It had taken a while for Unity to decide on which time would be ideal to approach Crow.

He’d not meant to eavesdrop on the boy’s conversation with his sister, not really. Certainly hiding as he heard them begin had been more reflexive than not. He’d heard what they’d said all the same.

It was a good thing, too. For it had bequeathed him with just the ammunition needed, if luck bolstered guile, to make some sort of dent in even Crow’s unbreechable stubbornness.

Waiting had been the hardest part of his plan, time proving as great a test as ever. Deepening every impulse that already screamed for Unity to have his confrontation soon.

Restraining them took every ounce of his pitiful will, and fortune alone let it hold longer than it took for his chance to emerge. He saw Crow tire, thoughts exhausting the boy further than the late hour itself as they neared midnight. Watched as he rose from the sofa and moved to his room.

Intercepted him halfway there.

“Crow, could I have a word?” Unity asked, positioning himself between the boy and his door as he spoke. Crow’s green, runic eyes widened with surprise even as tiredness fought to close them. He seemed more exhausted than Unity had reckoned.

“Do you have to?” The boy asked. “I’m just about to go to bed.”

“I do. It’s important, I’m afraid.” Unity answered. “About your next task.”

That, as he expected, captured the boy’s attention. Crow nodded, stepping back and looking at him expectantly.

“Sudden realisation?” He guessed, entirely wrong as usual.

“Something like that.” Lied Unity. “We both saw Rajah fight Amelia, didn’t we? Both saw the extent of his power, and the new attitude he seems to have in making use of it.”

That seemed to confirm whatever suspicions Crow had already formed.

“You’re going to try and talk me out of it.” He accused. “Don’t bother, you’re not going to manage.”

“Right.” Unity snapped. “Because nobody could shift you when you’ve set your bottomless will onto a task. Doesn’t matter what your idiotic drive does to everyone else, if you’ve decided to do something, it’s going to get done.”

The outburst hadn’t been a part of Unity’s plan, but he saw the effect it had on Crow clear as day. Realised instantly that it was one he could use to leverage his goals.

“I’m sorry.” Crow said, and Unity believed without doubt that he meant it. “I really, honestly am. But I can’t drop out. We both saw Rajah’s fight, Unity. We both saw how injured he was. I have a chance. I can’t just ignore that.”

“You can’t.” Unity nodded. “No matter what it costs everyone other than you, right? No matter how much more value in your life others may place than you do.”

Crow’s eyes hardened at that, his face growing dark and combative.

“I’ve spoken with Astra already.” He protested. “And she’s-”

Unity interrupted, finding no patience for the bumbling, plodding pace the boy would doubtless take in thinking the matter through.

“I’m not speaking of Astra.” He snarled. “I’m speaking of myself. Do you think your suicide’s importance has any bearing on how pleasant I’ll find watching it unfold?”

Surprise took speech from Crow, leaving him standing and gaping as Unity pressed on.

“The worst part, I think, is that you’ve convinced yourself that what you’re doing is somehow admirable. Heroic, even. That this little sacrifice of yours will be among your finest hours however it ends, by merit of it being sacrificial alone.”

He almost spat at the floor. It was a warning of how far his control had slipped. Already Unity had broken the plans he’d laid to convince his teammate, already his temper had proven stronger than his wits.

Still he ranted, anger flowing too powerfully to be stemmed.

“You’re not a hero for charging dick-first into danger at your own expense, you’re just an idiot who’s fortunate enough to be dodging the consequences. But here’s something you might not have considered about your death; it’s not something that happens to you. It’s a tragedy that strikes the people closest to you. They’re the ones who need to watch it happen, they’re the ones who live with it. They don’t get to escape by dying and throwing their mind to the pit.”

Crow seemed sobered when Unity finished. He wasn’t sure when the boy’s face had changed, anger had left him clouded.

The boy eyed him, cautious somehow. Reserved. Almost, Unity thought, chastened. But the strength hadn’t left his gaze, nor had the steel.

Unity was not enough of a fool to believe his outburst had dissuaded him. He found himself unsure anything could at all, so carefully alloyed was Crow’s will.

“I’m sorry.” Crow answered, impressing Unity by keeping his gaze level and steady. “I had no idea how you really felt.”

The words brought heat and colour to Unity’s face, redenning him as he felt his scalp grow suddenly cramped atop his skull.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

“Yes, well don’t think too much of it. Nor, for that matter, anything I said here. I’m just not eager to lose the one person I’ve met who seems able to reign me in.”

He buried the niggling, repulsive thoughts that crept from the depths of his mind even as their heads poked up. Inhaled as steadily and subtly as he could to bring order to thought.

There were times Unity could spare cognition for his mothers. Times he could reflect on the absent life they’d left him. He found neither in the moment, pressing on from the distractions.

“You realise this doesn’t change anything though.” Crow asked him, voice surly and hesitant. As if he somehow feared Unity’s answer.

It was well timed, bringing a strongly needed rage to dilute Unity’s silent yearnings and clear his head once more. He nodded curtly, letting his contempt be known and stepping around the boy.

“I’d assumed as much.” He spat. “But a chap has to try, doesn’t he?”

