Chapter Thirteen

With my daytime patrol out of the way and a few hours to kill before Rel was available, I turned my attention to what the cultist woman gave me the night prior.

Of all things… a letter? I turned the envelope over in my hands, pacing back and forth. The faintly shimmery parchment was smooth and velvety to the touch. It smelled floral rather than like paper, and it was thicker than expected too. The embossed, bilingual address was, on further inspection, metal and not ink. With some testing, I discovered the closure was magnetic, even if I couldn’t see or feel it.

Inside, beautiful metal calligraphy filled nearly every inch of the large, singular page.

Elara,

I keep finding troubling relics of your past. It doesn’t end with Aisu’s memories or your empty mind. Artifacts are littered all over Creshe, and someone is scrambling to sell them all to offworld buyers. I’ve turned my efforts to investigate the source of this…betrayal, if you will. I believe a Syldrari may be involved.

Your…‘prospective court’ has been briefed on what little I discovered of your past. Should I discover more, I will share it with them. Do not ask for that information. As matters stand, it would be dangerous for you to know. I chose to trust them with it until you are free of this planet and may be told.

I’m sure I don’t need to tell you that you’re in danger; but I will anyway. Forces within Imperator Julien’s circle are pushing for you to be removed. They think you have grown too close to the Syldrari. You must be careful.

For now, I implore you to place survival above gaining knowledge.

Rel, Jysel, and the others genuinely wish to protect you. Let them. I will work from my position to make certain they aren’t tampered with in the way your royal guards were. It is the least I can do for someone with your…connections.

Hunt well.

The moment I finished reading the letter, the metal lifted off the page to form a small, intricate filigree vase. What was once paper shifted and warped, rearranging itself into a pale peach flower, settling itself in the tiny vase.

…am I losing it? I nudged the shimmery peach leaf. The texture remained the same, yet it looked like a real flower. Part of it had even turned green for the leaves and stem.

A warning from the cultist, and ‘begging’ to keep me focused on the ‘right’ tasks. I wasn’t sure what to make of it. More and more Syldrari kept becoming my allies—so who were my enemies? I didn’t buy it was just the humans. It didn’t add up—especially given the so-called cultist’s clear suspicions of Syldrari involvement.

Granted…the humans may be the more imminent enemy. I fell still, glancing toward the letter-turned-flower again. Or are they? If the ones who messed with our heads are still here…

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I rubbed my temples and jaw. “Fuck… What do I…”

A message notification popped up in my peripheral vision. Sighing, I opened it to find a video feed of Zafir.

“What is it?” I asked.

Zafir gave me an apologetic smile.

“I had plans… Fine, fine.” I shook my head hard. Rel would understand that I couldn’t risk sneaking away from a mission. “Where am I meeting you?”

Zafir shook his head.

Zafir ended the communication, leaving me to quickly swap over to a different application to message Rel. I mulled over my wording for a moment before sending,

Rel offered within moments.

I bit my lower lip and hugged myself, not fully sure why I felt so uneasy.

It took a little longer for Rel to answer this time, yet his response was short.

I paced the length of my room, continuing to chew my lip.

Rel’s response gave me a brief modicum of relief.

It took me a moment, but I finally found the button that let me do as he asked.

Over the next few minutes, Rel helped me navigate the Syldran screens, and provided me with text to copy-paste into each necessary field. Once that was done, I changed into my suit and made my way out of my room, to the nearest elevator, and began my ascent to the roof.

Rel’s comments made me arch an eyebrow. It was still weird to me that Jysel and I had started to get along.

I hovered my attention over the heart emoji, feeling my face growing hotter by the second. Finally, I chose not to send the emoji. Whatever was going on between us, we didn’t have a label for it. Maybe it was better that way, but it also made me question what was appropriate.

Hell, for all I knew, the heart was a human addition to the chip, and it could have been extremely insulting to send to a Syldrari. Who knew. I tilted my head. Was that what a human heart actually looked like? It didn’t seem like the best design, but if it was…it was an odd thing to send to people, wasn’t it?

I shrugged to myself and disembarked the elevator, briefly flicking my attention to the final message from Rel.

At the end was a little Syldran calligraphic mark that made me think of a tiny shell. I threw it into the translator and minimized the overlay as I walked toward Zafir, Crowe, Erik, and the waiting shuttle.