“You not doing this, Drenar. This is insanity.”
James glares at his rival, who looks like he’s been staving off sleep for far longer than should be possible. “You aren’t thinking straight, you’re under the influence of an overpowered psionic, and you have trauma coming out of every inch of your body right now. We are not going to look for King to help us with this. Out of the question. We’re going to put this in the hands of the Valkyries, let them handle this, and then, we are done! I can’t believe you even think this is a remotely good idea.”
He’s also extremely worried about Drenar. He’s known for a long time that he’d tried to kill himself–or had some extremely unsafe weapons handling–and stayed silent on the matter. Even Julia had kept quiet on this one, but then again, it hadn’t been difficult to read between the lines on his hospital stay, six years ago. He’s either stupid, suicidal, or truly believes this is a good idea. None of those outcomes ends up with Drenar staying intact.
Drenar firms up his tone and glares at James. “We’re doing this. I’m going down to Tertanna penitentiary today, with Joey, and I’m getting answers from Jonaleth on how to find King. Unfortunately, the arcanlink that Kelly’s father used was destroyed when the teleportal hub imploded. So, guess what option that leaves?”
Julia rolled her eyes at this idea. “I can’t believe I find myself agreeing with James, but, holy shit, doomsday is very much upon us, there are living mana crystals, Angela is the inheritor of a dead goddess, and Val ate my fifty caliber rail gun fire , and laughed at me!”
“I think you have put those in the wrong order of impending dread,” James points out. “Val eating the business end of the Matilda Mark II and not taking a scratch, is troubling. Are we sure it wasn’t the armor protecting her?”
“Nah James, no spell barrier was active. That bitch tanked several rounds through sheer hatred of existence. I need a bigger gun,” she concluded. “More pressing, is that Drenar wants to make a deal with a dragon who tried to kill both of us!”
“A lot of people have tried to kill us, by this point!” Drenar stated with his hands up in the air in utter exasperation. “Does that mean I worry about it? No. I’m still breathing, as is everyone else. We need Jonaleth to find King. We need King to get the device, and to figure out how Angela fits into this. We need Angela in one piece, because if Val gets her, or Rick, or Fates forbid, both of them, we’re toast. So we need Jonaleth to make all the other things happen.”
“Dude, this is a chief example ‘A’ of why I think you’re cracked,” James states angrily while examining the bustle of activity in the barn. Everything is being put in crates and shipped to Asqualia, the place they all almost died in. He is not keen on reliving this experience, and Kiera seems adamant that this is, at best, a temporary accommodation. “Kiera, can you smack some sense into this teenage dragon?”
“It’s not a practical approach,” she rebuffed sternly to Drenar, as if on cue. “There is one fundamental problem that you are not aware of.”
“Like what?” Drenar asks crossly.
“Dude. do you not remember anything about Jonaleth and what he said?” James hates the fact that he has to spell out the obvious, but in this case, he has to. “Jonaleth’s parents were wiped out by Valkyries.”
“And removing them from the face of the earth sounds like they did the world a favor,” Julia interjects. “Why?”
“Okay, I’m done with this. Your mother killed his mother, Drenar,” James uttered with gritted teeth and pointed to Kiera. “Victor one?!”
Watching Drenar’s face melt into an utterly aghast expression did little to cool his mood, and he is going to further drive the point. “He will never help you. You can’t undo how completely, utterly messed up that is. It isn’t your fault, but you are the last person that should be in that room, man. I mean, does he know that it was her?”
“No. At least, I don’t think so. But he seems to suspect something,” Drenar admits, and James groans.
“Let me do this, Drenar. For you. Because the only person who Jonaleth won’t kill on sight is probably me, the second we get him into a room to talk. And we are not making deals with him. Got it?”
“James, we might not have a choice.” Levine is loading ordnance crates onto the teleportal staging platform on a trolley, where a portal is active in a new, just-finished platform, set deep into the bowels of Volkir’s subterranean lair under Asqualia. He’s already moving his equipment and making arrangements, with the Valkyries helping move items, and SAF agents Levine and Nick vouch for. The veteran agent wipes the sweat off his face and adjusts his glasses before regarding the group. “We need him. We give him what he wants.”
“We can at least talk about it before we give that bothersome winged lizard anything remotely resembling a break,” James counters. “He’s in jail, where he deserves to be, for almost killing Drenar and Julia. And beating Evan bloody. Oh and arson, attempted murder, destruction of property, and more.”
“Still not the most extensive rap sheet I’ve seen for someone his age,” Levine replies flatly. “Do you think you can get him to help us, James?”
“I’ll need Joey to tag along,” James responds calmly, as he comes up with a plan. She airs her confusion on this one.
“Why…do you need me, exactly?”
“Trust me on this one,” James answers, before grabbing his armor set. He hates the fact that he's’ the literal straight man of the team, with nothing but nascent mage cantrips and a bit of tactical knowledge.
