Beneath a sweltering summer sun, James Nixus breathed in the sweet-smelling air of the Lumina Gardens as it was carried along a passing pleasantly cool breeze.

Before him stretched a field of orchids arranged in wide rows, blue petals reaching out as if to grasp that bright orb high above, all swaying together in the wind like the gentle rhythmic waves of an ocean. Not far off, the orchids were neatly replaced by rows of a pink flower, and another kind beyond those. Meticulously trimmed berry bushes and magnificent trees of many kinds framed the view. It was all laid out in geometric patterns perhaps only a bird could fully appreciate. Maybe that was the point, as the mile-wide garden was considered a national monument dedicated to the Cardinalis.

He ventured deeper and came upon the clearing he had become quite familiar with this summer. Three wide mats and long benches carpeted the grass to either side, all packed with young boys and girls of varying heights and ages. They wore the same thing he did: a loose-fitting white gi of long-sleeved jackets and wide ankle-length trousers, tightly wrapped with black belts.

Here and there, he could see the class instructors working with the students. They wore the gi as well. One instructor kneeled beside a young boy and gently adjusted his posture, speaking softly. A female instructor watched with a hawk’s eyes as a group of older children cycled through a series of forms in unison.

Behind all the mats and benches and people rose one of the biggest trees James had ever seen. It was a proud, massive trunk painted with crimson laurel, leaves fanned wide to drink the sunlight. It was one of several that formed the centerpiece of the Gardens. Tourists from all across Asundria would visit Lumina every year to catch a glimpse of the famous crimson laurels blooming in the summer. They were a tricky species, not accepting the soil of any other region aside from southern Ganymede. This one swayed in the wind as the flowers did but with a grace they could not possibly hope to match. Its pleasant scent was marred by the sweat of those surrounding it.

“Ah, good. There’s James,” a voice called. Short, bald Jubi-ei waved him over to join the cluster of children. “You’re late. Lucas again?”

His mentor had two wispy white strands of a mustache hanging down to his chin in the Shinkaian fashion. Like all Shinkaians, Jubi-ei had a faint cyan tinge to his skin, pale in his case. The aspect was unique to Shinkai-blooded people, unconnected to the typical variation of skin color. It also had nothing to do with how pure-blooded one was, but some as-of-yet-undiscovered factor.

“Yes. I apologize, Jubi-ei,” he said, signing deference with his fingers. Luke tried standing up for a student— one he barely knew— being hassled by three older boys for lunch money after school. It went about as well as you could expect. For his brother’s black eye, he repaid all three of them with bruises. The faculty was not happy about that. The only reason Jubi-ei and the other instructors didn’t know about it was because Luke begged the principal not to contact them. The whole ordeal ran a real risk of getting him kicked out of these martial classes, but he lucked out and they were let off with a very stern warning.

Jubi-ei nodded in understanding and immediately launched his students into the lesson. He was a wise man who spoke with his hands, gesturing as he described the week’s kata. They would gain a feel for the form, memorize it, then steadily incorporate it into increasingly complex methods of sparring.

Once, the other students would have groaned at the prospect of sparring against James. A waste of time, they’d whisper. They were several years his senior— he was only eight— but even in the free sparring where any combination of kata could be performed, they found themselves challenged and occasionally outmatched by him. A quiet respect had built between he and the rest of the class. It was distant though, and he did not feel a closeness to any of them.

James didn’t mind. He was not here to make friends. Even in school, he held no interest in his peers. Couldn’t they sense it? The nobles had shattered the peace of Asundria with their bickering and squabbling. The Altairan and Vegai factions clashed with the Munitiod faction on the regular in the Proxima corridor of all places, as if to spit on the wishes of its poor queen. Every day more and more commoners were being dragged into a senseless struggle for power. It would swallow everybody up.

He watched Jubi-ei take the stance, then as with the other students he did his best to imitate what he saw. Their mentor would then check them one by one for major inaccuracies and work out minor issues throughout the rest of the afternoon.

