s train, as well as the lord, himself.

Even Piotr nodded, lethargically.

“Hey! Pretty Prince!” The wolfman shouted with a grin, waving at William. “Come sit with us!”

Blinking at the Therian first in disbelief, then pausing, then glancing about the packed-with-people hall, then pausing once more…

The Prince did as he bade.

William took dainty seat to Taiven’s left, in between him and the Therian, who launched immediately into an interrogation anew. And soon the atmosphere was returned to normal among them. Better than normal, even. The Therian seemed delighted, now, the Slavs freshly invigorated. The Prince, himself, seemed far more comfortable here than with his prior comrades, and even Piotr appeared to have engaged.

And, all the while, Alyss watched.

She watched her ally. Her comrade. Her closest confidant. She watched her brother in arms and purpose and secrecy.

She watched him work.

She watched how they all laughed, as they spoke to him. She watched how their pupils lit up. She watched the Therian’s eyes sparkle with him as Taiven shared tales of guts and glory from the Maw, watched Niko’s thorny underside be steadily thawed by his lack of Aristocratic arrogance, watched Prince Price’s normally subdued disposition explode with naive exuberance as the two of them discussed Entropic theory.

And, all of a sudden, something clicked in Alyss’s mind.

She recognized this sight. This feeling.

She’d seen it before.

She’d seen it long ago, back before they’d even entered the Maw. Seen it in the room they gathered at, following the Talos examination. She’d seen it in Rover, seen it in the High Inquisitor, seen it even in Quarrel, to an extent. No doubt, had she been vain enough to bring along a looking-glass, she’d have seen it in her own eyes, too.

It wasn’t anything great in particular, this thing she saw, for Taiven, too, wasn’t so unique.

His power might have been, but not the man himself. No, rather, he was far from it. He wasn’t evil, or tortured, or vastly ambitious. He wasn’t a well-groomed heir, a wandering philosopher, or a prophetic king. He didn’t safeguard some manner of maleficent past, nor harbor some sort of hidden project for the world, or its peoples.

He was but a normal youth.

Begot the power of a god.

And there was something…strangely comforting, in that.

Alyss was far from welcoming, herself. Far from accepting. She could feign politeness plenty well enough, but it never was enough, in the end. People saw through it. They always did. Her mistrust was fundamental. She wasn’t like Taiven. What he did here, now, she would never be capable of. She wouldn’t be the one to make their friends.

But she could keep their enemies in line.

In many ways, Caleb was quite her opposite. Charismatic. Captivating. He’d led men before, plenty of times. He knew the rhythms of war. Knew horror, as well as any. He could bring their allies together, swell their hearts as a bright beacon on the battlefield. He was a soldier, a general, through and through.

But, that was all he was.

Caleb was a deeply troubled man. Broken, deep down, perhaps even more than her. He knew how to lead in war, but his army had already been built for him. He led them well, once gathered, but he hadn’t gathered them, himself. In many ways, he was her opposite, and yet, in some, he was her twin. Caleb had made no friends, no allies, not in all his half-decade on the frontlines, and he wouldn’t make them now.

Caleb was their strong arm, essential and invaluable in a fight, incapable of a gentle caress.

Alyss was their keen mind, wary of even the truest among them, mistrusted by those even under her own command.

But Taiven was their heart.

He was the one whom others would follow.

He was the only one.

She could see it, even now. Even at this table, even at the center of those who hated them most. Even with these haughty heirs, each from a different faction, a different culture, a different house. She could see it with each passing second. With every next word he spoke.

They’d follow him.

Not today, perhaps. Not tomorrow. But, eventually, they would.

Eventually, they’d flock to him. She could see it, clear as day. Legions and legions and legions of Blessed. Banners that blot out the sky. Disparate peoples and creeds and factions, all in unison screaming his name. Their great army, to slay the Warrior once and for all.

And all Taiven had to do was be himself.

And I’ll support you, she decided, with a fervency like none she’d ever felt before. I’ll support you. No matter what it takes, I’ll support you.

No matter what I have to do.

Yes.

No matter what.

Yes, because Taiven was strong, incredibly strong, and brave, undeniably so. And Taiven could kill if he needed, without hesitation, she’d seen it plenty of times before.

But Taiven didn’t…

He didn’t, just…

Taiven was young, too.

He didn’t know…what it took to rule.

Not like she did.

And you never will, she decided, as a wonderful tingle spread across every inch of her body, making her extremities tickle and shiver. They won’t darken you, my…my friend. Never. Everything, they’ve taken from me, but I won’t let them take you. I won’t. I’ll kill them first.

I swear it.

Alyss’s eyes glittered a brilliant lime green as she made her silent vow, First pulsing in powerful recognition by her side.

And deep, deep, down, deep within the darkest recesses of her soul, her inner world, her sea of shadows, at the precipice of a long-dead plateau, in the very heart of a coal-black church…

A bright red apple flickered.

Silent.

Patient.

Lifeless as it ever was.