“No.” Crow hurriedly answered. “I mean this doesn’t change anything about you. You spoke of me reigning you in just now, what did you mean by that?”

Unity’s stomach almost fell out from his belly. He knew he’d misspoken, hoped only that Crow had missed the slipping tongue. That he hadn’t might doom him to a lengthier and more tedious conversation than he’d ever dared fear.

The truth, he decided, would end it fastest. It almost burned Unity’s mouth to set free.

He didn’t see Crow’s face as the boy answered, couldn’t bring himself to look up. Could barely even bear hearing him speak.

“I had no idea.” He said, tone betraying the genuine surprise and awe for what they were. “Unity I… Thank you. I think. Thank you, but you’re wrong. You don’t need me to do good. Not when-”

Growing tired of placations and optimism, Unity snapped his face around and interrupted the boy with a snarl.

“Save it.” He growled. “I know you mean to give some parting words that will kill your guilt at disregarding everything I just told you, I’d sooner hear nothing at all.”

Unity was past Crow before he could answer, stepping through into his own room and throwing himself onto the bed to lie amid his bitterness. It kept him warmer than any blanket, banishing sleep for hours while he lay in a storm of thought.

The stupidity that seemed humanity’s inheritance had never stopped surprising him, but it should have. He’d had fifteen years to adjust. Crow’s answer had been an expected one, that it matched Unison’s almost word for word was scarcely less predictable, and yet Unity found no solace in being so ahead of things.

It was well within his power to think ten steps beyond everyone around him, but that was useless when they insisted on going about their own ways regardless. He wondered, then, whether he might have changed things had he been given time to speak with his mothers.

Zora Mylif’s intellect was nearly so famous as her magic. She, perhaps, would have kept pace with him. Maybe even enough to let it sink in through her skull what his true nature was.

Certainly it would have saved her a disappointment, if she’d lived to actually see what would come of the life she and her lover had died bringing about.

He never noticed himself grow drowsy enough to slip away, never noticed his warring mind slow from exhaustion.

Only came to realise he’d slumbered when a knock on his door woke him to find the warmth of morning in the air.

Kaiosyni seemed deflated when Lichos and Pyrhic entered the her room.

Whether by passing time or merely the day’s late hour, it seemed half the woman’s vitality had been drained from her. Bags hung beneath her eyes lower than ever, the empty mask of her face had grown so severe as to almost approach gauntness. Even her bronzed skin seemed to have lost its usual sheen.

She was still a beauty to steal his breath, but there was an unspeakable fragility to it. A masterpiece once made of diamond suddenly turned to glass.

“Bring me good news.” She greeted them, voicing her request for report as if it were a true demand. One that might twist the world to acquiesce her.

Pyrhic answered it as an order in truth, regailing Kaiosyni with all they’d seen.

Remarkably, the woman appeared less tired with every passing sentence. Revelations restoring strength to her shambled form, leaving golden eyes to glow anew.

By the time Pyrhic had finished speaking, she was standing. Drawn upwards by the invisible puppeteer’s strings that Lichos recognised all too well as cause and duty.

“My caution was well placed then.” She proclaimed, voice as animated as her body. “Someone is acting through the Guillotines, and given their secrecy and hiring of Manamicists so closely related to Tamaias’ death, I believe we can safely confirm this mysterious party is the one responsible for the attack.”

Even Lichos was disturbed by the unhidden satisfaction scrawled across Kaiosyni’s face, heedless of her situation’s severity.

He kept his jaw tight and closed, miraculously. Kaiosyni seemed almost designed to draw suicidal words from him, a face to the facelessness of Taikan tyranny. But that position only made it more pressing that he keep his damned tongue still.

“What will you do now?” Lichos asked, more curious to see how the need for action would twist Kaiosyni’s face than invested in what she might decide.

The woman hadn’t begun to speak before a stab of excitement ignited him from within. Born as Lichos realised his days in Udrebam were doubtless numbered.

After the Sieve’s end, and the final days of his commander’s investigation, there would be little further need for a soldier like him to guide the Taikan heir. Not when she made her way back home to Dewlz.

Kaiosyni dragged him from his thoughts with her answer.

“First I shall need to contact the other organisers, make use of this information and coax them into actually taking action. If, as I suspect, there is an Immortal behind this subterfuge, I fear there will be need for might as well as intelligence to best it.”

She turned to Pyrhic, seeming only to recall her dula’s existence at that moment.

“Send word to schedule a meeting as soon as it can be done.”

The woman nodded, disappearing from the room. Kaiosyni turned back to Lichos.

“As for you, soldier, the time of your true use has come at last. The action we’ve seen taken by our hidden enemy is drastic, and I can think of few Immortals that would reach so far only to back out from a venture. It is more than likely that the situation in Udrebam will turn bloody.”

Lichos made no more effort to hide his grin than Kaiosyni had hers.

He’d spent weeks in Udrebam being left ignorant, standing impotent while others did the real work. As useless as a Unixian ensign.

Udrebam was an alien city, he had no friends there. Nor, even, was its very language his. But Lichos was strengthened to know he’d find a single constant in the foreign city.

Death was his career, after all. One he’d followed for a decade and done well. The thought of the city becoming a battleground comforted him.

It might well make the place home.