"You're being ridiculous!" Nef yelled at his brother, glaring at him from where he was sitting at the table. He was getting tired of this conversation. Alor just refused to listen. They had been in this hotel room for over an hour, and they had been arguing the entire time. At some point, Nira even turned on the TV, clearly done trying to get them to stop, probably because Alor made them get rid of their phones to avoid being tracked like he'd tracked them. Which was incredibly uncool, by the way.

"You claim you saw a dragon," Alor argued, gesturing with his hands to emphasize as if that would prove his point better. Okay, sure, what Mel was saying sounded ludicrous, but that was what he had seen. Besides, Alor wasn't the one basically kidnapped here, so Nef was pretty sure he wasn't the one who was crazy.

"Well, if you hadn't closed that laptop, maybe you could have seen it too," Nef snapped back.

He wished Nira hadn't left and had seen the giant lizard as well. She had taken his side immediately, but he was sure that was only out of sympathy, and Alor wasn't convinced anyway since she hadn't seen anything. Somehow Nef doubted his brother would be convinced even if Nira had actually seen the dragon, though.

"Seriously, Al, why are you being like this? You had no problem with dragging me into this whole situation before, and suddenly you're betraying your coworkers just to stop me."

Alor looked away at that, but Nef continued to glare at him. "They'll be fine. Kara and Rayni will just say that Kaleth ordered them to help him."

"What about Areon then? You realize you left him stranded in a top-secret facility with a dragon and Morthan, right?"

Alor looked like he had been about to argue until he heard the last part of Nef's sentence. "The president was there, too?"

He sounded so shocked Nef wondered if he hadn't truly believed that the politician was up to something until now. Which would be weird because weren't all politicians up to something?

"Yeah. He didn't sound happy that Kaleth was there. I didn't hear much 'cause like a minute later you ended the transmission," Nef complained, and his brother grimaced. "Now, would you mind telling me why the hell you've been doing all this?"

Alor sighed. "Nef—"

Nef sent him a stern look, which thankfully seemed to do the trick.

"I got a call from someone. I was told that if I let you help us, they'd have you killed," Alor explained, sighing. He looked regretful, but Nef barely noticed. Someone wanted to kill him for helping with some hacking?

Nef made a huh noise, as he thought about it a little. That was both scary and flattering. He hadn't thought someone would pay good money to get rid of him.

"That's not a good thing!" said Alor, sounding horrified.

"Wait, someone wants to kill Nef?" Nira said with alarm, quickly putting the magazine she'd been reading to look at them. Looking at her, Nef was once again reminded of what he'd learned just a few hours ago. She seemed genuinely worried about him, though, so Nef would hold onto the fact that she hadn't lied about her feelings for him. He hoped.

But it was still hard to push his questions and doubts away. Why would she not tell him who she was? Did she not trust him enough? Did she think he'd blab about it to someone? Did she think he was racist?

Well, granted, he wasn't the most culturally sensitive guy in the world, but he would never tell anyone who she really was. The laws about Iritharians in Enoria were pretty messed up, but the two countries shared a dysfunctional relationship, so he kind of understood where the hate was coming from. At least in Enoria, the penalty for illegal immigration from Irithara was only immediate deportation. If Nef went to Irithara, he'd get executed immediately unless he was to spy for them.

"Not anymore, I think. I did stop him," Alor replied, shrugging as if trying to look casual about it, but Nef could easily see he was on edge. "And if not, I'll kill whoever tries to hurt my brother first."

Alor said it so darkly that it made Nef flinch. The fact that the other man had a gun within reach wasn't helping the atmosphere.

"Okay...good," Nef said, nodding his head, trying not to be disturbed by this. "Y'know, it's heartwarming to know you're willing to kill for me and all, but, uh...why haven't you said any of this before, exactly?"

"They told me not to tell anyone."

"Of course. And now it's fine?"

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Nira was holding his hand now, having walked over to the table, and had to stand in front of it because there wasn't another chair.

Alor looked like he was about to reply but then frowned and pulled out his phone. Nef wondered if he should go hide under the table to shield himself from a hail of bullets coming from his mysterious assassin, but then his brother relaxed.

"Hey," Alor muttered cheerlessly and mouthed Rayni at Nef. Then Alor frowned once again. "Um, okay," he told Rayni and put the phone on speaker, laying it on the table.

"That was not cool, Alor," Rayni said loudly, but she didn't sound angry. More like she was trying not to freak out. Nef hadn't known the woman for very long, but even to him, it sounded alarming. "But you just saved our lives, so I'm gonna let it slide."

"Saved your—what are you talking about?" Alor asked, completely confused.