The only noble of consequence with a proper head on his shoulders seemed to be Lumina’s very own Prince Zede. Admittedly, the political heart of the matter was way beyond his eight-year-old head, but he’d read transcripts in the weekend papers and listened to radio discussions. The young Ganymedian prince tended to be the only voice of reason in any given mix of nobles, highborn or lowborn alike.

James wanted to join the prince’s international peacekeeping force, the Feathered Chevaliers. He’d only told his parents and Luke— the latter he regretted— and was working his way through martial arts classes like Jubi-ei’s at his father’s advice in order to build a mind and body that met the famously strict standards of the Chevaliers. This was his second summer training, and there would be many more before he came of age. Mending the Asundrian Union’s fraying bond of nations would take a lot more than one person’s efforts, and he wanted to offer the prince what he could.

Jubi-ei adjusted his shoulders a feather looser, nodded to himself and moved on to the next student.

He knew that he should be enjoying his youth, goofing off and playing around like Luke. All his little brother did was sit back and watch the clouds daydreaming or pull pranks on people. It was hard to describe why he didn’t want to join him. It was vexing. He didn’t hate his brother or the things he did; the trouble he sometimes got them both into with his antics. No, he loved him.

He took a deep whiff of that flowery scent riding on the wind.

Balance, maybe? If his brother never took anything seriously, then wasn’t it his responsibility to always take everything seriously? Why did he care? He just did. Maybe only the Flocks Above could really explain it for sure. He just wanted to be strong enough, capable enough to protect his birthplace. His home, his family.

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James lost himself in the kata, thoughts growing distant. But he held onto that feeling, for it made him stronger. He practiced under the blistering sun until it began to dip and Jubi-ei’s class ended.

———

The Great Asundrian Pines blurred by as Typhos stared out the automobile window. The entire forest was bathed was one side in the orange light of the setting sun. He sat beside the Shadow in the back pair of leather seats. He was on the passenger side. Their master drove.

“I can only speculate,” Ernest Calliphlox was saying in an eloquent voice, refined yet servile, “but I believe that bandaged foe was a genuine user of the individual’s kingdom.”

“And the boy?” Levian asked, tapping the steering wheel with a finger. “The red, obviously.” He eyed Calliphlox’s bandaged stump as he said it. “Did you notice any others?”

“I did not,” Calliphlox said. He moved to fold his arms, then glanced at his stump with an expression that was more annoyed than anything. “But the red ampules were all distributed to Sirius, not Capella. We may want to pay a visit to Tremark to question Boreag.”

He didn’t know what to make of that. Luke had been working with Rhea’s rebels? It made no sense. Why hadn’t he mentioned it? He didn’t know much about the individual’s kingdom, either. The scraps he’d been given by Master Vega over the years was that it referred to a strange, otherworldly power that fascinated the emperor. It didn’t make much sense as a name. A kingdom was a nation of people ruled by a king. So what was an individual’s kingdom? A king? A kingdom consisting of only one person? Nonsense.

“Going behind her back?” Levian smiled. “That’s probably for the best. I’d prefer not to deal with that woman. Each truth she offers is laced in a quilt of lies. I’ll send the both of you in a few weeks.”

“That’s too great a risk, master.” Calliphlox shook his head emphatically. “I am against this. The fledglings cannot be charged with your protection. They are unreliable. Untrustworthy.”

“Don’t patronize me,” Levian snapped. “I can handle myself. Even then, if I were to fall, you know very well what your duty becomes.”

Calliphlox fell silent. After a moment, he nodded. “As you wish, Master Vega. I will respect your decision.”

That was the partnership of Elite and Ace they were talking about, he thought. Calliphlox must have been the real Second Ace all this time. When an Elite retires or dies, the Ace takes their place as Elite and appoints an Ace of their own. It was a policy that hadn’t happened yet in the brief history of the Empire— the Fifth Elite pair was a special case, those two were both replaced.