But that’s all he needs for the moment. He’s still thinking of what this all means for Angela…and how awful his sister is having this, as she’s been packing crates quietly, saying little since last night's revelations. His gaze returns to the rest of the team. “If we’re going to do this, we absolutely need to be sure that we kill King.”
“That is not an option we are considering, James–”
“We kill King, his knowledge dies with him. Their plans for the Kilnstar’noth fall apart. Val can’t beat her head against a problem of that scale,” James concludes. “It’s the safest play.”
“We are not murdering King, you giant asshole,” Drenar snarled. “You have a beef with him because you think he’s outplaying us. You are also not safe to be in that room.”
Then who the hell is, Drenar? You and Julia are out, Angela I don’t want anywhere near these freaks, Kyle doesn’t know how to interrogate, and Nick and Levine are SAF. That leaves me and Joey,” he states as he goes through the logic. “And not Kelly or Jackie, either. Now, do you want me to help on this one? I’ll get him to talk.”
“You get him to talk, and we find King? He is subject to laws of conduct per SAF protocol. That means no extrajudicial barbeque,” Drenar states with vitriol.
“And that goes double for you, thunder dragon,” James added before glancing at Julia. She feigned annoyance at this.
“Oh, don’t go there, James. We’ve made it clear that these guys are better off dead, but we don’t turn into murder hobos on principle,” she pushes back, fury etched in her ice-cold eyes.
“Let’s just get this done fast. I don’t want to be here if the Ravagers, or the Talons, get a bead on this place,” Nick says from the platform and gets another set of weapon bags and tosses them onto the far side of the teleportal, currently running.
----------------------------------------
“You know, James, I don’t think we’ve really talked much, have we?” Joey asks casually as they’re waiting in the off-white room of the penitentiary where mages are housed and detained, with every safeguard in place. “Why is that?”
“Because I am the most vanilla person on this team, and I’m not even talking about my skin tone,” he sighs. He just does not know what Joey sees in Drenar, and he’s not about to air that to her anytime soon, considering she's psionic.
He hates this place on principle. It’s sterile, and clean…squeaky clean. And the guards here that are a detachment of SAF give him due concern. The way they look at him and Joey, with their visitor badges. A gaze of hostility, as if weighing the threat they possess.
He did not like the little suppressor devices that sit in recessed pockets in every corner of the room. “Joey, how do those suppressors work?”
“They only dampen magical effects. They aren’t foolproof. Most inmates are wearing suppressors on their persona to interrupt their mana flow,” she explained. A group of inmates walked across a courtyard, from all slices of life in orange jumpsuits. All of them wore a black and green collar around their neck, and one thin wargen rubs at it uneasily. He did not look like he belonged here, James noted uneasily. Every other prisoner was eyeing him intently. Joey gently nudged him to focus on the collar. “For the average magical kin, that’s usually enough. For dragons, or powerful individuals…”
If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.
“They do worse than that? That’s so undignified, being collared,” James growls. Then he glanced at Joey’s face–the way she clenched her fingers into her palms, looking at the courtyard, where he noticed something rather…unsettling.
Most of the Kin here are non-human. And they are all in their base forms–kitsune, wargen, and dragons. Even a few fey, now that he’s paying closer attention. “Does…something about the populace about this place seem a little off to you?” he asks hesitantly.
“You noticed it, too?” she narrows her eyes at a guard prodding one of the kitsune along, even though they had been doing nothing to warrant attention. “Wanna know how bad off a population is? Go check the prisons, first.”
He scuffs his shoe uncomfortably, and glances her way, while they wait for Jonaleth to be brought to the visitor station. Drenar, Nick, and Levine are on standby in the waiting area. He had been very adamant they keep their weapons, as allowed by the Glasgow Accords. The guards had been nonplussed until Levine pulled out the papers. James worried Drenar might have pushed it too far, until the guards relented and let them wait. “Joey, I know you and Drenar are…together…but he can be dangerous to himself, more than anything else. You know that, right?”
“You’re not even accounting for what he’s been through, James–”
“I have. And he’s still being reckless. This is a bad play, with tons of risks, and little upside,” he responded calmly. “I mean this is my sister’s future at stake, possibly. It’s all lives in his hands, with his decisions.”
“We don’t make decisions in a vacuum, James. I don’t like it either. This kid almost killed Drenar the day I met him.” she turns to face him, wearing a grim face. “I would do anything to ensure we all live to see the end of this. King is the key to all of this, and I think that involves something with Valosterla. There is something seriously wrong with her, beyond her malevolence and violent history. And, she can hear the crystals, too? Does that mean she’s related to you guys in some way?”
“Fates, I hope not. I got too much drama on my plate, as it were.” A door clicks open, and a female attendant in a white uniform looks at them, short brown hair and mild-mannered.
She addresses them with a polite wave and a gesture to a few seats, by the cordoned-off room where prisoners could speak to visitors. “The interim guest will see you now. You all signed waivers as you came in, yes?”