"How could you miss—oh, whatever—the Flare's gone! And if our bosses didn't force me and Kara to take a vacation, we'd be gone with it. Turn on the news or something!"

Before either of them could say anything, Nira turned on the TV. She didn't even have to switch to a news channel.

The three of them stared at the screen with disbelief and horror.

Nef knew what the Flare and its surroundings looked like. How could he not? After the Citadel, the Flare was the most important building in the entire Federation. But looking at it now, he couldn't say he'd recognize it.

Where the Flare used to be there was just thick, dark smoke rising, as wide and tall as the skyscraper that should have been there. The smaller skyscrapers around were singed and damaged, some even straight-up missing entire floors. There were aircrafts all around the place, looking for survivors and trying to put the fire out. Nef couldn't see a fire, but that smoke had to be coming from somewhere.

"How?" was the first thing that made it out of Nef's mouth. How could a building this massive just collapse? There couldn't have been an attack from Irithara. They would have been stopped before they reached Enbrant, or at least there would be sirens going off.

"It blew up from the inside," Kara's voice informed them. She sounded much calmer than Rayni, but Nef could tell from her voice that she wasn't okay either. "As far as we know, everyone from the Management is dead. Actually, I think nobody inside could have survived this."

Nef winced when he heard that. How many people could that be? It was evening already, so it might not be as bad as it could have been, right? The Flare was massive, but still....

He scanned the TV screen, hoping to see that information displayed, but couldn't find anything about casualties. Either they didn't know yet, or they were trying to avoid a nationwide panic. It did say the attack had happened just a few minutes ago, though.

Nef swallowed, trying to will his rapidly beating heart to slow down. He couldn't tear his eyes away from the scene. This was so messed up. He had never thought this was possible. The Federation, particularly the Capital, was paranoid, which was also the reason there hadn't been a terrorist attack in over fifty years.

"How could it just blow up? Were there bombs?" Alor asked Kara, sounding like he didn't believe this was happening. No, that wasn't right—he sounded like he didn't want to believe it. Nef got that—he himself had trouble accepting this as reality.

"That's what it looked like. We only saw it from a distance, but it was like every single floor blew up at the same time. That would take a lot of explosives. I can't think of that many people who could pull this off."

"The Empire?"

Nef saw Nira flinch and open her mouth, ready to defend her homeland, but then she didn't say anything. He couldn't say much to defend Irithara without saying something he didn't believe, so instead, Nef got up and sat down next to his girlfriend on the bed, hugging her. He hated seeing her sad. He preferred it when she was angry much more because he knew how to deal with that, but sadness....

"Well, I guess it could be, but why attack now?" Kara said, and Nira glared at the phone. Well, Nef had asked for anger. "Why blow up the place when most of the potential victims are gone for the day? It just doesn't make much sense."

There was a moment of silence from both sides as all of them tried to come up with an explanation that sounded at least plausible.

Who else could have possibly attacked Enoria except for Irithara? The other two continents were pretty peaceful, and while most countries in Caelor were usually on the Empire's side, they almost always stayed out of actual conflicts. The countries in Artex were on very good terms with Enoria, and a lot of their people lived here, so Nef doubted the western countries would try something like this either.

Nef almost jumped when his phone started vibrating. He kept one arm around Nira's shoulders as he reached for it.

"Private number? Again?" Nef feigned annoyance to hide his nervousness and picked up quickly before he thought too much about it. He let out a silent breath when he heard the familiar voice and put the phone on speaker as well.

"Could you please tell my brother that dragons are real? He thinks I'm crazy," Nef said, and Kaleth sighed.

"I think we have bigger problems right now," the man said in a very annoyed tone of voice.

"Oh, hey, Kal!" said Rayni cheerfully from the other phone. "You're still alive, that's great!"

"Yes, I could say the same to you. Unfortunately, I have a feeling we won't be for much longer. Where are you?"

"Enbrant," both Alor and Kara answered at the same time. Nef wondered what Kaleth had meant by that comment. Whatever it was, it couldn't be good.

"You need to leave, right away. Go to Terenth, I'll meet you there." With that, Kaleth hung up. Nef frowned at the phone in his hand. That was cryptic and very concerning.

"Well, see you there, I guess, Al," said Rayni.

"Rayni, you can't just—" The line went dead, interrupting Kara.

"Why Terenth? What's in Terenth?" Nef muttered, running a hand through his hair.

"Well, we'll soon find out," said Alor, getting up.

"And by we you mean...?"

"I can't leave you here. I told you someone wanted you dead," his brother explained. "And Nira's not going to let you go alone, so we're all going."

Nef looked at Nira, who gave him a nod, looking incredibly serious.

"All right then, a road trip to Imbera," Nef said with fake excitement. "Always wanted to go there."