The Reskas polder has always stood as an example of hope, that lands seized by the sea can be reclaimed. For it to fall… it is a loss that concerns far more than those whose lives it directly impacted. This is the second major loss of land within living memory. How much more will this accelerate, and will any of us survive as it does?

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“So, ah, Jair…” Kyami cleared her throat, glancing between her son and husband once they’d all sat down to breakfast. “What’s this I hear about you robbing the royal treasury?”

Lilin coughed and choked, spluttering into her porridge. She stared up, wide-eyed.

Jair shrugged. "I don't know. What have you heard about me robbing the royal treasury?"

Raina just sighed and put her face in her hands. “You didn’t…”

“I got a message from your headmaster. It says he needs you back at the capitol immediately to…” She frowned and ran her hand down the message wire. “Discuss the items stolen from the treasury, the disposition of the dragon’s hoard, and the king’s request for another flame-healing.”

“That last one I already took care of. He didn’t mention anything about payment or the treasury stuff. I don’t think I can get it back now, though.”

Kyami stood sharply, shoving her chair back with such abruptness it fell over with a bang. “Jair! First you run off, now you come back with this disrespectful attitude, blatant disregard for rules and custom, and on top of it all you’ve broken into the royal treasury? Young man, you are clearly allowing bad influences to steer you away from everything we’ve tried to teach you. We are not going to permit this blatant corruption to continue.” She turned to Raina. “It’s been lovely meeting you, but I think it’s time for you to go. We need to have a word with our son. Alone.”

“Anything you want to say, you can say in front of Raina. If you send her away, I’ll just recite it all to her afterward anyway. And probably laugh at you while we do it.”

Raina groaned from beneath the hands covering her face. “Jair…”

Zaen stood more slowly, but with a look of determination that promised violence. “Lilin, you too. Out.”

He didn’t need to say it twice. Lilin all but bolted from the room, pausing only briefly at the doorway to give Jair a panicked, wide-eyed apologetic stare. He shook his head, smiled, and waved her away.

Raina hadn’t moved, except to shrink even further down into her chair, hands still over her face.

"I don't know what you expect to happen here." Jair leaned back in his chair, not more than glancing at his parents. "If you think I'm going to stop doing whatever I please, you clearly haven't bothered to comprehend the message you're delivering. You think if the king of Veor couldn't stop me from breaking into and subsequently out of the royal treasury with impunity, that anything you do could restrain me in any way?"

"We're your parents, ungrateful boy." Zaen looked like he wanted to say more, but glanced at Raina and visibly restrained himself.

"Thank you for your support throughout my childhood. I'm glad that I was able to grow up in a household where I could learn to take action and the value of discretion. But that's ancient history. I'm an adult, Lilin's an adult, and the longer you try to hold onto some sense of control over us, the further you're going to push us away."

"You—"

Jair ignored the interruption. "I'm here to give you the chance at perhaps starting over. I'm here to offer Lilin the chance to travel. That's all. I'm not coming back to stay, I'm not going to be living under your authority. I will protect you, but as you are I cannot respect you."

"Please, Jair," Raina mumbled. "Don't."

"I'm not doing anything."

"You're being intentionally provocative. We both know you're capable of being more diplomatic than this."

"And what if I don't want to?"

"Then I would question why you've waited this long."

Jair considered the question.

"You should really go," Kyami told Raina. "You don't belong here."

Jair stood. "Then neither do I. Lil? You out there?"

Lilin peeked back in from around the doorframe.

"You coming with us, or staying here?"

"I..." Her eyes darted madly between the three of them.

"Mother, you have my proposal. Now you know the king vouches for the process. Do you want the fire healing, or not? You'll be able to brag about it to all your friends."

"I told you, we don't need anything from you. All we want is for you to be a part of this family."

"The time for making this a family was years ago. Too late now. If you'd cared enough to bother getting to know me when I was growing up, you might have been able to keep me around. But all things considered, I'm glad you were selfish and incompetent. It makes it easier."

"Jair!" Raina stood, put a hand on Jair's shoulder, and gave a short bow. "I'm sorry, Mr. Welburne, Mrs. Welburne, he's normally a little more restrained. We'll be leaving."

"One minute, Raina, and I'll be with you." Jair shrugged off her hand and strode around the table. He didn’t bother giving his father the choice. He simply walked up to Zaen, stabbed Maelstrom through his chest, and stepped back as the darkflame overtook the man.

“What—?”

“Jair!” Lilin jumped forward on instinct, stared at Jair like he’d lost his mind. “What are you…” she trailed off as Zaen reappeared, looking dazed and confused.

He clutched at his chest and his eyes darted between Jair’s impassive face and the fiery green glow of Maelstrom. “You…”

“How do you feel?”