“A lot of them,” James said with irritation. Even the magical world is buried in paperwork, he concluded. He notes the camera watching them, and knows this is far from a private conversation they’re about to have, and tries something that Angela probably has mastered, when he gets Joey’s attention. {We’re being monitored. Back left of the room. Don’t pay attention to it, but keep it in mind.}
She tilts her head, before nodding. Then, she squints softly, lips pressed in concentration. {James, can you hear me? I’ve been testing this out a bit with Drenar and the others. It’s like our secret communicator. I can sort of act as a psionic switchboard. Just nod if you got this.}
He feels a tingle on his brain the whole time–like someone was sitting on the shoulder of his consciousness, and he nods quietly before gesturing to the seat. {Joey I’m getting a bad feeling. When we came in, extra guards showed up. For a place this size, it seemed excessive. I have my power armor, you?}
{They can’t confiscate what they can’t detect. Kyle planned this one well.} She gazes forward as a young, dark-haired man enters the room in shackles, looking healthy, if disgruntled.
James tightens his grip on his seat when he sees Jonaleth and those ice-cold blue eyes, like little glaciers. {Tell me if he gives up anything good internally.}
{Got it. I’ll have to only focus on one of you at a time.} Meanwhile, the guard unshackles Jonaleth’s wrists, and the cordon opens, before the man heads back into the rear corridor, and locks the door closed.
It’s on, now. Jonaleth leans forward, eyeing Joey with curiosity. “You’re new. Didn’t know they did booty calls in prison.” She says nothing but gives him a piercing gaze with her lavender eyes. Jonaleth shifts his focus to himself and smiles. “Shalinde, what a surprise. I heard through the grapevine that you survived Asqualia. Congrats, man. I didn’t think you had it in you, considering you were always a weakling.”
{Don’t give him an inch. Don’t react. We need to make him sweat.} James goes into his zen calculation mode. He opens up an arcanist datapad silently, and browses through the notes hes prepared in advance. “I’m not here for pleasantries or gloating, Jonaleth.”
“Oh? Then why are you here?” Jonaleth asks with a glimmer of curiosity. “And who is this delicious-looking slice of red, exactly?”
“We work together,” he deflects lightly. He is not giving Jonaleth any information at all about what it is they’re working on. He does not need Jonaleth feeding information back to his likely chain of contacts, back to the Talons. “So. Let’s take a tally. You’re in here for a long time, Jonaleth. You’re not a juvenile. You’re in the doghouse with people harder and more dangerous than you.”
He places the listings of the charges. Jonaleth doesn’t even gaze at the writing, and instead peers right at James. “You know something, James? You’re still a weakling, doing another weakling’s bidding. Drenar didn’t have the balls to come in here to talk to me, face to face? He sent you?”
“I came in here because I’m of a gentler persuasion,” he replies, and taps the display calmly. Jonaleth is clearly fishing for a reaction he’s not giving him the grace of. “I want to know how to reach out to the Talons.”
“Have you looked around? They’re everywhere. Your stunt out in Jersey last night made the news here in the mage world, and people across the rest of the world are asking questions,” Jonaleth sneered, fingers tensed on the desk. “You wouldn’t come to me with just to try to find the Talon's bases of operation. You want something more.”
“We can start by finding a lair of scum and villainy to wipe out, with a well-placed air strike,” James responded. “See, here’s the thing. Compared to others in here, you have a shot of getting out of here while you’re young. Cooperating with authorities, makes those odds go way up.”
“Talons tried to gut me twice in here, I know things,” Jonaleth sighed. “I know things important enough they’d try to kill me. Guess Val wasn’t screwing around with cleanup duty this time.”
“Let me pose a question for you, Jonaleth.” James closes the tablet, waiting for a signal from Joey. so far, she hasn’t said a word. And Jonaleth gazes at her in curiosity, then back at James. “Do you want to be on the right side of history?”
Jonaleth smirks at that comment, and leans back in his chair. “I have something you want. No. I have something you need. Don’t I? I can take an educated guess on what it is. And the price on this one, is more than you can bear.”
“You haven’t heard me offer anything yet, Jonaleth–”
“But your presence speaks louder than words.” He leans in, across the table, and whispers softly. “I know where King is. It’s the only reason you’re here. It’s the reason you’re so desperate to get an answer. How’s your sister, by the way? Is she doing alright? Not being rendered as a corpse, right now? I heard Val tried to do her in at Asqualia. People talked. She’s kind of a freak, isn’t she? And she’s on a time limit now.”
Joey grabs his arm before James lurches across the table, and James never stops glaring at Jonaleth, with that stupid smirk on his face. “Yeah, I thought so. You need me.”
“You seem well informed for someone in prison,” Joey interjects, and James takes the cue to calm his instantly rushed heart rate.
“Yeah. I was also told an orphan boy had picked up a psionic. I guess that’s you, since you’ve been sitting there calmly the whole time,” he shrugged, and James internally cursed. Jonaleth was too many steps ahead of them. He needed to regain control of this. And he was going to do something he absolutely despised, and throw the calculus out the window.
“Jonaleth, you want to live through this crisis? Join the Luminaires.”