He was a fake, intended to draw attention away from the truth. He’d never felt himself truly partner to Levian. He never knew the freedom to speak to the Left Hand in that way. A puppet reprimanding the one holding its strings was unthinkable.

“If they’re trying to ambush us,” Levian said suddenly, “they’re doing quite a poor job.”

“One of Rhea’s?” Calliphlox asked. The man flexed his fingers and rolled his shoulders, then laid a hand on the side door handle.

Flocks have mercy on whoever it was.

It didn’t take long to find out. He was surprised to see Niya Samatkaeb had apparently been tailing them all this way to Cherima— just as surprised as Master Vega.

“Does this look like Ulciscor?” Levian called, poking his head out the window. As she approached from the middle of the trail, he added, “Well you certainly look pleasant.”

“Master Vega?” she asked tiredly, exhaustion plain on her face as she weakly bowed, standing just outside the driver window. Her outfit was torn and dirtied, and she smelled of sweat and grime. The woman rubbed her bleary eyes as if to check if the automobile full of people in front of her would disappear. “Zaba and I lent ourselves to the Silhouette as you ordered. We were tasked here by one of the higher-ups.”

Levian chewed on that for a moment, then hopped out of the automobile. Calliphlox joined him. As he rose, the man shook his head, silently telling Typhos to remain seated. He obeyed without objection.

“To do what?” his master asked.

“To execute a captain and a red-eyed boy that he smuggled out of the city.” She blinked. “He looked a lot like the Ace, actually.”

“What else?” Levian swiveled his head around. “Where is Zaba?”

Anger flashed across her face. “Those Rigel bastards never told us a thing,” she said quietly. “All they said was that the two of them were definitely going to Cherima. There was something… supernatural about the way the boy fought. He had strength several times greater than expected. The captain’s spearmanship was nothing to write off, either.”

“You were defeated,” Levian guessed.

“We were utterly routed,” she said through gritted teeth. “Please, Master Vega. Punish me for my failure however you wish, but permit me to exact my vengeance for Zaba first, particularly on that captain.”

Levian shrugged. “Wasn’t my mission you bungled. We took out the boy. Good news is the captain’s still out there. That being said, I think that’s enough of a vacation for you. I don’t appreciate Rigel getting my subordinates killed.” He thumbed back at the automobile. “Get in.”

“Oh, you’re here as well, Ace,” she said, noting him as she climbed into the front passenger seat. “My apologies. Greetings.”

He grunted. No one corrected her.

“And you… are you alright, sir?” she asked Calliphlox, glancing at his bandaged stump and bloodied tuxedo coat.

Calliphlox raised an eyebrow at her, but said nothing. Niya opened her mouth to say more, but thought better of it and returned the silence with her own.

“He’s a bit shy,” Levian said, slamming down on the gas pedal. “And homesick. You know, for that miserable little village. Let’s save the introductions for later and get out of this clipping forest before we run into anybody else.”

Endless rows of trees upon trees passed them by, as if they were a thousand hands waving goodbye. Typhos looked down at his bandaged palm. Calliphlox had cleansed and stitched up the wound with a field kit the moment they realized Alder and Daniels had gone out of reach. Treated by the very man he fought to death, a hollow needle sticking out of his bloodstained tuxedo coat as he sewed carefully with his one hand, biting down on the threads to sever them. Levian promised him one of the finest surgeons in Tenebrae after this was over and done with.

It was there, laying in the filth and dirt of a forgotten town, that he realized a truth. He hurt, there was no question about that. His hand, his soul. But with Luke’s passing, there wasn’t a single person left in the world to tie him down to his old life. No one left to judge him for the things he’d done. No more moral guillotine hanging above his head for his sins. No more obligations, for what could burden him? No more guilt, for who would condemn him?

The truth was, Typhos was free.