“Furious! What in Aelir’s name are you doing?” Zaen looked like he wanted to lunge forward, but Jair’s flaming sword had a way of deterring such actions.

Jair gave Maelstrom a casual twirl. “Striving for harmony. I’d like Lilin to travel with me and I don’t want you to try and stop her.”

“You don’t get to decide that,” Zaen said through gritted teeth. “This is my house.”

“Then we’ll discuss it elsewhere.”

Lilin backed stiffly against the wall, eyes wide.

Jair backed toward her, keeping Maelstrom in line. “I’m sorry about this, Lil, I’d have preferred not to force things but it looks like my efforts to defuse things were doomed from the start.”

“You think trying to stab me is going to defuse anything?” Zaen kicked over the table, clearing the space between him and Jair.

Raina jumped back to get out of the way. “Is everyone in your family as crazy as you?”

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“You can’t fool me. That sword’s nothing but illusion and flash.”

Jair stilled, sword extended in one hand as though beginning a duel. “Then by all means, come and prove it.”

Zaen clenched his fists, but couldn’t quite convince himself to charge Jair. “You think you’re brave, hiding behind your flashy blade?”

Jair sighed and dismissed Maelstrom. “Go on, then.”

Zaen didn’t need another invitation. He charged.

Jair ducked below the wild swing, twisted aside, and returned to a calm waiting stance on the other side of the room. Zaen had to bring himself up short of tripping over a chair.

“Please don’t!” Lilin begged.

“Quiet,” Zaen snapped. “Your brother needs to learn respect.”

“And you think this is how you earn it?” Jair took a half step to the side and leaned out of the way as Zaen flailed past.

The man may have the size and strength of a sandfisher, but he had no experience fighting someone who was paying proper attention. His moves were so blatantly obvious Jair could probably have handled this on his Astralla training alone, even without the extra experience gained through hundreds of years of time looping.

“Is that all you can do? Run away?”

Jair danced aside, rotating on one foot before planting himself once again facing his would-be assailant. “I don’t enjoy beating up helpless opponents. You’d need to be a much bigger threat before I’d consider taking you seriously.”

Lilin gasped.

Zaen bellowed in rage. Unfortunately for him, it didn’t matter how angry he was, that only made him easier to read. He did stop rushing headlong. Instead he stalked closer to trap Jair in the corner.

Jair avoided his attempts, but the increased tempo meant he could no longer stand around calmly between strikes. The next several seconds passed in a flurry of attacks and evasions as Jair kept on the move to counteract the bigger man’s sheer brute strength.

“Please stop!” Lilin shrieked. “Father, don’t—”

Zaen, unable to land a blow on Jair, growled and lashed out at her.

Maelstrom appeared in Jair’s hand in an instant, and intercepted the man’s arm mid-swing.

Zaen screamed and clutched his arm to his chest. The tip of the sword had nicked the bone, leaving a deep slice in his forearm as it deflected the attempted attack.

“You will not touch Lilin,” Jair said coldly, sword once again pointed at the furious man. “We’ll be leaving. Don’t try to follow us. Raina?”

Raina nodded and took Lilin’s arm to lead the stunned woman outside.

“Dovak!” Zaen raged, blood pouring between his fingers from the gash in his arm. He didn’t try to follow, eyes fixed on Maelstrom. “What happened to you? This is not how my son behaves!”

“Time happened to me,” Jair said. “It’s funny what that much perspective can do.” He continued to back away toward the girls.

Kyami hadn’t moved from the door, but now she blinked out of her shock and ran to get a towel and bandages, sparing only one moment to send a horrified, fearful glance at Jair.

He didn’t dismiss Maelstrom until they were well away, and kept alert for any attempt at following them. He doubted either of his parents was that angry, but he had no faith in anyone right now.

The sandskimmer Jair had appropriated remained where he’d left it, tilted on its side against one of the shops. There was a larger crowd now, people arguing.

Lilin stood trembling, wide-eyed and confused. She rubbed at her arm absently.

“Okay, we’re away from any threat, and you won’t be going back there unless you want to.” Jair waved a hand at the sandskimmer. “We can get you out right here and now.”

Lilin gave her head a small shake and stared out across the town in the direction of their house. It was out of sight, but they both could walk to it unerringly. "I can't leave them. I can't leave Mom. They need me."

“No they don't.”

“All the more after you stomped in there and declared war.”

Jair grinned. "I wouldn't say ‘declared war.’ I'd say I struck a decisive victory."

"Only if you assume our family is the enemy." Lilin glanced back at Jair, eyes faintly accusatory. "I don't want to imagine what they'll be doing if I'm not there to keep things civil."

“There is nothing civil about what happened." Jair's voice was flat and uncompromising. "You’ve put up with far too much for far too long. At this point, you’re just enabling the cycle. Zaen will be mad at Kyami and you'll jump in the way to save her. Kyami will be furious with Zaen and you’ll jump in the way to save him. Zaen will be furious with you and Kyami will jump in the way to save you. Kyami will be furious with you and Zaen will punch her."

Lilin winced. "That makes it sound like all we ever do is argue. We don't. Most of the time everything is fine, but when things are stressful… everybody has bad days."

"Like that lecture he was giving you about ‘knowing your place?’ When all you did was talk with your brother and his friend for a few hours?"

"You know how he gets… he doesn't like other people making decisions for him."

"Making decisions, like letting me in to visit my own house?" Jair shook his head. "No, he wants to make them for everyone else, and he has no right. If you're expecting me to apologize for what I did, I won't."

Lilin shook her head. “I don't know. It's all so much, so sudden.“

"But surely there is something you’ve wanted at some point? You can't honestly say you’ve never wanted anything to be different at all. I know we wanted to change things."

Lilin stared at him, then looked out at the sand that surrounded them.

Jair didn't speak, giving her time to think, but their quiet conversation was interrupted before she could come to any decision.

"Welburne!" Headmaster Larenok stomped toward them with his perpetual scowl. "There you are. What were you thinking, robbing the royal treasury? Now, we have to pay him for all of them. You realize this is going to take the entirety of our share of the dragon's hoard and then some?"

“Yes, my mother got your message. At the time, I was thinking that I needed to hire mercenaries to help kill Ryenzo. I had buyers lined up on several of the moons, and a few specialists from other continents, but when I figured out how to use darkflame fully, the hiring of mercenaries became unnecessary."

"Is that why you left us to march on the dragon's mountain alone?"

"Yes. I dealt with her myself and… To be honest, I forgot about you guys." He did so many things in so many timelines and reverted so many of them, remembering which events existed in the active timeline required constant attention.

At the time, his full attention had been on figuring out how to deal with Ryenzo. As soon as a new option presented itself, he normally would've reverted and tried it. The fact that he couldn't revert didn't change the fact that his mental tracking for the whole affair had switched from figuring out how to use Veor’s resources to hire mercenaries to dealing with Ryenzo on his own. Until now, there’d never been a reason for it to flip back.

Larenok sputtered indignantly. "This is the most extreme campaign I've ever been involved in. How in the world did you just forget about it?"

"As far as most extreme situations I've been dealing with, this doesn't even come close to the top ten. Once you get Celsin or Sekir, you'll see."

"Celsin is a long way away. Doesn't it only overlap with Almas once every three years or so?"

"Yes, moving north and south is much more difficult than moving east and west, but as long as I travel to Orard first and then head south to Reskas from there, I can use a more Southern passage next time. It’s slower, certainly, but far from impossible.”

“What… have you been doing?"

"Living. I’ve been living."

"Well, the king wants to see you immediately. We’ve already lost too much time while I was hunting you down.”

“I took care of it last night.”

“Oh. Good.” Larenok scowled and took a breath to reinflate his ire. “But how do you expect us to pay back the king for everything you stole?"

"Don't worry. I've already placed investments in several companies, and arranged partnerships with several noble families. I just need to do that again in a few more places and we’ll have more money than we know what to do with. In another year, the amount you're charging for Phoenix healing will start to sound like small change."

Larenok considered this a long moment, then nodded. “You're a strange kid, but I can't deny you seem to know what you're doing. I'll talk to King Farshen and set up a payment plan. One year, you say?"

"Yes. Also, don't forget to collect our fee for the Phoenix healing. I went through your list from a few days ago, but if you’ve added any in the past three days, I haven't gotten to them yet."

Larenok's expression cleared. "Oh. I thought you'd abandoned me. I’ll be sure to collect from those people. I've only arranged seven after that, I'll get you the list."

"Perfect. Just leave it in your office, I'll pick it up there."

"I don't have an office anymore, I've lost my job."

"No, your study upstairs. The one across from the portal room, with a big calendar on the wall."

Larenok's eyes narrowed. "How do you know what the inside of my house looks like?"

"Because I've been in there several times."

“How?”

"You do know I have a sword that cuts or anything, right?" Jair hefted Maelstrom in demonstration. "There's nothing you can keep me out of. Need a lift back to the city, or you planning to take the slow route? I assume message-received is sufficient.”

Larenok nodded, but stepped back with one hand raised before Jair could transport him. “Check in with me once a week. I’ll keep the schedule up to date.” Larenok stepped forward into the tip of the sword, and disappeared in a burst of green fire.

Jair dismissed Maelstrom and turned back to his friend and sister. “Alright, let’s get this ship sandworthy, and we can be on our way. Lil, you in, or not?”

“I… have questions…” Lilin said faintly.

“And I’ll answer them to the best of my ability. But do help me get this ship upright first. We’ll have plenty of time to talk on the way.”

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